Super Smash Brothers 64

[boorules60]

Our recent games of Smash Brothers in the last few months has piqued my interest in the game outside of our little home. So naturally I found myself looking a lot deeper into the design, physics, and psychology of the game to try and discover what makes it so much fun to play.

Have you ever wondered which characters are the best? What makes a character good at the highly competitive level? How balanced is SSB64 really? Which levels are really considered broken because the so strongly favor or harm a particular character? Why is Smash Brothers the most popular and widely-played 64 game today?

This site is the SSB64 wiki(a) which goes in to great detail on every character. It includes a description of all their moves and their strengths and weaknesses. There's also information on each level: super-smash-bros.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Smash_Bros.

This site talks about tiers, levels, and an EXCELLENT guide to understanding what makes a character good (speed, range, hit priority, and good strategies (short hopping, spiking, edge-guarding and directional influence): www.giantbomb.com/guides/competitive-super-smash-brothers-101/717/

This site contains descriptions and names for some advanced SSB techniques, some of which is covered in the last two sites: www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=80690 Their forum in general his good info on all the smash games if you look for it.

Just for fun, I looked for videos on youtube of the undisputed best player in the world (whose name is Isai). His main characters are falcon and pikachu but he can play anyone. If you search further for his videos, you'll see however that he plays every character unbelievably well. You might be able to learn some good combos from him too since he is virtually invincible.

This video shows him playing another pikachu, and even though the quality sucks, you'll quickly see why he (and pikachu) are the best:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTVq2VgbiU4&feature=related

Let me know what you think!

[pcups]

Very interesting. I watched a video of Isai as Fox and it is awesome. He seems to do very short jumps just repeatedly and it makes his opponents miss him.

Also I don't think I had anyclue about that Z landing thing. I may do it naturally, I have to wait and see if I do.

[boorules60]

I agree. Watching those videos gives you ideas for awesome combos that I never would have thought of. Also, they rely almost exclusively on aerial attacks because there is no vulnerability time after them. For example, they never actually move with link since he is so damn slow. Instead, they have him jump everywhere and always have a boomerang and bomb out for protection.

I was thinking, it's amazing that people can still play the game and it's as balanced as it is 10 years later. However, if you could write a patch for the game what would you include?

Here were my ideas (asterisk indicate essential fixes)

CHARACTERS:
- Luigi: moves faster, the speed and rate of fireballs increased, and gets a better taunt
- Mario (aka Brownio): No Change (imo the most balanced character in the game)
- DK: damage and knock-back from backward throw is reduced and the forward grab glitch is fixed
* Link: the height of his jumps and up B attack increased and his bombs have a larger blast radius
* Samus: range and speed of grab increased, knock-back effect of all smash moves increased, speed of roll increased, and bombs have a much larger blast radius
- C. Falcon: No Change (possibly reducing his running speed slightly)
- Ness: range of yoyo decreased and knock-back of grab reduced
- Yoshi: recovery time of down B and up B time reduced, speed of roll increased, and knock-back from throw increased slightly
- Kirby: strength of aerial attacks lowered and knock-back of forward throw increased
- Fox: No Change (possibly an increase in the hit priority of his up B with a decrease in the knock-back of his aerial kicks
- Pikachu: range of grab reduced and hit priority of aerial attacks reduced
- Jigglypuff: damage from down A reduced slightly and range of up B increased

LEVELS:
- Peach's Castle: characters may now grab onto the edges of Mario's level and the bumper at the top is removed
- Sector Z: shorted horizontally, the wall is lowered, and the arwings power is reduced
- Congo Jungle: The barrel in DK's level does not spin randomly but shoots characters out immediately
- Hyrule Castle: No Change
* Mushroom Kingdom: redesigned completely to eliminate the instant kill zones
- Yoshi's Island: clouds now disappear much more quickly after a character jumps on them to avoid that annoying cloud hopping that people do
- Dream Land: No Change
- Saffron City: No Change
- Planet Zebes: Acid is less volatile (its max and min height is reduced)

ITEMS:
- Beam Sword: rate of fire, damage, and range is reduced slightly
* Hammer: The damage and power of the hammer is greatly reduced OR characters holder the hammer may not jump and move slightly slower
- Ray Gun: has no knock-back effect (like Fox's Laser)
- Ran: rate of fire and ability to break shields is increased greatly
- Bumper: knock-back is increased slightly
- Pokeball: the effectiveness of most pokemon is decreased and mew and goldeen are eliminated entirely
- Max Tomato: gives 25% health
- Heart: gives 100% health but the effect takes place very slowly (ex: 2-3% per second until the character reaches 100) OR the character may not attack, move, or jump for a set period of time while the heart is recharging
- Star: invulnerability time is shortened
- All other items are unchanged

OTHER FIXES:
- Random Character feature enabled
- AI ability is increased dramatically
- Luigi, Captain Falcon, Ness, and Jigglypuff are given their own levels when player's unlock them

Do you agree? Would you change anything else? What are the most important balance changes to you? What moves/levels/items are so broken that they are ineffective or abused too heavily?

[boorules60]

Here's a link to some more good vids www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=80478

[pcups]

Ben, a lot of the fixes you want are already implemented in Melee and Brawl. I know its not the same engine and such, but Nintendo definitely agrees with you!