Smash 4 Review

     Let me say first of all that this is going to be a biased review. I've always held the Smash games in high regard since I was a little kid. It all started when I began playing Smash64 at a tender age, and then when I got older in high school I was a hardcore Melee player, challenging myself against my younger brother and best friends. I was a Fox main of course, and I still am to this day in Smash 4. Anyways, let's get started with the review.
     Let's talk about what's great about this game first. First, the characters are all here in this game. Everyone from the classic games are here plus some new characters. The ones that stand out in this game are Megaman, Sonic, Ryu, Shulk (my first main character) and Zero Suit Samus because they weren't in previous Smash games. Sheik, Diddy Kong, Luigi, Rosalina, Pikachu, and Fox all stand out because they seem super high-tier, at least in my opinion. The coolest thing about this game is that the characters are all from our favorite well known games. Who would have thought that we would get Ryu from Streetfighter in a Smash game, that's crazy! Which leads me to my second point.
     Smash 4 is getting updates, patches, and new characters added through the Nintendo eShop. Every once in a while the game is patched in some ways, characters get nerfed, and other characters get buffed, changing the game every few months. Although players were dominating tournaments with Diddy Kong not too long, he has been nerfed and become weaker, albeit only a little bit weaker. He's still a beast. Because of the patches and tweaks to the game certain characters become more viable to use in online gameplay and tournaments if you're more of a pro player. Nintendo is doing the fans to this game justice by even giving us the chance to submit our favorite picks for characters that can be added to the game, characters that aren't even necessarily from Nintendo games-people like Shantae, Shovel Knight, and Banjo Kazooie. Thanks Nintendo!
     Now, let's discuss the gameplay mechanics. This can go either way for people. Personally I think the meta and mechanics of this game are solid but Nintendo feels the need to change it every now and then. One thing that is hard to figure out as a beginner is the hit boxes and when characters are invincible for semi-seconds, like when they are rolling around and getting up from the ledge. Honestly I think rolling in this game is terrible and gets old, especially when you're fighting fast characters (Sonic) online in For Glory (ranked matches). A lot of people actually hate how effective rolling is in this game. But at the same time if you roll around too much, a smart player can figure out where you're going to be and punish it, so it goes both ways.
     Now for the bad. The only bad thing I can say about this game and the Nintendo network in general is that it lags-alot. I have great high speed internet through my parents' AT&T U-Verse and I've never had any problems playing any games online on my pc, like ever. But for some reason whenever I play For Glory on my 3DS I always inevitably run into some kind of lag. Sometimes its just a slight lag that I can deal with. Other times the lag is so bad that the game pauses for like 2 minutes straight before returning, or just disconnecting everyone in the game. This is something I think Nintendo has to work on because I've seen people stream Smash 4 on the Wii-U and they've had the same problems. The best way to play Smash has always been to play local in the same room, seems like that's the only way to play this game without having lag. I can't even imagine doing tournaments online in this game because of lag. That's really the only thing I can say that I dislike about this game. Other than that I dislike the 3DS version because the c-stick and directional movement buttons start to get wonky after only 6 months of use in my case.
     Lastly, I'm going to pick up a Wii-U and try this game out on there instead, hopefully with better results. I've become a pretty good Fox player but I only play him and want to learn how to use other characters, mainly Shulk and Zero Suit Samus. I give this game a prodigious 9.5 out of 10. This is one of the greatest games of our time. I can compare it Melee, Final Fantasy 7, and Starcraft II in terms of how great it is, at least to me. It's really that great folks. Pick this game up anyway you can, there's no telling how big or how long this game will last. The community is pretty big online and I'm in some facebook groups that post about tournaments happening every week in SoCal. It's a great community and I'm glad to be apart of it.