I'll just dump my overall thoughts and opinions here since I've got no other place to drop them. My apologies for the long post.
- By golly this direct was hilarious, from the fake "directly"s to the sudden substitute to the Palutena misdirection to the Ridley troll to actively lying about ZSS. Sakurai definitely seems to be more entertaining than the usual direct presenters.
- I predicted Yoshi and Mewtwo, as well as no mention of a stage builder, so I'm 2/3 for that, which is nice, I guess.
- I actually like having ZSS, Sheik and Charizard as separate characters. The changing mechanics, while fun on the surface, never really got much use and always seemed like a waste of a B-move. Especially with Pokémon trainer, where the exhaustion mechanic was more annoying than fun and made him pretty unplayable for the most part.
- Greninja... meh, I hope this doesn't mean Mewtwo's out, we'll see.
- For Glory... see below
- Smash Run: looks fun, though I think Kirby Air Ride lends itself to this concept quite a bit better (sequel, please). The higher speed might hurt more than it would help, but at least there's no momentum transfers when jumping (which I think is a negative, but I guess it helps in this case).
- ZSS looks ridiculous with the high-heeled jet boots.
- If Jungle japes, a Melee stage, can come back, this sort of raises the odds of seeing Celadon City and Hyrule Castle again. Fingers crossed.
- No more forced tether recoveries: awesome, those were never a good idea to begin with. It seems like recoveries in general will again be a bit more difficult, which is great. Brawl made recovering far, far, far too easy. If you want to recover, you should earn it, in my opinion.
- No more gliding: awesome, see above.
- They somehow managed to make Olimar a more consistent character than Project M managed, which was quite a pleasant surprise.
Okay, those were the small points, I do have few bigger points to make.
About Final Destinations for everything. This, at first, seems like it would be a good idea, but if you've got any experience with competitive smash (which is what "For Glory" is trying to emulate), you'll know that FD is probably the least neutral of the neutral stages. It promotes camping, juggling and chaingrabs and generally favours a more defensive and monotonous playstyle, as well as giving certain characters very distinct advantages and disadvantages. It's like Sakurai wanted to throw the competitive community a bone, but couldn't be bothered to do any research beyond the "No items, Fox only, Final Destination" meme. I'm all for neutral versions of the stages, and this is way better than nothing, but adding a few platforms would be very little trouble and yet be a huge boost to the diversity and fairness of the neutral stages. It's odd that we're going to have an FD version of both Battlefield and Town & City, 2 stages which are probably far more neutral than FD ever was.
That being said, it would still be interesting to see what kind of metagame would form in an FD-only environment. I really hope the answer isn't obsessive camping, though.
Another problem with "For Glory" is that the battles seem to be in time mode rather than stock mode, which always feels sort of unfair to me and I think promotes even more camping. I hope the timer is longer than 2 minutes, at least, or these battles will just be rather pathetic.
But still, I think I can summarise my opinion of "For Glory" with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRJnAEDQTV0
From what we've seen so far, hitstun, falling speed, landing lag and ledge magnetism all seem to be somewhere in between Melee and Brawl (when taking L-cancelling into account), leaning more towards Brawl than Melee. This, again, is a step in the right direction, but I fear not enough. It might seem like this would only matter at a competitive level, but that's not true at all. These things, along with unlimited airdodges, promote camping and discourage offense, and I don't think anyone can really call camping "fun". Casual all-items all-stages play already seriously favours camping, so the game should do everything it can to allow for more offensive pressure. I grew up playing both Smash 64 and Melee casually, and never had any problems with the fast-paced nature of those games. I get that Sakurai primarily wants this to be a party game, but allowing for faster and more offensive play does not in any way limit this, all it does is add an extra layer for those who do want to dig a little deeper.
Also, just for fun, here are my final roster predictions, excluding those already announced, along with percentages of how certain I am they'll be included:
- By golly this direct was hilarious, from the fake "directly"s to the sudden substitute to the Palutena misdirection to the Ridley troll to actively lying about ZSS. Sakurai definitely seems to be more entertaining than the usual direct presenters.
- I predicted Yoshi and Mewtwo, as well as no mention of a stage builder, so I'm 2/3 for that, which is nice, I guess.
- I actually like having ZSS, Sheik and Charizard as separate characters. The changing mechanics, while fun on the surface, never really got much use and always seemed like a waste of a B-move. Especially with Pokémon trainer, where the exhaustion mechanic was more annoying than fun and made him pretty unplayable for the most part.
- Greninja... meh, I hope this doesn't mean Mewtwo's out, we'll see.
- For Glory... see below
- Smash Run: looks fun, though I think Kirby Air Ride lends itself to this concept quite a bit better (sequel, please). The higher speed might hurt more than it would help, but at least there's no momentum transfers when jumping (which I think is a negative, but I guess it helps in this case).
- ZSS looks ridiculous with the high-heeled jet boots.
- If Jungle japes, a Melee stage, can come back, this sort of raises the odds of seeing Celadon City and Hyrule Castle again. Fingers crossed.
- No more forced tether recoveries: awesome, those were never a good idea to begin with. It seems like recoveries in general will again be a bit more difficult, which is great. Brawl made recovering far, far, far too easy. If you want to recover, you should earn it, in my opinion.
- No more gliding: awesome, see above.
- They somehow managed to make Olimar a more consistent character than Project M managed, which was quite a pleasant surprise.
Okay, those were the small points, I do have few bigger points to make.
About Final Destinations for everything. This, at first, seems like it would be a good idea, but if you've got any experience with competitive smash (which is what "For Glory" is trying to emulate), you'll know that FD is probably the least neutral of the neutral stages. It promotes camping, juggling and chaingrabs and generally favours a more defensive and monotonous playstyle, as well as giving certain characters very distinct advantages and disadvantages. It's like Sakurai wanted to throw the competitive community a bone, but couldn't be bothered to do any research beyond the "No items, Fox only, Final Destination" meme. I'm all for neutral versions of the stages, and this is way better than nothing, but adding a few platforms would be very little trouble and yet be a huge boost to the diversity and fairness of the neutral stages. It's odd that we're going to have an FD version of both Battlefield and Town & City, 2 stages which are probably far more neutral than FD ever was.
That being said, it would still be interesting to see what kind of metagame would form in an FD-only environment. I really hope the answer isn't obsessive camping, though.
Another problem with "For Glory" is that the battles seem to be in time mode rather than stock mode, which always feels sort of unfair to me and I think promotes even more camping. I hope the timer is longer than 2 minutes, at least, or these battles will just be rather pathetic.
But still, I think I can summarise my opinion of "For Glory" with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRJnAEDQTV0
From what we've seen so far, hitstun, falling speed, landing lag and ledge magnetism all seem to be somewhere in between Melee and Brawl (when taking L-cancelling into account), leaning more towards Brawl than Melee. This, again, is a step in the right direction, but I fear not enough. It might seem like this would only matter at a competitive level, but that's not true at all. These things, along with unlimited airdodges, promote camping and discourage offense, and I don't think anyone can really call camping "fun". Casual all-items all-stages play already seriously favours camping, so the game should do everything it can to allow for more offensive pressure. I grew up playing both Smash 64 and Melee casually, and never had any problems with the fast-paced nature of those games. I get that Sakurai primarily wants this to be a party game, but allowing for faster and more offensive play does not in any way limit this, all it does is add an extra layer for those who do want to dig a little deeper.
Also, just for fun, here are my final roster predictions, excluding those already announced, along with percentages of how certain I am they'll be included:
Captain Falcon (YES!): Falcon is synonymous with Smash to me, if he’s not in, it will not be Smash, so adding a percentage here is pointless.
Wario (99%): Ashley is an assist trophy, he already has his own logo, he has 2 major franchises linked to him, a unique moveset, etc. etc.
Ice Climbers (90%): We’ve seen the polar bear, we’ve seen the freeze-item-thing, I’ve wager the odds are very high.
Mr. Game & Watch (90%): He’s been in 2 games now and represents a complete era of Nintendo’s history all by himself. If he got into Brawl, he’ll get into Smash 4.
Ness (90%): Mr. Saturn is confirmed, and he's an original.
Ganondorf (85%): He probably won't go, but a moveset change is never out of the question.
Jigglypuff (85%): She’s an original, and I don’t think Sakurai will drop those, especially since Ness somehow got into Brawl alongside Lucas. That, and she has a unique playstyle, which is always a plus. That being said, Sakurai might decide he wants to add some more unique Pokémon and drop everyone’s favourite pink puffball (what’s a Kirby?) Let’s hope not.
Palutena (85%): We’ve had the leak and Sakurai’s trophy-trolling, as well as Pit’s final smash no longer including her, so yeah, she’s probably in.
Meta Knight (80%): The only reason Meta Knight might not come back is because Sakurai might’ve caught wind of how broken he is in Brawl and misinterprets that as nobody liking him. Kind of like how he seems to have designed “For Glory”.
R.O.B. (75%): If the roster has to be reduced, this little guy might end up in a box in a basement somewhere, but his uniqueness will probably keep him in.
Wolf (75%): He’s a bad guy (which is always a plus when it comes to designing event matches) with a moveset which is more unique than Falco’s. That, and Lucario being back means Wolf’s got a pretty good chance. He was originally supposed to be in Melee as well, so he’s pretty much a veteran at his point.
Falco (70%): He’s a veteran now, and seems to be getting more distinct, but if Sakurai feels he needs a more diverse roster, Falco might just be the one to go.
Ike (65%): There has been new Fire Emblem game, so there's always the possibility that he'll get booted out in favour of someone like Chrom, but Sakurai doesn't like cutting (see: Lucario), so he’ll probably share the stage with Marth and maybe Chrom or My Unit. If 3 near-identical Starfox Characters can be in Brawl, I don’t see why 3 sword fighters couldn’t be in Smash 4. It's not like he's clone like Roy.
Lucas (55%): Sakurai really doesn't want to cut, it seems, and this drastically increases Lucas' chances, but that's really all he's got going for him.
Mewtwo (50%): Sakurai can’t keep ignoring the cries, can he? The recent Mega Evolutions also up his chances, especially since with Charizard X being in, Y might feel underrepresented.
Bandana Dee (40%): If Meta Knight gets in, this little guy has a pretty decent shot. We’ve already seen both the Mario roster and Zelda roster expand to 5, so Kirby can probably afford to have 4, and the recent Return to Dream Land has given him a unique moveset and at least some additional recognisability. It’d be fun to see what they do with a spear-based character. The main reason this guy gets almost 50% is because Dedede now only throws Gordos, which seems like an odd decision if not for the confusion this would cause. Waddle Dee might also just be an enemy in Smash Run, of course, but still.
Bowser Jr. (15%): If we do see another Mario character, this’ll be it. He’s of the newer generation, is a small character (there seem to be less of those nowadays), appears in quite a few games and most importantly, lends himself quite well to getting a unique moveset.
Squirtle (15%): He might come back, but we already have a water Pokémon and more than enough little creatures. It’ll be sad to see him go, but still.
Chrom or My Unit (10%): It’s one of these, probably Chrom, although he might play too much like either Ike or Marth and would therefore not warrant the effort. They only have the 1 game as well, while Ike has 2, so if there’s only 2 FE games, Ike will probably get the spot.
Ivysaur (10%): This would have to mean Squirtle is back as well. We’ll see, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
Girahim, Shadow, Zero, etc. (5%): Who knows?
I think the roster size will be somewhere between 45 and 49, but it could be as low as 42.
Wario (99%): Ashley is an assist trophy, he already has his own logo, he has 2 major franchises linked to him, a unique moveset, etc. etc.
Ice Climbers (90%): We’ve seen the polar bear, we’ve seen the freeze-item-thing, I’ve wager the odds are very high.
Mr. Game & Watch (90%): He’s been in 2 games now and represents a complete era of Nintendo’s history all by himself. If he got into Brawl, he’ll get into Smash 4.
Ness (90%): Mr. Saturn is confirmed, and he's an original.
Ganondorf (85%): He probably won't go, but a moveset change is never out of the question.
Jigglypuff (85%): She’s an original, and I don’t think Sakurai will drop those, especially since Ness somehow got into Brawl alongside Lucas. That, and she has a unique playstyle, which is always a plus. That being said, Sakurai might decide he wants to add some more unique Pokémon and drop everyone’s favourite pink puffball (what’s a Kirby?) Let’s hope not.
Palutena (85%): We’ve had the leak and Sakurai’s trophy-trolling, as well as Pit’s final smash no longer including her, so yeah, she’s probably in.
Meta Knight (80%): The only reason Meta Knight might not come back is because Sakurai might’ve caught wind of how broken he is in Brawl and misinterprets that as nobody liking him. Kind of like how he seems to have designed “For Glory”.
R.O.B. (75%): If the roster has to be reduced, this little guy might end up in a box in a basement somewhere, but his uniqueness will probably keep him in.
Wolf (75%): He’s a bad guy (which is always a plus when it comes to designing event matches) with a moveset which is more unique than Falco’s. That, and Lucario being back means Wolf’s got a pretty good chance. He was originally supposed to be in Melee as well, so he’s pretty much a veteran at his point.
Falco (70%): He’s a veteran now, and seems to be getting more distinct, but if Sakurai feels he needs a more diverse roster, Falco might just be the one to go.
Ike (65%): There has been new Fire Emblem game, so there's always the possibility that he'll get booted out in favour of someone like Chrom, but Sakurai doesn't like cutting (see: Lucario), so he’ll probably share the stage with Marth and maybe Chrom or My Unit. If 3 near-identical Starfox Characters can be in Brawl, I don’t see why 3 sword fighters couldn’t be in Smash 4. It's not like he's clone like Roy.
Lucas (55%): Sakurai really doesn't want to cut, it seems, and this drastically increases Lucas' chances, but that's really all he's got going for him.
Mewtwo (50%): Sakurai can’t keep ignoring the cries, can he? The recent Mega Evolutions also up his chances, especially since with Charizard X being in, Y might feel underrepresented.
Bandana Dee (40%): If Meta Knight gets in, this little guy has a pretty decent shot. We’ve already seen both the Mario roster and Zelda roster expand to 5, so Kirby can probably afford to have 4, and the recent Return to Dream Land has given him a unique moveset and at least some additional recognisability. It’d be fun to see what they do with a spear-based character. The main reason this guy gets almost 50% is because Dedede now only throws Gordos, which seems like an odd decision if not for the confusion this would cause. Waddle Dee might also just be an enemy in Smash Run, of course, but still.
Bowser Jr. (15%): If we do see another Mario character, this’ll be it. He’s of the newer generation, is a small character (there seem to be less of those nowadays), appears in quite a few games and most importantly, lends himself quite well to getting a unique moveset.
Squirtle (15%): He might come back, but we already have a water Pokémon and more than enough little creatures. It’ll be sad to see him go, but still.
Chrom or My Unit (10%): It’s one of these, probably Chrom, although he might play too much like either Ike or Marth and would therefore not warrant the effort. They only have the 1 game as well, while Ike has 2, so if there’s only 2 FE games, Ike will probably get the spot.
Ivysaur (10%): This would have to mean Squirtle is back as well. We’ll see, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
Girahim, Shadow, Zero, etc. (5%): Who knows?
I think the roster size will be somewhere between 45 and 49, but it could be as low as 42.
