You’re always going to move a set distance, and you’re always going to have a moment of end lag (the amount of time the game forces you to wait until you’re able to take another action). The big problem with rolling around is its predictability and your vulnerability. As soon as the person you’re playing against cottons to your slippery game you’re going to get flung into oblivion. It has its time and place just like any other movement option in Super Smash Bros., but it’s not the Swiss army knife it seems to be when you first start playing Smash. Jjumping? That’s how you end up in the air, and if you’re in the air you can get knocked off the stage, no thanks.īut honestly? Rolling sort of sucks sometimes. If you dodge, you’re still in the same place. You move out of the way, you’re invulnerable, and you get to roll without letting go of that beautiful safe little shield bubble, so why would you possibly pick anything else? If you dash, you’re vulnerable. Keeping an eye out for predictability in your gameplay is the best way to break habits, and it offers you a chance to understand what the person mopping the floor with you is probably thinking about during the match. If you’re finding yourself unable to win, maybe you’ve just become too predictable, and your opponent is just punishing the exact same option time and again. Smash is all about movement-you’re constantly jumping, running, attacking, walking, and bouncing, and the best way to lose is to settle into a pattern. So during this period of growth, settle on one character (or two if you really can’t narrow it down) and take two or three sessions, whatever that looks like for you, to really understand their ins and outs. It’s completely unrealistic to expect yourself to master every single one of them. There are, depending on how you count it, between 69 and 78 characters in this game, and with the announcement of Dragon Quest’s Hero and Banjo-Kazooie that roster is only going to grow. Settle on a character (at least for a little bit) If you’ve got that one friend you just can’t beat, or you’ve worked up the nerve for your first Super Smash Bros.Tournament, this guide is for you. At some point you tackle the basics of the game, you run up against your first real obstacle, and you don’t know what to do next. Fighting game mastery is about toppling tougher and tougher human opponents until you either become The One to Topple, or decide to tap out of the game entirely. Measuring your mastery of the mechanics isn’t just about playing through the story mode and beating all of the bosses until you win.
In the world of videogames, fighting games are unique.