@r_hjort

The game just feels kinda sluggish sometimes. Honestly even 4 got it sometimes too, and I could never figure out why it happened, but it did.

Ploot wasn't too impressed with it. It's there.

I've pretty much gotten used to it though.

@carlosrox
That's weird. I gotta check that out when I get home, 'cause stuff like that tends to annoy the living hell out of me. Does it happen for you in both docked and handheld?

EDIT: Just checked out a video on it. Seems even the GCN controller has about 6 frames of lag on average. That's pretty bad. Weird that I haven't reacted to it, but I suppose that's just an effect of me having played basically nothing but Dark Souls for a month.

EDIT: And I was mainly tanking in Dark Souls at the end, meaning I've been used to sluggish movement and delayed response.

@carlosrox

Interesting about the menus. Apart from loading times, I think these are likely the most elegant menus of any Smash Brothers game in recent memory.

@r_hjort

Do all the controllers have the same lag, or is it different between each?

I mean, if it's all of them I don't really care, because then that's just "how the game plays," not lag, really.

@J.K. Riki I can link you to the video later, but essentially all controllers lag in the game, however, the GCN ones lag a couple of frames less.

EDIT: Maybe just the one frame. I need to find that video again.

Online play seems a lot smoother now. The first night was absolutely the worst for me, now it's mostly smooth with occasional, non-game-killing hiccups.

It's still so damn frustrating though that you can't just easily join a friend playing. I SEE a bunch of my friends are playing the game but there is no way to just hop into their matches. Stupid.

Ah well, we'll have to set up a Smash night or something.

@carlosrox @r_hjort My super duper Smash pro student said he felt lag, although we were playing off a projector so it could have been the projector.

It all feels fine to me but I don't really ever notice minor controller lag.

@Zero
The projector might have introduced some lag of its own, but it does seem to be a case of the game's coding judging by tests people have conducted.

People who are used to playing fighting games or other high speed games, or people who speedrun with frame perfect tricks and such will probably notice it more easily than us mere mortals. Like I said before, I haven't noticed it myself yet, but if I do become aware of it and start to feel it I will be annoyed.

Like when I went from playing Olli Olli on 3DS to playing it on Wii U, where it had a frame or two of input lag. Felt totally unplayable to me.

@r_hjort

*use GCN controller to cheat*

Got it.

Playing Smash with my Gamecube controller brings me back to better days, cheating or not. Hopefully this will help me stick with it longer than SmashU

What the. Is this real? And on purpose? If so, this is very... dark.

@Zero

Jesus Christ bahahaha, that's terrible. Wonder if it was just one or two devs who snuck that in.

Or maybe their innocent logic was that Peace Walker was a game based around nuclear war, I dunno. That seems like a stretch.

Ever since I started playing this game I felt like something was slightly off about the way it feels, especially when playing the single player modes with the CPUs. I thought it was just me needing time to adjust to the game, but now I'm wondering if it's the input lag mentioned here that's throwing me off.

carlosrox said:

- no CPU when playing online? frack is nintendo thinking here? it worked just fine in 4.

Yeah, I was super bummed when I found out they took that out. Such an odd decision. I'm hoping that this game will receive some content updates like most of Nintendo's other games have on Switch.

After nearly 30 hours with the game, I haven't seen Alucard yet. What's the deal? Do you have to unlock that assist trophy or something?

@Hinph Yeah me neither! I've only seen Zero and Dr. Wily once as well, and I'm pretty sure Zero was in a Spirit battle.




(profanity warning, because competitive Smash players often get excited and say dumb/hilarious stuff)
I enjoyed watching these videos for Smash 4 (and Melee) and I look forward to seeing them each week with Ultimate. It's really cool this week seeing big Melee personalities enjoying the game as well. I don't think they'll stick around with Ultimate too long, but it's nice to see them having fun here.

Finished Classic mode as every character! I'm a little disappointed that so many end with a regular old Master Hand fight: the ones that didn't were decently creative at times. My favorite surprise was definitely finishing Kirby's route and fighting - - - Marx! - - - Mega Man's final boss was pretty clever, too.


Also quickly did all the challenges in Games & More, which means I never have to play Mob Smash again. It's double disappointing that features like the Stage Builder and Break the Targets are gone when boring stuff like Century Smash and the new All-Star Mode are alive and kicking. I get that it's easy content to put in, but still, Mob Smash has been a bore since it was called Multi-Man Melee.

So that makes three Challenge boards complete: Classic mode, Games & More, and Other! I think the rest are Spirits type stuff, as well as Quickplay online and some offline Smash stuff as well. Should be a much more manageable set to complete this time around, without any of that "Complete All-Star Mode on Hard as Every Character" kinda stuff the Wii U version had.

I'm having loads of fun with this game and find World of Light to be pretty addicting. "Just one more spirit!"

That said, I'm having a heck of a time adapting to the feel of this game.
My air game has taken a huge hit. I can't seem to control my characters when over the pit and I lose total control over my save specials. Also, attempting to dash out of a move often doesn't register. In the thousands of hours I've spent since Smash 64, I feel these have been the biggest Smash "growing pains" I've ever felt. At least, since the transition from 64 to Melee. The controls feel sluggish, though I'm slowly adapting... Sort of. Also, some of the taunt animations seem incomplete now. Pikachu's in particular seem to be missing frames. That's just nitpicking though!

@Hinph
I got him once, and it was out of an assist trophy I grabbed JUST as the CPU fell off the screen. He popped out and the game ended.

@ploot Yeah I've decided to make the switch from up jumping to button jumping (something I've wanted to do in past Smash games but it felt too overwhelming) and while it is definitely help solving my main issue with up jumping (takes too long to try another jump if you miss one) it's throwing off my whole game! Like I'll just totally mess up regular attacks that have nothing to do with jumping way more than I ever did in the past because I'm flustered and not used to things yet. And of course I still press up to jump sometimes but I turned it off so that does nothing and screws me up.

Ah well, it's learning something new, there will be an adjustment period.

@ploot

Air-dodging is the biggest hurdle for me. SSB4 was very generous with them, and while Ultimate isn't quite to Melee levels of picky, there's a BIG delay from air-dodging into doing any other action, which has led to a lot of deaths for me as I helplessly careen into a pit. It's definitely less forgiving than before, probably to make the game less defensive.

I've gotten very used to the slower input thing and it's basically a non issue for me now. I can even do the quick drop pretty well.

The new air dodge is something to get used to but if you do it near the ground you aren't left nearly as open. You can do it onto ledges as well. So only use it when you're confident it's not gonna screw you over. Never bother with using it too high or off a ledge unless you have time to recover from it or you're far from the opponent.

Perfect shield seems hard to pull off as well. It often feels like luck. But there is also a big reward for it as you can always pull off a good counter in the form of a smash or A combo. And honestly this mechanic doesn't even seem necessary in this game. I say that in a good way? Like you can play just fine without even using the perfect shield. The flow is so different from 4. You don't need to be looking for this at all. People have said the shields are weaker than 4 but I find them much stronger.

Punishing mistakes feels sooooo good in this game. I think this game is a lot harsher on whiffed attacks than 4.

Got to Elite Smash with Samus, Dark Samus, and ROB I think. Been able to beat everyone except this one guy I fought who was psychotic. Literally could barely touch this guy in a 3 stock fight over 2 rounds. I did better the second round but it was still barely enough to damage him. He was Roy and he was ridiculously fast and in my face. I have no idea how I couldn't even hit this fucker.

It's interesting to me to hear everyone talking such deep strategy and names for moves. I always played these games on instinct alone. The more I think about what I'm doing, the less successful I am. But maybe that's the kind of personality I have, because it's the same with playing the guitar and speaking in Chinese. I can't think about it even for a second.

@J.K. Riki I sometimes run into that problem when trying to explain the controls for a game. I have to stop and think about which button actually does what action, and sometimes have to go and play a game to feel it out before I remember.