lol Pichu just won a big tournament. Definitely interested to see how the character variety shakes out in the competitive scene for this game.

@nate38

Pichu's a big pain in the butt. I didn't expect them to have an obviously imbalanced character this time around, and Pichu's self-harming attacks are both toned down in terms of how much they hurt him (most of them do less than 1%) and have plenty of knockout power to go around. He's quick and falls fast which makes him a very aggravating opponent when played in an aggressive style, and his tiny stature means a lot of your attacks to trip him up will whiff.

Uhg, one more day before I can play this. Merry Christmas!

@cooliocuneo

No more days left to wait, then! Merry Christmas. :)

GSP is so silly, I have like 1.7 million with every character from just playing the singleplayer. I go online with a character for the first time, get one Quickplay win with them, and I'm up to 2 million lol. I don't understand how this works.

At least I'm not in Elite Smash with anybody yet, I'm guessing you have to play a certain number of Quickplay matches as that character regardless of your GSP, which is good.

A few days ago, I was trying some Quick Play with King K. Rool, and something weird happened. After one match and waiting for the next one, the game seemed to be stuck on searching for players. One of them had stuck around from the previous match, but it still showed them as being on the results screen the whole time, and the other two slots never got filled even long after the countdown had ended. Even if someone wanted to admire their results for that long, I don't think the game would let them. Eventually, I quit out of the waiting room, and discovered that I somehow managed to reach Elite with the unruly king, of all characters. I guess that's why it could no longer match me with other players at the time, since I was considered in elite but was still in a regular queue. You'd think the game would have bumped me out though, in that case.

I guess it's nice to have reached it once for prosperity's sake, but I don't think it's a place I want to be; I've a feeling it's just full of tryhards who like to play boring 1v1s on flat stages with no items. Pass. I'll probably not play the character again until he naturally falls out of Elite from inactivity. Still, might as well share a shot for the street cred:

pic.twitter.com/gFlxfFFtdC

— Mop it up (@Mopitup255) December 28, 2018

I got Pit into Elite Smash after like five games, lol. Pit's really fun in this game! He's way more effective off-stage than he was in Smash 4.

I didn't fair so well with Jigglypuff or Kirby...

Man, setting up the My Music stuff really does take forever. I've only completed the Zelda stages.

I'd love a customizable event match mode (including multiplayer-focused stuff). It would be so fun to set up crazy, Spirits-like multiplayer matches, like three players vs. one giant player, on a Lava Floor with random Bob-bomb Festivals. The interface would be an absolute nightmare, though.

Do you guys use Stage Morph or the Final Smash Meter much? What's your standard setup?

Smash roundtable!

@Mop it up
Yeah, people are free to play however they'd like, but items are so fun! The crazy emergent chaos is my favorite part of Smash.

Speaking of items, they definitely omitted a few this time around. I want my Cracker Launcher back!

And now I'm in Elite Smash with Pit, Dark Pit, Wii Fit Trainer, and Little Mac. The process was pretty quick (I only played 9 games with Wii Fit Trainer before I got in), so I'm guessing I got a boost due to all the singleplayer I've done.

Which is to say...all of it? I've got all Challenges complete, Classic Mode complete with every character, Adventure Mode 100% on Hard, and all Spirits collected (aside from Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee, which I think you need those games to get).

@Anand Oh dang, I've yet to use Stage Morph even once! It's a cool feature, too. Can you use it online?

And yes, it took me at least five hours(!) to get My Music fully set up for every stage. It was fun, though! There's a lot of tunes that just don't get played on the stages unless you crank up their probability, including some of the new remixes. That said, I tend to limit each stage to 4-5 songs, and try not to repeat any songs on multiple stages. I figure with so many stages, I'm only going to visit each so many times, so I might as well have my favorite tunes show up regularly on them.

@nate38
Online? I dunno, I've only messed around with Quickplay.

Re: My Music, I set my favorites to Max, but put at least a chance of getting every track. Variety is the spice of life!

It IS weird to see how few of them would come up during regular Smash, but I guess that gives Event Mode something unique...

@Anand

Yeah; I was thrown off that almost every stage has ONE song that was cranked to max and one or 2 that were like 50%, then the rest just had a tiny sliver.

I've completed all of the challenges! I feel relieved that there's nothing as ridiculous as some of Smash 4's set; those ones that were "Collect every _____" were a real drag since I had no way of actually controlling the rewards I got, so I left those undone. That said, a lot did feel pretty easy and uninspired, but I s'pose that's just the nature of achievements.

If anyone wanted some hints or tips on any of them, feel free to ask. One general tip I'll give for the Smash mode ones is that the only options you need to set are the ones listed in the challenge, every other option or mode can be whatever you want. Think about everything available to you in Smash mode, and you may yet find yourself coming up with creative solutions to the task.

@Mop it up

Reaching 9.9 in Classic. Who'd you do it with and where did you start your run? Use a lot of tickets?

@Hero_Of_Hyrule This is why I never care about rankings in online modes. Even after like 180 hours of Rocket League I still play unranked.

@DrFinkelstein I completed it first with Ganondorf and I think that's a good general suggestion. His smash attacks are absurdly powerful, and since enemies are slightly weaker in Classic than normal, it doesn't take very many to send 'em flying. The toughest battle will be the last one against Link and Zelda, if you whiff that first smash then things can get out of hand fast. Speaking of hands, he'll have to fight both hands at once, but his smashes deal loads of damage to them and can quickly reach the stun phases, so it's manageable.

If you're rubbish with Ganondorf then I'm not sure who else to suggest. Find a character you can handle well who has matches against the fewest number of opponents at one time, as those tend to be easier.

I didn't use a ticket, but one of my friends used a ticket for the challenge, so I can confirm that you can use a ticket and it'll still count.

Yessss 2 mil with Ridley!
I really lik Ridley! His zoning off the ledge is ridic!

Remaining DLC characters rumor:

Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden)
Erdrick (Dragon Quest)
Minecraft guy (Minecraft)
Doomguy (Doom)

Apparently comes from someone who recently revealed a bunch of unlikely things before they happened (including Joker in Smash), but we all know how big Smash rumors have worked out lately, RIP Geno. Personally I'm lukewarm on all of these except the first, which is...fine.


Also dataminers have found data for three unused characters in the game, presumably Piranha Plant (codenamed "Plant") and Joker ("Jack") and an unknown third character (codenamed "Brave").

@nate38

Hard to know what's real or not in this post-Grinch world, but here're my thoughts on each of these rumored characters:

Ryu Hayabusa: Sounds good. I'm down for more NES all-stars in this game, especially now that Simon is in!

Steve (Minecraft): Ugh...not a fan. I get that Minecraft is a really huge series but I feel that its characters are completely charmless. If we had to have Minecraft content, I'd much prefer a boss (like Monster Hunter got) or just a stage. Or if we had to get MicroSoft property, I'd much rather Banjo.

Doom Marine: Ehhhhhh okay? Really a barely-Nintendo-related character at all that'd have to be the result of simply good timing thanks to the recent Doom revivals being on Switch. But I did really enjoy Doom on Switch and my buddy would be thrilled with this, so I'd probably be fine with him.

Erdrick: YES PLEASE. YES PLEASE. YES PLEASE, DRAGON QUEST REP FREAKING FINALLY!! I'd buy the whole fighter pack if/when Erdrick gets confirmed, butt-ugly Steve and all. Definitely my most-wanted character (or at least series) for Smash at this point.

Got into Elite with Ridley at 2.7 mil GSP. I quickly got knocked back out and had to fight my way back in.