This is kinda funny, I was going to add a review of this too, then I realised you said pretty much exactly the same things I was going to. It really seems like they focused on mulitplayer to the excusion of single player this time. I know multiplayer fans will like that but... I used to really enjoy the single player modes too. Sure Subspace Emissary wasn't perfect, but it was better than no Adventure Mode at all. Really the only redeeming feature of Classic in this game is Master Core, which is a pretty fun boss fight.
The single player is also pretty brutally difficult, and not in a fun way. You have event matches like Hungry Hungry Kirby and No Mere Sparring Match that are sadistically hard even on Easy, and challenges like getting 8 K Os in Cruel Smash, hitting a very small range in Home Run Contest or finishing Classic on 9.0 with Marth UNDER A TIME LIMIT. I know Brawl had some tough challenges, but none as evil as some of these.
I agree about stage redundancy (Smashville and Town and City. WHY do you need both??) but disagree about "blatantly advertising the newest game in the series". To Fire Emblem fans, Arena Ferox is AMAZING because it's the first-ever Fire Emblem stage that's actually based on a real location from the series. (Stupid generic Castle Siege and Colosseum) And with 2 characters from Awakening it makes sense to have a stage from there. The real blatant adventisment is Wolly World, which is from a game that isn't even out yet.
Please use paragraph breaks. Reading a wall of text is hard
Also, I really have no idea what you want. I can see that you don't like the single-player content or the stage selections, but have little idea why
I know Arena Ferox is a nice place, but a big problem in smash stages is that they end up being too dated when you use such an specific place, for example: pokemon had silph co back on the day, which was fine since it hadn't grown off the ground at all, but in the next games there was pokemon THEMED stages that fit quite right like pokemon stadium, which even got a new form in brawl; yeah, there was also Spear Pillar, which WAS dated, but it was just another stage to go with the others, then, 4 comes in and what happens? we didn't get an stage based on POKEMON as it is, what we got is an stage based on a place on an specific pokemon game (ishuu league on 3ds and kalos league in wii u) which becomes dated unless you have already played the specific game, why not just an stage that is simply "Pokemon League"? i'm pretty sure whoever is in charge of that sort of thing can come up with a composite form for the Pokemon League, see where i'm going on regards to that? and yeah, i'm really against stages that are just "exact" reconstructions from an specific game of the series, and eldin bridge, skyloft and delfino plaza are big offenders, why do we need TWO dated zelda stages to represent -third person/adult link- zelda games while having not a single stage for toon link? i know train stage on 3ds is way toooo dated but at least it's an stage based on one of the main features of the game it is taking from rather than just putting players on a platform for a guided tour of the dated reconstruction; in fact, i think the "we have awakening characters" explanation falls flat when awakening and radiance series did NOT have colosseums and yet that's the stage to represent fire emblem in wii u AND 3ds' zelda stage for the adult characters is from ocarina even tough the designs are the same ones from twilight princess, now, something i can respect on an stage like arena ferox is that it is not a dated reconstruction, but seeing how the "changing platforms" thingy was also on reg colosseum, why then, name it after something so specific? i know great temple did it in regards to zelda, but we can take as a representative of the idea of dungeons in a zelda game, and most importantly, fire emblem is of the kind of series that needs to have a centerpiece to represent it seeing how it's formed a gazillion alternate universes, so, yeah, i respected castle siege, well, the idea, the execution was bad; but it seems someone understood that smash bros needed an stage that could speak for the fire emblem series in general rather than say: "ok, so, let's make an stage based entirely on crimea/begnion/galia/daein because that was the latest fire emblem game"
pd: i know about not explaining why the single player content is bad, but 400 words is too little for the explanation, so i prefered to point out the flaws in general...in fact, i might end up deleting/editing my comments until/when i can make up an explanation that isn't to ambigous...
Don't make it talk again, the Berlin Wall be rebuilt at this rate.
I think tvt doesn't recognize 1 enter. If I try to break into paragraphs like this
And like this. I believe, you have to press enter twice.
Seems that only an empty line is recognized as a paragraph break, and it's not immediately obvious.
Thx, i tried to edit this but i didn't understood why the system keep on doing that, still trying to come up with a shorter exlpanation =/
What's wrong with the game specific stages? They've been in the series since the beginning with Yoshi's Story, Sector Z, Super Mario Bros. Mushroom Kingdom and DKC Kongo Jungle, Saffron City Gen I and Brinstar in the original for starters. Besides, as a celebration of Nintendo franchises, why should it be wrong to have stages from specific games?
Power of Thor!
Exactly. This guy seems to prefer "generic" stages because the "don't become dated". But Smash Bros is all about celebrating a particular era of gaming. Melee was for the late N64 era, Brawl the mid-Wii era, and this one for the late-Wii early-Wii U and 3DS eras. Every Smash game will become "dated" eventually... that's what the next Smash is for.
Having stages based on specific games is a big part of Smash, and why I disliked Final Destination in the previous games. (No game basis, you miss out on all that lore)
I pretty much agree with everything else in the review though.
You can do a single-line break if you put two backslashes at the end of a line.
End result
would look
like this.
I can't take this review seriously with all of its spelling and grammatical errors. Specifically, I refer to the lack of proper capitalization.
SoundCloud
I always have a hard time imagining how Smash "veterans" ever even had the teensiest bit of gaming fun to begin with, what with them cloaking criticism in such joyless lack of nuance. Ian Curtis would tell you guys to lighten up.
Under that logic, brawl should NOT have gotten the great sea (gamecube game), or delfino plaza (also gamecube)...or luigi's mansion (gamecube); 3ds shouldn't have Isshu League (ds) and you also forget that when 64 game was released there wasn't that many games to pick from and it was kind of a rushed project, so it can be forgiven for that, also, it's NOT that i dislike stages specific to a game, what i dislike is stages that are way too specific, there's a difference between the "Great Sea" which is just the usual theme of Wind Waker (sailing on a mostly water covered region) and "Eldin Bridge" (Unless you played Twilight Princess, you don't know what's the deal with that place) also, under the school of "celebrating specific era of gaming" link should've skyward's design, Mario in brawl should've only FLUDD, Luigi should use only Poltergust, Fox in brawl should've fought with the crappy staff from Dinosaur Planet, Sheik shouldn't even be in the roster anymore and much more
Your argument falls flat because the things you're arguing for just aren't feasible. You say more stages for specific games should be like the Great Sea in how they represent the game, but not every series in Smash has one unifying location like that. Heck, the majority don't.
And "specific eras of gaming" can be celebrated while still at least recognizing other eras.
But at least many of those stages don't need to scream in a megaphone which game they are apealing to, i can understand that there are series with FEW games that can be referenced (Mother, Star Fox, Kid Icarus) but TLOZ, Mario Bros Series among others have a long story of a common ground most of the games refer to, and it's kind of lame when that is forgotten in favor of turning the game into an ad for the latest game in the series and/or a stage returns at a point in which its date of apeal already came and went.
I feel the problem with the stage argument is that every Smash game is dated to its time period, so it would make sense the stages would be specific and appeal to people who play them, after all, there are plenty of people who like the certain game locations from the specific games. The problem also is that its implying games should be forgotten come the next installment when its a milestone celebration series, which is going to recognize various series' history. As for the single player, I argue they're thrown into an alternate section because most all of the modes can be played with friends - there is no more true single player, making them games at best. To be fair though, single player has always been criticized as the weak link in this series for being very linear and not very deep or rewarding. Personally, I find the random nature of Classic more fun compared to the rather linear structure of the previous three. I also enjoyed the challenges being overall harder considering I found Brawl's single challenges to be rather easy in comparison to Melee. Under presentation, the 3DS' limitations are probably to blame for the lack of intro and the previous games outside of the first were composed of reused footage from the announcement trailer and SSE cutscenes - hardly more original than this game's own. I find customs more fun than being a total waste as you describe, but obviously we have different opinions on this game and I'm fine with that. Y Ou obviously don't like the non-multiplayer aspects and question stage choices, but that's fine. Not everyone is going to like everything.
Power of Thor!
Thing is that while it's true there are "dated" stages all through the game there was more often than not a balance to it; smash 4 just seemed to throw that out the window; also, i DO like classic mode...in 3ds because it gave an element of choice in regards to how you reach the end, unlike wii u which only throws all the crap it can at you; and it's not that customs are AWFUL but they are too one dimensional (atk takes your def, def takes your speed and speed takes your attk) and the "you can get many times the same item but with slightly different stats" crap is out of control ,specially with you being unable to mark them somehow.
That clears everything up then. People will just have to agree to disagree with the stages then. Otherwise, I think your argument is well supported even if there are people like me that enjoy the game more and will disagree on some things. Your explanations are most appreciated and I think that should conclude this review discussion for a long time.
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Crippling Overspecialization: The Game
Well, the newest smash bros games have finally come, and as many will say, they are great, there's lot of fun to have...in Smash mode that's it...i won't deny that the vs is fine, combat is more fluid, and there seems that a lot of twitching was done to characters in the transition from brawl to wii u/3ds, and there were some patches to make the game more balanced...during a while anyway, but after you see past the Smash mode, you notice that the game is just lacking. Even as you start the game, you notice the almost lack of interest in giving it a good presentation, 3ds has no intro, and wii u only has a compilation of the trailers; the main menus are even blatant with it, giving smash a giant sign to call your atention while all other modes that are part of the franchise, even the ones just as old (classic for example) are thrown to an alternate section. The customization feature was poorly made, the equipment is just pointless, and it takes a really limited aproach to how it changes the stats for the characters. Classic mode also took a hit, it's just so-so in 3ds, but the wii u version becomes insulting since it just throws all the oponents it can in any stage, it doesn't matters if the characters fit the theme of the stage, is just a matter of shoving the "you can have 8 fighters at same time" in your face. The stage selection also seems to have taken an step down from the previous instalments, they come in 3 flavors: 1- blatant advertisement of the latest game in the series for that console (ex: arena ferox in 3ds despite not being that different of colosseum in wii u just to remind everyone of Fire Emblem: Awakening) 2- overly redundant (both pyrosphere and norfair in wii u even tough both are heat themed metroid stages), and 3- lack of representation to the series of the characters already there (ROB came in Brawl and still has NO stage based on one of it's games in neither version) and sometimes overlaps (wii u has 3 tloz stages, none of them for any of toon link games, while having skyloft and keep eldin bridge even tough both can represent 3rd person zelda games). And finally, there's the 2 new "modes" for the games, in 3ds, Smash Run seemed like a good idea, but the random final battle can become imposible depending on your character and picked up stats, and smash tour is just too random, making it a bad pseudo-mario party