Celia Alexis Wagar's CritPoints

This video is so fucking stupid at times (such as when the word theatre is said and every time he goes a little bit SJW), but this video is alright. What do you think?

Dude released this like 3-4 days ago and he’s talking like there are only 5 gods. Leffen is arguably the best player in the world right now next to Armada and PPMD, and certainly stronger than Mew2king or Hungrybox presently. Documentary kiddie!

Regarding Amsa, he should have mentioned how the guy placed at Evo 2014. I have a local Yoshi player who said if Amsa took top 8, he’d redouble his efforts in Melee rather than moving cleanly onto P:M. Yeah, Yoshi was considered a gimmick character that nobody knew the matchup against, but once everyone figured out the matchup, Amsa went into a slump, then recovered to show he truly knew how to play well, not just abuse things people were unfamiliar with (he does mention that Amsa might not have much staying power, but this video came out over a year after the events he’s summarizing). He also probably should have mentioned the facets of yoshi that had potential, like the three different types of “parries” Yoshi has, between super armored DJC attacks, his power shield, and light shield. And how his normals have good hitboxes and knockback, unlike a lot of other low tiers. He also could have mentioned how historically, Sheik is known as a HORRIBLE matchup for Yoshi, and it was Amsa who figured out how to play the matchup well and dominate in it, versus the best sheik player who ever lived (well, besides Plup I guess). Also Vectorman pioneered a ton of the techniques Amsa brought out competitively. He has an old combo video, Eggstinction. He even did a sequel to it.

Bonus, on the 20XX thing, it was Hax’s joke originally, he could have mentioned how Mango perpetually snubbed Hax, and even beat Hax’s Fox using Captain Falcon.

But hey, it’s reasonably good coverage. I agree with a lot of the gist of it, even if being a part of the scene I know there’s more to the stories. I just hate this guy’s guts for his first two videos, and looking at his uploads, probably a lot of others he’s made.

Instinctively, I want to say it’s not theater as purely a kneejerk reaction, given you know my bias against that sort of crap, but a lot of what he’s repeating are stories by this point. A lot of what circulates in the smash scene is essentially stories, which is part of why following Smash is so interesting. Though not quite theater, because these are real games at some point, played with an intention to win, to clutch it out. They aren’t art like theater is, even the stories of them aren’t art, but yeah, they’re interesting.

What do you think of this analysis on super smash bros melee?

Someone linked it to me already. Not a fan. The writing is cringey and lacks perspective for why a lot of things in Melee work the way they do. That and the author is a little shit.

http://smashfts.com/2015/02/09/melee-is-an-accident-i-disagree/

Melee certainly wasn’t intended to be played the way it is, however a lot of what enables it to be played that way was on the implementations of the game designer. Dash dancing works in part because they wanted a smooth transition from a standing animation to a dashing animation, and wanted some leniency on the dash direction before players would do the fancy long turnaround animation from being committed to the full run.

Smash Direction influence is hella technical, and hasn’t been removed until Smash 4 practically nerfed it out of existence. The idea that the C-stick should buffer automatic SDI and out prioritize the control stick for the privilege? That the crouch state should subtract some knockback? Perfect shields that reflect projectiles? Variable density light shields? There is a lot of complex shit going on in melee that was entirely the decision of the developers. They included a crazy walljump mechanic in the vein of super metroid that is difficult to input and Young Link’s target test is reliant on. They decided Fox and Falco’s shines should be capable of being jumped out of. They decided that the C-stick should buffer all your shield options, including jump. A friend told me an easy way to get frameperfect wavedash out of shield, by buffering jump on the C-stick when you’re in shield stun.

They decided that throws should have weight independent knockback, but vary the length of the throw animation based on the weight of the character so weight determines frame advantage. They decided to make landing animations shorter if you land at the top of your jump arc, and to allow you to drop through platforms when your shield is up if you press within the right range, and make it faster than normal platform drops too.

I had that one topic idea a while back that great games make for great glitches, and Melee is a shining example of that. If you compare to say PlayStation All-Stars, you can see the smash bros developers put a ludicrous amount of detail into how every system functions, in such a way that enables a wide range of possibilities. This is why people are finding out new possibilities this late into the game, like Z-perfect shield, or Wavedash forward into PC drop (PC drop is walking forwards then turning around so the momentum will slide you off the ledge for a grab), or actually bringing yoshi’s light shield and parry into use. It’s why Armada could bring out an underpowered character like young link and beat hungrybox’s fox with it. Plup is still pioneering the reaction tech chase with Sheik right now (not that it wasn’t done before, just not as well).

Calling it purely an accident is underselling the game.