Tag Archives: Just sayin’

Thoughts on Smash 4 (3DS Demo version)

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Last Friday, the Nintendo 3DS demo of Super Smash Bros. 3DS was released to the public. Luckily, I was able to obtain it earlier thanks to a special giveaway for Platinum members. Now that it’s been about a week since I’ve played it, I thought I’d write about my first impressions.

The Ledge System is GREAT

As someone who hates every ledge mechanic in the previous iterations of the series, I love how the ledges work in this game. You can’t grab the edge to stop someone else from grabbing it, and you can’t regain invincibility unless you touch the ground and then re-grab the ledge (I actually don’t know if you regain it after being attacked). I really like this system. It forces more off-stage play if you want early KO’s, otherwise you’re stuck fishing for KO’s on-stage.

Pivot Canceling

If you push the other direction while dashing, you do a little slide animation before starting to dash in the other direction. During that slide animation, you can cancel that into an Forward Smash, Up Smash, or Forward Tilt. Forward Tilt and Forward Smash are the most useful applications of this mechanic, and it’s a great way to space your opponent while ground. It gives characters like Mario and Pikachu some neat ways to keep space, especially with how fast their Forward Tilts are.

Combos are (kind of) real

Some characters have good combos (coughMariocough), others have a couple strings. However, combos do exist due to hit stun being longer and unable to be canceled like in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, despite how small they may be.

Air Dodging sucks (YES!!)

Air Dodging produces some serious landing lag when you hit the ground with it. +1 for offense.

It’s fast

Since Super Smash Bros. Brawl was quite slow, this game feels much faster. You feel like you have greater control over your character and you feel more rewarded for performing high-execution techniques quickly (not that there are many…). I think the speed is perfect. It felt much better than the Best Buy demo.

It looks good

This is, without a doubt, the best-looking Smash game I’ve ever played, even on the 3DS. It looks fluid, feels fluid, and the effects are awesome. The animations are also great.

Villager can pocket everything

And it’s godlike!

If you haven’t yet, download this demo and start playing! The game comes out in less than two weeks – better practice up!!

Just Sayin’.

Frozen Yogurt Tier List REDUX

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DISCLAIMER: This tier list reflects my opinion on how good these shops are, and are in no way based on any sort of statistic or research. Also these are based on the shops I frequent.

It’s been over a year since I created my personal Frozen Yogurt Tier List. Since then, I’ve come across some new places that have somewhat wildly changed the rankings, and after some re-evaluations and debate with my girlfriend, I’ve come up with the new tier list for this delectable treat. I won’t be going into as much detail as last time for each decision I made.

Rankings were made based on (in order of importance):

– Quality of Yogurt (basically flavor)
– Topping selection
– Gluten-free choices (most of the yogurt in S-Tier through B-Tier are primarily gluten free)
– Price

And now, the new, improved, FROZEN YOGURT TIER LIST!!!

S-TIER

1. Hype Walgreen’s – The best yogurt I’ve ever had, and it’s at some random two-story Walgreen’s in Chicago! Bonus points for each sized cup being flat priced and PIE CRUST PIECES. (LOCAL?)

2. Orange Leaf – They have this new smoothie thing now and it’s AMAZING. Also they finally added cookie dough as a topping. (CHAIN)

3. Berry Yo – The original #1. Still amazing. (LOCAL)

A-TIER

4. Skinny Sweet – I actually just tried this a couple days ago, and their fruity flavors were so good that it shot past everything into the top of A-Tier. Pretty low price, too. (CHAIN)

5. Red Mango – The classic. Still great quality yogurt, good price, but their cookie dough is not nearly as good anymore. (CHAIN)

6. Cherry Berry – Good flavors, decent price, an amazing selection of toppings. (CHAIN)

B-TIER

7. Forever Yogurt – A TON of flavors (the most I’ve ever seen in one store). (CHAIN)

8. Yogurt Land – This place used to have too many gluten-laden flavors, but it looks like they’ve mostly rectified that. Bonus for the best white chocolate chips I’ve ever had. (CHAIN)

9. Cocomero – Too little toppings, but the yogurt is good. (CHAIN)

C-TIER

10. Yogurt Plus – Really good fruit flavors and has gelato, but has a lot of gluten flavors, the other flavors aren’t too great (probably the worst Birthday Cake I’ve had), and the toppings were really scarce. (CHAIN)

11. Menchie’s – I gave this one a second chance. It’s better, but still lacking in gluten free flavors and the yogurt is still sub-par for being so pricey! (CHAIN)

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And there you have it, the new and improved tier list! I’ll probably update this in another year, hopefully with more new places that’ll shake up the tier list again like Hype Walgreen’s did.

Just Sayin’.

Fundamentals

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Before I get into the meat of this post, I just want to do a quick little update. I hopped on the Yo craze a few weeks ago (if you don’t know what Yo is, go look it up!) and just saw made an account for this blog. No longer will you have to wait via email or social media updates to know when the next post is out – if you have Yo and add this name to your list of Yo contacts, a Yo will be sent out (with the url to the blog) from the account! The name is JUSTSAYINBLOG!

Okay, time to get to the real post!

Time to turn on the heels of my last post about execution. I want to talk about something that I see a lot of new players in any competitive game I’ve watched struggle with. Because Super Smash Bros. is the primary game series I compete in, I’m going to use that as an example.

Imagine that you’re a new player for Super Smash Bros. Melee. You’ve been watching the pros for a while, and dream of doing all the crazy technical stuff that they can do. You start to practice wave dashing, dash dancing, L-canceling, ledge hops, jump cancels, ledge cancels. You go to a tournament, ready to show off your skills, and some guy who doesn’t do any of that tech stomps you.

What happened? You’ve become proficient in all the technical skills required of the game, and this guy didn’t even L-cancel his aerials! I’ll tell you what happened – that guy who doesn’t L-cancel has a greater understanding of the fundamentals of Super Smash Bros..

I think a big problem with getting into some competitive games is that there’s so much tech to learn that you become overwhelmed and focus on learning the tech instead of learning the fundamentals of that game. Instead of learning how to properly space aerials, zone, and maintain an advantageous stage position, new players are doing tech that even I can’t do, but they have no idea when to use it correctly – they just kinda flash around the stage and get beaten.

Every game is different in their specific physics and tech, but one thing remains constant: the need for good spacing, zoning, and stage position control. Every Super Smash Bros. game requires these skills to be a good player. Once you learn the fundamentals, you can transition between games because you have the option to play smart. You have the ability to take new techniques learned and apply them in a way that helps you instead of hinders you. As a kid, I learned how to wavedash in Melee and lost a lot because I had no idea when to use it. I just thought using it and knowing how to execute it would make me better. Then I came from Brawl to Melee and Project M once I had been playing Brawl competitively for a few years, and while I struggled with execution at first, I immediately realized the effectiveness dash dancing and wavedashing had on maintaining stage control and zoning and simply thought about when the application of those techniques would achieve those goals best.

Fundamentals are the most important thing to learn when approaching any activity, whether it be writing, competitive gaming, sports, programming…you name it! Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals, all the techniques you’ve been practicing will fall into place.

And you’ll find yourself succeeding.

Just Sayin’.

Closet Training

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Now that I’ve been back from teaching at summer camp, I’ve thrown myself back into my local competitive Smash scene at EXP Gaming (link to their Facebook page at the bottom of this post). They hold a weekly tournament for Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Project M called “Wavedash Wednesdays”, and while I haven’t been there in months, I’ve been able to keep up with Chicagoland’s better players by playing CPU’s every day. But what, some players might ask, do I practice?

Execution, or as I call it: “Closet Training”!

I’ll admit it – my neutral game isn’t always on-point because I don’t play with people a lot. Sometimes I revert to bad habits and spacing in neutral, but I make up for it in combo and edge guard execution, meaning my punishes are hard and I generally convert a hit confirm into really big damage or a KO. Playing CPU’s is notoriously bad for neutral and habit-forming because you become accustomed to fighting an opponent that generally reacts the same way to different stimulus. You can even manipulate a CPU with movement to KO itself.

What you can do with a CPU is practice DI follow-ups on combos, bad recovery edge-guarding, and tech-chasing.

A CPU Marth and a human-controlled Marth both only have 3 options out of a tech: tech in place, tech roll right, or tech roll left. This ends up being really useful. You can practice reacting to different rolls and techs in place on the whole cast as CPU’s, and when it actually happens in a tournament, you’ll be ready for any of the 3 options available to that human-controlled Marth player.

A CPU will DI horribly , but sometimes they’ll DI incredibly well and do techs you wouldn’t dream your opponents could perform. But if they ever do, you’ll know if you can follow up such good DI and if you can, how to follow it up the most effectively depending on the character. You get to try out a ton of different combo scenarios and test your reactions on DI mix-ups because even CPU opponents will change their DI.

You’ll be able to test your reactions on hit confirms when both of you are attacking each other. You can see match-up specific interactions for moves. Can your character’s move beat a certain character’s move at this range? Can you edge guard against a move effectively?

The point I’m trying to make here is that, while you can’t really practice your neutral game solo, you can practice your execution game, which is just as important as neutral. You can practice your edge game so that you don’t suicide during a tournament match because you tried wave landing from ledge to get an invincible tilt or grab in to punish an opponent’s attempt at edge guarding you. You can practice your combo and punish game to make sure you get the most out of every hit you make. High-level Smash involves being able to capitalize on every situation that favors you – you can practice all of those situations solo.

Even if you play with others and work on neutral, I recommend players who really want to start placing high to play for a half hour every day and focus on execution and combo game. You’ll be surprised how much more mileage you get once your punish game is refined. No one wins games in Melee or Project M simply be winning in neutral for 5 minutes. That’s only half the battle, and sometimes makes the difference between a win or a loss in tournament.

Closet Training helped me finally achieve one of my goals in Smash, which was reaching top 5 at a tournament. Think of how much it can help you, too!

Just Sayin’.

Coins in Mario Kart 8

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After 1 month, I’m finally done with summer camp! And while it was an awesome month, I’m glad to be back home, sitting at my computer and typing this blog post up. I was originally going to just do a little update, but I’ve been wanting to write about this since I left for camp: coins in Mario Kart 8.

I’ve enjoyed almost every game in the Mario Kart series since its inception, and Mario Kart 8 is the first one that I don’t really enjoy playing. I’ve only really played it once. There are a number of reasons why I don’t like this game (all gameplay related – the visuals and music are phenomenal, I think the biggest reason is the re-inclusion of coins from Super Mario Kart.

For those of you who don’t know, in Mario Kart 8 you can have up to 10 coins. These coins increase your maximum top speed as well as your boost speed. If you are hit or you fall off the map, you lose 3 coins. This opens up a couple problems right off the bat:

Speedier Karts/Bikes/Characters are better:

I love Toad. He’s one of my favorite Mario characters. However, he’s a light character, so he’s pretty slow. Normally, this is offset by having better acceleration and off road speed. With coins in play, having less coins than a speedier character/kart almost always results in me trailing farther and farther behind. Without coins at least I can try and get some items or do some skillful drifting to catch up, but that’s more difficult when you have 4 coins and they have 7 and are cruising on ahead considerably faster than you.

Rubber Banding (or same place syndrome):

Because of how significant the speed boost is from coins, the rubber banding from items is diminished in its effectiveness. Given two characters of same character and vehicle, one with 10 coins can go about the same speed as one with 0 coins and a Star/Mushroom. That’s absolutely ridiculous, and can sometimes lead to what I call Same Place Syndrome. Let’s say you’re in 2nd place, and you get hit with a red shell and a green shell at 10 coins. You now have 4, and people speed on by you with more coins. If this happens, you may find yourself in 6th/7th/8th place for the rest of the race. This has happened to me and a bunch of people I’ve observed playing a lot, and it’s incredibly frustrating when you feel like the items can’t help propel you forward just because you’ve got less coins.

Conversely, if you’re in first with 10 coins, sometimes you can rocket so far ahead of the pack (assuming they’re not collecting coins like you are) that being hit with two blue shells won’t even come close to putting you in 2nd, especially since one of the items you get commonly in first place are a coin item that gives you two coins.

The first lap becomes a coin collecting contest:

The first lap, I think, is pretty crucial. The players that collect more coins will stay at the top (unless combo’d hard by items), and those that don’t will find themselves struggling until they collect more for the whole race.

It’s disappointing that a game I was really looking forward to has, in my opinion, an awful mechanic for what the series stands for. It looks great, plays great (controls are amazing), and has a memorable soundtrack, but coins really take a lot of fun out of the game for me. I will say that I think coins are an amazing addition to Time Trials, as I think strategic collection of coins leads to increased depth in that area, but otherwise, coins need to go.

Just Sayin’.

My Super Smash Bros Wii U/3DS demo consensus

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E3 has come and gone, the Super Smash Bros. Invitational has passed, and I got to play both the 3DS and Wii U versions of  the new Super Smash Bros. game (which I will be labeling as “Smash 4“). Here’s my take:

NOTE: This game is not in its final stage. It is still in development! Mechanics can (and probably will) change.

What is it like?

It’s like Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Brawl). It felt less floaty and faster, but it definitely retained the Brawl feel. The music and the overall look is great. The move streaks are an awesome touch, and I’m loving some of the new characters. I only got to play as Kirby (my old Brawl main) and Villager, but I had fun playing both!

Also Smash Run is going to be the best mode of all time.

Game Mechanics:

The Good:

– A lot of people were complaining about aerial landing lag, but I didn’t see a lot of it. With both Villager and Kirby, landing on the ground with an aerial felt exactly like it did in Brawl. I was still able to link Kirby’s Back Air -> Forward Tilt, which requires little landing lag on the Back Air. Some characters have a lot of landing lag (See: Marth), but overall the game didn’t look like a total lag fest when landing with aerials. I have no idea why everyone’s complaining when it seems to be only a few characters.

– The hit lag, while more than Brawl, feels really satisfying when you hit. Grabbing someone also feels satisfying.

– Air dodging into the ground produces significant lag. This is great because it used to be an incredibly safe option in Brawl, and now it can be punished. Also they appear to be much shorter, which is great.

– The jab finishers are really cool. I hated all the rapid-jabs, so I’m glad they’re gone.

– Hit Stun can’t be canceled with an air dodge. Combos do exist!

– The new ledge mechanics to prevent sharking are cool. I’m actually on board with the whole “kick-off” mechanic, too.

The Bad: 

– No dash dancing. I think this is something Smash 4 needs so that the primary movement isn’t air-based.

– Throws are really odd. It’s very hard to follow up with them and it doesn’t really put the thrown opponent in a bad spot so it feels like they’re always the less superior choice. A few characters, however (MegaMan and Villager are the two that come to mind) have some follow ups out of throws.

– KO’ing takes a very long time. I saw people live up to 150% from Smash attacks.

– Auto sweet spot ledges with Up B.

And that’s really all I have to say about it. Overall, I’m really hopefully for Smash 4. I was worried I wasn’t going to like it, but after watching the Invitational and playing both versions myself, I can confidently say that I’m very excited for this game!

Just Sayin’