Gaming
esports
Chronicling the evolution of movement in Super Smash Bros.
Character movement in Smash Bros. is central to the series, and has evolved with each release. Ahead of Ultimate's launch, we look back at how the mechanics have shaped the game as we know it today.
For almost 20 years, Nintendo have trickled out new installments to their successful Super Smash Bros. series, and for just as long we've been consumed with excitement for each release. It's unlikely that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate could dethrone the beloved Melee, but as December 7 approaches, elation amongst the Smash community is palpable.
Of course, this has everything to do with the huge amount of updates and refreshes that Ultimate brings to the series, the largest of which looks to involve the characters movement. The newest Smash looks set to shake up just how characters move around the game's various stages, an important component of competitive Smash. To understand just why these changes will have such an impact on the series, though, we need to run back down memory lane, and see just how the series has evolved with each iteration.
Laying a foundation
Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64 may have been the first in the series, establishing the all-star format, but playing today it feels nothing like the games that would follow it later. It's much slower, for a start, and it lacks a lot of the complexities found in later Smash titles.
"With 64, it's a lot harder to find [its high-level metagame in the mechanics of later Smash titles]," says Jestise 'MVD' Negron, a player who specialises in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Smash 4. "That game was so different compared to every other Smash game."
While the movement in Smash 64 feels slower than its successors, "It's not much to do with hardware," says Michael ‘Nintendude’ Brancato, a Smash 64 and Melee player. "It's all just the game engine and mechanics." 'Nintendude' does mention that mechanics from later entries, like smash directional influence and Z-cancelling, can be found in the original, but there are quite a few differences between their appearances. In later games, smash directional influence (SDI) allows a player to nudge themselves away from the enemy during a multi-hit attack. Yet in 64, SDI can be used to "trick the game into giving you a wallbounce for survival", meaning it could easily save you a match.
Smash 64 also lacks several high level tactics that its successors have, such as wavedashing. This difference is crucial, as we'll discuss below. Those same mechanics give the series a certain speed. Smash 64 lays a general framework for future entries, but as far as professional playstyles go, its impact and metagame don't carry over. 64 just doesn't play the same the rest.
Melee added some complex mechanics to Smash
© Nintendo
Adding some complexity
In the wake of Smash 64's slower style, Super Smash Bros. Melee on the Nintendo GameCube is where competitive play truly flourished. Melee introduced a few high level mechanics that would set it apart from its Nintendo 64 predecessor, and later sequels. 17 years later, its professional scene is stronger than ever, thanks to its speed and movement techniques, and it's still looked at as the gold standard in the series for those reasons.
Away from moving your character around the stage in a regular fashion, Melee added some interesting and complex techniques that would raise the bar for competitive play. For example, there's wavedashing – a technique where players hop into the air, then quickly air-dodge diagonally into the ground. When a character dashes, they're locked out of using specific attacks, grabs, and shields. Yet when wavedashing, the game believes the player is standing still, despite being in motion. As a result, wavedashes don't lock the same options as dashing.
Wavedashing can be used to quickly grab the stage
© Nintendo
According to Melee professional James 'Swedish Delight' Liu, the term wavedash is somewhat of a buzzword in the community. It's not as useful in moment-to-moment gameplay as one would think, and it isn't crucial for every character, situation, or player. For many, dash-dancing is what really sets Melee apart. In essence, a dash-dance is when a player dashes forward, and then dashes backward immediately, repeated ad nauseam.
If you imagine the areas you can attack while standing still, you'd see an arc in front of your character. With dash-dancing, that arc becomes a circle around your body and across the length of your dash. Since Melee's dashing is incredibly quick, players can cover wide areas with simplicity.
"You're able to dash backwards while you're in the middle of your dash animation," explains Swedish Delight. "In Melee, every character has a different dash length. That can range from short to really long,and because of that dash length, they can move backwards incredibly fast."
One example of dash-dancing, a beloved technique from Melee
© Nintendo
A longer dash doesn't mean a slower one – in fact, it means you'd be covering more ground in the same time. With that, dash-dancing becomes a mindgame. You trot back and forth, daring foes to push into your territory.
This plays into Melee's system of momentum preservation, as 'Nintendude' explains. "A dash jump with Captain Falcon actually feels like a dash jump, and he maintains his running speed going into it. This is what makes aerial and ground movement flow together seamlessly. In other Smash games, momentum is typically not preserved from ground to air, and vice versa."
Brawl slowed down the tempo after Melee's fast combat
© Nintendo
Changing the tempo
The speed and precise inputs of Melee are a turn-off to some players: they encourage quick, combo-based fights. With Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the series began to slow back down. Brawl dropped mechanics like directional air-dodging, which in turn removed wavedashing. Fighters fall slowly, with a floaty feel, and their forward dash momentum dies during a jump.
Other dash aspects were adjusted, too. "When you dash-dance in Brawl, you don't go anywhere," says pro Brawl and Smash 4 player Ramin 'Mr. R' Delshad. "If you're dash-dancing, you're almost in one place, and you just turn around over and over again." Brawl also added an infamous trip mechanic: characters have a one percent chance to trip and sit uselessly on the ground when they dash.
Marth does a few quick dashes then trips on Final Destination
© Nintendo
'Mr. R' and 'MVD' both point out that Brawl doesn't focus on combo attacks. Instead, the game relies on stray hits from neutral attacks. "In Brawl, that neutral interaction was very important," 'MVD' explains. "Every hit was very much earned, as opposed to Melee, where if you got a grab or something, everything else that followed was pretty flowchart-y.
"That combo system isn't there," he adds. "This made Brawl more focused on walking instead of running, and being slow as opposed to being fast. You could still be fast in the game, but your defense was the shining point."
Fine-tuning the speed
Brawl's competitive scene never rose to the same heights as Melee, and as it fizzled, players longed for a faster fighting style. Nintendo answered those laments with the fourth game in the series: Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. It's speedier than Brawl, but slower than Melee – partially because dash-dancing didn't return – and while Smash 4 removed the tripping mechanic, it did nothing to extend the initial dash lengths of its roster. Smash 4's dash-dancing still results in a fighter quickly turning round over and over.
One new, interesting technique rose in its stead, however – perfect pivoting. To pull off a perfect pivot, a player must dash one direction and then input the other direction for one quick frame. This gives the initial movement of the dash, but changes your direction back the other way, stopping further momentum. It's used almost like a miniature roll, but any attack can be performed out of it.
"It greatly helps with spacing," 'MVD' points out. "And it can help as a combo extender. Things like that, it’s not crucial and necessary, but it's nice to have that option."
"Movement-wise, we were lacking in the beginning," recalls 'Mr. R'. "Everything was static. Over the course of the next year or two, people found out about things like perfect pivoting, and those character-specific options. The game became much faster and fluid to look at."
Bringing it all together
Most players have been quick to discuss Ultimate's upcoming meta. 'Mr. R', for example, tells us that almost every character feels faster than in Smash 4, while the game relies less on combo attacks.
But while Ultimate is built on the framework of Smash 4, it uses three notable mechanics: wavedashing, dash-dancing, and the ability to use any attack out of a dash. While the dash-dance has changed from past iterations, and the wavedash doesn't seem as useful, these alterations have their merits.
"I think they've really combined Melee and Smash 4, in terms of movement," explains 'MVD'. "Your wavedashing is kind of there, your dash-dancing is there. It feels like Smash 4 dash-dancing, but acts like Melee."
'MVD' again points out that Melee's dance required precise inputs, while Smash 4's dance covered no distance. Ultimate finds a middle ground. "They made it simple enough that anyone can do it," he adds. "But it's mentally complex in what you can do with it. That's the nod to Melee and Smash 4, individually."
Ultimate won't be as fast as Melee, and it can never replace it, but it does bring favorite old mechanics and styles that will make most Smash fans salivate. It's pulling bits and pieces from Smash's history, and tossing them into a single game. 'Swedish Delight', 'Mr. R', and 'MVD' all agree on this, and as we look back on the movement techniques in every Super Smash Bros., that lineage becomes clear, and showcases that Ultimate looks to have the best of every game to date.
