Smash 4 is likely the most balanced Super Smash Bros. game to date. With many patches since the game’s release, many top-tier fighters have become less of a threat while many low-tier fighters have become more viable. Sure, there are still characters that are arguably better than others, and there are characters which serve a favorable matchup towards others. In this game, after the introduction of DLC, there is a total of 58 playable characters including the Mii Fighters. So with a roster of this size, there is a lot of variation within the characters that people choose to play as. Despite the game's impressive roster and attempts at balancing, there are still a few characters that get a bad reputation for various reasons as well, even beyond character viability. People who choose to play these few characters are unfortunately ostracized in a way at tournaments and friendlies alike. This is, unfortunately, the case, but it does happen. Let’s take a moment to discuss these characters which yield such a bad reputation, and why many members of the community might hold animosity towards the players of this character.
NESS
The psychic boy from the town of Onett from the EarthBound series. Ness is certainly a runner-up for characters with a bad rep. As a Ness main myself, I feel I may hold some insight into this issue. I believe the large portion of hatred generated towards this character can be summed up in one word — back-throw… Ness’s back-throw is by far the strongest in the game in the most current patch. It can kill as early as 80% to 90% given the right conditions. It’s not so much the kill power which has the community in gripes, but how easy the setup to the kill is to perform. It’s just a simple grab. One button away to win, despite Ness actually having a relatively small grab range. In the defensive game that is Smash 4, grab is a strong option, and it is an option that Ness players especially will try to employ very frequently.
When considering that Ness’s neutral game revolves around getting grabs, not just to kill but to start easy-to-make throw combos as well, people may view Ness players as one-trick ponies. He also is very floaty in-game, thus making him more difficult to combo than other characters. Even I will admit that Ness is one of the easiest characters to pick up and play as, perhaps only being rivals by Mario, Captain Falcon, and Cloud. Ness has a very low skill floor, that is to say, it doesn’t take much practice to play quite well as Ness at average-level play. Ness also has an annoyingly fast neutral-air to keep opponents at bay as well as a slew of irritating projectiles with PK Fire and PK Thunder. In summary, many members of the community might view Ness-players as those who cheated their way to the top. Where tournament results don’t reflect actual skill level, if say they were playing a different character.
SONIC
“GOTTA GO FAST!” Despite this very popular catchphrase of the blue hedgehog, Sonic, his gameplay is often anything but. Before I get into that, I believe that a lot of the Sonic hate in the community stems from the early days of the game. In the beginning, Sonic had a back-throw that exceeded even Ness’s in kill power. Sonic has the speed and movement options to get grabs easily as well. His back-throw was nerfed early on in a balance patch, but in my opinion, this began the hate stream of Sonic as a character similarly to Ness’s. Back on topic, Sonic also has a reputation for timing people out. A timeout is when the match timer ends before either player's stocks are depleted. In the most popular format for singles, there is a 2-stock, 6-minute match. Popularized by the famous player StaticManny early on, Sonic’s great speed and keepaway game allowed him to remain alive while the clock ran out. Whoever has the most stocks or least percent damage when the time runs out is declared the victor. Winning by alternative condition is often frowned upon in any game, unfortunately. Players may feel like they were cheated out of a fair match. There is also the frustration and fatigue that comes along with playing such a long, monotonous game that can test a competitor’s patience.
Another factor to consider is how enjoyable a match is to watch from a spectator’s standpoint. Many tournaments and popular players have a live stream of some of the matches being played out, and these streams create revenue. The number of current viewers is likely to diminish if they are not watching something they consider enjoyable. A strong example of this in action is when another strong Sonic player, True Blue was explicitly told, “No we are not putting you on stream because you play Sonic.” at CEO 2016. This is just detrimental. Playing on stream is essential for strong players. It allows them to get popularized with time in the spotlight; to put their name out there and become well-known and hopefully sponsored as well. To deny players this privilege because of the character they choose to use in the game is in very bad flavor.
ROSALINA & LUMA
Protector of the cosmos with the help of the slew of her starry children, Rosalina & Luma is considered by many to be one of, if not the, strongest characters in today’s current meta-game. As a Ness main myself, I have experienced my own personal frustrations against this particular character due to her ability to use her Gravitational Pull move to absorb the PK Thunder Ness uses to recover with, thus being able to instantly kill me if I need to get back on stage. The negativity towards Rosalina & Luma players goes far beyond the PTSD of Ness and Lucas players, however. The unique quirk about this character is that she is comprised of two entities, the goddess herself, Rosalina, and the puppet character, Luma. This is not the first time in Smash Bros. where there has been a single character comprised of two bodies, as seen in Melee and Brawl with Ice Climbers. The key difference here is that when one of Ice Climbers was killed, the other would have to do without until they too die and are both respawned on their second stock. Rosalina on the other hand only has to wait just 13 seconds for her companion to respawn, giving her competition only a small window for a one-on-one fight.
As I mentioned before, Smash 4 is a largely defensive game. What makes the Rosalina pair so great is that she highly benefits from her opponent playing defensively. Luma can act as a passive meatshield while Rosalina also has her Gravitational Pull to nullify projectiles. Luma is essentially a permanently disjointed hitbox, making it exceptionally hard for her opponent to approach. These factors create the Great Wall of Rosaluma. With these things in consideration, Rosalina & Luma also has the ability to time out her opponent much like Sonic, however, this is less common as Rosalina also has an incredibly powerful up-air to finish off stocks early. Furthermore, she can punish people for taking common options. Luma is able to hit people out of grabbing Rosalina, and with extremely high knockback itself, people can find themselves losing a stock for breaking through the Great Wall and getting a grab on her. Is Rosalina & Luma a strong character? Certainly. Is she too strong and even “broken?” Well, there are plenty of players that certainly believe so.
LITTLE MAC
How could I talk about characters that receive a lot of hate and generate salt without mentioning the mini boxer from Punch Out, Little Mac? Little Mac is infamous in this game. Again stemming from the early days of Smash 4, before the meta was currently developed, Little Mac’s incredibly powerful ground game backed up by super armor on his smash attacks allows Little Mac to be an extremely powerful threat in casual play. His power was popularized on For Glory, the Nintendo service players can use to fight against each other online. With the often shady connection and lackluster response time that’s found in online play, Little Mac’s safe, fast, and devastatingly power attacks grew to be the bane of many For Glory players’ existence. Little Mac also has the move KO Punch, which is an occasional all-or-nothing attack gradually charged from a meter than can usually instantly kill an opponent if the Mac player manages to land it. Like Ness, Little Mac also has the easy-to-play factor going against him as well, so the Macs ran rampant in the early days of this game. Despite being ranked fairly low on many modern tier lists, Little Mac players still receive arguably the most toxicity than any other. I can think of no better way to drive this point home than leaving you with some accounts of personal experiences from my good friend and Little Man main himself, Nat.
A good example from Nat’s tournament experience is when he was told from another competitor that they “can’t root for Little Mac on principle.” Having these self-imposed boycotts of support for certain players based on their main is an incredible display of poor sportsmanship. Nat also claims to have heard people say, “all [Little Mac] has to do is down-smash at the legde; it’s so stupid.” Not only is there the same two-frame window to punish a character’s attempt to grab the ledge as any other character in the roster has, but this isn’t even a good description of Little Mac gameplay in general. Little Mac is based around his strong neutral game on stage and safe options, countered be having the de facto worst recovery in the game. This is an example of how people are blinded by their own salt in their eyes. Being explicitly called “cancer” for his choice of main character, it’s no surprise that Nat had gone as far to keep small salt packets in his pockets to bring to tournaments and give out to disrespectful players after he beats them in a match.
All in all, when it comes to character-based toxicity and salt within the community, I can’t help but find it appalling. Players may feel like they lost a game based on the character they were fighting against rather than their opponent being a more skilled player than they are, but in actuality, everyone has the full ability to choose from the same roster of characters, and because someone picks a character that may be easy, have alternate win conditions, or just all around frustrating, and is able to best you and win due to those factors, well… doesn’t that make them the better player really? Show me the day when tournament results no longer matter and player skill is based on the amount of NaCl produced from your fuming rage and maybe you’ll have a better argument. In the meantime, don’t get too tired carrying all those L’s!
Sincerely,
A back-throwing Ness main
