Top 5 Most Annoying Characters in Sm4sh

Breaking down the AI, one at a time.

I recently reached a milestone in my Smash career: Train Fox against all original characters on all possible difficulties. The result? I can say I learned the lineup faster this way. I’m in no way ready to take over the competition, but I know the moves, strengths, weaknesses, and most importantly, highest annoyances of every character on the game’s roster. This has changed the way I play the game in a lot of ways.

When I picked up Sm4sh late this Spring, I was prepared to put time into it. I’ve always been very passionate about the series, and have grown my skill over the years. One night during said Spring, I became furious while playing 1v1 against my friend – Fox vs. Lucina has always been a classic matchup with him and I. I got to the point where I kept losing, and couldn’t put the game down until I won. This naturally incited me to buy a 3DS and my own copy of the game the next day, and I’ve been invested ever since.

Just as a disclaimer - this list is biased by the fact that I haven't had the pleasure of playing this game with all DLC characters and stages. These guys made learning the game a true hassle in an otherwise advantageous situation.

5. Palutena

is first because I remember having a hard time with her to some degree, but it didn’t bring out a lot of anger in me. I just died to her up-smash a lot. Also, let’s be honest, she has a deflection move, as well as a spam-y projectile. At the very least, it wasn’t fun fighting this character.

Next up is

4. Charizard.

This character has a lot of power, as well as mobility. The side-special seemed to catch me off-guard a lot. Charizard doesn’t have a lot of great moves, however, compared to the rest of the bunch. What happened, then? Well, I’ll admit that it probably didn’t help to train in a moving vehicle. I’ll also state that there is a very wide gap between difficulties 8 and 9. Difficulty 8 did not prepare me at all for 9, and it probably took me a good hour to beat him. Perhaps it was one of those bad days, but man, was that painful!

3. Luigi.

This character has some great moves that are put to use in a lot of tournaments. Most notably is the down-special. This move sort-of belongs to Mario, but Mario’s been nerfed so that his down-special can invoke nostalgia of Super Mario Sunshine. Luigi makes better use of the tornado, and the AI loves to make it stale. It also takes a lot of priority, is difficult to get out of, and its final hit box launches you. This character acted as an omen of my suffering to come.

Here’s where some salt kicks in, for sure.

2. Bowser Jr.

He has some great moves – he’s also one of the first characters I trained against, so I definitely wasn’t very good at the time. Regardless, he’s able to pull off a recovery fast and easy, and has plenty of projectiles and priority to make you put the game away for a while. It’s an incredibly sadistic situation – the worst is the grab-to-a-spam that comes with a goofy sound effect to distract you. I don’t miss playing against him at all, though I see him used by my aforementioned friend at times.

Finally,

1. Robin.

I had the unfortunate experience of learning this character halfway through my training. When left alone, the AI will charge the neutral-special to full capacity, where it can launch a quick energy beam with high launch power. This automatically posed a problem for me, so I soon tried a strategy of attempting to end the charge at all costs. Naturally, this led to a lot of shield-to-up-smash moves from the AI. The character’s recovery also involves two projectiles that potentially spike, and for my Fox, who likes to run off the edge and attempt an edge-guard just when the enemy is using its last recovery option, this spells death. Finally, the most frustrating move of Robin’s is the down-special; a highly-effective grab. The move is harder to get out of than a normal grab, and while grabbed, you take lots of damage while Robin slowly decreases their damage percentage. It’s absolutely mind-blowing that this character gets away with so much. As far as I can tell, the character has many pros, with the only con being slowness, and, occasionally, you can lose your abilities for a brief time. I was able to quickly win with this character the first few times I faced it off against my friends. I would argue that Robin is on par with Cloud, yes. It’s nonsensical.

Do you agree with this list, or is someone in the game more annoying? How? Please, by all means, let me know, because I still think Robin is the bane of my existence to this day.