Smash 4 Match Analysis, Sets 1 & 2

Since I play a whole bunch of Smash 4 online throughout the week, I figured I'd put some of that toward a productive purpose. In the following videos, you'll see some random 1v1 match-ups in For Glory that I played. They're a best of three. I set my name tag as "2 out of 3" in an effort to let my opponent know I won't be sticking around long and to hopefully get them to pick their strongest fighter. I've picked my two strongest fighters as well, Bowser and Dr. Mario. Win or lose, I committed to uploading the first two sets I played and then attempting to briefly outline what happened, what went right and what went wrong. Interested? Then take a look!

SET 1

Let's address a couple things off the bat: I play with the game music off. Listening to the same music for too long annoys me in general, but I also do this to help focus. Smash has a lot of audio cues you can use to help time your own moves and avoid an opponent's moves. Also, looking back on most of my videos, I become keenly aware that I jump way too much, especially upon approach. It's better than rolling too much, but not much better.

Anyway, I'm very comfortable with Dr. Mario, I think I have the most mobility with him and familiarity with his options in most situations. Smash fans will immediately tell I'm not a pro, but I do try to improve (that's the point of this article!). A reliance on Down-B is key for a lot of my set-ups and for positioning, as is Pill sniping recovering opponents, although I tend to flub my attempts at Caping their recovery moves correctly. 

I don't do so good a job at landing my Forward-Air, I don't pressure often enough with Pills in the neutral game (although I tend to fight too close-up for that to work well), I flub an Up-B reversal at 2:45, and at 2:02 I flub a Down-B input that came out as a Side-B (that gets me a lot).

The opponent wasn't too strong in this video, so I began trying for less conventional kill moves toward the end. He ups his game in match 2, however.

Now we get into the core of some of my problems. I tend to struggle a lot with Captain Falcon in For Glory. In my defense, Falcon does have an advantage on stages without platforms (i.e., all of For Glory) since his high mobility means he can just wreck people who are coming back down to the stage as their options are severely limited. Falcon also excels at punishing air dodges and spot dodges by feigning an approach then using his speed to come in for a for a crazy dash grab or an attack while you're vulnerable.

I've counter acted a lot of that by relying more on moving away rather than dodging (or rolling), but that means I need to know how and where to move. It puts a lot more pressure on you to deal with Falcon than it does for Falcon to deal with you, but them's the brakes! Falcon gives a lot of people trouble outside of the professional realm, and I'm no exception.

I miss all of my recovery Capes (despite having some HUGE opportunities), and I get up from ledge RIGHT into his F-Smash twice! But I like to think I made up for that by staring down a Falcon Punch by knowing how to stand inches away from it safely (at 1:05) . Falcon whiff!

Well, after scoring a solid win with Falcon, my opponent chooses the much less scary Falco. I mean, Falco can be good but you've got to be pretty good to make him work. This match was a bit odd, however. I don't think he really know how to pressure correctly with Falco and then he spent a good deal of the match just rolling around and air dodging. I just began hard-reading at some point. But hey, we take those.

SET 2

Next up is an interesting match up, especially in For Glory where Little Mac can potentially do some real harm against people at my skill level if they know what they're doing (again, no platforms helps his high mobility). But then again, I'm playing Bowser this time. Little Mac famously has a ton of super armor frames on, like, half of his moveset (check out the insanity at 1:10!) which makes him tricky to punish if you're not very familiar with how to do it. But Bowser has passive super armor that keeps him from flinching to very weak attacks (like Little Mac's jab combo), which I use to some good effect by Down-B-ing out of his attack (at 1:07).

Like with Dr. Mario's Down-B, I like Bowser's Up-B for punishing landings, spot dodges, to gain positioning and just generally wrack up damage. Despite my opponent not being super great, I manage to eat a Neutral-B KO punch. Unfortunately for him, I'm a pretty patient player that won't typically fall for Counter spamming.

Bowser Bomb claims another shield at 0:37 and the rest is fairly standard bait-and-grab stuff, which Bowser excels at. Also, don't underestimate the range of Bowser's Forward-Air. That stuff will put a lot of people to bed early if they don't know any better.

Sadly, not as good an opponent as the first one, but that's For Glory Little Macs for ya!

LOOK WHO CAME:

Dr Mel