Topic: Screw it. I'm making a Smash Bros. 3DS Topic!

[Khushrenada]

Because I'm a loose cannon.

And it makes sense that a 3DS game should be discussed in the Handheld forum instead of the Console forum.

I'm not only going to make one Smash topic. I'm going to make 2 others because I feel like there are a lot of aspects of this game that deserve separate discussions. One thread on the fighters/characters and another on the stages.

As for this thread, if you want to talk about the modes, challenges, tips, trophies and general feels of the game, here you go.

For me, the first time I played this game is when I bought it Friday. (Physical Media for the win!) I went trying a lot of modes, partly because of the challenges showing what I needed to do and because I was away from internet access and didn't know how to unlock things so I going by past Smash experience, I knew that playing the stadium games would be a good start along with Classic and All-Star.

I was surprised the challenge wall seemed so small but, on getting internet access again, I found out there are 3 walls and you unlock each one upon completing a wall. As well, hammers do not carry over to the next wall so if you have 3 challenges left on a wall, just use them up. I had one challenge left and 3 hammers on the first wall. So I used a hammer to move on to the next with two useless hammers now sitting there.

I've only played Smash Run a couple of times. I definitely struggled with it as I would envariably die once and have to rebuild stats before the final battle. However, I read ClexYoshi's comments about Smash Run in one of the Podcast Discussion threads and I totally get it now. She had a great write-up about it. It's funny since the first time I played Smash Run, I created a customer character to beat a challenge requirement. So, I used the items/abilities I gave the custom character and had no problem with Smash Run. However, I then just went back to using regular characters when playing and that's when it became harder. I thought those abilities items were gone after I used them the first time but I now realize it is about building a special fighter to use in Smash Run and that fighter will always have those abilities each time you play to make it easier. I'm now more excited to play Smash Run and try this out.

Right now, I'm just trying to take care of the stadium modes. As mentioned in the Console forum, I'm playing through All-Star with all characters. I've done it with about 20 characters now. Doing that really hits home how many characters there really are. I haven't even touched some characters yet like Olimar, Wii Fit Trainer, Mega Man, Lucina, Charizard, Greninja, Lucario, and others. It's crazy.

I do appreciate however that the requirements to unlock stages and characters where very simple this time around. Having played Melee just before this, unlocking takes much longer. For instance, Mewtwo requires 20 hours of Smash which you can get around by having a 4 human player smash game that you leave the system on for 5 hours and the collective time will be 20 hours. But you need to unlock all characters to unlock All-Star Mode and then beat it to get Battlefield stage. Or unlock characters through the Subspace Emissary in Brawl. With 3DS, you just have to play 110 Smash matches to unlock all characters. And the stage requirements are easy enough that you can meet them at the same time as you are playing your Smash battles. I like that.

[Mop it up]

Easy unlocks are a negative for me, I like to build towards my rewards, not have them handed to me on a platter.

[Ceric]

Honestly don't like the menu.  The mode that is the most obvious is the one I want to play the least.

Classic and All-Star are really the only modes I want to play consistently.

Smash-Run and the Customizations I could live without to be honest.  The customizations it takes to long to unlock anything for the character you want to use that is interesting.  Smash-Run is less interesting than I thought it would be.

While I like Classic I wish they would have brought back Melee's classic where they threw characters into a platformer and other things.  I also like to have Events back to.  I just think they were more tuned and interesting.

[pokepal148]

Easy unlocks are a negative for me, I like to build towards my rewards, not have them handed to me on a platter.

I don't really care. honestly i'd rather everyone be unlocked at the start.

[Adrock]

I like the accomplishment of unlocking things, but for a game like this, I'd be fine having all the characters available from the start. They try to balance it by having the characters fairly easy to unlock then the custom parts and outfits harder to unlock. That said, it's totally lame that you can get repeats and that you can't spend coins to buy these things even at a high price. If they had alts and non-Mii costumes, those could have been things to unlock. Maybe next game.

Smash Run is handicapped by its lack of options. First, the lack of online hurts the mode because for me, it isn't easy to find people to play the game against. Second, you're by yourself on the map so there's no direct interaction with other players. Why?! Third, the enemies are sometimes really difficult to kill. I'm surprised i ever make it through the first part without dying. I appreciate the effort of Smash Run, but it had the potential to be so much more.

I don't particularly care for the customization. I'm collecting the parts because sure, why not? It's something to do while running through the various modes. Ganondorf has his sword as a custom move. Trollololol.

[Khushrenada]

I forgot about Events actually which is surprising since I was just going through them in Melee. I guess the thing about events is you play them once and that's it. Once I beat it, I never bother going back. With the other modes, I'm forced to go through them to get the trophies for everyone.

I'm with Ceric on the Adventure Mode of Melee. It was one of the things that sold me and got me into Smash Bros. and other Nintendo franchises. I loved that back and forth of playing a brief mission in a characters world then battling those character and moving on to the next world. It's what inspired me to then go out and try other Nintendo games and franchises I hadn't before because the worlds looked interesting. There's just something fun about Bowser playing through a Mario level and stomping Goombas to get to the goal or Kirby sword attacking ReDeads and Like-Likes in a Zelda dungeon or Pichu running like hell on an F-Zero race track and ducking for cover before the vehicles arrive and hit him. The only problem with adventure mode is that it is long because of it. It's not as big a deal when you have 25 fighters but when you have 50 some fighters and the mode takes about 20 minutes to complete depending on difficulty, well, then it could become more of a slog and I get why they've stuck with shorter modes on future games.

Of course, Subspace Emissary was finally the chance to capitalize on the dream of having all these characters in one game by putting them in a shared world and interacting with one another. Unfortunately, the world wasn't that interesting the levels did very little to distinguish themselves or provide much fun. I just preferred watching some of the cut scenes over and over again. Then there was the fact that to get a lot of the Subspace trophies, you had to play the stages and try to snag enemies with a trophy base at the right moment to turn them into a trophy and claim them. That further lead to my dislike of that mode.

Smash Run seems to be more of a streamlining of the process. Unlike the stickers you could use to improve things for a character, we've now got all these customization choices and items you can add to a fighter. By customizing your fighter to be better in Smash Run, it is a lot easier to get more loot each time unlike the Subspace Emissary. Making it as one large single map means you don't have to play a whole bunch of uninteresting levels (just one big uninteresting one! Zing!) and you can learn it over time. While the world might be combined of enemies from all franchises into one space, I still prefer the sort of Nintendo Tour you could take in Melee's Adventure Mode.

I'm also with Ceric about the Menu's being odd on 3DS. Sometimes simple is best. Melee's menu might not be the most glamorous but it tells you what you need and is very simple to get around.

[Ceric]

With the number of characters they have doing a proper Melee Style Adventure mode would be really long but, they could do something akin to what they did with classic and have you choose 8 different worlds to progress through to complete the mode.

[Caterkiller]

I am absolutely loving this game! I didn't realize there was so much beyond Smash Run and the online modes. I'm glad characters are easy to unlock while other trophy/music/custom move challenges are the difficult ones. Don't worry Mop the Wii U version will be more difficult according to Sakurai anyway.

For me though the real fun comes from playing with people and online has not disappointed me yet! Now if anyone is texting, or using an iPad or desktop with the same wifi signal you will get lag plain and simple. I see a text come in and sure enough I get a lag spike. For the most part though I have matches with people and I swear they are in my home. Even 4 player for Glory matches have been smooth for me and when they aren't I just leave the room after that battle is done with.

I said this about Brawl and I was dead wrong, this time however I have a better eye and understanding for this type of thing and I can safely say this is the most balanced Smash since the original. There are no outright undisputed masters and lords and there are no unanimous stinkers. Some characters definitely have clear advantages than others but no one is absolutely useless so far. I expect the majority of the cast will gain some high level players using them consistently throughout the years.

I just hate the character select screen(CSS) and the stage select screen(SSS). Those missing spaces that may or may not fill in downloadable content just look ugly and over all it isn't as nice and cool a all the past games. The Wii U version looks awesome though.

[Adrock]

I'm not really lamenting the lack of event matches and Melee Adventure Mode since there's still so much to do. Sure, it would be nice to have those other modes (I expect at least Event Matches to return in the Wii U version). However, I'm having a blast running through what's there, even the infuriating Cruel Smash.

Let's start there. I spent an egregious amount of time racking up four KOs for that Challenge I haven't even seen yet (I'm still on page one). I used Ike because he's heavy and he has a counter move. Getting two KOs is pretty easy though I'd mess it up at times. Getting four KOs was much harder because they would KO me pretty soon after I scored my second KO. I could occasionally get three if I was lucky. Once I got four KOs (after maybe half an hour), I backed out of the mode and may never play it again.

I don't particularly like Target Blast, the Angry Birds-like mode. The rules were kind of murky. Depending on the move, you launch the bomb toward the targets because sometimes the force field keeps it on your platform. Last night was the first time I played it since I first got the game. I did exceptionally well with Yoshi about a week ago and I haven't been able to duplicate that success with other characters. I'll probably watch some YouTube videos of people who have some semblance of what they're doing. This is probably my second least favorite mode in the game after Cruel Smash.

I really like Home Run Contest. It's a nice distraction from the regular game. My highest score was like 2600 feet or so with Captain Falcon. I could figure out how to get over 1700 feet with most characters. I'll check YouTube at a later date for strategies.

Trophy Rush is surprisingly addictive. I rarely made back all the coins I spent for time, but it's an easy way to earn trophies. It's kind of weird that the mini-game is separated from all the other modes/mini-games. I get that it's sorted with the trophies, but it feels disconnected. The menus themselves are a bit disorganized. Not a big deal, but it's there.

I'd like to give Smash Run another chance, and not just to fulfill the requirements for the Challenge. There's just so much to do in this game that I'll get caught up in one mode for a while then I look at my clock and it's after 11:30pm.

While Super Smash Bros. for 3DS feels like a demo for the Wii U version, it's still a super fun game loaded with content. Unrelated: I haven't tried an online match yet.

[Ceric]

Heres my problem with Target Blast is that it replaced the challenge of the original Target Stages with something that's like Homerun but isn't as friendly to do.

I also am not a super fan of Trophy Rush.  I do enjoy it but, conceptually wise its another way to primarily get Trophies.  Alright, I don't really need another way to get Trophies.  In Every other version that would be fine but I have a Boat Load of characters that I like to get Customizations for and I get another way to get Trophies.

[Adrock]

Heres my problem with Target Blast is that it replaced the challenge of the original Target Stages with something that's like Homerun but isn't as friendly to do.

That's pretty apt. I preferred regular Break the Targets/Target Test. This Angry Birds knock-off is like a worse version of Home Run Contest.

I also am not a super fan of Trophy Rush.  I do enjoy it but, conceptually wise its another way to primarily get Trophies.  Alright, I don't really need another way to get Trophies.

I've found it much easier to snag trophies in this mode than the others which is to be expected since trophies are the entire point. Once I get all the trophies, I doubt I'll play Trophy Rush much, if at all again. It's addictive but shallow. It's only addictive because it gives me things. Once that well dries up, there isn't enough reason to revisit it.

[Ceric]

Heres my problem with Target Blast is that it replaced the challenge of the original Target Stages with something that's like Homerun but isn't as friendly to do.

That's pretty apt. I preferred regular Break the Targets/Target Test. This Angry Birds knock-off is like a worse version of Home Run Contest.

I also am not a super fan of Trophy Rush.  I do enjoy it but, conceptually wise its another way to primarily get Trophies.  Alright, I don't really need another way to get Trophies.

I've found it much easier to snag trophies in this mode than the others which is to be expected since trophies are the entire point. Once I get all the trophies, I doubt I'll play Trophy Rush much, if at all again. It's addictive but shallow. It's only addictive because it gives me things. Once that well dries up, there isn't enough reason to revisit it.

Yeah and there so much stuff with the Customization that I want to get that this would have been the perfect venue to do that with.

[Mop it up]

I like the accomplishment of unlocking things, but for a game like this, I'd be fine having all the characters available from the start. They try to balance it by having the characters fairly easy to unlock then the custom parts and outfits harder to unlock.

I think the ideal solution would be to have all the characters available in multiplayer right off the bat, and then have them be unlockable for single player. Multiplayer seems to be the main reason people want all characters at the start, so this seems like a good compromise.

[Luigi Dude]

Yeah and there so much stuff with the Customization that I want to get that this would have been the perfect venue to do that with.

Well there are custom parts that do show up when playing Trophy Rush as well.  Not as often as the trophies but several still show up if you're playing at the max time limit each time.  If you play the mode enough, you can get a good amount of custom parts to go along with the **** load of trophies that you'll get.

[Spak-Spang]

The adventure mode was the best part of Melee for me.  How did they mess up that perfection in Brawl.

I like the longer unlocks, as long as it will eventually unlock.  There is something cool and surprising about not knowing when you will unlock a new character.  It is not the idea of making it hard, but making it a slow burn of rewards for an extended period of time.  Unlocking everything in one week isn't that rewarding.  But after playing with friends for two weeks and having a new challenger finally pop up is definitely a great experience. 

[Stratos]

For instance, Mewtwo requires 20 hours of Smash...

Mewtwo is back?!? Did I miss this? I must still be going off of incomplete roster leaks. I gotta see who else made a surprising return.

[Adrock]

Mewtwo is back?!? Did I miss this? I must still be going off of incomplete roster leaks. I gotta see who else made a surprising return.

No, he isn't. Sorry to disappoint. Khush was saying it takes 20 combined hours to unlock Mewtwo in Melee. Mewtwo can also be unlocked in Melee after 700 matches in versus as well. That's a far cry from the 120 versus matches it takes to unlock the last character in the 3DS game.

[Khushrenada]

I wish he was back actually. I'm sorry Lucariofan99 but I just don't like how Lucario handles. In my personal tier list, Lucario goes to the bottom. He just seems lacking in power and attacks. However, Adrock is right. I was making a point of how I preferred the easier unlocking method of this game. I know Mop it up commented on it being a negative but unlocking characters and stages is just one part of the game. There's a whole lot more to collect and do than just that so I have no problem with it. Plus, it seemed like the challenger battles were more difficult in this game as I lost quite a few times in them which makes beating them and getting that character still satisfying.

[Mop it up]

The characters and stages are the actual playable content though, useless dreck like trophies don't really matter to me. So I like the characters and stages to be spread out too.

And if you're not playing 1,000 matches in Smash then what the heck are you doing?! I believe it was no more than three weeks after I got Melee that I reached the 1,000 milestone, though I think I already unlocked all the characters through the alternate means.

[Evan_B]

I wish he was back actually. I'm sorry Lucariofan99 but I just don't like how Lucario handles. In my personal tier list, Lucario goes to the bottom. He just seems lacking in power and attacks. However, Adrock is right. I was making a point of how I preferred the easier unlocking method of this game. I know Mop it up commented on it being a negative but unlocking characters and stages is just one part of the game. There's a whole lot more to collect and do than just that so I have no problem with it. Plus, it seemed like the challenger battles were more difficult in this game as I lost quite a few times in them which makes beating them and getting that character still satisfying.

As a Lucario Main in Brawl, I'm slowly relearning how he works and I've been enjoying the changes they made to his play style. Down Smash is still an amazing spacing move (especially with the ground-based metagame Smash 4 has), and Aura feints are a must if you're going to play him against pretty much anyone.

[Adrock]

And if you're not playing 1,000 matches in Smash then what the heck are you doing?! I believe it was no more than three weeks after I got Melee that I reached the 1,000 milestone, though I think I already unlocked all the characters through the alternate means.

When I first got the 3DS version, I play single stock matches until I unlocked all the characters then switched to 3-stock (with a few time matches when I forgot to change it). The other day (Monday or Tuesday) I got the Milestone message that I just hit 200 versus matches. At the rate I'm going, I probably won't hit 700 versus matches (let alone 1000) until the middle of November. Admittedly, this is likely taking much longer since I'm mainly playing the game single-player.

Unlocking the characters was perhaps too easy in this game though Melee's was too time consuming since the game doesn't really start until you unlock every character.

[Ceric]

I like the long Non-Skilled method, say 1,000 matches.
Then there is also a skilled way to unlock them.  If you want to say sit down and unlock all the characters then there should be some feet of skill that proves you are worthy to have these characters early.

[NWR_insanolord]

I've found myself playing with Samus a lot, and I'm not sure whether she's better balanced in this game or my skill has increased but I'm finding it effective and enjoyable.

[Khushrenada]

The characters and stages are the actual playable content though, useless dreck like trophies don't really matter to me. So I like the characters and stages to be spread out too.

And if you're not playing 1,000 matches in Smash then what the heck are you doing?! I believe it was no more than three weeks after I got Melee that I reached the 1,000 milestone, though I think I already unlocked all the characters through the alternate means.

Playing adventure mode. In Melee, I played 1,000 matches to unlock a trophy. That was my only reason to do so. I just played VS matches to unlock things and for score messages. Other than that, I was focused on beating the single player modes.

In Smash 3DS, I've only played 132 VS matches. I'll have to play more to unlock some of the milestone messages and get 1,000 KO's and complete that challenge. (It's a shame the Melee trick of just putting 4 CPU characters with 99 stock each and letting them duke it out to increase the game's KO count doesn't work in this game.) Of course, maybe I'll have completed enough of the other challenges that I can just use a mallet to break that 1,000 KO requirement and not have to bother. I've only got 100 KO's so far according to the stats so that could be a long ways off.

As of right now, I've completed All-Star with all characters and got their trophies and beat it on Normal and Hard. That mode is done. I'm finishing up the stadium challenges. I've beat 10-man Melee with everyone, have beaten the challenge requirement for 3-Minute Smash, Rival Smash, Endless Smash, and Cruel Smash. However, I need to KO 10 fighters in Cruel Smash to unlock that Milestone message/accomplishment. I'm now playing through 100-man Smash with all characters to complete that. I've finished up Target Blast except for hitting a 300,000 point score with a character for that milestone message. Was heartbreakingly close with a 291,000 some score. I just needed to hit the last red target and I missed it. I've complete Home Run contest with about half the fighters and still have a few requirements to meet there before wrapping it up.

I've completed 80 of the 15 challenges. Have 366 trophies. I've only beaten Classic Mode with 11 characters so I still have 40 more characters to go through in addition to beating it at the higher difficulties. I've only played Smash Run about 5 times. My focus is on completing the Stadium stuff and Classic and then I'll play away at customizing and Smash Run. Finally, that would leave the VS battles. I suppose I could play a few more here and there in between but as you can see, the VS stuff is not what I'm playing this for. Ha ha. I haven't even tried an online match with anyone. And that's what Smash is all about.

[Mop it up]

Unlocking the characters was perhaps too easy in this game though Melee's was too time consuming since the game doesn't really start until you unlock every character.

I guess this is getting off-topic but I'm curious what you mean by this. The main thing that opens up with all characters is the All-Star mode, plus some of the Event Matches, but there's still plenty to do from the start like Classic, Adventure, all the Vs Modes, etc. I didn't feel like I was striving for anything in particular and was just playing everything in the game at my own pace and the unlocks came when they came.

(It's a shame the Melee trick of just putting 4 CPU characters with 99 stock each and letting them duke it out to increase the game's KO count doesn't work in this game.)

Yeah, Brawl was the same way, it's lame.