Cassio
Smash Master
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2011
- Messages
- 3,185
Alright, played these two games side by side for awhile the other day to confirm and spoke with others about this too.
Pikachu's uthrow and upair have some issues, and it throws off his game. At first I thought it was intentional, but from what I understand now they were supposed to transfer over from melee as they were. However from playing and speaking with other proficient with pikas there's definitely something off. There's probably a dozen or so other things this might be true for as well, so I understand the hesitation to adjust anything and hope pika can just work with what he has. But even putting aside whether pika is good or bad, these two matter the most in retaining the spirit and character of pikachu that's in every other smash game, and allow him to be a complete character capable of success. So far buffs, while welcome, have not been able to replace these changes. Keep in mind this is for high-top level play.
1)U-throw and pikachus grab game:
Pics of the difference:
Pikachu's historically been a very mobile run and gun sort of character. In spite of his short grab range, his often confusing movement put opponents in their shield (from fear or wiffed attacks) that pikachu capitalized on with grabs, and being able to punish strongly and build momentum from his grabs. Currently uthrow sends opponents further away, creating big reduction in combos and pressure, and pika doesnt have a throw which functions this way in its place (in Brawl dthrow basically functions the same way as pikas uthrow). Shielding against pikachu suddenly is much safer, and this heavily reduces his strengths in movement and pressure, particularly in landing kills.
2. Uair slam dunk
This ones harder to quantify. I thought the issue was more with pikachus edgeguarding and everyones better recovery, but onstage pikachus uair acts differently as well. While I plan to test and play around with it more, so far the first hit and second hit of uair seem fine or at least close enough to what they were (need to play with it more) while the third and fourth don't cause the same off balance hits. The best way I can describe it is in PM it feels like the opponent is being pushed away while in melee its more like a slam dunk. Its something about the speed at which the opponent travels (maybe distance). Single images can't capture this, but Im going to try and find a better way to measure and represent this.
It might seem like a minor thing, but uair is one of if not the best and most important of pikachu's moves in melee and every smash game. The amount its used is very significant. The issue it causes is uair no longer has the same pressure and punishment factor it once did, which causes problems in many areas (but especially edge guarding which is signature pikachu). Aside from connecting uair itself, the amount of respect the move is afforded is important especially offstage.
I highly recommend watching this video to understand the importance of these two changes:
3. Standing grab
This isnt really as important as the first two, and it's not a melee > PM like the other ones. But in melee and brawl pikachu was know to have absolutely terrible grab range, but brawls was just slightly less terrible.
Edit:I didn't elaborate on the grab range and definitely don't mean his grab range shouldn't be bad, the main reason i think it should be just a tiny bit better (around his brawl range which is still pretty bad) has to do with grabbing close range shielded attacks. It seems like even extremely light unspaced touches at close range push pika away from grabbing. Maybe theres more shield push back on attacks or theyre pushed back when attacking shields (i think this is actually an known issue with PM?), but for whatever reason it doesnt bug me to the same extent in Melee or Brawl. It's annoying when youve made a clearly good read shielding an attack at super close range but the grab still misses.
Pikachu's uthrow and upair have some issues, and it throws off his game. At first I thought it was intentional, but from what I understand now they were supposed to transfer over from melee as they were. However from playing and speaking with other proficient with pikas there's definitely something off. There's probably a dozen or so other things this might be true for as well, so I understand the hesitation to adjust anything and hope pika can just work with what he has. But even putting aside whether pika is good or bad, these two matter the most in retaining the spirit and character of pikachu that's in every other smash game, and allow him to be a complete character capable of success. So far buffs, while welcome, have not been able to replace these changes. Keep in mind this is for high-top level play.
1)U-throw and pikachus grab game:
Pics of the difference:
Pikachu's historically been a very mobile run and gun sort of character. In spite of his short grab range, his often confusing movement put opponents in their shield (from fear or wiffed attacks) that pikachu capitalized on with grabs, and being able to punish strongly and build momentum from his grabs. Currently uthrow sends opponents further away, creating big reduction in combos and pressure, and pika doesnt have a throw which functions this way in its place (in Brawl dthrow basically functions the same way as pikas uthrow). Shielding against pikachu suddenly is much safer, and this heavily reduces his strengths in movement and pressure, particularly in landing kills.
2. Uair slam dunk
This ones harder to quantify. I thought the issue was more with pikachus edgeguarding and everyones better recovery, but onstage pikachus uair acts differently as well. While I plan to test and play around with it more, so far the first hit and second hit of uair seem fine or at least close enough to what they were (need to play with it more) while the third and fourth don't cause the same off balance hits. The best way I can describe it is in PM it feels like the opponent is being pushed away while in melee its more like a slam dunk. Its something about the speed at which the opponent travels (maybe distance). Single images can't capture this, but Im going to try and find a better way to measure and represent this.
It might seem like a minor thing, but uair is one of if not the best and most important of pikachu's moves in melee and every smash game. The amount its used is very significant. The issue it causes is uair no longer has the same pressure and punishment factor it once did, which causes problems in many areas (but especially edge guarding which is signature pikachu). Aside from connecting uair itself, the amount of respect the move is afforded is important especially offstage.
I highly recommend watching this video to understand the importance of these two changes:
3. Standing grab
This isnt really as important as the first two, and it's not a melee > PM like the other ones. But in melee and brawl pikachu was know to have absolutely terrible grab range, but brawls was just slightly less terrible.
Edit:I didn't elaborate on the grab range and definitely don't mean his grab range shouldn't be bad, the main reason i think it should be just a tiny bit better (around his brawl range which is still pretty bad) has to do with grabbing close range shielded attacks. It seems like even extremely light unspaced touches at close range push pika away from grabbing. Maybe theres more shield push back on attacks or theyre pushed back when attacking shields (i think this is actually an known issue with PM?), but for whatever reason it doesnt bug me to the same extent in Melee or Brawl. It's annoying when youve made a clearly good read shielding an attack at super close range but the grab still misses.
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