Shadow Light Master
Smash Journeyman
To be fair this is going on the Pikachu forums as well. This is about my main. Only the last paragraph is absolutely necessary, and it serves as a tl;dr summary. However, I will note that this post will only bring you insight on my choices, and it's not necessary reading for your post. I found it semi-interesting though.
The road to my current mains is a long and shaky one (Meta Knight and Toon Link) but I'm still going to relate it, so I'm just going to talk about Lucario and Pikachu for now. Basically before I was using my current mains, I was deciding between Sonic, Lucario, Wolf, and/or Meta Knight, then Toon Link, Pikachu, and/or Lucas or Ness, then Toon Link with Pikachu secondary, then just Pikachu for a while, then just Toon Link for a while, and now it's Meta Knight with a Toon Link secondary.
At first when Brawl was coming out, and I was pumped for the characters that looked coolest. They were Sonic, one of my favorite videogame characters of all time, Lucario, the Pokemon who was Pokemon-metagame friendly and mascot-friendly as well, Wolf, who just looked mofo, and Meta Knight, who I always loved because he's just so badass. I didn't feel excited for any of the Zelda characters because I didn't really like Twilight Princess, and I didn't even feel motivated to finish it (which is a first, because I've finished every Zelda I've played). Anyway, enough of that, now to go with why I dropped everyone and switched up.
So at first I heard Sonic was suffering from poor priority and weak finishers, and this quickly became apparent to me as I suffered through many blows, and when I did rack up damage I often couldn't finish them off. While it hurt I had to drop him, it quickly became apparent to me that he wasn't metagame-friendly.
When it came to Wolf, he seemed cool but the problem was I didn't feel like I was being true to myself by using a character whose franchise I didn't love. His playing style didn't really mesh with me either, as I found that he fell too fast. This, coupled with my half-hearted love didn't produce any good results.
Next I checked out Meta Knight. He was a pretty cool, and although I was racking up damage more easily than I was with Sonic, I still had the problem with finishers. The other reason why I dropped him was because I was still adjusting to Brawl's physics, and Meta Knight's style differed from it. I felt like I was playing a superior version of Sonic, but I didn't feel like I was doing the best I could, and that I should place my efforts elsewhere.
Lastly I decided to check out Lucario. Perhaps I expected something different, but like with Meta Knight I was still adjusting to Brawl and Lucario's floatiness was still too much for me, and I was willing to or ready to deal with it just yet. Also, his hits seemed rather weak (although right now I don't find that to be an issue). I was disappointed, because considering I liked him, and that he sadly replaced Mewtwo, I expected more.
When I heard that Toon Link was announced, my interest was piqued. The WindWaker was tied with Majora's Mask for my favorite Zelda, and I preferred this incarnation of Link (funny name) much more than the "regular" Link, and when I heard that he was rather good, I adjourned to check him out. He was pretty awesome, and I loved most of his aspects. He stuck with me. There's not much to say here, as my love of him and his usefulness just seemed to fit.
Since I loved Pokemon, I decided to try out some of the other members from the franchise. Normally I ignored them, since they consisted of weak mascots (weak in Pokemon, not SSB). I decided to give Pikachu a try though. He seemed to be pretty good. I checked what people thought of him , and he got silent recognition. I went to the Pikachu boards and I found a lot of people saying they had to keep Pikachu's goodness a secret, a hidden gem, and it was kind of exciting to belong to that kind of community.
The next part gets slightly more convoluted, so please stay with me.
Lastly, I remembered having nothing but good memories of Ness. My mind did a relay of fighting him for the first time in SSB, losing to him, unlocking him, competing with my cousin in his BtT, using him as a secondary in Melee, it was great. But then this troll on GameFAQs named _Clinton started hijacking people's topics and turning them into canonical fight topics. He claimed Ness and Lucas could beat anyone. He drilled it into our minds. Although I can't do the widespread event's impact justice in a few sentences, I want you to know how significant and on-going it was. Now let's take a brief side-trip that will tie this together and make it relevant.
When SSBB first came out on GameFAQs the general consensus was that Lucas was far superior to Ness. I agreed with this too at the time, and it was this that made me pick Lucas over Ness, because I was upset with how inferior he seemed (of course I know today the margin is much smaller). However, this opinion was drilled into the boards as _Clinton's canonical ravings were, and this ended up causing a major backlash movement I refer to as Neo-Nessism. Basically, people started using Ness more, developed more strategies for him, etc. Eventually this massive movement from the exploding anger swayed the board's opinion to Ness > Lucas. This movement has no relevance in its content, but in the analogy that comes next.
Now as I mentioned, _Clinton loved to hijack people's topics and turn them into canonical fight debates. This annoyed me for two reasons: one being that they weren't even about canonical fights, and two that I knew he was wrong. However, he kept pressing on with his faulty logic, and eventually I experienced my own personal Neo-Nessism. _Clinton was taking characters I loved and using them to ruin peoples' topics, and ruining the characters for me. During this time I ended up dropping Lucas because of my pent-up anger. I eventually shot out several walls of texts saying why Super Sonic, Ganondorf, and Dark Samus could beat them in a canonical fight, which ended up in an 1000+ post debate, my Brawl Boards fame, and my victory (sounds smug, but it's true. If you want, I can link you any time. It was a fun debate). However, although my feelings were relieved, I couldn't revive the passion I once had for the Mother boys. Because of this, my mains went from Toon Link, and possibly Pikachu or Lucas/Ness, to just Toon Link main and Pikachu secondary.
At this point I began to practice with them. However recently, while I was Brawling with my good friends and debaters, they told me that with Pikachu I was too slow and predictable, and that when I used Toon Link I rectified these problems. They told me that I should stick with Toon Link and his game was worth developing, so I did. In between this though, I messed around with just using Pikachu, and just using Toon Link. Eventually I settled on Toon Link. I did love him after all.
Now that I settled on him, I needed to find counters for his weaknesses. I knew that Toon Link countered Mr. Game and Watch and was decent if not better than King DeDeDe, so I decided to go with Meta Knight, who I had considered at the beginning because I always thought he was awesome. He was also my favorite of the Top Tier characters. I figured by picking Meta Knight, I would ensure I had no bad match-ups. However, because he was Top Tier, I deluded myself into questioning whether I had picked him solely based on his metagame standing or out of my love for his character. That can be seen here:
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=189153
The truth is, it was a mixture of both. The fact of the matter was, it was a combination of both. If I had picked him only of love and he had not been good, I would have dropped him like Sonic. If I was picking him solely because he was good and not because I loved him, I might not have picked him at all and used King DeDeDe or Mr. Game and Watch. The fact was, he gave me a strategic advantage, as well as giving me a fun experience and a character to love. Meta Knight I decided, was the character for me, and he only enforced that with his dominance. I felt like I was playing Melee again. I was used to how Brawl handled, and now I was used to his quirks. I could handle him. I could enjoy him. He was, and is a mofo.
Now a few days ago however, I decided to pick up a third character to enjoy. I dropped Pikachu because he wasn't working out so well. But I loved Pokemon, and I stlill loved Lucario. I found out that he was now considered amazing, and I wanted to know why. However, I found out that Azen plays Lucario... and I couldn't help but wonder if his high standing is only because Azen developed his character. If this was true, I could just stick to Pikachu. I dropped Lucario at first because of his floatiness, but now it wasn't a problem for me, and neither was the force behind is attacks. I found him to be very graceful and effective, but the question still lingers in my mind whether I should use him or Pikachu.
I want you to help me Smashboards.
The road to my current mains is a long and shaky one (Meta Knight and Toon Link) but I'm still going to relate it, so I'm just going to talk about Lucario and Pikachu for now. Basically before I was using my current mains, I was deciding between Sonic, Lucario, Wolf, and/or Meta Knight, then Toon Link, Pikachu, and/or Lucas or Ness, then Toon Link with Pikachu secondary, then just Pikachu for a while, then just Toon Link for a while, and now it's Meta Knight with a Toon Link secondary.
At first when Brawl was coming out, and I was pumped for the characters that looked coolest. They were Sonic, one of my favorite videogame characters of all time, Lucario, the Pokemon who was Pokemon-metagame friendly and mascot-friendly as well, Wolf, who just looked mofo, and Meta Knight, who I always loved because he's just so badass. I didn't feel excited for any of the Zelda characters because I didn't really like Twilight Princess, and I didn't even feel motivated to finish it (which is a first, because I've finished every Zelda I've played). Anyway, enough of that, now to go with why I dropped everyone and switched up.
So at first I heard Sonic was suffering from poor priority and weak finishers, and this quickly became apparent to me as I suffered through many blows, and when I did rack up damage I often couldn't finish them off. While it hurt I had to drop him, it quickly became apparent to me that he wasn't metagame-friendly.
When it came to Wolf, he seemed cool but the problem was I didn't feel like I was being true to myself by using a character whose franchise I didn't love. His playing style didn't really mesh with me either, as I found that he fell too fast. This, coupled with my half-hearted love didn't produce any good results.
Next I checked out Meta Knight. He was a pretty cool, and although I was racking up damage more easily than I was with Sonic, I still had the problem with finishers. The other reason why I dropped him was because I was still adjusting to Brawl's physics, and Meta Knight's style differed from it. I felt like I was playing a superior version of Sonic, but I didn't feel like I was doing the best I could, and that I should place my efforts elsewhere.
Lastly I decided to check out Lucario. Perhaps I expected something different, but like with Meta Knight I was still adjusting to Brawl and Lucario's floatiness was still too much for me, and I was willing to or ready to deal with it just yet. Also, his hits seemed rather weak (although right now I don't find that to be an issue). I was disappointed, because considering I liked him, and that he sadly replaced Mewtwo, I expected more.
When I heard that Toon Link was announced, my interest was piqued. The WindWaker was tied with Majora's Mask for my favorite Zelda, and I preferred this incarnation of Link (funny name) much more than the "regular" Link, and when I heard that he was rather good, I adjourned to check him out. He was pretty awesome, and I loved most of his aspects. He stuck with me. There's not much to say here, as my love of him and his usefulness just seemed to fit.
Since I loved Pokemon, I decided to try out some of the other members from the franchise. Normally I ignored them, since they consisted of weak mascots (weak in Pokemon, not SSB). I decided to give Pikachu a try though. He seemed to be pretty good. I checked what people thought of him , and he got silent recognition. I went to the Pikachu boards and I found a lot of people saying they had to keep Pikachu's goodness a secret, a hidden gem, and it was kind of exciting to belong to that kind of community.
The next part gets slightly more convoluted, so please stay with me.
Lastly, I remembered having nothing but good memories of Ness. My mind did a relay of fighting him for the first time in SSB, losing to him, unlocking him, competing with my cousin in his BtT, using him as a secondary in Melee, it was great. But then this troll on GameFAQs named _Clinton started hijacking people's topics and turning them into canonical fight topics. He claimed Ness and Lucas could beat anyone. He drilled it into our minds. Although I can't do the widespread event's impact justice in a few sentences, I want you to know how significant and on-going it was. Now let's take a brief side-trip that will tie this together and make it relevant.
When SSBB first came out on GameFAQs the general consensus was that Lucas was far superior to Ness. I agreed with this too at the time, and it was this that made me pick Lucas over Ness, because I was upset with how inferior he seemed (of course I know today the margin is much smaller). However, this opinion was drilled into the boards as _Clinton's canonical ravings were, and this ended up causing a major backlash movement I refer to as Neo-Nessism. Basically, people started using Ness more, developed more strategies for him, etc. Eventually this massive movement from the exploding anger swayed the board's opinion to Ness > Lucas. This movement has no relevance in its content, but in the analogy that comes next.
Now as I mentioned, _Clinton loved to hijack people's topics and turn them into canonical fight debates. This annoyed me for two reasons: one being that they weren't even about canonical fights, and two that I knew he was wrong. However, he kept pressing on with his faulty logic, and eventually I experienced my own personal Neo-Nessism. _Clinton was taking characters I loved and using them to ruin peoples' topics, and ruining the characters for me. During this time I ended up dropping Lucas because of my pent-up anger. I eventually shot out several walls of texts saying why Super Sonic, Ganondorf, and Dark Samus could beat them in a canonical fight, which ended up in an 1000+ post debate, my Brawl Boards fame, and my victory (sounds smug, but it's true. If you want, I can link you any time. It was a fun debate). However, although my feelings were relieved, I couldn't revive the passion I once had for the Mother boys. Because of this, my mains went from Toon Link, and possibly Pikachu or Lucas/Ness, to just Toon Link main and Pikachu secondary.
At this point I began to practice with them. However recently, while I was Brawling with my good friends and debaters, they told me that with Pikachu I was too slow and predictable, and that when I used Toon Link I rectified these problems. They told me that I should stick with Toon Link and his game was worth developing, so I did. In between this though, I messed around with just using Pikachu, and just using Toon Link. Eventually I settled on Toon Link. I did love him after all.
Now that I settled on him, I needed to find counters for his weaknesses. I knew that Toon Link countered Mr. Game and Watch and was decent if not better than King DeDeDe, so I decided to go with Meta Knight, who I had considered at the beginning because I always thought he was awesome. He was also my favorite of the Top Tier characters. I figured by picking Meta Knight, I would ensure I had no bad match-ups. However, because he was Top Tier, I deluded myself into questioning whether I had picked him solely based on his metagame standing or out of my love for his character. That can be seen here:
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=189153
The truth is, it was a mixture of both. The fact of the matter was, it was a combination of both. If I had picked him only of love and he had not been good, I would have dropped him like Sonic. If I was picking him solely because he was good and not because I loved him, I might not have picked him at all and used King DeDeDe or Mr. Game and Watch. The fact was, he gave me a strategic advantage, as well as giving me a fun experience and a character to love. Meta Knight I decided, was the character for me, and he only enforced that with his dominance. I felt like I was playing Melee again. I was used to how Brawl handled, and now I was used to his quirks. I could handle him. I could enjoy him. He was, and is a mofo.
Now a few days ago however, I decided to pick up a third character to enjoy. I dropped Pikachu because he wasn't working out so well. But I loved Pokemon, and I stlill loved Lucario. I found out that he was now considered amazing, and I wanted to know why. However, I found out that Azen plays Lucario... and I couldn't help but wonder if his high standing is only because Azen developed his character. If this was true, I could just stick to Pikachu. I dropped Lucario at first because of his floatiness, but now it wasn't a problem for me, and neither was the force behind is attacks. I found him to be very graceful and effective, but the question still lingers in my mind whether I should use him or Pikachu.
I want you to help me Smashboards.
i am going to post it on the pika boards as well :D