Weekly Famitsu Fighter Profiles (Updated 9/10)

[Chimera]

Is it just me or do both of those Pit arrow variations seem better than default? The first one screams to me "dominate the space in front of you" while the second is more like "be a really huge jerk to recovering opponents", both of which are pretty appealing prospects and both of which seem really match-up centric in terms of which would be better (the giant arrow also seems like it would have a lot of application in doubles since it pierces). I do wonder if they're choosing to show off just the most interesting special variations per character or if we can expect for choices this intersting to be typical.

The the "free control" may not cause flinch? Also, do the guardian orbiters block all attacks except for within the shields then? That sounds....difficult to deal with.

 

[Bauske]

The the "free control" may not cause flinch? Also, do the guardian orbiters block all attacks except for within the shields then? That sounds....difficult to deal with.

I'm sure they don't block physical attacks, so if you've got a Pit who's constantly reflecting, get in there and hit 'em up close.

Also, I'm really interested in that next page to be translated. It shows off the 3DS adventure mode.

 

[Chimera]

I'm sure they don't block physical attacks, so if you've got a Pit who's constantly reflecting, get in there and hit 'em up close.

Also, I'm really interested in that next page to be translated. It shows off the 3DS adventure mode.

Well his Down-B in Brawl nullified physical attacks and reflected projectiles, and the description in the translation seems similar to that, except in all directions rather than one. I dunno, guess we'll see though.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I'd be really surprised if the free steering arrow was no flinch; it sounds like just a weak hit to me which is really perfect. I'm envisioning a hit, a very tiny amount of hitstun and almost no launch, and a small amount of damage. That would be pretty crummy on-stage, but against a recovering opponent, it could be a very large obstacle since every hit they take disrupts their recovery, a weak launch means the net effect of getting hit is probably falling (see also: getting hit by a Sheik needle off-stage), and the peril of an off-stage position will likely make evading a precisely steerable arrow difficult. Of course, we'll need to actually see it in action to know its true dynamics, but based on the description, this is the sort of powerful gameplay dynamic I'm imagining.

As per the Guardian Orbitars, they weren't used much in the demo gameplay I saw (and Pit as seldom picked in that as well, despite seeming pretty good), but my rough impression of them is that they seem like Pit's old down special except two directional. The Mirror Shield was honestly an incredibly marginal move in Brawl; the start-up time meant that it didn't deflect close and quick attacks well, the cooldown often made punishing after a successful block hard, using the move really killed your ability to stay mobile which is very important for Pit, and throwing it out at the wrong time was pretty easily punished by grab. We had a strong Pit player in this area back in the day, and he used the Mirror Shield almost never. The move has a lot of room to improve and still be a marginal move so I'm not terribly worried about the risks of it covering a much bigger area; if anything, I'm more interested in what variations the Guardian Orbitars have since as we saw with Rosalina a defensive down special could very well have offensively useful variations.

 

[Veggi]

Pit's moves actually look super fun. Pit's arrows being controllable in Brawl was really fun so if they're more controllable I'm excited to see what people can do with them. Piercing Arrow looks like it might be good for doubles, but maybe it won't be. I remember a lot of people who used Pit on teams in Brawl made use of the controlled arrows to avoid hitting their partner.

 

[Hong]

The article on single player modes is complete. Here it is, translated below along with the Pit article for anyone who missed it.

Spoiler

Here are the originals, for those who wanted them:

Spoiler

Credit of course goes to @ XKan , whose blog you can find here.

 

[XKan]

@Young Horsetail

Feel free to do so! I have a tumblr account that nobody really follows, but figured it would have a more relevant fan base so posted it there. If you have a larger following may be better to let you get it out there instead. : )

@ Hong

I'm glad this forum tells you when someone else posted while you write a post! I came here to say the final page was complete, but you're already on top of things. : ) Thanks a lot!

 

[TJ-Works]

The article on single player modes is complete. Here it is, translated below along with the Pit article for anyone who missed it.

Spoiler

Here are the originals, for those who wanted them:

Spoiler

Credit of course goes to @ XKan , whose blog you can find here.

Looks like we get some new information after all, about the "Simple Mode" game mode. It seems to be Adventure Mode with multiple paths for you to choose. It also incorporates the gambling feature from Uprising, which we saw in previous trailers.

This should definitely make Adventure Mode more exciting to play.

 

[ChikoLad]

Simple Mode is just the new Classic Mode, as I suspected. It will likely still be called Classic Mode over in the west.

Seems alright, but not very exciting.

 

[Dinoman96]

"Simple Mode" is actually Classic Mode, as stated in the translation.

Looking at the images above and this shot from the E3 trailer, it appears that the series you fight in the pathways changes each time. This is a good change from Brawl's Classic Mode, which mostly went in a rigid and samey order every time (compared to melee's more random selection) and became a pain to play through to unlock everything. I'm aware 64's singleplayer did this too, but at least that game only had 12 characters in comparison to the nearly 40 of Brawl's roster, making it a blissfully shorter experience.

Hopefully All-Star Mode returns to Melee's format or something of that degree as well. Brawl's All-Star Mode's progression being ordered in the release dates of the series was cute at first, but like Classic Mode, it became a repetitive slog afterwhile. And considering Smash 4 is most likely going to have around 50 characters, yeah.

 

[Soul.]

The Multi-Man mode no longer has original enemies, instead it has Miis. That's cool, I guess.
Classic Mode lets you select which character do you want to fight against, of course the final stage will always be against Master Hand.

 

[Deleted member]

I knew that would be Classic Mode. It now looks like some world map.. Multi-Man has Miis now, but we've known that since the E3 trailer popped up. I think this might mean Miis would also be on the Wii U version's Multi-Man mode as well? Hmm.. still, pretty cool news.

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

Lol, I wonder if Venus ever gets sick of being called over to translate every little thing XD

I go by the order of importance and if I'm actually nterested in the material.


Thank you @ XKan ! I'll give it a look too but your translation work looks really good!

 

[LancerStaff]

Is it just me or do both of those Pit arrow variations seem better than default? The first one screams to me "dominate the space in front of you" while the second is more like "be a really huge jerk to recovering opponents", both of which are pretty appealing prospects and both of which seem really match-up centric in terms of which would be better (the giant arrow also seems like it would have a lot of application in doubles since it pierces). I do wonder if they're choosing to show off just the most interesting special variations per character or if we can expect for choices this intersting to be typical.

The giant arrows are probably slow, going with the fast and weak vs slow and powerful theme. We don't even know the damage output on them. I'd say these are for FFA, with how unusable the normal ones are in the demo.

And the small arrows aren't even faster, they just turn much sharper. Personally, that's a trade-off that doesn't seem worth it to me. Unless you can loop them around when they reach the opponent and hit them out of their dodge, but that sounds like something that would end up banned.

I've also noticed from the trailer is that the actual lag from firing is the same with the shrimpy arrows, so the giant ones might be the same too.

 

[Bauske]

The article on single player modes is complete. Here it is, translated below along with the Pit article for anyone who missed it.

Spoiler

Here are the originals, for those who wanted them:

Spoiler

Credit of course goes to @ XKan , whose blog you can find here.

Thanks so much to you and @ XKan for these. This is what I wanted to know. I'm so freaking excited to learn that the classic mode is back, but with branching paths and variable difficulties now. That of course means the inevitable return of Master Hand hopefully.

 

[LeeYawshee]

So miis will replace the multi man characters. Seems pretty fitting, now people who don't like the miis can beat them up freely.

 

[Octillus]

It's kinda horrifying. I don't know how I feel about it tbh.

 

[Xtreme Starfox]

What's the Icon the red route is using?

Seems similar to Wii Fit one but not exactly.

 

[LeeYawshee]

It's kinda horrifying. I don't know how I feel about it tbh.

Naw man, it's great. All of your closest friends jumping to hunt down your favorite Nintendo character. So great. godhelpus

 

[Smashoperatingbuddy123]

I knew that footage of the paths was classic

So miis are the mutimen now very nice (now to find out if beating 100 of them will activate a battle with falco/or who takes his how to unlock place.)

I have no idea how the scale thing will work.


And as for thr stadiu m modes

HEY WHERES BREAK THE TARGETS?!?!?

but i do hope board the platform and race to the finish were kept in the shadows for now.

 

[Soul.]

So the Fighter Scale lets you increase the difficulty, but the risk of losing increases too.
I guess this replaces the Easy - Normal - Hard - Very Hard - Intense difficulty system Brawl had. I guess players will have to be a lot more careful on higher difficulties. On easy ones, they just need to beat the CPU.

 

[abrinx77]

What's the Icon the red route is using?

Seems similar to Wii Fit one but not exactly.

Its the Wii Fit symbol. I had to look at it about a dozen times to get it. Its kind of sideways, and also kind of blurred, as the shot seems to have been taken while the player is moving.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The giant arrows are probably slow, going with the fast and weak vs slow and powerful theme. We don't even know the damage output on them. I'd say these are for FFA, with how unusable the normal ones are in the demo.

And the small arrows aren't even faster, they just turn much sharper. Personally, that's a trade-off that doesn't seem worth it to me. Unless you can loop them around when they reach the opponent and hit them out of their dodge, but that sounds like something that would end up banned.

I've also noticed from the trailer is that the actual lag from firing is the same with the shrimpy arrows, so the giant ones might be the same too.

The normal arrows really did suck in the demo which is a part of why these seem exciting to me.

The big arrow seems likely to be general purpose. We don't know damage, but it probably has pretty good stopping power (would be graphically awkward otherwise). I'm thinking about that, and I'm thinking about Pit's new buffed fair and how these two things can work together to likely give him a strong front-facing zoning game. The new airdodge mechanics also seem to really encourage punishing landings, and a move like this seems to be about in the ideal class to do that from non-melee range. In doubles, of course this move can easily be very disruptive whenever you and your teammate have a pincer situation on the opponent. Just drop a big arrow that will force both of the opponents in the middle to deal with it while your teammate in back is just waiting to punish them for anything they do. We do have no indication of the move's start-up, and it's easy to imagine it could be lengthier than normal arrows, but I'm just excited to see these kinds of possibilities even if we don't know how they'll work out.

As per the small arrows, normal arrows seem to have less range now so arrow looping seems nerfed. Even with Brawl style arrows though, it was really telegraphed and it was generally not practical to tag low recoveries since you just couldn't loop to some of those extreme angles. Arrows also generally hit a bit too hard to be good gimping moves; they just knock victims upward. On-stage I really don't see the little arrows having a lot of merit since they're as committed as normal arrows and if even weaker when normal arrows were already seeming very "rarely worth it" will be super unrewarding to hit with, but off-stage the lower power seems like it could be a nice advantage and the steering seems promising to me since it's all about minimizing set-up time to hit an off-stage opponent. Pit lands a dsmash to send the opponent off-stage but not a deathblow. Immediately shoot a small arrow to chase them and kill their forward momentum off their double jump if they blow it right away which a lot of players do (they just mash the jump button when trying to recover). Chase after it right after you shoot and fire a second to try to mess with their recovery further. Even if they airdodge these shots (and you can probably wiggle a bit to play with the arrival timing), time spent airdodging is also time spent falling so your mission of making it hard for them to recover is met. If you hit and assuming the steerable arrow is a weak hit and doesn't really knock them upward, that just further compounds their misery especially if they're playing a character with a more limited recovery. The main downside I could see them having would be if they had seriously limited range like the normal arrows seem to have now; that would actually make them really bad since being able to steerably snipe from wherever you landed the hit to send them off-stage would seem to be the main purpose of these guys.

Obviously I don't really know how well any of this is going to work, but Pit's arrows were pretty garbage in the demo, and I see two variations with interesting promise and possibilities kinda like I'm just imagining Rosalina's gravitation affecting fighters is going to make for some nasty zoning set-ups when combined with the standard Luma zoning we saw from Bill Trinen's Rosalina. This sort of promise, even if likely plenty of particulars will work out differently and some of these variations may be balanced in ways to make them just plain not worth it, is why I'm so excited by this system; I just keep seeing new ways that these characters can do more than they could before, and if expansions of possibilities like this are near universal with the custom moves, I see the chance for a more exciting game in general. I sure look forward to the next batch of these and sorry for nerding out a bit on a pretty significant bit of pure speculation.

 

[XKan]

@ Venus of the Desert Bloom

Thank you very much! It means a lot to me to hear you say that. : ) I pray that the translation came across properly, too.

@ Bauske

You are most welcome. Thank you for finding use for it. : )

Regarding the CoroCoro announcement for the 12th that was mentioned a little earlier: I only have access to Famitsu scans when they come out, so cannot be of much help there unless somebody else can provide me with the scans when they come.

 

[Hong]

At this point, since both you have verified it, myself and my colleague have verified it, I wouldn't worry too much about the integrity at this point. My initial correction that you had agreed with, that is the fact those two special moves are just meant to be examples that you can select, are the correct translation.

Though the change in terminology leaves me to wonder if Palutena even has to find her special moves at all, unless they just assume we'll know that specials 2 and 3 are something we'll have to unlock. Then again, it goes back to referring to Pit's as custom special moves. Hm.

 

[MAtgSy]

So I guess the main purpose of equipment is in help beating Classic & possibly Smash Run at the higher difficulties.

 

[LancerStaff]

The normal arrows really did suck in the demo which is a part of why these seem exciting to me.

The big arrow seems likely to be general purpose. We don't know damage, but it probably has pretty good stopping power (would be graphically awkward otherwise). I'm thinking about that, and I'm thinking about Pit's new buffed fair and how these two things can work together to likely give him a strong front-facing zoning game. The new airdodge mechanics also seem to really encourage punishing landings, and a move like this seems to be about in the ideal class to do that from non-melee range. In doubles, of course this move can easily be very disruptive whenever you and your teammate have a pincer situation on the opponent. Just drop a big arrow that will force both of the opponents in the middle to deal with it while your teammate in back is just waiting to punish them for anything they do. We do have no indication of the move's start-up, and it's easy to imagine it could be lengthier than normal arrows, but I'm just excited to see these kinds of possibilities even if we don't know how they'll work out.

As per the small arrows, normal arrows seem to have less range now so arrow looping seems nerfed. Even with Brawl style arrows though, it was really telegraphed and it was generally not practical to tag low recoveries since you just couldn't loop to some of those extreme angles. Arrows also generally hit a bit too hard to be good gimping moves; they just knock victims upward. On-stage I really don't see the little arrows having a lot of merit since they're as committed as normal arrows and if even weaker when normal arrows were already seeming very "rarely worth it" will be super unrewarding to hit with, but off-stage the lower power seems like it could be a nice advantage and the steering seems promising to me since it's all about minimizing set-up time to hit an off-stage opponent. Pit lands a dsmash to send the opponent off-stage but not a deathblow. Immediately shoot a small arrow to chase them and kill their forward momentum off their double jump if they blow it right away which a lot of players do (they just mash the jump button when trying to recover). Chase after it right after you shoot and fire a second to try to mess with their recovery further. Even if they airdodge these shots (and you can probably wiggle a bit to play with the arrival timing), time spent airdodging is also time spent falling so your mission of making it hard for them to recover is met. If you hit and assuming the steerable arrow is a weak hit and doesn't really knock them upward, that just further compounds their misery especially if they're playing a character with a more limited recovery. The main downside I could see them having would be if they had seriously limited range like the normal arrows seem to have now; that would actually make them really bad since being able to steerably snipe from wherever you landed the hit to send them off-stage would seem to be the main purpose of these guys.

Obviously I don't really know how well any of this is going to work, but Pit's arrows were pretty garbage in the demo, and I see two variations with interesting promise and possibilities kinda like I'm just imagining Rosalina's gravitation affecting fighters is going to make for some nasty zoning set-ups when combined with the standard Luma zoning we saw from Bill Trinen's Rosalina. This sort of promise, even if likely plenty of particulars will work out differently and some of these variations may be balanced in ways to make them just plain not worth it, is why I'm so excited by this system; I just keep seeing new ways that these characters can do more than they could before, and if expansions of possibilities like this are near universal with the custom moves, I see the chance for a more exciting game in general. I sure look forward to the next batch of these and sorry for nerding out a bit on a pretty significant bit of pure speculation.

The problem with the demo was that there wasn't alot of space to use them. Even back in Brawl his arrows were of little help in FFAs most of the time. The normal arrows are still pretty easy to control since they're basically PK Thunder, 'cept a bit quicker. My only concern with the normal arrows is how easy they are to aim when charged, since they get pretty fast when you do. Faster then Brawl arrows at max, I believe. More distance, too.

For some reason I get the feeling that the big arrows will be short ranged. There's quite a few weapons back in KIU that function kinda like that, namely the Silver Bow's Dash Cont. Fire. Silver's DCF is a similar size, too. (Silver Bow = Dark Pit's signature bow, for those who can't remember every weapon from memory like I can. )

 

[LancerStaff]

"Guardian Orbitars nullify attacks from above and below."

Huh? Any chance we can get some clarification on this? It could be referring to the move's super armor.

 

[XKan]

@ LancerStaff

Hello, here is the line in question:

上下からの攻撃も無効化することができる。

"Above/below from attack also null made things can be done"
-->
"From above or below attacks can also be changed to null"
-->
"Attacks from above or below can also be nullified."

From word for word literal to better structured.

I believe the implication was meant to be for people wondering if the orbs, visibly floating to the sides (but not above/below), would defend from top and bottom, which it seems they do.

I hope that helped. : )

 

[LancerStaff]

@ LancerStaff

Hello, here is the line in question:

上下からの攻撃も無効化することができる。

"Above/below from attack also null made things can be done"
-->
"From above or below attacks can also be changed to null"
-->
"Attacks from above or below can also be nullified."

From word for word literal to better structured.

I believe the implication was meant to be for people wondering if the orbs, visibly floating to the sides (but not above/below), would defend from top and bottom, which it seems they do.

I hope that helped. : )

Hm, interesting. Sounds like the move will be a major pain in the butt to deal with.

 

[DoubleDeeEddBoy]

So the Fighter Scale lets you increase the difficulty, but the risk of losing increases too.
I guess this replaces the Easy - Normal - Hard - Very Hard - Intense difficulty system Brawl had. I guess players will have to be a lot more careful on higher difficulties. On easy ones, they just need to beat the CPU.

This is how difficulty works in Kid Icarus Uprising and the same applies true here. You pretty much spend coins to either raise the difficulty (2.1-9.0) or lower it (0.0-1.9) And yes, leaving the difficulty as it is (at 2.0) will not have you spend coins. So yes, you can make classic mode easier, provided you have the coins for it.

And if it's like Uprising, I assume that if you do end up using a continue, you get knocked down one intensity point (going from a 9.0 to a 8.0)

 

[JUr]

Thanks a lot for the scans and translations

About the 1 player modes, I haven't played KI:U but the idea of modifying directly the difficulty seems interesting, principally due to its posible relationship with unlock methods (for example, beat stage 7 in grade 8 to obtain X character)

I'm a little sad for the absence of traditional Break the Targets u.u

 

[ScottyWK]

Surely this is a typo...but this article says that Falcon Kick is Falcon's down SMASH attack, not down special. Either this is an editorial slip-up, or Falcon may have a slightly modified moveset.

Leaning towards the former, considering they mention him using it air.

 

[LeeYawshee]

A small tidbit I'm interested in seeing is how the characters change from lower difficulty to higher difficulty. In the trailer Mario is in a pose where he's like "Let-s a go beeyash" to "Wait, maybe we can talk about this!". I'm interested what characters like Wii Fit trainer will look like when in these poses.

 

[XKan]

@ ScottyWK

And there's exactly why I need an editor ^^;

I'll get that fixed right away. Rest assured, it was Downward Special Attack.

EDIT: Here you go. I am very sorry about that...

 

[LeeYawshee]

@ ScottyWK

And there's exactly why I need an editor ^^;

I'll get that fixed right away. Rest assured, it was Downward Special Attack.

EDIT: Here you go. I am very sorry about that...

It's pretty funny, right here his side smash has a name. Do you think Sakurai and the devs name all of the moves?

I'd love to know what they call Captain Falcon's forward air. Shocking Knee! Death Knee! Power Knee! Righteous Flying Knee!

 

[Plain Yogurt]

It's pretty funny, right here his side smash has a name. Do you think Sakurai and the devs name all of the moves?

I'd love to know what they call Captain Falcon's forward air. Shocking Knee! Death Knee! Power Knee! Righteous Flying Knee!

Ya know, the Prima Melee Strategy Guide had full move lists with names and I thought they just made them all up. But this seems to confirm that they were, in fact, official. Which means his Dair is actually called Step On It. And that's amazing.

Falcon's Fair is officially the Knee Smash. I believe it's mentioned in one of his Melee trophies.

 

[XKan]

@ LeeYawshee

For your amusement, I searched the Japanese terms to get to Captain Falcon's Japanese move page, and they refer to it as "Striking Knee."

Not sure if it's a fan term or official, but I like your names better. XD

 

[LeeYawshee]

Ya know, the Prima Melee Strategy Guide had full move lists with names and I thought they just made them all up. But this seems to confirm that they were, in fact, official. Which means his Dair is actually called Step On It. And that's amazing.

Falcon's Fair is officially the Knee Smash. I believe it's mentioned in one of his Melee trophies.

@ LeeYawshee

For your amusement, I searched the Japanese terms to get to Captain Falcon's Japanese move page, and they refer to it as "Striking Knee."

Not sure if it's a fan term or official, but I like your names better. XD

Wow, I now know what I am gonna do for the next hour or so.

Also, to stay on topic: Does anyone know when the Famitsu magazine releases?

 

[XKan]

@ LeeYawshee

I get the scans Wednesday afternoon EST, so it releases (digitally) in Japan on Thursday (Japan time).

EDIT: Though, when looking into it people say Friday. So I am not actually sure --but in terms of when you can see the next scans, Wednesday. : )