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Did Fighter Pass 2 Ruin Smash Ultimate?

NJR

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In this video, we look at the lasting impact of Super Smash Brothers Ultimates Fighter Pass 2, and whether or not that impact is a positive, or a negative one in regards to the games competitive scene!

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20 Comments

@SkippyKairos 3 days ago

Something worth mentioning, a lot of fighter pass 2 was developed during COVID. During this time, development went entirely online. I am no dev, but I do know anything online is just not the same as in person. If it weren't for the pandemic, we would have seen a more balanced fighter pass.

It is absolutely INSANE that Steve is able to place midair blocks. They cannot do that in Minecraft anyway. That alone should have warranted a global ban. But really, the rest of the world just wants to keep Japan happy

@LightningStarSC 1 day ago

Not intentionally, but yes.

Having ARMS & Xenoblade 2 being represented in a playable fashion was nice on paper, but only the latter had a half-decent implementation. (No, I'm not saying that just because Min Min was my second least favourite ARMS rep, only above Springtron.) Min Min as a Smash fighter has too many issues that make her feel awkward to play and frustrating to fight, and people taking advantage of those issues compound on that frustration.

Steve & Kazuya alone were the absolute worst, though. Steve was poorly implemented, not balanced at all, and took advantage of bugs that came about from reprogramming all of the stages to accommodate the garbage that is "Create Block", and that's not even bringing in the blocky husk's toxic following. Meanwhile, Kazuya was just SSB4 Bayonetta on steroids that sapped all of the fun out of playing. The fact that he can make Joker of all characters look fair & balanced (he isn't) shows how unhinged he was left to be. Steve killed what made Smash fun, and Kazuya destroyed the life support that Sephiroth brought in. I hope neither one ever returns in a future entry.

It honestly sucks because Sephiroth & Sora were genuinely good additions. Sephiroth brought in more content to Final Fantasy 7 representation, gave another chance of playing as someone who feels like a boss character, and brought back some semblance of Boss Rush, which wasn't present in Ultimate prior; and Sora revealed that he was the true winner of the Smash Ballot and fulfilled a long-time request of fans for him to be added, not to mention how monumental his reveal & character rundown were. Unfortunately, those two good additions were drowned out from all the bad that came from what came before them respectively. I hope especially that Sora isn't confined to a one-and-done representation in Ultimate.

@Luxius_8 2 days ago

These characters wouldn't be so problematic if balance patches kept happening and if glitches (steve) were fixed.

Also Minmin would be fun to fight if her arms had a hurtbox (she shouldn't have disjoints, she is using her arms to attack)

@huntercoda4887 2 days ago

Casual? Absaloutly not.

Compettitive? Yes......

@ventilatorlp9171 2 days ago

One day. I saw a smash player who lost his girlfriend after fighter pass 2 started.

Ain’t that suspicious?

@StefanIsReal 3 days ago

I feel like the game is fundamentally flawed when there's only really a handful of characters that are fun to play against in the base game

@caasi113 18 hours ago

The only counter play to these characters is praying they make a mistake, and then pray you can punish them

@bluecore1027 20 hours ago

Blocks turned out to be the most laughably overpowered thing anyone has ever put in a fighting game. I think the biggest fumble from Nintendo wasn't even putting these characters in the game but dropping balance patches entirely way earlier than they should have.

I still find this game fun and enjoyable. Most people trying to compete (like myself) are nowhere near getting into the top 32 at majors, meaning that we're not having to fight Steve all the time. What has sold this game so much for me other than Ultimate having my favorite social aspect out of any videogame I have ever touched is being able to deeply intertwine oneself with one's main. Mewtwo has come to be one of my favorite characters in all of fiction and being able to express that through Ultimate even though Mewtwo isn't great in Ultimate has been an experience unlike any other that I've had in gaming. To work with the advantages and disadvantages I have with my character and other people who play that character to continuously improve.
Personally, I think the distaste of the FP2 characters keep most players from sinking all their playtime into those characters that comes with having them as a main. I'd rather learn, improve, and one day win with the character I like and want to express myself with than the characters that I know are competitively broken.
I really don't care much for watching top-level play, and most of the characters I fight in any setting are not broken top-tiers or FP2. I'm taking Ultimate and making it to be the experience that I want by going as far as I can even though the character I play has only ever seen one major top 8 in the entire history of the game.

@ShuzanFuyoh-i2j 4 days ago

Yes saved you 10 minutes

@EX-un·original_handle-X 8 hours ago

ultimate before DLC: old returning characters full of potential and hype, a decently honest and fair game, everyone was good
ultimate after dlc: only a few are good and everyone else is so bad by comparison they don't exist, over half the roster is invalidated, it's a contest of gimmicks to see whose bullshit is stronger, it looks like a literal joke now

@10Bendog 15 hours ago

The fact that the devs dropped making balance patches right after Sora’s release, despite FP2 still needing a lot of reworks is insane to me! Like, we get it, you had to work on these characters during the pandemic, trust me it shows, but you couldn’t stick around for a year more to fix some stuff after?

Honestly, if you think about it, while Steve might not be as meta-warping as Brawl Meta Knight or Sm4sh Bayo, he might’ve just harmed his game’s reputation worse. Brawl was kinda unsalvageable for competitve by design and Smash 4 only had to deal with Bayonetta for 2 years before Ultimate came and made that game irrelevant. Not only has it been 6 years since Steve’s release, but he just keep getting better.

@schmampus6701 1 day ago

If it weren’t bad before, yes

@gilbertguerrero2916 1 day ago (edited)

FP2 killed ultimate. At least for me. As someone from the smash 4 era, the fact we didn’t kill bayonetta from the competitive scene is genuinely insane given how much she dominated the game. I get similar vibes from Steve. Not only is he the best character in the game, we’re still finding game breaking shit with him (some of which is clearly unintentional.) like being able to plank/refresh ledge invincibility, phasing through the damn stage, and negating hitstun via PMLG.

At what point do we as a community acknowledge Steve actively kills the competitive scene/ruins the game and do something about it? Cuz the devs aren’t here anymore LMAO.

Thankfully, the gap between good and bad characters isn’t as severe in ultimate compared to other smash games, but Steve is still very much a problem that was never addressed. Had it been up to me, I would’ve banned him.

@PokemonTrainerMatt21 3 days ago (edited)

I personally didn't mind Kazuya and pyra/mythra being in dlc 2. But out of all of em the only ones id keep is Kazuya or maybe replace him with either jin or heihachi. The other characters besides Kazuya and pyra/mythra especially Steve can kick freaking rocks. I feel Steve alone makes competitive smash so immensely boring to watch. But the 2 dlc fighters I personally wanted was geno, and either Dixie kong, shadow/tails, and or Krystal. I mean there are more i could list but im not going to. My number 1 want was geno though.

@TeeArCreep 23 hours ago

It fucked the meta like smash ultimate deserved, with awesome characters like kazuya and steve too

@ANGRY_ALA 1 day ago (edited)

I will give a different take: while yes, the issue also how bad nintendo is at games in longerm like smash, you cannot tell me there aren't like 2 devs at sora, bandai, hal whoever who could do like 2 balance patches a year? Thats the same thing that killed smash 4 in an instant despite the emergency patch they had to make for bayonetta. Even ignoring the issues the top tiers have where they need rework, the same is true for the low tiers like dedede where they NEED some major and most important MEANINGFUL buffs.

@AerogaspayRGV5 5 days ago

It might be a double edged situation but as all other top 1’s in the next game they will lose their spot (if there is a next game)

@uroy8371 1 day ago

Just Kasuya and Steve, and I little less Min Min, Terry a little

@youtubewontletmetypeagoodu8128 2 days ago

Do u draw ur thumbnail art? Its 🔥

@sephikong8323 17 hours ago

Sora and Sephiroth are the only ones that were good additions for the gameplay. They both feel very strong but with real weaknesses to be exploited and their strength doesn't come from "the bullshit"