Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - DADDY SAKURAI'S WILD RIDE HAS CONCLUDED

[KHCast]

16 hours ago, Wraith said:

They lowered the requirements since then + a new character coming out means a lot of bad players will try online out again. I dont care about elite but I got Sora in after 3 matches. 

I take it my indecisiveness got the better of me cause it seems like everyone went back to their mains now and is back to kicking ass cause I’m still getting ganged up on no matter the mode regardless of who I’m playing lol

[KHCast]

So update: got Wii Fit Trainer (my main) into elite finally lol. So that’s two now I have in elite lol. Eventually I plan on getting Sora there as well, but gonna wait for the Sora hype to die down a little.

 

Also, Hbox covered a decent amount of crazy things people have been able to find out with Sora!

 

Gonna look over this video a few times and see if I can pull off some of these combos later. They don’t look to wild like Steve’s did, but definitely look fun and should be able to make for some interesting mix ups in tournaments 

[Wraith]

Still early ofc but I'm liking him a lot. I was a little put off that so many obvious choices for his kit were missing but I can see why they made the choices they did now. Tools like Explosion and Air Finish would just be broken in the context of Smash Bros. Going with the basic three hit combo over the 5-7 hit long ones from the games also fits Ultimate's design goal of never locking you down for too long. Moves like aerial sweep and finishing leap seemed like weird choices for enders/high knockback moves when they're basically starters in the actual games but finishing leap is balanced in a way most of Sora's other down special options just don't aerial sweep feels really good to land while capturing Sora's "magical girl" combat style. That freeze frame when you end a game with him is just -chefs kiss-.

All that aside..it really does just feel like you're playing Kingdom Hearts. The floaty movement in particular was an excellent choice and something I never even considered. It makes his offstage game fun in the way Meta Knight's used to be for me, where I can take a lot of dumb risks and still have a lot of chances to return to the stage.

Sora has the ridiculous air time you'd expect from games like DDD/3 with the option to snap to the ground after a hit like 1-2, kinda hitting on the best of both worlds and giving you complete control of the character. His normals all feel huge and easy to land, you just have to lead with them like you do some of the other sword characters. The way they set up for his specials so cleanly makes doing basic strings easy, but the character has a lot of depth too.

I wasn't sure about the magic spells but they all have their uses. Fire is just a solid projectile and Thunder covers a lot of ledge/retreating options.  Blizzard is surprisingly good for shield pressure, so just save it and capture people on guard up close. I kinda wish you had more control over which one is going to come out, like you do in the games, but pressing the right special at the right time still feels great.

I was really disappointed they went with another counter. I appreciate that this one at least stops opponents in their tracks but I hope they can come up with something else if there is a next time. Giving you some of the freedom you get after staggering someone in KH2 might be a good compromise.

I don't think he's going to be too good in competitive play  just because his weakness is easy for top tiers to exploit. Sora is very light and dies from some insanely low percentages. He has a lot of wiggle room offstage so it's hard to cut off his recovery, but sometimes you'll be dying at 50-60% midstage so it just doesn't matter. He also doesn't seem to swing as fast as other sword fighters, and doesn't have the range to keep up with them either. The way he can move in and out of position so easily probably makes up for that some, though? IDK, I'm a scrub.

There's some crazy stuff going around on twitter but I never see twitter combos come up in an actual match. They're too hard to execute and usually require specific percentages/DI. I only play online too so I'm sure as shit never using anything beyond down throw/dtilt/basic fast fall stuff.

To me that just means he's balanced really well though. I didn't expect to say this but he's actually my favorite of the DLC characters. So many of them from early on had movesets I didn't gel with or didn't feel fun to fight at all, and Sora had a lot of potential to create a toxic playstyle. He's more like a Banjo Kazooie style addition though, where they reigned their impulses in and just created the kind of character you'd see added in Brawl. He's really fun and feels unique enough without being gimmicky. I have a laundry list of things I want to try next time but I'm sure that discussion will come up later.

I liked Sephiroth and Pyra/Mythra a lot too so I'm glad things mostly ended on a high note. I might do a wrap up post for ultimate pretty soon but I have a lot to say and my post have already been getting a bit too long lately. We'll see.

[KHCast]

I’ve seen this complaint going around online, but do you guys think Sora’s alts are “too samey” looking to distinguish him when there’smore than one Sora on the stage? For me I’m just so used to all his different outfits that I can easily tell who’s who. It just never seemed like an issue for me like say, Cloud, who’s color alts only barely distinguish him with the only notable difference being if you’re using classic or advent children cloud. Like, I like the wisdom form alt, but it’s a shame imo that everyone is mostly just using that one or valor form, cause I think Sora has some of the best alts in the game

[StaticMania]

It's just the color...2, 3D, & 3 all heavily use black & reds.

One wouldn't really be able to tell 2 from 3 in motion very well.

[KHCast]

Eh, I guess I’m just able to distinguish him due to the distinct details between them all, even if they follow similar colors 

2 has those bags on his pants and yellow belts, whereas 3 doesn’t have too much detail in all honesty and has much less color on his bottom half unlike KH2 Sora. 3D has the red pants yea, but also has a primarily black top half unlike KH1 Sora, and the red pants make it easy to know even in motion it’s not 2 or 3 Sora. But again, that’s just me personally and just being able to pick out those details other probably don’t see 

[Wraith]

I'm able to tell them apart at a glance but I'm not sure if it's just because I've been KHpilled. 

[JezMM]

As someone who isn't into Kingdom Hearts, I can confirm that all but the leftmost one are wearing the exact same outfit and you guys are crazy.

Spoiler

But no, really, when he was showing off all the individual outfits in the video I was really confused as to why a big deal was being made of it, as it just seemed like regular palette swaps to me.  I can only observe the actual modelling differences when I see them all side-by-side like this.  I think the fanservice rule of including them trumps the rule of gameplay clarity because you could always solve this by enabling a 1-on-1-on-1-on-1 team match if you really wanted to or just have a house rule that everyone has to use the more different ones (I mean how often is EVERYONE gonna be playing Sora in a match anyway), but it's a valid complaint.

 

[Wraith]

This is just speculation on my part, but if there was some sort of rule against changing Sora's colors this is a decent way around that.

They also had more options for official outfits though, like Master/Guard form being yellow. There are also the Disney themed alts but if there was some legal nonsense surrounding those then I wouldn't be suprised.

[Zaysho]

I will accept whatever sacrifices had to be made for Timeless River to be included.

Also I'm a recovering KH fan but I can at least tell them apart. I think most of the difficulty will come from when the camera zooms out. I appreciate the attention to detail though. I was surprised enough they chose KH1 as the default let alone every major outfit got some shine.

[KHCast]

What have I fucking done…

 

 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

2 hours ago, KHCast said:

What have I fucking done

Honestly, something tame by comparison to way more messed up stuff in shared content.

XD

[KHCast]

Speaking of shared content, wild how I’m seeing modded videos on there. Like showing modded characters, final smashes, stages, etc.  wish I could save some of these tbh lol

[Remy]

On 10/23/2021 at 10:33 PM, KHCast said:

Eh, I guess I’m just able to distinguish him due to the distinct details between them all, even if they follow similar colors 

2 has those bags on his pants and yellow belts, whereas 3 doesn’t have too much detail in all honesty and has much less color on his bottom half unlike KH2 Sora. 3D has the red pants yea, but also has a primarily black top half unlike KH1 Sora, and the red pants make it easy to know even in motion it’s not 2 or 3 Sora. But again, that’s just me personally and just being able to pick out those details other probably don’t see 

Idk for me even those are IMO way too close together. Smash is pretty chaotic already, I kinda have this problem where even in 1v1 I lose track of which one I am if I'm playing a mirror. I tend to use the bright green pyra/mythra for this reason because there's like 3-4 of the other colors that are indistinguishable to me (the color swapped pyramythra should be considered an act of war) 

 

i get why they want to add different looks, but i'm one of those sickos that actually likes the big bright primary color red/green/yellow/blue/pink alts

[KHCast]

This was kinda fucking amazing.

[Perkilator]

If there's one thing I'm glad has never happened during Ultimate's life cycle, it's fearmongering that if Crash did get in, they'd base him purely on his Japanese design and only take inspiration from his Japanese localization (not to say that it's not a possibility).

[KHCast]

Thought I’d have some fun and throw out my list of keyblades I’d have given Sora for his alts, if that was ever an option, since that seems to be a popular discussion. 

KH1 Sora: Kingdom Key 

KH2 Sora: Fenrir (a fan favorite keyblade, and gives a direct reference to both Sephiroth and Cloud) or Oblivion/Oathkeeper 

KH3D: Skull Noise (acts as a reference  to both Sora and Riku’s first keyblade acquired in the sleeping worlds, and a reference to TWEWY) 

KH3: Shooting Star (was the most promoted keyblade in the run up to KH3’s release)

TR: Monochrome (the timeless River keyblade)

Valor: Star Seeker (to reference the cutscene when he first goes valor) or Oblivion/Oathkeeper 

Wisdom: (whatever the Dream Eater one was, since this is a DDD alt, to reference the dream eaters)

Ultimate Form: Ultima Weapon (KH3) (the keyblade most associated with ultimate/final form, and fitting for the final skin for smash bros ULTIMATE)

 

Aside from TR Sora I used keyblades respectively based on what version of Sora is used. If it’s a skin from 2, it’s a 2 keyblade, and so on. Naturally base model KH1 Sora will get the Kingdom Key. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Well that's just plain horrifying. 

[KHCast]

Ignoring the cursed nature of that image (lol) I do actually like how expressive Sora is in Smash. Like seeing KH1 Sora emote these ways is cursed but amazing at the same time haha

 

Also, speaking of models, gonna be honest, as much as I liked that fan render of Sora in smash from a while back, man am I happy they didn’t go with this version of KH1 Sora 

[Perkilator]

Say Sora was CP5 and CP11 was someone else. Who would you want for CP11 in that case? For me, it would be Dr. Eggman.

[KHCast]

If Sora was CP5, there’d probably be no CP11 since Sora was a bonus to the pass added due to a lucky encounter with a Disney rep, after the pass was already finalized. Hard to imagine another character that could have been in that kind of situation where luck striked and Sakurai went out of his way to add them after the pass was done. I mean, idk, maybe a PlayStation rep of some kind? That’s probably the best I could think of. 

[Wraith]

 There are essentially no fan favorites missing from Smash now so its hard for me to imagine someone else. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Easily either Phoenix Wright or Dr. Eggman would've made a keen closer.

[MetalSkulkBane]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

 There are essentially no fan favorites missing from Smash now (...)

That's a very dangerous thing to say out loud.

[Wraith]

Obviously there's still stuff people want that would fit fine but Sora was the last glaring omission to me.