Friday, March 5, 2021

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Pyra / Mythra Released

Mythra to the left and Pyra to the right creating a flame with her fingers

After the presentation yesterday, we didn't have to wait long until Pyra & Mythra got released for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. How lovely!

Their flashiness aside, it's pretty much just what you'd expect from another sword fighter on first glance. So, what ultimately sets these two apart is the fact that you're getting a new sword fighter and the inevitable clone in one package. I do like them more than the usual Fire Emblem sword fighter, however, and the switching makes them more interesting.

Basically, Pyra is stronger, but slower, while Mythra is faster, but considerably weaker. This reminds me of a certain character in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, who also could switch between two "modes", where one mode is faster, but the other does more damage. Of course with these blade ladies you're getting a little more than just that, where this also affects their walking speeds, jump heights, certain abilities and also their Specials, where their different Side Specials are really cool and fun to use.

Overall I prefer playing as Mythra, but I like to swap to Pyra when I want to score some heavy hits. This reminds of playing as Min Min, where for the most part you want to go with Ram Ram, but the Megawatt helps you with dealing some massive damage.

Using the Down Special to swap is in line with similar characters, like Pokémon Trainer or the aforementioned Min Min, but I personally would have swapped this with the Neutral Specials, just to make the swapping in the middle of the battle somewhat more accessible. Pressing down while in the air might result in going down faster, while you simply want to switch to Mythra to save yourself...

The swapping is also not as fast as you might have expected from the first trailer, where it would have been interesting, if you were encouraged to swap characters for cool combos. Right now I wouldn't be surprised, if Sakurai was right and there are quite some people who stick to one of the two characters, which would be like Zelda and Sheik all over again. It was still executed better, though, and these two characters in combination have a ton of potential.

Anyway, the alt costumes, which had been a secret until yesterday (with one exception) are kind of a mixed bag. Some of them look great, others are way too similar to the default one. The seventh almost looks identical, where this is Crafted Yoshi all over again. The alternate costumes should help you with distinguishing players using the same fighter, where having too similar colors doesn't really help. And the one where Pyra and Mythra swap their color schemes is just utterly confusing.

Alternatively, it would have been nice to get more colors based on other Blades, like Brighid. And alt colors based on KOS-MOS and T-elos seemed like an absolute no-brainer here, where it's quite disappointing to not have this...

a dragon with a scrap house on its back flying through the sky

Moving on to the stage, the Cloud Sea of Alrest, which is really nice and probably one of my favorite DLC stages. It looks beautiful and it's very simple, where the moving head is unique, but not some overly crazy mechanic, which keeps annoying you to death. In its hazard-free version it's actually quite similar to one of the simple stages I've made for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, with a platform on the left side and a slope on the right side. I like it!

Now... if only the stage were to stop talking...

Otherwise update 11.0.0 also came with some improvements, like the ability to shut off other controllers with your own. Still no stage hazard toggle to be found on the stage select screen... This will never be implemented, now will it?

Both my mains, Min Min and Zero Suit Samus got nerfed a little, so screw this game, I'm done with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for good. Nah, I don't really care, nor do I play much competitively...

There are new exclusive Spirits that you get from having save games of certain other games, like Arthur from Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection, but apparently those will appear in the shop via a later update, so that's fine, too.

We certainly had much more exciting updates in the past, though...

No comments: