so my last video was a fairly dense
project with a lot of criticism directed
at some elements of ultimates clone
designs seems like a good time to make
more of a palate cleanser and talk about
the five characters whose designs I
considered to be the absolute biggest
success stories so far in the game
[Music]
all right the concept of a well-designed
smash character will change quite a bit
depending on who you ask so here a
couple points of criteria that I
personally looked at when I was making
this list well the player feel
restricted in an unexpected way for
example restricted mobility would be an
expected part of playing a heavyweight
or as owner but not so much a rushdown
character does the character allow the
player to express themselves and play in
a manner that suits their personality
this typically translates to having
options which generally will push my
selections towards the upper part of the
tier list although strength isn't
directly part of the criteria I'm
looking at are they working as intended
by the developer ie do their moves do
what they were clearly designed to do or
do you get a lot of unintended
interactions do they sell the fantasy of
playing them does the heavy weight kill
crushing does the swordsman emphasize
spacing and will fans of the series that
came from feel that they're fairly
represented this does include visual and
sound design I know not everyone will
consider this a valid criteria point for
evaluating a competitive character but
in my opinion these traits are
inseparably connected to the overall
experience of playing them in a way that
doesn't make sense to ignore and of
course it would be great if they were
fun how exactly do you decide what
qualifies as fun subjectively like
everything in this video I also think a
lot of people would school simply pull
from characters that you might consider
very honest and while my list does lean
that way to a degree I don't consider
the concept of what you might call
cheese to be inherently negative in
excess it obviously can be but I think a
little bit of spice to keep things
entertaining and suspenseful can be a
great addition to a character skipped
all right that's your instead into my
thought process let's get into the list
everyone seems to love Terry despite
being one of the more obscure DLC
releases for North Americans
he's clearly most known for power dump
setups and it's a cool signature move to
have for sure but Terry's moves that
overall is as large and complex as you'd
expect from a traditional fighter while
also being very well rounded this makes
mr. Bogart an incredibly expressive
character and his strongest players
don't look remotely similar to each
other in action of course being DLC
Terry needs a little something extra in
this cases two super special moves
Buster wolf and power geyser these are
obviously very strong but not oh rage
ously so considering that they only
activate at over a hundred percent
meaning that they always put Terry in a
kill-or-be-killed scenario that creates
many tense exciting gameplay moments
while feeling well balanced by comeback
mechanic standards
Terry imports the ability to cancel many
of his attacks into special moves that
the shadow characters originated and
also brings additional text such as
charge partitioning to the table which
gives him an extremely high skill cap
while being surprisingly easy to pick up
and get a solid feel for thanks to his
excellent ground normals and projectile
my biggest gripe with Terry is the same
one I have with Ryu and Ken special
inputs can be a bit finicky with
Ultimates buffer system particularly
online and the strange decision to make
them usable with the a button means that
you'll find yourself doing them
unintentionally sometimes almost
necessitating the c-stick for your
aerials in many scenarios it's not an
issue dedicated players can't work with
though and they'll be rewarded with a
flashy complex entertaining as hell
character who strongly honors the series
he came from while also feeling right at
home
ultimate slink is the most agile
freeform take on the character we've
seen yet
traditionally Lincoln smash has been
heavily centralized around pulling bombs
and mid range distance mix-ups using his
sword and his hook shot both on the
ground and in the air this time though
having received a significant overhaul
to align with his breadth of the wild
appearance as well as the increased pace
of Ultimates gameplay Lincoln
effortlessly switched between
high-pressure aerial aggression and
defensive zoning with his recurring
Arsenal the remote bomb itself is among
the most unique items we've ever seen in
a smash game and the decision-making
process for how and when to use it
permeates every aspect of Lynx style and
makes it easy to find your own voice say
you've got your opponent offstage you
can throw the bomb at them you can zed
drop it off the ledge you can throw it
onto the ledge and follow up your
pressure with any amount of traps among
many many other options if you needed to
get back on stage yourself there are
multiple setups you can use to make this
happen the bomb essentially gives every
move in his kit additional uses but
they're already exceptionally versatile
spin attack is one of the most utility
heavy up specials in the game his
aerials make use of single hits
multi-hit sour and sweet spots to
accomplish any number of actions and
crucially his other projectiles are more
diverse than they've ever been and that
considerable creativity to his ranged
gameplay this feels like linked
despite some legacy moves that holdovers
from his smash 64 days to me he still
feels very much like you're playing the
same character for one of Nintendo's
greatest adventures with a truly
unlimited number of play styles
available to explore he's on the lower
end here simply because if you just want
to run away with neutral air and
boomerang that is a viable option and
some people may admittedly find that
annoying particularly online but I
consider the average character in
ultimate to be well designed so make no
mistake any appearance on this list is
high praise from me
I've spoken highly about Roy on the
channel before and there's a reason for
this after multiple ruff installments
where he struggled to find his footing
ultimate feels like a near flawless
execution of this agro swordsmen idea
where in previous entries his design
concept has faltered due to a myriad of
issues with hip boxes and frame data
Roy's place in popular consciousness
arguably comes less from the Fire Emblem
series itself and more from massive hero
Sakurai's smash interpretation of the
character Sakurai assumed that Roy
should be hot-headed and energetic which
comes through in Smash is an extremely
quick and aggressive fighter whose every
neutral wind could potentially spell
disaster for his opponent as if he
needed more help selling that fantasy a
large chunk of his moveset now lights
you on fire which may be entirely visual
but the satisfaction it adds to landing
his attacks is hard to overstate
speaking of his attacks the unique
close-range sweet spot mechanic gives
Roy's combo game a surprising amount of
depth as well players who pick him up
will initially catch on to the reckless
pacing his design encourages no later
start to notice more and more utility
with the low knock backs our spots as
well well Roy's overall game plan is
more homogeneous than the other
characters on this list your awareness
and utilization of both the clothes and
fire spacing of his sword is a major
skill tester and style differentiator
this adds up to a fan-favorite glass
cannon who's easy to understand but hard
to master looks and feels incredibly
cool in action and has just enough
cheese to keep opponents on their toes
without being egregious as his strongest
setups are typically possible to watch
out for he revels in powerful
high-octane gameplay while also being a
very nuanced character making him an
easy inclusion on this list
wolf is the fighter for everyone if you
want to play a sword character his
forward air up hair and forward tilt
have you covered if you want as owner or
a counters owner let me introduce you to
his transcendent laser quick reflector
and high air mobility if you want a
brawler he can do that if you want a
flashy clip character he can do that
wolf is a strange combination of
different archetypes bolted on to each
other which on paper doesn't really seem
like it should work but it absolutely
does as he teaches you every aspect of
the game from zoning to tech chasing but
also comes equipped with quite a high
skill cap his initial combo game is
fairly easy to understand but his more
potent setups require a lot of labbing
intuition and understanding of your
opponent's habits and can herd
characters in different directions
depending on what your intentions are
wolf really can be played however you
like whether that's patient zoning with
his blaster or ankle breaking wolf lash
kamikaze combos and also feels
phenomenal to move around with his
animations and attributes have a
gratifying heft to them now does he feel
like a wolf from the star fox games
that's a bit hard to say as it's rare to
see him either playable or on foot and
he also doesn't really have a long smash
history to pull from however it does he
feel like a combination of a high tech
mercenary and a feral ruthless animal
I'd say yes helped out by phenomenal
custom sound design and particle effects
wolf really is the full package as his
popularity within both the casual and
competitive scenes can attest to
the S comers have been very contentious
in previous smash games due to
relatively simple guaranteed zero to
deaths off of a single grab but an
ultimate they're an incredibly cool and
elaborate setup character which
constantly tests both players awareness
of the game around them I can't put them
on this list in good faith for a couple
of reasons I'm not totally convinced
that they won't return to their old ways
at some point as new discoveries
continue to pop up and the second ice
climbers artificial intelligence is
pretty questionable and can lead to some
bad scenarios still I think they
certainly deserve a nod further
honorable mentions go to Fox and Sheik
who both feel like excellent expressions
of their archetypes but are each largely
a slightly more limited version of a
previous incarnation of the character
whether that should actually be a factor
in a list like this or whether they
should be evaluated in a vacuum is up
for debate but considering how big the
shortlist for this video was it seems
like an appropriate breakpoint three
characters in one all of who feel like
complete faithful renditions of their
canonical iterations while also working
cohesively to create a fighter even
greater than the sum of its parts I was
a fan of Pokemon trainer before ultimate
even launched but after balance patches
transformed it from Ivysaur and Friends
to a fleshed out character where every
Pokemon has a significant role to play
it takes my top slot as the best design
character in ultimate the ability to
express yourself with them should be
pretty self-explanatory
while mastery of this character requires
a strong grasp of each of the starters
watch top players and you'll see them
all lean on different Pokemon for
different situations the characters are
naturally oriented more towards combos
controlling space and recovery and Rahil
power but these are not shallow toolkits
apart from being down a special move
they play like their own fully formed
fighters and can all perform each of
these actions to some degree we
regularly see cool moments appear with
all of them and the pokeballs frame one
invincibility gives you even greater
incentive to learn the nuances of each
Pokemon individually much like a pokemon
trainer
it's a powerful dodge at the cost of
instantly requiring a different mindset
from the player who took advantage of
that power now despite the immense
praise I have for this design there are
still a few slight issues there always
honor while using a special move to
cancel the Pokemon trainers animation
and let you switch Pokemon faster is a
cool bit of tech it's pretty clearly
unintentional not particularly intuitive
and can probably be cleaned up I suggest
something that also fixes my other issue
with them the set rotation it would be
cool to let you skip the cue directly
from for example squirtle to Charizard
may
be by double-tapping or holding the
button during down specialist I don't
really know why this needs to be part of
their design that said it's the smallest
of complaints and when we're given a
fighter who represents such beloved
characters so well and allows the player
to use them so fluidly I have no trouble
giving pokemon trainer my choice for the
best character design in all of ultimate
maybe in any smash game hmm maybe thanks
for watching everyone and hey if you
liked it why not leave a like you've
heard my list and if you feel like
making one of your own please feel free
to drop it in the comments but before
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discord discussions and even more cool
rewards later people a few overlapping
points they have in common are clearly
intentional with different animations
and properties though animations are a
key thing to look at here for the record
according to crow falls lead animator
professionals will take a full workday
to produce today we take a deeper look
at only the biggest of big move smash
ultimate has to offer while I don't see
much play on the tournament stage and
what you can do if you are desperate to
pull them off declare