Hyping the crowd with a Pikachu plushie, Smash Bros. player Axe pulled an incredible win against Silent Wolf with his Pikachu, beating the hell out of his opponent in record time. It wasn’t the grand finals, but without a doubt one of the best moments of all the games played at EVO 2014.
Here are all three matches of Silent Wolf vs. Axe. Skip to 6:30 in game 3, that’s where the real destruction begins.
EVO 2014 SSBM Losers Top 8 – Silent Wolf vs Axe [YouTube, via Twitch]
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7 responses to “One Of The Highlights Of EVO 2014 Was An Incredible Win With Pikachu”
Any reason why Melee is played in EVO and not Brawl?
I think this question comes up every year 😛
But it’s because it’s generally accepted that melee is the better designed game from a competetive standpoint. Generally accepted meaning there are people who disagree, but personally among my circle Brawl is considered either the single most dissapointing game of all time or somewhere in the top 5. It’s made to be more accessible and more of a party game, which is fine, but you can’t expect people that are used to something deeper to play an inferior version. These days we actually play project M almost exclusively though, and with all star mode coming soon… well, I still have no desire to buy a Wii U 🙂
Because that’s the game the competitive scene prefers. Some specifics include the pace of fighting and the tripping “feature” in Brawl.
Melee is an accidental masterpiece. Like traditional fighters, it has combos, footsies, wakeup game, advanced techniques, rewards for both defensive and offensive play, and matchups. What sets the game apart from traditional fighters is that you can move totally freely in the space provided, and the options available to you are limited only by your ability to control your character.
At high level play, input speeds of 6-8 inputs per second are not uncommon, comparable to competitive Starcraft. The pace of games is extremely fast due to the high reward of landing a hit on your opponent. Often, one hit can lead to landing your opponent off stage, and another can prevent them from returning, which can lead to huge momentum swings and awesome comebacks. The game is a treat to play and watch.
After backlash from the casual community that melee was catered more toward the hardcore gamer, the Smash brothers development team decided Brawl would be catered toward exclusively casual gamers. Combos were removed, advanced techniques were neutered, and movement options were severely limited. Every character can get back to the stage with little to no effort, meaning damage needs to be accumulated hit by hit until someone lands a move with enough knockback to KO. Since there are no combos, there is no reason to play offensively and matches often go to time, with one or both players often resorting to gaining a miniscule percentage lead and running the timer out.
TL;DR
Melee is fast, fun, allows for and encourages comebacks and exciting matchplay. Brawl is slow, floaty, games run to time, when one player gets a slight lead there is little room for a comeback from the other player, there are no combos and exciting things rarely if ever happen.
Thank you (and everyone else who answered). Going by the footage and disclaimers of Nintendo is there any hope that next Smash Bros. is going to recover some of its competitive flair?
Sorry I didn’t answer sooner. Smash 4 is looking very similar to Brawl. A lot of the degenerate stalling mechanics were removed, but players live longer and games are still very slow. There are still barely any combos, and defensive play rules the day. It has a lot of cool characters though! But that’s about all it has over Melee as a competitive title.
Thanks for your reply, it’s been really informative.