Absolution Is Overrated (Brawl Roster spoilers).

Well, we know the Brawl roster apart from one character. And what can I say? I feel like now all I’ve been seeking is known… so what comes next? The initial shock at how ordinary and boring the roster is has washed away. Now comes the next phase, wondering how each of the characters handle and where they’ll slot into a Tier List. Its kinda hard to tell. Peach and Sheik will probably still remain Top Tier, Marth may even join them but he has apparently had some nerfs. Its hard to tell at the moment, if he still has DSHF in his move list then he might be safe.

Ike is likely to be towards the lower end of the Tier List. Though he seems to have received a speed boost, it probably won’t be enough to save him from his Roy like abilities. He seems like a heavy hitter, so will that harm his ability to combo (Much like Roy’s did to him). I also predict Pokemon Trainer to be likely to fall down below the mid section of the tiers, he has variety in his Pokemon but any positive they possess becomes null has they tire after two minutes of battle. Not a big thing, maybe a pro will find a useful strategy to incorporate this into their game.

Ice Climbers are hard to pick, they seem to play like in Melee except they have lost wavedashing (as every character has) so that may harm them due to it being the recommended form of movement that they utilise. Regardless I think they may squeeze into the higher end. Samus may also join them, despite having lost Missile Cancelling and a much more challenging Bomb Jump (I believe I heard it was still possible, just with different timing). Captain Falcon is still the speedster that he was in Melee, and he never really benefited from wavedashing so there is a chance he could move up the list. Ganondorf may not join him due to the fact that L-cancelling is apparently out, this will harm him because of the lag his aerials used to come with (unless that has been cut down, in which case I’ll eat my hat).

Fox and Falco are both likely to drop. Wavedashing and L-cancelling being gone harms them. Means no waveshining, and no Short Hop Lazers for either of them. If they still have some speed and relatively good attacks they’ll still be in the higher end of the tier list. Pikachu along with Kirby have both apparently received some buffs. But I don’t think that’ll be enough to stop their light weight’s getting in their way. I still haven’t seen footage of how Jigglypuff or Luigi handle so where they will end up is hard to say.

Mario, he apparently got some nice buffs and FLUDD is a nice way to stall for time apparently. Combine that with better combo power and you get a nice package. Some say he is Mario after fusing with the Doc from Melee. Bowser (according to Gimpy) is better now so I see him placing high tier-wise.

R.O.B and Game and Watch are likely to suck. Its hard to guarantee it but they are likely too.

Top Tier (3)
Peach
Sheik
Marth

High Tier (5)
C. Falcon
Sonic
Fox
Falco
Metaknight

Mid Tier (8)
Mario
Jigglypuff
Samus
Ganondorf
King Dedede
Link
Pit
Pokemon Trainer

Low Tier (7)
Ike
Diddy Kong
Luigi
Toon Link
Pikachu
Bowser
Snake

Bottom Tier (9)
Zamus
Olimar
Yoshi
Zelda
Lucas
Ness
Wario
Donkey Kong
Mr. Game and Watch

Characters I couldn’t find a place for (3)
Lucario
R.O.B
Wolf (when confirmed)

Of course that list is my speculation, there is very little chance its even spot on considering I haven’t played the game myself. We await detailed information from the Japanese or any English speaking person who is getting it early.

For the record, Ridley is definitely would be TOP TIER if he were in the game. Haha!…….

See you next mission.

F*** You Impatient Fans.

We are like a day and a half away from Brawl’s release. And I’m quite frankly getting sick of impatient fans. It was bought to our attention that there was the possibility of Hong Kong getting a shipment of games and that one of the games may be Brawl. Now obviously we have no idea if this is true. But the threads are just getting spammed to Hell and it makes me hope that it is in fact false. Because posting more isn’t going to make the time come faster. Just sit down, and shut the Hell up. You’re making us patient Smash fans look bad. (examples: BrawlCentral forums and Smashboards… mostly BrawlCentral)

New news on Mario Kart Wii: Snaking confirmed from MKDS. Rofl. And to think people think its cheating. Now embraced by Nintendo. Win. Baby Peach and Boo will be playable, argh. Lameness. Boy am I glad Smash Bros. hasn’t sold out like Mario Kart.

Anyway, anger confirmed for Brawl.

See you next mission.

Three Days Til Absolution.

The day is nearly upon us. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is mere days away from release in Japan and then all of our questions will be answered. All of those “prophets” will be deconfirmed and thrust back into the nothingness from whence they came. And most importantly, us English speaking folk will be one step closer to playing the game. The prospect of knowing the full roster is very exciting. Will I get to play as Ridley? There is a high chance I will, but if not then I won’t be too annoyed as I’ll still have my high tier characters in the form of Peach, Marth and Sheik. (In case you’ve been living under a rock Jigglypuff, Lucario and Ness are now 99% confirmed due to a slip up in one of the later Wii.com videos).

And where did I pull Marth from? Well, on the 25th of January the update regarded Virtual Console demos of classic games starring some of the characters. So what you say? Well, on the Japanese one there was a screen grab of Earthbound (Ness’ game) and Fire Emblem 3 (Marth’s game) so that essentially confirms them in my opinion.

NOTE: I, like many other Brawl fans, don’t take the NeoGAF “35 Character Roster” one as serious as some. I mean, pfft… playable R.O.B.

I’ve been a busy man this month, playing through Umbrella Chronicles, working on reviews for it and a couple of other games and trying to fully finish Final Fantasy XII.

My game clock just ticked over 131 hours. That really is something, I would like to see Twilight Princess *try* and give me anywhere near that much game time. And if its taken *you* that long, then give up gaming. Because Zelda takes about 50 or so hours tops to get everything you need. And by that stage in FF-XII you were only heading towards one of the final areas with heaps of extras left to complete. My score for FF-XII without giving a full blown review? 9/10. Its a very solid game, only let down by some character/story work.

Umbrella Chronicles, casual gamers ahoy! (That also includes anyone who wanted to play Resident Evil games but were too scared they’d kick their lame asses) This game is perfectly suited for casual gamers, but if you are a hardcore Resident Evil fan then come here only expecting an enjoyable rental. It plays like a House of the Dead game. Which is all good and well in the arcade, but bringing one of them home isn’t much fun. Which is why I enjoyed it, but am 100% sure that I would not have blown $99AU on it. My quick score for UC is about 7/10. Better than expected, but not as good as it could have been (had it been a real RE game) the main thing of interest is that I spotted a small hint at Resident Evil 5, which I thought was very cool of Capcom to do.

The Couch Warrior 2008 Season for SSBM is set to begin around March-ish. Which works fine for me, means we’ll have 5 or 6 imported copies of Brawl to play on. Yay!

This is a filler blog. I will post a cooler one soon >_>

See you next mission, blogee’s.

A New Year. A New War.

2008 has come in with a bang, and I must say I look forward to seeing what this year holds. We get a lot of potentially good games this year, as well as a lot of guaranteed great games.

With Smash in Feb, Mario Kart somewhere mid-08 and MGS4 in late-08 this is shaping up to be even better than last year… and we got some pretty cool games last year, oh… and Halo (that’s right, it’s not great.)

Anyway, I recently completed FF-XII and I must say that it is by far superior to Twilight Princess on the Wii. Not only was its story better, but its gameplay and music were, its characters were and its lifespan was. I mean, I played TP for about 60 hours doing all the sidequests and such. Not bad, hey? Well so far I’ve spent 100 hours on FF-XII, and I *still* have a few things left to do. Including a 6 hour boss fight to complete. Only thing that TP has over FF-XII is the fact that Ganondorf is an awesome villain, Vayne in FF-XII was not. Plus its ending built to nothing, clearly showing they WANTED that damned sequel. Which I think is wrong.

My mod chip goes in my Wii soon and I start saving to import SSBB from America and then I start my PS3 fund so that I may buy MGS4.

Also, Raiden is a girl. RUFL!

See you all on WiiLoaded.

This is the beginning of SSBM Season 2008. I look forward to it, I am assuming it’ll start Feb/March.