Meet Jonne “Lyonaris” Lyonne and Alex “Angelican” Wong. They are but a few of the guys who help organize and flourish the Super Smash Bros. community in Singapore. They are also pretty good at the game and are training younger players to be better than them at the fighting game.

In case you didn’t know, Super Smash Bros. is a pretty big deal in the US and in Europe. You remember an earlier EVO tournament back in 2014 where the players and the commentators were hyped up all the way from start to finish? Here:

You can’t say the same for the Southeast Asia scene. Not yet at least, because it’s still in a grassroots level and is slowly but surely gaining traction thanks to recent events like the Asia Gaming Festival and previous GameStart Asia side tournaments (see pictures below):

So why bring the two up? Because there’s a new Smash Bros. game coming for the Nintendo Switch -technically a port of the Wii U original- and it features all of the fighters. If you want great feedback and legitimate thoughts on an upcoming sequel to a fighting game, it’s best to ask the pros and the community leaders about it.

So take it away, Jonne & Alex.

Jonne “Lyonaris”:

Let’s start with the most obvious: everyone was NOT expecting Solid Snake and the whole “everyone is here in Smash Bros.” Including Wolf and Ice Climbers. 

We started noticing that the game looked faster than Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. There was a lot less lag on a number of moves and that was just before they introduced the new tech like the directional air dodge from Super Smash Bros. Melee. 

The dodge itself looks different; there’s no hangtime after the air dodge ends, which means your character will start to fall immediately after. The one thing a lot of us are wondering is whether the dodge has endlag on landing.

The dash cancel to Smash attacks is new too. Previously we could always cancel dash with Up + Smash attack. Now, we can do it with all Smash attacks. There’s also a lot of hype going around with the character redesigns, especially with Princess Zelda.

Long story short: we are damn hyped for the huge-as-heck roster. The new mechanics look super-fun especially when combined with the various character changes both mechanically and aesthetically.

Alex “Angelican”

Personally, I think Inkling will be placed quite high once people find out about her movesets and speed. He/she has awesome moves and mobility, but there’s just one major setback in competitive play: he/she has to recharge his/her ink supply as and when necessary.

This additional resource management is similar to that of Olimar in which when you run out of steam you’re pretty much trying your best to go and get the space you need to recharge.

Compared to most of the other characters this might be a setback that players have to work around.

For Ridley, I think it’s too hard to tell given the demos we saw did not showcase his abilities adequately and at a professional level.

I think he will be somewhere in the middle: he has high damage but it’ll be hard to get hits in. 

Do check out the Singaporean Smash Bros. community at SmashG. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will be out 7 December for Nintendo Switch.