Article Written by Samuel “Dabuz” Buzby
Last time we were here I was talking about the meta of Smash Ultimate and what has & hasn’t changed over time. One of the most common sentiments I saw was that I didn’t address how boring the game has gotten to watch over time, so I wanted to propose a scale for what I think makes characters fun or boring to watch.
Before looking at the chart below I want you to think about the characters you enjoy & dislike watching. How closely do your opinions match this chart made by Schustats which was derived from a Smash community poll? Granted this isn’t directly a “watchability” chart, but I think sauce/ flashiness is close enough to use as a metric for what spectators view about watching different characters on stream.
There shouldn’t be many surprises if you pay attention to Smash. Fast combo heavy characters are generally viewed highly, slow zoners are viewed poorly, and in the middle is everything else.
My goal is to make sense of this, to provide a framework for why our opinions are formed in such a way. I propose a 3 point rubric.
Presentation or as the kids say, Aura Farming – How do they look in motion? Are the animations cool? Do they have effects and sounds that add that OOMPH to the gameplay? We look at a character like Joker and it makes sense he’s one of the most loved characters in Ultimate. His movements flow like an agile thief, his combos have him twirling and making these exaggerated motions, his dagger has these awesome visual streaks, Arsene gives all of his attacks these POWERFUL sound effects like you’re hitting the opponent with a hammer. Meanwhile you look at someone like Mr. Game & Watch with an actual hammer and the animations are simple, there are barely any effects, the hits lack any sort of substance, he takes stocks while retro sound clips are playing.
I bet you can HEAR this move just by seeing a picture of it.
I would make the argument that presentation is the most important part of a character being enjoyable to watch. It’s why Melee is fun to watch, most characters are really satisfying in how they move and attack. It’s why Tekken 8 is a JOY to watch as a spectator, SF6 can be a good watch, but despite all the good things about a game like Marvel Infinite, it died largely because the characters were straight up ugly.
Gameplay – While similar to presentation, where I differentiate gameplay is how we describe the goals of a character. If you watch a character whose goal is to use speed to move in and out of attack ranges, quickly punish missed attacks, and overwhelm the opponent with blinding unpredictable pressure, you’re probably going to like that. Resources that create clear moments of strength are engaging to watch in my opinion because I’m wondering when and how they are going to cash out. For example a Sheik with full needles means they are looking to confirm a kill, and a good opponent will adapt their plan to avoid that which creates this dynamically changing match.
On the opposite side of things I’m not a fan of characters built around one very strong move with quick startup, low endlag, invincibility, and touch of death combos if it hits. Kazuya is a repetitive character, he’s predictable to watch and the counterplay is normally not to fight him which makes otherwise interesting characters forced to play slowly to win.
Pacing also matters a lot here. DK has QUICK games where he can dish out a lot of damage and also take a lot of damage so when you see a DK on stream, it’s unlikely you’ll get too much DK. Meanwhile Sonic games regularly go to the 7 minute timer, in a best of 5 set you get to the point of having a genuine concern for an event running on time. Even if you enjoy watching the character it’s a lot of time spent that could be used elsewhere.
All of this is to say, there is A LOT of variance that goes into gameplay but I think it’s safe to say we generally enjoy seeing faster matches and a wider variety of moves & strategies being employed to win. We want to be surprised, if we know how a match is going to play out then some people are going to wonder if there is even a reason to watch.
Meta Relevancy – People like rooting for underdogs and cheering against top tiers. Spectators want to see rare characters and tire of seeing the common characters, which is normally correlated to their tier placing.
I remember in the early days of Ultimate, Wolf was considered BORING. You would see a Wolf player on stream and stream chat would be complaining that we are just watching one of the the common top tiers again. Now, he’s the 4th highest character on the community sauce poll… what changed? The difference is he’s no longer considered top tier, in fact he’s considered “bad”, which is a heavy exaggeration to indicate he’s dropped off since previous early success due to nerfs and a meta where he’s no longer dominant. In some ways Wolf has become an underdog, a character that is difficult to pilot into the top echelons of bracket, and a nice diversion from what we normally see. Sure, as he’s developed the Wolf players have discovered cool combos he might hit, but we’ve also been watching laser camping & down throw dash attack for almost 7 years now.
When I play Rosalina, people say they enjoy watching it. I’ll be honest, I think Rosalina is boring to watch in Ultimate sadly. She has to play slowly with a lot of small damage pokes and disengagement until she finds the right opening with Luma still alive. However she’s a poor pick in this meta so you almost never see at the late stages of bracket unless I’m piloting her. I believe she would be DESPISED if she was more common, but instead she’s moderately enjoyed according to this poll. In comparison, during Smash 4’s competitive relevancy she was an uncommon top tier and one of the most hated characters to watch from my recollection.
The elephant in the room here of course is Steve, the discussion has been done numerous times but I’ll leave him here as an example of a character that would probably be seen as HYPE if he wasn’t the clear cut best character in Ultimate. He has a lot of cool combos, his setups allow Steve players infinite room to innovate, his play pattern is unique, he’s actually an interesting character. It’s just that you see him so much and he’s so strong.
Nothing Is Set In Stone – At the end of the day these 3 points are just guidelines built upon seeing the opinions of the community at large and the roster doesn’t cleanly fit into this rubric anyway. Peach is common & floaty but clearly LOVED by spectators, Bowser is a big powerful interactive character with satisfying animations but he’s not considered saucy. I think if this poll was run again, Bayonetta would drop lower as the player base has recently found success utilizing her stalling game to force slow and advantageous matches for her.
Our biases are also carved by our experiences. Bowser is a GREAT character at casual levels of play, so someone might see Bowser, remember that time they lost to someone they felt was rolling their face on the controller, and call the character sauceless out of salt.
However, that could change as a player gets better, or maybe Bowser becomes so rare that it’s a treat.There is a universe where a hype combo heavy Metaknight is on the rise and suddenly one player becomes responsible for him becoming a flashy character. It’s all an ebb & flow in an ideally ever changing landscape, and the worst thing that can happen is things staying the same.
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