On the second half of 2014, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U was released to the worldwide gaming market, with the latter receiving critical acclaim and a Metacritic score of 92,2/100. Well received aspects of the game include the wide arrangement of single and multiplayer modes, a roster of great variety and improvements over gameplay mechanics in previous entries. While the sheer quantity of features indeed is a valid point, I will hereby inform you of why it all falls flat as a direct result of poor mechanics, poor planning and poor execution:
1. The new ledge mechanic is even worse than the original
Few people would dispute that edge-camping (to preserve invincibility, as seen in Melee and Brawl) and edge-hogging (to gimp opponents, as seen in all previous Smash games) are present because of flawed edge mechanics. However, the solution brought by the new mechanics are far from satisfactory: The sweet-spot range for grabbing the edge is still very long (same as Brawl) which, combined with air-dodging, means that edge guarding more often than not will get punished, as the almost guaranteed recovery results in an invulnerable opponent once he or she makes it back. Essentially, this means that no matter how far you hit your opponent, if he is not off-screen, he will make it back and punish you if you attempt to stop him.
2. The A.I. is ridiculously unbalanced
Frame perfect shields, frame perfect air dodges, frame perfect reaction speed, and plenty of intentional mistakes more or less sums up Smash 4's vision of challenging A.I. As such, they are useless to practise against unless they are the only opponents that you intent to fight. Of course, those familiar with previous Smash games will notice some similarities, but failing this greatly to create realistic A.I. opponents in this day and age is simply unacceptable.
3. Counters are overpowered
Not only is the move in effect as soon as it is performed (as we are all accustomed to), but the effect lasts for an unreasonably long amount of time. This flaw becomes painfully obvious when considering the previous point on this list.
4. Defensive play is far too rewarding
Almost all moves that are used on a shield will get punished either by immediately dropping the shield and attacking (if the opponent's move has a lot of ending lag) or by simply shield-grabbing the opponent. The end result is that offensive play, unless accompanied by projectile camping or unskilled opponents, is not a viable strategy. Especially considering how low the hit stun is compared to the first two games of the series, which makes strong reads (the act of predicting your opponent and punishing him with a strong hit) and strong hits in general less rewarding because of how unlikely they are to lead into a combo - In addition to combos becoming rare in general. Smash professional PC Chris said it best when he, referring to Brawl, stated that it was less about beating up your opponent and more about who gets hit less.
5. Final Destination is the only stage in For Glory mode
This is yet another example of the developers failing to recognize the desires of people who play Smash competitively. Limiting the stages to Final Destination alone heavily rewards characters with projectiles, and does nothing to compensate for the characters who don't have this advantage. In addition, it makes the whole experience more bland than necessary with this lack of variety.
6. The Rage mechanic
Outside of Lucario in Brawl, this is the first time a mechanic of this sort is present in this series. Simply put, the Rage mechanic makes characters with higher damage inflict more knockback with each of their moves, serving as a means of letting losing players make a comeback more easily. Effectively punishing players who perform well.
Indeed, a more appropriately named mechanic is hard to find.
7. The balancing is terrible
While the three previous points were supposed to serve as automatic balancing mechanics, three characters in particular have managed to take advantage of these mechanics and shape the whole meta game. The two most prominent examples are Shiek and Diddy Kong who, with their particularly fast out of shield- and guaranteed follow-up options, dominate all major tournaments. The third prominent example is Lucario who still has his aura effect (retained from Brawl) which, in combination with the rage effect, makes him insanely powerful at high percentages - enabling him to K.O. opponents that are under 40 percent with his smash attacks.
8. There is no equivalent to the Subspace Emissary
As one of the few things that Brawl did right, it came to everyone's surprise when it was announced that this feature would not be appearing in the newest installment of this series. The excuse for its disappearance revolved around the ability to see the whole story on youtube without buying the game, but as many were able to point out, this was just an evasion. And the real reason would soon make itself apparent.
9. The game was rushed
The Wii U home console's struggles forced Nintendo to push this game through the gate as quickly as possible, and after going through this list, the devastating consequences should be apparent to anyone. However, the most devastating result has yet to be mentioned; the result which is by far the most vital mistake made during the development of this title:
10. The game was not developed by Nintendo
While it is true that Sakurai oversaw the development of the title, fact remains that all the hard work was done by the people at Namco. Sakurai mentioned that it was his intention to bring back the same competitive audience that disliked the changes made in Brawl, but ultimately he had no choice but to accept the work that was made by Namco's hundreds of employees, if nothing else to meet the deadline and release the game in time. And while Namco does not strike you as the average money-grabbing third party developer, their polish and eye for quality evidently stand no chance against Nintendo's expertise.
As a result, this series will forever be taintet by this entry.
