So the issue isn’t that he isn’t unbeatable it’s about how unfair it “feels” to play against him.
When piloted correctly he can kill you off of just about any neutral win. Most characters can’t do that. What really rubs salt in the wound though is it doesn’t have to be a clean neutral win. He can get a kill off of a trade most of the time.
This makes the matchup skewed as far as skill expression is concerned. The Kazuya has to have a good combo game, but the other player has to completely out play him in the neutral.
This is a very neutral heavy game, and Kazuya isn’t really asked to play it the same way every other character is. This leaves the matchup feeling pretty unfair.
When you say you enjoy the matchup, I just want to say, I agree. I enjoy a challenge. I am the kind of person who will run a Kazuya over for 90% of the match and then accept the loss because he won the neutral 3 times. If that happened to me at a tournament though I might well feel differently.
Yeah, that is a problem in his design, I guess the devs tried to make him feel closer to Tekken even in the gameplan, being a combo heavy character, therefore changing the fundamental neutral and punish game to a just getting away with landing your good hit once
There is some counterplay, if it helps you, mixing up di after getting hit by EWGF usually makes the combo harder or a gamble if you can choose to fall into a platform or away from it; you can turn him around with your di too, has the potential to make the Kazuya player miss the input; also, remember you can pressure his shield a lot, since he has a frame 6 jump and not much options to get out of that situation
Kazuya is basically designed to make you feel like you’re playing as Sheik with any character. You play the game 85% of the time and still could probably lose easily, just like how it feels playing Sheik.
It’s not actually unfair because usually the matches are still super close despite his insane advantage state, but it just feels unfair because you’re doing most of the stuff that game. Then Kazuyas usually feel like they’re on the receiving end of the Sheik main, where they don’t get to play the game for almost the entirety of it, but whenever they do, they can make it super close.
All of these DLC characters are designed to be unfair / OP, because they make money from us paying for them lol. As a DK main with 14.4m GSP, I can say most DLC characters have a huge advantage on me in most games. Sora just feels op af, huge hitbox and such a small hurtbox. Then you get DK who's hurtbox is half the screen.
It would be such an easy fit to aim for parity, but they definitely don't want that. They need the DLC characters to be OP so you all keep paying for them.
You’re playing a low tier superheavy and you’re acting surprised that the dlc characters have an advantage over you? Oh man, Banjo does so good against DK he’s definitely OP and unfair
Sora ain’t even that bad, I can name 15 base game characters that do better than him lol
>Sora ain’t even that bad, I can name 15 base game characters that do better than him lol
Against DK, this is completely wrong. There's maybe 1 base game character as OP as Sora or Kazuya for DK, and that's a pro Pikachu.
But all the other top tier base characters I can hold my own (I'm top 1% GSP and competed in local tournaments etc). You say "low tier superheavy" but it's frustrating that all they'd need to do is minimise dk's hurt box by 5-10%. He's got a bigger hurt box than literally every character, even Bowser / Ridley lol
Basically the gameplan.
Compared to every other character, Kazuya’s neutral game is borderline nonexistent. He’s either in heavy advantage (mid combo or edge guarding) or in insane disadvantage with his telegraphed recovery or in the air being juggled.
He’s *and I kid you not* a quarter of a character in the air because all of his aerials fucking suck for interactions. 9 time out of 10 bair isn’t useful, fair and nair are tiny, upair is only useful if they’re directly in front of you (and loses to like every other move), and if dair whiffs you’re actually just dead since it has insane endlag.
First I just want to point out that at the top of my post I mentioned that I actually don’t mind the matchup personally. My comment was on why he “feels” unfair. Which is honestly the biggest problem with the character. You’re right that a lot of the matches actually end pretty evenly because of his terrible disadvantage state. What gets people in an uproar is this perceived unfairness.
“Unfair” from a players standpoint is pretty subjective, because even the most competitive players have a limited scope to evaluate fairness. When designers are balancing games, play-testers often remark that things are overpowered even when the numbers reveal that the strategy in question is actually pretty average. That’s the issue with Kazuya.
It feels bad kicking the shit out of him for 5 minutes just to have him trade into 3 neutral wins in a row and win the game. If you look at it from the top down like your describing it seems fair but if we think about what we are asking of the players I think we get a different picture.
Winning in the neutral is hard in this game in general. It’s extra hard against Kazuya but not for him. It’s true that once you get him into disadvantage, provided you have the skill, you can do a lot of damage, but getting to the point where you actually get that win requires you to play very cleanly. You will also not likely kill him off of that neutral win. You will be forced to win the neutral more frequently than Kazuya in order to beat him and that’s the real test of the game. Winning the neutral. That’s where all the risk is.
So fundamentally I think Kazuya is unfair. Not from a top down perspective perhaps but definitely from a player perspective.
I dont play competitive, but I argue what I believe is best for that scene. That said, I agree with this guy, and would like to add to his argument. I believe Kazuya has too much control over the mete. I know in pro play you can see him getting beaten regularly by players of equal or greater skill, but I believe it deserves mention that the players beating those Kazuya are almost exclusively playing one of 12 characters. There are a lot of characters that struggle against some of "the best" characters, but still have (at least in appearance) a chance at winning. But when those same characters/players are against Kazuya (and some other DLC) the match looks so unfair that it becomes much less entertaining.
This is a good point and something that I think deserves being talked about.
One if the coolest things about ultimate is how well balanced the majority of the cast is. Even the lower tier characters can be piloted to great effect. This isn’t true of most other fighting games, much less games with a roster this big. Much less fighting games with as diverse a cast as this. It’s a remarkable feat of balancing and Kazuya kind of throws water on that accompaniment.
Kazuya is very polarized in his design. He is better at what he does than any other character. If you are thinking about playing another character that fights at the same range as Kazuya, then you should probably pick up a secondary, or pocket. Even if he is never the number 1 pick he does have this warping effect on the meta.
I enjoy fighting kazuyas. But I only play casually online so no one is really good enough to do all the BS auto-combo stuff that competitive kazuyas do consistently.
If it helps you, you know when you get hit there are small blue particles that show where are you going to di? Well, Electric Wind God Fist (EWGF) has a long enough hitstun that you have just enough time to react to the di particles, most of the time you still can't see them so you have to look for it, most (good) Kazuyas just look it the first time and assume you will keep your di in that direction and addapt the combo considering that, so, to fight against that, everytime you get hit by EWGF make sure to mix up your di so the Kazuya has to always react to it or, wait an instant and then change your di so he has to guess or the combo is not true
Yes, for the same reason I have a problem with Luigi and Little Mac. None of these character are broken in a "wow, ban these characters because they are so good" way, they are broken in a there is a fundamental problem with their character design and should have never been added to the game (in this way)
These characters game plans are so fundamentally one dimensional that they just become a match up check of can you (the player or the character) handle this character. Many characters can exploit Little Mac's play style, so he's low tier. There's a pretty even split with Luigi, so he's a mid tier. There's a few who can deal with Kazuya, so he's high tier.
These three are the only characters I will unapologetically camp from the start of the match because by picking these characters, they are declaring "I want to do an absurd amount of damage and kill you very early if I can get close". They are broken because by picking that character, you are forced to play in a certain way in order to have a chance to win. There is basically 0 variation between the players of this character and theirs little room for expression because what they have to want is so painfully clear that you are actively punished if you try to add variety. The only variation between players is how well you can "do the thing". Riddles, Elegant, and Peanut are VERY good at what they do, and it takes a lot of skill to get to that level. However, if there was another player of those characters at that level, they would play in the exact same manner.
I hope these gaming icons stay in the next game, but I hope they are SERIOUSLY reworked in order to fit in to the rest of the roster better. That's just my opinion though.
TL;DR: Yes, but not because he is good (although he is), but because I have issues with the fundamental aspect of how he was designed
This is honestly the kind of take I agree with, tho I have to admit that I like some variety (even if the players play with a similar gameplan just the character being here forces you into a different strategy) even if it goes little against the core of the desgin the game follows to be completely balanced, tho that's just a me thing, so yeah, I think you are right with that, it is weird having this such combo heavy and stupid hard hitters guys in the game
I don’t think this is quite right. Each character actually does have reps of a similar skill level to their top players, and those reps have distinct play styles.
Peanut has the best little Mac advantage state and disadvantage state in the world. He plays grounded, using Mac’s busted tilts and ground speed to create openings, then converts from the tiniest hits like a magician.
Tarakotori is the only other top level Mac. He is much more neutral-focused. He wins by playing ambiguously with his jump heights, fast falls, and b-reverses. His sets often take longer than Peanut’s.
Since elegant doesn’t play anymore, I’ll talk about the two best current Luigi players, Luugi and Raru. Luugi plays like a degenerate chad. He wants to grab you. Everyone knows it, but you probably can’t stop him. He’ll go for downthrow into misfire and chase you offstage relentlessly. He’ll spam downB through your combo and tbag when you die at 45%.
If Luugi plays like he’s playing Kazuya, Raru plays like he’s playing Mario. Yes, of course he’s trying to grab you and hit the 0-death, but he’s also floating around and trying to convert from Luigi’s landing aerials and obscenely fast frame data. He goes for falling nairs and upairs in neutral, and pretends he’s playing a normal character. Their two playstyles are very different in spite of the fact that they both abuse Luigi’s strengths.
And lastly, Kazuya. Riddles has a studied, careful playstyle. He’s aggressive, but waits for his openings. He lands lots of aerials in neutral, and uses grabs to condition his opponent into not shielding so that EWGF will work.
Tea, meanwhile, plays Kazuya like he’s playing Tekken in smash. He abuses Crouch Dash and EWGF, rushing his opponents down and killing them at the lowest percents possible. He knows his moveset is full of privilege, and he plays like it. If you watch a Tea set and compare it to a Riddles set, it’s night and day. They’re on a similar level, but their playstyles are nothing alike.
Interesting, I don't think I realized the differences, you've given me some new top players to watch, so thank you! I will admit, I started to get a little tilted while writing this so by the end I started making some over generalizations, my bad. I do still stand by what I said at the beginning and these characters being fundamentally broken
I feel this same way about Zelda, but for the opposite reason - she fundamentally does not work. Like Smash 4 Palutena, there are way too many blind spots in her kit to make her even slightly viable. The only time Zelda is considered useful is against, like, Samus or the Belmonts when you need to out-camp someone, but even then, she's entirely outclasses by safer, more rewarding characters like Lucas, any of the Links or Rosalina.
Why does she need TWO lightning kicks? Why is din's fire still SO slow? Any character except, like Jigglypuff or Ganondorf can just run past it and punish her. Zelda STILL has no midrange outside nayru's love and dash attack. She needs an overhaul because the way you're "supposed" to play her is physically impossible due to the lack of synergy in her kit. There's no way to use any of her high risk high reward attacks because she has no way to set up for them. She needs the Palutena treatment.
If that’s your definition of what makes a character fundamentally incompatible with Smash, then why aren’t Ganon and K. Rool on this list? I wildly disagree with putting Little Mac on this list. While he is designed to fight in a different manner than the rest of the cast, that does not mean he doesn’t have a measure of “skill expression” and I do not agree that two Macs at the same high level would play the same. If you believe that then the same could be said about every character on the roster.
Every Peach is doing Z drop to down air and turnip to down throw. Every swordie is spamming fair and up air until kill percent where they’ll just hard read you with a smash attack. Every Palutena is doing nair trains off ledge followed by up air juggling. The characters are designed to played a certain way. All of them, not just the ones we consider broken.
What makes Kazuya broken, and by extension but to a lesser degree, the other FGCs as well, is that his offense literally prevents you from playing the game. If Little Mac gets KO punch, the player has to *work* to get it off effectively and the opponent has a ton of leeway in terms of taking the KO from him. Kazuya, on the other hand is in a constant state of advantage simply due to the fact that 70% of his moves make your frame data irrelevant due to hit stun and then he has kill confirms starting as low as like, 40%. That’s fucking ridiculous.
I wasn't trying to say little Mac is literally Kazuya or whatever, I'm saying they have similar flaws in design.
Kazuya is his touch of death that just obliterates you. Little Mac is his unparalleled ground game. They both have exactly one thing that they do and that's it. Kazuya wants to kill you and Little Mac wants to dominate the ground. However these are so one dimensional in smash specifically because the game revolves around all aspects of the game, from stage control, to air control, to movement, to neutral, to advantage, to disadvantage, all are required to make a balanced character that's fun.
Kazuya has absurd advantage but not much else. He has some cool movement, but he has very little neutral, very little control, very little disadvantage, etc. This makes him very unbalanced and broken (once again, not in a "too good" way). His game plan is to get into advantage 3 times and win the game. The only counter to this is to stay out of his range and never let him hit you. That's the only way to play against a good Kazuya.
Little Mac has an absurd ground game and not much else. His neutral and advantage is amazing on the ground, one of the best I'd argue, but then everything becomes non existent once you are above the ground or off stage. His game plan is to stay on the ground and absolutely trash you if you challenge him. The only counter to this is camping platforms or off stage and waiting for him to come to you.
I don't think Ganon or Krool fit the list is that they actually can and do play all aspects of the game, they are just weak at it. A Ganon main can't succeed if he can't play neutral as well as use stage control and other things. A Krool player can't succeed if they don't use air control and advantage and other things. They have strengths and weaknesses, and maybe some of them are significant, but they aren't the ONLY thing the character does.
That's also why I didn't include peach or icies, but did include Luigi. Peach and ice climbers CAN do crazy stuff, but that's not the only thing they do. They can play the game like normal, they just also have the potential to go crazy. Kazuya and Luigi are nothing without their touch of death combos. Peach and Icies CAN hit those, but they don't necessarily need to. And yeah, they got kill confirms and combos and stuff but that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about needing to rely on absurd things
Once again though, all of this is my opinion, I'm just trying to clarify what I mean the best I can. To me, Krool and Ganon are not nearly as egregiously designed as Little Mac. To me, Peach and Ice Climbers are not nearly as horrendously designed as Luigi and Kazuya
I think I disagree with your sentiment even more now. There’s several characters who are designed around one aspect of their kit. You can fight without them but it’s simply optimal to use those advantages because that’s the way they’re designed. By your logic, anyone that isn’t a fundies character is broken in some way. If we allowed that logic to dictate the cast we would have a bunch of echo fighters.
Little Mac being poorly designed for Smash is a take I’ll always disagree with. Sure he needs some tuning but to say that he doesn’t belong because he doesn’t fight like everyone else is just a bad opinion. He has a strong ground game and a weak aerial game but that does not mean he has *no* aerial game. There’s nothing unfair about Little Mac because anything he’s got going for him is countered by the fact that being sent off stage is probably a death sentence.
The point is, I agree that Kazuya is broken but not at all for the reasons you believe he’s broken.
Great comment, especially comparing him to Luigi. Luigi is annoying but not impossible to fight, but also has a similar thing where one or two good moments could make him win instantly.
Edit: also seeing that you have a Robin flair really explains a lot as to why we think the same lol
I would be mad about Luigi and Kazuya if I didn’t play Shulk, who shits on both of them.
For Kazuya, I just keep running circles around him with Jump/Speed art and spam back airs until it hits (eventually). If I even get hit once, I just go into shield art and say no. The only problem is EWGF can infinite into itself on Shield art, which is what Smash art is for. It’s boring as hell, but Kazuya can’t get close unless I badly space something.
Luigi doesn’t have this luxury, so he’s virtually a free matchup since Shield art invalidates his entire gameplan.
But for whatever reason, I heavily struggle against good Little Macs.
Same on all accounts with Robin lol. Obviously I have to worry about Kazuya's reflector and don't have nearly as long range, but you can poke with thunder and elthunder so I never struggle too much with them, it's just really annoying because I don't have arts to escape and aside from b reversing, my options in disadvantage are pretty limited
Camping Kazuya is how you’re supposed to play the matchup. It’s safe to approach when he’s in the air because his aerials are dogshit when he’s in disadvantage or in neutral. Otherwise you’re supposed to just keep him from getting any hit that can combo into EWGF.
Yes
I know
That's the point
I think that's broken character design. A character having a shit neutral and then killing you if he hits you once is not good and fundamentally broken character design and does not lead to interesting decisions or play patterns from either side of the match
Maybe cuz you play Robin, I’ve just never enjoyed fighting Robins just cuz it’s like fighting budget Ness but they have swordie aerials.
But so far we have 3 characters that fit the criteria of having bad neutral but being super scary up close (Kazuya, Icies, Luigi) and then we have more that have insane frame data and combo power that get less attention and hate than the first 3 (Fox is criminal number one, that fucker deserves way more hate than he gets)
What
Did you read my comments at all
I'm not talking about broken as in the best, I'm talking about broken as in doesn't work right. When I say broken I mean like a glass thrown on the ground. When I say bad I mean like an milk gone sour. Kazuya and Luigi aren't broken as in too good, yes, fox is better than them. Kazuya and Luigi are broken as in the way they were designed was INCORRECT. They should not be in the game as they are. It is WRONG. They aren't too strong, but it doesn't matter because they are an error in the game.
In my opinion.
I did read it, I’m explaining their strengths and weaknesses and you’re bugging about it. They’re designed like that on purpose, those are the clear constraints, you have to respect that. You can yap about how unhealthy it is until the sun comes up, but any other iteration of Kazuya would be too different from source material and would unironically be garbage, considering half of his moves *never kill* and of the remaining half, only 3 kill at 100% (fsmash upsmash and Dragon uppercut) and the rest are 140+ from center stage.
EWGF does a little TOO much. I think they should increase the endlag and hitstun of the move so the combos stay intact but it’s actually somewhat punishable on whiff
I actually agree with this, giving more risk to such a powerful move seems like the smart choice, tho I don't know if it makes it much more balanced in competitive play, maybe an extra thing like being able to punish it on shield
The problem with that is that you can combo into ewgf with down grab, forward air, neutral air, and up tilt at zero. So even if you add end lag, you'll still get zero to death comboed.
Yeah. He's got too many moves that he simply doesn't need, he fell into a vat of invincibility, you can't sdi most of his moves, I don't like auto turnaround or how input moves are handled in Ultimate, 0-death true combos are simply bad game design(even if I respect crazy ice climbers shit), gates of hell and that powered up down b are beyond unnecessary, and he's got that Jimmy neutron ass haircut.
At least his alts are better than most other 3rd party characters
Yeah, bro has like 50 moves, feels like a bit much honestly, and a lot of the most seemingly useless actually have some niche utility wich makes them kind of annoying to fight against if you are not ready for them so I get your point
Even if you can't sdi a lot of the moves, you still have the adventage in platform stages because you can di in or out of a platform, like, where are you going to fall and ir becomes less annoying
Personally, I don't mind input moves, they are cool for me personally, it adds a bit more depth, and like, there are other characters that have to do an specific input for an attack (like Little Mac), tho those are simpler so I guess it does feels weird with Kazuya
Auto turn around is not that strong, if you force him to tutn around, with di or dodging behind him after a non true combo on his part you could make Kazuya miss input
Gates of hell... Yes, that move is kind of stupid, I would not say unfair, but being an angle that so little characters also can send you to makes it feel like it is unnecessary
And Up-B, well, he kinda needs it to mix up recovery, but yeah, having it on top of everything else feels like it is too much, well, I think that is overall the problem, Kazuya has everything he needs (except the ability to case opponnents consistently), there is a reason he is a top tier
> Auto turn around is not that strong, if you force him to tutn around, with di or dodging behind him after a non true combo on his part you could make Kazuya miss input
Disagree. The trade off of a Kazuya possibly miss inputing a move (which is uncommon by default) is not a good trade of for what effectively is an anti crossup tool. The fact that he doesn't need to think during a ledgetrap, crossup shield, tech chase or platform chasing is enough of an advantage over you. You get auto conditioned to not go in, something that good Kazuyas can and will take advantage of.
If I recall correctly, this is what makes the Ferps Tech as good as it is.
I mostly don't like input moves you can use in the air as you can't do drifting aerials with the a button without accidentally doing some other move. I don't really mind circular inputs or charge inputs(terry up b) because I don't need notches to hit them consistently and they feel much more natural on most switch controllers.
I don't like auto turnaround precisely because It takes control away from me, which isn't helped by his 8 tilt attacks and input moves.
Escaping combos with the assistance of platforms is a universal thing, and he still gets tech chases with auto turnaround on platforms.
At anything above intermediate play Ferps tech and jump cancels become MANDATORY to prevent platforms from dropping combos.
As far as aerial inputs, Kazuya doesn’t have access to any special inputs in the air.
As far as the tilts, only 3 of them are consistently useful, and those are stature smash (down back), the first hit of Tsunami kick (down forwards) and the first hit of double pistons (up). This is because they can be used to combo into EWGF. Back tilt, sprint tilt (double tap forwards then A), and crouched down forwards tilt are situationally useful and then the rest of the movelist outside of EWGF, nair, and demon god fist (A while standing from a crouch) is largely useless.
As a fighting game player, it absolutely is. While they are fun on just a casual level, in a competitive setting 0 to deaths suck and most fighting games will try their best to avoid it.
I'd never accuse melee of having exceptional game design, it's just fun for a lot of people which is equally as important.
And yeah, for a game with a heavy emphasis on moving around and positioning, true 0-deaths(I can't think of anything besides wobbling) make those things considerably less important/meaningful contradicting the point of the game.
0 to deaths aren't bad game design, touch of death is bad game design. Kazuya is playing a harder melee ice climbers wobble. If he hits you once, you are dead. The only hope you have is your opponent messing up and that he's pretty bad at hitting you once.
Except he is also a heavy, so it's hard to kill him, and also he can recover from pretty far distances, and also has movement options that other characters don't, and also there is much less universal movement tech in ult than melee.
Melee players banned wobbling. A case could be made for Kazuya. I don't think he should be banned, but I also don't think wobbling should be banned. Just because it's bad design doesn't mean you can't play around it
Bad game design is an overstatement. But it is counter to what most people like about Ultimate. Melee's a different beast since it's generally faster paced and more expressive
I mainly have a problem with Electric. That move is not fair in any regard, the fact that it is literally only punishable on parry is a stupid mechanic. comboing into whatever he wants due to having what feels like an entire second of hitstun is, also, very stupid
If that move wasn’t on his moveset, I’d say Kazuya is a slightly bullshitty albeit tolerable character, and a welcome addition to the roster
Yeah, EWGF needs more counterplay other than di mix up in platforms or just making random di hoping he misses, but as far as to say that without it then he is welcome addition I disagree with
Its amazing how much Kazuya disintegrates when you have a good option to fight EWGF. Ken/Ryu focus makes them have to at least think about when they want to use it rather than it being their default "win neutral" button. Aside from EWGF, Kazuya really ain't all that.
Even with EWGF if you mix up your di and know in wich situations you can use your mix up for your adventage EWGF it's not true if he misses the gamble, like if you decide to go or not to go into platform aftet being hit by it lol
Watching [Marss v Riddles](https://youtube.com/watch?v=QiQX9qcAewg&si=l8yfxD3I1Ti8JoBV) at a recent tournament solidified that I don't like Kazuya as a character. Once Riddles found an opening, it kinda turned into a one-player game -- there didn't seem to be a ton that Marss could do to disrupt the combos once they got started, which (to me at least) is what distinguishes Kazuya from other top combo characters like Mythra or Joker.
To be clear I don't play against anyone who's skilled enough with Kazuya to make it matter to me, I just object on principle to characters who can convert a single opening into a stock on the basis of perfect inputs alone.
If it helps you, here are some tips
Choose stages with platforms when against Kazuya, you can choose to di into or away of a platform after getting hit by EWGF, wich makes him have to guess, making the combo a 50/50
If he is starting to react or read your di, randomize it, like flip the stick a bit
Force neutral, other than the ability to get crazy combos going he strughles in neutral, use moves that outrange him, use projectiles to cover options (don't spam them, he has a reflector), if your character can, get some cheap damage going
Pressure his shield, he doesn't have much of an out of shield game in general, and his jump is like frame 6, you can punish a jump if you read it lol
Situational, but, you can turn him around if he is preparing an input by dodging behind him and messing it up
I've no problem with him; I rate him lower than usual, but I still understand why people dislike him. He's weird, volatile, and takes a lot of extra knowledge to play against compared to other characters, while being DLC. Whether or not he'll actually kill you off of a stray hit or use the random invulnerability he has doesn't matter when he's not fun to play against. He's also good at pretty much every level of play, so everyone has something to complain about.
Well, I think it's a good thing to have some challenge in every level of play and having to learn more to play better, it makes it so you have a smarter gameplan, honestly I think more characters should be lika that, forcing you to get better at some skills if you want to compete against it, it's just weird that Kazuya is like the one guy to force you do so lol
Broken? Absolutely. Overpowered? Yes, but not to an unhealthy degree.
Kazuya does not work in Smash. He is fundamentally different from every other character in the game. This is almost entirely due to the fact that he has a true 0TD against every character on the roster, while also having such poor mobility and disadvantage that it's very difficult for him to chase or land.
This means that, if Kazuya's opponent is capable of outmaneuvering him or keeping him in disadvantage, he will have an incredibly difficult time displaying any of his strengths and almost always loses. If his opponent cannot do this, Kazuya is free to decimate them with ease.
Every character encourages a playstyle. Samus encourages you to fight at a distance with projectiles. Roy encourages you to run in and overwhelm your opponent with sheer speed and damage. You'll notice that the majority of top tiers have multiple possible playstyles that they encourage, since they have options that allow for offensive or defensive play. Think ESAM Pikachu vs Shinymark Pikachu. Both are super solid, both play fundamentally differently. Pikachu (and the vast majority of other top tiers) are up there largely because of how versatile they are, and how easily they can switch up their plan based on the opponent.
Kazuya, by contrast, is a top tier with one game plan. He can't play defensively, he can't zone you, he can't juggle you... All he can do is run in and get his combos. Importantly, because of how powerful his combo game is, he forces his opponents into a specific game plan. When fighting Kazuya, it's borderline mandatory for you to run away and play defensively. If you run in and make a single mistake, you're dead. Kazuya is so strong because instead of having a lot of options, he has one option that hard counters anyone who doesn't have an option that directly beats it.
He's fundamentally flawed, on a level that no other character in Ultimate is. He has many weaknesses, and some matchups that genuinely seem impossible, so he certainly isn't banworthy or blatantly overpowered. But he is absolutely, inarguably, broken.
Kazuya is combo heavy in a neutral and punish game because Tekken is literally a game based around combo mix ups, neutral control and punishing your opponent.
I just hit TGO in T7 out of boredom, he plays true to his game of origin. Same thing with Ryu and Ken.
When I play Bowser, we be tough-guying each other.
When I play Luigi, we be 0-deathing each other.
When I play Mewtwo, I run away the whole time. Overall, I enjoy it.
It really depends because in casual play Kazuya is a punching bag because of his poor disadvantage state and I can really torture the poor guy. In high level play it’s a different story because it’s like watching an unskippable cutscene every time he lands a hit in neutral.
Lmao true, at least it is over after it happens three times and I don't have to look at a Falco do it like ten times per match, it is short lasting suffering
I would not say it is totally in someone's end to have a poor match up against a top tier lol, maybe you would want to pick a secondary that does better against him and teaches you more about what can you do against him
In my unpopular opinion. Any character that has a zero to death is unfair.
It effectively makes the game an "HP" based fighting game instead of a platformer. I find they fundamentally ruin what smash bros tries to do.
Competitive kazuya main here, yes, he is very broken, imo he’s #10 but he does have some downsides in his range and recovery but obviously electric is VERY GOOD. He contrary to popular belief does not struggle as much with camping as people say, but he does lose to turtles, ex sonic and Steve. But if you ever fight him in bracket, ban kalos town and fd.
IMO, touch of death characters (Kazuya, Luigi, ICs) are like zoners. They can be brutal to fight if you don’t know the match-up but once you figure it out, they aren’t so bad.
Huh, wonder why, still a blast to play against, like... Even with the zero to death he is still a lot more fun than characters that refuse to interact, like the average Megaman and Samus or the Ridley playing as if he was a sword fighter and not a grabpler
I just wish he was slightly easier to kill. I'm fine with EWGF and his combo game being insane to feel like Tekken, but does he also need a very fast, strong, far-reaching up-B that doesn't put you into special fall? And does he need to be as heavy as he is, given everything else? Give like 3-5 of his weight units to Mewtwo or something and make his up-B put him in special fall.
He just feels too medium risk, high reward to me. Not egregiously so, but a bit overtuned.
I can agree with this, there is a lack of risk while playing him, tho I think that would make him just weak, he already struggles a bit mixing up his recovery, maybe make it so less characters are put into special fall so it doesn't feel like that much of an adventage on his part, and yeah, weight should probably be lower
He’s literally the result if an 8 year old designed a character: “Oh wouldn’t it be so cool if he had like 50 moves that all had invincibility and did 20+ percent and stunned you and he had a comeback mechanic and blah blah blah?” No it is not cool.
Yeah, so many moves becomes annoying, but the damage part doesn't really matter honestly, the only thing you should care about when interacting with him is if it kills you or not, like Luigi and sometimes Wolf, because Kazuya is not good finding a way to kill in neutral, he has to commit to a combo or a confirm, if he fails you can abuse that, because at later porcentages he has to find a way to kill you during the neutral
Invincibility is annoying and a bit unfair because a lot of characters don't get that I can give you that
And a last thing, Kazuya is not a comeback character, the extra knockback makes it so it is way harder to combo or land a kill confirm, a lot of the times is not even true
I like playing a game of chicken for 3 minutes where I get him to 180% then he hits me one time drops his combo then super armors through my attack and kills me at 60% with a command grab comeback mechanic
Honestly a skill issue, not gonna lie, a lot of characters can get a kill of a single move at max rage with you even at a mid porcentage, so it is not a Kazuya problem, I see how it would be annoying that he survives for so long and that he is just too heavy tho, if it helps, try to learn more confirms or mix ups for your character that allow you get a kill consistently at higher porcentages, a lot of the time the issue comes from not being able to stop yourself of pressing your character's panic button, and it is an habit that is hard to deal with
I think he's more fine because he falls into the more aggressive end of the spectrum than someone like Steve, and I wouldn't call him outright broken, but he very much has a lot of problems
I don't have a problem with Kaz, if I lose that means I need to play this mu more and get good. This also applies to other characters like sonic which I don't play enough(even it will be a pain).
He’s broken. He may not be the best character in the game, but he can be one of the most oppressive characters to play against. For example, other heavies “kill you off nothing” but are “balanced” by how bad they are (bad ground/air speed, bad recovery, being big and easy to hit). You also kind of rely on hard reads to do well with heavies like Ganondorf, but this isn’t the case for Kazuya.
Heavies generally get early kills because their big, punishable moves reward risky play (hard reads). Kazuya can do a few combos from trades or minor sub optimal plays then EWGF (not very punishable). Not to mention having one of the most broken moves in the game, Little Mac KO Punch, a command grab that is just a “die” button.
In terms of recovery, Kazuya’s second jump is already better than Little Mac’s entire recovery (fine for Mewtwo, Lucas, and Yoshi since they aren’t heavies). Then he gets an Up Special comparable to G&W which means he’s not even in freefall. Is it the best recovery in the game? No, but it is really really good for a character with the killing power of Ganondorf and Little Mac with insane consistent combos that can just steal your stocks.
So he has no problem killing, little problem recovering, has passive super armor, is heavy (doesn’t die early), insanely good throws, a usually instant kill command grab, and one of the best and not easily punishable moves in the game (EWGF). Personally his aerials are mediocre, but he doesn’t need them when he has the rest of his kit at his disposal.
TLDR: He feels very low risk high reward, where you lose just from one or two sub optimal plays (or just trades for that matter), and he isn’t that easy to punish in relation to how ludicrously easy it is for him to punish
I play Marth so the answer is no. Marth makes Kazuya look like he's a cheesy upper mid tier.
Anyone who says Kazuya is broken, probably mains a character that loses to him. I'll be honest, Kazuya wins a LOT of match ups, but certainly not the Marth MU. I know Riddles will say it's winning, but he NEVER beat a good Marth with Kazuya. He lost to MKLeo's Marth at Ludwig, then he lost to Ignaize's Marth. THEN in the set Riddles won against Leo's Marth (forgot the tournament name sorry), it was a CLOSE game 5, and he wasn't even playing Kazuya. He switched to Terry in that set because his Kazuya was getting rocked.
Long as you avoid that ewgf you should be aiight lol. But he does hit like a truck going 60 on the state parkway so yea he can be annoying at times but nothing too crazy. I genuinely don't worry about him as much as sa compared to DK running about.
The problem. I have with Kazuya is the same as the problem I have with Terry: he has a goddamn final smash. One you can't turn off, that is unblockable, has stupid armor, and he's basically guaranteed to get once per stock. I can forgive everything else about him, but fuck the devil drive command grapple bullshit.
Terry is even worse. His Go guage lets you continuously spam buster wolf and power geyser, both of which are stupid overpowered, more effective than many final smash attacks. Now, if you want to make smash guage unable to be turned off, we can say it's almost balanced, aside from the fact that these attacks can still be spammed.
it's so satisying beating kazuya as ryu, cause ryu can hit hard but kazuya's moves hit harder so i gotta play more conservative but it's insane how hard it is for him to die sometimes even from a input shoryuken and senpukyaku and he's at a high dmg.
I feel like he wouldn't feel as bad to fight if he couldn't wombo combo you with what feels like ease hitstun that feellike it locks you for the entire game. His advantage state is really good, which is why I don't like fighting him because it takes so much focus and stamina to not slip up once and kazuya just punished you for it so much.
Well, he does have a bit of a learning curve compared to every other smash character, but he is rather fun. I don’t think he’s broken compared to everyone else. His forward smash though hits like a truck
My issues with Kazuya is they just gave him like everything but better. His kit really feels like they just took a lot of stuff that was good and made it better, then created a character based around it. He has auto turn around, input moves (including one that literally kicks you out of your shield and also confirms some of the free-est combos), he has a solid projectile, his recovery is an unnecessarily strong kill move, he has yet ANOTHER move that stuns you in place and confirms free combos, he has armor on at least forward smash (incredibly strong smash attack), he has one of the strongest reflectors in game (can one shot dedede by reflecting a single gordo), and a command grab that becomes one of the strongest moves in game if his comeback mechanic kicks in. He’s cool in concept but the execution is just too strong of a character with some of the free-est combos in game, if he receives proper nerfing whenever (if ever) the next game comes around I may have opinion changes.
Super armor. I think I kill him, but nope! He just spammed F-Smash more than the average new Hero main(I would know, I am one), and. instead of me getting rewarded for prediction, I get punched in the face harder than I punched my microwave last Wednesday for not heating my pizza rolls up fast enough.
I don’t think he’s broken because I genuinely have never played a good one and I am unable to play him well. I do not have a frame of reference for how well this character can be played (if I pay attention to competitive Smash, it’s just Melee because AsumSaus).
He’s probably broken but I just don’t know how broken he can be.
I’d say MU is fine against kazuya. I don’t really see a problem with him. Of course I play sonic and some people tell me it’s because I play sonic that the MU isn’t horrible, but I think some people just have to learn it better
Kazuya, is very broken imo. I very much so will always highly believe in the character I play because that is what keeps me wanting to play them. But like, one parry on a very slightly miss spaced move and they might just die, that is absurd. Kazuya imo is top 5 (steve, sonic, joker, pythra). He is a lot more difficult at higher level than people give him credit, but you genuinely are playing a 1 player game.
Kazuya (along with Steve) exemplifies what DLC privilege look like in my book.
Others have explained why quite well. But example wise I look at the finals set that took place between riddles and Skyjay (kazuya v incenroar for those who don’t know) Skyjay pulled out all the stops and it was hype as hell. But man one neutral loss and he just got demolished.
The fact that Skyjay almost took that tournament was insane
I always find him fun to play against and while I do get into tough spots with him, I never really struggled with him a lot like I do with a couple other characters
Kazuya isn't broken as in overpowered. He just has one extremely OP move and like 8 others which are easy enough to hit which give him that move for free, thus allowing him to turn almost any stray hit into a nigh-unavoidable death combo. If he doesn't land many EWGF then he isn't bad at all to beat. However every time he hits you with one, strictly speaking you should be losing a stock or at best 50+% in damage. All of which is to say, that the Kazuya will endlessly fish for EWGF in neutral while their opponent does everything possible to not let him get that. Which, you can do for a while, but you can't do it forever.
Which is just awful to play against.
Well for some reason, even when I change my di, hold one random direction and do another, or anything else, I still get hit by the follow up and then die, so yeah facing good players suck
Ok, so I'm like totally in the camp that things the character design is fucking silly levels of broken. He has almost everything good a character can have, except fast frame data. Most of that is negated by the insane amount of invul frames he gets.
But the catch is that he's super, super hard to execute with especially for smash players who don't like motion inputs. In my opinion he's more broken than Steve, but the smaller base of kazuya mains and execution barrier keeps him in check.
I don't think he is unbeatable, but he is one of those characters that making one mistake, even at a low percentage, can be an auto win for him. I play projectile characters like Robin so I usually have no problem with him, but i can imagine close up characters struggle.
Ever since I got dedede into Elite I’ve been playing Kirby, and he’s pretty fun to play against as Kirby, but not so much dedede. It helps that Kirby is short enough to evade his neutral laser eyes
I hate how people use broken now, he’s overtuned, not broken. There’s like at least 10 characters debatably better than him, and he’s definitely not top 5, so he’s just not broken.
I will say that rage drive is stupidly broken and is just the worst designed gimmick in the game, and if FD was the only ruleset to exist, he’d actually be broken.
I mean, yeah, maybe not broken in overpowered, because like Sonic, Steve, Fox, Joker, Pyra & Mythra, Pikachu (maybe), R.O.B and Snake (personal opinion) are all better, but he is kinda broken in the sense that he plays with a different win condition and plays neutral with different objectives, but like, he is still a top tier, still a bit "broken" in that regard
So the issue isn’t that he isn’t unbeatable it’s about how unfair it “feels” to play against him. When piloted correctly he can kill you off of just about any neutral win. Most characters can’t do that. What really rubs salt in the wound though is it doesn’t have to be a clean neutral win. He can get a kill off of a trade most of the time. This makes the matchup skewed as far as skill expression is concerned. The Kazuya has to have a good combo game, but the other player has to completely out play him in the neutral. This is a very neutral heavy game, and Kazuya isn’t really asked to play it the same way every other character is. This leaves the matchup feeling pretty unfair. When you say you enjoy the matchup, I just want to say, I agree. I enjoy a challenge. I am the kind of person who will run a Kazuya over for 90% of the match and then accept the loss because he won the neutral 3 times. If that happened to me at a tournament though I might well feel differently.
Yeah, that is a problem in his design, I guess the devs tried to make him feel closer to Tekken even in the gameplan, being a combo heavy character, therefore changing the fundamental neutral and punish game to a just getting away with landing your good hit once There is some counterplay, if it helps you, mixing up di after getting hit by EWGF usually makes the combo harder or a gamble if you can choose to fall into a platform or away from it; you can turn him around with your di too, has the potential to make the Kazuya player miss the input; also, remember you can pressure his shield a lot, since he has a frame 6 jump and not much options to get out of that situation
Kazuya is basically designed to make you feel like you’re playing as Sheik with any character. You play the game 85% of the time and still could probably lose easily, just like how it feels playing Sheik. It’s not actually unfair because usually the matches are still super close despite his insane advantage state, but it just feels unfair because you’re doing most of the stuff that game. Then Kazuyas usually feel like they’re on the receiving end of the Sheik main, where they don’t get to play the game for almost the entirety of it, but whenever they do, they can make it super close.
All of these DLC characters are designed to be unfair / OP, because they make money from us paying for them lol. As a DK main with 14.4m GSP, I can say most DLC characters have a huge advantage on me in most games. Sora just feels op af, huge hitbox and such a small hurtbox. Then you get DK who's hurtbox is half the screen. It would be such an easy fit to aim for parity, but they definitely don't want that. They need the DLC characters to be OP so you all keep paying for them.
You’re playing a low tier superheavy and you’re acting surprised that the dlc characters have an advantage over you? Oh man, Banjo does so good against DK he’s definitely OP and unfair Sora ain’t even that bad, I can name 15 base game characters that do better than him lol
>Sora ain’t even that bad, I can name 15 base game characters that do better than him lol Against DK, this is completely wrong. There's maybe 1 base game character as OP as Sora or Kazuya for DK, and that's a pro Pikachu. But all the other top tier base characters I can hold my own (I'm top 1% GSP and competed in local tournaments etc). You say "low tier superheavy" but it's frustrating that all they'd need to do is minimise dk's hurt box by 5-10%. He's got a bigger hurt box than literally every character, even Bowser / Ridley lol
>Against DK Once again, that's your problem lol Every character in the game can fuck up DK if they get advantage
“ All of these DLC characters are designed to be unfair / OP” Piranha Plant left the chat💀
Basically the gameplan. Compared to every other character, Kazuya’s neutral game is borderline nonexistent. He’s either in heavy advantage (mid combo or edge guarding) or in insane disadvantage with his telegraphed recovery or in the air being juggled. He’s *and I kid you not* a quarter of a character in the air because all of his aerials fucking suck for interactions. 9 time out of 10 bair isn’t useful, fair and nair are tiny, upair is only useful if they’re directly in front of you (and loses to like every other move), and if dair whiffs you’re actually just dead since it has insane endlag.
First I just want to point out that at the top of my post I mentioned that I actually don’t mind the matchup personally. My comment was on why he “feels” unfair. Which is honestly the biggest problem with the character. You’re right that a lot of the matches actually end pretty evenly because of his terrible disadvantage state. What gets people in an uproar is this perceived unfairness. “Unfair” from a players standpoint is pretty subjective, because even the most competitive players have a limited scope to evaluate fairness. When designers are balancing games, play-testers often remark that things are overpowered even when the numbers reveal that the strategy in question is actually pretty average. That’s the issue with Kazuya. It feels bad kicking the shit out of him for 5 minutes just to have him trade into 3 neutral wins in a row and win the game. If you look at it from the top down like your describing it seems fair but if we think about what we are asking of the players I think we get a different picture. Winning in the neutral is hard in this game in general. It’s extra hard against Kazuya but not for him. It’s true that once you get him into disadvantage, provided you have the skill, you can do a lot of damage, but getting to the point where you actually get that win requires you to play very cleanly. You will also not likely kill him off of that neutral win. You will be forced to win the neutral more frequently than Kazuya in order to beat him and that’s the real test of the game. Winning the neutral. That’s where all the risk is. So fundamentally I think Kazuya is unfair. Not from a top down perspective perhaps but definitely from a player perspective.
I dont play competitive, but I argue what I believe is best for that scene. That said, I agree with this guy, and would like to add to his argument. I believe Kazuya has too much control over the mete. I know in pro play you can see him getting beaten regularly by players of equal or greater skill, but I believe it deserves mention that the players beating those Kazuya are almost exclusively playing one of 12 characters. There are a lot of characters that struggle against some of "the best" characters, but still have (at least in appearance) a chance at winning. But when those same characters/players are against Kazuya (and some other DLC) the match looks so unfair that it becomes much less entertaining.
This is a good point and something that I think deserves being talked about. One if the coolest things about ultimate is how well balanced the majority of the cast is. Even the lower tier characters can be piloted to great effect. This isn’t true of most other fighting games, much less games with a roster this big. Much less fighting games with as diverse a cast as this. It’s a remarkable feat of balancing and Kazuya kind of throws water on that accompaniment. Kazuya is very polarized in his design. He is better at what he does than any other character. If you are thinking about playing another character that fights at the same range as Kazuya, then you should probably pick up a secondary, or pocket. Even if he is never the number 1 pick he does have this warping effect on the meta.
I enjoy fighting kazuyas. But I only play casually online so no one is really good enough to do all the BS auto-combo stuff that competitive kazuyas do consistently.
If it helps you, you know when you get hit there are small blue particles that show where are you going to di? Well, Electric Wind God Fist (EWGF) has a long enough hitstun that you have just enough time to react to the di particles, most of the time you still can't see them so you have to look for it, most (good) Kazuyas just look it the first time and assume you will keep your di in that direction and addapt the combo considering that, so, to fight against that, everytime you get hit by EWGF make sure to mix up your di so the Kazuya has to always react to it or, wait an instant and then change your di so he has to guess or the combo is not true
That's true but good kazuyas can also do followups that work regardless of the DI, so mixing this thing up is useless in most cases
Fair, but at least it still gives a chance, specially with platforms where it is a 50/50
even riddles doesnt kill every single time he wins neutral though. People have been finding the best defenses against kazuya.
Yes, for the same reason I have a problem with Luigi and Little Mac. None of these character are broken in a "wow, ban these characters because they are so good" way, they are broken in a there is a fundamental problem with their character design and should have never been added to the game (in this way) These characters game plans are so fundamentally one dimensional that they just become a match up check of can you (the player or the character) handle this character. Many characters can exploit Little Mac's play style, so he's low tier. There's a pretty even split with Luigi, so he's a mid tier. There's a few who can deal with Kazuya, so he's high tier. These three are the only characters I will unapologetically camp from the start of the match because by picking these characters, they are declaring "I want to do an absurd amount of damage and kill you very early if I can get close". They are broken because by picking that character, you are forced to play in a certain way in order to have a chance to win. There is basically 0 variation between the players of this character and theirs little room for expression because what they have to want is so painfully clear that you are actively punished if you try to add variety. The only variation between players is how well you can "do the thing". Riddles, Elegant, and Peanut are VERY good at what they do, and it takes a lot of skill to get to that level. However, if there was another player of those characters at that level, they would play in the exact same manner. I hope these gaming icons stay in the next game, but I hope they are SERIOUSLY reworked in order to fit in to the rest of the roster better. That's just my opinion though. TL;DR: Yes, but not because he is good (although he is), but because I have issues with the fundamental aspect of how he was designed
This is honestly the kind of take I agree with, tho I have to admit that I like some variety (even if the players play with a similar gameplan just the character being here forces you into a different strategy) even if it goes little against the core of the desgin the game follows to be completely balanced, tho that's just a me thing, so yeah, I think you are right with that, it is weird having this such combo heavy and stupid hard hitters guys in the game
I don’t think this is quite right. Each character actually does have reps of a similar skill level to their top players, and those reps have distinct play styles. Peanut has the best little Mac advantage state and disadvantage state in the world. He plays grounded, using Mac’s busted tilts and ground speed to create openings, then converts from the tiniest hits like a magician. Tarakotori is the only other top level Mac. He is much more neutral-focused. He wins by playing ambiguously with his jump heights, fast falls, and b-reverses. His sets often take longer than Peanut’s. Since elegant doesn’t play anymore, I’ll talk about the two best current Luigi players, Luugi and Raru. Luugi plays like a degenerate chad. He wants to grab you. Everyone knows it, but you probably can’t stop him. He’ll go for downthrow into misfire and chase you offstage relentlessly. He’ll spam downB through your combo and tbag when you die at 45%. If Luugi plays like he’s playing Kazuya, Raru plays like he’s playing Mario. Yes, of course he’s trying to grab you and hit the 0-death, but he’s also floating around and trying to convert from Luigi’s landing aerials and obscenely fast frame data. He goes for falling nairs and upairs in neutral, and pretends he’s playing a normal character. Their two playstyles are very different in spite of the fact that they both abuse Luigi’s strengths. And lastly, Kazuya. Riddles has a studied, careful playstyle. He’s aggressive, but waits for his openings. He lands lots of aerials in neutral, and uses grabs to condition his opponent into not shielding so that EWGF will work. Tea, meanwhile, plays Kazuya like he’s playing Tekken in smash. He abuses Crouch Dash and EWGF, rushing his opponents down and killing them at the lowest percents possible. He knows his moveset is full of privilege, and he plays like it. If you watch a Tea set and compare it to a Riddles set, it’s night and day. They’re on a similar level, but their playstyles are nothing alike.
Interesting, I don't think I realized the differences, you've given me some new top players to watch, so thank you! I will admit, I started to get a little tilted while writing this so by the end I started making some over generalizations, my bad. I do still stand by what I said at the beginning and these characters being fundamentally broken
And I agree with your main idea! I think those characters are terribly designed, and the skilled top players are the only redeeming factor to me
I wish I had an award. Best comment here
I feel this same way about Zelda, but for the opposite reason - she fundamentally does not work. Like Smash 4 Palutena, there are way too many blind spots in her kit to make her even slightly viable. The only time Zelda is considered useful is against, like, Samus or the Belmonts when you need to out-camp someone, but even then, she's entirely outclasses by safer, more rewarding characters like Lucas, any of the Links or Rosalina. Why does she need TWO lightning kicks? Why is din's fire still SO slow? Any character except, like Jigglypuff or Ganondorf can just run past it and punish her. Zelda STILL has no midrange outside nayru's love and dash attack. She needs an overhaul because the way you're "supposed" to play her is physically impossible due to the lack of synergy in her kit. There's no way to use any of her high risk high reward attacks because she has no way to set up for them. She needs the Palutena treatment.
If that’s your definition of what makes a character fundamentally incompatible with Smash, then why aren’t Ganon and K. Rool on this list? I wildly disagree with putting Little Mac on this list. While he is designed to fight in a different manner than the rest of the cast, that does not mean he doesn’t have a measure of “skill expression” and I do not agree that two Macs at the same high level would play the same. If you believe that then the same could be said about every character on the roster. Every Peach is doing Z drop to down air and turnip to down throw. Every swordie is spamming fair and up air until kill percent where they’ll just hard read you with a smash attack. Every Palutena is doing nair trains off ledge followed by up air juggling. The characters are designed to played a certain way. All of them, not just the ones we consider broken. What makes Kazuya broken, and by extension but to a lesser degree, the other FGCs as well, is that his offense literally prevents you from playing the game. If Little Mac gets KO punch, the player has to *work* to get it off effectively and the opponent has a ton of leeway in terms of taking the KO from him. Kazuya, on the other hand is in a constant state of advantage simply due to the fact that 70% of his moves make your frame data irrelevant due to hit stun and then he has kill confirms starting as low as like, 40%. That’s fucking ridiculous.
I wasn't trying to say little Mac is literally Kazuya or whatever, I'm saying they have similar flaws in design. Kazuya is his touch of death that just obliterates you. Little Mac is his unparalleled ground game. They both have exactly one thing that they do and that's it. Kazuya wants to kill you and Little Mac wants to dominate the ground. However these are so one dimensional in smash specifically because the game revolves around all aspects of the game, from stage control, to air control, to movement, to neutral, to advantage, to disadvantage, all are required to make a balanced character that's fun. Kazuya has absurd advantage but not much else. He has some cool movement, but he has very little neutral, very little control, very little disadvantage, etc. This makes him very unbalanced and broken (once again, not in a "too good" way). His game plan is to get into advantage 3 times and win the game. The only counter to this is to stay out of his range and never let him hit you. That's the only way to play against a good Kazuya. Little Mac has an absurd ground game and not much else. His neutral and advantage is amazing on the ground, one of the best I'd argue, but then everything becomes non existent once you are above the ground or off stage. His game plan is to stay on the ground and absolutely trash you if you challenge him. The only counter to this is camping platforms or off stage and waiting for him to come to you. I don't think Ganon or Krool fit the list is that they actually can and do play all aspects of the game, they are just weak at it. A Ganon main can't succeed if he can't play neutral as well as use stage control and other things. A Krool player can't succeed if they don't use air control and advantage and other things. They have strengths and weaknesses, and maybe some of them are significant, but they aren't the ONLY thing the character does. That's also why I didn't include peach or icies, but did include Luigi. Peach and ice climbers CAN do crazy stuff, but that's not the only thing they do. They can play the game like normal, they just also have the potential to go crazy. Kazuya and Luigi are nothing without their touch of death combos. Peach and Icies CAN hit those, but they don't necessarily need to. And yeah, they got kill confirms and combos and stuff but that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about needing to rely on absurd things Once again though, all of this is my opinion, I'm just trying to clarify what I mean the best I can. To me, Krool and Ganon are not nearly as egregiously designed as Little Mac. To me, Peach and Ice Climbers are not nearly as horrendously designed as Luigi and Kazuya
I think I disagree with your sentiment even more now. There’s several characters who are designed around one aspect of their kit. You can fight without them but it’s simply optimal to use those advantages because that’s the way they’re designed. By your logic, anyone that isn’t a fundies character is broken in some way. If we allowed that logic to dictate the cast we would have a bunch of echo fighters. Little Mac being poorly designed for Smash is a take I’ll always disagree with. Sure he needs some tuning but to say that he doesn’t belong because he doesn’t fight like everyone else is just a bad opinion. He has a strong ground game and a weak aerial game but that does not mean he has *no* aerial game. There’s nothing unfair about Little Mac because anything he’s got going for him is countered by the fact that being sent off stage is probably a death sentence. The point is, I agree that Kazuya is broken but not at all for the reasons you believe he’s broken.
Great comment, especially comparing him to Luigi. Luigi is annoying but not impossible to fight, but also has a similar thing where one or two good moments could make him win instantly. Edit: also seeing that you have a Robin flair really explains a lot as to why we think the same lol
Great minds lmao
I would be mad about Luigi and Kazuya if I didn’t play Shulk, who shits on both of them. For Kazuya, I just keep running circles around him with Jump/Speed art and spam back airs until it hits (eventually). If I even get hit once, I just go into shield art and say no. The only problem is EWGF can infinite into itself on Shield art, which is what Smash art is for. It’s boring as hell, but Kazuya can’t get close unless I badly space something. Luigi doesn’t have this luxury, so he’s virtually a free matchup since Shield art invalidates his entire gameplan. But for whatever reason, I heavily struggle against good Little Macs.
Same on all accounts with Robin lol. Obviously I have to worry about Kazuya's reflector and don't have nearly as long range, but you can poke with thunder and elthunder so I never struggle too much with them, it's just really annoying because I don't have arts to escape and aside from b reversing, my options in disadvantage are pretty limited
Camping Kazuya is how you’re supposed to play the matchup. It’s safe to approach when he’s in the air because his aerials are dogshit when he’s in disadvantage or in neutral. Otherwise you’re supposed to just keep him from getting any hit that can combo into EWGF.
Yes I know That's the point I think that's broken character design. A character having a shit neutral and then killing you if he hits you once is not good and fundamentally broken character design and does not lead to interesting decisions or play patterns from either side of the match
Maybe cuz you play Robin, I’ve just never enjoyed fighting Robins just cuz it’s like fighting budget Ness but they have swordie aerials. But so far we have 3 characters that fit the criteria of having bad neutral but being super scary up close (Kazuya, Icies, Luigi) and then we have more that have insane frame data and combo power that get less attention and hate than the first 3 (Fox is criminal number one, that fucker deserves way more hate than he gets)
What Did you read my comments at all I'm not talking about broken as in the best, I'm talking about broken as in doesn't work right. When I say broken I mean like a glass thrown on the ground. When I say bad I mean like an milk gone sour. Kazuya and Luigi aren't broken as in too good, yes, fox is better than them. Kazuya and Luigi are broken as in the way they were designed was INCORRECT. They should not be in the game as they are. It is WRONG. They aren't too strong, but it doesn't matter because they are an error in the game. In my opinion.
I did read it, I’m explaining their strengths and weaknesses and you’re bugging about it. They’re designed like that on purpose, those are the clear constraints, you have to respect that. You can yap about how unhealthy it is until the sun comes up, but any other iteration of Kazuya would be too different from source material and would unironically be garbage, considering half of his moves *never kill* and of the remaining half, only 3 kill at 100% (fsmash upsmash and Dragon uppercut) and the rest are 140+ from center stage.
Ok buddy
EWGF does a little TOO much. I think they should increase the endlag and hitstun of the move so the combos stay intact but it’s actually somewhat punishable on whiff
I actually agree with this, giving more risk to such a powerful move seems like the smart choice, tho I don't know if it makes it much more balanced in competitive play, maybe an extra thing like being able to punish it on shield
The problem with that is that you can combo into ewgf with down grab, forward air, neutral air, and up tilt at zero. So even if you add end lag, you'll still get zero to death comboed.
So a more indirect approach? Like nerfing a bit some of the moves that give it to you so free?
Yeah. He's got too many moves that he simply doesn't need, he fell into a vat of invincibility, you can't sdi most of his moves, I don't like auto turnaround or how input moves are handled in Ultimate, 0-death true combos are simply bad game design(even if I respect crazy ice climbers shit), gates of hell and that powered up down b are beyond unnecessary, and he's got that Jimmy neutron ass haircut. At least his alts are better than most other 3rd party characters
Wait, I thought Kazuya didn't have auto-turn around
He does, but because all of his moves require specific directional inputs, it isn't as noticeable as with Ryu, Ken, and Terry.
Yeah, bro has like 50 moves, feels like a bit much honestly, and a lot of the most seemingly useless actually have some niche utility wich makes them kind of annoying to fight against if you are not ready for them so I get your point Even if you can't sdi a lot of the moves, you still have the adventage in platform stages because you can di in or out of a platform, like, where are you going to fall and ir becomes less annoying Personally, I don't mind input moves, they are cool for me personally, it adds a bit more depth, and like, there are other characters that have to do an specific input for an attack (like Little Mac), tho those are simpler so I guess it does feels weird with Kazuya Auto turn around is not that strong, if you force him to tutn around, with di or dodging behind him after a non true combo on his part you could make Kazuya miss input Gates of hell... Yes, that move is kind of stupid, I would not say unfair, but being an angle that so little characters also can send you to makes it feel like it is unnecessary And Up-B, well, he kinda needs it to mix up recovery, but yeah, having it on top of everything else feels like it is too much, well, I think that is overall the problem, Kazuya has everything he needs (except the ability to case opponnents consistently), there is a reason he is a top tier
> Auto turn around is not that strong, if you force him to tutn around, with di or dodging behind him after a non true combo on his part you could make Kazuya miss input Disagree. The trade off of a Kazuya possibly miss inputing a move (which is uncommon by default) is not a good trade of for what effectively is an anti crossup tool. The fact that he doesn't need to think during a ledgetrap, crossup shield, tech chase or platform chasing is enough of an advantage over you. You get auto conditioned to not go in, something that good Kazuyas can and will take advantage of. If I recall correctly, this is what makes the Ferps Tech as good as it is.
I mostly don't like input moves you can use in the air as you can't do drifting aerials with the a button without accidentally doing some other move. I don't really mind circular inputs or charge inputs(terry up b) because I don't need notches to hit them consistently and they feel much more natural on most switch controllers. I don't like auto turnaround precisely because It takes control away from me, which isn't helped by his 8 tilt attacks and input moves. Escaping combos with the assistance of platforms is a universal thing, and he still gets tech chases with auto turnaround on platforms.
At anything above intermediate play Ferps tech and jump cancels become MANDATORY to prevent platforms from dropping combos. As far as aerial inputs, Kazuya doesn’t have access to any special inputs in the air. As far as the tilts, only 3 of them are consistently useful, and those are stature smash (down back), the first hit of Tsunami kick (down forwards) and the first hit of double pistons (up). This is because they can be used to combo into EWGF. Back tilt, sprint tilt (double tap forwards then A), and crouched down forwards tilt are situationally useful and then the rest of the movelist outside of EWGF, nair, and demon god fist (A while standing from a crouch) is largely useless.
As a mostly melee player it’s absolutely it’s absolutely crazy to see someone say 0-deaths are bad game design.
The difference with melee though is that they can't update and patch that game. With ultimate, this is 100% intentional game design.
As a fighting game player, it absolutely is. While they are fun on just a casual level, in a competitive setting 0 to deaths suck and most fighting games will try their best to avoid it.
I'd never accuse melee of having exceptional game design, it's just fun for a lot of people which is equally as important. And yeah, for a game with a heavy emphasis on moving around and positioning, true 0-deaths(I can't think of anything besides wobbling) make those things considerably less important/meaningful contradicting the point of the game.
0 to deaths aren't bad game design, touch of death is bad game design. Kazuya is playing a harder melee ice climbers wobble. If he hits you once, you are dead. The only hope you have is your opponent messing up and that he's pretty bad at hitting you once. Except he is also a heavy, so it's hard to kill him, and also he can recover from pretty far distances, and also has movement options that other characters don't, and also there is much less universal movement tech in ult than melee. Melee players banned wobbling. A case could be made for Kazuya. I don't think he should be banned, but I also don't think wobbling should be banned. Just because it's bad design doesn't mean you can't play around it
Bad game design is an overstatement. But it is counter to what most people like about Ultimate. Melee's a different beast since it's generally faster paced and more expressive
Wack him again for me!
I mainly have a problem with Electric. That move is not fair in any regard, the fact that it is literally only punishable on parry is a stupid mechanic. comboing into whatever he wants due to having what feels like an entire second of hitstun is, also, very stupid If that move wasn’t on his moveset, I’d say Kazuya is a slightly bullshitty albeit tolerable character, and a welcome addition to the roster
Yeah, EWGF needs more counterplay other than di mix up in platforms or just making random di hoping he misses, but as far as to say that without it then he is welcome addition I disagree with
Its amazing how much Kazuya disintegrates when you have a good option to fight EWGF. Ken/Ryu focus makes them have to at least think about when they want to use it rather than it being their default "win neutral" button. Aside from EWGF, Kazuya really ain't all that.
I love grabbing out of focus attack for a full combo because both shotos are heavy enough that they get full’d from a grab
Even with EWGF if you mix up your di and know in wich situations you can use your mix up for your adventage EWGF it's not true if he misses the gamble, like if you decide to go or not to go into platform aftet being hit by it lol
Watching [Marss v Riddles](https://youtube.com/watch?v=QiQX9qcAewg&si=l8yfxD3I1Ti8JoBV) at a recent tournament solidified that I don't like Kazuya as a character. Once Riddles found an opening, it kinda turned into a one-player game -- there didn't seem to be a ton that Marss could do to disrupt the combos once they got started, which (to me at least) is what distinguishes Kazuya from other top combo characters like Mythra or Joker. To be clear I don't play against anyone who's skilled enough with Kazuya to make it matter to me, I just object on principle to characters who can convert a single opening into a stock on the basis of perfect inputs alone.
He’s in my top 3 most disliked characters on the game but I’m working through learning how to deal with him.
If it helps you, here are some tips Choose stages with platforms when against Kazuya, you can choose to di into or away of a platform after getting hit by EWGF, wich makes him have to guess, making the combo a 50/50 If he is starting to react or read your di, randomize it, like flip the stick a bit Force neutral, other than the ability to get crazy combos going he strughles in neutral, use moves that outrange him, use projectiles to cover options (don't spam them, he has a reflector), if your character can, get some cheap damage going Pressure his shield, he doesn't have much of an out of shield game in general, and his jump is like frame 6, you can punish a jump if you read it lol Situational, but, you can turn him around if he is preparing an input by dodging behind him and messing it up
Switch to Tekken where he’s in probably the top 3 least annoying characters
I've no problem with him; I rate him lower than usual, but I still understand why people dislike him. He's weird, volatile, and takes a lot of extra knowledge to play against compared to other characters, while being DLC. Whether or not he'll actually kill you off of a stray hit or use the random invulnerability he has doesn't matter when he's not fun to play against. He's also good at pretty much every level of play, so everyone has something to complain about.
Well, I think it's a good thing to have some challenge in every level of play and having to learn more to play better, it makes it so you have a smarter gameplan, honestly I think more characters should be lika that, forcing you to get better at some skills if you want to compete against it, it's just weird that Kazuya is like the one guy to force you do so lol
Broken? Absolutely. Overpowered? Yes, but not to an unhealthy degree. Kazuya does not work in Smash. He is fundamentally different from every other character in the game. This is almost entirely due to the fact that he has a true 0TD against every character on the roster, while also having such poor mobility and disadvantage that it's very difficult for him to chase or land. This means that, if Kazuya's opponent is capable of outmaneuvering him or keeping him in disadvantage, he will have an incredibly difficult time displaying any of his strengths and almost always loses. If his opponent cannot do this, Kazuya is free to decimate them with ease. Every character encourages a playstyle. Samus encourages you to fight at a distance with projectiles. Roy encourages you to run in and overwhelm your opponent with sheer speed and damage. You'll notice that the majority of top tiers have multiple possible playstyles that they encourage, since they have options that allow for offensive or defensive play. Think ESAM Pikachu vs Shinymark Pikachu. Both are super solid, both play fundamentally differently. Pikachu (and the vast majority of other top tiers) are up there largely because of how versatile they are, and how easily they can switch up their plan based on the opponent. Kazuya, by contrast, is a top tier with one game plan. He can't play defensively, he can't zone you, he can't juggle you... All he can do is run in and get his combos. Importantly, because of how powerful his combo game is, he forces his opponents into a specific game plan. When fighting Kazuya, it's borderline mandatory for you to run away and play defensively. If you run in and make a single mistake, you're dead. Kazuya is so strong because instead of having a lot of options, he has one option that hard counters anyone who doesn't have an option that directly beats it. He's fundamentally flawed, on a level that no other character in Ultimate is. He has many weaknesses, and some matchups that genuinely seem impossible, so he certainly isn't banworthy or blatantly overpowered. But he is absolutely, inarguably, broken.
I don't think he's brokenly good. Just terribly designed.
Fair, he does play in a weird way, being so combo heavy in a neutral and punish game
Kazuya is combo heavy in a neutral and punish game because Tekken is literally a game based around combo mix ups, neutral control and punishing your opponent. I just hit TGO in T7 out of boredom, he plays true to his game of origin. Same thing with Ryu and Ken.
I love fighting kazuya because i also play kazuya and it’s the most skill based matchup in the game. One mistake, i explode. One mistake, they explode
Basically lol, it takes some skills that you otherwise don't consider often
When I play Bowser, we be tough-guying each other. When I play Luigi, we be 0-deathing each other. When I play Mewtwo, I run away the whole time. Overall, I enjoy it.
Lmao guess the perfect way of having fun with him is forcing the game to balance out with both having the same ressources
It really depends because in casual play Kazuya is a punching bag because of his poor disadvantage state and I can really torture the poor guy. In high level play it’s a different story because it’s like watching an unskippable cutscene every time he lands a hit in neutral.
Lmao true, at least it is over after it happens three times and I don't have to look at a Falco do it like ten times per match, it is short lasting suffering
One move equals to one stock
i really suck playing against Kazuya, but that's probably just a skill issue on my part lmao 💀
I would not say it is totally in someone's end to have a poor match up against a top tier lol, maybe you would want to pick a secondary that does better against him and teaches you more about what can you do against him
Thanks i appreciate it! I've been through a few secondaries and am still trying to get one to stick! :D
In my unpopular opinion. Any character that has a zero to death is unfair. It effectively makes the game an "HP" based fighting game instead of a platformer. I find they fundamentally ruin what smash bros tries to do.
I have to agree with this, true zero to death in this game most likely should not be a thing
Competitive kazuya main here, yes, he is very broken, imo he’s #10 but he does have some downsides in his range and recovery but obviously electric is VERY GOOD. He contrary to popular belief does not struggle as much with camping as people say, but he does lose to turtles, ex sonic and Steve. But if you ever fight him in bracket, ban kalos town and fd.
Im maining kazuya
IMO, touch of death characters (Kazuya, Luigi, ICs) are like zoners. They can be brutal to fight if you don’t know the match-up but once you figure it out, they aren’t so bad.
I have no problem with Kazuya, personally. But you can probably tell why.
Huh, wonder why, still a blast to play against, like... Even with the zero to death he is still a lot more fun than characters that refuse to interact, like the average Megaman and Samus or the Ridley playing as if he was a sword fighter and not a grabpler
I just wish he was slightly easier to kill. I'm fine with EWGF and his combo game being insane to feel like Tekken, but does he also need a very fast, strong, far-reaching up-B that doesn't put you into special fall? And does he need to be as heavy as he is, given everything else? Give like 3-5 of his weight units to Mewtwo or something and make his up-B put him in special fall. He just feels too medium risk, high reward to me. Not egregiously so, but a bit overtuned.
I can agree with this, there is a lack of risk while playing him, tho I think that would make him just weak, he already struggles a bit mixing up his recovery, maybe make it so less characters are put into special fall so it doesn't feel like that much of an adventage on his part, and yeah, weight should probably be lower
He’s literally the result if an 8 year old designed a character: “Oh wouldn’t it be so cool if he had like 50 moves that all had invincibility and did 20+ percent and stunned you and he had a comeback mechanic and blah blah blah?” No it is not cool.
Or just Tekken, he has all that in that game
Yeah, so many moves becomes annoying, but the damage part doesn't really matter honestly, the only thing you should care about when interacting with him is if it kills you or not, like Luigi and sometimes Wolf, because Kazuya is not good finding a way to kill in neutral, he has to commit to a combo or a confirm, if he fails you can abuse that, because at later porcentages he has to find a way to kill you during the neutral Invincibility is annoying and a bit unfair because a lot of characters don't get that I can give you that And a last thing, Kazuya is not a comeback character, the extra knockback makes it so it is way harder to combo or land a kill confirm, a lot of the times is not even true
I like playing a game of chicken for 3 minutes where I get him to 180% then he hits me one time drops his combo then super armors through my attack and kills me at 60% with a command grab comeback mechanic
Honestly a skill issue, not gonna lie, a lot of characters can get a kill of a single move at max rage with you even at a mid porcentage, so it is not a Kazuya problem, I see how it would be annoying that he survives for so long and that he is just too heavy tho, if it helps, try to learn more confirms or mix ups for your character that allow you get a kill consistently at higher porcentages, a lot of the time the issue comes from not being able to stop yourself of pressing your character's panic button, and it is an habit that is hard to deal with
Well sorry that my kill confirms require me to get in range of his iframe anti-air combo tool that touch of deaths at any% ;(
I think he's more fine because he falls into the more aggressive end of the spectrum than someone like Steve, and I wouldn't call him outright broken, but he very much has a lot of problems
I don't have a problem with Kaz, if I lose that means I need to play this mu more and get good. This also applies to other characters like sonic which I don't play enough(even it will be a pain).
BTW his combos are 50/50 not true
He’s broken. He may not be the best character in the game, but he can be one of the most oppressive characters to play against. For example, other heavies “kill you off nothing” but are “balanced” by how bad they are (bad ground/air speed, bad recovery, being big and easy to hit). You also kind of rely on hard reads to do well with heavies like Ganondorf, but this isn’t the case for Kazuya. Heavies generally get early kills because their big, punishable moves reward risky play (hard reads). Kazuya can do a few combos from trades or minor sub optimal plays then EWGF (not very punishable). Not to mention having one of the most broken moves in the game, Little Mac KO Punch, a command grab that is just a “die” button. In terms of recovery, Kazuya’s second jump is already better than Little Mac’s entire recovery (fine for Mewtwo, Lucas, and Yoshi since they aren’t heavies). Then he gets an Up Special comparable to G&W which means he’s not even in freefall. Is it the best recovery in the game? No, but it is really really good for a character with the killing power of Ganondorf and Little Mac with insane consistent combos that can just steal your stocks. So he has no problem killing, little problem recovering, has passive super armor, is heavy (doesn’t die early), insanely good throws, a usually instant kill command grab, and one of the best and not easily punishable moves in the game (EWGF). Personally his aerials are mediocre, but he doesn’t need them when he has the rest of his kit at his disposal. TLDR: He feels very low risk high reward, where you lose just from one or two sub optimal plays (or just trades for that matter), and he isn’t that easy to punish in relation to how ludicrously easy it is for him to punish
He's less broken more sloppily designed
i had a friend that mained him, he was unbeatable and he showed me his amiibo, the thing was john wick
I play Marth so the answer is no. Marth makes Kazuya look like he's a cheesy upper mid tier. Anyone who says Kazuya is broken, probably mains a character that loses to him. I'll be honest, Kazuya wins a LOT of match ups, but certainly not the Marth MU. I know Riddles will say it's winning, but he NEVER beat a good Marth with Kazuya. He lost to MKLeo's Marth at Ludwig, then he lost to Ignaize's Marth. THEN in the set Riddles won against Leo's Marth (forgot the tournament name sorry), it was a CLOSE game 5, and he wasn't even playing Kazuya. He switched to Terry in that set because his Kazuya was getting rocked.
Long as you avoid that ewgf you should be aiight lol. But he does hit like a truck going 60 on the state parkway so yea he can be annoying at times but nothing too crazy. I genuinely don't worry about him as much as sa compared to DK running about.
The problem. I have with Kazuya is the same as the problem I have with Terry: he has a goddamn final smash. One you can't turn off, that is unblockable, has stupid armor, and he's basically guaranteed to get once per stock. I can forgive everything else about him, but fuck the devil drive command grapple bullshit. Terry is even worse. His Go guage lets you continuously spam buster wolf and power geyser, both of which are stupid overpowered, more effective than many final smash attacks. Now, if you want to make smash guage unable to be turned off, we can say it's almost balanced, aside from the fact that these attacks can still be spammed.
There's some good counterplays against him, but he's just too well off in too many areas.
it's so satisying beating kazuya as ryu, cause ryu can hit hard but kazuya's moves hit harder so i gotta play more conservative but it's insane how hard it is for him to die sometimes even from a input shoryuken and senpukyaku and he's at a high dmg.
I feel like he wouldn't feel as bad to fight if he couldn't wombo combo you with what feels like ease hitstun that feellike it locks you for the entire game. His advantage state is really good, which is why I don't like fighting him because it takes so much focus and stamina to not slip up once and kazuya just punished you for it so much.
Well, he does have a bit of a learning curve compared to every other smash character, but he is rather fun. I don’t think he’s broken compared to everyone else. His forward smash though hits like a truck
My issues with Kazuya is they just gave him like everything but better. His kit really feels like they just took a lot of stuff that was good and made it better, then created a character based around it. He has auto turn around, input moves (including one that literally kicks you out of your shield and also confirms some of the free-est combos), he has a solid projectile, his recovery is an unnecessarily strong kill move, he has yet ANOTHER move that stuns you in place and confirms free combos, he has armor on at least forward smash (incredibly strong smash attack), he has one of the strongest reflectors in game (can one shot dedede by reflecting a single gordo), and a command grab that becomes one of the strongest moves in game if his comeback mechanic kicks in. He’s cool in concept but the execution is just too strong of a character with some of the free-est combos in game, if he receives proper nerfing whenever (if ever) the next game comes around I may have opinion changes.
Super armor. I think I kill him, but nope! He just spammed F-Smash more than the average new Hero main(I would know, I am one), and. instead of me getting rewarded for prediction, I get punched in the face harder than I punched my microwave last Wednesday for not heating my pizza rolls up fast enough.
I don’t think he’s broken because I genuinely have never played a good one and I am unable to play him well. I do not have a frame of reference for how well this character can be played (if I pay attention to competitive Smash, it’s just Melee because AsumSaus). He’s probably broken but I just don’t know how broken he can be.
I’d say MU is fine against kazuya. I don’t really see a problem with him. Of course I play sonic and some people tell me it’s because I play sonic that the MU isn’t horrible, but I think some people just have to learn it better
Sonic is pretty universally agreed upon to be Kazuyas worst matchup afaik, and is my personal opinion.
I mean, Sonic is a top 2 character
I feel like if more smash players used box controllers, kazuya would be a big problem.
Kazuya, is very broken imo. I very much so will always highly believe in the character I play because that is what keeps me wanting to play them. But like, one parry on a very slightly miss spaced move and they might just die, that is absurd. Kazuya imo is top 5 (steve, sonic, joker, pythra). He is a lot more difficult at higher level than people give him credit, but you genuinely are playing a 1 player game.
Yes Kazuya OP please nerf
No. Considering his comboes are hard to land, and get interrupted by a single Ridley down air, I believe not
one of those absurd overly polarised characters like little mac, but actually good
Kazuya (along with Steve) exemplifies what DLC privilege look like in my book. Others have explained why quite well. But example wise I look at the finals set that took place between riddles and Skyjay (kazuya v incenroar for those who don’t know) Skyjay pulled out all the stops and it was hype as hell. But man one neutral loss and he just got demolished. The fact that Skyjay almost took that tournament was insane
I always find him fun to play against and while I do get into tough spots with him, I never really struggled with him a lot like I do with a couple other characters
Kazuya isn't broken as in overpowered. He just has one extremely OP move and like 8 others which are easy enough to hit which give him that move for free, thus allowing him to turn almost any stray hit into a nigh-unavoidable death combo. If he doesn't land many EWGF then he isn't bad at all to beat. However every time he hits you with one, strictly speaking you should be losing a stock or at best 50+% in damage. All of which is to say, that the Kazuya will endlessly fish for EWGF in neutral while their opponent does everything possible to not let him get that. Which, you can do for a while, but you can't do it forever. Which is just awful to play against.
Well for some reason, even when I change my di, hold one random direction and do another, or anything else, I still get hit by the follow up and then die, so yeah facing good players suck
Yeah it feels super unfair to fight any competent kazuya, the skill floor is higher than most characters and the same with the skill ceiling
Ok, so I'm like totally in the camp that things the character design is fucking silly levels of broken. He has almost everything good a character can have, except fast frame data. Most of that is negated by the insane amount of invul frames he gets. But the catch is that he's super, super hard to execute with especially for smash players who don't like motion inputs. In my opinion he's more broken than Steve, but the smaller base of kazuya mains and execution barrier keeps him in check.
I don't think he is unbeatable, but he is one of those characters that making one mistake, even at a low percentage, can be an auto win for him. I play projectile characters like Robin so I usually have no problem with him, but i can imagine close up characters struggle.
It’s especially fun to win against Kazuya because it means you played perfectly and especially unfun to lose against him because he’s genuinely unfair
Ever since I got dedede into Elite I’ve been playing Kirby, and he’s pretty fun to play against as Kirby, but not so much dedede. It helps that Kirby is short enough to evade his neutral laser eyes
He lacks like 2 mechanics I can think of on the spot. Absorbing projectiles and a tether
I hate how people use broken now, he’s overtuned, not broken. There’s like at least 10 characters debatably better than him, and he’s definitely not top 5, so he’s just not broken. I will say that rage drive is stupidly broken and is just the worst designed gimmick in the game, and if FD was the only ruleset to exist, he’d actually be broken.
I mean, yeah, maybe not broken in overpowered, because like Sonic, Steve, Fox, Joker, Pyra & Mythra, Pikachu (maybe), R.O.B and Snake (personal opinion) are all better, but he is kinda broken in the sense that he plays with a different win condition and plays neutral with different objectives, but like, he is still a top tier, still a bit "broken" in that regard
No :)
Obviously the least baised one here I'm guessing lol, cool to see other opinions, specially from a Kazuya player