Smash Bros: Project M!

[Kriven]

I finally decided to try out Project M and... it's kind of meh. I really like what's been done with Wario so far, particularly the effort put into keeping his character (such as the arm flapping with his new smash attack), but other changes have been really weird and, in my opinion, in the wrong direction. Why remove Charizard's Rock Smash attack for a generic fire blast? Side-B is now practically a carbon copy of his aerial attack, and I don't understand why. What is wrong with Rock Smash? Ivysaur has been nerfed practically into an unusable state. I mean, Solar Beam is cool, but Bullet Seed is way more useful. Whatever that launch-seed Down B is kind of a waste. If anything, Solar Beam should be the new Down B and Bullet Seed should come back. Reducing the range of his lower aerial leaves him far too open to self-destruct, and making his upper aerial launch him down like that is just a crime for a character who doesn't have a proper recovery.

Opposite, Squirtle is beautiful. Unfortunately, none of the Pokemon Trainer's team have a Final Smash. I understand that this has to do with having separated them, but that brings up the question: why are they separated? How was the Pokemon Trainer unbalanced as a character? I don't get it.

Which brings me into the biggest gripe I have: balance is killing the game. Not that balance is a bad thing, because it's not, but the intense focus on it has made Project M feel less like Super Smash Bros. and more like... every generic fighting game out there. Player ingenuity is replaced with specifically tailored movepools and stats. Every attack has a purpose, and deviating from that purpose often results in death. I dunno. I'm not very happy with this aspect of the game.

I'm also wondering how having a bunch of characters without a Final Smash is balanced.