The Rise and Fall of NA Smash
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- Опубліковано 2 чер 2024
- Why does it feel so universally known that Japan just completely clears versus every other region when it comes to Smash Ultimate? Today, we find out.
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#SSBU #Sora #PacMan #Japan #Spargo #MkLeo #Sonix #Light #Riddles #Tweek #SmashUltimate #turndownforULT - Ігри
I went to a Japan local while I was visiting and found out that they host locals and events on a daily basis sometimes. Public transit and low entry cost + densely populated region makes it easy for people to get to locals and to go often. Most locals in the states only host once a week and are hard to get to unless you drive and can pay tolls and stuff
The quality of events is also really important. Even though I live by a local weekly series, it's expensive (10-15 bucks a week to go to my local, that's a full new game every month), and the practice is buns cuz all the top players refuse to practice with people who aren't also top players. Also, that's assuming that the local even has any friendly setups at all, usually they barely have enough for bracket so I'm just sitting at a smash event I paid 15 bucks for doing nothing but chatting with homies which I could do for free...
Japan is interconected by trains , making travelling so much better and faster. Also Japan is a small "island" that has its city nearby each other , thus they can even have stack weeklies if possible.
Compared that to NA were we live in long distance from each other , and we only meet up only on "Super majors" or in Ultimate terms , the "S rank events"
once a week? be happy! In east europa locals are so rare...
Im from ohio and my average drive is an hour. Im from a small town an hour from every local yet ive drove as far as three hours to a local. Of course if i go that far i bring the boyz with me!
@@snuggie1849 It does suck,
Thats probably part of the reason why Florida, Tristate and Socal were/still are so much better than the midwest.
Fellow ohio player and I feel your pain, even with Cbus locals being a 20-30 minute drive for me.
You forgot one big factor Japan has that makes it easier to get better there. Public transit. Because transportation makes it both easy to get places and get places at a cheap price, so many more tournaments become nationals, majors and supermajors. Sumabato was a long running monthly tournament that got big enough to where several of the events actually reached national/major status.
Also a muuuuch smaller country than the USA, which makes that a lot easier. Overall it’s a great set up for a passionate scene
Yeah Japan is a smaller, more densely populated country. Try taking public transit to get from the west to the east coast of the US.
Exactly and Japan builds up instead of spread out like the US does. That's why public transit is so good there
@@markantony9038that's the point. USA is trashly connected. You could have 2-3 high speed train connections but no
@@krusher181It's not *that* small. You put the Japan next to the North American west coast and you'll see a country that stretches from British Columbia to Baja California. It really is the public transit that makes a difference.
They genuinely love and have passion for the game. In a country where prize pools for tournaments is prohibited, the fact that some of the most stacked supermajors are held in Japan goes to show the players commitment towards the game itself which is very respectable, just view any top Japanese players stream, they grind this game like nobody’s business.
I wonder why they aren’t as passionate about melee. Maybe just the cultural distaste for game mods which would make UCF and Slippi less accepted.
@@SnackMuay AMSa has said it mainly has to do with Melee being an older game. Japanese people tend to stick with what’s modern and new, and retro gaming in general is very niche in Japan (you’ll pretty much have to go to Akihabara to find any retro gaming community in Japan)
@@SakaeSmashthat has to be Smash specific, I feel like that isn't the case with the larger Japanese FGC.
Also poor Sparg0, it is really noteworthy how much the community is such an ass experience for top level talent.
True, smash “X” is not a great place to be
That’s definitely another advantage that Japan has over NA imo. Their community is actually good. The Japanese Fighting Game Community has a very iron sharpens iron practice focus positive mentality (at least that’s what I can tell from observation). Meanwhile NA communities regardless of smash bros or other Fighting games in my experience tend to be more focused on tearing each other down.
@@k-dawgHIand not showering
@k-dawgHI truer words, sparg0s a genius smash player but it's so trendy to be a hater in NA, hell I even catch myself hating on folk using certain characters.
Shoutout public transit !
One thing I'd like to add is that NA gatekeeps the fuck out of improving sometimes. Players only wanna grind with people of a certain skill or their fragile little egos won't let people practice because they think it'll lead to them losing in bracket. Japan seems to be the stronger region because they genuinely don't give a fuck about that. They genuinely care about the improvement of everyone and have fostered a great community around that.
I like how you brought this up.
Sometimes?
I've seen it ALL the time whether it be online in Discord groups or in person at locals. Even I've been guilty of this back in the Brawl & Smash 4 days.
Nowadays I just dont give a damn anymore and play with anyone to help them. It's not cool to be form cliques like this based on arbitrary skill levels, it just leads to stagnation in the scene.
NA players are so insecure and see Smash as a zero-sum game when it doesn’t have to be. Japanese players are not like that because of their culture that’s based on helping out the community as a whole, and it’s honestly refreshing.
@@SakaeSmashI see top players and commentstors on videos (especially light, ee, etc.) talking so much shit about low level players, sandbagging to fuck with people and teabagging, and I feel like that is also insecure behavior and not conducive to building a community or building up low level players. But people talk about it as if it's weak for newbies to not want to have someone annoy the shit out of them and say 'git gud' for an hour. Maybe rather be like "ay man you kinda suck, why did you do x? That's foolish." It simply does not make sense to me that insulting people constantly is supposed to make them want to be better, rather than being like ayyo you suck let me help you
Grinding only at local people is a huge disadvantage because you can’t learn anything at all with inexperienced folks
@@patrickhanson2205that only works in FPS games like CoD but it doesn’t work with fighting games especially party games like smash
I once had a pleasant experience with a japanese player. He played me over and over again in battle arenas even though i was pretty bad at the time. He played joker, and i was playing little mac (who is still my undisputed main) i played him at least 50 times and lost every game. We played until it was 4am for me. But the next day(same day obv)... other people became 'slower' and easier to anticipate. I havent seen that player since. But i really appreciate him. He basically trained me.
I think another thing that should've have been mentioned briefly at least is that Japan has like plenty of character specialists or at least contenders for the best in certain character that aren't seen in NA and thus, it's easy to notice players struggling against mid and low tiers sometimes.
You of course have Acola and Miya for Steve and Mr.G&W but there are also other players like Doramigi with Min Min, Toriguri with Banjo, Rarukun with Luigi, etc. There are also players who try the catchup game like Tama being in the Triforce of best Bayo, Yaura with Samus when discussing best against Sisqui, etc.
What Luigi isn't low-tier, he can start out his combo out of all of his aerials, utilt, though mostly his grab, and instantly kill you at any %. Is Banjo really lower tier than skyjay's incenaroar, donkey kong, bassmage puff? Banjo is like a more defensive Snake, he starts his utilt kill from his egg gun, Banjo has better recovery and better disadvantage state than Snake/more safe aerials but less traps, damage, instant kill moves.
@@AlexRodriguez-gb9ez According to the official tier list from a couple years ago, snake is top 10. Banjo is like a high mid tier.
The split between the two big competitive Smash games with their best region is interesting. In Melee there is only one top 20 player from Japan, Amsa who now lives Canada, where as in Ultimate half of the top 20 is japanese and big competitions are held in Japan when that isn’t the case with Melee.
Actually , Amsa only live in Canada for a year in Vancouver , and then move back to Japan.
If you wonder , Amsa recently got married and is living the life.
But yeah , Amsa was juggling his work , life and grinding Melee + attending tournaments at the same time.
The guy is a beast
Probably because only nostalgic-blind grognards who are past their prime still care about Melee lmao. People are just stuck in the past
@@MastaGambitmelee is sick to watch tho
@@MastaGambit many melee players also play ultimate, they're not "nostalgic-blind grognards" they just like the game
@@turiip3790 citation needed
Funny how Sonix' gets unbelivable titlted, but we still say he is unfazed. But the main strength of Sonix is never giving up and when the chips are down he remembers that he can play like Wrath.
facts
What you’re saying is he knows the vibes…
youre kinda right, he absolutely gets tilted, difference is he's not gonna play significantly worse as a result.
He’s a good example of how you can use that toxic energy and channel it into being really good. At first I didn’t like sonix but tbh he’s a bit of a beast, as much as I dislike his character.
For sure, the only times I feel he has gotten ESPECIALLY tilted were against Shadic at Lumi invitational and Tweek at GOML with the latter he admitted he gave up after the 1st game. But even though he got tilted he got tilted at the finish line, he has proven that he has the fortitude to hold it together even while making a loser's run like at GOML and Genesis.
I feel like for a video about how good Japan is, this video focuses a lot on NA players.
I almost wish there was more in depth analysis on the Japanese players, and this video isn't the only one that does it, but I feel like so much of the take away from the Japanese players is... that they're Japanese.
Noted and we can for sure look into that! This video was definitely meant more as an analysis of "who can stand up to Japan right now" but we'll see what we can do!
17:42 best picture i've ever seen LMAO
16:51, sometimes it feels like sonix can choose if he wants the game to last 7 minutes or 1 minute
As an Eu player, I can't believe the US is so upset at not winning an overseas supermajor in the best region in the world. While we are out here attempting to defend the FreeU allegations. Some perspective might be helpful.
I mainly see NA Smash fans upset abt it, not really any of the players. But that's just what I see.
Smash fans have been known to be toxic so idk
I hope people understand this was intended to be a numerous comment, as we can only laugh at this point.
@@Rammy_Latini havent seen any na fans complaining about not winning it.
This is nothing compared to to European fans at football
LMAO the image at the end let's go Coach2king
- Back in 2019 , it looks more even but slightly more favour towards NA
- Around 2020 before COVID , Japan seems to be catching up to NA but still were a bit far away
- Then during COVID and the restrictions , Japan was the very first region that cameback with offline touraments and have a head start
- Not only that , during that time a lot of things happend , which is the "DLC PART 2" , were a lot of characters came
- Notably , Steve is the one that got the most exposure , but many DLC characters push Japan to be very dominant.
- The funny thing is that Acola did not even plan to come to NA to compete until he got "invited" , and then he show why he was "the real deal in Japan"
- Acola this year has not competed on NA "yet" , but he dominates the "most dominant region".
arguably more important their online scene and infrastructure are so phenomenal
they have a competitive ladder with crazy play rates that is where a lot of their best players practice daily but also an 0-2er could hop on and play people at their skill level with a good connection
that doesn’t translate to NA where internet infrastructure is nowhere near as good and geographical distance makes that problem even worse
also 30+% of their population lives in one metro area (by raw numbers, that’s twice the amount that live in the nyc metro area), lots of people available to make tournaments regularly
Because they actually play the game instead of whining about it on twitter.
Same with real life sports
Pretty sure the entire difference can be summed up in about 30s at 10 minutes. In NA, people don't care to tryhard to improve whereas in jp they do, it doesn't matter if there's a few players who are willing to grind online, the community in general has to be oriented towards it for it to become effective practice for those few players. You can't grind against no-one.
As a whole japan definitely has the highest skill floor but I think their top talent is pretty on par with the rest of the world's
However, Sonix is the only player who has reached the level of Acola and Miya.
Eh, most of acola's worst results are in NA, and he and miya have only beaten their NA counterparts one each, it certainly helps acola and miya that their countries top reps have a harder time vs their chars, with exceptions ofc, but miya in particular would deal with a lot more unfavorable matchups for gnw in NA than JP. There's a reason maister has never won a major yet, leo, spargo, dabuz and a few others are total walls for him and the ones miya has fought of maisters demons he's also struggled against (although he swapped to steve and beat dabuz tbf)
The same problem I've had since Smash 4 concerning NA vs. Japan is the substantial difference in how often players travel from one superregion to the other for open bracket events. A decently sized quantity of top-level Japanese players have traveled to the same open bracket event in NA typically at a rate of a minimum one event per calendar season. On the other hand, the only times NA has been able to bring a similarly sized group of top-level talent to a Japanese open bracket event in Smash 4 and Ultimate were during very specific times such as during Golden Week.
It'd be nice if Kanto or Kansai Smash would fly out NAs / Europeans to one of their open bracket events about as often as NA has flown out Japanese players to the U.S. and Canada. I know donation incentives aren't the most effective method over there because there's no prize pot available to donate to at Japanese events, but there should be other ways for Japan to raise funds to bring in NA and EU's top talent, right? I would like to see them bring in and expose more foreigners to the various Japanese Smash scenes more often.
Japan has never played smash for money so a lack of financial incentives doesn't phase the Japanese players while NA players seem to be falling off from lack of motivation.
Same with European football teams plays the game not for the money but for the community
Imagine if Golden Week Kagaribis started being branded as a separate annual event
I’d love to see a video as to why Japan doesn’t prioritize Melee as much as Ultimate, with aMSa as a side commentator.
Because Japan doesn't care about Melee.
So good, I hope the broader ultimate community finds your videos
Something interesting to note on the perspective of Japanese players is when they compare themselves to Western players they think of us as wanting the hardcore challenges. Which is pretty interesting because if you wrre to ask any Western fan "Which country prefers difficulty and skill?" Most assume Japan since it's more or less the birthplace of modern gaming. But in reality Americans crave difficulty more than the game design in itself. That's why every International Version of the game's that came out of Japan during the PS2 era were much harder than the original versions of the game. Devil May Cry Hard Mode was the default Normal Mode now. Kingdom Hearts had several huge balance adjustments that spans across decades just to make it harder even adding more and superbosses to them. For them the "Knowledge Check" is all you need to be good. If you know the Elemental Weaknesses of the enemy that alone should get you the win. But the Western perception thinks it's all about "Reactions and Timing". You can see this shift in mindset through the souls games. They used to have a major focus of elemental weaknesses but as they went more and more towards Action the more the RPG elements fell to the side. It's why Bloodborne has practically no Magic both in lore and in-game mechanics. Elden Ring the weakness only seemed to matter for Miranda Flowers. They're much more strategical than they are reactionary. It's a subtle mindset difference that needs to be brought under a microscope.
Like for example Justin Wong was hated back in the day for "Playing it lame". He'd just do the strategical thing but never the aggressive thing unless it was guaranteed like a chip kill with his super. Daigo beat him using his "Reactions and Timing" but also "Practice" to get the optimal combo. It's why Daigo talks about "The Beast" and letting it out to gain true flow state. Blending Skill and Experience into one.
America players often caused Japan to get confused since Light decided to just beat the Steve and Game and Watch match ups against Miya, and he almost conquered Acola with Solo Fox. Despite the rankings, Sonix was never beaten by Japan’s best players but only American players.
this is insanely wrong lol, in the PS2 era Japan always got extra content and difficulties, hell the first FF game that came over seas was a dumbed down version because Japan thought that american players would be too stupid
@@justice8718 Well that's not true. Miya already has a set win over Sonix.
At least PM/P+ has managed to keep Japan out of 1st place at a major. The secret is to not have any.
is that me in the middle in a suit
Wow it's that melee guy
The coach NA needs
They are just built differently, and the culture is very different
Can you elaborate more in Tweek having an older era playstyle?
this graphic at 8:19 is SO tuff
edit*:
11:50 was tuff too (great detail)
17:47 LMAO
I’ve always thought it had something to with the fact that there aren’t prize pools, and hence tech is freely shared versus how it’s kept a bit more in pocket compared to other countries for that competitive edge, something I can’t corroborate but heard of back in the Sm4sh days.
3:47 ctrl f delta in the corner lol
Missing you very much, turndownforULT.
Cause they dont whine that half the cast needs to be nerfed
Love u bro keep up the good work
Japan doesn’t cry when a new character is “broken”
They just get better. Banning characters is a cop out, fight for honor. Win cause you’re the best
Maybe if NA actually studied every matchup instead of saying who is viable and who is not we probably would be able to stand with Japan because they don’t care about tier lists and they jus have a passion and love this game, so maybe we should change
I’m guessing there’s more low tier legends is that they’re not playing for money, so they just play who they like
Ngl I quit after losing to a Pyra/Mythra as Mac but this makes me wanna pick the game back up again
I think the VO audio was a little too loud compared to the music in the mix, just letting you know
Shoutout to the light chad edit lmao what was that
How does this channel have only 11k
Relatively new
I’ve always noticed that they play different characters and usually unique ones too.
Japan practices so much on smashmate and also love their characters too and take them to the max potential to the fullest. They also have a strong mentality about the game. Also Japan's travel system with the trains help them go to a lot of events efficiently.
Wow I can’t believe that if you practice, you actually get better 🤯
This video doesn't mention the obvious reason as to why the former best region in the world got flushed down the toilet overnight.
Like half of the best and most influential players got outed as diddlers.
7:51 My favorite NA player, Mr R
I genuinely think 30 of the Top 50 for the current Lumirank season will be Japanese.
A funny thing is that due to international relations Mexican nationals probably have it easier when it comes to going to Japan.
Bc we don’t have zero, nairo, samsora, captain zack, aIIy, marss, salem, tamin, etc competing anymore and d1 & keitaro & cinnpie commenting to help boost their powers💀
Agreed, that was the golden age of smash
shoutout to the goat proofblock 😈
Larry Lurr calls Japan the dark continent from HXH LMAO
algorithm feed him well
we're cooked ggs
sonix save us 🙏
it’s funny bcz amsa is like the only japanese player in the top 100 for melee tho
If you're NA going to Japan, you're having fun and being a tourist, not playing Smashy Bros tournaments. Smash doesn't pay shit for these players to be going just to compete.
16:20
Sonix is 3-1 vs Shuton and beat Akikikusu at Genesis
It’s the same with splatoon, I’m equal in skill with other American players, but when I fight a Japanese person I get absolutely destroyed.
happier country = enjoy game more
enjoy game more = play better bc having fun
Sorta, Japan does offer many places to unwind after a hard day’s work but they’re still overworked like the rest of the world.
Here in the west, especially in cities, we don’t have as much of that because we’re lead to believe that having fun is “a waste of time”. And our old, aging infrastructure is starting to crumble apart…
Lol in which terms is japan a „happier“ country? There are a lot of aspect that do in fach make new grown up/teenies actually stressed out. I think there are factors like grinding and helping each other out, instead of whining and shitting on new players
Really makes you wonder the best way to improve at a personal level if the best in the US aren't doing the hottest against Japan.
17:14 Etoiles ???
Can we just be honest modern na smash players have been spoiled since brawl they don’t want to beat anything remotely hard and instead of learning to beat the top tiers everything just needs to be banned. The issue will always eventually be that the community wants the game to just nerf what they think is ok rather than beat it and Japanese players seem to just play to have fun and push their limits.
"Mexican smash scene along with a few US reps" Mi hermano en cristo its the same amount of people pictured [4]. Also i thought Mexico was NA
I don’t watch ult anymore but they play(played) so much faster and there was so much less camping. Hell the min min guy could whoop people in like 2 minutes. I can’t watch this game when sf6 grands are 17 minutes at the long end and top 8 matches can run you 45+ mins.
That's just incorrect man, Japanese neutral is wayyyyy more patient and slow, min min is just a character that can quickly destroy opponents in the right situation
Gotta love how japan plays and wins without having to rely on “top tiers” to win, just raw good skill.
the conversation went from USa vs mexico, vs japan vs EU to now NA vs EU vs japan.. lool the fact that they decided to group it as NA smash now instead of USA like previously shows that they are weaker than japan and needed to include mexico because it looked more like a competition
They are now
Mexico was dominant for the longest time at least
Kirby is my favorite Super Smash Brothers character!
"SAVE NA SOCIETY KEN"
Japan's tiny compared to NA, so it's easier to attend events and online is better. It's obviously not everything, they obviously grind hard and deserve it, but I don't think it's deniable that it helps.
I will say that at the last NA major with a decent JP attendance every single one also unperformed, most by a lot, imo NA has a lot of motivation rn to best Japan and the next tournament with significant attendance from both regions will be interesting to see
You're talking about get on my level x? Frankly, the reason these players ''underperformed'' is that they were all massively overseeded(except Neo, but he's a bit of a special case). If you compare Motsunabe's, Kaninabe's and Jogibu's runs to their average results in Japan this year, it really doesn't feel that shocking that they got the placements they did.
I thought I added a comment mentioning that it wasn't necessarily the top jp reps going to goml, but ig I forgot to, because you are correct, I will at least argue that kanimabe at his first NA major he got top 8 so him doing well here could be reasonably expected. Imo neo is actually the most understandable underperformed, he's been going through a ton of personal things lately and has struggled in general. Also there are a lot of jp players who don't do a ton in their home country but perform amazingly overseas like protobanham, so I don't really think that them struggling in japan means they were excessively overseeded
How is number one used in eu samus??? But like not the naked version. Im so confused lol
Because Sisqui is insane at the game.
This comment itself is confusing…
Players tend to play the same characters as their region’s top players, and EU has two top Samus reps with QuiK and Sisqui.
Samus is also an amazing character in the current meta and surprisingly doing better than the “naked version”
@shari2383 I like how there are still regional differences that allow for more unique playstyles and characters. Just knowing other competitive games I just find it odd that there is no consensus if you know what I mean. Besides fox and puff being op ^^". Thanks for the explanation btw!
@@aidanibarra3957 np np
clown me if I don't make top 100 in ultimate or melee by 2027.
Another reason why US & EU lag behind Japan is because of how much US wants to monetize Smash as a whole and make money off of it compared to Japan.
Japan has a genuine love for the game while US wants to profit from it as well with all these sponsors, streams and merch.
Not that it's an entirely bad thing either. If you could grind the game for 2 years, get a decent following and then make content off your success then more power to you. But US kinda pushes it into overdrive, trying waaaay too hard to monetize EVERYTHING Smash. All these constant tier list videos and "who can do x in smash." can get very overwhelming when it's clearly just filler content.
You aren't seeing the Japanese content then man, the players have to make money somehow, and with the game being so old there is a new content drought barring tourney results
If anything the sponsors for Japan are wayyy better rn, and players like gackt or paseriman make a ton of content, you just don't see it because its in Japanese
This Thumbnail is Tragic.
Liked the vid just for the funny intro
Honestly, I think Japan is the worst place for Big D to travel to. Love the guy, but Japan is filled with Icies. Obviously Futari no Kawami Ah, but there's also players like Harasen, Tomisa, Fuwa, Kamikawa, and Nayan, so if anyone would get completely bodied going to Japan, it would be an icies main
smashmate, the only answer is smashmate
you're (🫵) like the michael jordan of taking about both melee and ultimate in roughly 20 minute videos in your style
Consistency and stubbornness; they have a game plan and they stick to it. And playing the game with an actual plan in mind isn't a choice, it's a prerequisite. Japan is better because that mentality hard driven into even their weaker players.
Tatum blocked that shot, or else the refs would have called it 🤷🏽
Hopefully we have a bit of time before the Japanese players find Multiversus
What about Latin America tho
I love ultimate
Kanto and Johto have better smash players than any region?
What is Smash Mate?
It is just a wifi ladder for top player to grind at.
WHERES ZOMBA OR DABUZ
where riddle
just wait for miaxi to go out of country
Alright your telling me i should train in Japan and I’m pretty sure the Japan scene just uses their anime powers up to win
i thought mexico was.
I wish Mkleo was still the best
American players like to gatekeep only some regions take pride in having the toughest region n will try to get you good.
Why is japan so good at every competitive games?" would fit better the title.
The best competitive smash is na dominated
They not like us
call old mcdonad cause JP farming ya
Nice
dont forget melee is just always NA dominated. only Japanese player that can play against NA is aMSa.
NA Smash ult*
Ult is so dying this year.
Interesting, I noticed Europe tends to like heavier characters(14:02).
It is a Japanese made title and why wouldn't Japanese players not be good at their own title?