Super Smash Bros. (Wii U) -- Contender Chronicle #01

Just how deep does this spiral of unearthed multiplayer nonsense intend to go? This is an unprecedented and somewhat uncomfortable procession of videos labeled "#01" in a row, implying there's more to come, but not a single game has repeated in this fashion yet! --- I don't know WHEN exactly these happened, because I misplaced the timestamped raw versions long ago and merely resolved to salvage whatever I saw fit. Specifically, this is from... well, around the time the first wave of Smash Bros. amiibo hit, which was the week before Thanksgiving, and as such I happened to want to try one out on a lark AND had access to my semi-willing local rival, and so we decided to put this untested technology through its initial paces. That is to say, the amiibo who started all the wanton acts of unabashed madness was Link... mostly because he served a dual purpose of letting me also unlock stuff in Hyrule Warriors AND he had a corresponding Mii Racing Suit in Mario Kart 8. Plus, I mean... it's Link! How would I be expected to NOT get that one? However, and we've certainly had chances to see this... and still more to come in the future... I'm not very good at naming stuff on the spot. Seriously. Plus I had no idea exactly what would come of it all when I decided to sit down and see where this madness would take me on this inaugural melding of the digital world with reality... Thus was born... Erdrick! ... ... ...probably should've gone with blue in that case, huh? And WHAT exactly does any of it have to do with Link besides some cross-contaminated in-jokes across time, regions, and remakes as Squaresoft poked fun at its competitors and the platform on which they published their works? This name is total bunkum and I demand this name-giver be relieved of duty! --- Anyway, ignoring all that, what follows is essentially a chronicle of meeting, "training," and trading blows with Erdrick as his journey is a combination of local multiplayer and an exemplar of the Figure Player life cycle. Oh, and since this was scant months after the launch of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (and a couple more since the launch of its handheld counterpart), this is a pretty raw look at early coming to grips with the new game and its characters and stages, so that's fun too! ...really, this should've been a thing I'd been uploading long ago at the time, but I got REALLY hung up over some stuff that didn't really matter and kept pushing back uploading any Smash-related content for... reasons? Yes, reasons. --- So amiibo-based Figure Players begin at "Level 1" and slowly gain skill and strength of their own... although to what degree this is even theoretically a thing engenders questions about artificial intelligence (or rather, various stimuli-response fuzzy logic behavioral patterns, since I don't think anyone's particularly worried our "CPU"-tagged buddies will gain even the faintest glimmer of sapience) and how computer players even PLAY the game to begin with. Mostly, I figure it'll start like any sliding scale of AI player difficulty and having them phone it in less and less on their way up the ladder, starting from what is by design going easiest on poor, fragile human sensibilities. Since this promises to be a 50-point scale of "skill," it'll be interesting to see if and/or where there might be some junctures of marked improvement, but I'm not really sure I'll be able to tell even so... I gave up hope that the maximum-level CPU adversaries would offer actual challenge in the N64 days, and mostly just recognize them as a high-maintenance, but fundamentally flawed opponents that can't really teach me anything. However, the claim that Figure Players would actually LEARN from you specifically and the boast that they would become stronger than any other computer-controlled opponent intrigued me... even if I assumed this would be due to the fact that you can buff them up with customizations and stat boosts, which are presently outside the realm of our consideration for this initial testing and examination phase. --- Match #1 -- Smashville Bowser Jr. (Yu-Gi-Joou) vs. R.O.B. (RAD) vs. Erdrick [Link] I personally wonder about AI "strength" and stage recovery, because at a certain point, being intentionally bad at it is the same as "giving up." --- Match #2 -- Pokémon Stadium 2 PAC-MAN (Yu-Gi-Joou) vs. Jigglypuff (RAD) vs. Erdrick [Link] At any skill level, AI players will lack the lateral thinking to deal with many items and certain attacks, unfortunately. (People too, sometimes!) --- Match #3 -- Mario Circuit Ike (Yu-Gi-Joou) vs. Lucina (RAD) vs. Erdrick [Link] I realize watching this for some reason that I made the mistake of giving Erdrick special moves that I would personally want, rather than ones he could easily use. --- Match #4 -- Delfino Plaza Zero Suit Samus (Yu-Gi-Joou) vs. Dark Pit (RAD) vs. Erdrick [Link] This was all really cool, but very little of it was a sign of "intelligence" or done intentionally.