Samias

I think the cuff of the gloves are what makes the foreshortening not read, but I could tell what you were going for. I agree, foreshortening is hard. And yeah, I know the symbol is a cleff. I used to play piano and violin too. It's a nice pattern for a bard.

Hmm I like the colour scheme you have for your latest picture. That said, his right arm (the left side) is looking a bit short. You could draw the cloak jutting out a little bit by the elbow and it would probably fix that, along with some highlight above the arm to give the cloak more depth. I would also use a tad lighter green on parts of his hands to make the fingers easier to distinguish. The design on his chest is nice, I like it.

Digital colouring is easier for me than colouring by hand now. I have a really nice computer at home. I'm just lazy so doing backgrounds is the bane of my existence, especially if I'm going to colour it after. Inside the spoilers is somewhat of a self-indulgent shirtless scene so yeah.

The issue is actually shelf space in the store. Retailers can't devote that much space to have the entire Smash Bros roster in figurines at the same time. 49 pegs (or more) of individual figures is a bit much, even for a franchise like Skylanders or Disney Infinity. Eventually they do need to cull figures and replace them with new ones, and then offer the most popular character year-round like Mario and Link in a higher proportion of stock. However if I were Nintendo I would look at continuing lesser figurines in some sort of online store like Amazon or at least through Nintendo World for an extended period. Cards are definitely easier to produce and keep in stock but those figures they don't want to make are so sought after because the fans have nothing else of them to buy.

Donkey Kong's got the jungle booty, that's what he's got. Oh yeah I started playing RO again so prepare yourself for a whole bunch of art from that as I take on a ton of commissions to fund my gearing.

I like the car and the setting overall. It reminds me hugely of FF8. And some might call me blasphemous but I do genuinely like that game, especially the setting. I love real world-but-high-fantasy types of games like SMT and Shadowrun, and honestly I feel like this game does call some feelings back from FF7 and FF8, just rendered in far more spectacular graphics and with a real-time action combat engine akin to a fusion of FF12 and Kingdom Hearts.

For the missing "O" section of music in the Wii U version ROM dump, I don't think that's a removed franchise. Brawl's music file structure also omits the letter O. I think this is a conscious decision to avoid confusing "O" series tracks with a 0, which could be catastrophic coding-wise. That said I really hope 1.0.4 isn't *the* last balance patch and that the team reconsiders. I'm sure Sakurai and team are winding down and ready to move on to other things but there's still a few hitboxes I wish they'd fix up and also to tweak the characters once more now that the Wii U version is out. Nothing major is needed but it would be nice if either Diddy was toned down or everyone was toned up to make things less centralized around "how well do you match up against Diddy". There's always the possibility of new techs being discovered that turn the game on its head, but right now we *know* Diddy has a really easy time linking into his aerials and getting KOs easier and earlier than most of the cast at high level play.

Well, Rosalina is only sold out of *preorders*, and I'm sure she'll be restocked too. My EB Games wouldn't let me preorder Marth but they still had 4 on the shelf for anyone to come in and buy them. I feel like Rosalina and Lucario will be the same, but Meta Knight and Shulk are going to be tougher to find as way less of them are going to be made.

I was able to preorder Ike from Amazon immediately. It's the store exclusives that are giving me troubles. However, Shulk is really the only exclusive who I worry will be in short supply as Xenoblade itself was very hard for me to preorder back when it came out. Also I don't think it's unreasonable for consumers to be upset that a product can't be released on-schedule, or that the company could at least be more forthcoming about delays and miscommunications. Wave 1 was launched on-time but wave 2 has been all over the place. It's an extremely messy launch. People have been getting orders cancelled over poor supply and concerns from retailers that Nintendo can't deliver enough to meet demand.

I'm not sure "doesn't have h-scenes" is a negative for Ace Attorney for most people... Some of us actually want to be able to play a visual novel out in public considering they're on a mobile platform. While Ace Attorney isn't the BEST design, it works. It's a linear story with point-and-click exploration and is easy to pick up and play. It's wacky, unbelievable court drama with its own insane adventure game logic. Finding out what works out of your inventory is more like a puzzle with some strange in-world logic mixed in. The actual interface functions pretty well so honestly it boils down to personal preference over whether or not you like the story and how much you can stomach logical inconsistencies rather than bad design. As for a game with actual poor design choices, I have to nominate the early SMT games, notably Persona 1, and both parts of 2. What would otherwise be a stellar set of RPGs is hampered by nearly impenetrable menu structure that is difficult to navigate and the demon negotiations can be a total crapshoot. The steps you need to go through to get anything done are puzzling at best and insanely granular and missable at worst. Tales of the Abyss is another offender, making many skills unavailable unless you visit a certain NPC at an exact point in time otherwise you miss it forever. There's no hints, which basically forces you to find a guide. It wouldn't be so bad if these things stuck around forever to be completed but they don't. Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is yet another offender with its djinn, including tons of points-of-no-return. AND to make things worse, iirc you can't access the final bonus boss without every djinn, locking you out of endgame content.

I think for Zelda her defaults are her best moves, except maaaaybe Nayru's Rejection and Phantom Breaker. But the Phantom is so slow to come out that typically you don't use it while both players are grounded, making the shield breaking properties of Breaker less useful. The best application is to edge guard since it's much safer than Lightning Kick and the default Phantom is the strongest for that purpose.

Wow, that sucks Ana. I know the set 2 release dates have been really wonky... I really want Captain Falcon but he probably won't be out for Christmas like I'd hoped. At least Zelda arrived from Amazon today at my house! Mine turned out pretty good. The only "bad" part is the hand, which if I had been the designer I wouldn't have bothered trying to mold fingers and would have Barbie-dolled them into a mitten, but oh well. That's a problem present on every Zelda. Her face and painted details all generally turned out decently. The other day I broke down and asked my best friend down in Seattle to order Shulk for me. He's STILL not available on the Canadian EB Games page. Ordering from the US store would be double the price. Even though it would cost more in gas to drive down to pick it up from him, I could bundle it into other trips if need be, or maybe he'll just ship it to me as a belated Christmas present.

I think the delays on Pit, Captain Falcon, and Luigi are actually stability problems in manufacturing, since the entire wave was meant to be out December 5th until they were pushed back. The first arrivals are more stable-footed and less reliant on sturdy stands to stay upright. Luigi is planking, Captain Falcon is kicking forward, and Pit has to "float". I'm not sure Nintendo has entirely figured out how to balance the complicated, dynamic 3D renders of the characters with the realities of fast, cheap figurine assembly.

Animal Crossing is actually as old as the Japan-only N64 disc drive, and then the GCN version had a GBA island minigame if you hooked up a GBA with the connector cable. Not that it means much, but Doubutsu no Mori is actually a pretty old franchise now! Anyway, nice to see at least Marth will have another small run, not so surprised about WFT being gone... who knows, we might see another version of Villager once we do have another Animal Crossing title released. New Leaf is one of the 3DS all-time best sellers but the default male villager might not be the one everyone wants and we may see other variations down the line specifically for the AC series so people can get a figure that's closer to their player avatar. For now it does feel a little strange to see Villager gone, but Marth is now a three-time Smash veteran and is definitely the most sought after of those three characters because of that.

Considering that Marth, Villager, and WFT have been completely and outright removed from most retailers' systems, I would err on the side of them being discontinued. Captain Falcon, Little Mac, Pit, Ike, and Shulk are also likely to be EXTREMELY limited in production, not to mention any other non-Mario non-Zelda figures. The other retailer exclusives might stick around a little longer but they're also fairly specialized. It's kind of unfortunate. I'm happy I got Marth on day 1 by being the first person in the store but I can't even preorder Shulk in Canada yet. I feel like I'm never going to be able to get him right now. I'm also on backorder for a Captain Falcon amiibo but since Dec 5th came and went and the release date was changed on him to Dec 31st apparently, I'm really worried about my order. Nintendo has severely underestimated the popularity of certain characters even if those Amiibos are going to be exclusive to Smash Bros. I can see Kirby, DK, Fox, and Samus being discontinued next as well, depending on when their next game comes out. They might end up with non-Smash Bros editions though.

Yeah, the arm is kind of in front but it looks a bit weird. Drawing that angle of the sword really screwed me over but oh well. I have a convention tomorrow at Robson Square from 10:30am-6pm! So I finished something very special so I can make it into a sticker. And I also drew a derp Jigglypuff

The people who made the list did weigh tournament results heavily, but they did do some general analysis. I think the E tier is mostly underused but the top tier is consistent between NA and Japan right now, especially Diddy because his throws and aerials are ridiculous. That said, while NA is considered the better region for Melee, Japan had better results in Brawl, so they may have the edge again in Smash 4 depending on how the new scene develops and whether or not people decide to go back to Melee or Project M. And everyone involved in the Smash 4 tourney scene keeps stressing the difference between bottom and top is not that large. You can stick with your favourites and win. The top 10 are consistently high in the brackets, but regional tournaments all over NA have seen a variety of characters win, including so-called bottom tiers. It's also early and Japan only just got the Wii U version of the game. Toon Link was considered near the bottom on the 3DS but his moves come out several faster in the Wii U version. His grab is something like 8-10 frames faster than the 3DS version! Some more technical characters may also rise as it's easier to perform advanced techs on the GCN and Pro controllers.

Zelda doesn't have a good approach at all. Her ground speed is pretty bad and her lateral air movement isn't very good either. She has such devastating sweet spots that are easier to pull off than ever, but her aerials are still not good for getting in with how the hitboxes are constructed. She can KO very early if she's spaced just right but really struggles to keep anyone locked down. That said I think the change to Farore's Wind will keep people on their toes. The grounded FW is predictable but it makes trying to edgeguard Zelda more dangerous. Now if only Din's Fire didn't put her in a helpless state...

I wouldn't call it a crap list, but once you get to about C tier it's VERY hard to make judgments about a character's worth in this game. The people who made the list have gone to say that the difference between tiers is pretty negligible. That said, the characters in the top tiers are very accurate and also reflect the Japanese scene's playstyle, which is more rushdown play rather than careful spacing. Hence why Marth, Ike, Samus, and Zelda are so low, even compared to North America, as NA prefers spacing. Their stage selection is also completely different from NA and focuses on FD/omega stages while North America has the Wii U version of the game and greatly prefers Smashville and Battlefield. Ike and Shulk really want to play Battlefield so they can focus on making use of the huge arcs on their aerials.

A lot of characters in the bottom tier have won in North American tournaments. Charizard, Ike, Robin and Shulk all do quite well in the NA scene. Surprised to see Marth so low, though. He might be nerfed in range and can't SH double fair anymore but he's one of the few characters who is really solid at KOing before 100% due to his tipper hitting like a heavy character. Not surprised to see Mii Brawler be reevaluated by many players. The up B options of Brawler are all insanely good. Gunner is also being reevaluated for having some interesting movement options propelled by aerials. Dark Pit and regular Pit having that huge gulf of characters between them is pretty funny, considering the only difference is that Dark Pit's arrows are garbage and his side B takes longer to KO due to its knockback angle. Pit also has a better ftilt. Turns out that is enough to matter a ton! Poor Samus. She's better than bottom, but no one plays her, hence the extremely low placement. Somehow I suspect the FE cast is in the same boat, judging by tournament placements all over NA. Edit: Someone copied a statement by one of the bigger people in the Japanese scene responsible for the list: I can see people outside Japan being astonished at the TIER LIST of JAPAN. But this is not just scored from a tournament result. Our SHI-G crew, 11 people including 9B, Abadango, Umiushi(biggest Wifi TO), JUN(also a Wifi TO tagging with Umiushi), Shimitake, Yui have scored each character individually and took the average. (In Japan, tournament rules are usually customs off and use only omega stages, or plus Battlefield at most. 2 stock 7 min.) Many Japanese players agree with this ratings, and actually we can't understand why the US scene regard Rosalina so strong (9B and Rain used to main Rosalina but they gave up). I watch foreign videos so I know how low tier Japanese characters can be played, though. Like Mario and Shulk. But this difference in view must be saying that the newest Smash game is way more balanced than the former ones ! (We've even written in the article that a D tier character can win tournaments.) No wonder Little Mac isn't low tier! This explains a lot about certain placements. Certain characters who do well in NA really enjoy the counterpick stages and Smashville is our most popular stage thanks to the dynamic platform. After that, in NA we prefer Battlefield as our most neutral stage and FD is never a first-pick stage.

Sheik is just really good at racking up %. She is highly mobile, has a bit of zone control in her needles and grenades, and her KO moves are relatively "safe" and oftentimes can put her in a favourable position on a whiff... Bouncing Fish, her down B, is just so damn good even after a nerf. Before Diddy skyrocketed into use by high end players, Sheik was considered the strongest character in the game alongside Rosalina & Luma. She's still one of the strongest even after her knockback ratios became worse on her best KO moves. That said, her options for KOs are still a bit limited even if they don't leave her as open as a Smash attack. For new players, I think Sheik is a bit daunting and always has been by virtue of her speed and awkward side and nonexistent down B (as most Sheik mains were not comfortable switching to Zelda, and the transform in Brawl just took too long), but this variation definitely feels easier than her last two incarnations to use since her specials were massively upgraded to enhance her depth. I don't have any insight into how the matchups are, but Sheik is currently rated as being above the curve by most pros.

New stuff! (and some old stuff I was too lazy to scan before...)

Good players know this, bad players will spam it. Marth and Lucina's counters also become active faster than anyone else's except maybe Shulk's, making it hard for other inexperienced players to actually not just eat a counter. But you can simply grab someone who is relying too hard on counters and punish those people with ease, even if you're not so great.

The startup and end lag is so bad, if you just throw out Farore's Wind willy nilly you would get punished hard by any good player. However the 2nd hit is devastatingly powerful when it hits, making it one of the best KO moves in the game, except Zelda can't control the range at which she reappears and she's helpless if you don't immediately land on solid footing. Overall it's a poor escape move, unlike what Sheik (Bouncing Fish), ZSS (Boost Jump), and Sonic (erm... everything?) can do. I agree aiming Farore's Wind has changed! It has some strange sliding physics on the ground that wasn't present in previous games, making it slightly harder to control. If you hit the ground aiming down and Farore's Wind wasn't able to go its maximum range, it'll force you to move.