The name game

[sniffnoy]

So today's Smash update is interesting. It's almost entirely stuff we already knew - either from previous games or from Japan, where the game is already out - but it's the naming that makes it interesting. They've presented familiar techniques under unfamiliar names.

When I saw the name "Ukemi", I wondered what this strange new technique was. Turns out it's teching. The short hop? It's called a small jump instead. And the power shield has been renamed to the perfect shield. (Note, in constrast, that the name "power shield" actually comes from Melee itself, not from the players.)

I'm told that this "stale move negation" applies to knockback as well as damage. Apparently Melee had this too, but for damage only? I never noticed. But with this applying to knockback makes killing considerably harder, I'm told. Not so sure I like that.

Odd that it mentions you can swim without specifying how. Just with the stick?

I wonder what the motivation behind including the pivot grab was?

Also, I notice it makes no mention of the use of the fast-fall as a pseudo-L-cancel that we've heard so much about, however that works again.

Unrelatedly, here's a set of building blocks for teaching kids English... from China. (Taken from Language Log.)

-Harry

Comments

[basman.livejournal.com]

"Ukemi" is actually a word that I've heard used a lot in fighting games. I actually thought of teching that way before I knew it was called teching.

[grenadier32.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've always used it for that in Soul Calibur--it's nothing strange for me. In fact, I don't know where the term "teching" came from.

[onewingedkefka.livejournal.com]

Also, you know you can grab while running now?

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

Uh, the dash grab has been around... always. In 64 it was no worse than an ordinary grab, part of the reason the game is so grab-centric. In Melee they actually bothered to make it separate and slower (so of course people just learned how to crouch-cancel).

[basman.livejournal.com]

You're thinking of the jump cancel.

[sniffnoy.livejournal.com]

I thought that was only for up-smashes? Or is it still called a jump-cancel when you do it with crouching instead?