Update 232: Ice Climber : Special Moves

[The Qu]

Play a little and you’ll soon find this out for yourself, but here’s
some advice—when fighting as the Ice Climbers, making sure your partner, Nana, stays alive is key.

Your attacks suffer when you’re alone...

But together you’ll hit harder and score multiple hits!

The difference is even more dramatic when performing special
moves.

<Standard Special Move: Ice Shot>

Popo fires off a lone chunk of ice that sliiides away.

With Nana by your side, your attack is doubled!

With two shots you can relax, safe in the knowledge that you don’t need to worry about your attack being reflected, since one projectile will cancel out the other upon being repelled.

This will be a constant source of headaches to your opponent.

<Side Special Move: Squall Hammer>

Popo spins around and around. It’s not useless or anything...

But this is much better!

You can also rapidly press the special-move button to rise higher into the air while doing this move, a secondary function whose rate of ascent is also improved when you perform this move with both climbers.

<Up Special Move: Belay>

Popo’s just going through the motions here. He probably had to work out a kink in his shoulder.

When you use Belay with two climbers, they perform a feat that leaves you dazzled at the depths of their friendship!

Belay has virtually no effect when performed alone. This is a real example of how you’ll need both climbers for success.

<Down Special Move: Blizzard>

This short-range projectile move freezes the enemy.

But with the two climbers together, you’re guarded from both sides!

Use it in the air and both climbers will face the same direction for double the power!

Following up a small jump with a midair blizzard can come in pretty handy.

So playing Ice Climbers boils down to Nana. It’s all about Nana.

Like a team of skilled mountain climbers striving to reach the peak, you must honor and cherish the bond that binds you with your teammate as you fight together.

Ahem... And let’s overlook our friend’s occasional impulse to wander off, shall we?

[nocturnal YL]

Look closely and you'll see Nana's 3D model is still embedded into Popo. This does two things: (1) proves that you can indeed walk through others, (2) the developers wasted a lot of money from the licensing of the Havok physics engine; they don't need it!

[Fryguy64]

Yes, I've seen screenshots of them slightly smushed together before. And now I also find out Nana still wanders off? Yeah... I'm not entirely sure the Ice Climbers are going to be "good" this time round either.

[Sqrt2]

admin said:

And now I also find out Nana still wanders off? Yeah... I'm not entirely sure the Ice Climbers are going to be "good" this time round either.

I'm with you on this one Fry (although I don't think I ever experienced a match where Nana wanders off to be truthful). Surely, they've had enough time to fix this, since melee was finished.

Hopefully, if they make an appearance in Smash Bros. 4 (you know there WILL be one), this will have been fixed.

[mopinks]

the Ice Climbers are usually rather high on those tournament tier lists, for what that's worth. they're really powerful if you know what you're doing!

(I am not one of those people.)

[8bitretroshit]

mopinks said:

the Ice Climbers are usually rather high on those tournament tier lists, for what that's worth. they're really powerful if you know what you're doing!

(I am not one of those people.)

They're high because they can be pretty cheap

I love me some Ice Climbers, but really the best I can do with 'em is spam smash attacks or else Nana runs off again. Oh and Belay is a terrible recovery in Melee, I ussually use side B instead, but it seems Nana is grabbing that ledge while still holding Popo by a rope in that picture. Maybe she'll pull him to the ledge too then, instead of throwing him up into the open.

[Smashchu]

younglink said:

(2) the developers wasted a lot of money from the licensing of the Havok physics engine; they don't need it!

Havok is for physics. What does that have to do with physics?

admin said:

Yes, I've seen screenshots of them slightly smushed together before. And now I also find out Nana still wanders off? Yeah... I'm not entirely sure the Ice Climbers are going to be "good" this time round either.

The Climbers were amazing in the last game. I mean you could spam the Smashes and probably win. They were powerful. No to mention they had a really spammable projectile.

Also, Nana wondering off can be good sometimes. When she wonders back is usually when she starts beating the crap out of the opponent while your trying to get back(ledge guarding). But they usually split up when an enemy blasted us away, and we landed in different locations.

[Neko Neko Panic]

sqrt2 said:

Hopefully, if they make an appearance in Smash Bros. 4 (you know there WILL be one), this will have been fixed.

Maybe not, if they consider it a feature of the character(s) and not a bug. Which it very well may be.

[nocturnal YL]

Havok is for physics. What does that have to do with physics?
In general, SSBB's physics isn't that new, and I think it's not worth to use Havok; for this particular update, you see the Climbers' collision problem - while people are supposed to pass through together, they shouldn't be stuck with each other while stationary.

[Neko Neko Panic]

smashchu2 said:

Havok is for physics. What does that have to do with physics?

He's saying that with Havok, one might expect they'd have it use collision detection to move them and keep the models outside each other any time when players aren't actively passing through one another to get to the other side.