Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash-Up -- 27 April 2010, Wi-Fi Matchmaking #02

Описание: As if you couldn't already tell based on how high the numbers go on this series, there were many matches to be had on this sitting...which after more than six months in circulation I'd say is pretty good for a licensed property-based Smash "clone" like this.

By the time I had realized how much I had neglected this game due to the fact that I really only play games online on an "as I feel like it" basis, I had originally feared based on the experience I had on the 17th that maybe people had grown tired of it.

Maybe I should think about setting up a rotation when I am once again able to set up shop and upload regularly again...but knowing me, I'm too erratic and unreliable to actually follow through with it.

---

Match #1 -- Western Town
Nightwatcher (Joou)
vs. Leonardo (Western Town)

I'd like to take a moment to point out how surprised I am to have a one-on-one match of this sort of quality, because most of them tend to be completely structured in such a way as to be in the Dojo and against a player who completely outclasses me. I don't know about the relative skills, but at least this stage isn't a closed room with no platforms, and I'm at least not enough of a slouch so as to be able to put up a decent fight regardless of the opponent.

Oh, and if I do in fact ever refer to one-on-one matches as "duels" I am NOT making some kind of Yu-Gi-Oh! pun, I swear!

I mean, ninja duels are not at all that uncommon these...okay, fine...I see your point, but that's what I'd be referring to more directly, so I can't help it if the two terms coincide. Stop laughing, I'm being serious!

The post-battle taunt made by the winner was funny and creepy enough that I had to laugh upon its delivery.

---

Match #2 -- Jungle
Foot Ninja (Joou)
vs. Donatello (TMNT1)
vs. Donatello (TMNT2)

Crocodiles are among what I would have originally consider to be the most "cheap" of stage deaths, but lately I've been starting to see that they're not really so automatic or guaranteed to take out their targets.

I mean, they're serious business and will immediately walk away with a whole stock no matter what your condition, but they CAN be avoided with careful timing and proper action if you can keep a cool head as that lumbering lizard leaps from the background. I wouldn't recommend it per se, but I'm just saying you're not necessarily doomed.

Most matches in stages with instant-death gimmicks other than stage pits will be pretty low-scoring, though.

---

Match #3 -- Warehouse
April O'Neil (Joou)
vs. Raphael (TMNT1)

So here is a much more in-depth look at the various effects of the Warehouse's stage gimmicks. There are two ways to play on this stage and take in constructive experience as a result: like this, with another opponent who doesn't seem to have any more mastery over it than you do, so you can freely experiment while a normal battle takes place...ormuch more painfully, against an adversary who DOES know all about how to use these effects to their advantage.
There are two types of triggers for the machine guns in this stage, spotlights and trip lasers. Every several seconds, a spotlight or a series of lasers will appear, and stepping into one will elicit a violent response targeted around the player who does so.

The lasers are very faintly visible and will shuffle around every several seconds and the spotlights will either wander around the rear wall or the floor as a helicopter does a sweep from the left to right walls. A spotlight will only focus on a player who makes direct contact with the full beam, and the vertical spotlight will only count for targets standing on the ground.

Whatever the cause, a detection will result in an alarm being triggered and a spotlight that loosely tracks the movements of the victim (or should that be "perpetrator"?) while peppering the area under it with dangerous suppressing fire that can easily cut a life bar down to size if you're caught in enough of it. The vertical spotlight uniquely fires from the top of the screen, apparently from the helicopter, so it's much easier to get another player caught within its attack.

Here we see a couple of interesting ways to keep an enemy immobilized long enough to get a spotlight on them or to force someone into a laser, although the relatively small area and volatility of the sensor elements will require that you remain aware of your surroundings and your enemies if you ever hope to apply these sorts of maneuvers.

And of course, most importantly of all: just because you're the stage's target doesn't mean you can't lead it along to other players while it's single-mindedly tracking you around...and if all else fails, you're a ninja (or ninja equivalent), so you can just run from it or launch yourself across the arena with a wall attack.