Nintendo today released a patch for Super Smash Bros. on Wii U and 3DS, in which the long-awaited DLC character Mewtwo was finally made available to a few lucky players.
What Comes With the Patch?
Club Nintendo members who bought both the Wii U and 3DS versions of Smash Bros. received Mewtwo as a playable character. For an overview of how Mewtwo plays in the game, check out Youtuber “GameXPlain’s” live tutorial video here.
The patch also provides tweaks to how several characters play in the game, most notably, Diddy Kong. For months, Smash players have been complaining that Diddy Kong was vastly overpowered and greatly out-matched other characters in the popular fighting game. The hate became so bad that fans actually showered a recent Smash Tournament champion with boos, due to his victory with the character.
After users tested the patch themselves in-game (more on that in a minute), it was determined that Diddy Kong had received a definite overhaul, as his strength and several of his moves were “nerfed” to improve balancing issues with the title.
Reddit user DrGeeWee provided a statistically detailed overview of the changes to Diddy Kong, which you can check out for yourself below:
In other words, nearly all of Diddy Kong’s moveset was “nerfed” in some way to ensure that the character does not provide players with an unfair advantage on the battlefield.
Did Nintendo Provide Details for this Patch?
No, in fact, Nintendo (as is their tendency) did not provide official details for this new patch. Instead, players were forced to determine what changed on their own, testing out different characters in-game to discover balance tweaks.
While Nintendo certainly does not have to be fully transparent with every action it takes, it certainly does not help the company’s negative reputation as a backwards developer stuck in its ways.
With patches and updates becoming such a large part of modern gaming, most developers offer their players a glimpse into the process by providing so-called “patch notes.” Nintendo’s decision not to take this step is yet another example of why this reputation has formed.
Couple this with Nintendo’s controversial Youtube copyright policies, and you have a company seemingly lost in its own glorious past. For a developer that has provided the industry with some of the most innovative game experiences to date, its corporate policies leave much to be desired.
