Played more of the demo, getting the hang of things on the controls but I still want shield on L lol. In general, my hand sorta starts to cramp on the OG 3DS so I'm not sure if I should get an XL because of that... yet. As besides the hand cramping, I can see pretty fine on the OG 3DS screen despite its size.
That said, the gameplay I can't really judge 100% against CPUs because they have stupid ridiculous reaction times. I can't really get a feel for what's possible at high % for combos because the AI always air dodges as soon as it can when hitstun is over -- something that a human player definitely won't be able or choose to do every time (at least not this early in the meta).
I've been playing Link the most in the demo because he's the one I'm most familiar with. It seems like he can KO pretty decently if you don't use any of his KO moves at low%s (things like Ftilt, Fsmash, Up B). You're going to want to use his Nair, Bair, and jabs at low%, maybe a little Ftilt if you think it's worth losing a bit of its KO potential because of stale moves. Use his boomerang and bombs, too, obviously but it doesn't seem like either of them will help set up for combos like in previous games -- they're more for keepaway as far as I can tell.
You really just need to be conscious of stale moves at all times just like in Brawl. Stale moves feels like it's just as strong as in Brawl, which is a shame as it's only compounding the issue of the large blastzones. They really shouldn't have kept stale moves the same and gone back to how it was in Melee (only damage is reduced, knockback remains the same).
But anyway, Link does feel better than he did in Brawl and part of that is because of some of the key changes: Up B is stronger at its base without needing to charge it (the charge also doesn't get in the way of using it out of shield), Ftilt is stronger, boomerang is actually usable for damage, Nair is better (it feels like it's out for a longer period of time than Brawl but it's hard to tell), and of course his grab isn't terribad when you whiff it.
I could see Link actually being somewhere in the middle this time around but it really depends on how the other characters shape up (especially some of the newcomers who have much stronger keepaway like Duck Hunt or Robin).
That said, the gameplay I can't really judge 100% against CPUs because they have stupid ridiculous reaction times. I can't really get a feel for what's possible at high % for combos because the AI always air dodges as soon as it can when hitstun is over -- something that a human player definitely won't be able or choose to do every time (at least not this early in the meta).
I've been playing Link the most in the demo because he's the one I'm most familiar with. It seems like he can KO pretty decently if you don't use any of his KO moves at low%s (things like Ftilt, Fsmash, Up B). You're going to want to use his Nair, Bair, and jabs at low%, maybe a little Ftilt if you think it's worth losing a bit of its KO potential because of stale moves. Use his boomerang and bombs, too, obviously but it doesn't seem like either of them will help set up for combos like in previous games -- they're more for keepaway as far as I can tell.
You really just need to be conscious of stale moves at all times just like in Brawl. Stale moves feels like it's just as strong as in Brawl, which is a shame as it's only compounding the issue of the large blastzones. They really shouldn't have kept stale moves the same and gone back to how it was in Melee (only damage is reduced, knockback remains the same).
But anyway, Link does feel better than he did in Brawl and part of that is because of some of the key changes: Up B is stronger at its base without needing to charge it (the charge also doesn't get in the way of using it out of shield), Ftilt is stronger, boomerang is actually usable for damage, Nair is better (it feels like it's out for a longer period of time than Brawl but it's hard to tell), and of course his grab isn't terribad when you whiff it.
I could see Link actually being somewhere in the middle this time around but it really depends on how the other characters shape up (especially some of the newcomers who have much stronger keepaway like Duck Hunt or Robin).
