User blog:MasterKnight/Controls analysis

Recently, Kid Icarus Uprising has had its 9th anniversary and a Tweet by Masahiro Sakurai himself stating that a remake or sequel to the game "will be difficult." Could he really be interested in making a remake or sequel? As long as we can have a good Spiritual Successor to the game at least, that would be welcome. Still, Sakurai does work hard enough even if I do have reasons to have frustration with what I see of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, so it would at least help to figure out how to alleviate the big issues.

Naturally, one important hurdle to go over, before even going into the game's imbalances, is the controls. They would seem simple with only 3 controls of moving, aiming, and attacking, although this is before Powers get involved. However, in practice, there have been many complications that have turned off players from the game. I will naturally go over them having experience with them myself, and also wanting to underline key points to showcase what is at least working (there's at least one thing, arguably) and what isn't.

Awkward hand positions
This is the biggest problem with the controls. I have a setup that I myself use: touch screen for aiming, L button for attack, X and Y for Select Power, and B for Use Power. This is keeping in mind that I myself am a natural southpaw, so I would have my own hurdles to overcome, but I'm still able to pioneer the Spin Shot technique nevertheless. I actually can't imagine a more "efficient" control scheme, since face buttons and even analog sticks would not be nearly as precise for aiming, keeping in mind, by the way, that not everybody will have a Circle Pad Pro or New 3DS, the former of which shows signs that it'd be incompatible with a 3DS capture card anyway.

Note that I say "efficient" in quote marks. The drawback of this control scheme is the needed hand positioning. The right hand has to have the fingers above the face buttons for it to handle the stylus control. This has the problem that the 3DS's general weight is distributed to the left hand, potentially guaranteeing wrist cramps even when the right hand's palm is pressed along the 3DS's side to at least try to buffer the pressure.

FIX: Gyro controls would have been an obvious solution, one that was used by the remake of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to effectiveness with a secondary mechanic. While aiming with them still wouldn't have been as precise and the Spin Shot technique would require more body movement, having the option would have been a massive improvement. Toggling it could even have been a replacement for Align Camera, which I believe nobody ever uses to effectiveness except possibly as life support. Although physical effort still would have been demanded, the player could have a choice on which sort to go through for efficiency, and a sort of division of labor would certainly ease how the player handles the controls.

Multiple purpose buttons
Another, though lesser talked about, issue with the controls is multiple simultaneous purposes for multiple buttons, which isn't new in gaming, considering the Donkey Kong Country series assigns barrel pickup and dashing to the same button, but it IS heightened in Kid Icarus Uprising. Attacks regardless of if they're range or melee are assigned to the Attack button, and re-aiming will also register as wanting to do a Dasharound. These are the most noteworthy issues I have with this, though I may be missing others. (It is worth pointing out that Select Power would use a vehicle's feature and Use Power would dismount the vehicle, but that applies strictly to singleplayer and also when using vehicles during which the player can't use Powers anyway, so no problem there.)

I will go into the Dasharound point first because I do find it to be a bit more functional, though I can hear people want dodging itself assigned its own button, but I do think there is at least some interesting challenge factor in letting go of the aiming button (or touch screen in my case, obviously) to manage to AVOID doing a Dasharound. The Dasharound does provide intangibility, but only slightly more than a Parry Dodge and definitely doesn't cover the end of the dodge (discounting Evasion+ in its own brokenness), which is important because the Parry Dodge does allow for more versatile dodge paths against things like Hewdraw Head's erratic lunge attack or the attacks of Thanatos's sword form. Dasharound can also interfere with running, though I forget where exactly this comes up.

Of course, I should mention that the dodge moves are context-sensitive to begin with, and the Parry Dodge where available will absolutely override a simple Dash regardless of other inputs, which can be particularly bothersome when trying to dash against the likes of a Neutral Rapid spammer. It can compromise various tactics, and thus I am not sure ruining fundamental behavior is worth providing niche use for Heavenly Light.

The other thing to go over is melee attacking being on the same button as range attacking. This one I don't like. The melee attack, during viable circumstances, will override the range attack regardless of inputs, and this is where it gets obnoxious. To account for the context-sensitivity, the Melee Combo provides movement homing toward the viable target that can sometimes confound things and even allows for problematic scenarios like Magnus being able to cheat with the usage range in the Magnus and Gaol fight.

The Melee Dash Attack, meanwhile, can only be triggered without having to be close enough for automatic melee attack by specific button combination, namely flicking the control stick in the exact opposite direction at the same time as pressing the attack button. This does show up in the Tips and I do manage reliability with this, but sometimes, I also do the manual Melee Dash Attack by pure accident and I swear it happens when I try to Spin Shot moving in the same direction I would have just dodged in. Dodging I think is clumsy enough, but the melee controls are even clumsier by a wide margin and giving the manual Melee Dash Attack a cooldown for its use is just confessing to as much.

FIX: Definitely give the melee attacking its own button and only have the movement homing happen at slightly shorter range. The Melee Dash Attack should use up stamina to compensate for not getting locked by the arbitrary cooldown. As for dodging, if it too needs its own available button, something I actually would be for to disincentivize foxtrotting, make the dodge staling mechanic into something MUCH more coherent and viable, tone Evasion+ WAY down to nip indefinite intangibility in the bud (you know something is broken anyway when its only attempt at a check for its absurd effect is the game's own control issues and those haven't even been enough), and make the dodging that isn't a Parry Dodge or a Dasharound a nerfed attempt to dodge to still incentivize timing.

Also worth a fix is that the zoom-in view is unintuitive to input when wanted (quick double tap for toggle) and yet can be inputted by accident anyway. That should be fixed.

Information? What's that?
There are some problems with the game's information provisions. I am fine with the opponents' used Powers showing up only momentarily on the bottom screen and then only one Status Buff showing up depending on a custom display priority. This encourages creativity both by aiding usage of Powers like Transparency or Playing Dead, and by giving Grid Reading its consistent challenge factor. What I am not fine with is information that should be readily available to the player, because that information would be their own, and there are some points that would also be worth displaying.

FIX: The following details should definitely be provided where feasible:
 * Player's own stamina on a meter (opponents' optional), as the player should have a better idea of how close they are to exhaustion (of course, Stamina would also be easier to rebalance with this in mind, to make sure it's both properly influential and coherent)
 * Player's Neutral Rapid clip and Shot chargeup progress displayed on the reticle, so that they know when to attack (seriously, a game called Battalion Wars has both without problem and that was made by a backwater company)
 * Some graphical indicators of opponents' weapon modifiers in multiplayer matches to provide alert about weapon modifiers, so as to make the power boosting ones far more coherent (drinks will be on me once the frustration gets directed at the likes of Shot DEF+)
 * Super Armor and Counter statuses on the user via a graphical shield effect with color based on which of the two are active, independent from other buffs, to make it clear when either/both is/are active in the interest of coherence in combat involving both Powers (this would benefit my opponents more than me, by the way, but I myself would still get to know when I'd have the blasted things active instead of getting sucker punched by lucky hits rather than )
 * Bumblebee passive after-image generation, again independent from other buffs, on the user to make combat against it more coherent
 * Pisces Heal provision of a blue version of Aries Armor's rings on the user, a way to display the auto-revival effect more clearly
 * Libra Sponge aura shading of red, slight at no chargeup but much clearer at max chargeup, as a method of differentiation from Energy Charge that would reward observation in a cleaner manner
 * Aries Armor rings shaded when Libra Sponge is active to provide warning about the combination
 * Trade-Off invincibility sparkles shading of red, moreso at higher Levels, to indicate its involvement and make it easier to Grid read

I would also welcome graphical signs on attack buffs (electricity particles on Quick Charge for example, or the user's weapon being transparent with Invisible Shots to provide warning about its usage), so that people get to know what they are up against and react accordingly. As long as the player's involvement with more sophisticated mechanics can be more intuitive, that is what is important.

Oh, and BTW, if a player wants to default to first person view, let them and actually let them see what weapon type they have. I do first person view regularly in interest of empathy, dangit.

Conclusion
I do have a more full list of suggestions that a remake could do to improve experience here for anybody interested, sent to Grezzo on count of an admittedly loose connection and a thin hope of response regardless. But right now, I get more focused with the controls because they had proven to be the primary hangup for many people. I hope my analysis can at least provide insight to how the controls could be fixed up.