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You may know of tier lists if you play fighting games; games like Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, Super Smash Brothers, etc. You may know that each of these games have their respected tier lists of which characters are top and which characters are shit (or bottom, if we wanted to keep this thing G-rated).
However, as Justin Wong found out the hard way, knowing one game’s tiers don’t always mean that your victory is secure. For those that don’t know, Wong participated in the Evolution Championship Series Tournament 2010; the focus, for purposes of this article, is the Super Street Fighter IV tournament he was in (His main being Rufus, a high tier character in the game). He noted that Adon—an oldie to the series, but new to SSFIV—was fairly low tier. There are those that are lower than him, but you get the idea.
Come tournament time, he gets knocked out of it in the semi-finals losers bracket…by none other than Adon, played by one named Gamerbee.
Which brings me to my point of tier lists.
A wise woman once said “There’s no such thing as tiers, only skill.” I mostly agree with this, but there is one small counter-argument that I will state. While tier lists can get a little bit ridiculous in terms of how some people stick to them religiously, they do give a mild overview of certain characters. Characters that are high on the tier list show a nice combination of high speed, high power, good range, and low recovery on their moves (meaning they can fire them off with little punishment). These are the kinds of characters that are very lethal in a fight. Characters low on the tier lists show the bad combinations of the above traits. Characters in the middle show a decent performance on some of their traits, but either show a higher or lower performance in others.
These lists are handy for skimming characters, but the only way you can feel them out is if you actually do play as them in respective games.
Examples of characters that are low, but dangerous are as follows:
Lucas In relation to tier-lists, Lucas, a Mother-series character in Super Smash Brothers Brawl, is a mid-low character. His major disadvantages are his speed and recovery, especially on his up + smash. His recovery is something of note as it’s high on a lot of his moves and smashes (save for his side smash).
Hidden in this, however, is a massive powerhouse. His down smashes and up smashes, if they connect, can send an unsuspecting character flying if they’re at 75% damage (even lower with some of the lighter characters). His Final Smash is also hard to dodge, especially when the curtain of meteors start coming down at the end of it (with Ness, they spread out diagonally). All around, Lucas’ smashes are enough to make him dangerous enough to not write off, despite being a mid-low tier character.
Shingo Shingo’s a character from the King of Fighters series; in this case, I’ll focus around King of Fighters XI. He is also considered to be a mid-low tier character; he plays similarly to Kyo (like how Sakura plays similarly to Ryu), but he doesn’t have Kyo’s combo-ability. His moves also have a high recovery, one prominent example being his Shingo Kick. His damage is decent at best, but it doesn’t compare to Kyo’s damage normally.
Shingo’s danger, however, is if you make him the leader of your three-fighter team. When a character is made leader, they get an extra super attack, called a Leader Move. Shingo’s leader move consists of three-four painful kicks into the air, followed by him crashing down to the ground. The crashing down to the ground is actually dangerous; if the positioning of the super is just right, Shingo crashing down onto the opponent after the super ends will do some massive damage. This alone makes him wary, and a skilled Shingo player, even without being the leader, can still be dangerous if you’re not careful.
Dan
If there ever was a self-appointed king of the bottom-tier, Dan would be it.
Most people are familiar with Dan from the Street Fighter Alpha series, but people today will be familiar with him due to his appearance in the Street Fighter IV series. In the Alpha series, and in almost every other game that he has been in, Dan has been considered a low-bottom tier character. He plays similarly to Ryu and Ken, but…well, let’s put it this way; his Gadouken goes about 2-3 inches before fizzling, his regular uppercut is nearly vertical, his Koryuken (his version of the Shoryuken) is more vertical than diagonal, his Dan Kyaku (done in the same motion as the Hurricane Kick) has high start up…the list kind of goes on.
However…Dan still has some very nasty surprises.
In Marvel vs Capcom 2, a super attack called, Otoki Michi, a move that is similar to the Raging Demon (Except that the input is done backwards) is an attack in which Dan grabs an enemy and blows himself up. In previous games where this can be done, this didn’t do that much damage. On a character that doesn’t have super armor, this attack can take off 50-60% of an opponent’s life. There’s just one problem…this move reduces Dan’s HP to 1.
Another set of nasty surprises for Dan show up (surprisingly) in Street Fighter IV. Every fighter can use what is called an EX attack, which is a powered up version of one of their special attacks. In both this and Super Street Fighter IV, Dan’s Dan Kyaku has no start-up, meaning that he gains a fair amount of combo-ability with it, which gives him an opportunity to put pressure on an opponent. In these games, underestimating Dan could lead to a loss on your end.
In closing, tier lists span a large variety of games: racing games, fighting games, shooters, the list goes on. The thing is, while these tiers are present throughout various game genres, to base your characters, guns, cars, etc. solely on them can be a costly mistake. As with all of these games, the best way to find out what works well for you is to play them; and if the character you pick happens to be low-tier, well…let’s say that you may be surprised by them.
--Choco Thunda (9/14/10)
Images from http://www.fightersgeneration.com , smashbros.com , and and gameinformer.com .
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