How a Joke Character Became Broken: Pichu's Journey In Super Smash Bros 

Pichu isn’t a joke in our hearts

I loved Pre patch Pichu. I dropped Pichu a few months after the nerf, and then switched over to playing melee a year after the final update. How sad

I remember being so happy seeing that Pichu was gonna return in Smash Ultimate and I still enjoy playing the character to this day. Keep up the great videos man!

I used to be a pichu main in melee back when I was still in kindergarden and playing them in melee against my older brother who basicly made me feel like he hated me any other time was one of if not my favorite thing as a kid. I was so sad that they never returned my entire life. In every new entry I was simply chanting PICHU! PICHU? Everytime a new character was revealed. I was so dissapointed for like 14 years of my young life. With clinical depression making life worth less year by year One of the few things which made me care for my own life where my two pet mice. I got them for my 12 birthday and loved them dearly, playing with them almost daily until the day they died 6 years later. I called them Pikachu and Pichu and they died in early winter of 2018. I was devestated. My favorite mouse hadn't only died once on a screen but twice and this time in my hands as an old man. I cried for days if not weeks I don't properly rember it anymore as I have blocked out most of those memories. Cue my junior year of highschool. E3 2018. I can still vividly remember me saying "Oh a new Smash bros let's get dissapointed again" in the discord call still slightly faded from what had expired that winter. Then it happened. "EVERYONE IS HERE." In bold letters. I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. I was literaly in disbeliefe thinking "everyone except pichu right?" Then I saw Pichu on screen. I literaly jumped so excitedly that I pulled a muscle and screamed so hard my mom came rushing in. Crying on the floor and in retrospect I can't tell if it was because of the absolut pain I was in or the overbearing joy I felt I just yelled "He's back my boy is back he came back from the dead" over and over again laughing like a madman which made my mom quite concerned but when she saw what I had paused my screen to she too started crying. Sometimes it's the little joys in life which make life itself worth it and seeing that I could get any form of solace even if it's just by getting back my all time favorite character in my favorite game made me suddenly not see the world in complete darkness. Wonders can happen... even if it sometimes takes over a decade for them to show themselfs. I love my favorite mouse and no matter if you are top, mid, low or trash tier I will always have a place for you in my heart. Thanks for making this video and reminding me of all of this. RIP Pichu and Pikachu you made me not loose hope in a time when I couldn't even brush my teeth everyday. Man I miss my mice.. Edit: Ps my favorite pichu taunt is the one where they lie on the floor. My pet mice Pichu used to flip over on their back and enjoy some belly scratches often times.

I would say the slight advantage of self-harm is you're more easily getting rage. Yes you're close to death, but smart play could mitigate that issue. I like Pichu a lot and always have, so even if Pikachu wins in the end, Pichu is the one I root for regardless.

3:25 OBJECTION. 64 Puff is lighter if we use the conversion; It has a weight of 53.8 due to taking 30% more knockback than your Mario, Luigi or Fox (Yes, Fox used to be a middleweight. Imagine if that was in Melee).

Funny thing about Dan: he's ascended beyond being a joke character with SF5 and become a formidable one to use. For a spell after his launch, he had a pretty reliable infinite, and last I heard, he's still somewhere in the upper tiers of the game.

Pichu is that one quiet kid at school who knows how to stand up for themselves against the bully when they get insulted one time too many. Tell me I'm wrong.

damn man the editing goes CRAZY on this one, you've come along way honest

3:20 THAT BOMBERMAN 64 MUSIC THO

Nice history video of Pichu Though you missed out 1 important part Pichu would later have almost all of its electric moves revert to their original recoil damage pre-3.1.0 in patch 11.0.0 So Pichu's survivability was slightly improved and it is nice especially one of its moves, fair, is a really needed move for Pichu in neutral since it's usually used in approaching and comboing as well as up b since it's Pichu's main recovery move (it actually was the one move where its recoil damage is even weaker than the pre-3.1.0 version), however by that point, DLC once again started dominating the meta and the meta had shifted since then with all the balances changes, DLC characters, and many character metas have had grown and evolved. That said, Pichu at best in Ultimate is likely high tier given its survivability was slightly improved, but nevertheless it's awesome Pichu went from a joke character to THE glass cannon of Smash Bros. (especially when the joke character title had now been passed on to Piranha Plant) Funny thing, given Pichu's history in both Pokemon and Smash Bros., Pichu is actually very deserving to be in Smash Bros. especially now. People who just say cut the clones and echo fighters is like deleting small files from a full storage that's filled with mostly larger files. The clone fighters have always been a thing in fighting games in general and Smash Bros. is no different (tho certain characters like Daisy and Dark Samus REALLY need to have their movesets revamped and be more differentiated from the characters they were cloned from). It's also great that given how more refined the clone characters of Melee are now, competitive viability aside, they can easily be seen as preferences like how you'd prefer Dr. Mario's bait & punish gameplay with stronger kill power over Mario's more combo-oriented gameplay and prefer Pichu's glass cannon combo character gameplay over Pikachu's more stable gameplay (funny how Pichu's kill power overall is even deadlier than Pikachu's)

Rise up Peechu mains!!!!!

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it ▶️🅰️

Pichu was never close to being broken imo, just another case of the players not knowing the matchup early on (like Ike)

And then became an inferior Pikachu again after the nerfs

Rest in piece ftilt

Great video Honest Content ^_^ !! I especially liked this one

I dont think pichus nerfs is what made him fall off. The meta was extremely under developed when he was top tier. He was going to fall off regardless of what happened, i mean just look at what happened to inkling lmao I would say pichu is still low high tier at best, around the 40-45 range

3:26 Pichu isnt the lightest, that would go to Smash 64 Jigglypuff at 53

WE LOVE PICHU!!!!!!

Tbh i've been watching your content in the past few days. I really love your "how X changed in Project M" series, almost watched it all. I hope you keep making these amazing content✨

Pichu Gang 4ever!

This reminds me of Dan having an infinite in Street Fighter 5.

Im fairly certain thats some Bomberman 64 music at 3:11 and im all for it

3:54 good thing i came here right after knowing about this

good stuff, this is a great video

good video, nice conker music

I never looked at Pichu as a “joke character.” A weak character doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a “joke” or “intentionally bad.” Pichu’s entry in the JPN Melee website describes it as the weakest character but I never deduced “joke character” from that. Pichu’s fighter trophy entries in-game also highlight its glaring weaknesses, but again, I just don’t really see it as being bad by design. Pichu in Melee is also a glass cannon, the same as it is in Ultimate, just with its disadvantages being more prominent. I think Melee’s competitive scene hindered Pichu’s reputation because it caused people to look at Pichu only for its inability to perform at a high level. I think if you just play Melee without any competitive context, sure Pichu may still be written off as bad because of the disadvantages, but I think that’s only the case if you take Pichu’s flaws at face value. Actually practicing Pichu and mastering its skill set is rewarding because Pichu is a character that flips Smash’s game design upside-down; instead of focusing solely on damaging your opponent, now you’re also focusing on damaging yourself as little as possible in the process. Pichu is a character that requires extreme care and strategy to succeed, as over-reliance on its electrical attacks will only hinder the player. Every missed attack is an extra point of unnecessary self-damage, meaning the player needs to strike a balance between physical attacks and electrical attacks in order to win. You can’t abuse Pichu’s electrical attacks like Pikachu can, you actually need to plan your moves carefully in order to minimize the amount of damage you cause to yourself. The bright side to it is that Pichu has attacks capable of defeating opponents that don’t use electricity, such as its up and down smash attacks. This means that you don’t need to rely on electrical moves to finish the enemy, and can instead build an attack strategy by using the electrical moves in tandem with the physical ones to deal large amounts of damage, then relying on Pichu’s physical attacks to end it off (depending on the enemy’s position however, an electrical attack may still be the ideal option anyway). Pichu being the lightest character makes the challenge all the more worth overcoming. And thanks to Pichu being one of the fastest characters in the cast, it has little to no problem outmaneuvering opponents and showering them with swift attacks. Pichu may not be the crowned best character in the game, but it was never meant to be that nor should it be expected to be that. Even despite its severe flaws, I don’t believe Pichu to be a joke character, and I don’t view it as “inarguably inferior” to Pikachu. Pichu, as a fighter, is an acquired taste; not everyone is willing to take the challenge, and choosing Pikachu instead is basically the easy way out, but for those that _do_ want to play a character with such apparent weaknesses and still manage to succeed, I think that’s the entire appeal of Pichu as a fighter.

Was suddenly thinking of hero in HDR. Now I’m wondering what they’re like?

ivsaur ssbb to ssbu is the most buffed charter ever

Making the joke characters Pokémon two games in a row feels like it was deliberate malice by Sakurai.

Honestly I still play pichu Pichu is awesome!!!

It's also more-rewarding if you do win as Pichu, auto-troll. We love Pichu.

Mewtwo was also done dirty

Funny enough, I started liking Pichu because of Smash bros melee in the first place

How yoinking one Junebug idea can turn into an entire channel: the honest content story

I hate how Ultimate patches things when Melee and Brawl don’t add any more touches once it’s released. Ever since Smash 4 when they started adding patches it made certain characters less fun to play as.

Jigglypuff was never a joke character. Japanese's Pikachu or #1 Pokemon was Jigglypuff in Japan from what I heard. So I don't think jiggs was really a joke character in 64

I think the true joke characters are US as modern smash players, the fact they nerfed pichu, peach, zero suit, and others but steve, kazuya, sonic and others are allowed to be the most infuriating shit ever curls my insides

I’m still mad at what Sakurai did to Pichu in Ultimate, I would still be playing the game more if it wasn’t for those massive ass gutting nerfs.

yay 54

Pichu is my PERMANENT secondary main, and while Pikachu is my primary, yeah, I can happily say that Pichu is more flexible, for me. Better spike hitbox than Pikachu(seriously, for some reason, the position for the hitbox goes off-center for Pikachu, and not Pichu, which makes no sense), I like how viable they can be with Spirits, Spike/Notch Ear Pichu is an awesome callback to HGSS, and even with the lowest weight & higher self-damage, Pichu is STILL stronger than Pikachu, and better with recovery, thanks to Skull Bash's LUDICROUS range. Pichu, buddy, HOW DOES YOUR SIDE SPECIAL FLY ALMOST *50% FURTHER* THAN THE LENGTH OF *_FINAL DESTINATION!?_* Also, skins can be better than Pikachu's, due to Pikachu Libré's.......additional set of pixels/texture. No, I'm not saying it.

Hello.

Pichu was mever broken. He was good and ppl didnt know how to deal with him. Now he has no point

Funny thing is that im better at pichu than Pikachu

i would way rather play a low tier in melee than a mid tier in ultimate tbh

You dont have to constanty remind people to stay tuned, just have confidence in the quality of your video. Im actually not gonna finish it because 3 times is way to many