How Steve Broke Smash Ultimate - A Character Analysis 

Why does Steve get to keep his inventory after a ko when the default setting in Minecraft is keep inventory off?

I’ve always hated how the magma block on Steve’s up smash is bigger than the rest of his blocks. All blocks should be the same size

5:40 ...A DIAMOND in the rough, a GOLD medalist... whose IRON grasp seems unyielding. A character that WOOD leave a profound mark on the meta. I see what you did there, you DIRTy scoundrel...

He literally broke Ultimate. Ice physics don't work anymore and the lava in Super Mario Maker sometimes doesn't hurt you starting with the Steve update.

I really appreciate the fact that you didn’t just mindlessly slam Steve for being overpowered, but also go into HOW this character ended up in this state in the first place. It feels like a lot of people forget that Steve wasn’t considered a super broken “must nerf” character until a long while after his release. Edit: Just finished the video and God it is so refreshing to see such an overall optimistic Smash video considering how most of the community behaves.

the unfortunate part of attempting banning characters in smash is that if they don't have a lot of top level rep, people won't think the character is a problem. but if they are everywhere at top level (see brawl and s4), then they can't get banned because many top players will refuse to attend tournaments their character is banned at

this was the best "Steve is broken" video you were descriptive, reasonable, and not overly negative

As a robin enthusiast, I imagine Steve to be if Levin sword had separate durabilities for each direction. And could be restored by shielding for 1 second

Smash 4 Cloud had the same "You're in disadvantage if you're not approaching me" with Limit. And you know what they did? Mafe sure it decayed when it's full.

i think the wildest thing this illustrates is just how much of steve's overwhelming powerful comes from _exceeding_ tiny details. like, the blocks' hurtbox, the way blocks have differing and p. significant hp, blocks giving no-impact landing, stages being lax with the red zones on their blockgrid, minecart's hurtbox extending so far up and being invulnerable at startup, minecart's grab hitbox not sharing a hit cooldown with its impact hitbox, anvil's hitbox having the exact opposite problem as block's hurtbox, elytra's goddamn _black hole_ hands, elytra's free firework rocket, what resources steve starts and respawns with, and the general trend of his resource costs ( other than tnt ) being pretty damn lenient like, it's a cute detail that stone blocks last longer than dirt blocks, but is it really necessary when dirt blocks are already as durable as they are? iron is one thing, since that means you have _no_ other blocks and burning through has far more significant ramifications, but the miscellaneous blocks really don't gain anything but "a cute detail" from being mechanically distinct. speaking of iron, does he really need to start with _three?_ does he really need to keep it after dying, except also if he used it all up, he gets an _extra_ three to immediately play with? i mean honestly i don't mind him respawning with like one or two units of it ( as, like, both the floor _and_ ceiling; convert lost iron to stone if you want, he just shouldn't be able to respawn with a _full bar_ ) since respawn disadvantage is a bitch and especially for a character with his physics, getting a single free anvil or minecart to mix up his landing or to save for their importance in his offense ain't all that unreasonable. if anything, it's what he _starts_ with that's more egregious, because the comparison to charge moves isn't exactly inaccurate, and i mean ... imagine if samus could store multiple charge shots, _and she _*_started with three_* i'm pretty confident that you could adjust all these smaller details while keeping all of steve's more overt strengths untouched and his performance would just _plummet._ like, not from the higher tiers, no those overt strengths are still A Lot, but his perch as the game-warping toppest tier makes any fall far from insignificant

When animating a character, there are reasons to want to shift or not shift the root bone position on a move-by-move basis. The problem, as always, is Steve. Presumably the devs simply decided that Anvil's "weird" interactions just weren't important enough to warrant anything more than the simplest solution. Which might have been okay if the move wasn't arguably already too effective, and wasn't part of the abundance of a certainly too effective character.

I never understood why they let Steve place blocks in mid-air when thats not how he plays in Minecraft. I feel like if they were to nerf him, they should at least make him only place blocks connected to the ground, wall, ceiling, or to another block. Great video overall, glad to see you back!

'You're basically better off not interacting with it' - every other move on steve

Steve seems like a character that they were gonna give one or two advantages out of a list of five, but some careless intern accidentally enabled all the advantages

It doesn't help that the legal stages just so happen to give Steve his best tables for mining resources quickly.

Lets not forget that the day he was announced, Twitter and RU-vid completely shit the bed and stopped working normally.

the size for the blocks' hurtbox is stupid, i KNEW it was smaller than it looked...

38:35 Really funny to me that this *projectile command grab* also has bonus backup hitboxes to strike aerial opponents. Y'know, jumping. The way you're supposed to avoid command grabs.

One topic I'm surprised you didn't cover about uptilt and upsmash was about how blocks when set up in The Wall ™ formation is how you either have to attack the wall and run the very real risk of getting counterhit by Steve or jump over it, when he has two of the best antiair's in the game. Both of which having different uses as well, with uptilt obviously meant for combos and upsmash for killing. So no matter the percent at which you're at it really just boils down to a damned if you do damned if you don't when dealing with The Wall ™

Steve mains suppressed their power levels until after the final balance patch

Steve's known for breaking blocks, so when he came to Smash Bros, he decided to up his game!

It’s genuinely CRAZY that you were able to squeeze two hours of info over ONE smash character. This game is crazy but also I can’t even imagine the amount of time you put into this video and amount of research done. Thanks for posting this and it definitely killed some time on long drives ❤

7:38 Bat within was also a MAJOR part of why Bayonetta was so ridiculously extreme. Her air dodge was allowed to be good in a game of baiting air dodges. So she was genuinely hard to hit and could move freely ontop of her many touches of death.

The fucked up part about footstool dair oos is that Steve is by far the easiest to do this tech with due to his short hop height. Steve players can literally just mash their jump button and get it super consistently.

Honestly a lot of Steves ladder combos relying on grounded moves that are disproportionately strong makes me think of Steve as like "What if Little Mac could hit B and be on the ground anywhere". Of course, there's a lot more that's better about Steve than that, it just popped into my head.

have you considered: It's very funny to have serious competitors brought to their knees by the funny block man?

I think it's interesting that Steve plays just like he does in Minecraft with how on the surface they both seem unimpressive but the more you put into them the more you get out.

1:31:05 quick rant, I've always hated that F-Smash was overtuned, when I first saw the move it looked like the type to have lag to punish if the move missed. So I was hoping it'd be able to punish it but not only is it lagless, it also has massive disjoint because of the absurd hitboxes and animation being generous with just how small/short the hurtbox is but the pullback and lean forward helps a lot too. Risk reward is too favored so it randomly getting a higher multiplier was too much, why do I explode at 50% if hit or trade with the move and I can barely whiff punish the move half of the time because I have to over respect it

I got sick of this game years ago so I haven't been keeping up with how it's played now, and I enjoyed this analysis. Although now I want to see another one of these about Sonic, because I want to know what you keep talking about there.

The price for both cart and anvil should be raised, and a different condition/minigame should be replacing mashing for being stuck in things. Half the health of every block except for iron, make there be a weak spot inside of the blocks that make them take more damage than if they were hit on the outer, stronger spot.

tbh if we just ban FP2 and Sonic the game would be in such a better place but no ones ready for that convo yet

YES, finally someone gets it... I _hate_ how you have to mash in order to escape grabs, especially the minecart! Its just a bad design. It hurts your hand, it damages your controller, and is just extremely frustrating.

I remember being at Smashcon 2022 and seeing audience members walk out during matches when Steve was on-screen. Shit was crazy

I don't even play this game, yet I watched the entire video. Super well made!

halfway through and this is some quality content. don't usually comment on videos i watch but i thought you deserve more praise and attention edit: i also love how there's an A plot and a B plot in this, i've really never seen a youtube video do something like this before. it's so foreboding hearing the creation of a monster (aka optimal steve players) in-between the in-depth busted move analyses. bravo

I think the weirdest thing is i look at almost everything steve does, and go "yeah, he can do that in minecraft". Like, aside from placing blocks mid-air, and minecart having a hitbox instead of just being a grab, this might be one of the most faithful characters in smash history

How to balance Steve: make mining slower and laggier, make blocks have less HP.

It’s been months since that last video. I’m glad I got notified.

It seems like everything overpowered about Steve could be balanced by just reducing the speed at which he can mine blocks. Fewer dirt blocks to stall and wall with, less iron for mine cart and anvil, and weaker weapons to up tilt with.

steve has alot of issues on the individual moves(all three moves that involve pushing the stick 'up' are of note), but i kinda feel like the big, overall glaring issue with steve as a whole all comes to the resource mechanic not having been properly balanced.

The problem with making Steve's Up Special use redstone is that you won't have redstone at the start of the match... Your opponent would just need to knock you off the stage and suddenly you don't have a recovery. They would need to implement a weaker version that doesn't use the firework rockets, but that would feel awkward just going into a glide when using up special.

This is a super well made video - really appreciate deep dives like this into character design and discussion, especially since Steve's rise to prominence was a slow burn into a massive spike. Also downplay PMLG at your own risk that tech is absurd, don't believe the Steve main bellyaching on a technique that can be prepped out of minecart that cancels all hitstun I personally disagree and find the character bannable, mainly due the way he asynchronously manipulates the 3 main objects of the game - space, time, and options - by basically just standing there and mining with blocks (along with his bevy of other tools), but at this point in Smash Ultimate's lifespan, you can't ban the character anymore. Steve is definitely one of the most interesting characters in the game to dissect, and I'm glad you ended on a positive note! Hopefully if there is a Smash 6/Ultimate Deluxe, Steve get a hefty amount of due nerfs so he can become a high tier character based on technical ability and creative setups, rather than a Top 1 monstrosity that gets to do whatever he wants at nearly any time because someone decided to press the B button

Steve's my favorite character but I'd ban him if it meant Sonic went too

Huh, in way, Steve was destined to be the best character in the game, because everything that made him overpower wasn't fully explored until the game development ended. He was too complicated, too clunky, too slow to get results early on, but there was a lot of potential, but unlike "Mr. Potential"... this actually ended up be a reality. When people finished cooking this messy recipe, the most disastrously beautiful dish was discovered.

The whole live service aspect of the game gets even crazier. Not only are they still releasing Spirit Events, they're still making Spirits (well, they might be done now, but their most recent release was this year). They made spirits to commemorate Tears of the Kingdom, Scarlet and Violet, Xenoblade 3, Splatoon 3, Pikmin 4, and most recently, Super Mario Bros Wonder and Princess Peach Showtime (I'm still waiting for them to be released onto the Spirit Board). It's not like Spirit Events, which could simply be made in advance and queued up to release at certain times, new Spirits are reactionary, being made in response to new releases, and they each come with their own specialized battles, so a fair amount of work goes into them; they don't just slap a new PNG into the game and call it a day. So if they're willing to keep doing that, why are they not willing to do balance patches anymore?

I would love to see something like this with Sonic and his journey from being considered low mid tier at the start of the game to number 2 in the game

Not sure if this is why, but looking carefully at Sonic's animation as he resets to standing up-right after a footstool, at the first part of the animation the highest point of Sonic's hitbox (and thus probably the part that the Anvil "hits") is on his left side, consistent with a right launch of the Anvil, but as he ascends to full height he shifts his quill (and the rotation of the hurtbox) to have the highest point on the right side of his top bone. This theory would need some testing though not sure if it's consistent with the stand up animations of other characters or if that is the point in the animation where the swap from left launch to right launch.

I didn’t expect to watch this whole thing while clicking on this video, but you kept my attention for the whole 2 hours. Love your content ❤❤❤

what I'm hearing is that most of this could be solved by halving his resource meter. And reducing the HP of all blocks by, idk, 4?

Thank you for this video, you really break down how aggregious Steve is in this game, and there are so many opportunities to have made him more balanced that they just missed, it is crazy. The absolute lottery ticket level luck to have this character be obscene on arrival is so freaking high. Edit. Okay so I am getting to the end of the video and you feel for the trap that is Ultimates engine, and how late Steve got introduced, how most steve players are really young, and how Hated Steve is. Bayonetta is cool, Meta Knight is cool, Fox is cool, every other smash game lead top tier looks cool, has flashy animations, or plays really fast. Steve has some of the blandest animations in the game mostly because minecrafts animations are probably the worst in the entire main stream gaming world and they tried to stay faithful. This means the appeal of picking up Steve ***solely*** relies on picking the best character, there is nothing else, so there is 1 thing going for picking steve and like at least 5 others pulling against (ugly, boring animations, bad sound design, badly talked about, sometimes banned and more), and that isn't even to say that there are other good characters, in brawl there are so few top tiers, in smash 4 there are others but not as many and as varied as ultimates. Ultimate being so balanced with a health set of pre fighters pass 2 roster top tiers really shot itself in the foot, ironic I know, so when an obviously broken overcentralising character comes around such as Steve people have too much faith in their old mains and therefore the willingness to switch character isn't there. I hate steve with a passion ~~and was surprised that you defended a non ban at the end,~~ (I get your arguments, I just want him gone), but it really just harkens back to as you said "my old top tier can still do it" mentality meanwhile we are in a Smash 4 type of situation where everyone who is anything is looking for Papa Nintendo to announce a new smash game so we can get away from this hell hole. I have said it before and I will say it again the best senario for Steve was if he was a low to mid tier that made upsets, but never really won anything, anything above mid tier and the character would have too much of an impact on the game.

I've always been a proponent of making hard but necessary choices when something threatens the meta of the game, be it wobbling, ledge stalling, Meta knight meta, chain grabs from brawl ice climbers, bayonetta in smash 4 and steve since I saw the meta he creates. I was a TO the last 2 years of Smash 4 life, and I outright banned her after so many scrubs showed up beating top players in the city and forcing those top players to switch to bayo, there was a point in which we had a top 10 filled with 6 bayonetas 2 clouds and 1 fox and 1 samus. As soon as a I banned her from any tournament i made lots complained but the health of the game actually rose up instantly as everyone came back to their original mains, granted this was a city level thing where we had at least 100 players registered but I think that if ultimate wants to stay alive till the next game steve needs to go, better to sacrifice 1 character than to watch the game die slowly like smash 4 did

One of the best videos I’ve seen recently, thanks for making this

37:55 Projectiles have smaller hitboxes because the game interpolates hit detection across frames. Because projectiles are often fast, it means their hitbox will be extended to cover all the area between the first frame and the second, and end up being a lot larger in practice.

3:36 Slight correction, the second fighter pass was announced during Terrys announcement stream, Banjos announcement stream was on E3 with Hero before it. Edit: I got the announcement of FP2 wrong, it wasn't Byleths, at that presentation it was revealed that the second FP was going to include 6 characters instead of 5.

Sakurai said he worked on this character for 5 years and he made it so everyone will play this character for the rest of time,

I never thought I’d see an almost 2 hour long video on how Steve ruined Smash Ultimate

I remember how everyone called Steve the worst character for a while after he first came out. Boy oh boy how times have changed..

18:47 “Welcome to fighting Whitespace: you’ve been here for as long as you can remember.”

Steve is an illegal stage. we ban walls and ceilings for a reason. if steve is legal so should shadow moses.

I’m just glad that this game, and this channel, are both alive and well.

Maybe Sonic and DK get launched inconsistently is because of how their hurtboxes shift during their footstool animations? If the top bone doesn't move, the launch direction could still change based on where the anvil hits them.

Giving steve minecart is one of sakurais greatest sins

Love the way you go between the history and the analysis! Great vid

Who knew the blocky slenderman ripoff would be the Smash Ultimate top tier 15 years later, I sure didn’t.

Keep in mind they had the bright fucking idea to give this game 2 years of development

1:45:35 Literally took the words right out of my mouth, all this time I thought I was alone.

I don't understand why they abandoned smash ultimate the way they did. They could've passively patched the game and released DLC at a less consistent rate and continued reaping cash.They could've even upgraded the rollback netcode and done some battle pass ass shit and made this the most profitable IP E V E R. Like they could've outdone Fortnite in collaboration potential, different stages different abilities, the meta had infinite potential and they squandered it. Smash is unique because I and many others can remember loving them game before getting frustrated and never playing again despite how easy it would've been been to fix all the issues. Edit: I was probably on mobile so I edited stuff

W return, can't wait to watch this after exams! 🙏

Steve might be totally broken competitively, but he's my favorite kind where the tools in inexperienced hands aren't useless but you have to really know the character to actually get those broken results. Nothing really clicks together on their own, you really have to think about how you can use them together for maximum effectiveness

There’s also the option of reflecting anvil while Steve is riding it and killing him instantly. That’s happened.

Ironically Steve can get even better through skilled players, its just that America hates people getting better.

this is such a great break down

I love your long format stuff i could listen to you all day. Wouldnt even be mad if you littered this vid with ads you deserve it

31:07 I actually love the Gigantourneys. If you manage to get a Mushroom, plus the already boosted size increase, Ridley's nair covered the whole stage

I just noticed that your profile pic is golden trees ! I always fought it was a phenix

the way i binged like all of your videos last week and now you come back with this??? im eating

Nice to see you back

hidden gem of a YT channel

The Minecart is basically Wario's Bike but he can just use it as much as he wants* *As long as he has a resource he can get easily.

A fantastic analysis Rekzius.

Dabiz said it best. "We're lucky Steve isn't as fun to play as Bayonetta in smash 4"

Man, I can't believe I have more hours in smash than Rekzius. Especially considering I have barely touched it in two years-

TLDR ban sonic

an hour and a half incredibly detailed analysis on steve in smash... fucking hell yeah

Blocks alone sounds like a nightmare for Little Mac mains

He’s back

Great video

not relevant but i never noticed your icon is grove of the burnwillows

Just wanted to say, the pacing in this video was *fantastic*. Thanks for a good listen!

1 second into the video and i appreciate the music choice. needed the reminder to go listen to the umineko ost.

Mii Gunner was banned, which is funny to think about

dayuummm breh like this is so long video!

This just reminds me of how you could unlock a joke character in some fighting games and dominate everyone in the most ridiculous ways possible. Steve is somehow able to avoid that definition...

22:15 Wait that's why projectiles don't do any block damage???

30:55 lmao the anvil pushing the bike offscreen like that is so silly

they could remove the mining and give him spanw eggs like creepers

great video

10:58 Yes! More FE4 OST! More people really need to get on that.

Released at a very good time just as Australia had a very recent (and unsuccessful) vote on unbanning the character. Love your work!

Really good video