The Rise and Fall of Meta Knight - The Most Overpowered Character in Smash Bros History

Meta Knight was once the most powerful character in Super Smash Bros Brawl, and perhaps the most overpowered character throughout the entire Smash Bros series history. Fast forward to the modern day and he remains a shadow of his former self. Today we'll be discussing the history of Meta Knight, from his rise in Brawl to fall in Ultimate.

~Editor (Jazara)~

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#SSBU #MetaKnight #SuperSmashBrosUltimate

[KanSanyara]

you should do "The fall and bigger fall of ganondorf"

[danielferrieri]

Brawl Meta Knight and Marvel vs Capcom Vergil would be great friends

[the_bookworm]

The funny thing about how Meta Knight ended up the way he was back in Brawl, is that this is no case of a character being made later thus had less playtesting to work off of. He was the FIRST newcomer to be reveled for Brawl and the FIFTH character overall to be shown gameplay footage, meaning that he was one of the earlier developed Brawl characters thus had more playtesting than most other characters. This isn't even the case of Ice Climbers who is only broken in the context of 1v1 competitive singles, which is not what the game was aimed towards in the first place, as MK busted even in the casual level.
How the character endured 2+ years of playtesting yet still ended up in the state he was in the final game is still one of mankind's greatest questions that will likely never be answered.

[armandomorfin]

Whenever I hear some of the Brawl players describe Meta Knight and how expressive he was

I can't help but feel a little jealous and wish we had a small taste of the good that was there buried under everything else

because it sounds like there were aspects of the character that were healthy and would be nice/cool to see make a return

[jacobjackson]

The clip of all 4 players using Mach Tornado at the same time never gets old

[Kingbee]

I hope Meta Knight doesn't go back to being an absolute beast, but at least go back to the high tiers in the next Smash game, I think he deserves that

[N]

4:00 I LOVE this scene. Is so silly and encapsulates Brawl perfectly... Well that and the Wobbling sucessor.
5:50 And even that is dubious, as Pikachu is by many considered a winning matchup for Meta Knight.

[eclipse_zeta]

5:21 I heard you could unlock Sonic in Melee, but had no idea about Bayonetta in Smash 64.

[matteoschiro]

Ultimate Meta Knight is by far the coolest version of him imo.

[mordestar]

Reminds me of Vega, or Claw from the SF series. Vega was extremely powerful in Super Turbo, with high walk speed, extremely good normals for neutral, the wall dive of nightmares, and a super that only spends its meter if it connects, making it extremely low risk. While he wasn't all that bad in Alpha 3, it was a noticeable fall, then when he returned in SF4 he was laughably bad, and didn't get all that much better. SFV didn't really give him any buffs either, and the general joke in the SF community is that Vega is still paying for his Super Turbo crimes.

[Wario_B]

Play MK’s old mach tornado SFX to give a brawl vet ptsd

[henryreturns]

Actually about Meta Knight and how it is now "portrayed" by player who still played Brawl :
- Yes it is still "the best character" but not by much and there is this debate that "Ice Climbers" seems to be the best. The more "perfect and optimally you play", the better Ice Climbers gets because "one grab is all they need". A Brawl top player focus on Ice Climbers and won
- Also, other players have showned that "you can beat Top Meta Knight" players with mid tiers if you are willing to play the match up and grind it. Toon Link beat Meta Knight on a grand finals, what a time to be alive lmao
- While it is true that most top players of Brawl on that era transition to Smash 4 and then to Ultimate, a lot of more counter play was developed against Meta Knight and Ice Climbers stock has been rising.
- Most players that pick up Meta Knight, do it to counter Ice Climbers because on how opressing Icies can be. If you "banned" both Meta Knight and Ice Climbers, you will see King Dee Dee stocks rising.

[substitutedoll]

i wish they would completely overhaul meta knight's design philosophy, brawl was by far too overtuned but at least his kit was complete, ever since smash 4 he feels like he fishes for dash attack and then just spams up air, why couldn't they just make his kit less crazy instead of making 2/3rds of it hot poo poo and the other 3rd of it busted as heck, nowadays he's a one trick pony that barely even works past 40% and requires too much effort for what you get out of him

[hazza]

I don’t know if someone else in the comments has mentioned this, but there’s actually a mod that gets Meta Knight in Ultimate back to how he was in Brawl (granted I doubt it runs on the Switch, I just saw it in a video once). I’d love to see how top players contend with it with all the new things Ultimate has now. Ultimate is faster than Brawl was as we know, and there’s more characters with unique gimmicks. He’d still be a menace, and I’m glad he’s not like that anymore, but it’d still be fun and interesting to watch.

[kevcopo]

Just want to say thank you for keep posting smash content. You are genuinely my favorite channel to listen to on drives and I get excited each time I see your thumbnail. You have an excellent way of communicating and your knowledge of the game is profound and engaging. Keep doing you because you do have genuine fans! 🎉

[nydeity]

We need a game with only the broken smash characters in their prime.

[Feesh]

Loved Meta Knight in Brawl before I realized how good he was...felt guilty playing as him in friendlies, so was happy when they nerfed him into the ground so I could play him without regret.

[psychoswordsman]

Interesting take but watch Larry Lurr’s video on Meta Knight. He has research and been in the community far longer. To hear it from someone who has personally competed for so long is what makes content like this valued. Otherwise it kind of waters down smash content if you do it without much knowledge

[Skidaro]

Great video, Vars. I've been waiting for you to cover this character. Meta Knight's one of my favorite video game characters, but even I won't deny he was broken in Brawl. I feel the nerfs he received in Smash 4 were just and he was still playable. Then Ultimate came and nerfed him again while buffing everyone around him and now he's a shell of his former self which hurts mu soul. I want him to be good again, but like you said at the end of the video I think the developers are afraid of making this character good again in fear of history repeating (kinda like how they gutted Bayonetta).

[roberthorn]

I still to this day think smash ultimate meta knight is one the most underestimated characters