Was The King of Smash Actually Good?
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- How Good Was The King of Smash Actually?
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How good would Ken be if he played today?
I mean he did play mang0 in pools in like 2017 and got double 3 stocked tbh with slippi and other advents today. Prime 05 Ken may not even be Top 100 today.
@@daxmoney5011 possibly! I’d love to see him try again these days 😄
Yeah no he’s out of his prime but he’s got nothing to prove
Around top 900 in the world or less, he did play mang0 in 2017 and lost, his status as king was also very flimsy and his play style was very safe and lame, he'd be eaten alive by the very explosive, very fast meta we got nowadays
@@noirlavender6409 Ken’s style was raw with no precision. It aged horribly especially for Marth. M2K and PPMD legit saved Marth
Anyone talking down on Ken needs to be aware a few years after his return he had developed arthritis in his wrists which forced him to quit eventually. It affected his sets a lot. Not to make excuses for him but that's the reality. It's not just as simple as that Ken wasn't able to keep up mentally or with his skill. I mean he plays Slippi casually and bodies most players so to say he wouldn't be top 100 if he was in his prime now is silly.
Anyway, Ken said it best at Game Over, "People talk a lot of shit online, but you play them in person and they're not that good"
He was insane at the game. Was so ahead of his time
It’s not even an excuse, it’s a disability for performance. Imagine being a runner and your legs are messed up? That’s just reality and you likely won’t perform as you did prior. I messed up my hands while working out and playing melee until I had to get wrist surgery due to a cyst that grew in my wrist that caused pain. I physically can’t play melee anymore, but that’s not an excuse and I got the surgery at 24 this February
The arthritis made him better
A similar thing happened to Andy Murray, the tennis player. He used to be World number 1 at one point and was in the Major Finals a lot of times and he won the Olympic Gold Medal several times and he had won Majors but after his hip surgery his ranking dropped dramatically and nowadays he is sadly a shadow of his former self...Andy's ranking is somewhere in the 30s or something...if his body was still healthy, Andy would definitely be in the top 5 in the world.
when did he get arthritis? If thats public info I couldnt find out
when it comes to judging a player like Ken by today's standards, it's not a simple 1:1. it's like comparing chess grand masters from hundreds of years ago to today. you have to look at the level of play as it was understood at the time, and the level growth and development using the tools and knowledge they had available to them. a modern player has numerous training tools better understand the game, lab out and perfect every scenario, online netcode to overcome distance barriers when practicing, as well as resources to better understand themselves mentally and psychologically. prime '05 ken had to achieve everything he had with none of those resources and when no one really understood the game as deeply. ken innovating dash dancing, chain grabs, and the ken combo before such concepts were even UNDERSTOOD without those resources is like the first mathematician to discover 0. a level of genius we mortal men couldn't comprehend
if we were to pull that same ken out of time and place him here today, i believe he'd do really well
I would LOVE to see past Ken play now. He really used no resources back then to be the best. So cool to see the smash world blossom from him
you are someone who understands. Lots of people like to discredit Ken by saying "well he played in a current meta and sucked so he probably just wasnt that good" even though him at his peak was pushing that meta to even exist.
I think that last sentence is what is important. If we were to pull the Ken that had so much passion for the game, and give him opportunities that people have today, he would probably grow REALLY fast and REALLY well. I would not put it past it that he would become a Top 5 player.
Very well said. It's one thing to perfect a known craft but it's another to be the one who invented it.
This is the truth. Humans have this really cool thing where we all kind of level up together. Innovators push boundaries and what was once incredible becomes average.
He clearly pushed the envelope and raised the standards. That ken as hungry and driven as he was transplanted into today would still be a beast and a top player
It's a tough conversation, but i don't think enough people talk about longevity. The fact that Mango and Hbox are both still top players after 15 years is insane
Yeah. Def why I have mango as the goat since his longevity is just insane
armada hbox and mang0...the 3 goats
@@FrilleonArmada shouldn’t even be considered imo. He’s a shitty speed runner now.
Both of them are nobody
@@kzxjone shut the fuck up little kid if they are nobody you're unheard of even to your fucking family
Had Ken never retired from Melee, I have no doubt in my mind he would have continued to be an elite player. Having not played the game for so long, the meta advancements passed him by, so it's no surprise he wasn't dominant when he breifly returned.
I heard he had arthritis too which yeah i would probably retire too
Lol, he simply got tired of playing the game.
@@leaffinite2001he has arthritis in his left wrist as he said in his stream before. He said if he plays even slippi now it starts hurting. He said thankfully he can enjoy other games but he can’t play melee anymore.
@itsbmeGaming yeah thats rough. Good thing its not making other parts of his life harder tho
I think there's a very real argument to be made that Ken is in contention for Goat status. A common argument I hear from others against this position is that "Well the level of competition was much lower back then" and while that is true, Ken and many of the other old school players had to be the ones to "invent the wheel" so to speak in the first place. Ken, Azen, Isai, Captain jack, etc had hardly any resources. There was no slippi back then, there was no unclepunch, there was no available information on frame data until M2k came along, there was no guides on youtube or any other platform in which people can watch to improve their tech skill or combos because not only was the internet still in its infancy but no one even knew about all the available tech in the first place (RUclips didnt even exist until 05 anyways though). The old school players literally had to start from nothing and discover all of this on their own. They were the ones to invent and shape the beginnings of the metagame so it can grow to what it is today. Now a days people have the convenience of many of the resources mentioned so its much easier and more accessible to get good at Melee than it ever has been and that alone makes what Ken did all the more impressive.
Yeah Ken really had to innovate and ruled smash for years straight! I can see it
He literally influenced the way the game is played with dash dancing and his chain grabs. There's a reason he's called the king of smash.
Eternally top 5. He was the original GOAT of smash and melee and has the most important #1 run in smash history.
I agree with this totally!
Honestly, the fact that he was even able to compete in "modern" melee into the 201x's is astounding to me. It's an entirely different game. Even 2017 melee compared to 2023 melee is a huge difference. My first big tournament was genesis 3 in 2015, and I've gotten to watch all the developments since then. Which is surprisingly, a LOT of development.
It's amazing that he could even keep up that much later after his Era. Truly one of the greats.
He really shined in his early days but yeah you have some awesome points how he did well later on too! Like taking a game from armada and beating macd is pretty insane
2007 is a very historic year for melee. ChuDat finally one a major,mang0 beat Ken and PC,M2K became number 1,Ken won EVO and by Azen winning Viva la smashtaclysm he became the last non god to win a major tournament until leffen in 2015.
Wow I had no ide 2007 was the last major year win by a non god that is insane 🤯
A lot happened in such a short time. Melee was iconic for competitive communities in general I think
Poetic that Azen was the champion of such an event. Cool history, loremaster.
Not being mean but I have never seen someone spell "won" wrong b4 lol
@@nage9465 you notice that but not the ide not being idea? you are really looking man
Ken also nearly won survivor gabon. What a goat
I still can’t believe he was on that show lol
@@JeramiJosephhaha I can. He was in a newspaper known as one of the Dangerous 5 of gaming history. That is super cool!
Imagine winning a 4 player free for all with items on at your local Gamestop and then claiming that you're the best in the world 😂
Was different back then 😂
And being right lol
@@Coco-qy6st Plot twist
Honestly, the fact that he almost beat Zain’s puff is insane to me
No for real it actually is 😂
The amount of time Zain's put into the game and his passion is epic. This even bleeds into his side characters like Roy and Puff.
Yet Ken, who only plays once in a while on stream for like an hour and doesn't grind really was going the distance with him. That's actually hilarious.
I asked Zain in his stream about it and he said "Ken was playing to win that money". Even he respected and recognized how good Ken still was.
Um didn't it switch back and forth between Zain and Ludwig?
I think Ken got some games over Zain, but a couple of his wins were against Ludwig.
I like how you used his Survivor cast photo for the thumbnail. Loved him that season.
Was such a great picture of him!
Man, I love that Ken is getting the respect he deserves. He was a pioneer of the game who laid down the foundations for the players today.
ISAI was the BEST Teams player ever. Hall of Fame best Teams player.
He was also the GOAT on N64 Smash Bro, Isais was Untouchable in N64 Smash bros for a time.
He was the pioneer of Cpt Falcon and added a lot of technically to Sheik
In the Underground of Melee everyone knew Isai was better than most including Ken but he never really tried
Yo trueeee he was the goat in dubs!
Isai stayed at my house for the first MLG Chicago. All he cared about was having fun and discovering everything he could about the game rather than winning.
@@snex000lucky man
@@Justpassingby204 Just at the right place at the right time, LOL. My friend group in college was super competitive in Smash64 and Melee. We found Smashboards, went to a local, got bodied, and I fucking loved it while they all gave up. Very proud to have hosted the first Chicago tournament that attracted country-wide (Isai, Recipherus, and others) AND international talent (Punch Crew from Canada)!
Personally, I think he's underrated. His matchups and his push for the community was definitely powerful. Sometimes, I think it was obvious that his reign was going to end though, just judging by his actions in the middle of the documentary, with him saying he used to be able to play Smash endlessly, and that he just felt like this was a chore more than actually enjoying the game. Of course, he was also representing America and the West Coast, so he did have to present himself as the most powerful.
Once the Triad began gaining traction (PC, KDJ, M2K), Ken began losing his grip on the game. He did manage to win 3 MLGs but lost the Las Vegas MLG championship, and after that he seemingly faded into the background, only appearing at tournaments he cared about.
I just loved seeing his teammate matchups with Isai and his rivalry with Azen. It made for some of the more interesting matchups in the documentary. The only rivalry that I think comes close to theirs in the Smash community is HBox vs Mang0, and that's been going on since the late 2000s.
Ken, in his prime, would not be considered better than some of Melee's elite. However, considering that for about 3 years of his growth, he remained nearly undefeated, even by solid top contenders for the crown, he definitely should be a top 10 player of all time just for how he dominated.
Yeah Ken was the only person to date to ever have 4 years in a row #1 with true dominance all years
Imagine playing Rainbow Cruise with items; then thinking, “This is competitive.”
😂😂😂
Back in the day doing items on high and running that 1v1 used to be competitive at its peak. Thats what the whole fun in smash was. Until people started figuring out the different movements and options available then it became a game where we need to take out items to see those things flesh out
@@WeirdEdz imagine no more.
Ken will always be my undisputed goat of melee
I actually met this guy in socal once. He's actually one of the most insanely chill people I've ever talked to
I'd have liked to see more of what actually made Ken so good for his time - you have a small section on his early use of dash dancing & ken combo, but this is the area that I'm most curious about.
it's so funny because the game was so unknown and metagame unestablished, going back and watching old school Ken sets its like a modern day average skill player in the Slippi era went back in time. He has a strong grasp on fundamentals, but he lacks a deeper understanding/knowledge of the game, and it never exceeded past a certain point.
Isai man….. literally, it’s just crazy to think how he’d be placed had he actually tried , or had the motivation for it
(He played to play don’t get it twisted , to have fun) but when you watch the smash documentaries you’ll hear from a lot of vets mouths how much of a force this man was on demon time , even ken gave him praise during that era
He is the original god but time surpassed him and others got better. He was basically ahead of the curve in his time.
Yeah he was. I think he’s so similar to Michael jordan. Just figured out a ton of things way before others and just rules dominance
I think Ken got a life. That's probably why his skills slipped.
Ken is to the gods what Kronos was to the olymp
In a world full of wheels everybody thinks they would invent the wheel if it didn't exist.
People underestimate how much sheer abstraction and out of the box thought it takes to TRULY invent/discover something.
He is the Goat. He made Marth.
Ken not only contributed to how competitive Marth is played, but he was basically the only one on top for years. The gods of Melee (M2K, Mang0, Hbox, you know…) are amazing, but while they all were competing with each other Ken was basically untouchable in his prime.
I hate these discussions bcuz ppl approach it like anime powerscaling, plucking 2005 ken into 2023 and saying "look hed get his ass beat!"
Completely misses the point in my opinion. People in 2023 have 99 times more resources to learn the game, its not a reasonable or worthwhile comparison. In reality the argument should take into account context. Yeah, hed lose to mango, zain, ibdw, etc. But thats cuz when ken played stuff as fundamental as wavedashing and the ken combo didnt exist or were in their infancy. A player like zain wouldnt exist in 2005 because the tools he used to get good didnt exist. I think he was also like 8 or something. Directly comparing his level of play to modern day players is interesting but not relevant to kens legacy.
I also think bringing up kens decline, while perfectly legit, is also kinda pointless, unless you can find someone claiming ken is the all time goat, which ive never seen. Everyone washes up eventually, whether their life moves on or they get arthritis or just get outpaced by the meta. One day mango will quit (probably whenever his hands explode) and ten years after that when the metas further developed still, it would be cringe to look back and say mango wasnt a god player just bcuz his play wasnt as good as the best players of 2055 or whatever. Same thing with ken.
Funny I was binging NBA videos today and this same point was made about Bill Russell. It's not fair to compare because NBA players now have the best coaching, the best medical care, sports science, private planes, decades of plays and players to study and more. Bill just flew economy like any other Joe Schmoe and only had himself to learn from. He didn't have the advantages modern players have now.
Same with Ken. He didn't have Slippi, Uncle Punch or a discord full of countless resources. He didn't have the luxury of a sponsor in his prime. He accomplished all that he did and developed his play in less than 5 years, because he only competed in his prime from 2003 to 2007. He only had himself to learn from; he didn't have a Zain or anyone else to learn from to accelerate his learning. He also got cut down by his arthritis. It really held him back from playing well. During that marth round table, Zain and Ken both agreed that if he could've stayed healthy and been able to keep playing up to now his marth would probably look a lot like Zain's does.
Yeah Mango is still as good as he is partly because his hands are still healthy enough to not hinder him which has allowed him to develop his play over the last 17 years. He has been playing since 2007 and hasn't become some outdated fossil. Like you said, as long as he doesn't become physically impaired he'll always be good because mentally he is above most players and he's shown his capacity to evolve his play and be competitive.
I'd say he was for his time. Basically he was the best at the game but at a time where the Meta wasn't fully refined yet, when the tech was new and when everything wasn't figured out yet. He just so happened to get good faster than most people who knew absolutely little about the game and while he did know some Advanced tech at the time it wasn't as fully utilized as it is today. I'm not discrediting him, quite the opposite, we wouldn't be as good at melee / we wouldn't have the knowledge we have today if it weren't for people like Ken alongside the others that were pioneers of their time like Isai, Azen, Wife, Wes, Chilindude, KDJ, PC Chris, Captain Jack, Bombsoldier, etc. They made the Meta what it is today because they started playing at a time where everything was still new, and naturally the people that came after got what they figured out and expanded on it into the place it is today.
I can't believe how close I came to getting into competitive Smash early on. I loved Melee and was better than all my friends. I worked at a pet store in 2007 and there was this girl who was talking about it and how none of her friends can beat her. I was like "I bet I can beat you." She was like "no way" so she invited me to her place to Smash with her and her friends. I beat all her friends and her and her friends couldn't believe it. So she was like "you're pretty good. You should play competitively. There's a competition coming up in Dallas. Want to go?" You know what I said? "Nahhhh, I'm not interested in playing competitively. I just like to play for fun." Again, this was 2007. The reason this makes me cringe is because after that I spent the next decade not really paying attention to Smash and then in 2017 suddenly I got super interested in competitive play watching all the tournaments on RUclips and by then I felt too old to get really good. I mourn not going to that tournament in 2007. I probably would have gotten sucked into it and had so much fun. My life would have been so much different than it ended up being. It makes me sad.
You could have become the 6th god of melee and you gave up that opportunity? Smh dude
Ken is like Paul Morphy in chess
Who’s that! I know nothing about Ken lol
@@JeramiJosephPaul Morphy basically invented modern chess theory all by himself around 100 years ago.
@@snex000chess principals, not really theory. Chess theory would be if he made up all the lines every one plays. He popularized principals like developing the center
Pretty strong comparison because if both were given modern tools they’d dominate.
george mikan was the greatest nba player in the 50’s but could never hold his own in today’s league.
the longer a competitive community lasts the more it will evolve and change. players will find new ways to hone their skills more effectively and will become better than those who dominated in the past.
this doesn’t take away from mikan’s or ken’s greatness cuz they’re the pioneers who blazed a trail for all future competitors in their respective games.
Yes he was the best & will always be the best of an era of gaming that will never return an era without endless data on every aspect of any game at anyone's finger tips. He beat just about all the current greats before for the complete scope of what was possible with all the data people used to develop the meta & make the ideal plays based on the match up. It seems obvious to me that he could have continued to dominate if he'd kept playing & learned everything as info & meta developed.
And if he didn't get arthritis.
He was great. GOAT or not, you can't compare eras. Good is a relative term. Otherwise, you'll be saying any running back in the NFL today is better than Jim Brown because they can go back into his era and dominate. lol. Fact is, Ken was head and shoulders way better than anyone for an extremely long time in his era - where the internet was still young and information wasn't so easily accessible.
It's silly discussion. Kareem Abdul Jabbar isn't a great player because he'd get eaten alive in today's NBA? lol.
He was incredibly good. It’s like asking the question was Muhammad Ali good. Or any older gen athlete. Would their skills hold up against people now, maybe, no probably not. But he dominated the scene for many years.
I think it’s just best to assume anyone you deem great: in skill, longevity of domination, will eventually be surpassed. But in terms of Ssb, Ken was the 1st champion. So again, yes. He was absolutely a beast
The real GOATs are great players in singles and doubles, Ken and Armada are my two contenders for the title
As time past ya skill WILL diminish... he will always be a God for his time..
Me being a ultimate player..i feel Ken is very relatable.. when i started ultimate i was a free 4 all items player who didn't know 1v1 was where it's all transition to 1v1's and still remain effective
I think it's disingenuous to say that the best players of the past would beat current players or be at their level because they had far fewer tools at their disposal yet still played impressively. The best analogy here is from bodybuilding: players without tools are natural bodybuilders and those with tools are bodybuilders who use performance enhancing drugs. How big you are 'natty' isn't a perfect prediction of how big you are on PEDs since a large part of it depends on your personal genetic response to the drugs. Ken would have likely been good, but it's entirely possible he wouldn't have been able to crack the top 200 simply because his usage of the tools at his disposal would have been subpar as compared to the rest of the field.
👑KEN IS KING FOREVER 👑
No, he was duper good.
Actually thanks for asking this so everyone knows.
#1 of all time is definetely subjective but I hope ken is proud of what he accomplished. If anyone has any dillusions that he should still be able to compete its crazy. The competition is younger now and people learn to play more optimal playstyles earlier into their skill development. The dude was untouchable in his prime and thats all that matters. He will not be forgotten.
Long live the KING.
what's a king to a god
No church in the wild!
Ken.. Armada, M2K, Hbox, idk I just feel like Ken is better than his successors. He's the source of the original and most frequently used pieces of tech that every player uses constantly. Imagine your opponent is so much better than you that they're manipulating glitches to gain an advantage in dumpstering the s*** outta you.
I think its safe to say he was the best of his time, rather than of all time.
Maybe SephirothKen is number 10 of all time in Super Smash Bros Melee 🙂.
He was good during the very early and disorganized days of smash - easily the most overrated smash player of all time IMO. He simply couldn't hold a candle to a single top player from the last 10+ years. People who claim he's STILL the GOAT either stopped caring about actual competitive melee after 2012, or are huffing insane amounts of copium fueled by nostalgia. Its okay to recognize someone for their ability in the era they played in. But to assert that he's anything above "a really good player during his time" is just wrong. As players got better, he failed to reach those same heights - a clear disparity in skill vs up and coming players.
For anyone to put him in the same tier as Armada, Leffen, Mang0, HBox, is seriously foolish.
But he did retire for a long time and he did not keep up with the ever evolving metagame. If he had kept playing...he would have been better than he is now. It is hard to place Ken. Maybe he is on the lower tier oldschool level of where Azen, KoreanDJ, PCChris, ChillenDude, ChuDat are at...or maybe he is a bit better than them. You and I both know that he doesn't even make it out of pools these days and he is not the dominant force he was in the noughties. He still got 13th place recently in an EVO and he still does well sometimes like Ken Comboing Armada's peach and surprising Mango a bit and playing quite well against Mew2King. He also invented moves like the Ken Combo and dashdancing and Marth chain grabs and stuff. I think we can say that Mew2King is better than Ken. Therefore if Mew2King is better than Ken, it is possible that Armada, Mango, Hungrybox, Mew2King are all better than Ken...but it's not easy to call because he retired and he wasn't keeping up with the metagame. Another example is Bobby Fischer. Bobby Fischer had the highest ever rating in Chess and he was very dominant during his short reign but then he decided to not play Chess anymore...he was only World Champion for three years, 1972 to 1975, and then stopped playing...he didn't want to play Anatoly Karpov...people thought that meant that he was a coward against Anatoly but he says that it was because of the change in World Championship tournament rules. Anyway, some people still consider Bobby Fischer to be the best ever, even though the level of modern Chess has become stronger. It is true that Ken dominated in a more primitive era of Melee...it is like how Rod Laver dominated in a more primitive era of Tennis...but he still does make good surprises. I think Ken is perhaps number 20 in the all-time list. I don't think he is top 5.
I had a babysitter back in the day who played against Ken and was his friend, he told me stories and showed me cool things with marth causing me to be a devoted marth main since 05
T. Old Karel fe6 profile picture, most literal thing possible for that comment
Ken’s EVO 2015 run really impressed me considering how stacked the event was
Yep
Take a shot everytime he says the name ken
You plastered yet?
Ken sadly was a Survivor player that could have been so much better with a bit more life experience. He was a bit too trusting and naieve when he first played, but with another go around could be better. He showed decent game ability, and was one misplay away from winning the whole season. Probably the best player on Gabon.
Shows like Survivor and The Traitors are flawed/meaningless concepts that only serve to prove that human beings are inherently self-serving.
I wouldn’t say that was his only flaw him being to power hungry and disrespectful to Matty when he was already on the bottom made sugar flip on him
Ken is a living legend
Wait is that the guy from survivor ?
It is 😂😂 one of the best smash players to ever do it
You are literally putting out such great content at such a fast rate, love the melee content, would love to see you do a couple other games, you deserve to blow up.
Really appreciate it homie! Tysm for watching and commenting. Got some cool ideas for the future ❤️
@@JeramiJoseph favorite new ( to me ) RUclipsr!! Thanks for the vids.
@@claytonroberts1622 yo that’s awesome! You made my day homie 😁
@@JeramiJoseph what we got in the works I’m scratching myself for the newnew
@@claytonroberts1622 got a cool one I’m working on now! It should be out Thursday or Friday hopefully!
Bro what? The RUclips algorithm put together my two passions. Smash bros and Survivor. I knew he was a video gamer but not to this extent.
That’s hilarious that you’re huge fans of both. Glad this found you lol
Isai the goat...
If he tried
He just won super smash con last weekend! He is the goat!
He was dominant over literally all the other players for years, so yeah he was good. Back in the early '00s he was basically untouchable.
He beat everyone by doing the same exact thing
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
Bro… you should get copyrighted. You’re not only just paraphrasing the entire super smash bros documentary but you’re also using a lot of their clips. You’re also not adding any value of your own to this…
The smash doc is an incredible showing of the early days of smash and told the story in a way that is unbeatable. They also had 2 whole hours explaining everything Ken did in his early days. I can’t compete with that. But I wanted to explain what Ken did and why he dominated solely focusing on his story. I also mention things that weren’t in the doc. It’s not like anything new has come out about Ken from his dominant days, and of course an entire documentary dedicated to it will top my 10 minute recap video.
After his reign though, up until today is new content that doesn’t include stuff from the doc.
I absolutely add my own value to this as it has other things than just that. Hope this helps
@@JeramiJoseph you didn’t even say how you add value
@@JeramiJosephalso the OG smash doc is allowed by the creator to be uploaded by anyone. I’m sure he’d be fine here too
those braces definitely worked.
West coast: thinking items are ok.
East coast: WHAT.
Lol trueeeeeee 😂
I've heard so many young foxes say Ken sucks, carried by Marth in an easier metagame. Yet I know they'd not win a single neutral exchange
Funny enough on Slippi he's destroyed those Foxes. There's vods on RUclips if you search.
Ken was nuts!
Here’s the thing in order to claim your the best player in smash you have to win tournaments in all types of game modes so far ken has be the only one to do that. And that’s the sad part because it’s the smash community holding its self back by not taking 4 players or itmes seriously
When you stop playing, the rest of the community also levels up and it's going to be difficult for you to catch up to the very top players.
that's what's supposed to happen, it would be pretty disappointing if the prime Ken could still beat everyone up, and one could argue he is still as good as before or even better , it's just that the rest of the community has higher standards of skill level now which is something that happens naturally when there's competition, basically more players catched up to his skill level from back in the day to the point that now he is the one who should be catching up to them instead.
Ken will always be my fave player along with zain. Zain plays like an updated ken and that is probably why I like to watch him play. Both are very dash dancy and aggressive. Also, zain has swag play so he does his own thing other than reminding me of Ken and to not take anything away from both players.
His impact on the game is too great not to consider him a GOAT. I don't care if he were to play and not be Top 100 for the past ten years. He pushed the tech and metagame of Melee and was the first to do some things.
this is a super good point! definitely one of the best to ever do it. and was so ahead of his time.
Super well made video would love to see more content like this about plup or isai
Thank you! I will be making more in the future hopefully 😃
Working on a big project now
I sort of look at Ken with Melee, as similar to Daigo with Street Fighter and Justin Wong with Marvel. Those two may not have super Top 8 placements all the time now, but there's no doubting their contributions. And hell, Ken being on Survivor and me watching it with a friend led to me getting into Smash and the FGC in general, and making a lot of friends that way.
I don't enjoy this type of series/videos a lot since they're often click-baity, but I thought these have been well researched and put together. Super enjoyed it. Please do Azen next. As a biased EC'er, I will always say he's one of the top of all time and just never really showed it. ;) Looking forward to more of these!
Glad you gave it a shot and liked it! Got lots made in the past and more coming 😄
SephirothKen/LiquidKen might be my favourite ever Smash Bros player, I knew about him ages ago before this video came. I think he said that he had carpal tunnel syndrome from all that button mashing and stuff and that has affected his gameplay...which might be a reason why he cannot play to his full potential these days. He was arguably number 1 in the world for around three or four years back-to-back in the early noughties (back when Azen, Captain Jack, BombSoldier, PC Chris, Isai, KoreanDJ were the big names) and that is a very impressive feat. He willingly welcomed all challengers during those few years in the early noughties and he kind of dominated. Then came the rise of Mew2King, Mango, Hungrybox, Armada and some others and they overtook the King of Smash. Ken himself says that Mew2King was not a very good player in the early days and that Ken was beating him but soon Mew2King got better and then started beating Ken. Ken also did well in beating Mango and many top players in Evo 2007 (if I recall correctly)...which showed that he still could beat some of the best even in 2007. Ken won Evo 2007 I think. Also, when he chose to retire in the mid noughties, the metagame had evolved and he did not adapt to the evolving metagame...that is another reason why there are some players better than him now. But he is a legend and he is still an excellent player...his fundamentals are world class and solid. Also, his gamestyle is outdated...that also has affected his current world ranking. He belongs to the oldschool...like Azen, ChillenDude, ChuDat, PC Chris, KoreanDJ. Well, you could argue that Azen, ChuDat and ChillenDude are adapting to the ever-evolving metagame better than Ken is. Ken invented some Smash Bros Melee moves...which had never been seen before...which is an amazing feat itself...and people started copying his Marth and his playstyle. I think Ken also went to 13th place in one recent tournament...which again shows that he is a world class player and that he is no one-trick pony. Also, Ken has done well against HungryBox in casual games on Smash Ultimate. I think Ken Hoang should be maybe number 15 in the all-time list when it comes to the best Super Smash Bros Melee players...although I could be wrong 🙂.
Babe Ruth would be a trash MLB player now but he was by far the best of his era and rightly belong among the best of all time. Same for Ken.
Yeah totally. Different eras, but was so good for their time.
How good was Ken? Every good Marth player tell their kids about Ken. Respect your elders.
legalize rainbow cruise!
That would be insane 😂
Being good Smash is relative. Even though at the time, the the tech is primitive, they still had to innovate with the tools they had. I'd say it was more difficult to be good, since you actually had to travel from smash fest to smash fest. You had to risk going into strangers houses to play smash. Its was a real pokemon trainers journey. Now you can stay in your house and get good with slippy, uncle punch, and 20xx. I'd say it was more difficult to pursue being good in the past. It took more effort to be good.
I'd even say its harder to be an innovator, than to just repeat what has been innovated and make it better with small increments.
Ken was dominant for sure. I’m not good at smash I learned everything ik from other people. So if I played at the time Ken played I would’ve got whooped. That being said I think it’s poetic that ken won the first evo. I’m glad he got win a big major basically on his way out. Ken is one of my faves and I wish he stilled played.
Yeah dude was an absolute legend. Crazy he came back and played a bit too
where is cort video?
he was great in his environment, but horrible by today's standards. he wouldn't have gotten away with it in such a high techskill environment like todays melee is.
Imagine imagining.
I’ll make the survivor version of this video one day, good stuff!
Yo that’d be so great 😂
He couldn’t even make Final Tribal on Survivor. SCRUB
i love the survivor cast photo in the thumbnail, a high quality photo around the time he was in his prime
It was the best pic of him to use 😂 I didn’t have any super great pics of him that fit in the middle
Its so hard to say. Ken was the first, he laid all the paths. Would he have the insane resume with stiffer competition? Maybe not, but iron sharpens iron, and he was absolutely a staunch competitor with a ferocious work ethic. He was clearly able to pick up and master many techniques quickly. He innovated strategies still used today. As far as a gamer goes he really was the total package. Its hard to place him in terms of greatness because the rest of the scene simply wasn't ready to push him to his true potential.
While many will point to athletes and suggest that players from previous eras couldn't hang in today's game they forget just how much impact setting has on a player's development. If Ken had the resource databases, the training tools, the coaching, the competition, netplay, the sponsor $ to free up time to focus, the controller knowledge, etc of today's players he would be an entirely different beast.
To me Zain seems like a very near modern equivalent of the talents, effort, and competitive spirit Ken held. If we hold that Ken's game would have been impacted by the modern setting in a similar way to Zain's, then yeah, I'd say he was actually good.
As time passes, most players lose their initial drive; it's not they are not "good at it" anymore, their initial drive is gone.
I adore these videos explaining the history and peaks of these amazing players. Please do more!
You got it boss! Thanks for watching 😄
I used to compete in competitive first person shooter gaming in the late 90s and early 2000s but I would get washed by modern FPS players. Things change and we assume that we’re taking a player from the past and placing them directly into today’s world would result in fairplay but the reality is you have to keep up with the meta-game as it evolves, which is something many of these gamers don’t do. We’d have to let Ken be young again, and grow through the ranks of learning, modern meta to compare. Otherwise, if you just take them at face value, he would be bodied by most of the modern players
if not for ken, we wouldn’t have the beloved ken combo
True that!
@@JeramiJoseph he also inspired zain , so double W 😎
One of the wisest comment sections I've seen. Our discussions for this game will never die.
Yes, saved you 11 minutes
Lol
The goat
At 7:50 we see m2k 3-0'd Ken while only receiving 22% damage. Unless that's a 4 stock match. But still. M2k wasted him.
Dont follow smash I know Ken from survivor lol I do follow SF, Tekken and KOF tho. You see this all the time in other games top players who dominate a game but leave. When they return the meta has evolved dramatically from when they stopped playing that there is a lot of catch up. Melee being a game thats been around for so long too the fact he was somewhat competetive when he returned is impressive
KEN WAS IN SURVIVOR?!
I was blown away by that too 😂
Ken took over the game for 3 years straight. To this day no one has done what he did, Mango was close to a 3 peat at EVO.
Smash documentary but if it were a video essay
Def has some more elements to it after the doc 😄
Ken's 9th place at TJ 6 does not even count since he was completely focused on DI
I can see that
Kens first win was a gamesquare tournament, not gamestop. And ken's brother was the one to post first on smashboards saying ken was the best, not ken himself.
He was the goat!
Such an amazing player
I don’t like melee I play ultimate but I know ken and I know how much better then everyone he was I think ken and daigo are some what similar both are og of there games and we’re and still are legends both retired sort of if there is the 5 gods of melee ken is the old gods
What's the song around 10:30?
I just typed in free non copyright violin music on RUclips
@@JeramiJoseph never been owned so hard in my life
The only thing I knew about old school melee was from the doc so this was a sick deeper dive. Really fucking good video.
Appreciate it homie! Glad you liked it 😄 lots of credit to the smash doc for showing old school melee so we know about it