Update and Game Impressions
Alright, I just played this game at my friend's place, and I have to say it's a lot of fun.
I'll start off with the most asked question: yes, it feels quite a bit like Smash Bros, especially with the movement, dodge rolling, air dodging, double jumping, and pressing the same button with different directions yielding different. Though the controls are slightly different, like how you can't just attack to pick up items (that's R1's function) and how throws are done with the right analog stick (and I found them a lot harder to successfully do than in Smash Bros). With most characters, Square attacks are melee attacks, Triangle attacks are projectiles, and Circle attacks are special property attacks (like shields and counters).
Sly Cooper and Dante were the characters I wanted to try out first. Sly Cooper was a lot more about mind games and traps rather than speed. I suppose I was decent with him, but I wasn't able to make effective use of his traps and counters. Dante was pretty awesome with swift swordplay and guns. He also has air dashes and a counter. Cole (good) was probably the character I was best with, even though I thought he'd be quite complicated. He's good good range with his melee attacks and the melee combos themselves are quite long. His lightning moves give him lots of ranged options and have quite a lot of stun, which can lead into combos, and he has a projectile absorber that gives him AP when hit by enemy projectiles, instead of the other way around. I especially like his level 2 special (freezing everything in front of him, forming a huge ice wall). It's kind of slow, but the range it covers is ridiculous, making getting 3 kills really easy. Sackboy was rather short ranged, but he had a lot of trap moves and he also has a rocket that's both an attack and an effective way to move around. Using him required quite a bit of strategy, and just wildly attacking with him is hardly effective (I still think I did decently with him). Spike I was quite awesome with. He has twin clubs, which are fast and give him quite a long melee range. He's got a lot of tools at his disposal as well like the banana-rang and even summonable monkeys that attack opponents. His level 1 special (the net) is quite awesome. Even though it's short ranged, it's fast and its range is deceptively larger than you'd expect. Toro is quite short ranged, but he has quite a lot of charging attacks (attacks where he moves in and attacks at the same time, not the powering up kind of charging) in ninja form to make up for it. That's the form I used the most, since the other two forms didn't have many attacks that made up for his short range. He does pull out weapons for some of his melee attacks though, like brooms and hammers, which help his range problems a little. Overall, I think I was decent with him but I wasn't able to utilize him to his fullest. Sir Daniel has quite a large variety of attacks from sword slashes to boomerang axes to charging in with his shield. I think I was quite good with him, but not Cole or Spike good seeing how his specials weren't the best at racking kills.
The levels and their hazard weren't as bad as I thought. Rather than being able to be killed from hazards, you just lose AP. It's bad, but it's not going to cost you the match most of the time, unless you really don't make an effort to avoid them. And most of them are easy to see coming, especially missiles which show crosshairs before hitting.
The special system was quite weird at first, especially since there's no health to worry about and instead you spend more time worrying about your opponent's special meters and when they're going to use their specials. Though at the same time, it gives off a thrilling feeling. There's a big feeling of relief when your opponent misses their special, a big feeling of disappointment when you miss performing your own special, and a big feeling of fear once your opponent reaches their level 3 (which I was unable to do since 3 minutes matches weren't long enough for me to reach level 3. It was my first time playing the game after all). Landing a level 1 special on multiple opponents has got to be one of the most satisfying things to do in this game.
Overall, I found the game to be really fun. Sure, the characters aren't as iconic as Smash Bros. and the special system feels weird at first, but once you get the hang of it it's quite easy to get into. I practically forgot about wanting Crash and Spyro in this game and not being heavily familiar with the character cast because of how fun and addicting the gameplay was.
