SSBM/Pichu/Introduction

Introduction

Melee's original handicap character, Pichu nonetheless miraculously escaped the game's absolute bottom rung and carved a niche for itself in the upper low tier. Pichu is a largely identical clone of Pikachu, with whom they share the basic outlines of their gameplan. Both are relatively linear speedster types perpetually forced forwards, towards the enemy, by their miniscule hitboxes and inability to control space. On almost every count that the two differ, though, Pichu draws the short stick; Pichu is smaller, slower, lighter, and, infamously, has to deal with a miserable self-harm mechanic that causes all Pichu's electric moves to deal chip damage to itself, even on whiff. While the impact of Pichu's self-harm is often probably overexaggerated - most of Pichu's best moves are non-electric - it's an unwelcome cherry atop a sundae of unwelcome ingredients. So is there any hope for this forgettable mouse?

Pichu has a lightning-fast run, with solid (albeit undersized) hitboxes that stay active on top of its body for a good while. Combining these strengths, Pichu's basic gameplan is to sheathe itself in SHFFLed hitboxes (usually nair) and rocket around the stage horizontally, like some kind of little cannonball. After all, if your hitboxes are small - make them move! As fast as possible, ideally. And if you can't dash dance and can't scramble, well, don't get caught in one place. In a game like Melee, this can be a surprisingly versatile strategy. But without the moves to shift gears when the situation calls for it, Pichu's ability to compete rides or dies on the effectiveness of this one, repetitive approach, and very few characters don't have at least one good answer to Pichu's one good question.

Pikachu was once sometimes jokingly referred to as a 'poor man's Fox'. If that's true, Pichu is a without a doubt a poor man's poor man's Fox; it inherits many of Pikachu's bad points, but unfortunately few of its strengths. Both are handicapped by skeletal movepools, with large portions of their respective movelists either purposeless or redundant. Both find themselves heavily biased towards certain corners of the basic RPS triangles underlying many interactions and are therefore forced to find ways to punch through options like shield or dashback with losing responses like overshoots and even longer overshoots. But where Pikachu has enviable raw kill options and an unparalleled ability to convert unexpected situations into dangerous offstage scoops, Pichu's simplified up air rips out the soul of Pikachu's edgeguarding game and consigns Pichu to a sad (and often monotonous) life of slowly racking up dollar store damage off stray hits. Pichu's anemic punish game thus becomes a war of attrition - but one where Pichu dies before literally everyone else and is constantly hurting itself.

Ultimately, Pichu is a functional but meager character with a one-note playstyle largely overshadowed by its far superior clone. With such direct competition, it's no surprise that Pichu sees some of the least tournament play of any character...but, then again, perhaps this makes it perfect for a certain type of player.

Strengths

Weaknesses

The Speed of Lightning - A fast run allows Pichu to shoot across the stage at lightspeed and drag its aerials with it. The tradeoff is that this locks Pichu into committal and highly predictable horizontal arcs whenever it leaves the ground Spammable Aerials - Pichu's landing lag is generally even lower than Pikachu's, helping it minimize the downtime inbetween its good aerials Passable Throw Game - While heavily gated by the tiniest grab imaginable, Pichu does have a chaingrab on spacies and even a theoretical reaction tech chase on some characters

Catastrophic Risk-Reward - One of the least impressive punish games in Melee attached to a character with the worst possible traits for fighting blow-by-blow. Pichu dies earlier than anything else and does pitiful damage per hit. The math is always against this character Self-Damaging - While it only applies to about half its moveset, Pichu does chip damage to itself just for using moves. Some of these, like its recovery, can't be avoided, and some, like pummel, would otherwise be very welcome but are made very unattractive Linearity - Pichu's extreme polarization makes it difficult to change gears without dipping into some genuinely terrible tools. The result is often that Pichu is better off just brute forcing situations with losing options then it is trying to actually make use of its dysfunctional winning options. Pichu finds itself in many RPS interactions unable to throw anything but rock. Moreover, Pichu's space control is so abysmally poor that it's often essentially forced into first tempo, even when winning Strange Defense - Pichu suffers from short tech rolls and takes unusually high hitstun. This leads to some unique vulnerabilities, although these are somewhat offset by a large shield, a great OoS nair, and Pichu's tiny frame Terrible CC - Pichu has the single shortest CC/ASDI down window in the game, often breakable in a single move