A game with diverse movement options and unique mechanics, one that requires both knowledge and skill to perform advanced techniques which further the skill-gap outside of typical Minecraft PvP and encourages unique styles of play? Perhaps featuring overpowering abilities that charge up over time, allowing you to get an edge on a tough opponent and encourages - rather than discourages - the art of skillful retreat whilst also rewarding foresight into the opponent's psyche? Best of all, a wide variety of kits that influence every decision, approach and retreat you make as you navigate rough, vertical terrain, further rewarding players for their knowledge of kit match-ups?
...That idea is unoriginal, poorly inspired and is full of GamEBreAkInG bugs, glitches and exploits! It should be replaced with a game about flying through rings. A game like that will never get old! -2016 Cube logic
Sophie is still bitter, I see...
But seriously, Super Craft Bros had the best movement mechanics I've ever seen in a Minecraft game. The amount of neat technical stuff you could perform with enough timing and practice meant the winner wasn't always predetermined by PvP experience. Potholes in the ground punished map inexperience; split paths rewarded parkour and jump precision; kit imbalances rewarded players for learning match-ups and selectively avoiding encounters that disfavoured them, such as the Spider knowing never to approach the Wither or Blaze but to always harass Zombie and Creeper; etc. Did you know that executing your double-jump a fraction of a second before you touched the ground would convert your vertical momentum to horizontal momentum? It allowed you to "skate" across the ground, surpassing even the Spider kit's immense speed with any kit at all. Did you also know that by crouching on the edge of the map whilst grounded would nullify the Creeper's special attack, which was infamous for getting multi-kills against unaware combatants who would try fighting the kit in the air? The Wither's arrows had the maximum distance regardless of how drawn back the bow was, meaning you could bow-spam people from across the map if you were precise enough. The Skeleton could use its arrow barrage to essentially stun the opponent with low knockback, then fully charge a regular arrow to deal an immense amount of damage instantly. Also, your double jump had a slight delay to it, not great enough to cause any issues in traversing the map, but significant enough that you could literally edge-guard people like in real Smash Bros. The Skeleton was very good at this, making it one of the best kits for the maps 'Music' and 'Mario' which had a lot of narrow walkways and a lot of void. You would hit the opponent off the stage with your Knockback III Bone, then activate arrow barrage to hit them during their double jump activation. This would effectively disable their jump, meaning they'd fall and die in only two hits. It meant staying as far from the edges of the map as possible when fighting a Skeleton; another example of how match-up and map knowledge was rewarded; you could seriously capitalise on any melee-based kit by doing this, since they were forced to come to you. If they weren't conscious of your strategy, they would have no chance of beating you. Hell, even camping required skill in this game and was almost a respectable strategy. The most desirable camp spots were in hard-to-reach places, meaning you had to complete difficult parkour just to qualify for this strategy. Even then, the Wither kit's explosive arrows could clip through walls, so you had to be careful who you exposed your hiding spot to.
What a shame they did away with this game. It wasn't completely dead, and though its population was low, it still had a fan-base even a year into the Skeleton's reign of unfair terror. The kit basically had a bug following the lazily rushed instalment of 1.9, causing its Arrow Storm ability to deal the typical damage expected of a fully-drawn arrow. Keep in mind the ability would spit out around eight arrows in rapid succession and recharged every twelve seconds or so, meaning you would effectively get a free kill on any kit in the game instantly. This bug never got fixed, and once players found out about it the Skeleton became literally the only viable kit that didn't guarantee an instant loss; you had to pick this kit if you wanted to win, which I personally blame for the game's gradual decline in players. Previous to this, there were certainly kits that were better than others (Spider and Blaze were presumed the best after the Wither nerf), but you weren't guaranteed to lose if you picked something different; they were the best, but they weren't overpowered, sorta like the Beast kit in FFA today. All the magic to this game was stripped away overnight when 1.9 was brought about, because absolutely no balancing was tested beforehand. The diversity was wiped away and SCB honestly became the least interesting, most repetitive game on the server. It was like Archer Assault if the rapid-fire kit was the only option available.
This probably isn't the kind of game that would rake in thousands of players so I wouldn't recommend bringing it back tbh. I think the summer would be a great time to reinstate this glorious game if the developers wanted to work on something different to Skywars or Eggwars, but even then it's hard to say if it'll actually take off since it's so unique and most of the original Arcade audience has left.
See you next month everybody, I need to focus on work so won't be around for a while o/
