Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – Pyra/Mythra Impressions

Earlier this month, the newest additions to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate arrived in the form of Pyra and Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. After first being revealed in February’s Nintendo Direct, game director Masahiro Sakurai gave one of his usual character breakdowns that detailed how to play as the characters and what made them unique. They looked cool in the video, so I was looking forward to getting my hands on them to see for myself how they played. After spending some time playing with them, I’m very pleased with Pyra and Mythra, and think that they may be my favorite sword fighters in the entire roster.

It all stems from the fact that Pyra and Mythra are two distinctly different characters in one powerful package. Just like how Zelda and Sheik functioned back in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl, you’re able to switch between the two ladies at any point in time. This is crucial because they each have unique move sets that offer both advantages and disadvantages to you depending on the given scenario.

Pyra is the slower of the two, moving at a speed that puts her at a disadvantage when going up against faster characters like Sonic or Pikachu. She balances this out though with her immense strength. Her attacks do a sizable amount of damage, making her capable of knocking out opponents at fairly low damage levels. There’s her Smash attacks that make Pyra a scary person to get up close and personal with. I love doing her side Smash attack because of how it can easily launch enemies off the stage and get you a win.

Then there are her Special moves that bring the pain too. Her neutral Special is an explosive burst of fire that hits on all sides. When fully charged up, it can kill a fairly damaged enemy with no problem at all. If it doesn’t, it’ll at least send them flying pretty far. The same goes for her up Special attack which is similar to Ike’s, just faster and stronger. Her side Special has Pyra throw her sword a bit ahead of her where it rotates in place, doing some solid damage to whoever gets caught by it. It’s not as strong as her other Specials, but it’s still something to be aware of, especially since it’s an essential tool for keeping others from returning to the stage.

On the other side of the blade is Mythra. Where Pyra is slow yet powerful, Mythra is fast but weak. With Mythra, you’re able to dart around the stage fairly quickly (though not as fast as someone like Sonic or Captain Falcon), allowing you to constantly be in your opponent’s face. When you combine that with her attacks, Mythra is always keeping the pressure on in matches. One move that does this is her side Special attack. She does a bunch of quick slashes as she bounces around the stage in what looks like a move you would see in an anime. It’s a good move to use for closing the gap between yourself and others while also getting in a couple hits. Her other Specials are good too, though none of them are powerhouses. They’re more-so about just adding on light damage to your opponents.

That’s not to say that you can’t take out enemies with Mythra. It’s very possible to get knockouts with her, but it’ll just take longer and be harder to do. The thing is that’s not where her strength lies. Mythra is best used to dash around the stage and stay on the offensive in order to quickly rack up damage against your opponent before switching to Pyra for the killing blow.

That’s how I’ve been playing with Pyra and Mythra once I understood their respective strengths and weaknesses. I’ll typically start a match as Mythra and rush in to start pummeling my opponent with regular and Special attacks. Then once they’re around the 50%-70% damage range, I’ll swap to Pyra to land the final few hits. It’s a strategy that Sakurai himself said he uses during the character breakdown, and it’s a very sound one since it works against practically every weight class in the game. Going up against a fast character? Use Mythra to keep up with them and pepper them with hits to lay the groundwork for Pyra. Facing off against someone much heavier? Play as Mythra to stay agile and and build up their damage so that Pyra can land the hits that count.

I think what I like most about Pyra and Mythra is that they offer a lot of versatility. Being able to adjust to situations on the fly by switching to a different and equally good character is a lot of fun and incredibly helpful. One time I got knocked off the stage as Pyra and knew I wouldn’t be able to make it back as her due to the distance and her lack of good recovery moves. So I switched to Mythra as I fell and used her side Special to close the extra distance I needed to make it back to the stage. Once I returned, I switched back to Pyra and continued the fight. In another instance, I was playing as Mythra but my damage was really high and I knew that I would get taken out with no problem. What I did to adjust to this was change to Pyra and land a couple heavy hits to take the stock and win the match. These are two examples of the versatility that I’ve experienced with them, though I’m sure that more experienced fighters will find ways to take advantage of switching between them during combos to pull off some awesome knockouts.

When I first saw Pyra and Mythra get revealed, I thought they would be fun to use, but I didn’t think that I would enjoy playing with them as much as I have. It took a little bit of time to understand how they perform, but I’ve been having a blast with them ever since it all clicked for me. While not my favorite of all the DLC characters, they’re pretty close to being the favorite. Of this current Fighters Pass though, they’ve easily surpassed the others and managed to knock Sephiroth off the top spot.