My hands ache if I play this game for longer than 30 minutes. I have a normal 3DS, non-XL, and I can not find a comfortable position for me to play this game without my hand hurting. That and the tiny screen makes it so hard to see everything that's going on. How do you guys do it? Maybe my hands are just too big?

I have an XL and i still can't tell what the hell is going on. The jumping also seems less responsive with the circle pad.

I can play it just fine on an XL I'm happy to say. Though at the same time if I had a Wii U, I'd likely prefer to wait for that version all the same due to the small screen, which can result in the on-screen chaos being even more impenetrable to parse than it usually is.

I have an XL and I've found things to be mostly fine once I tweaked the controls a bit. I removed stick jumping and rotated the functions of each of the face buttons one spot clockwise. Once I made those changes just about everything clicked into place for me. The default placement of the face buttons just felt wrong. The one thing I'm having a hard time adjusting to is not jumping with my left hand (I'm one of those crazy people who actually got used to the wii remote/nunchuck controls in Brawl). I'll eventually get used to the old way, though.

I have a normal 3ds and it was tough playing the game for long periods of time

3DS Hand Grip

Bought this and it worked wonders, no more hand cramping and can get to the shoulder buttons easily. I'd probably recommend getting this for the short term and eventually upgrading to the New 3DS XL for the long term. Only issue I've found with this game on the original 3ds is when everyone is far apart and the camera zooms away, it's tough making out characters especially if they are of similar color.

I've been playing this for hours unlocking things and have been ok so far. I switched my controls so that the jumps are X and A and special is Y and attack is B.

I mapped shield to one of the face buttons and grab to R, and now I'm actually using the shield. It's still incredibly uncomfortable though. I'm using a regular 3DS with the Hori silicone protector that makes it a little easier to grip (and travel with).

It plays fine on the 3DS XL, but man, it turns out Smash Bros on a portable was really not what I was looking for.

It's a solid game and I'm having fun but as someone who obsessively played Melee and Brawl, I don't see myself spending nearly as much time with this.

I have the same layout and I find that it did help alot.

I bought it this morning wish I hadn't. Maybe if they patch in the option to use the d-pad for movement it will be alright. As it is now it's shit. No plan on getting the Wii U so I was hoping this would sate my Smash Bros hunger. Welp back to Destiny, P4U and Shadow of Mordor.

Just a general question for everyone who finds playing this uncomfortable:

Did no one play the demo? How is this a surprise? It's not as if you weren't given a chance to give the game a try before you committed money to it.

The default button layout just felt broken to me. I mean, I guess the B and A buttons have shifted on the 3DS compared to the N64 controller (which is also a diamond shape in terms of button layout when you consider the B, A and C down and C left button) but my old man muscle memory just works better with special on the left and regular attack on the bottom.

I found it interesting though that I had to consciously shift my trigger fingers to the back of the 3DS, I caught myself not shielding/throwing and then I realized my index fingers were either at the front of the top screen when I play it lying down (supporting it up) or just resting at the back if I'm playing upright (instead of having the fingers ready at the triggers though). But that was a quick habit to change.

Demo didn't have button config so no way of knowing if you could change nub and d-pad for movement. Who knows why you can't...

this is probably why I'm not getting the game. I actually asked a couple of friends today, some are pretty disappointed with not using the D pad. Personally, it feels like a bad arcade stick that need more force instead of light tapping so you can get from one direction to another fast enough.

I don't think that d-pad would really work for movement in this game; there's a difference between half-tilt and full-tilt (running on the ground, fast-falling in the air), and also DI (directional influence) is analog in direction. Normals vs. smashes would be do-able but pretty awkward, since I guess you'd have to delay the button press in order to reliably get a normal?

Compared to Melee/Brawl I found the circle pad has taken some time to get used to, but I can generally do the moves I want when I want to (sometimes I'll fail to turn around on the ground in the heat of the moment, but that happens to me with a GC controller too).

Also I played the demo so much that I'm ok with the default controls (the first thing I did when I got the game was switch the buttons around a bit to how I *thought* I wanted them, but then I was constantly hitting the wrong thing). Except for up-to-jump which everyone should probably just turn off.

Hey, you can find the game's use of the circle pad unsuitable for its purpose. Fine. But don't try to make it look like Nintendo somehow conned you into buying a game with lies and secrecy. The game has been out in Japan for a month already. I feel this was common knowledge, even if you didn't try the demo. Anyone remotely interested in this game had the chance to get to know at least the very basic of how it was controlled, this issue included.

I don't fully remember how Brawl and Melee did it, but IIRC you didn't have the option to choose either D-Pad or Analog stick to control your character, right? Unless you were using just the Wiimote horizontally, you were restricted to the Analog Stick for movement. So why should Smash 3DS be any different?

@joeyravn: Never said they conned me I'm saying it's dumb that you don't have full control over how to configure your buttons on a platform that needs it so badly.

I made a bad choice buying this game, life goes on. I got other games to play and in a couple months I'll have Guilty Gear Xrd which means I would have never touched this game again anyway.

Yeah.. huge SSB fan --not touching this. I will happily wait for the wii U version.

@nefarious_al: Why would you swap movement designed for analogue control to digital? Why would you think the exclusion of such an option is an oversight?

@joeyravn: Because people might find it more convenient to play the game with the d-pad.

If the analog stick was on par with the wii pro controller or the gamecube controller then sure but for a game like this they probably should have been more flexible with the game.

I haven't put a ton of time into it but I've had no real problems so far. Although Duck Hunt dog really kicked my ass about 4 times before I could finally unlock the stupid thing.

Because the analog nub has always been garbage on the 3DS. Nintendo knows this so they should have had special consideration for this particular version of the game.

Im playing on an og 3ds with the default controls. Other than my right hand getting fatigued, haven't had much of an issue.

I do feel like I can't play certain characters as well as I should be able to though. I've mainly played Ness since melee and I'm not as agile as I'd like to be with him. I can still pull off my standby combos so it's manageable.

I had a suspicion that the regular 3DS might be too small to comfortably handle this game - at least for people with small hands, like myself. Didn't get to try the demo (unless it's still there then I'll give it a shot).

I find people saying using the D - Pad to move would be dumb funny. I play Brawl with a Wii Mote Nes style. D - Pad to move works fine.