Looks like this is a rough week for all the Marth mains out there: Nintendo has finally done something about the longstanding complaints that he is too overpowered, but it appears they may have gone too far by giving him fibromyalgia, a chronic disorder that involves frequent musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and tenderness.


While many Smash fans are pleased that the Fire Emblem character now experiences too much joint pain to trap them in one of his devilishly devastating tippers, others have protested what they consider to be an overzealous nerf, arguing that Marth is so weak now that he can only dash halfway across the map before he has to stop and gasp for breath or lie down for a few minutes while complaining about muscular pain.

“We hope to balance the scales by giving Marth the nerve pain and diminished attention span that are all too familiar for fibromyalgia sufferers,” read the patch notes on Nintendo’s Super Smash Blog, explaining that they tweaked the character so that he’ll now randomly experience muscle spasms and migraines that greatly prolong the recovery time from his neutral attacks. “He’ll also forget what the next move is in the middle of his combo due to the memory problems linked to the disease.”


“Of course, he can take Maxim Tomatoes to ease the pain, but ultimately this is a chronic, incurable disease that will never go away,” read the statement.

Marth’s impressive speed and attack range has frequently drawn the ire of players who have to go up against him, so it’s not all that surprising that Nintendo decided to do something about it. Many are claiming that the nerf was way too drastic, however, and that Marth is now a lower-tier character, worse than Luigi or even Mr. Game & Watch.


“I used to love playing Marth, but now, it seems like every other game he loses control of his bladder and urinates on himself because of the fibromyalgia or whatever?” said Smash player Mike Owens, explaining how his once-beloved main now can’t even muster the strength to get down from his revival platform. “And he’s very sensitive to light now, so the second he sees Pikachu’s thunder jolt or R.O.B.’s laser beam, he just collapses from the pain of a migraine.”

“He can’t even do a throw without having to stop and massage away the ache in his tender points,” Owens added.


This patch wasn’t all bad news, however: On the upside, Nintendo announced that they were buffing Ness with a supercharged sense of aggression by giving him rabies.