FrozenRoy's Set and Comment Corner
Hello and welcome to FrozenRoy's Set and Comment Corner, a successor to Warrior of Many Faces' Set and Comment Corner!
The concept of this is quite simple: Gather the comments for all sets in one convient area, allowing you to go here to read or reread what people have said about sets simply, quickly and efficiently, in addition to linking to all sets posted. Here is a sample:
Set Name Here (w/ Link to Post Included)
by Username413
[collapse="Commenter612"]COMMENT BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH[/collapse]
Note that due to the way that Smashboards has done their coloring of text, I won't be transferring any color in the comments to the Comment Corner, sorry (EDIT: For some reason now it works sometimes but doesn't others???). I also will not be using any images to avoid unneccessary clutter between sets. My signature will not link to it, but both my Rankings and the Weighted Rankings will, not to mention the Bunker. Now then, let us begin!
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by FrozenRoy
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]Croagunk
Fighting types have always been a favorite of mine, and I've always wanted to attempt one (Smash IS a fighting game after all!), so I get giddy when I see a fighting type set. Croagunk lays a bit more emphasis on the other typing of his dual-type, though that's to be expected from the character. I really do like the playstyle here: forcing approaches, poisoning and constant chipping away, combined with a lot of fast-paced movement and spacing options makes for a match I'd love to play myself. And it's pulled off well: your moves flow well into each other and the interactions, soft as they may be, are natural feeling and not forced. It keeps focus, and, sofar as i can tell, filler is minimum, everything having a place in the fight with some usefulness. All-in-all, great way to start off the contest, Froy![/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]We've set a good quality trend in first sets of the contest, that Croagunk is proud to continue. I actually do vividly remember Toxicroak, a set that focused on using poison damage and this is an appropriately similar approach. Croagunk has greater reason to use this to augment its damage, seeing as it's a pre-evolution of an already made moveset, but it doesn't use that as a crux to be less than its forbearer. In fact, the set makes the poison into a far improved mechanic in the context of its wonderfully campy and pragmatic playstyle. There's a simple hand at subversion to avoid confrontation in the standards, piling on damage using the throws and jab attack. You nailed the defensive playstyle, Roy, without sacrificing any of the character's natural flash. Generally this type of set falters when it comes to the grab game and smashes, however, among Croagunk's best moments are these two sections. I'm not a fan of the generic forward throw and forward smash isn't as unique in the same section as up smash. Those aside, the other moves are very well executed and keeps the momentum of this simple Pokémon going where you'd expect the author to give up. What I love is the elegant combination of moves to force an approach, making Croagunk into the silent killer he should be and making the set a cut above other sets of this style in my view. Where it loses points is in the aerials. Functional is all the praise I can give, while these moves have a defined use in the playstyle, they needed to be differentiated from other similar moves in Brawl to keep my attention. Far from ruining the set, though, it simply meant the set reached not quite as far above my expectations. I would certainly agree it's one of your best.[/collapse]
[collapse="Big Mac"]
Tribute to a set you don't even seem to like all that much from 5 MYMs ago: The good things I said about Croagunk largely hinged on the aerials being changed from their filler temporary versions, which they weren't. Other inputs that I don't like that are still lurking around are the fsmash (The suction is interesting, but the projectile feels largely un-flowing and doesn't help that much with match-ups anyway, being quite a slow projectile), Side Special (Going past solid constructs feels like it has little to do with anything and is just bad match-up fodder) and Up Special (It just doesn't do much). The Neutral Special is a good introduction to the mechanic writing wise, but feels like a standard, most obviously a jab. The jab and Neutral Special being swapped would improve this, given the more unique properties of that move and how well Neutral Special fits on jab, but it would be too difficult for the writing. It just kind of feels how it is like it's just there almost entirely for the sake of the reader, only to be later outdone, somewhat like sets like Zant.
While the execution is iffy, it certainly tries at points, and the playstyle concept is interesting than what you'd expect out of a set of this calibur. The poison pressuring based thing is enough to give me a slight liking of this set. Enough that, say, it'd still squeak out a vote from me probably in MYM 13. Regardless of some of the bad inputs, the moveset still largely plays how I want it to play, and that certainly counts for something.[/collapse]
[collapse="darth_meanie"]
Croagunk
No surprise I appreciate this set, seeing as it clearly draws inspiration from the Toxicroak set JOE! and I made together 5 contests ago (It's been that long?) but takes its own twists on it that makes it feel like a pre-evolution with its own unique, more cautious playstyle as opposed to Toxicroak's unfettered aggression. Making a sequel / prequel moveset like that is definitely harder than writing a set from scratch, but you made the pay-off worth it, and I am impressed.
I'm not comfortable with shield poisoning as a mechanic since it seems artificial that you can poison a shield, but the effect is an interesting playstyle mechanic. You use poison creatively, and with moves like Brick Break have a lot of ways to get shield pressure down without having to go out of the way or rush in, more cautious, like Croagunk does seem in comparison to Toxicroak.
I have a couple other issues to take with the set; the aerials do feel very flat, on a frog character where it should be a lot more interesting. His back aerial being a simple backwards punch just doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the set, and several of the aerials didn't feel like they were even on the best input to me. Drain Punch is another issue I had, not with the concept of the move, which was quite clever; using poison to heal instead is brilliant. Why it's a throw is beyond me though, when it feels like a move deserving of a centerpiece part of the set. The sad part is, it makes the move feel like it was an afterthought to make a more interesting throw than premeditated. All in all, while Croagunk is hardly my favorite set, and I'm held back from loving it too much because I don't like how the mechanic fits together, it's a solid, fun set with an interesting playstyle that I approve of.[/collapse]
[collapse="Junahu"]Croagunk
There are many things to give this moveset credit for in terms of pacing, writing and a compelling impression of flow. You tie simple ideas together convincingly, and it's alltogether a good read.
Characterwise, you leave the dirty fighting up to the player, which is great. The way Croagunk is mostly reactive in his fighting style is an exact match to the Pokemon's approach to encounters. And theoretically, the pressure of time poison-damage compels the foe to attack in a way that would (if it worked) promote pessimistic self-prognosis, provoking the foe into stupid, confused, mistakes. That characterisation is very well planned out, and it deserves recognition.
But, regrettably, you have a lot of convincing to do if you want me to believe that this poison mechanic actually works the way you wish it to. I've seen this aggressive anti-camping poison approach before, in Croagunk's spiritual predecessor Toxicroak. It's admirable that you'd want to emulate this concept, as it makes MYM feel just that little bit more connected. But it's an idea that swiftly contradicts itself and falls apart once the players begin utilising even the slightest bit of meta-gaming. Players will do what gives them the best chances of winning, and approaching into a character you KNOW can punish the hell out of you is never going to be the optimal strategy. All the poison damage in the world wouldn't convince a man to give himself to Croagunk's optimal-range. They'd much rather force Croagunk to approach (which he needs to do in order to achieve anything at all, including the magic poison that is supposed to make THEM approach) and punish that in relative safety.
The bizarre lack of mud throwing in the moveset is also quite shocking, considering how well you otherwise encapsulate Croagunk as a character. Mud-Slap and Mud-Bomb are both natural moves for Croagunk, and pretty blatantly indicative of how he gets the upper hand on predators in his natural habitat.
More promisingly, the options for shield pressure are satisfying and effective (ignoring the shield poisoning which is so weak that it isn't remotely worth the effort of inflicting). This lends some actual fear to the procedings, breaking open the foe's defenses to give Croagunk's own options that much more bite.
I think this should be a hard rule, if the character canonically learns TAUNT by level up, you should include taunts in your moveset.[/collapse]
[collapse="BKupa666"]
CROAGUNK
The consensus on Croagunk thus far appears to be solidly positive, which, for the most part, I’m happy to echo. His pitiful weight is offset by his solid offensive properties, bolstered by his relentless stacking of poison to keep characters in his face. Once there, the option of baiting them into Revenge or an F-Tilt so as to keep victims on a slippery slope toward their eventual KO at a high percent is a compelling one as well. A more subtle aspect of the set of which I am a fan are Croagunk’s more subtle follow-up options, such as his crouch-jumping enabling him to follow opponents up into the air, while he can follow behind his F-Smash projectile to creep up on and overwhelm opponents. Admittedly, a handful of attacks come across as filler and reliant on being pieced into straightforward combos to make much of an impact. The set flows together well enough for the most part to give this a pass, of course, and I’m guessing it will certainly stick in minds due to its own merits, in addition to being the contest’s first set.[/collapse]
[collapse="Katapultar"]I'll have to agree with a lot of what others have brought up about this set. You did well in making Croagunk feel like a pre-evo and play sneakily, yet at the same time some of the execution and input placements feel awkward - Croagunk doesn't force approaches, he's the one being forced to approach. It's already been established that the poisoning doesn't really work well with the fact that Croagunk is a close-range fighter who's also light and isn't great with spacing, though in your defense he does have counters and is fast enough to run away from most characters. You can stack the poisoning with Poison Jab, but that doesn't change the amount of time it'll take to be put into effect, and running away from opponents just to make the poison take effect would admittedly be in-character of Croagunk but be very boring for the player. Croagunk is underpowered, in-char I'll admit, but having feints and counters at least make his poisoning just a -little- viable.
On a minor note, the Down Special randomly getting such a massive burst of power over being hit while not being knocked away seems a bit tacky to me (I had a similar problem with Jarvis' F-tilt), as well as the fact that such a little frog has the same grab range as Dedede (I may forgive this if you mentioned that he leaped forward or something). Side Special doesn't sit well with me, though if you were looking for something more relevant I reckon it'd be cool to see a Monkey Flip-esque attack where Croagunk bounces off anything he hits, going a certain distance based on the time you spent charging - that'd give the little guy the sufficient spacing he so desperately needs after poisoning a foe while being able to jump over stuff like walls. Why you need such a situational attack just to slide over somebody's landmine when you have a roll like everyone else is beyond me.
Croagunk has its heart in the right place in terms of characterization, yet his playstyle isn't quite up to scratch. I'm not saying that making him trappy to make the poisoning more relevant and usable would be a good idea, but rather how the poison itself works: poison is quite flexible, and while making it stronger would be a bit out-of-character for Croagunk it could have been that foes take 1% whenever they move or attack. That would perfectly compliment Croagunk's established counter-game and the fact that he fights up-close and has no means of stalling for the poison in the first place, which would take effect quicker. It's always an idea for the future, though (maybe I should work on Roxie again...).[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE"]
CROAGUNK = 8 / 10
- +Jump physics add an interesting dynamic between normal / short hopping, and crouch-jumping. That and the usage of second jump boosting Up B is a nice touch / nod to Toxicroak.
- +The specials play together very well off the bat to create a coherent playstyle.
- +Throws are solid and work together with the other moves well, even if Dthrow outclasses Fthrow by making Croagunk advantaged instead of neutral with similar payoffs.
- +Mixing different types of poison adds new depth to the status effect.
- +High pressure focus to amplify the poison advantage.
- +aerials work very well with his cross-up game, all being well designed to hop around with at differing heights
- +Fsmash being slow is more of a strength than being fast. Think about it like this, if it is slower it is out for longer as it takes it's course, therefor giving Croagunk more time to work with it to put a foe in a corner so to speak as they in turn have to react to Vacuum wave in some (punishable) way.
- Upon second thought, Forward throw doesn't have much use from Dthrow aside from 4% more initial damage, seeing as the guaranteed tech-chase combined with his pressure game (much, much like his Granddaddy) would definitely lead to more damage without the need to risk the foe recuperating.
- Usmash and Uair seem more fillerish than anything. Utilt covers both of their jobs as Croagunk seems to want to stay grounded at all times to get the best use of his tools, well grounded as much as possible when he doesn't want to do a cross-up with Nair/Fair/Dair. Feint Attack can also counter aerials in a ballsy maneuver, can't it? But anyways, they just seem a tad lacking in use
- -Dash attack is completely outclassed by Side B and Roll + Ftilt when used in conjunction. The latter in fact doing everything you hype Dash attack to do but with the built-in option to fake them out and to be able to hit whenever by manually Ftilting (in either direction to boot). This wouldn't have been a negative if it weren't for the focus placed on DA when these two options are clearly better at all times.
A great way to start off MYM14, the successor to Toxicroak certainly plays like he is part of the family. In fact, he plays like his pichu almost with him being a near clone! Well, except for a handful of moves here and there. That said he has the interesting twist of being more methodical and risk vs reward than his Grandpappy who favored all-out aggression and pressure are nearly all times. Croagunk's range and lower mobilty forces him to play with the various poison effects more to get the desired effects, and even has some CQC chops like Toxi did. All in all a favorite so far.[/collapse]
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by darth_meanie
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]Lovely Mamiries
I'd been interested in this set since you described to me what it was like, so seeing Mami up on the first day was greatly pleasing. Fortunately, I do not feel the set dissapointed.
The specials are fairly exquisite, giving her interesting options with her one-shot rifles and creating a sort of "field of blades" type playstyle I always loved (both in MYM and, more importantly, watching!). One thing I do wish, though, is that Down Special let you produce three rifles and not two: Not only would this be consistant with the Neutral Special, which lets you summon three, but I feel three is an excellent number both for balance and for optimal fun use. Still, the move is pretty good. Side Special is also okay, though I imagine some will be displeased that the grab difficulty basically feels like stun, even if it is small and sets her up well. I'm fine with it, though. I also remembered it is units and not blocks, so 3 SBUs is probably fine.
The standards, while basic, are all quite nice and flow well into her general playstyle, which helps differentiate her. The dash attack is probably my favorite move here. The Smashes are great, though, mostly D-Smash and F-Smash: I love Down Smash and it's usage in her playstyle, plus how it works with the rifles, giving her one of my favorite things in the playstyle as it feels like she oh-so elegantly flows from attack to attack, shot to shot, strike to strike, a distillation of grace if you will. Forward Smash is cool, with a good way of messing with shielding and dodging, doing well with her general gameplan and overall being excellent execution of something simple into something great. Up Smash is the only one where it feels like it falters any: I'm not entirely convinced of it's playstyle relevance and it does not feel as interesting as the other two, even if it is not really bad.
The aerials and grab game, I feel, are not quite as good as the rest of the set. The aerials aren't bad, but the grab aerial's range might need to be a bit lower given it's KO power, and I feel like moves could have been improved. I would have loved a move that allowed her to pick up an aerial rifle with one of them, which could have opened up some good possibilities, and for the Up Aerial to...say...have an option to fire off a rifle shot in exchange for more ending lag and being forced down a little by tapping A, which would have given her interesting use against air dodges and for juggling. And even if it IS a pummel, I wish it was there: Is it a fast one you can safely use while reeling in or a slow one you have to be careful with? You could even have the pummel reel the foe in faster in exchange for the foe being able to escape easier. There's plenty of options there and it missing just bugs me when it takes maybe two sentences to write a generic pummel if need be. And while Up Throw/Back Throw felt like they had playstyle relevance, Forward Throw and Down Throw did not.
Still, I did quite like the set, with it's elegant playstyle in a sort of push and repel manner, creating a constant tug-o-war and so on, with excellent approach breaking. I don't think she fully realized the playstyle concept you mean, perhaps being a bit too much of a setup or a bit less on the DI reading, but I still like it more than Electivire, so it is my favorite DM set at the moment. Good show.[/collapse]
[collapse="Katapultar"]As someone who was going to make a set for Mami in the distant past, I should be fairly excited to see what you came up with, so most of this comment is going to end up being fanboy-ish. It wouldn't be fair for that side of the set to be ignored, after all.
First up, I see what you did with that last line in the second introductory paragraph. I greatly appreciate it. Secondly, you did a pretty decent job at mapping out the inputs on the Specials, which is tough because of how somewhat limited the muskets are. I can forgive you for not including the musket strings and the potential pay-off of using missed shots to your advantage since you included floating muskets as a substitute, though I still think that musket strings coming from the blast zones would greatly accompany the surreal feel of the Madoka anime. It's fine not to include it though, because trappy stage-control wasn't part of your gameplan as mentioned in the playstyle. All the Specials are awesome, though I have my doubts about the Nanohaish Side Special despite being a good tribute and capturing the use of ribbonesque-grabbing in the Special attacks.
The standard attacks are nice, a good combination of magic and elegant physical attacks, the smash attacks playing off the already-established musket shots and being tributes to some of Mami's best action moments. You might want to finish typing up that U-Smash properly though. The way the aerials are presented makes them bland though, not because they're brawl attacks but because they're not given much attention in the playstyle section and lack depth in how they're supposed to work, how they're supposed to make Mami works when she's in the air. Along with the grabs via the fact that you didn't give Mami a pummel, it makes it sound like you didn't care about what a third of Mami's attacks do - I question the base knockback of the U-throw, because 2 Platforms is quite high and it's absurd for Mami to be able to throw somebody that high with her bare hands, even if she is a magical girl and is yanking a ribbon. Strength isn't her forte unlike with Kyoko.
Near the end, I found the way you interpreted BOTH variations of Tiro Finale to be delicious, one of the most commendable parts of the set. As for the playstyle section, I found that to be the most controversial part of the set. It brought your intentions together nice and clearly about how Mami should play, though it's somewhat irksome that nearly half of it is pointless banter involving Sayaka that's basically telling the reader how Mami works against a rushdown character. The picture is pretty though. The very good thing about the playstyle section though, was that it fully convinced me that you hadn't neglected the way Mami should play as a -character-; she has to guess how her opponent will react and has a simple trap that leaves her feeling satisfied if she can pull it off, able to play quietly or go for an all-out attack when the opportunity presents itself. That, and there are risks associated with her bad out-of-shield game that keep to her being a vulnerable girl, though none of that would be apparent to any reader unless they've seen the series firsthand. These encompassed quibbles of characterization made me like the set in the end despite having a few shortcomings, because really it's all about trying to get a character to play in a way that's suited to them and feel as if you're actually using them. Good job on getting your first Madoka set out.[/collapse]
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
Tamoe Mami
The concept of the moveset itself is compelling enough - a power struggle between the player and the opponent, over territory on the stage. That's the word here: territorial. Mami is an odd type of defense character, not necessarily defending herself, but defending her own space of the stage, and attacking when the opponent is where she needs them to be. Mami's game is so meticulous in just what she needs to do that it creates a very controlled atmosphere, which I greatly appreciate.
There are lots of tethers here, obviously, letting Mami push and pull on the opponent as she needs, maybe a bit too many? I feel as though having the grab AND the up special both be nearly identicle tethers that have roughly the same purpose (aside from one letting her recover) is a bit redundant, and could have been worked around to fit one input, but that's just me.
What I love are the rifles, specifically the floating ones and just how much...stuff can be done with them. I do wish there was a bit more control over them (maybe being able to control the angle of which they fire, or maybe letting them fire multiple shots and being able to control the rapidness of them? I don't know, I don't know the character personally), but that was a conscious decision on your part and what is there is great.
I do quite like the set for the core parts, with my least favorite parts being the aerials (not that their BAD, just they don't have the flair of the previous parts of the set) and the grab game (which Froy handily covered most of my thoughts on in his own comment), but overall, it's pretty awesome.[/collapse]
[collapse="BKupa666"]
TOMOE MAMI
Mami’s best features are cut from the same cloth as those of Croagunk in that they are relatively simple, yet bring a handful of intriguing new possibilities to the playstyle’s forefront. Seriously, I can’t recall any other set that has made explicit reference to glide tossing, let alone one that has the technique incorporated into its strategies. Her methods for spawning items, with and without ammunition, and uses for both types of weapons also solidifies the ZSS parallels while beefing her playstyle up with their sheer versatility. Perhaps most refreshing of all is the playstyle format; it’s quite astute of you to recognize that flatly stating what Mami can do would be far less interesting than more reflectively informing readers ‘why.’ That, along with her superb reeling grab, is reason enough for new and old MYMers alike to look back to Mami, ready to be inspired by her concealed depth.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]If
Mami is a sign of what's to come from DM, I'm reasonably happy. What immediately struck me as good about the set was its loose flow to strengthen the ever-simple playstyle. That it focuses on basic elements, DI and prediction, was always going to be a tough sell, however in comes the versatility at melee range and fairly all-encompassing projectile use [basically an instant way to punish far-off opponents]. What results is a straightforward pressure-based character, pressure being one of the keys to actually forcing an approach and what naturally follows is Mami's unerring duplicity. It's the zoning power-up of the rifles hanging around and Mami's ability to trap the opponent, figuratively and literally, that wraps up the playstyle in an appropriately neat bow. I highly approve of the organisation, writing style and characterisation here, it's a subtlety I hope becomes a bedrock of your future set work. The playstyle section in particular was a nice change of pace and highlighted the unique style of this moveset. I have few criticisms to make of the set – the melee versatility and simpler elements, that buffer her unpredictability, do outstay their welcome, but not to any alarming detriment. I can entirely forgive the hiccups as the set largely delivers on its in-smash, in-character promise.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE"]
TOMOE MAMI = 7 / 10
- -As much as I don't want to start a RankCom with a negative, this came out right away: what is the purpose of Fspec? Sure, it can get the foe out of your hair in order to summon guns, but in order to do this you have to have a well-telegraphed motion that only works in X area away from her, a literal invitation to rush in and beat on her straight on where she is most vulnerable. Even worse, Ftilt does everything Fspec does but better as you can still *attack* foes from it.
- +The depth created from Nspec alone is amazing. However, it is never directly mentioned what direction bullets KB you in, based on the smashes I'll assume it's the direction fired.
- +Down B is another incredible move, allowing for easier shots, tossed item play and quick smash attacks.
- +Smash attacks are all incredibly fun, as is Dash attack for them action movie feels.
- +Metagame section.
- +aerials work very well with her spacing game.
- +Final Smash being varied based on location
- There is important, missing info from the set. 1) direction of KB from bullets. 2) Her pummel (I mean come on). 3) How fast the ribbon from her grab pulls in.
- Nair and Utilt feel awkward. The former due to how it changes momentum and in other ways seems outclassed by Z/Fair for forward spacing, and Dair for escaping pressure. The Latter for how raising her arm up to answer a question is suddenly an attack.
- -Coming full circle, I just have to comment on the Ftilt again. The prone abuse here just feels... off given her one move that actually prones foes, and even then requiring her to try and tech-chase the foe's get up options since at the range required she's have to approach to even hit from a Marth Fsmash distance. Similarly, any other move that could prone besides possibly Down Fthrow / Dthrow share this problem when Mami shouldn't ever really be the one who approaches. I feel like if you had Ftilt be a different move altogether with it and Fspec's effects being merged, it would be completely groovy.
Reminding me of a combo of Samus and P:M Zelda, Mami is an incredibly unique take on zoning. Nspec is an amazing move that scares the crap out of approaching foes and is a metagame all in itself, with every other move working off of that aspect in harmony. A fun thought was nailing somebody with Up Spec into a smash or hail of bullets down a ledge, feels very satisfying. The one, and biggest complaint though is what you did with Fspec and Ftilt, which really detracted from the rest of the set by them just kinda being these weird trap options, but you can see the red text for that. Overall a good set.[/collapse]
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by FrozenRoy
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]SAMUEL L. MUTHA****IN WINDU
Firstly, i quite enjoy the design similarities to Nate's Vader set (not sure if intentional, with the split playstyle), nice touch. Force Tear is a move I love especially (likely because I'm making a set that makes use of a similar concept), but a movable wall defense/offense is a concept I love to death. I really love the dark/light side elements present in the set, I think it's a great way to showcase the Jedi's struggle in a set. I love the aggression, I love the lightsaber combat element, and I love the character present in the set. I really like this one, nice job, Fray![/collapse]
[collapse="Big Mac"]
Morgan Freeman's character:I'm in general not a fan of the meat of this moveset that is the melee game. Not much to say other than I'm not seeing much of a playstyle, and that it feels like a very light and in-smash version of Vader which was already quite in-smash. That set had a decent balance, where this one takes it too far. I struggle to keep interest, and the playstyle in general feels like a more boring and straightforward version of that set's in general, and you know how I dislike heavy retreading of old ground in movesetting.
The grab-game and all of the specials save Up are what I like about the moveset, but aside from the Down Special most of these don't have a lot to do with Windu's game and form more of a sub-playstyle than anything. His ranged game is rather downplayed throughout most of the set, especially when his attacks without lightsabers are handwaved as force pushes in every direction.
Now, coming up with something in my mind about how Windu plays, I actually came up with something that I like. Essentially, after Windu goes on a rampage with his melee game with Down Special, he can use his ranged game until he recovers. Preferably, he can use uthrow to end the Down Special rage mode session so that he's already using his ranged moveset once it ends. This makes for an interesting hit and run mechanic while still enabling Windu to actually attack during the running portion. However, this is not acknowledged in the moveset, and you share my philosophy that moveset makers should not be credited for possibilities with their movesets they did not come up with themselves.[/collapse]
[collapse="darth_meanie"]
Mace Windu
It really is impressive that you pulled four sets out at the start of this contest, and Mace Windu is a strong set even without considering the time frame he was made in. The grab mechanic you've devised is one of my favorite ones seen for a Jedi character, and it alongside the specials and smashes does a wonderful job of creating a portrait of a Force user, not just Samuel L. Jackson with a laser sword. The ground chunks, while still not my favorite mechanic of all time, are muted enough and are used as objects to throw around, block, and control, not as terraforming constructs like movesets tend towards making those mechanics into. I was also quite nervous about the Force Enhancement lasting throughout multiple stocks, but after rethinking through it, I can see how it actually is balanced for matches of different stock lengths, as each stock becomes less valuable and there is more time in which you spend at a high enough damage that taking more doesn't particularly matter that much.
That all said, it feels really unintuitive that his tilts use his lightsaber but the smashes don't, like they're acting more like specials than smashes in that sense. There are other moves that seem weird to me; the fact that the down tilt has him jump up higher than almost any other characters' short hop particularly irks me. Overall though, I did enjoy the set in the end, and when it comes to portraying Mace Windu as the Jedi Master he is, it especially succeeds.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]I am not a fan of Darth Vader, but can appreciate the appeal of that set.
Mace Windu is paying homage to that set and goes a route that improves the style, utilising descriptive playstyle summaries and a delicate balance of abusive force powers. The blatant use of control thematically is a smart one, the down special becoming a highlight of the playstyle that makes it easy to see the potential for this simplistic character to evolve in a competitive setting. Turning the passive Lucario mechanic into a move or button prompt, is always going to get my approval when put to a great use as it is in the set. The inertia of Windu charging across the battlefield is an obvious source of inspiration, as here the character is able to make use of his specials in particular to approach at an excellent rate. Actually that's my one big complaint, the ground chunk from the start of the set is simply too good of a tool at any stage in the match and stacked on top of the down special and embedding the lightsaber in the foe, that's a scary combination. There was as well blatantly room for a little description on how ridding Windu of his weapon affects all those applicable moves. Those things aside, the set is very well-balanced considering the down special's mechanic effectively splits it into two symmetrical playstyles. Worse than Croagunk but not bad.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE"]
MACE WINDU = 7 / 10
- +Clone Wars (aka, characterization is very spot on)
- +The specials each have a coherent function, with Dspec and Nspec being favorites. I like the dynamic between N and Fspec, but it seems Push would be more useful as it can be used midair?
- +Throws having infinite range is actually handled well. Uthrow is a great move as it offers an entirely new playstyle option.
- +Breaking up the playstyle gave great flow.
- +Counters in the Ftilt and general Lightsaber > projectiles are great and well in character, same with Shatter Point offering an "offensive" counter to well, defenses.
- +His combo game feels incredibly natural and intuitive.
- Touching on #2, nothing is said of what Nspec can do mid-air. Nor what the "force push" abilities are when his Saber is used in Uthrow. More info would be appreciated, esp with the latter.
- Dtilt isn't a "close range" move if it hits the entire floor of a stage.
- -His base stats are very high from the get-go, and having multiple jumps at that caliber is redonkulous. Hes should be toned down at base and go to the current stats with Down B. He also doesn't seem to have a weakness to offset his ability to counter most every option thrown at him + high base stats.
- -Up Smash and Dsmash are both Mewtwo-esque in the extreme size and lag of both. This makes them ether 100% unusable or borderline broken given the circumstances.
An awesome character with great ideas, Froy has really nailed characterization here. For the most part, given his extreme force abilities such as infinite range grab and a transcendent lightsaber, Mace is actually well balanced in that he has to out-think foes in order to actually land KO moves. However, his high base values make Down Special a little less awesome than it should be, and some over the top smash attacks hold the Jedi back.[/collapse]
---
by FrozenRoy
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Swallowman.EXE
A bit surprised absolutely no-one has commented this set yet, so I may as well do the honors. The unfortunately named robot master's set relies on the fairly basic concept of a bird that will jet towards him once every 3 seconds as somewhat interesting concept for a projectile. That said, trying to use this concept as the centerpiece for a set feels a bit misguided, since the only really obvious way to make use of this thing is to stun the foe into the blade. And you can also move around it's starting position and wall it off with a couple moves. I can forgive simplicity, but if all you're doing is stunning a foe into another attack that's a pretty weak playstyle, with no real flow outside of that other than just some generic "better in the air" stuff, when the aerials are hardly remarkable or relevant, just he happens to have a lot of flight in the air. With how bloody obvious the set is to play and how little substance it has I don't even think it is particularly good as a Brawl set, though at the very least the most I can really level against the set is that it is extremely boring.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]I always get hung up on a set I don't like, that happened to be
SwallowMan.EXE. For far too long. What may have created this irritating atmosphere for my commenting was the fact that it's really, really bland and admittedly barely held my attention. Once you get past the specials, the rest of the moves are lacking in the usual flow I'd expect from one of your sets. Not to say the specials are great, the bird acting as an active hitbox wherever it goes is about the only thing I like at all about the set, but the rest of the specials are forgettable. So, instead of wasting time by pontificating on what exactly I can say about this set, I'll just be direct and say I hate it. Don't take that as disapproval of experimenting by posting sets you aren't totally comfortable with, but there's just nothing to this one and based on our interactions, I dare say you at least partially agree.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE"]
SWALLOWMAN.EXE = 6 / 10
- +Bird Projectile is an interesting move.
- +Down Special has a cool anti-gimp use: try to spike you? Thanks for the recovery height!
- +Side B and Dair make for a legit edge-guarding option.
- Stale Moves
- While many moves delay the timing of the bird, the fact that he can just shoot out another makes it seem superfluous to try.
- Many moves have wind effects but don't really do anything with them.
- Utilt is an anti-air "counter" on a character who can dominate the airspace and has an OTG counter.
- While cool, there seems to be little reason to want to Dthrow for long in multi-man as you ruin his mobility.
- While Dair was cool, the aerials are rather uninspired for a bird-based character.
- -Smashes all prevent any form of recovering high, Dair prevents all forms of recovering low. Going offstage at all vs him is a death sentance.
Swallowman... what can I say? He has a few cool ideas, a few bad ones... and a lot of average in between.[/collapse]
---
by FrozenRoy
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
Megumi Kitaniji
Firstly, nice work on the atmosphere and look of the set: elegant, dark, and a bit unnerving. The presentation here is top-notch.
That Neutral Special, man. Great job on that. The possibilities of how it can be used are probably near endless, it can be used as a trap, of a wall, of just a direct attack. It's one of my favorite individual moves, probably ever. The rest of the moveset flows beautifully as well, leaving little room for error while also having a very wide variety of paths the match can go. To be honest, I'm struggling with criticism. Like at all. I'm really in love with this set, and why no one else has commented upon it is beyond me. If this isn't a Supervote for me, we've had a damn good contest, I can tell you that right now.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]
The marriage of a concept like time stop and the typical Roy in-smash execution is a match made in heaven. Kitanji is surprisingly creative in its use of elements like a tether, complex projectiles and DM's hated angling in the up special. This is a total shift away from your other sets but what makes it the best one is that it never abandons the small rock, big ripple philosophy and the parts of the set that take advantage of this are the best. The angling for example, opening up a simple, creative playground wherein walls, lasers and projectiles come into play. Incredibly visceral use of Espeon's mechanic in the shield special and the grab game in general are works of genius, bringing together a very focused "controlling" playstyle that isn't trying to impress with its concept but its execution. I don't think I need to touch on why the characterisation's great, but props on a noticeable improvement in your writing style and organisation. Even moves you'd think would be a throwaway such as the jab actually end up being interesting because of the in-smash spin you give. The repeated use of the walls from the down smash in the up aerial, plus the projectile from up smash in the down aerial, are strange, but serve a good purpose in adding to the contained playground within an already great playstyle. It's not only refreshing, it is reinvigorating to see a totally new approach to these ideas and that's why I really enjoyed reading Kitanji.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE!"]
MEGUMI KITANIJI = 8 / 10
- +Brilliant Nspec that I'm assuming adapts the Touch Screen mechanic from the game?
- +Time stop creates an interesting dynamic as you are able to create the time to set-up provided you have the patience and opportunity.
- +Floating Mechanics allowing for choice of aerials or ground game mid-air.
- +Shield special is a brilliant mechanic when combined with the Specials / pummel.
- +Presentation using quotes from the game as headers / general feel of the set.
- +Very creative smash attacks
- Dthrow is toted as a KO option, but at 185% it is really lackluster esp. when it removes your safety pin. 5% earlier per pummel prior also doesn't help much when the pummel is slow. Ftilt is also better all-around than it.
- Uthrow's "thether to nothing" line is confusing, does it tether to air or just fail?
- Ftilt should be a special, and seems more important than his normal Side B.
- Uair and Dair are rehashes of moves he can already perform mid-air thanks to Up B.
Kitaniji is a solid set with excellent special moves, a fun playstyle involving composing the stage and zoning to his wishes, and with only a few minor bits here and there that keep it from being a truly excellent set.[/collapse]
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by TheKalmarKing
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]VOTE JINBE
Is Jinbe a good set? No, not really, but as a newcomer set, it is certainly better than many, and shows that you understand the fundamental concepts of making a moveset, which is great!
In this case, the playstyle is slicking up the foe with Jinbe's Neutral Special, which helps his entire moveset, which is actually a pretty good base, although the NSpec could use some number based tweaking: two seconds is too long for moves with lots of lag. For reference, Warlock Punch's start-up time is a bit over a second, making it a valuable tool for envisioning how long a laggy attack can be (Falcon Punch's start-up is about 4/6ths of a second by comparison). The Neutral Special is also a good idea, but again, could use some number tweaking: the range numbers should probably be halved or so for medium/close range and everything past do long range damage, as many stages are smaller than Final Destination (such as Battlefield) and thus always get the close range one. At the same time, both are nice concepts and show an understanding of how to develope a playstyle, which is good.
Perhaps you should consider other ways to take advantage of slicking up the foe, though? That is my biggest complaint: few moves use wetting the foe to their advantage much. What if, say, you had a throw that normally was just a throw, but when the foe is wet adds some damage and tripping, allowing Jinbe to follow up on the vulnearable foe? You mention Karakusa is all about punching ambient water: maybe you could make it so, say, one of the punches has extra range if the foe is wet because it can hit the water? Those were just two random ideas, but you can somewhat get what I am going with this: by building upon the crux idea of the moveset, making the foe wet, you can build a wonderful playstyle, a focused one if you will.
Overall, the set is not offensively bad, but there is little good either, but it offers much hope that future movesets from you will be good.[/collapse]
[collapse="darth_meanie"]
Jinbe
I don't think anyone has attempted a One Piece set in quite a while now, much less for such an obscure seeming character. You seem to have a lot of awareness and knowledge of the source material, which is good, but also makes it confusing when you refer to complicated terms and highly Romanized attacks as if I know what they mean, but I had to refer back a few times to try to understand it. I'd recommend in general referring to moves by their input rather than name.
The playstyle that Jinbe has is also a bit barebones. The playstyle section explains some of his options, but it doesn't get very deep into why it's that way, or how it balances out and gives him interesting options, except in vague terms. Some more specifics would be nice, because I can tell you certainly had ideas in your head about how his stun moves worked together, but it doesn't come together nicely.. Similarly, basic attacks like tilts and aerials deserve more description than you gave in the set itself. It's fine for the attack to be simple, but there's a terrible lack of detail or description. How long must a player move around before they dry off when wet? You don't paint a picture of the animation, or how it fits into the larger picture.
One final thing about balance. Having a move that is crucial to your playstyle take two seconds to perform is pretty hard to like. Even though it's set up, it feels very stallish and run-away focus, and two seconds is a whole lot of time in a fighting game. Having to find an opportunity to set up a move is one thing, but having to go that far out of the way would be frustrating as a player. Compare it to Olimar's Pikmin Pluck, which happens almost instantly. The range for the side special also has no sense of scale. On most stages, you will always be within one Final Destination radius of your opponent. It's a very large stage, and if you knock an opponent up with any other attack it could be a near guaranteed kill regardless of damage percent.[/collapse]
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
Jinbe
Firstly, welcome to Make Your Move if you're new, and welcome back if you're fairly new (I can't remember anything else by you, sorry). Jinbe, for an early set, isn't too bad. There are definitely good ideas here, mostly slicking up the foe and such. The main thing I'd like to emphasize is that once you have that base, you should build the rest of the moveset around it, using interactions or little special effects on certain moves when the foe is in that state. Froy certainly covers this in his comment, and I'm not trying to cover already covered ground. It's aq very good start to your career as a movesetter, you just need to become more aware of the focus and flow of the moveset. I'm anxious to see what you come up with next.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE!"]
JINBE = 5 / 10
- +Nspec is very fun.
- +Multiple uses of Down B
- +Cool smash attacks
- Dspec, while good, takes far too long to charge if he needs to constantly use it. Reducing it to 1 - 1.5 sec would be fine.
- Fspec doesn't seem too useful when he is fast enough to approach relatively safe already.
- Water focus while cool, isn't really prevalent as only a handful of areas allow him to use the mechanic.
- Uair seems counter-intuitive as he seems to like to juggle foes, not drag them to the ground.
- -Mirrored throws and aerials without real relevance. Ftilt and Utilt also seem to share a niche.
- -While the water effects are touched upon, much, much more could have been done with them.
- -Overall stale moves.
Jinbe is a solid foundation of a set, but needs more meat on his bones to be really notable.[/collapse]
---
by Big Mac
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]Gruesome Toupee
I already previewed this, but I decided to give it a total reread, to arrange my thoughts and provide a comment. Gruesome Twosome is a vechile set, in the same vein as Beezwax and Garbage Man.
Something I noticed about this moveset that I did not before is that it is quite lockdown-y. There is the spider webbing of course, but the snakes also contribute to this, making it harder to escape, and the bedsheet ghosts further hurt this by making the lockdown more than obnoxious...and then I came to an interaction I realized only upon rereading that really makes it obscene: hit a bedsheet hit foe with a snake (or a snake hit foe with a bedsheet) and they now have to deal with the fact they cannot attack the snake while the snake can attack them to interrupt or otherwise harm them while they try to get the bedsheet ghosts off. Oh, and the Twosome can grab them to re-apply bedsheet ghosts, can throw more snakes or can spam U-Tilt to keep a steady stream of bedsheets out while the foe desperately tries to avoid it. This is pretty automatic of a playstyle, and arguably was before the ghosts are even introduced, that feels very strong when combined with the Twosome's superheavyweight status and, you know, all of his other moves. Oh, and you can set the bedsheet on fire, for added bonus fun. Strong fire.
Oh, and you can make them not even be able to see what is going on with the smokescreen. You know, in retrospect, this moveset has a lot more lockdown-y stuff than I imagined, whether intentional or not...I bet this would be annoying to fight.
This is not to say the moveset is without it's strong points, as I do quite like the way the dragon is used, with the ability to extend it around and the clumping, while I was never as big on Banbollow as others, is at least interesting. And the moveset does flow, even if the way it flows is actually not that good. And I do still like the rain clouds and thunder clouds, which seem like a cool concept and are executed decently.
Ultimately, I feel the failings of this moveset are that it did not accomplish the goal stated out in the playstyle: to turn the Creepy Coupe into something like a walking trap. The traps feel less like they'd be used as intended and more like more lockdown-ish moves, creating a more automatic and less interesting playstyle, while I found the more interesting moves, such as the dragon and the clouds, to be less related to this goal of self-trapping, although the dragon still can be useful for it.
I went into this looking to still like it and came out dissapointed. I find this a disturbing trend in your sets, such as Kong and Deathborn, in that they don't stand up well to rereads, as if it has ended up more surface than substance. Ultimately, I dislike this set, but I do admire it's bold look into the vechile genre and the attempt at the concept.[/collapse]
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
GRUESOME TWOSOME
Wacky Races is probably my favorite classic cartoon, maybe my favorite cartoon in general. So uh, I squee'd a bit when I saw this. With that out of the way, lets get to the set itself.
One...I think that it's a little to big to really be...viable on smaller stages. Ya know, the ones that most competitive matches take place on. I'm quite fine with the weight, actually, I just feel like the scale could have been condensed. Maybe the width of 1.25 Bowser and as tall as Ganondorf at it's tallest? Not a gigantic change, and this is nitpicking at it's finest, but seriously, that's ****ing huge. Other than that, I like the way the Racers are actually put into the fight, with the continued tweaking of the Beezwax formula to fit the vehicle.
Now to the ACTUAL set. I like the use of the Dragon here, especially the Neutral special, it's a clever use of one of the Twosome's signature tricks. The side special snake coiling is broken as hell, though. Seriously, you can build up like 50% damage in under two seconds if it's timed right, which is horrifying, especially since it'll usually take somewhere in that ballpark to actually do that amount of damage to them. Besides that, I really like the way the snakes are used as protection of both the dragon and replacement wheels, and with the wheels being destructible, you take away some of the incredible OPness of the set. I like the spider web, too, with it able to make some seriously annoying traps that can be moved around with the Dragon's neck and all.
Onto the grab game...I don't see the point of the Forward Throw, it's got about the same use as the Side Special and, besides MAYBE making it easier to wrap a foe with the snake, i probably wouldn't use it often. The back throw I actually really like, as it has a good use: spacing the foe away from you and giving you time to actually do the ridiculous amount of setup necessary. I like the use of the ghost on the down throw, especially considering you can use it in the air, so no complaints there, aside from maybe making them a bit too good at gimping the foe.
I like the dragon's firebreath as a camping tool, leading to the very odd combination of vehicular combat and aerial camping genres, though I'm not complaining. It's certainly got a Banbollow-ish feel to it, this move. As does the F-air, which I actually particularly like if for no other reason for the ridiculous amount of stuff you can do with it, along with the strangely natural interaction with the firebreath. I like the U-Air basically for the purpose of having a move that can finally **** with the foes you probably have caught up in the moving net that is the dragons neck with spider-web. Smokescreen is smokescreen, decent use for it here. The Bair is okay, too.
To the smashes (god, this is a long moveset), the Tornado is a neat little trap for the foes in the air, and a nice juggling tool for the two. I like the strategy with the dragon, especially with all the traps and such that can be put forth with him. I particularly love the rain cloud, so many uses for it it's not even funny. The D-Smash seems a bit unnecessary, not really feeling it flow with the rest of the set apart from arbitrary mind games with the F-Smash.
The tilts are here, and we're at the last move section (seriously, this set is a behemoth). The Jab and F-tilt are fine attacks, I'm actually quite the fan of the F-Tilt and it's mind-gamey approaching ways. The U-Tilt is a rehash of the bedsheets, an unnecessary re-use of the sheets since, as a ground move, takes away a large portion of the usefulness of that throw, particularly the gimping, I don't really like the idea of stacking sheets, especially with the smokescreen. It's a fine interaction/combination, but one that's seriously broken as hell. Down Tilt is a grab. Okay.
I do quite like the set overall, though I wish there were MORE traps (Snakes, Web, Bedsheets...there's not too much in the way of actual traps beyond those three), especially since I like the idea of a kind of movable net filled with traps, and I do quite like the strange amount of aerial focus of the character. Other than that, my one complaint is just how absurdly broken the set itself is, even without all the knowledge of the interactions as a player: If you lose even one stock as the two, you don't deserve to play competitively, thanks to their constant hitbox, absurdly broken snake trap, and ridiculous weight. Sure, you can stop their movement for a little while, but they can just ****ing fly as soon as that happens anyway, and repair it quite easily too. However, I'd like to emphasize I -DO- like the set, especially as a big Wacky Races fan. The reason the comment was so long is because of the length of the set - if I didn't type this out while consciously thinking about it, I would have forgotten so much later. [/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Gruesome Twosome
Unlike the previous two sets, it's hard to say that Gruesome Twosome doesn't catch the reader's attention. It provides a lot of crazy concepts throughout the entire set, like a raincloud trap that can become a very complex nuisance if the foe doesn't climb on the absolutely massive opposing vehicle to destroy it, or a somewhat simplified version of Banbollow's wire with the dragon building up flames in it's neck. Plus you go out of your way to try and make this apparently horrifyingly character beatable, with the ability to deny it it's movement and utterly ridiculous free flight and source of fire. Pretty much every input introduces something new and apparently fun to this character's game, so on that premise I should like it right?
...well I really hate to say it, but no. I think the set ultimately made the mistake of trying to do way too much and ended up screwing itself over, especially in the balance department. The dragon's neck I don't think is so impossibly durable that the foe will never take it down(150HP sounds like a lot, but on a static hurtbox that large it's not going to take long to take out), but moreso it's pretty easy to keep that thing out of the foe's reach until the time is right, then rain down hellfire on them. It's not like the Twosome desperately need the dragon to be working for them at all times, because they have the bedsheets and snakes to keep the foe away. The snakes on their own are pretty much completely obscene with the fact that they probably won't die until they get in a hit on the foe, at which point you can just drop a bed sheet or another snake on them to gradually increase the amount of hell the foe is in until they can no longer do literally anything. And we may as well just add that you have spiderweb set ups to hold the foe still and the sky is fast becoming a storm of fire and tornadoes, and the fact that your opponent is a 40 Weight giant moving hitbox that can fly, and the snakes can repair and protect one of the set's main weaknesses with hilarious ease. I mean, how are wheels that are so easy to defend and replace being destructible a sufficient weakness? I feel a bit bad for not pointing out this balance stuff when I initially previewed it, but it's one of those things that you kind of realize when thinking about it. This set is frankly far more powerful than Garbage Man, as at least Garbage Man had weak points that weren't so bloody easy to defend and didn't dominate the battlefield to the degree the Twosome does.
And for as much as I do appreciate some of the concepts in the set, sometimes it feels awkward as a member of the vehicle genre because it is extremely rare the vehicle mechanics are brought up in set. I mean... you can place traps on yourself to move them around which is basically the point of the set as you say in the playstyle, but what of all the momentum stuff and the character's massive size and solid nature. That stuff just feels like it's all there to serve as a way to make this character even more obscenely broken. I appreciate when you do acknowledge it in the Nair and FSmash, but even in the FSmash it doesn't really flow into the rest of the set to modify your momentum slightly or trip yourself on the water. As for the boss mode since you did bring it up to Froy, it's not that the set is so much bland as a boss moreso that the set was designed to be 1v1, with 3v1 being very clearly an afterthought. And frankly, this character doesn't work in 1v1, nor do it's concepts really flow in 3v1. Which is kind of a shame, because it is pretty loaded with cool stuff that sounds satisfying to play with.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE!"]
GRUESOME TWOSOME = 0 / 10
- -Basic movement and stats are incredibly awkward for a playable entity. Stages like Yoshi's Island would be just impossible.
- -6 seconds of flight on an otherwise immovable object.
- -Snakes to incredible damage while needing amazing commitment to shake off.
- -The spider has no need to ever move around when you can instantly cover 66% of Battlefield in a web that IMMOBILIZES EVERYONE.
- -Webs and snakes and dragons take more time to fight an already mighty thing to try and beat, if it doesn't just fall off and die from trying to move.
- -Grab game is brutal with the ability to extend your grab range like, infinitely with no real downside.
- -For being a car, the dragon + sheer range of most things negate the need of ever like... moving at all.
- -What good is a smokescreen for something that fills 2/3rds of playable space on any given stage?
- -Fsmash is all you need.
- -By this point I feel the set has nothing really redeemable...
While I can assume the intention behind a vehicle based set is good... the implementation is just... why?[/collapse]
---
by n88_2004
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]Ultrin
Ultron's introduction is way cool, n8. No matter what issues the set might have, it certainly sets the mood, a powerful image with a stronge introduction and a well written character explanation. Now then, on to the set.
The set has some quite good bits, I feel, and one of them is the Neutral Special, a move I am quite fond of. It's a spacer, but it is a really cool spacer, with a lot of options defensively and offensively and, combined with his 3v1 nature, seems like it would be great fun to face or use and molds well into Ultron's playstyle and character. To me, it is the high point of the set. I also like a few other things in the set too: the explosion of your drone's can be used interestingly with chain explosions, the grab itself is somewhat interesting, I like the down tilt and I also enjoyed the Dash Attack. And there is nice bits of flow here, with the Side Special and Down Special and the more basic standards and aerials...
...But I feel the flow is the primary issue with the set, as while it does HAVE flow, two areas that desperately need it, the Down Special and Side Special, don't have much that flows well into them, which drags down the set. I would have liked to have seen more uses between synchronised drones or the Side Special overall...though I don't like the Side Special much, as it seems both slightly odd in terms of usage and a bit TOO strong. I also wished the drones exploded a bit earlier (80%?), as 100% seems a bit harsh.
But overall, the set is good, but it's just lacking from being more than just that: good. If it had some more flow, I could easily see this set being much more loved, as it has some pretty good concepts for a boss.[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Ultron
I will say this set started off pretty promising, with the prospect of creating huge quantities of minions that function as copies of Ultron minus the specials, and then the specials bar the recovery are all pretty cool. I particularly like the Side Special, if solely because the prospect of making the foe's perform specific attacks to sow distrust between partners is great in 3v1, as well as making the AIs of your robotic partners programmable. The problem with this set for me though, comes down to 2 things. It's one of those sets where it introduces a lot of cool stuff in the specials and then the standards are just bland and don't really ever play into it. There is some okay stuff with him being able to use the FSmash laser to build up some massive damage and set off drone explosions while piercing through all your enemies, but a lot of the moves don't really serve any actual purpose and don't feel they'd be interesting to use in the context of a large quantity of clones.
Aside from that, the set just had a wide array of things that annoyed me slightly, and they do add up by the end of the set. I know shields aren't that useful on a 3v1 boss... except for the fact the fact that foe's might be preoccupied with your absolutely ludicrous minion army and you'll be engaging them 1v1 every once in a while, at which point a shield would be something Ultron could definently use. Losing access to your shield for another tool is kind of similar to my problem with the otherwise cool Side Special too, in that it's used to both reprogram your drones and also quickly destroy them... but that kind of feels like a waste of drones. I mean, I'm getting them to do what I want so this means I have to kill them? Seems counter intuitive. I guess that does help to balance out how obnoxiously powerful this set is even by 3v1 standards though. I mean this is a character who is creating a clone of his already powerful self with a few nerfs every 4.5 seconds(so in the course of a stock which I would guess would last at least a minute against this guy, you'd have to mow through literally 12+ clones), which for that matter create a massive explosion upon death that will stun the foes and push them into KO range for the main Ultron to easily do the honors. It's stuff that could be number crunched, but what is also scary is against so many opponents Ultron can just disable most of their defensive options. What the heck happened to using actual strategy to make sure your attacks hit?[/collapse]
[collapse="Katapultar"]Been meaning to get around to this guy since I tend to like your more meaningful sets. it's an interesting tribute to Kang to make another powerful 3v1 Marvel villain as the finale of Nateska, and while I was more hoping he'd be a regular 1v1 character like with Dormammu I actually looked up some stuff on the character today via Wikipedia and it seems he's a regular user of the Encephalo Ray and is more cunning than I gave him credit for. Thus, it makes sense why you'd want to give him a 3v1 given it'd be otherwise difficult to represent this character trait.
Beyond the menacing "mind control" and consciousness shifting, Ultron seems a bit unsure of what he's wanting to do, especially since you haven't written a playstyle section yet (though you've shown us you plan to). It's hard enough to make a duplicate function without it getting overly awkward, and it makes sense for Ultron to command his drones, but automatically doing so on each attack feels as though it would break their attacking flow just for your sake when sometimes you wouldn't want that. There's a very easy solution to this however, and that's to pull off an Abra by having the player double-tap the input to make the drones use the same move. The drone's attack would obviously be out-of-sync with Ultron's, but that'd actually be interesting since you could knock one foe into the drone's attack for extra damage or scare other foes. Heck, you could even make it so Ultron can use another input during one of his attacks to make a drone use that, leading to an endless amount of combinations and so you're not just incredibly limited to being forced to make the Jab and N-air or F-tilt and F-air work together with each other (even though they're not actually that forced). I can't be sure whether you planned out the possible interactions with these chain-inputs, yet it's for that reason I'd like to see a playstyle section slapped onto the end of the set.
What mainly appealed to me about this set were the drone interactions, especially the fun F-Smash in which you just shoot through a bunch of them, even if the impending explosion leads to some semi-broken hitstun (hitstun that would look really cool to pull off with a ton of drones, nonetheless). Though Side Special may only come across as being a way to keep foes away from each other, I greatly appreciate it for being atmospheric and portraying an important aspect of Ultron's character that would otherwise never be shown, somewhat similar to Scratch's D-throw - making the foe use an attack of your choice on a drone to have it explode is interesting, yet it also seems unfair given you could just make them use a really laggy attack and exploit it with your fastest attack of which the drone will also use due to synching. Even worse when the effect won't wear off until the foe dies (presumably) so if they're hit by the beam even once they'll have to stay the hell away from a drone, which is pretty hard what with Ultron's Neutral Special. Aside from those few quibbles and the eventual realization that you can have infinite drones onstage, Ultron isn't broken and has a simple enough base moveset, though I'm not too sure what he wants to accomplish with it outside of drone interactions.
I guess you could say I'd like to hear more about your intentions and how the set should play, especially given the plans for a non-boss mode. At least for now the set works, which is good.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE!"]
ULTRON = 7.5 / 10
- +Nspec is a cool tool in tangent with pushing and pulling foes through a group of drones.
- +Side B is a fun way to break up teamwork for a 3v1 set.
- +Drone gameplay in general is very fun to think about with the ability to Sync up. And more fun to imagine the strategy of the team facing him with how to divide the approach between him and the drones.
- +Stats seem well balanced for 3v1 combat.
- +Ability to grab 2 / 3 of the opponents at once.
- +Destroying your own Drones to create explosive hitboxes is very villainous and fun.
- +The throws and smashes are all great fun when combined with the hectic environment he creates.
- Uair and Fair seem a little "big" for just aerial attacks.
- -Synchronizing seems to belittle the ability to program your drones when the range for it to occur means you wont often have them doing their own thing unless you literally hang back and do nothing but stay up with Up B. There also seems to be little incentive to take over a drone with down B...
- -3v1 only, skews balance a bit if you try to imagine him otherwise.
Ultron is a good set that is held back mainly by it's limitation to 3v1, and some hiccups with how you actually go about controlling your Drones. Side B is great vs opponents,but on drones you Synch up anyways. Down B seems kinda weird to use when Ultron Prime is always safer just Synching and attacking himself. Other than that it's groovy.[/collapse]
---
by n88_2004
[collapse="Junahu"]Selene
I don't enjoy having to say this, but Selene left me feeling disappointed past its mid-point. It's a depressing feeling getting halfway through a moveset only to see every move afterward sharply decreasing in length, explanation and passion. You make absolutely no attempt to sell the aerial game as anything other than Brawl aerials that exist to fill inputs. That's not a great way to end a moveset. It doesn't give the reader a lot of drive to understand or piece together what they read (a problem that is compounded when there is no playstyle explanation to help them). You need to put some effort into explaining the utility of even the most basic of attacks. Even if you're in a hurry. Even if you just want to push past those inputs.
There was also the teasing promise of Golems, relegated to the nethers of a Final Smash. Of course, I completely admire your restraint in not making Selene a summoner moveset (as you say, it's not within her character to create minions when there are other ways to win). But those few mentions of the golems almost seem to be baiting the reader to assume that summons would appear and become relevant at some point.
Phew, I really shouldn't dwell on the negative like that. It's not fair.
It was a little tricky for me to piece together the incentives and playstyle that drives Selene, since the vampirism mechanic takes some interesting twists and turns that you neglect to give enough fanfare.
For example, the primary way Selene loses life-force, is through her fastest inputs; her standards and aerials. This makes for an interesting dynamic where using the most reliable and simplest moves (the ones you'd use when in a tight spot) actually weakens Selene, forcing her to play conservatively aggressive whenever she has any life-force to abuse. That's a great way to passively encourage more active and risky play.
There's an obvious wall game here, with Selene being able to dart back and forth between the two sides, sniping the foe with a side smash/Up special, or taking advantage of their clumsy attempt to scale the wall. Having a wall obviously helps land her grabs, while the foe is entirely unable to turn the tables on Selene (due to her ability to just phase through). I would perhaps go as far to say that Selene's walls have no downside to them, and considering their considerable size and Selene's intransience to them, there's nothing really stopping her from putting them everywhere.
It's difficult to point out anything major that I enjoyed about the moveset, not because I didn't enjoy it on any level, but because there's a lot of good little things that coalesce into solid whole. So the rest of this comment will be just some of the little things I liked about the set;
I like how you avoid the problem of her moveset being bottlenecked through her grab-game, by offering a secondary move for grabbing the foe. I like the sensation and impact of slamming the foe into a pillar via her shadow form. I like how physically splitting up a match using pillars as dividers, is a neat and simple way of showing the manipulative side of Selene's character, along with all the various moves that allow her to put space between her and her foe. I like the collage image at the start of the moveset that covers her history as a character, and makes her look self conceited. I like the seperation of her grab and her throws, it really drives home the importance of landing grabs. I like that in bigger matches, Selene can make an opponent into her "slave", via a status that punishes them severely if they attack her.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]Seleno
First off, it gets REALLY annoying every time you say to refer to the image at the top, as I have to keep scrolling up to see what it is.
Secondly, the grab is seperate from the throws. Why? Just...just why?
Thirdly, I don't really like the moveset. While it has the barest bones of a playstyle, it is never expanded beyond the basic essentials, with the basic moves never moving on beyond basic moves to the realm of any kind of real flow or playstyle. The vampirism on the grab doesn't really feel all that great nor taken advantage of all that well, so I can't say I like that, and the Specials feel bad rather than good, with terraforming that is actively bad, a Down Special which I cannot understand using, an Up Special that isn't too great and a Neutral Special that sounds like generic stun or otherwise not that great. And none of it gets much taken advantage of.
What else is there to say?[/collapse]
---
by n88_2004
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]Not Actually A Hugo Set
Seriously, all throughout Koopa Troopa I thought this was a Hugo set because it kept saying "Koopa Troopas".
As for the set, it's very boring, with inputs that are generic but also do not flow, although it does have a neat little idea of putting them on the 3 end of a 3v1 matchup and working together, taking advantage of the Koopa Troopa's classic hiding in a shell to pinball around. Unfortunately, the pinballing is little and underdeveloped, so it never blossoms into something all that great. With the size of the attacks and the fact they are just generic unflow-y ones, there is not really anything else to say. Sorry for the small comment.[/collapse]
---
by Conren
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
ALL HAIL LORD MAGNEMITE
I must admit, at first I really wondered if it was a jokeset or a funny-but-serious moveset. Then I remembered it's April Fools Day and I laughed.
Obviously it's pretty similar to your original Magnemite, who was not that bad to begin with. The magnetic effects look fun to me and solid overall. The minions interactions are not bad either, but some moves are just... weird, like back air. I think I understand the interactions, but it would be useless most of the time; also, wouldn't it be simpler to say "Lord Magnemite can wall-jump on his magnetized walls"?
Of course it's not a potentially Top 50 set, but as an April Fools Day set, I like it.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Magnemite 2: Magnemite Harder
Lord Magnemite, to me, signals a marked improvement over Magnemite, even if it is an April's Fools Day set. So good to see you make another set Conren!
What makes Lord Magnemite a marked improvement from it's predecessor's? A fair deal, I feel: First off is the Specials, which show some nice effort put into them. The Neutral Special is the best example of this: Lock-On in the original Magnemite was a fairly automatic beam, while Lord Magnemite's crosshairs are far less automatic, in addition to the fact that by expanding the magnetization to non-damaged objects you can create tons of more exciting situations. The Down Special is itself not interesting, but the fact it summons basically a full moveset in Magnemite and he can have two is interesting...plus, I don't think any moveset has considered footstooling off minions for a recovery boost, which I like. Magnet Bomb and Magnet Shield are also improved in their own ways. And Down tilt, while underdetailed for the sake of comedy, does seem to show off inklings of thinking about cool moves and some nice description of the animation is good.
Downsides to the set? The joke about underdetailing leaves the set underdetailed of course and the flow is sparse, though there and moreso than Magnemite, and there are of course some moves I dislike, like BAir...but then again, BAir is meant to be a joke. Really, one could argue a fair deal of what I dislike is a consequence of it being an April Fools set, with the other being flow and the like.
So, ultimately, I felt it was an improvement...but you'll notice it I put it at a 5. The reason for that is reading this and seeing the changes you made to Magnemite makes me feel I probably should have put Magnemite at 5 last contest, so Lord Magnemite will be a high five, which would be a higher five than Magnemite! Continuity mantained.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE!"]
LORD MAGNEMITE = 5 / 10
- +Hilarious.
- +Specials set the stage for the playstyle nicely and work very well with each other. Magnetize with Polarity mechanics is brilliant.
- +Ftilt is a cool target to use magnetize with.
- Down tilt has no function if there aren't minions?
- Dair has no function if there arent minions?
- Many attacks under detailed.
- More could be done with minions aside from a few moves here and there, esp when said moves only seem to function with them out?
- -Mirrored Nair and Jab, that both are projectile standards... (pet peeve)
- -Up Air is a pseudo recovery instead of an attack? Why would he need this if he flies?
- -Many moves are overpowered in % and KB for their ability to zero-in on targets.
L.M is a fun set to read, and while he has some great special moves to work with, I feel the rest of the set doesn't take as much advantage of it as he could have. Bonus points for the hilarity tho.[/collapse]
---
by Getocoolaid
[collapse="Junahu"]
Shadow The Hedgehog
There's a sort of concomitant attack-flow going on here that's easy to grasp, incidental to the business of explaining the moves, but there all the same. I find this sort of thing more rewarding than movesets that explain their playstyles and interactions in patronising detail. Of course, you do still need to work on writing playstyle sections that don't bury the best parts of the sets they're trying to sell. The way you write it, Shadow's aerials don't exist and he has no business being up in the air. [Geto has since editted the playstyle section]
And there is MUCH in the way of setting up for extended aerial play. Chaos snap slots in well with Shadow's aerials, giving him innate control over the flow of battle in mid-air and opening the potential for follow ups and feints that no other character would be capable of. In the end, that's what makes this moveset uniquely rewarding to play as.
Giving him a chargeable attack as his main KO option is a particularly slick choice, as it forces him to find time for himself, making him shun others, or set-up specfically to buy enough alone time to charge the attack. I like what that says about Shadow as a character, and I approve of giving the player the option to enact such behaviour.
I worry that the moveset's mission of giving Shadow his own identity forces him to do some strange things. But then again, I'm one of the few folks who enjoyed Sonic's predisposition to curling into a ball for every attack, so I'd naturally be put-off by a hedgehog spewing set-up and projectile hell.
- A Backstory biography rarely ever helps the reader enjoy a character, and this rings especially true for Shadow. "I wish Shadow had more plot" said no-one ever.
- As a general rule, chargable moves such as Samus' Neutral B and ROB's Down B, aren't charged by holding the button, but rather by tapping it and then by either rolling left/right to store the charge, or by pressing B again to use it. Attacks that use hold inputs, such as Diddy Kong's Neutral B, are fired when the button is released.
- Chaos Control is numerically rediculous; a 3 SBU diameter space that slows everything (but himself) down to 1/10 of its normal speed.. that lasts for 15 whole seconds. Even if Shadow couldn't create three of these things this would be broken, and intrinsically infuriating to play against. Coupled with the throws which are themselves perfect set-ups (and having Sonic's Speed, grabs aren't exactly going to be super hard to land), Shadow sounds obscenely unbalanced.
- Super Shadow still has his inhibitor rings. Don't have your cake and eat it too[/collapse]
[collapse="darth_meanie"]
Original The Character
Shadow is a moveset that is deceptively simple, but actually quite enjoyable. Combo characters are difficult to make enjoyable, and in a way harder when it is a Sonic character at that. I have to start my comment unfortunately with the observation that Chaos Control is terrifyingly, obscenely strong. 20% speed is slower than players behave when affected by a timer item, and he can put three of these areas down? They last for ten seconds? And on top of that the 'nerf' that they have is low knockback that makes it even harder to escape? That's too good by any measurement, and the problem is more pervasive than just a couple of lower numbers. The move should either last so briefly that an opponent inside it can't be completely demolished by it, or take long enough to start ip that Shadow can't easily get opponents into it. As Junahu mentioned, he's already tied with Sonic for speed, he doesn't exactly struggle with maneuvering and punishing anyways.
Now I can move on to the part that I really do enjoy, the combo and projectile game. Having the fastest character also have the slowest projectile allows for some crazy maneuvers and possibilities, especially with the hitstun the moves have. I do think that having unlimited out is too much though, especially since he can outrun other players and throw them out all over the stage, then rush in for attacks. Heck, the projectiles are also too slow... Ganon walk speed is slow enough that players who spot dodge will still be caught in the move.
The way it all interacts with mobility and his combo options is what makes it so cool. Up special cancelling into smashes was a brilliant move, and gives him a very unique feel, using charging moves while quickly moving into range. It's very fun to imagine, and funner still, I would think, to play. Warping around with a forward smash or down special for a KO feels challenging yet rewarding. You do a good job of limiting the power of his standards whilr still feelinf like powerful, useful moves, which is especially apparent with the air game. His throw game is a bit strong in the context of chaos control, his forward throw inexcusably so (throw into chaos control, receive five seconds of free attack time!) I really feel that the move is so strong it undermines the far more interesting premise of feints and stun as you try to pull out one of your limited kill moves. If you work in a solution to some of these balance issues, I'd really like this set, but for now its merely my favorite out of all that have been posted so far.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
All Hail Shadow
I actually didn't mind the introduction, but I can see why others would.
I didn't think of it when you previewed it to me, but Junahu is right, charging moves like that are usually not held. Oh well.
The combination of Chaos Spear and Chaos Control, to me, forms the crux of the set. Shadow can create zones of Chaos Control and launch Chaos Spears at foes near them or into them, causing them to slow to a crawl and become almost like slowly moving traps, before using their properties of high hitstun and low knockback inside the zone to really put the hurt on foe in a somewhat combo manner, but because of the way it is set up DI is still in play and Shadow has little in the way of "true" combos. Chaos Punish is a good way to add onto this with it's different projectile properties that non-the-less work well with the Spear. He can even use Chaos Snap to teleport himself around for excellent chasing and escaping!
The problems with my set boil down to the fact it's flow seems small, as neither the projectile game or melee-combo game seem particularly developed, the latter in particular seeming a bit small despite there being on enough moves it wouldn't have to be, some numer crunching issues (Shadow's attacks are largely very weak, with the exception of the Smashes being fine, Chaos Control should slow less), and a fair few moves I just don't like: Up Throw should deal at least a little damage, Forward Throw stunning for a second is very annoying on a throw and I feel like you could have done much better than a drag down Up Aerial (even a random flipkick!). The fact that the Spear/Control combo isn't mentioned in the playstyle section is dissapointing. It is a nice looking set at least, even if it is not great.
So overall, I like the concepts presented here, but they simply did not flesh out well and mold together into something more than a set with some interesting ideas. A decent first set this contest, Geto![/collapse]
[collapse="Katapultar"]I meant to comment this set shortly after it was posted, but I got caught up in starting my own (which is good in a way since I see the set has been edited since then). Cutting to the chase, the first thing I'd like to address is how unrealistically slow a Chaos Spear moves. It feels very forced just to cash in on the potential exploitations when surrounding evidence would say otherwise; when one thinks "arrow" and "shooting forward" they usually think of high-speed, and furthermore a Chaos Spear actually travels fast in the games. You have Chaos Control if you want slower projectiles anyway, whereby in its current state a Chaos Spear might as well be static (it may as well move quickly when you have a way to slow projectiles in the first place). I just really don't like how the slowness of a Chaos Spear conflicts with the high-speed feel a Sonic/Shadow set should invoke.
From there the set spreads out various physical and magicy attacks for Shadow, somewhat leaning towards the latter (his 3-hit combo attack from Shadow the Hedgehog would have also been welcome as his jab). I was a little unsure of what to think in regards to this, but upon taking another look I realized you included some of Shadow's more iconic stuff in the aerials, the Homing Attack in the N-air, kung-fu for F-air and slide attack for Dash Attack. I can honestly say Chaos Snap is an absolutely perfect recovery and move for Shadow since it brings back memories of the StH's Opening Cutscene and lets him choose whether he wants to fight up-close or from afar. I just wish Chaos Spear could be used as a quick projectile to pelt enemies with on demand and just have Chaos Control stop projectiles inside it so you can fire em all out at once in a cool fashion, serving the same purpose they do in the set's current state. Sure you have Homing Attack and high ground speed to reach the opponent, but it'd feel nice to have a spammy projectile. The projectile-stopping could even serve to balance enemies being slowed inside or to temporarily counter their projectiles, as well as helping with the U-Smash as you suck in a ton of projectiles coming your way.
Overall I'd say Shadow's a decent set in my books if one that could use some improvement - it certainly wouldn't take much to get me to like it even more, though we can't be sure if the changes would please others like DM so don't mind me. Also the basketball image at the bottom of the set is pure WIN.[/collapse]
[collapse="n88_2004"]
Shadow, like others have pointed out, certainly isn't short on compelling ideas. Slow-moving projectiles are always interesting, and time-slows are something we don't see all that much of (I think. That didn't become a thing while I was on semi-hiatus, did it?). Shadow feels like he'd be a lot of fun to play around with, particularly in terms of his Specials and Smashes. On the other hand, he doesn't feel very much like Sonic. I'm not a Sonic buff by any means, but I feel like he has more in common with the Blue Blur than you make use of here. I feel like Shadow would also benefit from being able to shake up the speed on his Chaos Spears and get a fast-moving variant, or have some other form of fast-moving projectile that's less limited than his UTilt and FTilt ones. Also, (Joe or somebody jump in and correct me if I'm wrong) as I recall, there is no difference in power between an uncharged and a partially charged Smash, so it doesn't really matter that Shadow can partially charge his Smashes during his teleport.
Anyway, I do like the set overall. It's not my favorite of the contest, but it has some great ideas, and is pretty darn fun to imagine in action. Good work.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE!"]
SHADOW = 6 / 10
- +Chaos control is handled well for it's effect, allowing Shadow to combo but not necessarily KO.
- +Having a super slow projectile on such a fast character is a great concept.
- +Up B's interaction with smash charge is a great mind game.
- +Cool throws, even if Uthrow might be better going a tad shorter distance? It's fine as-is tho.
- Ftilt feels like it should be a "Smash" version of Side B
- Usmash is kind of awkward in how it sucks up energy projectiles....
- Dsmash seems a tad too powerful in versatility when his mobility derives from Up b and general speed, unlike Sonic who's specials come together to make him extremely mobile.
- Fsmash and Down B feel like they have too much range, even if you have to charge them. Smart Bomb radius can be about the playable surface of Battlefield when positioned right.
- -*Shadow* having a Drag-down uair.... called Drag Down. Also, Fair does pitiful damage for the amount of hits.
- -Nair borders on being a special... perhaps if it always had like a 1SBU range and didn't decay, meaning you have to stick close-ish still but making it not as powerful as Sonic's Homing Attack?
Shadow feels almost right as a Sonic off-shoot, as he should be, and is in general characterized very well. His downfall comes with a few awkward inputs here and there where it feels like you tried to incorporate Special moves where they shouldn't be as "special", and a few questionable points of balance.[/collapse]
---
by FalKoopa
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Hammer Orphan
Welcome to MYM! Glad to see you've already got a set out this early, FatKoopa!
Something you can always consider while making a set is if it makes sense for the character. For example, the Down Special: Why is this Hammer Bro able to bulk up into a Sledge Bro? Does it make sense for Hammer Bro to do so? And if so, perhaps instead of being for a single move, it could be for more: Maybe he could be like Zelda/Sheik or change his stats by switching between Sledge Bro and Hammer Bro, for example. And the Down Smash: Does it make sense for Hammer Bro to be able to stomp the ground to send out waves of fire? Personally, I do not think so.
The playstyle here is sparse, but his types of hammer throwing could be used to start a basis of one, and the flow is even more sparse, as there is little in the way of overarching gameplans being worked into. When making a set, try considering the ways you could make the character work towards a goal or have moves work well together: For example, maybe Hammer Bro throws a hammer really high up (or multiple hammers), so he gets a chance to swoop in and try to hit the foe while they have to worry about the hammer dropping.
Not as good of a newcomer set as Jinbe, but certainly not the worst I've seen. I hope you'll post more sets, FatKoopa![/collapse]
[collapse="Junahu"]I think everyone has vivid memories about tackling these menaces as a child. You can never just keep running and jump over a hammer bro, you always have to stop and assess the situation. Personally, I always feared that a Hammer Bro would decide to jump just as I make my move, intercepting me in midair and killing me.
The Hammer Bro is really the only classic Mario bros enemy to create that sort of terrifying tension.
As far as I can tell, you seem to have a good moveset going here. Littering the sky with hammers, and being a really scrappy foe in close-quarters, it's the kind of character who forces opponents to space themselves effectively and punishes anyone who fails to do so. There's a neat twist in that you're encouraged to do everything you can to make your hammers hit the opponent, even in situations where it would be more efficient to simply throw another hammer.
Basically, your moveset makes players obsess over their hammers, which is a cool way of making the player 'feel' like a hammer bro. I love that.
I personally found his Down special to be pretty cool too. He fattens up and performs a stomp, which is a nice little reference to not only the Sledge Bro, but also to Bowser himself. But I do wish the Hammer Bro would remain fat afterwards for a little while, increasing his weight and fallspeed or something. Having him bulk up and then immediately revert back to normal after the attack is a little too abrupt for me.
The Up Special is neat. But with it encouraging the player to get the high ground and keep the foe on the floor, there's not much he can actually do there. He seems a lot more comfortable when he's below the opponent, when the Hammer Bros in the games are a threat no matter which height they're at. I wish there was a balanced way to make this platform more permanent, so the Hammer Bro could actually use it.
I'd reccommend giving Up-Smash excellent vertical range, instead of "low range". And I'd like to see his Down Smash sending fire dropping through fallthrough platforms. Speaking of the Down Smash, the animation is a little awkward. Considering how lean the Hammer Bro is, it sounds odd how he could send flaming shockwaves by stomping with only one foot.
I think Hammer Bro needs aerials that are good for punishing and juggling. None of the aerials you have seem all that powerful, and having a stall-then-fall for the Down Air is a bit redundant when you have a similar move for the Down Special.[/collapse]
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
Hammer Bro
So, Hammer Bro! Welcome to MYM FatKoopa, we're happy to have you. For starters, a descriptive stats section is totally fine! If you ever want to use numbers, there's a link in the OP comparing all of the different stats and such of the actual Brawl Characters to one another.
Starting off with the specials, the side special is a good move to get the feel of the Hammer Bro down immediately, though to be totally honest I feel like this move and the Neutral Special could have been combined into one attack. As you have the down special already a shout-out to the Sledge Bro, why not have the side special be the Boomarang bro, or something of that nature? Two very similar moves on the specials is usually not too great, but it certainly feels "Hammer Bro.The Up Special is great, it's good outside the box thinking on your part, I just wish it was explained a bit better, as now it's fairly confusing. Good set of specials, though!
Standards are fairly generic directional attacks, as are the smashes, aerials, and throws. What's interesting here is not in those attacks, it's in the specials, particularly the Neutral and Up. When you think to write a character, it helps to envision what the character does and what kind of Playstyle they would have, then building the moveset around that, instead of making the attacks and piecing a playstyle from that. There is a lot of potential for you, definitely: you've got creativity and a good knowledge of this character. Another thing I would suggest is proofreading through your moveset before it's posted: a good spellcheck will do wonders. Overall, though, valiant first effort, and I look forward to see you improve in the future![/collapse]
[collapse="JOE!"]
HAMMER BRO. = 6 / 10
- +Up B is a very creative means of recovery and stage alteration.
- +Nspec is an interesting projectile, getting stronger the more it hits. Does the cycle re-set after the 4th or do you just keep throwing 13% ones?
- +Side Smash is a nice use of the smash-charge concept, becoming a different move when (near) max charge.
- +Grabbing foes with the Hammer's hook, Using the hammer as part of a spinning-shell Dash Attack, and throwing the foe like his hammer are all very creative.
- Dair's ability to be cancelled, while cool, seems like it could be part of Down B? Especially seeing as he randomly bulks up as referance to the "big hammer bro" without staying as it...
- Fspec seems redundant with Nspec.
- Throws are very under-detailed compared to the rest of the set.
- While the natural shell-protection is neat, it's also just kinda "there". Does he gain Super Armor when fully shelled?
- -Moves are a bit on the stale side considering the array of tools hammer bros have been known to use, and doesn't work with the fact he can turn into a Bulky Bro. at all outside of 1 move.
- -On the flip side, Dsmash is very awkward as he creates fire, but unlike any way even Fire Bros do.
Hammer Bro. pleasantly surprised me to say the least. He has a solid foundation, but with untapped potential given how you -do- touch on the other Bro abilities such as Fire and Size, even wooden hammer but don't really go anywhere with them and opt for very simple moves. He would definitely benefit from some TLC in the creativity department and possibly altering some inputs here and there, but for what it's worth you did a great job considering the character.[/collapse]
---
by LycorisalKnight
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Axel the Dork Hero
Haven't seen you around, but n8 says you've been 'ere before, so welcome (back) to (Corneria) MYM!
Anyway, as for the moveset...you certainly seem to like the character and that shows in the moveset, given mentions of Axel's awesomeness of awesomniscity. That's good! Movesets for people you like is good.
Unfortunately, the moveset is not too good. Side Special seems very awkward...I imagine it is a game reference of some kind, but the fact that it looks and feels really awkward does not help, and it seems like it'd mess with characterization (Why is Ganondorf taking a stunt fall for this guy?). Invisible Laser is fine, at least, references an amusing moment. There's a fair deal of other moves I do not enjoy, such as the F-Smash (Why does it make Stunt Punch stronger?), D-Throw, and to an extent D-Smash. And I get what you were going for with the grab, but it just...feels really bad, I am sorry to say, it doesn't work all that well with his game and sounds kind of OP.
One thing I do like, though, is the Down Special, which offers a variety of attacking options and does so in quite an interesting manner. I wish the moveset took more advantage of it, though, which it...doesn't. The NSpec is also a pretty decent minion. My recommendation? Read, write more, and think about how the moves work together: Why do these throws do anything for Axel, how does he use the air game compared to everything else (DAir actually felt good about this!) and so on. In short, add in more flow to a gameplan, and to an extent add more of a gameplan. Well...that and think about how your effects work on the foe more, I suppose, given stuff like the SSpec that feels weird as a move and on characters.
So yeah, some might like this, but I...I don't.[/collapse]
[collapse="Katapultar"]I got so excited when I saw a set for Axel, since Disgaea is my favorite video game franchise ever and Axel being such a badass. He was one my favorite characters and one I considered making a set for.
I don't really approve of Axel using Ze Flute to make people walk away from him, partially because it seems forced on the opponent and is a bit out-of-character for Axel to want to shoo people away (he's a celebrity, he should enjoy having people around him!). I do very much approve of Axel using minions, because as mentioned in Axel Mode it's Dark Hero-like to get others to do your work for you while you sit back (the hypnosis would get in the way of players wanting to summon a demon). The Rifle Demon is pretty fun in itself, and I enjoy the idea of it being able to go berserk and go against Axel, creating chaos and all. Also, Invisible Laser is win and a very fitting recovery for Axel's butt-monkey nature, though for visual indication it'd be cool if Axel called out "Invisible Laser!" when he's struck - I'd seriously love to spam the hell out of a recovery you can use repetitively at the cost of killing yourself. Down Special would be a very fun move, not just because it replaces the music with Axel's Theme but also the interesting depth within that'd be fun to mess around with, and it's effectiveness against a whole bunch of enemies around Axel.
The rest of the set shows some nice promise, with a hilarious slap that has some nice flow with the Rifle Demon or just plain messing with opponents. I do have some problems with the overall flow, though, which is a shame because there are some pretty cool ideas that mesh with Axel's character and mannerisms but don't mesh together that well. I get you can use the Rifle Demon as a turret while you approach the enemy and attack them or grab the enemy and hold them for a shot, but there's little purpose to moving away from the enemy given Axel has no projectiles and really that'll just leave the Demon ripe to go berserk. The urge to get in an enemy's face to attack them to prevent them from making your minion go berserk actually feels incredibly fitting for Axel, though in this case I guess it just kinda feels a bit redundant if you're just stunning the opponent in place to be shot by the same mediocre projectile over and over. In this case it might be nice if you had more control over the Rifle Demon, such as being able to use B to make it charge up a powerful shot when it's out and so on. Even some grab interactions or being able to deliberately provoke the Rifle Demon with your normal attacks would be fun (I can understand why you wouldn't be able to use it as a hostage, but still...), or maybe a projectile you could use while hiding behind it such as Axel playing his guitar to summon a lightning bolt ahead of him (somewhat like his Love Dynamite attack in the games). It could replace the awkward Side Special.
Overall I'll say you actually captured the spirit of the Dark Hero quite nicely and showed some great promise, using minions and dirty tricks I didn't think of, though there could be more to the Rifle Demon when it's the main threat in the set. Just giving the Rifle Demon more attention could make me like this set a fair bit.[/collapse]
[collapse="Junahu"]Right from the get-go I was bowled over by the enthusiasm you have for the Dark Hero. There hasn't been a moveset that starts with "This character is awesome" in a long time. It helps that the presentation of the moveset itself looks pleasingly crisp. It's clear you put a good deal of thought into Axel.
And that enthusiasm translates very well into a moveset that honestly sounds like it'd be really fun to play. There are plenty of attacks that feel satisfying to use, or just simply sound cool in some way.
Stunt Punch, beyond being an awesome move in its own right, feels like it actively wants you to use it on your Rifle Demon. Since it's not doing damage, the Rifle Demon won't get mad, and the explosion is a free shot at a KO against the opponent. I see both FrozenRoy and Katapultar are recommending you drop Stunt Punch and replace it with something else, but I sincerely hope you don't. It's just so well pitched and vital to the way Axel treats matches, that I worry that any replacement move would be woefully inadequate.
Axel's guitar playing is another thoroughly fun part of the moveset, with all kinds of branches and options that are entertaining to use, regardless of whether or not you even hit anything. I would totally begin jamming away, then spin the guitar above my head with Up-Tilt, before jumping up and slamming the guitar on the ground with Down-Air. I kind of wish there were even more moves that used the guitar, just so I'd have more moves to showboat with.
If I had a complaint, it would be that the moveset doesn't quite bring across its full potential. There's a lot of stuff that would be fun to use together (using Grab on your Rifle Demon for example) that you either didn't realise, or neglected to write down. For some moves, I had trouble envisioning what they would be useful for (e.g. the Pummel).
The Playstyle section in particular felt like you were having trouble expressing what the moveset was ultimately about.
This is something you'll find yourself getting better at naturally through practice, so I hope you keep making movesets.
And I see what you did there with that D-Tilt's name. "Tripping with Axel" indeed[/collapse]
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
AXEL the Dark Hero
So, Axel. I love how much you love this character, makes for an entertaining read all the way through!
I like the Rifle Demon as a summon, kind of a mobile turret-type deal that Axel can reposition at will, though has other tricks up its sleeve and is dangerous to attack. Too cool. I also like the Side special, and the implications that, maaybe you can use with your Demon as an explosion. Good way to work off of that summon! The Up Special I don't like because it damages hi waaaaaaaay too much.The Down Special is way too much fun for it's own good.
The rest of the set plays off of the guitar and demon pretty well. My only complaint is that the demon is about all Axel has to play off of with the S-special. I wish maybe you could summon maybe an obsessive fan and abuse them with some of the attacks, fits Axel's abusive ******* personality that's present throughout the set. I quite like Axel, can't wait to see what you do next!
Ant Hill Mob and Marin to come next![/collapse]
[collapse="JOE!"]
AXEL = 8.5 / 10
- +You made tripping interesting as a damn pratfall mechanic.
- +Interesting summon in that it's more like an on-demand Assist Trophy more than just a minion, and Axel can choose to let it do it's thing or go on a rampage, even act as cover while "charging" down B, Usmash or the like.
- +The characterization is stellar, as somebody who doesn't even know the series he's from I get a clear picture of who he is. Speaking of, the use of the Guitar is probably one of the cooler/well done uses of "music attacks" I've read recently.
- +Side B has a very unique effect in how it's mainly an attack using an enemy vs other enemies. An excellent doubles technique.
- +Each move had it's own quirk to it but didn't feel "overly creative". A favorite of mine is the Back Air with the delayed hit.
- +Excellent Smash Attacks, and a unique Usmash the likes of which hasn't been seen since Salamence...
- +The guitar-playing acting as a stance and changing his moveset's properties was a fun move
- +The final smash is funnier the more you think about it. Given his moveset, having tons of Axels on stage with an invincible original allows him to really rock out while the others cause mayhem with his palette of enemy-screwing moves, and the Original's wide area attacks he'd be free to use.
- There seems to be a bunch of little details missing here and there, such as when Usmash is charged: how much is he buffed? Or when Uair is used via Down B, how much stronger is it (for example, it went from killing at 300% to 130%)?
- -Up B seems to come right the hell out of nowhere, and even given his magical properties just seems... weird. If there is explanation for this then it'd be cool but... yeah.
The newcomers keep rolling in, and this set is rockin' to a new kind of beat! Axel didn't seem to get much of a star-studded reception when first posted, but since I've read it I've been stunned at the conglomeration of ideas presented in a rather grounded manner. When the only complaints I have are "not getting" the Up B and some missing details, then you really got something special.[/collapse]
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by Big Mac
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
The Ant Hill Mob
I love Wacky Races, but I don't really like the Ant Hill Mob. However, I'm not a ****, so I decided to read the set anyway. And Holy Cow does I like it!
The Down B is really an high-risk high-reward move: while having gangsters around is very important and crucial for victory, it's also pretty dangerous, so of course, it must be rewarding. And with it's crazy normals and smashes, they can easily flood the stage with cement, blowtorches, cemented blowtorches,
blowtorched cement and cemented crowbars, making the fight a kind of... turret hell? Once the turrets are set, the mob can just go back to the car, or stay on stage, safely protected by cement walls and flames. While the terraforming and the stances are not as needed as the other moves, they still are very nice features. While I was a bit tired by the end of the moveset (blame my lack of sleep), the aerials and grabs looked cool too ("Let's kidnap that big turtle, shmucks!").
It already is one of my favorite movesets, and you can be sure I'm gonna vote for you.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Cement Comment
Ant Hill Mob is a pretty cool moveset and I feel a good deal better than the Twosome. The more Hugo-esque elements of the Mob are used fairly well, trying to avoid taking over the moveset while still presenting a wide variety of options, with things like the bomb and blowtorch taken fairly well advantage of. The moveset is quite silly, but it's a Wacky Races set, it should have some silly! So that is quite good.
Moves like the Jab show a good grasp of vehicular movesets and how to work with them, the cement is...okay, but it does feel like it'd mess with a lot of characters, and I still dislike D-Throw's messing with foot attacks: it seems situational, as most characters would just not care much about it, while those that do are likely semi-crippled by it, and if it is for logical reasons...well, to me, it seems more logical for them to just be able to use feet attacks with a giant piece of concrete helping than to not be able to use them at all. I also feel like the Up Smash stilts could have been better taken advantage of with the set aside from just sticking stuff to the underside.
Still, what is around, such as the various good bomb and blowtorch tricks (mob turrets!) and the fairly flowing nature of the mobster's uses pushes it up to a good level. I do wish some of the worse stuff like the cement had been changed and somehow I feel like there could have been more: The stilts could have had more flow, for example. But still, it is quite enjoyable, and worth a read.[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Ant Hill Mob
Obviously, this set is going to alienate some people from the start on the basis that it's a sort of vehicle Hugo set, and yes smashing 2 of the more unsmash genres together produces a result that is definently not easy to balance. In that regard though, I don't think this set is actually that bad though. Sure it's definitely on the very powerful side, but the AI control on the minions, the amount of time their set up takes and the required positioning to do anything especially ridiculous makes me think that the set would require a lot of skill to play well, and even then a smart opponent can fight back perfectly well against this set.
The actual concepts here are very good too, with the way the player has to conserve gangsters between creating fancy set ups and comboing the foe and defending the vehicle/providing it mobility options. The cement in particular is a highlight, ignoring the somewhat awkward interactions with people's feet, the constructs on the car make the prospect of camping with the gangsters a lot more interesting, and for that matter so is sticking blowtorches to the car or burying bombs. The sheer variety in their set ups and the fact that you can just abuse their status as a vehicle set in dozens of fun ways too makes the set feel very open ended too. It's not perfect, I feel the flow between the parts that use the nature of the vehicle and the set ups on the vehicle isn't all that strong, the way you set up the stage construction makes me believe it'd be frustrating to actually pull off in a match, and with how some inputs feel like they really have to be made unique in an awkward way I wonder if the set is too unsmash for it's own good, since it requires such bizarre functions for some inputs. Still, these aren't too big of problems, and the good aspects are strong enough to make it my favorite set thus far.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE!"]
ANT HILL MOB = 3.5 / 10
- -Car mechanics will always be crappy for actual gameplay of Smash. Any small stage or uneven terrain makes the set pretty much crap-tier if it were playable as you could always take it to like, just even Battlefield and the slightest pushes and movement will send it off the edges constantly.
- +Car Mechanics aside, the specials this time around are actually pretty fun.
- +Implementation of Double-Tapped moves is cool.
- Ftilt's whole mechanic seems unnecessary when you could just hit them with a crowbar over and over reliably, with Gangsters having the needle-guns on command with the option to smash people with crowbars when close. And Dair is the very definition of a situational move.
- Can you attack the car from all sides? It often appears as if you can only take it on from head-on...
- The set is a chore to read with every move being multiple paragraphs of text, I mean dayum.
- -A lot of the trapping moves and HP's are wicked high considering what the car can do to abuse them.
- -Is there no way to flip back over after Nair? Car mechanics aside this seems unfairly harsh seeing as you then lack a conventional jumping method unless you can then Up B while upside down?
- Many moves are outright "specials", with Side Smash pretty much being a set in of itself that would require so much mastery of a character that can barely even play on standard non-fd stages. It feels like every move is a mini-mechanic of it's own gone too far at times and works to make the car barely have any sort of interactivity for enemies to actually fight it.
- On top of this, many moves are just flat out OP, such as Dtilt's FOREVER hitbox and Backthrow with cement. If timed right with a foe under your SOLID bottom, you could just be as homo as possible and stall like a ****.[/collapse]
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by UserShaddow7989
[collapse="darth_meanie"]
Marin
I read this set a bit ago, but I still hadn't gotten around to commenting it, which makes me feel bad, because I love you UserShadow and you made a set! Anyways, I have to begin the set with the base mechanic of course, which I really like a great deal. Taking defense and putting it on the field for both players to work around in the form of these fragile bubbles is clever, and it gives her a barrier she can work effectively with. It's one of the most original, interesting to build off of concepts I can think of in recent memory. Kudos, I really, really like it.
Unfortunately, that really is where most of the praise ends, as Marin falls into the easy pitfalls such a mechanic opens up. The bubbles are fascinating as written. There's no need to continue to manipulate the bubbles themselves in the set, but you pile on a bunch of different modified bubbles into different moves and tilts and ways to combine bubbles or move them around... when that's really not what they were designed to do in the first place. They worked well as a barrier, turning them into general use ammunition wasn't a good move. It's all sort of awkward as well, with each mechanic not clearly evident towards its input, and not clearly fitting into the playstyle either. Bubbles are meant to be a defense at first, but then the Gust Bubble has you scattering them all so they become ineffectual. More options are only good when they give you more interesting decisions to make, not when they dilute the playstyle or make your choices too easy.
You avoid the common mistake of making moves that are only useful for manipulating mechanics rather than attacking, but you replaced it with an equally upsetting vice. Her actual attacks all feel hopelessly generic, a simple damage percent and vague motion of a wand that is brushed aside quickly to get to the meat of all the interactions you've weighed yourself down with. The jab and down tilt tease me with thoughts about how Marin is actually using her moves to get into combat, but I'm left sort of feeling like they just fill the spot rather than actually build off of how she should behave. It's all very reactionary at best.
Having her moves' special functions activate on whiff contributes to this sort of bloated feeling in the set, as if each move is actually two different moves, one for hitting and one for general 'manipulation', which combined with all her other extra moves you've supplied, bubble grabs, parry attacks, and shield specials makes the set just plain unnecessarily long. The parry moves really, quite simply, are no better than what her regular options in such a scenario would be, and would fit much better as follow-ups from a special than an extra two inputs that are out of place from any other character (self: jot that down for future reference actually). The shield specials though are the most unforgivable, and are where any balance quibbles I had with the set earlier become irrelevant due to the complete game-breaker you've laid down.
It's been a tendency I've occasionally seen in many sets, even great sets like Zant back from MYM6 or your old Houndoom set that I still look back at as an exemplary rushdown / pressure moveset, that you can introduce a concept in a special and then introduce standards later that completely usurp it at what it does. I dislike moves like Marin's dash attack (and dislike backwards / run away dash attacks in general; is Brawl not campy enough already?) where a concept that should be sovereign territory of the specials spills over into another move. THe shield specials here are the most offensive part of the entire set, and throw any notion of balance out the window entirely. The ability to shield while performing a special move alone is mindbogglingly good. Shield pressure is very difficult to pull off if your name isn't Meta Knight or Peach, and a quick breather is all you need to recover a damaged shield to full usefulness again. Marin is already specialized at defense without using a shield, so making her specials while shielding stronger on top of that is just absurd. The worst offender without a doubt though would have to be the Shield Down Special. How is being able to set up a 30% complete barrier to damage, that you can recharge, while your shield is up, possibly, even remotely balanced? Even a mediocre player has no excuse to ever, ever take damage again with this move at their disposal.
I realize this comment has started to turn into a review with an eye towards the negative, but a fair amount of my harshness comes from disappointment because of how much I liked to core idea itself. I really want to like Marin, but the set ends up choking on overcomplicating itself rather than simply playing to the strengths of the concepts from the beginning. For me, I read the set, and see each move trying to compete for attention and show off how cool its idea is and how it feeds into the mechanics, and the end result is that the playstyle is muddled by all these ideas that are more designed to look good when first read rather than work in unison towards the core idea you begin the set with. The core ideas in the playstyle are good, but I feel like more focus on her immediate goals in a match would have brought the set more to life. Put the opponent in the air? Where do you want them? What moves should they be afraid of the most? Where can you put your most dangerous hitboxes, and how do you change battle plans when you're aiming for a kill? It's important to answer these questions as well.
As one final statement, I really wish you made more character out of her than she currently has. Marin is very much a vehicle for an idea, not a personality. You mention occasionally her franticness, but its not thorough. An OC like this deserves a quote, dialogue, something to make me like the character too. Besides, personality can be just as big an element of making playstyle as ability is.[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Marin
I have to disagree with DM on this set, in that I don't feel the execution past the base is necessarily a bad thing. Admittedly, the Shield Specials feel a bit overpowered in some regards and the Down Special in particular needs to be toned down, but to some degree I can excuse that on the basis that the set HAD to have such a mechanic for the sake of the mini it was made for. At any rate, the idea is perfectly interesting, giving Marin a sort of constant defensive measure she can use for both offense and defensive purposes. Given the fact that she can't exactly use the magnetic bubbles to a degree of ridiculous efficiency without proper set up too, this set doesn't play at all like a standard camper, she actually does have to go close range with the foe and utilize her defensive bubbles against them to protect herself while she gradually picks away at the foe's life through various bubble related tricks. Interesting to see a defensive character who for once isn't just hiding away in their own little corner of the stage in a fortress of traps.
The actual alternate bubbles are interesting, perhaps a little too challenging to properly utilize but they don't really destroy her set up particularly much and frankly with the bubble defense she has she'll have time to think out how she uses them a little bit more than usual anyway. It's a very neat playground, with among my favorite bits being introduced in the grab game with the ability to attach a bubble to your staff or utilize all the various alternate conditions for bubbles in the pummel. That's all very clever, and pretty much everything feels fun to tinker around with. I can't help but feel the set might be a bit too defuse in it's focus though, while everything clearly interacts with the bubbles the set does so in a large number of different ways that don't all flow together in a very clear cut way. I love how open ended the set is though, she's never denying a player of interesting options and in that way would be very fun to play as, particularly if the player prefers a slower game. If her individual options all flowed together a bit more smoothly and the Shield Specials were less powerful I could see this set being fantastic, but even as is I'm not going to deny that I enjoy a good playground set, and this has all the marks of one with a variety of interesting options and a cool basis to start from.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble
While DM's comment went for a much more negative tone, mine will most certainly go for a more positive spin, on the basis that I am quite fond of this set. Don't take this to think this comment will be without criticism.
I'll start with the good part. I do quite love the usage of bubbles here, as not only does it make great use of the Clash and Parry mechanic, but it brings a fresh new take on bubbles as used in a moveset, when compared to a set such as...let's just say...Bubbleman.EXE. Using the slightest of lag makes it managably balanced while still giving it purpose, as well, and the Bubble Dress is a cool way to use it defensively, while the Side Special uses it more offensively. All very nice stuff. The tilts and smashes then proceed to add layers onto layers on the uses of the bubbles and although the fact the moves always affect your bubbles is a downside, Marin uses this weakness into a playstyle-related strength, turning into a weakness she must get around with the creation of more bubbles or by using some of the moves that minimally change her bubbles, such as back aerial, jab, dash attack and her grab. I especially enjoy how the Forward Throw interferes with momentum cancelling, something we really should see more often.
While not the most tightly wound set, it also has fairly good flow, as the bubbles can work towards offensive overwhelming via numbers or defensive holing up pretty easy, and her tilts do well to work with the passive bubbles following her, although I do agree with DM that overall the melee moves could work into the game better, but I feel like what is here is adequate. One thing I do dislike is the Shield Specials: While NSpec and SSpec are fine, DSpec is really bad and USpec is also a move I don't enjoy much. DSpec mostly because it entirely renders the normal DSpec useless: why not use the Shield DSpec, even if it does cost shield? Most certainly an area that could be improved. On the plus side, you have a PK Rockin' Final Smash.
I also feel like the set is pretty well characterized and I very much enjoy the use of animations: Jarad's vivid animations greatly helped me enjoy that set, Mami also had some great animations (especially through images) and I feel Marin's descriptions too hlep this set. They give a good feel of the character while fighting, but without being in the way or overwrought, so it feels like it is organically molded into the set. Having so many moves and the descriptions being long does make it a big of a slog, though...but with the way the set is constructed, I don't feel it is TOO big of a deal or really all that fixable.
So yes, I quite like this set, for innovative use of a good concept that flows well and is an excellent read in both moveset and character, even if it has some points that drag it down. Take that as you will.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE!"]
BUBBLE WITCH MARIN = 10 / 10
- +Perfect descriptions bring the character to life. (even if the codec was a bit lengthy)
- +Unique and well thought out Defensive Mechanic.
- +The tilts each having their own magic attached is a great addition, especially with how they only activate when "missed".
- +Each special adds a well defined use that weaves in and out of her other moves, especially fond of Bubble Dress.
- +The character is incredibly busy, taking no breaks as you play her due to the fragile nature of her defenses and how she has to actually KO. A fun touch.
- +The multitude of ways for her to continue to produce bubbles (reminds me of Forretress lol) is a nice touch and keeps her flow going beyond having to spam N spec all the time.
- +The elemental effects of her smashes provide a whole new layer of playstyle.
- +The mini's special mechanics are used very well, I especially like how the bubbles crafted via Shield Specials have a moment of shielding to them.
- +The throws and aerials are each brilliant as well, being able to effectively wall off areas in the air or even turn the foe into a "bubble".
- +Blast Orb is a large improvement over previous Up Tilts, and allows her to play more aggressively at the expense of her bubbles, a nice touch.
My favorite set so far, Marin was a joy to read with really only one questionable aspect with her ability to render things invisible going against her normal gameplay. Hopefully this isn't the only US production this contest.[/collapse]
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by thekewlusername
[collapse="darth_meanie"]I've considered a moveset for Star Force Mega Man myself. You've got a solid framework here, but honestly, it doesn't feel very 'Star Force' ish. You don't capitalize on some of the elements that are so unique to his design, like Omega-Xis, moves like Beast Slash, Mega Attack homing moves, his directional shield, etc. The special moves should really showcase what you want to make the most central part of the set, and the battlecards you chose don't feel particularly important to who Mega Man is.
You talk about not knowing where to go with a Final Smash, and yeah, there are so many options since that game has such ridiculous post-game and power-up content available. I'd suggest for this set working backwards instead. Choose a Final Smash or fighting style available to use in the game, like Zerker from Star Force 2 or Red Joker as a Final Smash, and then build the special moves around that aspect of what you can do as Mega Man. You could build a set based around a strategy or playstyle in game, and everything would flow together from there. Focus on playing to the strengths of the character you chose.
Also, I recommend putting up an image for the header and a bit more detail to the moves. Princess Peach's down aerial is four kicks that link together, but it's an amazing tool for pressuring enemies, wracking up damage, and comboing out of her float that can be used in so many different ways. Describing it as just a brief, generic animation and a damage percent wouldn't cut it.[/collapse]
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Megaman StarForce
That's rather... under-detailed to say the least. Like Darth Meanie said, a picture would be very nice, and the fact that Starforce is the less known Megaman doesn't help (One of the less known, at least). Also there is no bio, so we're just left pondering whether what his story is. We just know he's not Classic, X or EXE.
Now on to the moves. Basically, the normals are non-existent. It is one thing than to neglect the normals, because you're tired, you don't see much use for them or whatever, but it's another thing than to put only totally generic moves. It doesn't feel like Megaman, it feels like Sheik with a sword. Seriously, I'm not joking. The Specials are rather bland themselves; nothing very interesting, nothing you can remember.
Now, I perfectly understand that as a beginner, your moveset is basic. Don't worry, you
will improve with time and training. One of the basics is creating the playstyle, how Megaman is played, that kind of stuff, that solve a lot of problem and the moveset itself will be much easier to create. Reading JOE!'s guide will help, it is well-written and always useful. As a fellow newcomer, I hope you will become a better movesetter, and I'm waiting for your next submission.
EDIT: Wow, you improved
fast. First of all, the moveset is far nicer with the pics, the stats and playstyle. Looks far better. Now for the normals, while still a bit generic and flat, they are actually explained: why are they here and why we would use them, that kind of stuff. That's something that Jinbe admittedly lacked, so I can only respect you. The specials are much more developped too, making them
almost unique (Because as you said, it's nothing really new). Sooooo... Good job, I guess.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Rising Star
I don't really have much to say on Starforce Megaman, as anything I would say feels like it'd echo DM's comment and to some extent KalmarKing's as well. I did want to discuss the weapon changing mechanic, though: Personally, I dislike the use of taunts for this, as it feels a tad unwieldly and makes the taunt lose their original use of being taunts. The attacks have also been changed to be somewhat better, although I do not feel they really work together towards much of a gameplan. I also wanted to say that it would have been cool if the Side Special worked like Marth's Dancing Blade, with a variety of kick options based on how you input it after the first. MYM could use more Dancing Blade-like moves. They're cool.[/collapse]
[collapse="JOE!"]
STARFORCE MEGA MAN = 5 / 10
- +Nice change of pace by going through a breakdown before the set, as well as your reasoning and personal feelings for the character being put forward.
- +Dair cancelling into Up and Down B is cool.
- +Bair's "held" attack option is a neat concept for an aerial.
- +His grab's ability to be either a fast "normal" or a held out "tether" is fun, but are you implying that the Zair can grab people?
- Stale moves. Also a slight lack of Omega-Xis beyond some token moves here and there, would've though he'd be a special or such.
- Smash attacks always take 2 seconds to charge, and deal 1.4x the damage not double.
- -Moves lack many vital descriptions such as KO %'s, angles of Knockback, power of knockback (low, hi, medium), or have too little when stated for the lag associated.
- -Dthrow seems very OP providing he can tech-chase from it and deal 24% + from a mere regrab, or a short hopped Down B to guarantee around 40% damage from 2 moves.
- -Nspec having to charge for 2ish Ganon Punches is ridiculous, especially when the swapped shot-types are generally better than it in terms of speed, damage and accuracy.
- -Side B could have easily, easily been a standard move/jab. What about it could make it a special move? This could've been an Omega-Xis move or such.
Starforce Mega Man has some good points, and is overall fun to imagine being playable but ultimately doesn't bring much to the table that hasn't been done before in smash bros. Another problem is just some lack of info and/or questionable inputs, but don't let that deter you. Read up on some of the other sets and you'll definitely improve on the next one.[/collapse]
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by Katapultar
[collapse="n88_2004"]I've already given you my thoughts on
Minami, Kat, and they haven't much changed. To paraphrase, I really like what you've done with the item-combo game; Minami has a lot of depth and finds some creative uses for items not much different from Brawl's ow. The way Minami brings a dodgeball element to the fight is equally commendable. And of course there's the fact that this set never feels like it gives into tackiness or reaches too far for potential, despite the very simple nature of the character. The Extras (which I hadn't seen before) are a nice touch; something we could probably stand to see more of these days. Big thumbs up on this one.[/collapse]
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by BridgesWithTurtles
[collapse="Katapultar"]This might be the first set ever made that's designed to be used against the same character, which is obviously fitting with the multiplayer aspect. It sort of reminds me of a cruel version of Olimar what with the deliberate sacrifices and survival of the fittest. The writing style and presentation are both very good, with no shortage of pictures and game referencing that helps those who haven't played like myself. It's obviously trying to stay as true to the game as possible while being smash-viable, which I can respect if the notion of the pads eating up half the inputs was deliberate as to give the mice little options.
I actually really like the running part of the set because of how effective it is, a realization I came to upon you pointing out that trailing mice can absorb projectile hits for you. That, and you have traps you can set-up after acquiring space of which you can assemble in a bevy of ways or put up a mouse hole. It very much rewards you having the max 20 mice out, but on this note I do wish there were more ways to take advantage of such a huge number of mice - most of the time I was expecting the moves that do take advantage of mice to produce a result with all 20 out, but none of them do. It might have been intentional on your part for balancing reasons, but it'd be nice to include. For another nitpick, the rocket might move a little too slowly for the dire consequence of hitting a foe.
Apart from that you're very much aware of all the on-goings in this well thought-out set, which feels feels almost like a game mode as much as it is a set! For some further praise, I like the Taunts for showing that the mice can speak bold and arrogant words whereas without them I would have thought they'd be mindless mice without them. It's a great set, and I hope you make another sometime in the near future.[/collapse]
[collapse="n88_2004"]
ChuChus is (are?) a very impressive first effort. You've clearly taken your time with this and it shows; the set demonstrates a good understanding of what goes into a playstyle and how moves interact with each other, as well as a slavish devotion to recreating the mechanics of another game inside Smash that I can only applaud. Like Kat says, a game with multiple players as ChuChus feels like a mode unto itself. ChuChus represent a more hectic, strategic take on the minion/helper ideas present in Olimar that really does sound like a blast to play.
My lone piece of advice is that as is it stands, the control scheme somewhat limits ChuChus' options, with tile-laying taking up so many of ChuChus' attacks. Having that many attacks be so similar feels like it would really limit ChuChus' options. Perhaps you could change the Neutral Special to a tile-laying move (with the direction of the tile determined by an analog input), and give that attack's rocket-relocation functionality to Up Special (which already moves the rocket anyway). Withdrawing ChuChus could simply be a function of the Standard Attack button, like picking up items. Arranging the set like that would free up Standards and Aerials for more varied moves, which could help build up ChuChus' game and give him more attacking (or running away) options.
Of course, that's just my take. I'm unfamiliar with the source material and it's very possible that you've got some good reasons for implementing things the way you did. Here's hoping we'll see more from you soon![/collapse]
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by JOE!
[collapse="Katapultar"]Right from the get go Ho-oh's presentation screams a certain brilliance befitting for it, from the use of its Heartgold box artwork to the Heartgold symbol for the headers - I for one felt quite excited when I first scrolled down to the set. Looking back, some of Ho-oh's defensive powers from the game (what with that uber high SpDf stat) are captured quite well here, from the use of a Light Screen shield to Sunny Day healing off damage in a manner reminiscent to the infamous Recover which Ho-oh gets in a wild battle against it - we all know 6% a second isn't even broken with all those Project Melee Ivysaur videos you've shown us in the chat, though it still feels like a very high number fitting for Ho-oh.
Since I'm an advocate of characterization, if I'm to level any complaint on the set, it'd be that it perhaps doesn't feel -legendary- enough. I know you said in the chat that you felt you downsized Ho-oh a bit too much whereas his Brawl size would be a bit too big, though I don't think there'd be any problem with making him roughly 1.5X as large as he currently is. Being huge targets is, in a way, a good form of characterization for legendaries to give them a sense of overwhelming presence in Brawl while at the same time making them feel coveted. It'd also give you an excuse to increase the range on Ho-oh's attacks (and make them just a wee bit stronger), because right now most of the stuff feels as though it could be put onto any old Pokemon like Swellow or something. You obviously wouldn't need to worry about Sunny Day being less effective either when you can just fly away, where it'd actually be much more useful when you'd be taking so much damage with such a large size. It might be shocking, but I'd say the set would actually be a lot better for me simply by having Ho-oh be up-sized.
For a minor complaint, the Sacred Flames effect is cool but somewhat iffy in how it's handled. It's only useful in Team Matches, but don't most people play those without Friendly Fire? Why not just have allies receive the effect when they stay near Ho-oh for more than one second with SD active? That way you don't have to rely on luck and you're not just randomly buffing your opponent say if they're being afflicted by their own negative mechanic or getting in the way of an ally's gameplan via team matches. You also don't have to randomly hurt your ally in order to activate it, which seems pretty silly.[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]I probably don't have any position to give detailed feedback considering I've only made one set here myself, but after finally finding the time to read Ho-oh, I really wanted to say how pleased I was at its execution. I expected a good set, but I also expected it to fall into the same sort of mold that other "giant" sets fall into. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how much Ho-oh was scaled down, and moreso at how it was scaled down while still seeming rather much like Ho-oh. I really love the concentration on projectile defense at the expense of having problems with close combat; that's something a Pokemon fan would pick up on instantly, and it was a nice pleasure to see that sort of adaptation from another game's mechanics into Smash gameplay.
The Sacred Flames concept had me questioning the idea at first, but overall, it's a pretty good take on the effects of Sacred Ash. I like how it's largely founded with doubles in mind, which is something I love seeing in movesets. Another aspect I like is the focus on air and the push and pull properties featured in moves that make use of the concept, such as Tailwind and its movement properties. The grab as well I find to be pretty cool. It could have functioned as an aesthetically interesting but otherwise conventional action, but instead you instilled it with a unique function that offers up different applications without straying too far from what's established and comfortable. Overall, the set is pretty darn good. Ho-oh seems balanced despite being an OU legendary, and still fun to play even with its abilities obviously having been toned down. If I have one dislike, it's that the Sacred Flames seem a little useless in a singles match, other than its relationship with Down Throw.[/collapse]
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by BridgesWithTurtles
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Zoboomafoo
One thing that strikes me in Zoboomafoo is the sheer number of props used. Ropes, vines, assists, closets... Problem is, you couldn't make a Zoboomafoo moveset without those props. It's not a critic- I think that for such an expository character, you translated him correctly, I'd say.
Also I find some aspects of the set to be ironically annoying. The props are okay, but such a reliance on berries and vines is kinda boring; while there is different ways of using them, it's not big differences, so it's rather repetitive. Also his constent screeching is outright bad. An always-talking character is annoying for everybody (Except if he can shoot webs or is named Deadpool). One thing that is really really weird though is how his wall-climbing could be used for
recovery out of all things. I mean what, is he grabbing the oxygen? There isn't many walls floating near the blast zone in Brawl. Also it could have been greatly expanded upon; while the set would fall flat on his face on a wall-less stage, it could make it more interesting I think.
Not a bad try overall, but it's very forgettable. But don't give up! I'm sure you can improve. 4/10 (Also you should come back to the chat! Perhaps you won't see me but it's always a nice place!)[/collapse]
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by thekewlusername
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]K
entucky Fried Pokemon
Blaziken's concept isn't bad and is actually kind of similiar to Bad Girl: Quick attack combos and up close and personal rushdownness. I like that kinda playstyle. Blaziken doesn't have much for it, though, in my opinion: His attack are very basic but, rather in a way that builds to an overall goal, in a way that is scattershot, and the quick attacks feel there just to be quick rather than to specificlly work into things, with the exception of the jab. I would have liked to have seen more from this, an expansion of the concept if you will...say, imagine if Blaziken could raise his speed by using a Flame Charge Special, but that Flame Charge is hard to hit unless you keep up the pressure with your quick attacks. Blaziken would then have a little more focus to his game, while at the same time adding in depth to his playstyle with this new move that mixes into it and helps deepen the experience. As it is right now, though, it doesn't feel particularly good, but my dislike of it is muted. Still, I do wish that we had seen more from this...but I look forward to what you come up with next. c:[/collapse]
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by TheKalmarKing
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Haven't Ya Ever Seen a Pink Girl Before?!
Bad Girl's problem, in my opinion, stems from a lack of clear playstyle coherence. Bad Girl clearly has something she is going for, berserker rushdown, and she actually has a pretty good starting basis for it with the beer and the Side Special and the clones, but I feel like the set really leaves something to be desired after the specials. The moves are there, sure, and they aren't that bad (usually), but they don't seem to especially fit into her berserker playstyle much or form a wider picture of a playstyle. Having moves outside the context of playstyle is fine, but here it seems like there is so much of that that there ends up being little focus and ergo less playstyle than I would like. I would have maybe liked some moves that worked with the fire more directly, such as increased damage, to make blitzing an enflamed foe more attractive, or just in general attacks that fit more of a "rushdown" approach: Bad GIrl's current moves feel more suited to a Marth many times.
Still, it is a step up from Jinbe: The attacks seem better thought out even if they didn't come out the way I'd like, the basis is stronger and more thought out and as a whole it feels more polished than Jinbe. I still can't say I liked it but...hey, improvement![/collapse]
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
Superior Geto Remake
You capture the essence of Bad Girl very well in this moveset. I'm sure by now you're at least mildly aware that I'm quite the fanatic of the No More Heroes franchise, and I love it when movesets are made for characters in the series. Berserk is a good way to portray her, though personally, had i remade this character myself, I would have focused a lot on suicide KOs, but that's my own personal take on the character.
The Gimps (I just can't see the fight without the Gimps, man) are handled well, I like that you treat them as nothing more than meat shields and weapons. I also really like the side special: I've always thought of Bad Girl as a tank (though a very fragile tank) and this move gets that across really well. The use of fire is cool, too.
Outside of good characterization and good ideas, the rest of the set...well, it doesn't fall apart, but it fails to follow up on those ideas. What's presented sounds fun as hell to play, really, but I do feel more could have been done with the character. More focus on playing with the foe's head perhaps? An even more reckless playstyle, maybe? I'm doing a lot of speculating here really, but what you have is a good step up and certainly a set that I can appreciate.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]I’m actually commenting these sets backwards, so if you look down at my Gyarados comment, you’ll see that the positive qualities of that set I like are largely the same as in
Bad Girl. That being, it plays accurately for what you’d expect for the character. That’s where the similarities end, of course, as Bad Girl is mindless as opposed to being powerful. This is a sensible playstyle for a brawler character, whom beats up weaker characters. From a characterisation standpoint it makes perfect sense too, as Bad Girl uses up her followers as if they mean nothing to her and causes havoc all over the battlefield, though perhaps not to the extent that I’d like. It feels too reserved in places when it could relies upon basic types of moves that add only a very small amount of substance to the playstyle, instead of taking advantage of the minions in interesting, torturous ways. The set is a solid like for me but would greatly have benefitted from a bunch of ways to complexly toss around the minions, instead of it mostly being an incidental thing working out in the set’s favour in the end. Definitely a big improvement for you,Kalmar, and I hope you take the feedback to heart, come back to us improving yet again.[/collapse]
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by Smash Daddy
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Koffing
My, my. In the same day, I released Bad Girl who is a total tank and Smady released his Koffing who can't take a hit but is far more subtle. I could totally make a matchup for those two... Now enough talk and
HAVE AT Y -I mean let's look at the set.
It is a pretty solid field-control moveset, every move being use either to create more gas, to move the gas or taking advantage of the opponent's mistakes... due to the gas. Your second playstyle paragraph about how he forces the foe to approach reminded me of Croagunk of course who was said to rely on the same mechanics. Well I think it's better here (Sorry Froy), because the opponent actually wants to smack Koffing around to make him stop spreading the gas; then Koffing takes advantage of the opponent's mistakes with some sadistic traps and his only powerful close-ranged attacks. That makes me wonder, would Koffing be useful in high-level matches where errors are pretty rare sometimes? Koffing's player could get around that by playing creatively and not using the same strategy over and over, but his playstyle sure is risky. He could lose the match simply because of a misreading of the opponent's approach.
Also a good distance character (Like good ol' Chakravartin who is such a good example I always talk about him) could be dangerous for Koffing, who could be stopped by a good camper from setting his gas up (But perhaps I'm wrong). Also as a side-note, is it possible for the gas to be lighted up by a fire attack, or is Koffing the only one allowed to make stuff blow up?
While Koffing looks pretty fun to play, rather solid and powerful, he's still rather classical in the end and got some weaknesses that are keeping him from being a really good set. Still, it is a pretty good set I think. 6/10[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]Finally made some time to read through
Koffing, and here's what I have to say:
What makes Koffing so interesting is that the set doesn't necessarily focus on the fact that he levitates, or lacks appendages. Instead, the set makes use of the creative gas gimmick, which is something that strikes me as pretty interesting. Smash has a lack of gaseous hitboxes, and Koffing's attacks are further made unique due to how realistically his gases react to physics. I like how there's a balance between the advantages and disadvantages of each choice made in positioning your gases, which obviously and intentionally was done to make Koffing a high-risk, high reward character, which I tend to find instantly engaging. While his playstyle seems rather straightforward, with a clear "plan" for the player to enact, Koffing also comes off as a complex character (at least in my eyes) because of how specific each move's application is, and how Koffing can be so easily handicapped if the player does not play incredibly smartly. I would certainly have trouble using the character effectively. Rollout and Dash Attack both have interesting movement properties that make Koffing seem like a perfect hit-and-run character, but, as you pointed out, other options allow him to play run-and-hit, or more commonly, as a great baiting character. Overall, I like the set. It's not astounding, but I like it well enough. My only real dislike amounts to the impression that despite how easily Koffing can be handicapped, it seems like a master Koffing player would simply dominate any other character because of how much space the gas can occupy. That, and I too am left curiously wondering: can other fire attacks set off the gas, or is that something only Koffing can do? And can other Koffing players set off another Koffing's gas? I'm assuming "yes" for the latter question.[/collapse]
[collapse="BKupa666"]
KOFFING
What with his absolute control over his emitted toxins, Koffing comes off as a refined modern iteration of the gas-centric MYM7 sets. Whereas he has the option to play defensively to a degree by deterring enemy approaches with the likes of Down Special and D-Air’s poison removal, his ‘running and hitting’ flows far more smoothly within his playstyle. The notion that Koffing can lock down areas of stage with sludge or his pummel, before aggressively and strategically buffeting his opponent around is quite appealing. This becomes especially noticeable when you consider that his feathery weight would be excuse enough for any other character to avoid such melee attacking. At times, the pushing together and pulling apart gas to influence its damage output seems a bit arbitrary, since all gas is potent enough as a threat, so long as enough of it is onstage. Because of this, the moves that serve this function border on filler to some extent, though I am a big fan of how gas can be spread around to boost its efficiency during self-destructions. Koffing is undoubtedly a commendable Pokeset, one that ought to be regarded as more than a lightweight this contest.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Coughing
We're just on a roll for pre-evos of older Pokesets, huh? Croagunk for Toxicroak, Koffing for Weezing...I wonder what else we might see like this before contest's end. Perhaps Grimer from you as well?
I find the Pummel odd in the sense of the foe giving it off as they move about. If it were, say, some kind of poisonous slime or something that would make sense, but it feels odd if Koffing is using his gas: Koffing is producind gas via his chemical whatchamjiggers and letting it out via his vents, while foes don't really have such a thing, so it feels odd to have them exuding gas.
Falcon's blaster? He wishes he had a projectile...
This is actually a pretty solid set, though. The play with the gas is fairly nice in basicness, although sometimes I think you might rely on Self-Destruct a bit too often, if that makes sense. In addition, Koffing's recovery seems a bit worse than you make it out to be, since Koffing's recovery seems quite predictable and without a hitbix aside from his trailing gas. The utilization of prone as a complimentary aspect of the set is quite well handled, I feel, as it does not devolve into making it a win-win scenario while still allowing Koffing a certain amount of ability to play around with it. So that's quite nice. One issue I had a few times is that the times seem a bit long on the moves at times, such as the smokescreen, though that is partially due to the nature of it's damage. And at times, the writing does seem confounding at times, but I am one of the worse people at understanding stuff it seems.
All the same, the playstyle is solid and strong, the characterization is good and it doesn't feel like it is filler, plus it seems quite fun to play, so I'd say I like it a fair deal. Better than...Ultron, I'd say.
Also...no Final Smash?[/collapse]
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
Halloweezing 2: Weezerection
The thing I love about Koffing most is that shi.t eating grin it always has on it's face. It knows exactly what it's doing...
Koffing takes the idea of that passive gas and runs with it until it can't run anymore, then it gets selfdestructed another couple hundred feet. It's so tightly wound and bursting with ideas that there's very little room for negativity. Passive offense is always tricky to pull off, but you've done it beautifully here. The all the little interactions and the ways of spreading the gas around the stage make for a lot of fun stuff. I'm definitely a fan.[/collapse]
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by DiamondFox
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Gyarados
I can't really say I like the set. While I certainly appreciate the various interactions with the twisters, waves and so on, the biggest problem is Gyarados' movement. I mean, WHY? It's just a game of Snake with attacks! It's just too awkward to work properly in Smash. In a real game, a majority of players would be just "WTF is up with Gary's body". Also I didn't understand crap to the dodge inputs and the like; so, yeah, I find his movement to be far too bizarre for Smash. Problem is, a lot of his attacks revolve around Gary's body being in various shapes thanks to his movements. I honestly believe very few players would be ready to master such complicated moves.
Honestly there is creativity and good interactions but that's not enough, that can't compensate the weird and strange movements. I'd say 4/10 personally.
*Takes cover*
EDIT: I gave you a 4 instead because I admit there is a hefty ammount of creativity behind this. Still I don't really like it XD[/collapse]
[collapse="BKupa666"]
GYARADOS
I’ve read solid Gyarados bosses previously, and am happy to see him finally receive the moveset he deserves. His unique body mechanic creates more of a centerpiece than any individual move, instead allowing the shaping of his body to flow into any number of strategies. In particular, Gyarados’ handling of foes behind him through arching his body to speed up waterfalls contains an impressive amount of depth, since he can send these into tornados or strategically freeze them to influence opponents accordingly. I also sense traces of Banbollow with how Gyarados toys with opponents on his back; rather than juggling them there repeatedly, he instead prefers dealing a few crushing hits, before all but forcing his victims back on with stage summons. I do feel as though his air game warrants more attention, since it isn’t touched on much aside from Dragon Dance and the potential for richer expansion exists, with possible stuff like sloping waterfalls down at opponents or Gyarados’ back serving as a massive platform that can hold victims in tow with its slopes. Nevertheless, I’m certainly satisfied with what’s presented already, and Gyarados easily takes the cake as the best (and only, sadly) DiamondFox set so far.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
GyaRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHdos
I will admit, I'm not the biggest fan of Gyarados movement in this set. It feels like an awkward start and not the most fitting for Gyaradoes: I agree with Kalmar that it feels like a game of Snake, though I suppose it does capture the feeling of a majestic flying Gyarados. It still feels...weird, though.
Gyarados does make up for it's awkwardness by taking good advantage of it, though. It feels much more smooth than in, say, Big Mac's Gruesome Twosome set, where the dragon felt more awkward. I quite like the use of waterfall on it, which feels unique but not disastrously odd or overpowered, and Hydro Pump is also a bit interesting, along with how Hyper Beam harkens back to RBY in how it is used. One thing that is dissapointing is something I disliked about Silver's Shana set as well: Gyarados' Dragon Dance buff is not only strong, but thanks to his movement is very easy to achieve, turning Gyarados into perhaps too MUCH of an engine of rage empowered destruction. 60% is hella insane. And does permanant mean it lasts between stocks or just on one stock? It is a definite area of improvement. I also feel like the Special Smashes were a bit of a wasted chance: I do quite like Hyper Beam, but the rest are kind of eh. Plus, for a set that spends a lot of time in the air, he lacks aerials: Couldn't you have put them on a double tap or something? It feels awkward. Finally, I don't like Wrap much.
I actually like a fair bit of the grab game: I am a fan of Dragon Tail and Rebound also seems decent, the grab itself is fine (And has fun uses given his positining abilities) and the pummel adds some character. I am not a big fan of the other two throws, though: Consume is the one I dislike most, as it feels quite out of place to me, while Slam feels a bit oddly complex compared to his grabs and while not luck based it seems difficult in a way that does not feel skillful.
But the it is fairly good. The basic standards help create a rich playstyle, the specials provide a nice centerpiece combined with the mechanic and it has a few fun extra toys to add in to it. I don't think it is as good as Koffing, but it is still above average.[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Gyarados
Obviously due to the nature of the set’s movement and projectiles, it’s pretty bloody unique from the start and at least from where I’m standing, not in a bad way. The moves succeed in making the character feel powerful and yet at the same time beatable due to the absolutely massive amount of baggage he carries around and his ability to still take full stun if his head is hit. It’s not like his head’s small either. The miniature playground around the tornados and the like flows very well and allows for both an aggressive and deep playstyle considering how well he can keep fighting as he sets up. Where Gyarados suffers is, I feel, is from an aesthetic standpoint. Sure, making slopes out of his back for waterfalls and tornados to travel along is interesting, but it’s absolutely bizarre to envision him spitting a waterfall into his back and then flipping it around in the arch of his back. Aside from that, I’m not sure if I am really okay with the Down Smash, which sure flows into the rest of his game and isn’t easy to pull off, but having an attack cover nearly the entire stage and just be undodgeable and probably ruinous on shields that covers nearly the entire stage is just something the foe can’t possibly respond too when it actually works. For this reason GyaraDOESN’T end up as one of my favorites this contest, but GyaraDOES end up an overall solid set.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]
Gyarados received an unfairly cold reception. To me the set represents a very amicable representation of a primal beast that has a nightmarish control over powerful magic, in the form of Pokémon moves. That’s entirely accurate here, on a giant character that doesn’t really have all that many ways to interpret the devastating move pool it hails. The simple and easy interactions remind me of Empoleon but watered down enough to make sense to any player. Gyarados feels imposing without feeling overpowered and surprisingly is quite in-character as well, a credit that I don’t see at all in other comments. Movement is slightly awkward compared to other characters but giving a way for infinite versatility in facing when using moves, also posits an interesting extra factor in making this Pokémon a terrifying opponent in the hands of a skilled player. All I can say here is that, while it does make sense, the set lacks depth. Albeit, that quality makes the set instantly playable, direct in its offence. It’s exactly what you want out of a Pokémon moveset that doesn’t try for some insanely ambitious end goal and I must say it seems quite underrated.[/collapse]
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by tirkaro
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Genderbent Merlin
I wouldn't say Merlina's concept is bad, combining pressure with laggy moves to create a sort of mishmash offensive and yet, with elements like the Black Knight, defensive-ish playstyle. Unfortunately, I feel the moveset suffers from some massive issues. The Down Aerial, for example: 4 seconds is a pretty absurd amount of time to freeze someone! Yeah, she needs setup and whatnot, but moves like that simply are not the way to do it. They aren't really interesting and such easy stun without a check or balance begs to be abused in unintended ways that undermine the playstyle. Plus, there are a lot of more interesting ways to work set-up and other such things into a playstyle, I feel.
I also felt some of the moves were quite odd: Dash Attack, for example. It feels weird, to me, that Merlina is just plain summoning part of the Black Knight for what amounts to a simple dash attack, this big flashy animation for something very simple. I also greatly dislike the Down Tilt: Counters on tilts are already odd, but this is a very strong counter with absurd KO potential, which is more than a little broken and is not very fun for the playstyle. I also feel like the Queen's appearance on Smashes feels Sweet Weird and Hella Awkward. Also, grab games without full throws. : (
This moveset did have some good points, however. I liked the Black Knight in the Specials, that seemed cool, and the Jab was pretty neat as well. NSpec is also pretty neat. And the writing here is pretty amusing, so it isn't a total drag to read and has minor highlights. But...yeah, overall, I don't like it much at all.[/collapse]
[collapse="Katapultar"]Froy's comment inspired me to comment this set, because I wanted to voice my opinion on the set that made me watch through the cut-scenes of its source material. I actually think the set has some very good atmosphere in the way the Black Knight is used from the game, and even some interesting creative liberties like the frog-hexing and sword-in-the-stone that weren't actually in the game but reference the King Arthur legend in a way. Even the outlandish animations like the Dash Attack and D-air's sit well with me. It reminds me of why I still hold a lot of respect for Adachi even now.
I'd say you could easily swap the D-tilt and Down Special inputs since the latter doesn't seem to do anything in the air anyway, while at the same time making the counter look less awkward. You could have the frog transformation be a way to stall time or hit enemies easily (whereby they return back to normal), just give them two decent jumps and the ability to grab the ledge so it's not game-breaking (though I do find the idea of having to herd enemies to the ledge just to kick them off interesting, it's not the base concept and you could easily say, intercept a recovery with a hitbox for the win). The frog could easily have good depth if the victim is restricted to a weak shield, dodge and generally not being able to attack, all while getting past your static hitboxes like Black Knight, current Down Special, Neutral Special and all that jazz. It could even flow well with Merlina wanting space because she doesn't have a teleport or any way to move across the stage quickly despite being a slow wizard - just froggify enemies and you can walk away from them or whatever, or if you set a trap or two to disrupt them beforehand. D-air not stoning enemies off-stage is obviously quite forced too, whereas the easiest way to ensure enemies do not just fall to their deaths would be to just make it a throw, if you had a set. Some of the aerials being skimmed in the first place like F-air and U-air would imply it'd be pretty easy, and an interesting way to finish the set.
Overall, Merlina definitely has a lot of potential, though it can be hard to see when your intentions aren't always clear, what with having moves that embody a novel concept and some that are filler-ish (or at least aren't explained as how they could be interesting), a bit unbalanced and not having a playstyle section (which isn't a big deal, but makes it hard to tell whether the entry is serious or not). I do like the set a little, but it just needs that slight push to get on a votelist that I foresee will be tightly packed from the sheer number of cool entries that have already this contest.
Finally, I just realized that the "quotes" are apart of the lyrics of "With Me", linked at the start of the set.[/collapse]
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Merlina
This is a rather in-smash set and I like that. Now the set feels really too OP. I mean, Merlina can throw a sh*tload of stuff and traps on the stage who are going to just chill out, making the opponent's life a total hell. To be fair, I think it's more a problem of scale; you should simply reduce the moves' duration. For examples, the Side B and the Down are so freakin' huge you can make a whole platform a deadzone for several seconds. A Warlock Punch from Big G takes a little more than one second so traps that last lor several seconds are just too good. Also I'm rather concerned with the down tilt: while hard to land, sure, it could be a one-hit kill at 0% which is crazy, and with all her projectiles and stuff, she can easily keep the frog offstage. It's an instant-win button if used near a ledge. Also the aerial down attack is completely off the scale; for 4 seconds? Really? Perhaps the opponent can't take damage but you can just turn the stage into a bullet hell during that time...
While I do like some aspects of the set, I'm just concerned with the balance. I'll give you a 3.[/collapse]
---
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
SSB Luigi
You know, I was actually interested in the premise of the set. And, well, it's true it feels like a SSB set.
It's extremely bland with only the D-Smash being remotely interesting... I mean, this is Sakurai-ish to it's very core. There is no playstyle, except if you consider "Use D-Smash to get little buffs" a playstyle. There is nothing interesting. If there is some kind of hidden in-joke hidden in the set, then you should explain it. Why did you make the set? Sure, it is a SSB set, but that should not be an excuse to miss out on creativity, playstyle and the like!
I really don't understand how this set came to life in MYM 14. I outright refuse to rate it as I consider it non-canon. Really, please- explain yourself. It outright saddens me to see a set like this coming from you of all people.[/collapse]
[collapse="BKupa666"]SSB LUIGI
I do know the Luigi. And I do know that there are a handful of playstyle nuggets scattered within the set, namely the token move interactions within the D-Smash thunder zone. While partying like it’s 1999 is certainly novel as far as sets go, I feel it falls rather flat in terms of execution here. The old engine isn’t explored as a concept, so much as seems to have been used as an alibi for the set having fewer inputs than usual. Looking at it from this lens, and as a one day set, Luigi accomplishes exactly what it appears to on the surface level, no more, no less.[/collapse]
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by ForwardArrow
[collapse="Katapultar"]We get you are rather ambitious about the voodoo-doll concept as far as movesetting goes, though I at least appreciate the elaboration on Falz's backstory. I was pretty excited to see Chaos Sorcerers included in the set, which are actually pretty well-executed since you can program them to stay close to Falz at the start of the move for Smash charging, and without the necessity to use later moves for that kind of interaction. The Chaos Sorcerer's attacks might seem random, but actually flow into Falz attempting a grab on the foe since the ones that require them close-up don't deal knockback (falz's massive grab range compliments this too since he can grab through a minion). Thought that Falz would have a hard enough time trying to land his grab in a 3v1 setting otherwise.
As far as the voodoo doll effect is concerned, it is given greater room for more interesting exploitations because of the minions, though it does not feel dominant in the set whereas being able to summon more minions at a greater capacity, say more enemies from the Ruins level, would provide an interesting scenario where you can scare enemies into not attacking a massive group of smaller enemies by dumping a soul into one. The later parts of the set compromised by projectiles on nearly each move don't feel as though they work with the voodoo doll effect all that well and seem a bit boring (even if they are somewhat "in-character" for a video game boss), though I admittedly really liked the idea introduced in the Jab where you can keep the projectile hanging around you for protection by charging a Smash attack so you can actually land that insta-death F-Smash. Likewise, the U-tilt introduces something relatively cool in conjunction with the voodoo doll effect. Make no mistake, the set is good, though I feel it was perhaps bogged down by the emphasis on bullet hell when it seemed like you really wanted to take advantage of the voodoo effect what with remaking this character.[/collapse]
[collapse="BKupa666"]DARK FALZI don’t know if I’ve voiced this in the past, but I’m a rather big fan of sets that steal and manipulate souls, and Falz certainly fits the bill in this regard. What differentiates him most successfully is that he doesn’t necessarily have to take advantage of stealing multiple souls, despite being a 3 vs. 1 character, in favor of simply abusing one to waylay the opposing team to the best of his ability. Implanting the soul within an enemy throws a major wrench into their plans, allowing Falz time to capitalize, while doing so into a minion renders it a more stubborn summon. The sub-centerpieces of the set are something to be proud of as well, particularly the option to switch between Falz and an enemy with D-Throw. Sabotaging the enemy team by infiltrating it is juicy enough without the added possibility of pretending to remain on their side for as long as possible to ultimately damage them more over the long run. I do question the F-Smash insta-KO a bit, since despite the difficulty in setting it up, you could probably achieve the effect of its brokenness without going to this extent. On a more minor note, I think the soul-steal could have swapped places with, say, Neutral Special and been a tad more fitting, but this is nitpicking more than anything. You’ve easily achieved what you set out to do in improving this character’s set, so hopefully, his ultimate placement follows suit as well.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Darka Falzazzo
We start with a minor grammatical nitpick: It should probably say "if Falz is KOd OR after 15 seconds" on the grab.
Dark Falz Remix is definately an improvement over the old Dark Falz, which was...not very good, to put it lightly. But Falz Remix is an excellent improvement: The addition of Chaos Sorcerers is a nice touch and I quite enjoy how you work in Falz's smash attack charge ability, while the functionality of souls being stolen is greatly improved and made less broken. The bullet hell is pretty good, though it does lead into one of the issues I have with the set: Later on, some of the projectiles seem quite superflous, making moves that seem to exist just to be another projectile. The playstyle between the bullet hell, soul corruption, Chaos Sorcerers and the F-Smash is all pretty nice, however.
Complaint-wise...I feel like you abused the Chaos Sorcerer's chargeness towards the end. They didn't really need all that stuff aside from helping Falz charge his smashes: that was already cool enough. The added stuff felt like it just bogged it down a little. I was also slightly dissapointed in how having two souls in one opponent was used. I felt that, while what is there is good, it could have been a lot better with some higher uses of this, such as stuff that does one thing to one end and another to the end stitched inside. The playstyle is good without it, but I would have loved to have seen that over the latter Chaos Sorcerer stuff and the superflous D-Tilt.
But with a solid overall playstyle combined with some creative ideas, I daresay your contest is over to a jolly good start, Sir ForwardArrow.[/collapse]
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
Dork Failz
What I remember of the original set is approximately nothing, so I'm coming into this with a fresh mind. Before we even get into this, I think that we should begin to make stages designed specifically for Boss fights, because even this "small" boss is really huge. Obviously this anecdote has nothing to do with my actual opinion on the set, I'm just delaying the comment with it and this following explanation to annoy you. Yes, YOU, FA. Move name hating prick.
Anyway, ooh, lookie, a soul-rip mechanic! I like the way that it's handled here, and I'm already formulating teams to work against it. A tank character would be needed as a sort of artificial lamb, along with a healer and maybe another tank to deal lots of damage to Falz. That's basically my favoritr aspect of boss sets. I like the voodoo doll mechanic at work here too, but that's probably more of me just liking voodoo dool type deals in games in general.
Aside from maybe some balance issues that are present with pretty much every boss set, I can't find too many issues with Falz. So, I liked it. Probably would have liked it more with move names, though.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]Originally
Dark Falz blundered when it came time to take advantage of a fascinating concept in team play bosses, but this remake picks up the ball and takes it to the end zone. There are plenty of great interactions using the soul orbs, plenty of creative functions of the basic idea that make this one of the few unique boss sets and distinct precisely because of that from its forbearer. Most of all I think you should be proud of redeeming the character and making a set that flies the flag of his respective series of games. The Chaos Sorcerers add a whole other layer of depth to the playstyle that greatly helps in defining the less important aspects of Dark Falz. The effects on the smashes do outstay their welcome, but are nonetheless a cool take on how to use a summoned minion, one so acutely simple it’s bizarre we have yet to see a focus on one. The sets funnily enough does have an odd balance in how many of the moves you’d usually see held up as significant, taking a step down to allow for the grab game and orbs to shine. It becomes a bit problematic when the sets starts to really heave on the projectiles and to be perfectly honest, a couple of specials are strangely not that important. I can forgive it on a boss compared to a ‘normal set’ as it isn’t quite as bad to pile on effects or spam projectiles, in the face of what may be aggressive team play. I also can’t imagine the end result being a whole lot better than it is, there’s shockingly only a small amount of things for this character to do outside of what you have him do. What I will say does actually harm the set in my eyes, though, is that you don’t take nearly enough from the base concept to influence one foe’s knockback through their ally. It’s a missed opportunity in an otherwise admirable set.[/collapse]
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by Getocoolaid
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Volknerr
That's a rather ineteresting set: I like the interactions with the zombies and the fog, which is certainly an useful tool. Now my main problem is with the sword, Vlad; I can't even picture that weapon in mind, it is... a strangely shaped weapon. Also the smashes are really awkward and the mechanics behind it are quite quirky, but not in a very good way. I feel that it's one of the set's two biggest problems. The other one is- apart from some good interactions like I said before, it's not very exciting. The moves are rather bland and really, there is nothing quite unforgettable. Still, I don't dislike it entirely... So I'll give you something llike a 4.5.[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]
Moving on, Volknerr is...different. More gaseous hitboxes, I see, which is nice, but the gas/smoke-based moves don't really seem to blend with the rest of the set. I do like minion sets, but this one feels like the minions are, depending on the scenario, either all the character needs to win, or completely useless. I do like how the set can be used against itself, with Vlad being susceptible to being used against Volknerr's zombies, but when attached to opponents, Vlad seems so powerful that the zombies become pointless in protecting. Why keep slow, avoidable minions around when the sword does 20% damage per hit and can stick to the enemy? The set-ups are good; Volknerr has plenty of moves to move around his zombies and make his opponents susceptible to them. That part of the set is its shining point, in my opinion. So while it's not bad, it feels...a bit cluttered, I suppose. With some refinement, it could easily become a great minion-using moveset.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Electric-Type Gym Leader
Okay, he's not REALLY a Gym Leader...
Neutral Special is extremely broken. You say he'll want to call back Vlad, but there isn't any reason too, even if they can slaughter zombies: Volknerr himself should be able to destroy an opponent equipped with this due to getting laggy smashes and the fact that, to me, it seems like his smashes would hit anyone they are embedded into...and even if not, F-Smash is insane for dragging someone off the screen and gimping them by using it again. Especially since Volknerr can recall Vlad before the opponent dies, so he does not even lose Vlad.
Oh, right, and he can Back Throw to make this even worse. And replacing basically an entire moveset with sword slashes is a bad idea in general.
Aside from that, the moveset doesn't seem to really have much playstyle to it, as zombies are just summoned and then...well, to me, it feels like even the basic stuff doesn't flow all that well. The idea of zombies is okay, but I can think of so many better ways to take advantage of them, especially with a character like this who feels like they have a lot of potential behind them. Up Special feels really awkward. And a lot of the moves don't really work into anything, just being moves, which you can get away with if you have a strong playstyle...which this doesn't. So between not having good playstyle or flow, the brokenness and general annoyance from stuff like moveset tweaking, along with the ocassional oddity make it, for me anyway, a very unenjoyable read that did not have many redeeming qualities. I'll take Shadow's flaws any day.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]In the pantheon of Geto sets,
Volknerr is up there, but admittedly has its fair share of problems. It’s in a sense the most basic form of zombie master you can imagine, a character who summons up to a max amount of them and basically doesn’t interact with them. There are certainly a few interesting interactions (although why they turn to bones I’m not sure, isn’t that skeletons?) and the set has a nice, if odd tone. It basically feels like someone’s original character from a Role Play. All the good and bad things come with that distinction; unfortunately I’d say the bad outweighs the good. It’s a fun characterisation that seems to play on the odd pick-ups, items and strange abilities picked up by a character like that. Simultaneously, all these effects and moves that don’t particularly flow together, creating tornadoes and pulling out various weapons… it’s a fun eclectic sort of moveset, but it rarely flows. There is no playstyle section, but I wonder how this character would play if not simply making use of his very easily landed spells and constantly resurrecting zombies. What seals it may be the characterisation being a bit weak. He doesn’t come across as any particular kind of necromancer; frankly you could replace the header image of the character with another image of another RPG class. If you just said the character had obtained a zombie-summoning staff and Vlad, the set could work just the same. If you did focus on the zombies and keep control of the rampant over-creativity, I can see myself warming to this kind of set from you.[/collapse]
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by JOE and N88
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Spider-Man
Favorite set of the contest for now no questions asked. The presentation is really awesome, and the set itself is great. I wasn't disappointed in the least, it was even better than I thought. You're practically guaranteed to get my Super-Vote. A very minor complaint would be the "awkwardness" of some moves like the U-Air but Spidey's style isn't very orthodox anyway...
Also webbing the sky would be too bizarre now; perhaps it would be a good nostalgic reference, but nowadays Spidey is always pictured as using buildings as anchors. And I don't remember webbing the sky in Spiderman 2 on PS2... Or was that point fixed in Spiderman 3?[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]
Spider-Man is very good. Great, in fact. There's really nothing I can honestly find negative in the set. The music was a very nice touch, and fit the mood of the text very well, in addition to being so well-timed to my reading speed that it ended at the perfect moment, another plus. I can tell you put a lot of time into this, from the visuals to the audio and even into the presentation of the wording. As for the meat and potatoes of the set, everything blends well into a scrumptious spider-stew of moveset goodness. While it definitely aims at being an unorthodox playstyle - and you did manage to be creative - nothing felt "forced" in that every action is something one would expect Spider-Man to do, and no notable component of the superhero's arsenal was left out. Webbing the opponent as a cocoon suspended from the ledge is a fantastic idea that I must applaud. There's not much else to say. I really like it. Overall, it's a really great set that will certainly have a vote from me. [/collapse]
[collapse="darth_meanie"]Now, I hate to bandwagon praise on a moveset, but it should come as no surprise to anyone that
Spider-Man is my favorite set in this contest, bar none. JOE! and n88 prove to be a wonderful combination here, making a moveset that feels perfectly in-smash, full of depth, and unique and fun to play. I can't praise you both enough for resisting the temptation to make the web-slinger web-swing off of the top blast zone or a generic point in space. There's so much depth to be explored in the web swinging mechanic, jumping from low and high points to maneuver the stage. It's hardly a disadvantage for him either; he can still tether to ledges, and even on a stage with no platforms like Final Destination, I can imagine all sorts of neat stunts under the lip. And you further improve upon this with his quality aerial game. This is where I feel the set really does come together. You combine a solid aerial game, unique air movement options with web zip and web swing, and a unique ledge game to make him a gimper and aerial combatant that builds off of the source material and feels right at home at smash. You've even made him perfectly fun for free-for-all and team games with the throw game and other moves that feel right at home in one-on-one matches as well. The minimalistic approach you took also leaves the set with very few weaknesses to point out like I am liable to do.
Good job, plain and simple. I can foresee some complaints that the moveset doesn't spend too much time beating in more and more playstyle concepts in every move, but that's really the sets strength. If anything, you understate all the possibilities with his playstyle and leave it to the reader's imagination, a risky move that often gets penalized but I personally laud. Even the basic standard moves all fit into the basic gameplay-style Spider-Man should have. Up tilt helps him get into his aerial techniques, even a simple down tilt is a move that fits how I'd want Spider-Man to feel while playing, fast weak attacks and covering all the bases he needs to focus on his really interesting elements, instead of forcing it into moves it doesn't belong. In a contest with only two other sets I'd like to even weak vote so far, Spider-Man is leagues above the rest.[/collapse]
[collapse="Katapultar"]Now this is a really awesome kind of set we've been waiting for, one where somebody actually takes a classic comic book character and gives them the 5-star treatment. This actually feels every bit like Spider Man and feels rightfully approached, which for me is practically the pinnacle of perfection when combined with the passionate presentation. My only real nitpick is why Spider Man can't magically tether his Up Special web to the sky and use it to swing around when he's actually seen doing that in his source material, because if it's just for balancing purposes I don't think it would make him overpowering or anything. If I was a Spider Man fan coming in to play this set, I would actually expect the web to do what I just described. The Neutral Special feels a tad dry what with just bluntly trapping the foe, though it would obviously feel very wrong for it to be a trap and illogical to be a generic projectile. It is okay how it is I guess. I don't have much else to say when my praise was already been concentrated at the beginning, but this is a great relic for Spider Man that the two of you should be very proud of. It will definitely get a high vote from me should the time come.[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Spiderman
This set has been garnering a lot of attention, and thus far all of it seems to be very positive. I can certainly see why the excitement surrounding this set exists. For one the organization and extras are stellar, I usually don’t like to bring those things up but in this set I do feel they are good enough to actually have some bearing on the set’s quality. That wouldn’t matter if the set itself did not have good points, which it certainly does, with it managing to bring Spiderman’s comic book style to life almost masterfully, making full use of his web slinging, ensnaring, and web grappling for a very mobile playstyle that feels quite fun to play as. It helps that some moves, for example the Neutral and Forward Aerials, actually take a lot of this stuff into account and become much more interesting in the context of it, and you provide some options with his follow ups with his Neutral Special webbing to make it a lot more interesting to use. The Spidey Senses really help bring the set together, both flowing nicely into his highly mobile style and being one of the more interesting counters I’ve seen in a long time. This is as close to a definitive Spiderman set as we’ll ever get and for that reason I can fully understand why some people love it as much as they do.
Now as for my lack of enthusiasm on the set, which mind you, I still like, I think it comes down to 2 things. For one, I feel the set loses a lot of both the fun factor in terms of actually playing it, and a fair amount of playstyle depth, when playing on Final Destination. Sure he still functions fine from a playability standpoint, but the fact that Spiderman gets a lot worse on a very commonly played stage is a point against him. Second of all… I guess blame it on me craving every move does something fancy, but a lot of inputs in the set feel just like they’re there, not actually doing anything unique or fun in the context of Spiderman’s other moves. Sure, there are some inputs that actually are good in that aspect, but just as many are just… there, filling up space and not really holding my interest, or feeling like they’d be any more interesting on Spiderman than any other character. Admittedly, that’s all personal perspective, but I have trouble feeling the same sort of enthusiasm over this set that a lot of other people are.[/collapse]
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
Spoodermin
Spider-man is a technically brilliant moveset with every possibility thought out and addressed, even if it's indirect. The working of Spider-man's Web Swing and Spidey-sense, two very important parts of how the character fights, which were absent in the other Spider-man set, is great. The focus on slick, fast aerial combat works for Spidey well, as does the great web-based grab game. Obviously, it's a beauty to look at, too. Who cares if not every move has a flashy effect? I think you two have stumbled upon what may very well be the perfect Spider-man set.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]Does whatever a spider can!
Spider-Man is a fully self-aware set for an iconic character and takes into account many of the things that are usually taken for granted when it comes time to make a set for such a character. Why not throw out goop bombs of web to stick together platforms and items and etcetera? Well, because that simply is not the iconic Spider-Man. The use of it here makes sense for Smash and the character, in a sense a simplistic form of stun and a way to recover. It’s not generic either, it’s well-established as its own thing, in tandem with a great take on power shielding in the spider sense. I’ve gone long enough without talking about the organisation, but the organisation is stunning. I need not say more, it speaks for itself, what a beautiful take on a comic book layout. There are even some moves thrown in there that reference typical comic book baddy fight moves; beating up multiple enemies, casting them aside as a stall on the ledge or simply batting them into the air to wail on.
My problem is basically that the set doesn’t go deep enough to satisfy my taste for playstyle, it’s quite general and in-keeping to very in-smash ideals. It’s full of simplistic punches and kicks, nothing offensively un-smash, to the point that it’s funnily enough, politically correct. Forgive the obnoxious term, but I hope you can see what I mean by that. I simply do not care as much about direct in-smash implementation as I do an interesting playstyle and do feel even the basic flow could be largely improved upon if you guys were opener about flashier moves. Just as a throwaway example, pulling up slabs of the stage, it’s not used to its fullest potential. I still like the set and I respect it a tonne more than I like it, this set would fit in smash very well and users can disagree that this is all they want out of a set. Personally I like to think all sets start out a bit more ambitious even in Sakurai’s case and have to be moulded into something that slots into the game, so trying to replicate the process leaves me a bit unimpressed, though not disappointed. This is pretty much what any person would expect from a Spider-Man set.[/collapse]
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by FrozenRoy
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Sho Minamimoto
Now I’ve been meaning to comment this set for a bit, because I’ve told you for a while that I thought you would never make a set I would be willing to SV. I think maybe me being so harsh in that regard got through to you, because this set is absolutely fantastic and it’s going to take a hell of a lot of work for ANYONE to top this as my favorite in the entire contest.
There are a lot of reasons why, to start off the basis gives him a very unique pressure tool in the i Flare, a risky one to utilize given how long Sho has to wait to pull it off where the foe can act on their own accord, but one that makes fighting against Sho’s minions a great deal more intense as they frantically try to get to the mastermind himself. The minions themselves though, I feel are the real reason this set shines so much. All of them have a very interesting flare to them and feel both interesting to fight against and to utilize, and work well into the minion manipulation Sho has later in the set in his throws and tilts, which are all great in their own right, being both creative and yet fitting very practically into Sho’s playstyle by giving him both a lot of control and yet plenty of ways for the foe to interact.
This all, especially in the Smashes, ends up giving Sho an extremely extensive playground around his minions and stage construction that never once feels entirely unfair to foes or too derivative of another set. Frankly, I’m kind of surprised we haven’t ever seen tethers used this effectively to handle minions before, nor the concept of allowing foes to steal minions, and for that matter giving Sho the ability to fight back against them. I had little hope for that concept when you first mentioned it to me but in all honesty I think that ends up being one of the most interesting parts of Sho’s playstyle. On top of that, I can tell you really enjoy this character with all those references to his actions and eccentric attitude in game, along with the various mathematical jokes to make reading the set a very easy and enjoyable experience. The most I can really level against the set is there is the occasional filler move in the aerials, as well as the Jab, but even those moves are at least practical and become more interesting in the rest of his set. One again, congradulations Froy, you have really outdone yourself.[/collapse]
[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
Shoe Mini Nintendo
The use of minions and summons in this set is absolutely brilliant, give yourself a pat on the back for it. Level Flare is also great on it. As is all the stuff to do with the garbage pile. And don't get me started in the grab game! And also-
Let's just say I pretty much love every single word typed in this set, that it's basically going to be a high Supervote (my SVS are going to have a lot of Froy...) and that you should be proud of having created this. K? K.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]A self-described masterpiece is
Sho. I can see that. From the start, the writing style and consistent tone is great, the organisation taken from Ocon is complimented very well by the layout and limited use of images. It looks and reads better than any of your other sets. The set doesn’t especially get amazing until you hit the minion special. The use of frames as measurement, the risk-reward styling, the simple ordering and cohesion of effects that are finely-tuned… it’s some of the best, simplest minion creation I’ve ever seen. This is a field totally untouched by movesets in a sense. Sets generally go for flashy interaction-heavy minions or ones that have no hard interactions and are about as deep as Dedede’s Waddle Doo. To see a set that actually thinks outside the box for once when it comes to minions puts a smile on my face and I kept smiling when reading this set, as it kept strong all the way to the last move. The tether I loved when presented in Kitanji are improved upon in this set, making for a fantastic couple of tilts. The interaction-heavy garbage dumps and their equivalent soft interactions as basic walls are excellently crafted. The smashes are a fantastic improvement on your usual standards for smashes, but forgetting that, just excellent in taking advantage of the playing field without losing touch of balance or consistent tone. The smaller details of Sho using his megaphone to shout down opponents or waste time of his own accord, disavowing teammates, or generally to be an annoying control freak, are constant and that is impressive considering the breadth of detail, as well as quality.
The sole complaint I can level is that Sho over-reaches in a couple moves. He can teleport too freely and pull around foes at the same time around the potentially, utterly covered stage. His absolutely ludicrously powerful neutral special makes any match-up against Sho one that most any foe would find difficult to control. But there are two things holding that complaint back for me. One, it’s a complaint I wouldn’t level against the set unless it was already impressively balanced for Smash otherwise. Two, it does fit perfectly in what the character’s underlying effects on a match-up should be. And the set is very well characterised indeed, from the writing style to the laissez-faire nature of some central moves, arrogant in their success while dismissing the shortcomings. This is counter-balanced by a dichotomy of choice on part of the player, given an infinite amount of ways to build on the stage and not for a second forgetting the limitations of Smash Bros. It loses that clinging to zeroing-in on complete perfection that a few of your sets have, but I applaud your decision to take a new direction and try an unorthodox execution. It doesn’t lose what makes you, well, you, it actually makes emphasises your unique style to its maximum degree. In all, the set is a fantastic example of an inspired concept given full attention by someone who is very talented. No question you can put the character and the game away if you want to, it may be impossible to create a better adaptation for Smash Bros.[/collapse]
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by valve3
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Safety Valve
Anything more than 2 is too much.
The most problematic thing I find about this set is that it feels like it has an odd dichotomy of vehicle mechanics and how the set plays with the TNT. It feels like something that would want to naturally start and stop even with the ability to do things on the move, but that totally murders your ability to move and the playstyle you seem to be going for. It all feels kind of scattershot in that regard: I feel this would have been done much better if it was not a vehicular set.
I also didn't really like the concrete or the ramps in this moveset: The way the ramps are introduced as being made feels horribly strange and the concrete feels like it was better used in a set such as, say, Ant HIll Mob. The concrete platforms do admittedly feel a bit cool with how he can use them with his anti-grav...but with how he is needing to move a lot to get his great movement speed it again feels awkward in the context of vehicular mechanics. There's also the fact it feels like some numbers in general are a bit out of whack, like taking so long to slow down at full speed, the length of some moves or the absurd strength of the missile. I also find the "stuff popping under the stage" awkward here: it doesn't feel as fitting as older sets we've had with that.
Still, this does have some good ideas, like the anti-grav and the TNT in general. But I just don't feel they can get over the stuff I do not like and other inputs that just feel...meh. On the other hand, it's not something I'd say I hate either, so...well, yeah, that's about it, something I just kinda vaguely dislike and have a lot of issues with.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]
Nitros Oxide’s a refreshing change of pace for vehicle sets, a new set of rules, something I welcome in any ‘genre’ of movesets. Oxide is a different beast than the others and that gives his circuit playstyle a jolt of life, the two elements creating a nice original playing set that makes sense for the character. What I like about the set is the ramps, the boost pads and crates working together to make a death zone, but not an absolute one. It’s quite versatile for opponents to avoid this and Oxide does have ways to counter the responses, not in any broken way. I do have a problem with how melee moves don’t flow that well into those things I just said I liked, as they mostly just exist to branch out his basic match-ups. The characterisation on the surface is very good, but I do feel some of the character is sacrificed to create easy-to-use moves that while having a good fit in the playstyle, are huge wedges that have far too wide a use. The set’s already bordering on overpowered and while I wouldn’t say the concrete puts it over the edge, I don’t think it’s too useful in a normal match. It’s a nice tool, but in Smash I can’t see it being much more than an obstruction. It’s not a definitive vehicle set from you, but I still quite like it regardless.[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
N. Oxide
Dear god this is an all positive block have I gone insane or am I genuinely starting to like this contest. N. Oxide introduces mechanics that admittedly seem like they clash in the vehicle mechanics and the explosive crates. Certainly, that provides a problem if the Oxide player isn't keeping themselves in control, but if you ask me that just creates an interesting penalty for failure and the actual way Oxide's spacers work in the context of his set ups is fairly interesting. They feel versatile enough to keep him out of trouble as well as specifically suited to putting his opponents in nasty situations. It's not like the actual set up idea is bad either, being able to create systems that launch crates in every which direction in complex loops in conjunction with all this anti-gravity stuff is all pretty fun as far as set ups go.
Again, to give my token complaints about the set, the concrete suffers for me in that it's... really all fairly irrelevant if you ignore the anti-gravity devices. I know it's a special, but the fact that the move is just totally worthless otherwise feels off, though you try to attach a bunch of gimmicky effects to it which I feel really don't give it any more purpose. It's also bizarre some of the ways you suggest using the ramps as pits to murder the foe in, thankfully not brought up in the rest of the set but still feeling ultimately a bit off. Lastly... I know he has the spacers to allow him to thrive within his set ups, but after the specials and smashes he doesn't really have anything interesting to DO with his set ups other than knock foes into them. Which, certainly is the sensible thing to do but I just wish there were some interesting ways to mess around with them in the standards too instead of just a ton of spacers, though with how his vehicle mechanics work I know you needed a lot to keep him from being worse off in this set up than the foe. What you have is fine as far as I'm concerned, just it does feel like it could've been better.[/collapse]
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by FireEmblenier
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by peeup
[collapse="Katapultar"]I was rather surprised with how far you took this set, enough so to easily consider it to be by far your best ever. The fact that you're playing as a bed makes the set interesting right off the bat, and it's even more interesting when his stats are actually -good- but is only offset by being a massive character (seriously, we've had sets for cars, rocks and whales but we've never had a set for a bed!). I really like the Down Special in that it's appealing from a lot of perspectives, being interesting as an attack but also for the character - at first I kinda wished the Boomps weren't invincible, but then I realized it made perfect sense since they come from a children's show and as such you wouldn't want to burden the player with the worry that their companions might die. The simple use of the Boomps is also well-done in that their use feels Disney-like, what with the potential of being able to smack the enemy around even down to their lack of (initial) killing potential. There's some excellent form and characterization throughout the whole set, from the Icarus' use in the Side Special, and even the climactic-ish teamwork of the Down Special. D-air is a personal favorite animation of mine, it's really awesome.
Execution-wise, you've got some decent stuff and actually pretty self-aware of what's going on. The Neutral Special almost made me cringe at the aspect of having to charge an attack for 8-20 seconds until you mentioned that charging halfway or so was still effective - what's nice is that these affected moves aren't even broken due to having some end lag on them, and really interesting when you take into account the fact that Nemo is struggling to get his scepter beyond his already massive hitbox. The playstyle pretty much speaks for itself in that you ward enemies off the ground with Boomps and Icarus before beating them around with your air game, taking advantage of the transcendent priority of your huge-ranged weapon via being in the air to gain an overwhelming advantage - that is actually pretty good.
If I'm going to level any complaints against, they're veeeery slight - I think it's slightly out-of-character for Nemo to summon the enemies he's trying to destroy for his Final Smash, whereas you'd think he'd have something much better in the form of his scepter or Boomp friends. You also need to get a new picture for Nemo, and I don't know what Disney thing or what not he comes from. That aside, excellent work.[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Little Nemo
This is the first set you’ve ever made with an actual awareness of playstyle, and the ideas here aren’t bad at all. You have a minion to serve as a distraction and 5 serving as traps, plus a weapon that becomes much easier to power up when they’re all on board and variable weight, and you basically have to manage your resources between them. I actually kind of like how the Boomps work, since you can either make a giant more powerful minion or attempt combos by spacing them further away from each other and abusing your obscene range once you get your sword charged. Meanwhile, you can use them as defense while you charge your sword in exchange for having to charge for longer to get a result, creating a rather interesting balancing act.
Admittedly, I wish there was all a little more substance to this given most of his attacks are just a sword stab in X direction, though you impress me a bit by actually making them aware of the character’s body shape and mechanics beyond just a mere mention in the earlier moves. The bed attacks serve as an okay defense for when his sword is non-existent too but they don’t contribute to the set otherwise, and I really wish maybe they could help a little more with that obscene charge time Nemo needs for the full power blade. As a last note, I know it’s just percentages but the grab, pummel, and teamwork throws feel like they are so good you would do nothing but spam them once you get your set up maxed out and strike me as awkwardly powerful even before then, given he has a pummel that deals 7% a pop and a throw that deals 22%. Don’t let it worry you too much though, this is undoubtedly your best set by far and if you stick around I can easily see you achieving much greater heights than this.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]Peeup and Koric on the same page is a true delight, recalling you both as well as I do. It’s obvious that you’ve brushed up on your general writing and have a consistent vision for how
Little Nemo plays throughout the specials of the set. It’s definitely a huge positive how the characters on the bed interact; your attention to balance in comprising this weight system that uses characters up in important moves is great. That’s something that Ant Hill Mob also did recently, but it’s hard to say in which set the balancing part, not the actual use of it, is more appropriate a fit. While the up special isn’t so great, the other two specials set up the set well. Disappointingly, after the specials, the set loses its initial lustre. It’s a profound drop in not only detail and quality, but also in relevance. We don’t see any mention of the original concepts of a multi-weight bed, even when a simple move would be affected by it. The consequences of trading up your Oomps are neither given a second thought. That’s a terrible shame because I really thought after those specials you’d come back and made a good set, which after that long a break from set making, would be one for the books. Though there are successes to be taken from this outing and I hope you make another soon, as the criticisms I can make here are fairly obvious. I’m far more optimistic when it comes to those, as opposed to subtler flaws that are hard to articulate. Keep at it, peeup.[/collapse]
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Little Nemo
I like how sending the Boomps on the stage modify the sats of the bed, allowing it to be either a light-weight or a heavy-weight (Even though the player will want to stay a light-weight due to the Boomps being really good traps). Also while the N-Spec sounds good, I don't think it would practical, even with the little charge quirks. It IS an important part of Nemo's gameplay though, increasing his range and all that. Other than that I can't say anything new, Kat covered it well enough...[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]Little Nemo - Right off the bat, I just need to point out that while I have no idea what kind of acid-trip piece of animation these characters come from, I truly appreciate that you were passionate enough about this apparently obscure work to make a moveset for them. As someone who has great enthusiasm for animation history, I'm really glad to see more animated character movesets that don't come from an action anime or Disney flick.
I like the very concept of the character(s) as well, controlling a piece of furniture is a rather interesting idea, and unlike a vehicle set, the bed's size and magical properties don't limit it to a wildly unconventional playstyle. It's unique, but it's not un-Smash, and not really that complex. Anyone who could play as Mario or Link could play as Nemo without much trouble. It's a pretty nifty "cargo" set that've probably been done in MYM before, but I've yet to come across one.
As for the gameplay itself, I like the special moves, as they all have their concrete uses and they interact with the rest of Nemo's moves well enough. I do feel like a 6-second recovery time is a bit long for Icarus, even if the move is pretty useful. A lot of the aerials, smashes, and tilts feel like repeats of one another, but they all have their uses and I'm sure it's in-character, so I have little to complain about. Don't take any criticism I may have too seriously; most of my less-than-enthusiastic comments are more personal curiosity than outright criticism. Anyway, as Forward Arrow said, the grabs and pummel seem pretty OP and detract a bit from Nemo's other moves. As another plus, I like the resource management with the bed's weight. However, I went into the set expecting more moves to make use of the bed's passenger count, but Down Air and pummel are really the only ones that do. I suppose the main intention is to keep the Boomps on the field to act as hazards, but it still would've been nice to see them more involved in direct attacks. Once again though, this is probably just in-character, so there's really not too much weight behind my point. All in all, it's a pretty cool set. Short, sweet, and to the point as well, so kudos for that.[/collapse]
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by Koric
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]Koric! I’ve missed you in chat, dude. This set’s exactly what I’d expect from you, very methodical, clear and functional. This is precisely what you’d expect from
Riesz considering her set of weapons and I’ve no doubt you take deep consideration from the source material. The problem is that you don’t do well at carrying across this incredible expertise in the set. It’s an absolute crime that the detailed extras, going into specifics on transformations and a levelling system, will probably be ignored. It’s hidden away, though not very inviting when you do find it. That’s linked to the overall problem with the set, it’s kind of stuffy and doesn’t flow that evidently. You undoubtedly poured a tonne of effort into making this as you always do, but as I’ve said before, you would learn so much if you simply read, heck even commented, other sets. I’ll admit now, it sucks I’m the guy who reads every one of your sets because I suck at commenting them.[/collapse]
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by Conren
[collapse="Junahu"]Vespiquen
Or wait, I hear it's trendy now to change the name of the set, making it more difficult for the reader to pick out exactly what you're talking about
Quen Elizabee III
That better? Don't judge me, I'm new to this. Anyway, this being the first set I've read in a good while, I'm pleased to say that I actually enjoyed it! Sending a swarm of semi-sentient servants to do your dirty work is a concept that, yes, has been played with before, but it's by and large the best way to handle a Vespiquen.
One thing I appreciated about the set, early on, was the good amount of life and personality you put into the animations - in both senses. Full animations for attacks are rare in MYM sets, particularly custom ones. Tiny frowns on the Combee as they fly away, having failed their queen, and Vespiquen's royal persistence to remain standing even while asleep - these are very tiny things, but they add a lot to the set's charm. ...which is why I was disappointed when the voice petered out somewhere around the aerials, to be replaced with a dry (but still perfectly functional) tone.
Something of a confession to make, actually, which lead to me appreciating the set all the more in the end - I had entirely forgotten what was meant by "ordered attacks" until the reminder at the beginning of the playstyle section, thinking it was just a slick little thing on the down tilt and the down tilt specifically. I then had to ask a few questions, visually, such as how practical staying in the air to input all these commands to her swarm actually is, and approximately how ridiculous it would look. But really, it works pretty well, as Vespiquen is, ultimately, orchestrating a complicated dance of sorts, with simple pokes and points. Perhaps not QUITE how "real" bees do it, but a nice connection.
I WAS left wishing that Attack Order gave the user a bit more control over the swarm which was sent out. That is to say, it's simply stated that she can fire them out rapidly... I might've had the "lead" Combee stay in place for a brief moment if the input was being mashed repeatedly, allowing you to group a few together, but that's a minor quibble. Other such minor quibbles include the deterioration of proper spelling towards the very end of the set, and maybe how incredibly out of place beam sword animations felt, especially before the final smash. Oh and also I think you misused the term "doppler effect" (referring to sound dilation from an object passing by an observer) here, but it got the gist across.
Edit: Haha nope I was TOTALLY WRONG and that was an acceptable use of "Doppler effect" and this is an excellent animation of it
I'll let the other folks go ahead and comment on how "playstyle this, playstyle that," but suffice it to say that I like the core concept, and the voice and move animations greatly added to the set's overall feel. I only wish said feel was consistent.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Eater of Vespi
To tell the truth, I'm really afraid of bees and wasps and the like. They just make me REALLY uncomfortable. But this is one queen bee I can get behind.
The Olimaresque feel of this set is simply exquisite, building off the base idea in more innovative and flowing ways than said Olimar, but never losing touch with the intuitative feel of the plucky little captain. I especially love what you did with the Specials: Attack Order is a great way of both translating the attack and giving Vespiquen a nice playstyle piece, Patrol Order makes the most out of a Pokemon with an extremely limited skillset in Combee and Defend Order is an interesting and unique recovery option that uses Yoshi-esque armor, which is surprisingly underdone. Managing your Combee eternally remains a key part of the playstyle due to both how central they are to every part of the moveset and yet how fragile each Combee is. In a way, this reminds me of a set of mine, Alice Margatroid.
The tilts are all okay, and Down Tilt's animation is quite amazing, but I personally really liked the Smashes: U-Smash really takes advantage of the ability to order, D-Smash takes good note of Ness-esque charge damage and F_Smash is just plain fun. But a move I really like from this moveset is the Neutral Aerial, which greatly rewards proper Combee placement by letting you spam out hitboxes, but at the same time offers great risk due to needing to spread your vulnearable Combee around via things like ATtack Order.
In short, despite some move's dryness, Vespiquen's stinging playstyle working towards a long KO is quite worthy of a look and I feel that, so far, it is actually one of the better movesets this contest. Good work, Conren![/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]My opinion of
Vespiquen is largely mixed, but I do have more good to say than bad. The Pokémon is very much in-character, for one thing, which is important. I like the way the Combee work, and this set goes far in demonstrating just how many different ways minion-using sets can function. The command moves seem to share a universal taste for oddly-shaped, disjointed hitboxes, which is praise-worthingly creative and refreshing to see. The way they combo into each other is pretty cool, and makes the character seem rather entertaining to play as. The way that Patrol Order works is pretty neat, and makes Vespiquen have a sort of stage presence befitting of an all-reaching monarch. I also like how each move notes its damage output
before its description, rather than inside of it. More praise for your animation as well, which really does help illustrate the way that Vespiquen's animations work.
I do have a few dislikes. For one, the writing style, which kind of makes it difficult to follow at times. But not usually, so it's not much of a problem. Vespiquen's moves without Combee are also pretty bland, but it makes sense, and I'm certainly not all that gung-ho about sets using in-Smash elements at times, especially if it makes sense. If anything, Vespiquen's stale standards give the player all the more reason to use the more interesting Combee moves, if their benefits weren't already incentive enough.
Not much else I have to say. It's pretty good, in my eyes. It could be a tad more interesting, but eh, what do I know? I'd play the character if I could, so it's definitely something I'd say is commendable.[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]The minion use in
Vespiquen is the exact kind of minion use I’ve always enjoyed. It’s not remotely awkward or gimmicky, it’s simply a universal way to help branch out your playstyle. Not only does it increase versatility, but sheds a new light on the most basic of this Pokémon’s moves. You can tell this set had plenty of thought put into how to make it, as every move has a use in the playstyle that is well-defined and generally creative. There’s little to complain about. If I were to nitpick, I’d nitpick redundancy on some of the swarming moves, or the grab game, which is fairly ‘short’ compared to other input sections. Not bad, but not as good as the rest of the set.
Where the set comes into its own is in the interactions, those wonderful Combees that augment and alter every facet of Vespiquen’s moveset. The idea to keep them on patrol is quite a good one, making it easy to keep vague semblance of stage control if the player is willing to sacrifice time creating these set-ups. I love that animation, that is worthy of a regular vote on its own. Truly a wonderful bit of work and demonstrates how fun it’d be to create patterns of these minion Pokémon swooping in and causing damage to the foe. It’s dynamic, but simple – creative, but acutely self-aware. It’s astonishing that you’ve come so far and you deserve all the praise I can give for making this great set.[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Vespiquen
This set is a pretty huge improvement for you Conren, actually having a surprisingly strong yet open ended playstyle with the way her Combees are used. They can either be a close ranged defense to give Vespiquen better recovery and survivability, or dedicated to performing various "ordered attacks" around the stage, activated by throwing them out to attack. It feels like a very logical expansion on Olimar while remaining incredibly intuitive and in smash. That's not to say it's uninteresting though, you have a ton of cool inputs like the Smashes and the Nair in here to supplement the playstyle, and the bizarre shapes and combos of the combee swarm attacks makes it so I feel the set has a lot more depth than it appears too at a glance.
If I had to nitpick, the set isn't always at as high of a point as the Smashes and Nair in the ordered attacks, which are otherwise solid but not really anything worth getting excited over on their own, and the throws in particular feel like a wasted opportunity, not really making use of what made the other attacks in this set fun, just being attacks that get generically stronger with more combees. Those attacks are also drier in terms of attack description, which is a shame when the vivid descriptions earlier on give so much character. It's not a huge complaint though, because the set never really descends into anything outright objectionable and I do enjoy "simple yet deep" sets, of which this certainly fits the bill.[/collapse]
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by FrozenRoy
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]
Kamon
This is a submission I intended to read and review soon after it was initially posted. Unfortunately or fortunately, life got in the way and I had to significantly postpone this comment. It's not much anyway, just my standard spiel. Anyway, Froy, I apologize this took so long.
So, what I like about Kamon is his suicidal moveset and playstyle. He's pretty much the epitome of high-risk, high-reward characters. I like how the wicks on the dynamite can be cut down in length, but I didn't expect you to allow for such precision. It's a startling decision, but a smart one, as the ability to control exactly when one's dynamite goes off adds that much more depth to Kamon's game. Relatively few of Kamon's attacks lack a risk factor, which serves to make Kamon a "Difficult, but Awesome" sort of fighter that we seem to love so much in MYM. The interactions between Kamon's moves are all there, and all serve a well-thought out purpose. At first I thought some of them were filler until I read further and saw how they worked into his playstyle; the best example would be his down tilt, with its tripping that puts enemies into potent situations no matter where they tech, given Kamon's volatile stage hazards.
My only problem is the Playstyle "section", which, as you said, didn't even need to exist since the moveset itself illustrates it so well on its own (another thing I praise this set for). You didn't really need to make a section like that and plainly state it's unnecessary; that's obvious by the moveset itself. I dunno. That kind of stuff just bugs me.[/collapse]
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by Dr. Slavic
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]
Hello Dr. Slavic, I’d love to hear more about your history as a lurker on this site and hope you do stick around for a long time making sets with us. Immediately Spider strikes me as a set that actively creates a character you can relate to as a player, in spite of the unusual size and shape. It’s not an easy character from the get-go, but you adapt to this difficulty like a natural. The weapon switch combined with a shield, a sort of counter that helps to balance the set in Spider’s favour, is cool and the options it gives Spider solely in the specials is impressive. Already at this point the set is building up a personality, if not yet a fully-developed one. The set doesn’t take off like it could have done at this point, as we get to some strange moves. The smashes are far, far too direct of moves for smashes, they don’t leave any room for personality because they’re such stalwarts of Smash Bros movesets. A character digging a hole or planting a mine underground that casually travels forward isn’t very distinctive. The set also doesn’t actually have much of a truly unique playstyle. It’s a set defined by the moves, as easily imagined as they are, it’s not a good adaptation if the character basically just brings out every tool it has on a suitable input and the playstyle ends up being a sum of those parts. Nonetheless, it’s a strong first set and one that shows plenty of promise, the extra sections and care you put into the layout, post-set sections and stats are wonderful, you should try to make your next set a little more colourful and use more images if you can find them, though.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Spydah
I suppose I'll go back and throw Dr. Slavic a comment, eh? It is long overdue!
Spider is a fun little set and a good way to start off: The weapon swap is decent, the projectiles give a solid playstyle, and little bits like the Back Throw are fairly cool, even if the set is at it's core pretty basic. The moves could use some more tightness, but the combo/projectile game shines through enough to say it is decent. I like how Spider doesn't like being in the air and has an air game to accomidate that, while still being decent. The lack of a back aerial is very dissapointing, though. There are a few other moves I don't like either: For example, I don't like how U-Throw ultimately NEEDS the Missile Launcher, I'd rather have it just do something extra with it, and I am generally opposed to pitfalls like on the D-Smash because they're just a worst trip/Paralyzer stun.
Still, it is a pretty good start (Certainly better than mine!). I hope we see more from you, Dr. Slavic, because you seem to have good ideas and your MU was fun. I hope this comment was helpful.
[/collapse]
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by BridgesWithTurtles
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
De-Vyse-Ive
Sorry for not commenting this for so long, Turtles! I meant to do it a while back but, well, as you can see my commenting went fail for a while there!
The Moon Stone chart at the top is a bit hard to understand on first read admittedly, but once you do the concept is quite nice, especially when combined with the set's focus on 2v2 and the ability to shift moon stones at any time...and then you get into the attacks that can use Moon Stones for different effects! A very simple yet effective bit of ideasing there, Turtles. I especially enjoy the Forward Smash, as the variety of options feel unique while all retaining their own functionality. Down Smash's elegant repositioning and use of Moon Stone switching is pretty great too, though.
The Pirate Shield is a cool idea, as a counter that bestows a shield for yourself or an ally, plus the fact it remains unbroken because of projectiles and grabs while severely limiting options...in 2v2s, a Vyse flinging himself around could make it quite hard for them to hit your ally, but of course team attack makes it double edged, too...quite nice. Cutlass Fury is also insanely cool, as you can cancel it into all kinds of things for a variety of options, mixups and even possibly mindgames while still having very useful attacks with the attack by itself...and all those multi-hit moves really do a number with the Moon Stones.
This is also one of the few movesets I have seen that puts in situationals like that and makes them more than just little extra things. It is handled well, I'd say: the attacks feel like they fit but without being too overwhelming as to feel odd for Ledge/Floor/Trip/Etc inputs. Quika is also really cool, as the use of teleporting with some of Vyse's attacks (The F-Smash comes to mind for it's variety of possible stone uses) combined with Moon Stone shifting makes it versatile, but not in too much of a way, as the foe always has the ability to react and the timing is strict, ensuring skill in use...and it doesn't fall into the trap of versatility without playstyle, as this falls right into his playstyle. And how about that Hoist! Imagine using a Quika to get to a teammate who is trying to aerially pursue a foe, then toss them up with a quick, well placed Hoist?
I hadn't seen Back Aerial before, but the ability to quickly shift to Silver as a surprise is nice.
The playstyle here was simply excellent: The attacks flowing into a 2v2 are sublime and the 1v1 playstyle is strong enough that the moveset easily holds its own. The mixups and tech chases, things I quite adore, mixed up with a simple yet effective playstyle of quicker, less damaging strikes with the ability to bring the hurt with a well timed Side Special or counter is simply great, and the use of versatile Moon Stone shifts on moves like Forward Smash and Back Aerial offer some really nice options, without remaining overwhelming. You wanted to beat ChuChus? Well, you just did.
Two things to point out, though: A good deal of the numbers are a bit whack, like the Down Throw lasting forever, and the writing style can get a bit long and drawn out in spots. I don't feel like it did TOO much overall, a lot of the little bits were things I like, but I can definately see people disliking it. For example, the way the Down Smash is described, it took me a moment to get HOW he repositioned the ally/foe.[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Vyse
I'm going to be the token downer on this set and say I don't think it's better than Chu Chus, on the basis that Chu Chus relied less on a painfully awkward mechanic with element switching, that assigns every character an element when said elements do not exist in the actual game, then modifying attacks damage to enemeis of a specific element anyway if Vyse is that element because screw consistency. What's a standout problem in that mechanic is how badly he screws over characters who are double weak, because they take a noticeably larger amount of damage from Vyse's attacks than anyone else, or just the fact that people have to memorize a chart and every character affinity when some of them don't even make sense(why the heck is Sho ICE of all things?) I know MYM sets are not all intuitive, but having the memorize that much just seems like a pain. Past that, I feel the set really just comes down to tech chases, combos, and follow ups, fairly standard in smash stuff which if anything might be better without that obnoxious mechanic weighing it down, though it will occasionally allow for decent mid combo options. Side Special, Dash Attack, and Up Special serve as(in Side Special's case, somewhat overpowered) enablers to these standard combos and tech chases that feel... ultimately rather bland and occasionally frustrating foes rather than extending actual depth in comboing.
I guess the use of his moves becomes a tad bit more interesting in the context of 2v2, such as making the skeleton shield into something you'd ever actually see come up again, but it's problematic to me that it is never mentioned outside of the context of 2v2 and just serving as a gimmicky counter in 1v1 with no flow into the rest of the set. Even in 2v2 though, aside from requiring more strategy with the element switching I don't feel you give his moves strong enough application, Down Smash feeling a bit too weak in it's effect to really have an impact worth damaging your ally over, or in other cases the animation just coming across as ridiculous. How does he boost them up with his arms in Up Tilt when he's also swinging his swords upward? I won't deny there's an existent 1v1 playstyle and some of the 2v2 stuff is at least functional, but the set doesn't really manage much beyond just existing and not being heavily flawed past it's initial mechanic to me. I really wish it went anywhere beyond that, but there's not really any unique concepts held here and the execution feels just as banal as what it's based on.[/collapse]
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by Katapultar
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Salvatore
I'll admit I've been sort of questioning the direction you've been taking with your sets lately, with Minami, Mistleteinn, and Mukae generally going for a much simpler approach than before in a style that you are clearly not used too. In Minami it worked out and I certainly like parts of Mistleteinn, but I kind of missed the old more creative Kat. Well this set brings that side of you back, with lessons learned from the previous sets for that matter. You have an interesting take on Koala Kong's infamous ground chunk riding in the Neutral Special, what with it more playing into bullet hell here than it does gimping... and come the Nair, you give the ability to create an entirely customizable path to send your "platform" flying across and minions can ride it. Speaking of the minions, they are kind of brilliant in all the control you have of them. I particularly like that you can just stack them on top of each other in a tower to give them a vantage point to fire from, as well as the way the grab game plays with them and the ability to arm them with a lot of Salvatore's more powerful attacks.
The set doesn't really have any glaring flaws unlike your usual stuff in spite of all the great creativity, so I figure I'll just nitpick on one individual move I actually do like but think maybe could've been better. Nair makes for some crazy customizable projectile paths if used right sure, and is absolutely fantastic in conjunction with NSpecial... I just wish it was all more user friendly, because those paths will A. divert projectiles whether or not you want them too while they are out and B. disappear after anyone fires a projectile, meaning if some dumb minion fires a bullet at the wrong time your whole crazy bullet path is ruined. They aren't hard to make sure, but it makes the move seem like far more of a headache to use than I wish it was. And there are just some weird inputs and underspecifications here and there, like the Sniper Rifle being a melee attack despite firing a bullet and I'm kind of curious as to whether multiple fire attacks can stack their effects on a rocket. Because in the context of a bullet hell set like this that would make that move a lot more exciting if it did work, but I can't tell. This is again, all just nitpicking as I really do like this set, but there are a couple things hampering my enjoyment of it to put it truly among the elite.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Salvatore Dali
Mmmm, that outfit.
Your Forward Throw is actually very similiar to a concept I had for Roy Koopa. Not a bad thing: I just found it amusing.
Salvatore's Neutral Special offers an excellent start to this set and quite quickly endeared me to it: even leaving aside the ability to travel on it, which is quite brilliant and fun, the way the prokectile works with ground embedement and such is really quite cool. The Gunner minions work quite well into this, I feel: The minion arming is much cooler here than it ever was in Kang and has a LOT of options...although I do feel like the minion orders could have been streamlined somehow, though I'm not sure what suggestion I would make for it. Not removing options, as I like the options, just streamlining how to get them. The standards are pretty slick and, while remaining basic, offer a good deal of playstyle: The Down Tilt and Dash Attack are two inputs I especially enjoyed.
My biggest problem with this set probably came from some moves that felt very awkward, and nothing exemplified that more than Up Smash: It's very flashy and very confounding, I had to easily read it twice to understand what it did, and it did not feel like it contributed to the set much. The Neutral Aerial wasn't an input I particularly liked either, not so much for the reasons FA suggested, as much as it feels very awkward and not working well with your bullet game in general: The only thing it works with is making a track for your NSpec bullet to ride on, which is okay, but it just doesn't feel well when combined with her game overall. On the flipside, I loved the Down Smash, which felt very cool without being overly flashy and still remaining playstyle relevant.
So ultimately, Salvatore felt like a good set, albeit with some flaws. But the good outshined the bad and so I thoroughly enjoyed it.[/collapse]
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by JOE!
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Pain Train
Glad to see Pinsir is out and out quick: I'm working on Heracross, my end of the exchange, and hope to have something to show for it soon, although E3 will probably eat up my day tomorrow.
The Pain Train is quite an adapt name here, as Pinsir's wide variety of command grabs combined with decent normal grabs giving him quite a healthy game in that regard, while Focus Energy is a real cool buff: The different tiers of charge and the fact Pinsir gets equivalent debuff time is quite nice. My favorite part about the set is how all the command grabs and throws all work together, as it creates a nice, tight and cohesive playstyle, with Focus Energy getting it's due in the Smashes. It's all very cool stuff. I was a bit weary of the boulder in previews, though it was an interesting idea, but I feel that the worry was unfounded in this regard: the boulder serves a really neat function throughout the set and definately feels more like an asset than a problem.
What I dislike about this set is that about half of the standards and aerials don't feel like they do anything, even in the context of outside the playstyle or providing weaknesses, they're just kinda...there. Brick Break is cool, I like the Dash Attack, BAir is okay and DAir's freeze frame use is cool, but even then only Brick Break and maybe the dash attack feel like they go with anything, while everything else feels more or less...there, nothing added to the substance of Pinsir, and nothing keeping my interest. I think that with a little more of the tight focus Pinsir displayed earlier here, it could have become great, but as is it is merely good. Still enjoyable, still good, but just that.[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]
In which I address the fact that Pinsir could use some more comments.
Oh boy, I'm still not entirely sure what to say about Pinsir. What I can say right off the bat is that I wouldn't play as him. That means absolutely nothing when discussing whatever bad points the set may have. Rather, it has a lot more to say about its good points, as Pinsir is the kind of character that I could never master. Due to its plethora of extra inputs and commands, as well as the innumerable possibilities concerning move linkage, Pinsir would just be way too overwhelming for me to play, and that's why it's so good. There's nothing really un-Smash about it; rather, it takes the concept of alternative move commands seen in examples like Dancing Blade, and amps it up to eleven. Pinsir's playstyle is of course high-risk and high-reward, and manages to be demanding without being complex; that's where its beauty lays.
Pinsir's comfort zone is of course always having the option to have something between his pincers, and the use of the Strength boulder to provide him with both a hurtbox and hitbox even when opponents aren't available or the best choice is truly creative and genius, creating a spackle that patches up any possible holes the set could have sported. Using the boulder as a secondary hitbox to augment already powerful attacks (to say nothing of Focus Energy's boosts) is pretty genius and a likable concept. The aptly-named "Pain Train" lives up to its hype. The standards and specials all work well into one another, almost blurring the distinction between the two categories. Despite the unorthodox controls that the moveset features, Pinsir doesn't even seem out of place when one takes into account the fact that Smash Bros, as far as gamepllay is concerned, is a Kirby game at its core, and we've seen similar throw-heavy movesets in that series as well, such as with the Throw ability and Bugzzy.
As is customary of my comments, I don't really have anything bad to say, but Pinsir's real quality will come to light when I see how he matches up against his rival. : )[/collapse]
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by FrozenRoy
---
by Lemonwater
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by Lemonwater
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by Junahu
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
TAC
It needs no introduction. It needs no reason. It merely is...TAC.
"In the distant future, when all MYM6 sets are considered absolute garbage, only TAC will remain relevant. The master of deception indeed…"
This was once said by the remix maker himself, Junahu, and while it does not hold entirely true today (There is still the ocassional relevant MYM6 set!), it perfectly encapsulates WHY I am so excited to see this set: Will TAC still spark the same debates as before? Has opinion shifted on it...and if so, is it positive and negative? What will people who had never seen the original TAC think? The entire mental exercise is astounding to imagine!
The organization in this set is pretty great: The repeated and mirrored inputs are a necessity for the concept that I can forgive (Kind of like how it is forgivable for a Mario set to have his classic punch-punch-kick, even if it is taken from Mario's Brawl set), but the introduction itself is great, the match-up section is nicely done, and there are bits like TAC stealing the extras.
The concept for TAC is so simple, so elegant: Every move, or in this case ALMOST every move, steals a move from the foe, creating a true mirror mismatch, as TAC must play the thinker's game to build up his moveset, and utilize his unique statistical abilities to his advantage and deal with the foe having any positive mechanics...or punish them for having negative ones! It is all quite a charming little ditt from the past. This is combined with the Side Special, Up Special and Down Special: 3 non-thieving moves to help differentiate TAC. While I enjoy the Side Special (It gives him a legit move to use outside stealing!) and the Up Special is okay, I hate the Down Special: it feels very useless and anti-TAC. TAC having to carefully consider each stole move is part of the feel of the moveset, and it feels VERY easy to just pluck away attacks...plus, to me, the attack feels very anti-TAC, and does not flow. I would have much prefered this to be the original TAC's invisibility: it fit TAC well and really should have been there.
I also highly dislike a change from the original to this: TAC not keeping his stolen attacks across stocks. It simply makes him unplayable, due to the fact he is inevitably going to take damage while stealing the foe's attacks...and while the foe does not have to build up after dying, TAC now does. If TAC dies before the opponent, he is pretty screwed. It is simply a poor change. Some other changes, like the ability to give a decent attack (SSpec), are welcomed...as is the ability to charge each theft, giving TAC some great depth. Still, the DSpec and stock change bug me greatly...
This is minor, but you know what I was was in here? TAC vs. Rool's TAC. We have TAC vs. TAC after all...why not have Rool's TAC steal TAC's place for one? :3 Also, I hate how TAC is effectively banned from competitive play: I don't agree that would happen. D3 makes Brawl characters unplayable and he is allowed. Other forces have entirely centralized metagames before. TAC is fine.
The changes are a bit bothersome in some places, but TAC still holds up in this day and age for me, if not amazingly so. The thought experiment remains provoking: The responses will probably interest me: The set remains solid...if iffy in spots, especially the stock change. I hope to see many responses to this set soon.
And, indeed, I would say...TAC remains relevant.[/collapse]
[collapse="Darth_Meanie"]
Well done Junahu. TAC is always an underrated set, one that even I've underrated for some time. There is an incredible amount of depth here and you've barely scratched the surface of the depth he has. In fact, I'd say TAC is an exemplary character in describing how the metagame and positioning works and would be an incredible learning tool for players even to understand how to okay the game at a higher level. Interpereting either set as a mere ditto function or restat of another character is a grave mistake.
Smash, like all fighting games, is a game of POSITIONING. Where you are and where the opponent is is by far the most important element in deciding matches and the most important thing to control. If the opponent has a powerful down aerial to steal then, for example, it becomes a huge challenge as both players attempt to get or prevent the other from stealing / using it, both trying to get above the other. TAC makes the subtle game of control obvious and challenging in every match up. Do you go for the rewarding option or the likely option? How do you tske advantage of the hitstun? I'm honestly disappointed most of the matchups focused more on mechanical. interactions than juicy skirmishes over how the opponent would try to predict and deny TAC. I also debate your claim that TAC is unplayable competitively. He is certainly very good, but as far as Brawl itself goes, or any smash game, no match up clearly benefits him or hurts him. Ice climbers certainly have an advantage but hardly an insurmountable one, even Olimar can have Pikmin Pluck stolen. I suppose some MYM characters yes can't be played with TAC, but if that was the measure for competitiveness then every set would be unplayable on account of being destroyed or destroying some other character.
Having him not use the three specials and lose all moves after stocks was a good move. It sets him apart as a character of his own instead of a ditto machine and keeps the interesting decisions at the forefront, with a few new ones to make as well.
tl;dr TAC is way more brilliant than it first appears, love you Jun.
EDIT: Kirby match-up where? Inhale a stolen inhale, or steal an inhaled steal?[/collapse]
[collapse="Smash Daddy"]
TAC is one of the worst sets Junahu has ever made. An accomplishment given how experimental he’s gotten, but this is really offensive on a couple of levels besides being an outright god awful moveset. You missed the point of the original and completely twisted it to serve a new ulterior motive; kissing up to Rool. I would imagine Rool, as gracious as he likes to be these days in his grave, may deny this, but it’s absolutely true. The original TAC was arguably, emphasis on argubaly, a joke set, but it had one big positive that made it a good proponent of other aspects of Make Your Move. That is, the match-ups that Rool painstakingly created for dozens of sets in the same contest. Your disgraceful offering in place of that is Rool’s ancient movesets that have zero significance beyond being made by the same author as the original TAC. I actually do find it insulting as not a huge fan of Rool by any means, that you chose TAC to be his tribute. Not Gengar, Tutankoopa, Skeleton… this highly experimental set. Why?
Oh yeah. You made that obnoxious advertisement for TAC. We can all cringingly remember that one. And now you’re back to prove the timeless nature of this concept.
Well, even in that regard, you screwed up the set. You’ve added angle-able and charge-able qualities to every copy move, plus you've removed three of the specials to be nudged aside by generic recoveries and an abhorrent new down special. This is already worse than the original, years old TAC at this point. You go back on the specials immediately in these comparably scarce match-ups, to be exact Father Time, where you give an exception to a single character. Assuming you didn’t hit a mine in your random collection of one guy’s sets, I don’t see how multiple exceptions for different characters in a Free-For-All or Team setting can ever work. There we have it, everyone, the set solely praised in its time for FFAs now doesn’t work in certain FFAs. To finish it off, you’ve given this great memorial a far blander, less inspired organisation by taking out the old boxed layout once more, and you’ve somehow got a more confusing writing style. It took several Skype’s back when this set first came out to figure out the tiny new details that you hid away in those mysterious little boxes.
Now we’ve gotten that out of the way, I feel I owe the entire concept a run-through because it is truly awful in its basic form alone. Regardless of the character’s mediocre stats, there is no reason for playing this character over your opponent. Unlike in other fighting games where the “copy” fighter chooses another moveset randomly and has it in whole, TAC both has to copy each move individually and goes into each fight with the opponent knowing what they’re up against. In a remotely competitive setting, TAC is Z-tier. Even the weakest characters like Ganondorf have players who know their character better than TAC players, who has to learn every character in existence to begin to be competitive. That’s forgiving the fact he has to re-learn everything once he’s KO’d too. Usually I’d look over a flaw that could be so easily removed, but in a set this barebones; it’s a shocking anti-user friendly addition. No one in their right mind wants to play as a character that has no individuality or playability. Casuals won’t understand it, competitive players would treat it rightly as a joke set. Intermediates would at best play it as a joke against lower-skilled players and that’s all it has to its credit.
Finally, the whole idea is affectingly stupid. Kirby is basically TAC, he steals moves, but in Smash he doesn’t steal every single move as if they’re each abilities. He simply gains a hat to use a foe’s main ability and that would be the most logical set for TAC. He has Kirby’s neutral special, obviously slightly different as he’s not going to wear the hat or suck up enemies, but that be all. TAC does nothing aside from launch a disjointed hand, but there have been far better sets in Make Your Move based off less than that. A generic ninja set or play on the copy ability would be the sane approach. Instead we get a random enemy from Kirby, becoming a create-a-moveset character, who can’t play against himself properly because he has one default KO move. This simple character has gone from a joke set originally in Smeargle, to a half-joke, half-experiment in Rool TAC, to a total joke… and one that captivates actual praise? If you want a good set in this ‘genre’ go read Lizard or VideoMan.EXE off the top of my head. This set is an insult to modern Make Your Move, ignorant of everything going on around it to do with coming to terms with what constitutes an in-smash set and some real breakthroughs in characterization, too arrogant to acknowledge the movesets posted directly around it. On a personal level, it sums up the toxic mindset held by inactive members of the old guard and pats them on the back for their fear of what’s new in Make Your Move. “I haven’t read any new sets, but the old ones were better!” A nostalgic travesty, in more ways than one.[/collapse]
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by APC99
[collapse="Daviddreamcatcha"]
General Zod
It's been quite a good amount of time since we've had a moveset for a Superman character! 5 contests ago, actually, with
MYM9's excellent Bizarro moveset being the last of them. Zod is my favorite Superman villain next to Braniac and the aforementioned Bizarro, so seeing him gain a moveset is a welcome surprise and I commend you on your taste. Zod is a fairly standard set, and doesn't seem to have a steady playstyle in mind - is he a heavy hitter like Bowser or is he on the move constantly like Pit, who you draw comparison to quite a bit? I admit, though, I had a bit of trouble reading this: try and make your colors more appealing to the eye, as it makes the moveset easier to read - you appear to have fixed this with Elec Man, so I won't dwell on that too long.
Besides that, there are really only two things I suggest you improve on. The first is try and work on making your attacks a bit more descriptive - down smash in particular confused me. Is he running back and forth or vibrating to represent superspeed or what? It's a very confusing thing, and describing it better would help readers to visualize it. The other thing is characterization, and also allow me to bring Elec Man back for this: Zod is a great character with a much richer history than the robot master, and I feel like this moveset doesn't encompass him as well as it should've. Given your relative newness to the contest, I can't fault you for that. But at the same time, it seems very confusing when you seem to be going for a Terrence Stamp Zod with the image and the writing style (Planet Houston) but then bring the Man of Steel Zod into it with the final smash and the down throw. Perhaps focusing on only one or on a steadier mix of the two would have been good, rather than having the two Zod portrayals constantly clash into each other - imagine if half of Bowser's moves were based off the Galaxy Bowser's boss battles and the other half were based on antics of the Cartoon King Koopa! Regardless, this is a good first effort and I look forward to seeing you improve.[/collapse]
[collapse="Katapultar"]The only non-Mega Man moveset. Though the presentation is a bit rough, it gets a ton of comparison points for being one of the amusing-to-read sets in the entire contest. This is pretty consistent too, so good job on that. Some of the moves are missing details, but that's a worthy sacrifice for the writing. It is certainly a unique way to start a movesetting career in comparison to the 3 Robot Master, actually being interesting to go back and read. I also like how you've been consistent with providing a backstory on how each character entered brawl. I know this is a poor excuse for a comment, but it was written with the other 3 in mind. You get to know this at least![/collapse]
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by APC99
[collapse="Daviddreamcatcha"]
Elec Man
More Robot Masters, as has been pointed out above by Kholdstare, are indeed quite welcomed here. Elec Man does seem better written than the good General up there, whether or not this is due to realizing the faults with the first one or the fact that you no longer have a self-imposed Terrence Stamp voice throughout the moveset is a nonfactor when the attacks here are not only better described and are more interesting than Zod's. Right off the bat, he has more of a playstyle than Zod, with a stage control thing going on with the Tesla Coils. There are pretty cool implications there for Elec Man players, imagine Elec Man in the air firing down aerial bolts at them!
One thing I would like to advise against, though, is stuff like the down standard/crouch attack - we know what The Villager's grab special LOOKS and ACTS like because of gameplay footage, and it is thus acceptable for Zod to reference that. However, while we know Megaman has the slide, we don't exactly know how much damage it will deal - leaving the readers a bit confused. Regardless, if my opinion wasn't obvious enough, Elec Man is indeed a superior effort to Zod and is far more pleasant to read through/look at, thanks to the more eye-pleasing colors. You have indeed shown that you can improve, keep that level of improvement up and you could prove to be a top contender in this contest.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Evolution of Circuitry
Elec Man is a quick and simple set without much playstyle to it, but it has the underpinnings of a decent set: It just needed to take advantage of things like the shocking and paralysis some more. It also could have used some input moving about: For example, the side aerial works much better as a Special. You could move the current Side Special to Down Special, Down Special to a standard and Side Aerial to Side Special fairly easily. Same with the Back. But the base is fine if it is expanded on some.
Here is an idea of something that might have been cool: What if the Tesla Coil, when charged, would sometimes fire a lightning bolt somewhere? And that Elec Man could absorb that lightning bolt? Maybe he could even have a way to power up his attacks with it, or by draining the Tesla Coil, so he would then try to paralysis the foe when he knows a bolt is coming. That could be a great little way of expanding it. Just an idea I got while reading the set.[/collapse]
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[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
King Boo
That's a pretty nice set we got there. That's a very good trap character, almost entirely relying on his ability to trick the opponent, like in the games, so the set's atmosphere and feeling is very good. It's really a set for King Boo and not just a concept slapped on some convenient character, and it's really cool. Now, King Boo got a truckload of options to mess up his foe, the most obvious one being the Spirit Balls. Combined with his own invisibility, that gives King Boo the means to rightfully mess with his opponent's head. The other specials are great too, even if the recovery part of the Portal is a bit... outlandish. All in all, the moves "flow" quite well together: there isn't a particularily filler-ish move. Also, the pummel is quite original, I had never seen something like that before. While rather impractical and all, it's still a nice call-back to Luigi's Mansion.
I feel it's a pretty solid set you gave us. I personally won't super-vote it, but I'll advertise it for sure, because the atmosphere of the set is really pleasant and it's a trap character done right.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Dark Side of the Boo
First thing I wanna point out: The Special Dodge really needs to be some other input. Shield Special, maybe? The fact that ANY dodge causes King Boo to be unable to dodge for 5 seconds or until hit is simply absurd, even with the threshold. Make it a Sield Special that allows him to go Invisible and willingly give it up for that, but be able to dodge like a normal character outside of it.
Up Special is very confusingly written. It took me a long time of reading to understand just how the dimension worked. The potential for respawn is quite annoying King BOo-wise, seeing as he can do things like turn it invisible, but the fact the enemy can just jump int to stop it when King Boo dies balances it a little, I guess...oh yeah, and 2 seconds is WAY too long for this, the same problem I had with Vyse's D-Throw.
How do you short hop aerials underground...? Or are you basically saying to do that to use aerials underground/when rising? (Reading UAir later gave me a better idea about this, so!)
I then stopped typing for a bit while reading and, well...I have a good deal to complain about, really. The Up Special feels extremely strong, very confusingly written and both unfun for the opponent and not all that great playstyle-wise. The Boos don't feel all that special, though they're still fine and maybe even good. The Spike Balls are okay, the way the invisibility works is fine but the way the foe has to try and remove it is simply dreadful. Up to 20% damage just to remove them and if you don't do it within a time limit it's all for naught? Please. D-Tilt, UAir and Up Smash are all fun, at least, and I do absolutely love the "Hold Pummel", although the fact it can be made totally invisible by invisfying the Boos seems potentially bad. The D-Smash's "scare" factor seems, to me, quite silly, so insert standard character complaint there. The blue fire never goes anywhere and King Boo simply does not flow or have his playstyle work all that well with the DoT, especially since it ONLY deals DoT. NAir's falco laser stun with the boo movement and King BOo being able to move screams for horrible bits of combos or short time small locks into an aerial, while the less special moves rarely work together to make a cohesive playstyle with the paranoia, invisibility and such on and so forth parts of the set.
In short, the set simply does not work as a cohesive unit, in addition to me really hating the Up Special. On the plus side, the use of images is excellent here and while the writing is confusing at times, it does nail down the feel of King Boo very well, and has some good concepts, but it rarely properly brings them to the forefront. I'd like to see more of what you guys could make together, at least.[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]Up at 1 AM...the perfect time to read and review
King Boo.
66.6% damage armor on the Final Smash. I see what you did there. Oh yeah, and
Spirit Bomb.
Anyway, this is a moveset I definitely have mixed feelings about. My first problem is the writing at times, which is oddly descriptive while still doing a poor job at describing some moves; I had to reread several attacks before I understood them. Granted, these are rather complex actions, so it's not that much of a fault. Additionally, the use of the abbreviated "KB" for both "King Boo" and "knockback" makes reading a bit of a sluggish experience. I naturally read the acronym as "knockback", so seeing it used for King Boo himself was a bit confusing. When I finally began to associate KB with the character, you guys started using it to mean knockback. Again, not a major problem. Just a little thing that got in the way of enjoying the bigger picture.
Something else I'm a little iffy on is the Up Special. It's creative, it's fitting, and it's useful, but I can't help but wish King Boo had a more traditional recovery method. The lack of a ROB- or Pit-like free-flight move just seems....missing, like it should be there. That, however, isn't a problem with the moveset itself so much as with the portrayal of the character. The portal is a perfectly fitting and applicable Up Special that has every reason to exist in this moveset.
I must say that the moveset itself is very nice, with a cohesive playstyle that smartly blends trap-using and minion-using tropes to create a genre-busting character. The concept of turning anything and everything invisible is pretty creative, and with all of King Boo's traps and hazards for his enemies to worry about, it pours salt in the wounds to have him turn ledges, platforms, and even shields invisible! I really like the shield bit; it's highly creative and something I never would have thought of. The devious mastermind-ery of King B's playstyle requires cunning and a capacity for some nasty thinking, very befitting of the character, and that makes the player feel as if they
are the character. That's a feature that I hold very highly in movesets. The playstyle makes KB Toys feel very fun to play. I don't mind the long preparation times of most of the moves, honestly. In the case of Down Special especially, the reward is substantially worth the charge time. Oh, and excellent use of images by the way.
My biggest complaint with King Boo is that it feels, at times, like it's trying to be a little over-ambitious with its complexity, but it certainly works in this case. It's mainly the Up Special that I have problems with, in addition to the grab and pummel functionality, which I feel serve to be unique without much substance, and don't add much to the playstyle, though they certainly add character.
Much more positive than negative, but as Kalmar said, probably more of an advertisement than a super vote. I hope that's not discouraging, because it's very good and deserves a recognition and read from everyone. I just personally don't consider it a favorite. Hope you two make some more sets together this contest, as your ideas and presentation are great.[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
King Boo
I have to admit this set is a lot wackier than I'd expect from JOE, and when I went to look into the set more I was surprised that was far from entirely due to Smady's decisions. Some of the crazier moves, like DSmash and USpecial, actually came from JOE, and I am one of those people who does not think that's a bad thing. If anything the moves still, barring Up Special, all feel very in smash and in some ways in touch with JOE's style, while still managing to be shockingly creative and actually flowing in some interesting ways with the general invisibility, spiked balls, traps, and DTilt. I'm not of the belief that the portal is really all that bad myself, it's poorly worded but it's perfectly possible to punish King Boo reviving out of it, especially considering the 2nd kill will come much easier. The move's problem is just writing style and number crunching with it's actual time holding the foe captive, and I don't think those are big enough problems to punish the entire set for. Plus it's a fun way of connecting your stage elements together, recovering with some risk-reward attached since foes can soak up damage to kill you, even creating a little bullet hell with different speed ghosts, and it generally works in cool ways with the NSpecial invisibility.
Speaking of that, I really like the ability to turn just about anything you want invisible in this set, reminding me of Spy's invisible spray from back in MYM7 only actually fitting to character and the applications for it are fun, if maybe slightly imbalanced in the case of the portal and the painting, and the surprising amount of mileage you get out of relatively simplistic moves like Nair and Uair with their unorthodox hitboxes. In terms of flow no it's not exactly super dense on interactions, but what is there allows to play in some shockingly unique ways, I think my favorite of which just being the ability to move inside the floor the way he does and use his enjoyably crazy upwards hitboxes like Uair and USmash to pester foes from below. Course there is also the ability to distract foes and make working around your set ups vastly more complicated with one of the best executed pummel KOs I have ever seen, feeling shockingly balanced yet creating a very interesting game between King Boo and the foe as they try to bust the portrait open and regain their stock. It does have flaws though, I won't deny that I've found it very easy to nitpick parts of the set(such as the terrible blue flames mechanics, I don't think damage over time is really a particularly relevant mechanic to this set even with the foe getting trapped in the portal for 2 seconds, which wasn't really a good idea to start with, and then it just makes shields invisible which is a really really painfully tacky status effect if I've ever seen one). The writing also could get awkward at times, referring to things like the diamond on King Boo's head and some obscure graphic on Final Destination to indicate how high a wave is is a very inefficient way of actually indicating size, as almost no-one will actually be able to figure it out without thinking on it for several seconds, making for some difficult reading. It's nothing that drags down this set for me especially much, but I think I really would've liked it more if moves that were used for awkward blue flame effects could've been used to tie together some parts of the set a little nicer, because as is there is flow, but I feel that certain elements could've been connected and make the set feel as a whole more cohesive. It's certainly worthy of some praise though for how many cool concepts it introduces though, and it reminds me a fair bit of Marin, which you said was your favorite set in the contest, didn't you JOE?[/collapse]
[collapse="APC99"]I didn't really understand it too well, and that's saying something since I'm a grade ahead in English! The main problem was the Paranormal Portal, which lost me until you clarified, thanks for that, by the way! The ideas are great, and I'd really enjoy portrificating Luigi, turning Smart Bombs invisible and dropping Spike Balls into opponents. In fact, the idea of the Paranormal Portal kind of inspired me to work on my Chell moveset. Back to the moveset, using Boos and controlling them with taunts is really original and a cool idea. The Paranormal Portal DOES seem like a fair trade, and can be quickly healed, and it also decreases the chances of people constantly using Paranormal Portal to teleport on stage. The Final Smash is cool, the Pink Boo transformation is something that you could stumble upon in battle and suddenly get a great advantage. To summarize, a really cool-sounding moveset with lots of references, but hard to understand at some points and some of the tactics can be unknown to newer players such as the Taunt controls and the Pink Boos.[/collapse]
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[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Blizzard Man
You know 2 contests ago with Hockey Man and Gray Fullbuster I think MYM kinda got tired of the whole "create an ice rink to slide on" concept. At least with those two sets though, they try to give any depth to their concept with something other than a couple created slopes to roll snowballs down, which frankly isn't a very exciting concept when all it does is make a slightly bigger hitbox and just allow you to spam the screen a bit more. When it's not doing that it's just doing stuff that doesn't even flow in at all like the... well about 75% of this set barely acknowledges the existance of snow other than "this move gets slightly better when you're sliding on it because it's meant to be used while moving". It's not even like the generic attacks are tasteful by generic attack standards, with the Up Tilt being an awkwardly broken anti-air by cancelling every attack in existence and being a lingering trap you can make as much of as you'd ever want, while not even being slow enough to really counterbalance it, or just a generic projectile that gets mirrored onto the Nair. Hell, the set fails at being in smash at times when it just has a random smash dedicated to basically making your snow worse but preserving it's lifespan. Speaking of which, for the life of me I am slightly bothered by how fast this guy moves by sliding along level snow. You need a slope to build momentum, that's how physics work. You don't magically accelerate to become one of the fastest characters in the game on level SNOW. Ice maybe, but not snow which if anything slows you down. I'll admit the set manages some basic form of flow at points with the prospects of rolling snowballs along slopes and a couple attacks that take advantage of them in palatable ways, but they're few and far between in this set.[/collapse]
[collapse="APC99"]I do not like slow characters, I cannot be patient. So that's one drawback so far. There's still the "preferences" I had with Z1GMA's Ring Man missing, such as little representation of source material and the Final Smash doesn't seem too amazing. However, the playstyle is still interesting with stage control. I may have gotten lost and missed it, but maybe Blizzard Man could be slow on land, but uber-fast on snow? The Blizzard Attack and the rolling move are in the moveset too, so I've got nothing too much to complain about, besides the lack of curling puck enemies as projectiles, which would be really cool as they could have the same properties of Blizzard Man as stated above: Slow on land, uber-fast on snow. I have to give you credit on the use of the skis, as you use them very well in the moveset. In summary, good use of Blizzard Man's weapons and stage control, but slowness and low reference to source material can turn away possible players.[/collapse]
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[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Quick Man
It's yet again a very simple but coherent set coming from you APC. There's nothing too exciting, the set being very Brawl-ish, There's one or things that set me off, like the QuickBlade and QuickShield which are QuickMan.EXE's moves, but overall it's pretty. There's not much to say, the set being very standard, but I'm waiting for Magnet Man, I hope he'll be at least as good as Elec Man. Continue like that![/collapse]
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[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
King
First I'll give you points for staying true to the original material, which I really like for being a Tekken fan myself.
Now it's very correct for a first set. The presentation is very clear and down-to-earth and the occasional pics are nifty. Now for the set in itself, I found interesting to use three different attacks on the Ftilt. I don't think it has ever been done in this manner. The attacks in itself are coherent, and it indeed works well as a Brawl set. Now, while this set is perfectly fine and readable, I must "warn" you: you apparently misunderstood what we call "playstyle", because what you indicate (Grabbing and special throws) is totally obvious when reading the set. A playstyle section should be used, I think, to explain how a match plays with King: how he will approach the opponent, what are his weaknesses, his strong points, how his moves are used in the big picture, etc. You'll convince your readers far more easily if you explain the "Why" and the "How" of each move.
I hope you understood what I tried to explain. It's not a critic, mind you: I've got some harsh beginnings too, and creating a profound playstyle with a distinct personality is really fun. You can always ask for advice about it, we will be more than happy to explain.[/collapse]
[collapse="APC99"]I know nothing about Tekken moves or wrestling moves in general (I've only played it once and lost within a minute), but he seems like a good fighter. I didn't understand the playstyle well, but you seem to have fixed it in Ring Man, so cool. I like the idea of a character who's dependent on grabbing (BESIDES chain-grabbing) so I enjoyed it a lot. Besides, the guy's got a cheetah head! He looks like he could be a villain in Batman or something! The lack of a projectile adds to the macho-wrestler playstyle, so all is forgiven. The Final Smash looks cool, and would be awesome if it was sped up and performed faster. And dear god that sheep stage should be his home stage! In summary, a cool character with a original playstyle, but a lot of it was lost in translation to a person like me who is not knowledgable in the ways of Tekken and professional fighting. Plus dat sheepy music.[/collapse]
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[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]
Okay, so, wow. I was actually considering doing a Pac-Man set this contest (as was Smady, I recall), but it looks like you've got us beat. I'm going to try and separate my bias from my analysis here, as I'm a Pac-Man fan myself but have some critiques to make.
Without being too extensive, the set has a few problems. More attention to formatting would be appreciated, with the pictures being placed on different lines than the text. On that same note, the moveset has trouble with flow; why is the Final Smash in between smashes and standards? Moves are descriptive enough to clearly illustrate their appearances (in most cases), but little else is mentioned about attack properties. For example:
Z- air - pac man uses his grapple from the old pac-in-time game. Only the tip does damage (5%)
This doesn't really tell us anything about the move. For one thing, those who haven't played the source game won't know what his grapple looks like. Another problem is that it lacks any hard information: How strong is it and what is its knockback? How long are the frames active? What's the start-up and cooldown like? Questions like that go unanswered, which makes it more difficult to fully envision the character and how he plays.
Also, the neutral special seems a little underpowered due to the copy being destroyed in one hit while demanding a 5-second wait for a retry. The sort of "double-teaming" part of the moveset could be an interesting basis for a developed playstyle if the move's use weren't so restricted.
As a Pac-Man fan, I appreciate the fan-service and respect to the series, drawing from a wide variety of games. However, as a moveset maker, it's a bit underwhelming. None of this meshes into a coherent playstyle, making Pac-Man come off as a rather generic fighter. The moves themselves could possibly work into a playstyle, but not enough information is given about them for the reader to tell. I hope I'm clearly articulating what I'm trying to say here (maybe someone else could say it better?). Still, there's room for improvement. I'd like to see you attempt another moveset or a reworking of this one.[/collapse]
[collapse="APC99"]This surprised me. I used to make "basic" movesets with my friends, and basically our Special Attacks and Final Smash were exactly the same for Pac-Man. Except for Double Trouble. Not only is that the strangest idea for Pac-Man, it seems really easy to spam. I have to give you credit though for thinking outside of the box and not giving Pac-Man his chomp for his neutral special. The use of the Galaga ship, although clever, seemed out of place to me, as does the Grappling Hook, Skate Slice and the presentation of the Pac-Dot Chain. I'd actually say it would be cooler for Pac-Man to just chomp Pac-Dots normally without a ghost in his 3D form, but apparently I'm one of the only people who likes his 3D appearance. In summary, good moveset with some unexpected turns, for better or for worse.[/collapse]
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[collapse="APC99"]Tingle's just a cool and weird character. To me's he's the Waluigi of the Zelda reps: A possible spin-off rep to the series. And they're both portrayed as creepy people on the Internet. Anyway, the moveset's cool. It seems to be missing things like Final Smash and the other additions like Taunts and such, but that's perfectly fine. His moveset looks quirky yet effective, making him a great character just to float around in air and spam other players until they're annoyed and high-damage, then KO them with a Force Gem, Firework or Rupee. In that case, some may say he's got a similar playstyle to Pit
. All jokes aside, a really cool moveset, although I seem to notice a lack of maps. I'm not sure how they could fit in, but I would be really impressed if you found a way to introduce them somehow if you ever update it. I noticed a lot of stuff that just seemed to be out-of-place, like the U-Smash and U-Throw. They didn't seem right for Tingle. To summarize, great moveset, some things missing, but classic playstyle and strangely fitting moves, with the exception of a few.[/collapse]
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[collapse="Katapultar"]
This just might be the shortest set in the contest 
. Short is certainly not a bad thing, especially with a Robot Master, though it could use just a bit more detail on the moves (they do have just enough to understand them from a basic level), like knockback direction when necessary but most importantly what kind of uses the move has in the overall playstyle - you'll see on Smash Wiki and guides for existing characters that most of their moves have surprising uses to them and that they tend to play in a certain way. This'd make your sets more interesting to read, because while King had some good inspiration behind him and Youtube videos showcasing his moves for reference, Ring Man doesn't feel very inspired (which I don't blame you for, since Robot Masters don't have a lot to draw from, but that doesn't mean he -can't- be interesting). You might even want to read some sets in this contest (or the previous ones) for an idea of what you can do if you put your mind to it, especially the Robot Master sets from the previous contests of which were more or less in the same boat as you.
For the actual set itself, the Neutral Special boomering and Down Special tactical ring are interesting on their own, and could be a fair bit better if there were more ways for these to support/be supported by the rest of the set; how about more ways to manipulate the tactical ring or even knock around your rings with your basic moves for interesting interactions? Rings have plenty of potential despite being simplistic objects, like being able to trap people or whatnot. Also, from an aesthetic point of view, Ring Man seems to have some magic ring powers as based on his entrance animation, him summoning rings out of nowhere and his genie-like appearance - moves where he summons hula-hoops out of nowhere like Wii Fit Trainer kind of hurt the image I have for him as a fighter, especially that Final Smash. That might be good to remember for the future.
So, overall, I'd say it's certainly not as good as King, but you can at least use it as a stepping stone for the future in regards to what you might be critiqued about. I can at least guess you like the Mega Man series from your avatar though, so keep at it![/collapse]
[collapse="APC99"]Another Robot Master moveset! Cool! Anyway, I noticed that Ring Man's got a great playstyle which kinda reminds me of Olimar and the Pikmin (I don't know how, it just does) but doesn't really channel the Mega Man part of him. This may just be preference talking, which I really hope it's not, but I think that besides the Ring Boomerang, there's really not much that references his history in Mega Man. I'm really sorry if I sound like "if I did it", but I feel you could've done something with stage obstacles (those coiled-looking platforms, UGH!), maybe those hippos or the exploding ring mini-bosses, even if it wasn't using them literally, but maybe using the rings to make the hippo's platform, or a move exploding rings around him. Heck, maybe even throw in some NetNavi moves if you want to! That's just suggestions from me, but I actually see only one problem in my eyes: The final smash. It just looks underwhelming to me. Ring Man just hula-hooping around just kinda seems like if Link had his boomerang grow in his Final Smash, or Luigi ate a Super Mushroom and used the Green Missile. But in all seriousness, a short and sweet moveset with a great playstyle, but not enough reference to the source material and a lackluster Final Smash.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Ring Around the Moveset
This is ZIGMA's Ring Man, by the way.
My first suggestion would be to add a little more detail: Even just going into the animations some makes movesets feel more lively and allows people to better get into the moveset by visualizing how it'd look. For example, what do Ring Chain's throws look like at all? Does he spin them, fling them, bring them to him so he can throw them? Adding descriptions that better bring these moves to life helps enrich the reading experience and create a better moveset.
Secondly, maybe add in some more zest to the moves, a little differentiation. The Side Special is the one I think of this the most: Why not make it differ from just his grabs and throws? It is a special grab, a Command Grab, so you could spice it up. You could use the fact you just grabbed with a chain to spice things up: Maybe tether them to something with the chain? Wrap it around them to restrict movement? That sort of thing. Do little things like that and the mvoeset gets deeper playstyle and becomes more fun to read, write and play.
One thing that was good about this is that, if expanded, the Neutral Special/Down Special/Up Special would make a fun playstyle. Drop rings around, maybe even put the foe in one, then use Up Special to zip right to the foe, and use the delay of your Neutral Special projectile to control the stage...it's got potential.[/collapse]
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[collapse="APC99"]Darn, I wanted to do all of the original Robot Masters
Anyway, Guts Man looks pretty good. My only real problem is the specials besides Super Arm. Pickaxe seems out of place to me, even if Guts Man is the work robot. Dig could've worked like it did in Powered Up, where he rises underneath with a block, and Guts Stomp seemed to be a bit too much like King Dedede's. Although I don't like the idea of Guts Man being a semi-clone, I think throwing Mets could've worked as well. Down Smash could have been a Guts Block falling into his arms like in his boss fight, but I really like the Final Smash. To summarize, cool playstyle and Final Smash, but some lackluster moves. That's all I got for this one.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
MYM Has Guts (Man)
The biggest issue with Guts Man has to be the numbers, and this isn't just number crunching a few moves here: Almost every move past the Specials has far too good of KO power. Guts Man runs into the problem that either all these attacks have to be horribly laggy, in which case Guts Man is underpowered and unfun to play because he has very few attacks that are realistically usable and most of them are redundant, or the attacks have similiar lag to normal attacks, in which case Guts Man has moves with huge KO power without the lag or any drawbacks associated with it. It is hard to say which it is, since none of the attacks have any lag times on it.
The Super Arm actually makes an okay base, but there just isn't much to build off of it, especially with such underdetailed attacks, and Guts Man doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason to his attacks other than "Ko quickly", which isn't really a flow of a playstyle. A bit dissapointing of a moveset.[/collapse]
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[collapse="FrozenRoy"]
Diving Into a Moveset
As a general rule, Playstyle sections work best when they are at the end of a moveset, due to the fact that before reading the moveset a person has no idea what you are talking about move-wise.
You don't need to start a new line for each sentence, even using center: Just using it in one paragraph is a bit cleaner to read. I think Dive Man could end up a lot better, but just like Ring Man, it has good underlying concepts: For example, Submerge could be really cool, but as-is it kind of doesn't do much for an entire alternate mode of transportation and such. I think the playstyle could be more sharply defined: Some more added on to the more basic attacks would help prop the moveset up. I also feel that the Down Tilt should be moved to a Smash or Special input. There's some other awkward moves too, like DAir...but the biggest thing is just the "new line for every sentence" makes this set feel twice as long as it actually is.[/collapse]
[collapse="APC99"]Talk about an improvement! Ring Man to me was OK, but Dive Man is spectacular! I see you took my advice with the stage hazards, and you've made them essential and powerful for Dive Man, making him a really cool character! The F-Tilt honestly doesn't make too much sense to me, as I can't see him using his propeller foot to push opponents forward. The Metal Urchins are really unique, as is Moby the Final Smash Whale. However, even though you followed everyone's advice, he seems a bit... overpowered. I mean, you can submerge yourself to dodge almost every Final Smash (except Olimar's), drop dangerous spike balls and go right past them and then drop invincible enemies into the playing field! To summarize, a great improvement over Ring Man with cool moves and great references, but a bit overpowered and some strange uses of the Propellers.[/collapse]
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[collapse="APC99"]I consider this an exact opposite to Z1GMA's Ring Man. You do reference the source material often, but your moves don't really work too well. Trapeze works enough that it could be a great stage control, but it could be harder to recover if they don't spawn in air. The hippo Final Smash seems like an insta-kill, which is something I don't think really works (besides Marth's), but I enjoy his aerial game. To summarize, good aerial game and reference to the source material, but broken Final Smash and some lackluster moves.[/collapse]
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[collapse="n88_2004"]There's no official system in place for providing moveset feedback. Anyone and everyone is encouraged to read other people's movesets and chime in. That said, since I've got a free moment and haven't
quite collapsed at my keyboard [don't be surprised if nothing from here on out is particularly coherent or logical, because I'm pretty close], let's talk
Heracross.
Toxic, though a nifty little move [especially mechanically interesting in the context of a largely physical fighter like Heracross] is not a great choice to start off the set. I'm going to quote something written quite some time ago that still very much applies today.
MarthTrinity said:
Pokemon Syndrome: We define Pokemon Syndrome as giving a Pokemon moves that, while they may fit the playstyle perfectly, do not fit the Pokemon’s “character.” And yes, I hear you saying already that Pokemon are mindless beasts and have no character…but they do have distinct traits and abilities!
One of the biggest examples of Pokemon Syndrome could be seen back in the day with SkylerOcon’s Metagross moveset where he gave the Psychic/Steel type Rain Dance. Now…when one thinks Metagross, do they think summoning rain? Not really. Or not at all rather. When one thinks Metagross, they think a giant psychic tank made of steel that uses its brute force in addition to its psychic abilities to fight.
A good moveset for any character should be a moveset that really only makes sense for that character; you should always be trying to convey what sets your character apart. Despite Toxic's mechanical functionality, I have some reservations about whether it really expresses what makes Heracross unique. Having a move that seems contrary to Heracross's nature so early in the set and on a Special is pretty jarring. It starts things off on the wrong foot, which is especially unfortunate since you demonstrate a pretty solid grasp on the sorts of things Heracross should and should not be doing throughout the rest of the set.
I'm going to keep harping on your Specials for a minute [I know, I don't like it either]. What you've got here is mostly slightly retooled Special attacks already present in Brawl. This moveset is really your chance to make Heracross shine. He should feel unique, he should feel distinctly Heracross-y. Don't be afriad to get creative, especially in the Special attacks; these are the cornerstones of the moveset. I'm not saying that your approach is bad, but I would like to caution you against feeling restricted to using attacks that are already in Brawl. MYM has seen some pretty off-the-wall stuff over the years, and nobody will bat an eye if you decide to mix it up a little.
But don't walk away from this comment thinking you did everything wrong, because that's certainly not the case. You've got a nice, readable organization [you have no idea how few people get that right on their first try], and you've showed off a pretty clear knowledge of exactly what goes into a moveset. My advice for you is to try to have a little more fun with your character. Get creative [I know you can. That Toxic move, for all my complaints, is still a pretty darn fun move] and keep on eye on that characterization, and you'll be doing all kinds of awesome. Hopefully you stick around and write something else for us.[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]Having just wrapped up another session of beetle farming in Animal Crossing, I feel inspired and find it fitting to pull an
America's Got Talent and give my opinion on
Heracross despite having no qualifications to judge quality myself.
I mostly just want to expand on what Nate said since he's pretty much on the mark on what this set needs. What Heracross has is solid presentation (really, thank you for being so organized) and an idea of how moves in Smash Bros. actually work, which may not seem like much, but is vitally important and not a universal talent among moveset makers. Heracross also has an actual playstyle; he's a speedy berserker with a light weight that makes him both rewarding and risky to play aggressively. What Heracross lacks, however, is an identity. What Heracross does in this set is all what he could do, but without necessarily making use of what makes Heracross unique. The moves are only what he
can do, not what
onlyhe can do. I'll be the first to say I don't really mind seeing movesets that aren't super-crazy and are more Sakurai-esque. That being said, it'd definitely make Heracross stand out more if he were more crazy and unique. There's tons you can do with the character; Pokémon are great moveset subjects because they have established biologies and behaviors that provide basis for a myriad of unique potential, while still being uncharacterized enough for the moveset maker to get creative and insert their own little personalities and ideas.
Heracross' other problem, I think, is just generally having moves that don't have enough of a relationship. For example, Toxic. Toxic is an interesting idea. While the point about the Pokémon Syndrome is valid, it's still pretty interesting to have a passively-damaging move on such an otherwise rough n' tough physical fighter. But the set doesn't play off of Toxic; once it's mentioned, it's forgotten about. No mention is made of how Heracross can use other moves or strategies to interact with Toxic. If Toxic formed more of a basis for Heracross' playstyle, it might not make the Pokémon feel more in-character, but it'd make him more interesting and unique, with a playstyle all its own, rather than a general heavy-hitter.
Sorry if I made that sound condescending; I didn't intend for that at all. What I'm saying is, it's a good showing, and I'd like to see more, but it's not a million dollar act.[/collapse]
[collapse="APC99"]Warning: Not much knowledge about Pokemon. The specials are cool (especially Toxic) but all the moves are very basic. This is expected for a first moveset. The Final Smash is another controllable one, and those are always good (except Volt Tackle, can never get it right), but my only problem is, again, the moves seem a bit too "beginner's character" for me. To summarize, cool specials and a good Final Smash, but basic moves and no identifiable playstyle. Reminds me of my Quick Man a lot.[/collapse]
[collapse="Junahu"]
Heracross:
I enjoyed the physicality of this moveset. It's all very much focused on figuratively locking horns with your foe, getting in their face and never backing down. The moves are all relatively simple, but they get their point across, and there's no fluff in the writing either. It's nicely concise.
But I have to repeat n88's criticism, that Heracross is not a poisonous insect, and should not be using Toxic. Heracross has no other Poison moves (even via TM). And Toxic is something EVERYTHING can learn. Heracross is no more poisonous than Pikachu, or Squirtle. Basically, my issue is that Toxic isn't a very Heracross like move, and that damages the way the moveset is characterised. It's especially surprising, given that the rest of his moves are pitch perfect for the fighting beetle.
Personally, I would have anchored the moveset around moves like Feint, or Endure, to complement his Counter attack. I would also try to think of a way to get the player to focus on Heracross' horn as a tool for spacing, prodding, and eventually KOing. Perhaps something as simple as Heracross having a shorter 'clank' animation than other characters (when two similarly powerful attacks collide, both players suffer a short delay from the clash) so that he can cancel out a foe's quicker attacks and then proceed to punish them
I'm basically rambling ideas at this point. But that's an integral part of making movesets; finding/exploring ideas that complement the overall design and character of what you're trying to make[/collapse]
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[collapse="Getocoolaid"]
VanellopeShe was my favorite character in the movie, bar none. So funny.
The Specials are actually pretty cool, I like the various uses of glitching, specifically the neutral special is really cool, and sets her up as a potentially dangerous foe if one isn't careful around her. I especially like the mid-move transport part of it, she could do serious damage with smashes using it! The only thing I can say is that the neutral special is so good at recovering her that it kinda defeats the purpose of the up special, ya feel? The side special is pretty cool too, even if it's Wario's Bike reskinned, though I like the glitch interaction. Down special is fine, and could be great at mind games with the opponent, though the timing is waaaaaay too long. For reference, a Falcon Punch lasts for under a second, and it only takes about 1 second to fully charge smashes.
The rest of the moveset is a lot of punches and kicks, which is fine: it's a combo/mindgaming moveset, and those are usually filled with this kind of thing. I'd advise you to spend a bit more time with the moveset, and give as much detail as possible for the moves. You did good with providing damage, but we have no idea how long these moves last, how far they reach, or how much knockback they do and in what direction they do it in! The most rewarding part of set making, for me at least, is making moves that can flow into other moves naturally, Thinking of ways to make each move flow into the other is rewarding!
As a side note, I'd take a look at other sets around to get an idea of how to format movesets. It's not required, but reading a large white block of text is very unappealing for the eyes. I'd recommend something similar to the recent Heracross moveset for how to do simple formatting!
So yeah, overall, it's a simple set, but there are lots of cool ideas in the specials, and there is definitely potential. If you want to be "serious" (or at least as serious as you can get with this kind of thing) I'd recommend checking out http://mymbunker.wordpress.com . Under the "Movesets" tab you can click on any contest and read any moveset from MYMs past! I'd say anything from MYM 4 and above should give you a good read and show you what i mean by having your moves "flow". The moe they flow, the stronger the playstyle will be![/collapse]
[collapse="APC99"]Love Wreck-it-Ralph, and I'm actually working on a Fix-It-Felix Jr. moveset along the line. About the moveset, the glitching is a cool playstyle gimmick, and it really adds a lot to her character. The Up B seems kind of useless, since her Glitch is a great recovery, so I recommend sometime in the future trying to find a replacement of some sort, maybe even something that isn't a recovery like Jigglypuff. There's only two main problems to me: The clone moves and the Final Smash. Vanellope is an original character, but a lot of her moves imitate other video game characters, like Mario, Luigi, Ness, Shantae, Rayman and Mega Man. I'd really appreciate it if her attacks had a bit more originality to them, but ideas slip the mind right now. As for the Final Smash, I think that using Wreck-It-Ralph isn't truly a Final Smash Vanellope needs. Wreck-It-Ralph has his own moves, ideas and attacks that he could bring as an individual fighter, and it kind of locks him downwards to be his own character if he's only a Final Smash. Vanellope can use her glitching to re-create the Diet Cola Mountain and drop some Mentos in it, like a Ice Climber/ Samus combo. To summarize, a cool playstyle and useful moves, but some clone moves, a recovery move rendered useless by other moves and a Final Smash that has so much potential as a completely different character,[/collapse]
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Vanellope
I'm a huge fan of Wreck-It Ralph just like you, so I'm very pleased to see a Vanellope set here. Your glitching mechanic seduced me instantly, because it's ideal to create very "flowing" combos. The set isn't totally incredible but this little mechanic is just neat. It could have been expanded though, there could have been more uses to it than just following p some moves to create combos. The other specials are kinda unnecessary though: the kart doesn't fit with the rest of the set, the Up B is obsolete compared to Vanellope's other recovery options and the Down B... okay the Down B actually serves a purpose; protecting Vanellope from bigger opponents. Not bad. I won't comment the FS, other people already expressed my thoughts on that. I'd like to see more of your work though![/collapse]
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[collapse="Katapultar"]Just when I thought you had given up, you actually make a nice comeback, as Eggman is both a surprisingly simple and decent set for a high-potential character, if at best. It also reads surprisingly well, but that might just be me, though I can say with utmost certainty that the presentation is refreshing. The Specials help sell the set for me a little, but I also like the comical nature behind kicking around your robots with your basic moves, which I sort of wish had a bit more audio-oomph to it like Eggman yelling angrily every 3 or so times he uses a melee attack. I actually like the otherwise cliched drag down U-air for this reason, though having Super Amour on this and the D-air reeks of some tackiness where the latter is reminiscent to something you've used in your previous sets.
If you were aiming for something really simple that's a bit of fun and easy to cook up, you certainly succeeded in that department; I already, to a degree, like this set similarly to how I like Ho-oh...
If you were aiming for more, however, I'd say that some of the moves could have a fair bit more meat to them (mainly the Specials, except the more-or-less fantastic Up Special), though it wouldn't be right to say that a high-potential character's moves should all be as complicated as possible as I doubt that's what you were aiming for. What I will say however, is that some identifiable flow could do the set wonders; the Up Special is an eggcellent base for Eggman and I get it works well with his campy game since a good deal of his moves home in on foes like his Grab and Side Spec minions, along with his U-Smash being a campy move, but...you also have some moves that encourage Eggman to be close to his opponent, 2 Specials to be precise: Time Eater seems out-of-place from almost every possible angle what with being taken from a random recent Sonic game, namely in conflicting with Eggman's machine theme to him not really being geared up to work with time despite the minor minion interaction. Side Special also seems to do nothing when you could just make Eggman's minions more intelligent. With all the mass of minions Eggman has throughout all the games he's appeared in, I would be perfectly fine with him pulling a Wily and having those two inputs replaced with the summoning of new robots; from what I remember in Sonic Heroes, there's quite a variety of robots you have to go up against, like that giant one that uses a hammer like the eagle king. Also, get ready for this: it's rare to see a throw-less grabgame these days (this one might even be the first of this contest, if memory serves me right), but that doesn't mean we'd love to see some throws, which could be used to command your robots and really a claw has soooooooooooooooooo much potential it'd be a crime not not establish it further. Robots being summoned behind enemies is also a bit conflicting with how you can kick them around since you have to get past enemies in order to do that and that's pretty awkward.
Overall, I like Eggman enough that if he was posted in MYM13, he'd be my favorite of yours. I enjoyed the simplicity while still paying some attention to other details like characterization, presentation ideas and what not, even though there's a whole lot more to Eggman and this was only scratching the surface. Hopefully you come back to us with a bit more of this, because it was a fun ride.[/collapse]
[collapse="darth_meanie"]
I only skimmed over Robotnik; I'm strongly concerned that the Neutral Special is just plain overpowered, on the level of nearly being a win button. Forcing the opponent to relive four seconds without being able to change their behavior is incredibly punishing, as it should be trivial for a player paying attention to avoid any attacks they performed and rack up absurd damage. It's also plain unfun to be hit by, as it takes control away from the opponent for four seconds, forcing them to sit back and watch. I think time controlling projectiles and minions has more potential for interesting possibilities while staying balanced, and I think the move could have been a lot better if it did not directly affect players and focused on that aspect.
I also wanted to mention that I scrolled through and thought Vanellope was actually a pretty cool set with some very interesting ideas. Glitching and teleporting through fighting has a lot of potential, and it hints at greatness a lot. I was really disappointed that the set was so brief and didnt give me as many details as I would have liked. I'd love to see this set more fleshed out.[/collapse]
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
I'd like to talk about Robotnik. First, does the moves actually change from the original? Because I can't see any difference. Also, the set is at least okay, but it could have been improved by leaps and bounds with a little more thought. In the end, it's very shallow, there's nothing deep in that. Where I usually have to really think about the set to understand all of it's little interactions, here it's simple: summon a minion and KICK IT until you've won. That's exaggerated of course, but the set had potential... I feel it's kind of the beta version of the set, but there won't ever be any finished version.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]Robert Nick
The biggest problem with this set is two moves: Neutral Special and the grab. The Neutral Special is horribly broken and also HORRIBLY unfun, as the opponent can essentially put down their controller for 4 seconds, which is an INCREDIBLY long time (About 3.5 Warlock Punch start-ups), and go...I dunno...drink a little while waiting for control to come back to them. And like DM said, it is tribial for Robotnik to just remember what the foe did and rack up absurd damage. It'd be much better if it just put the foe where they were 4 seconds ago and then let them do whatever they want at that point, which offers interesting playstyle option. The grab game just gets rid of Robotnik having 4 inputs and a normal grab game for what really amounts to nothing added and does not feel like a good move due to not feeling particularly playstyle or character relevent (It'd feel better if he shot out the robot arm from him if anything like a normal tether grab). The U-Smash also feels a bit odd, but that might be just because I find the Egg Carrier flying around to be a bit...off, especially since Robotnik doesn't use it more.
Aside from that, though, it feels like a fun, if basic minion set. The Egg Pawns are actually pretty interesting in how they work and Crabmeat is a cool minion to interact with and kicking around minions is pretty good, but there doesn't really feel like there is much of a playstyle going on with his actual moves, and I don't mean that in the sense of "Needs more interactions" or whatnot, but his moves don't feel like they have any kind of common goal (IE from Brawl: Sonic's moves are built for hit-and-run). He also could use less physical attacks and some more tech, I feel: Cut out some of the physical, combine the command moves into one, then you can add in...say...a bit more projectiles or a trap? Would work well into the base of a playstyle. Combined with the fact there isn't much else that entices me, the set sort of falls flat (or flab, as the case may be) on it's face aside from the minions.[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]RobotnikNo I'm not disgusted with this set's mere existence nor do I think it's anywhere near the worst thing posted this contest. The minion's self destructing properties at least give them a little more value as a threat and for what it's worth, some of the interactions on Down Smash were actually pretty cool, and there's at least an attempt at decent interactions in the FSmash just allowing you to detonate your minions in a much cleaner fashion. Sure it's high points aren't exactly innovative in the minion genre, but they serve their purpose and generally showcase the wacky technology the character is known for.
Unfortunately where the set falls apart is when it steps into using Robotnik's melee attacks, especially as awkward minion commands. Frankly, if I want to attack I don't want it to reposition my minion after having my set up the way I want it just to save myself in melee combat. It makes Robotnik annoying to use in melee combat... which is awkward when you decide to give him so many straight melee moves with the properties of kicking the crab minion stitched on which. I mean why is Robotnik fighting with punches and kicks anyway. Sure it's Smash Bros and most people do that but this is literally a fat man who is always hiding behind his tech and is helpless without it, and when the cool parts of his gameplay come from
I think everyone's mentioned the Neutral Special but the logic that Junahu used to justify it is really wonky. Having one move define how everyone plays against you and forcing them to play an absurdly cautious game for fear of a 4 second stun is just awful and makes the game painful for the opponent. Sure an opponent could hypothetically play around it but what it does to severely limit their options isn't interesting even if it creates a different metagame. The metagame it's creating is just inferior in that it's less fun for both players and makes actually pulling off some cool stunt with Robotnik's minions an invalid strategy as opposed to simply trying to snare them in your portal from hell. Time mechanics like say, N. Tropy's projectile saves or Kang's time travel are something a foe could more reasonably react too and actually expand his game rather than compressing it into a game of "land the stun move". It's just kind of messed up to throw all time mechanics under the rug as inferior to some horrendously overpowered stun, and in practice I really doubt your logic would ever be justified. 3 hours admittedly makes the grab game a bit more understandable but viewed objectively no throws is a pretty big deducting factor from a set, especially when said grab is literally just a long range stun and nothing else.
To clarify this set's existence definitely isn't a bad thing as there are some occasional cool ideas in here and a lot can be learned from it's mistakes, nor is it especially awful. The execution is just very poor in a lot of places.[/collapse]
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[collapse="Junahu"]Whiscash
I'm sincerely impressed by this moveset, in just about every way. Which unfortunately means I'm at a slight loss for words. Praise is hard to make, after all, and criticism is cheap.
The moveset plays itself very easily in layers, allowing new players to understand the basics, without needing too delve too deep in its specifics. Further complexities can be explored at a natural, organic pace. There's no feeling that I have to learn everything about Wiscash in order to play him at all. And I find that pretty awesome.
The playstyle, of slowing things down and then abusing the techs the foe makes to try and speed back up, is an incredible snug fit for Wiscash, and you give everything he does a pleasing weight and presence.
The writing has a suitably slow timbre, matching the pace that Wiscash lives and fights. I really hope you put an equal amount of thought into the writing and presentation of your next moveset. For example, I'd love to see you take on a fast flighty character with a quick, airy writing style.
My one, and pretty much only, concern is how the mud, water and muddy water all operate in different ways. Mud and Water are logical enough (even though Brawl does have stages with shallow water already), but muddy water lacking the properties of either one almost strikes me as a contradiction that players will not be quick to forgive.
Though, I do understand WHY you made such a mutual distinction between mud, water and muddy water. It forces Wiscash to be more anal about its placement, and thus have more agency to take care of the swamp he is making (i.e. to make the player WANT to maintain it, rather than just spewing mud and water whenever he has the chance)
It's a little odd how one of the few pictures you use in the moveset, is dedicated to the jab attack. Granted, it does a great job of signifying where the regular attacks start, which is a trick you employ to mark the playstyle too. But the jab is not a move that strikes me as needing or warranting a visual reference.[/collapse]
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Whiscash
I don't even know where to begin. You corrected the majority of the preview version's flaws, such as Pokémon Syndrome, and you made the Dtilt far better than before. I'm not a big fan of the dash attack though, I preferred the old one because of the Rest cancel, but all-in-all, this new dash attack is fine. Your interactions with mud, muddy water and water are all neat and interesting. The playstyle is quite interesting too: it clearly aims to slow and confuse the opponent to land an Earthquake, and it isn't achieved only thanks to the specials. The tilts are a very neat way of modifying your setup, cleaning the stage of any liquid of moving them around. There's a true interaction between the normals and the specials. Overall, this is a good set coming from you, like always!
(You're right Junahu, it's damn harder to praise a set than to criticize it...)[/collapse]
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]Whiscash
I'm pleasantly surprised by how much of our criticism you took to heart when this set was previewed, in pretty much all the questionable attacks being changed into improved versions. Some of the new versions are still not perfect, I think the move which removes substances from the field is okay because there are some moves that sets up for nicely, but there are times when you definitely would not want to remove the substances to use that attack and I feel that the only benefit being the removal of the substance is a bit questionable. Maybe you could make it so the substance is a hitbox while it's being removed? Regardless, that's just me nitpicking one change, as the set's overall playstyle is very palatable. Mess with foes using the three different types of substance Whiscash makes his home in, carefully space water and mud and muddy water to get the optimum use out of all 3, play off the foe's mildly crippled state in the substances to land earthquake.
The set rarely takes advantage of these substances in too drastic of ways, which is probably a good thing considering it makes landing earthquake more strategic, and the effects can still be interesting. I particularly like the way Surf works in the context of the rest of the moveset and being able to soak foes in muddy water at the end of the attack, and the entirety of the grab game in all the ways it plays off the substances in what comes out as one of the deeper and more reactive grab games I have seen. I sometimes feel the small nature of the effects makes the set feel a bit ineffectual, but it feels fine on a set for a somewhat dopey pokemon like Whiscash. That's not to say there isn't some straight up filler at points, and I wish that the set did a bit less repositioning and maybe tried something else in moves outside the grab game. All that aside, I'd say this is actually your strongest set so far. Good work Turtles![/collapse]
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[collapse="Kholdstare"]
ALttP Hyrule Soldier
by StaffofSmashing
As a long-standing Zelda fan, I'd say your Soldier moveset nails the enemy pretty well. While the sentences are short, you give sufficient detail for me to understand the moves fully. Your writing style is factual and no nonsense, I appreciate it. It doesn't do anything fancy or complicated, there are no frills. This is definitely a moveset for your standard soldier enemy. There are some suggestions I would make to improve the moveset. Add a better picture (I found this one on the Zelda wiki page for the Soldier enemy, but there are others to choose from, both art and sprites: http://zeldawiki.org/Soldier. Second, add color to the moveset, a solid white text doesn't draw the reader in. Center the image of the character, make the name of him and the move names larger and bold to distinguish them from the rest of the moves. The only moves themselves I disagree with is the grab - the Ball and Chain is a blunt weapon, not a grabbing one like the hookshot, so it does not belong on a grab at all. Final Smash as the Ball and Chain Soldier (which is a miniboss by the way, not a peon soldier enemy) would be really great instead of on the grab (and up smash). Also give him taunts, and win poses! I'd like to see more extras in movesets. Finally, if you want to flesh out the character, add more descriptive language, such as the sound of each move and more personality to the animation descriptions; I can distinctly remember the charge attack's patter of feet and dust clouds while holding out the sword, then charging forward valiantly to thrust into the green clad hero. Details like this give the generic enemy more flavor and personality in the world of Smash. I look forward to more movesets from you, you've got the basics down well.[/collapse]
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[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]Ares
Ares was a set I rather enjoyed reading on the Whiteboard, even though I never got around to giving it feedback. One auxiliary thing I enjoy in particular is that the set is short (impressive for a moveset with move variations) and easy to read, with simple yet colorful language that help the character come off as pretty vivid. Playstyle-wise, Ares is a simple heavyweight brute, but his teleporting and invisibility, along with his wide range of projectile options, put a mobile twist on the character while avoiding the "combo heavyweight" problem a lot of "differentiated" heavies have. You even mention that Ares should feel free to retreat in battle, which is great as it avoids the typical "rush-down, in your face" style of other characters like him. I also like that his Uair doesn't knock foes upward, and you pointed out that scoring a kill off of Uthrow can be difficult, which constructs a clear method for Ares to approach kills, differentiating him from someone like Ike, who kills rather easily off the top. Ares has his clear weaknesses: he's still slow and big, and his attacks aren't extraordinarily fast. He actually reminds me a bit of Mami, due to the floating projectiles which he can activate at any time or range. His floating/static projectiles are technically more varied in application than Mami's, though to be fair, I don't think this set works off of its set-ups quite as fluidly.
Moves I particularly like are Nair and its interaction with the knives, the Fair which functions as a spike whether you have the sword or not (though the lack of any real reason to use the unarmed version is a bit disappointing), and the creative triad of projectile specials. The way the Fthrow interacts with a wall of daggers is creative and cool; to that end, I'm a little disappointed his other throws don't interact with projectile set-ups nearly as directly.
There were some parts that were left a bit vague or unclear, however. Does the sword function as a held item? Can Ares pick up another item while holding the sword? Can he grab while holding it? The Forward Throw suggests that the answer is "no", but it's still a little vague.
Overall, a solid moveset. Could be a bit more detailed in places, and could be a bit more crafty with its unique traits, but you know what? It's simple while still being a fun-sounding character to play as, and without becoming trite. A thumbs-up from me.[/collapse]
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[collapse="ForwardArrow"]Mabel and Dipper
For reference I have read some of your other sets APC, and I can clearly see in your more recent ones that you are trying to be more creative. That is in some ways a good thing, MYM in general likes wackier stuff. But to be totally honest I think this set is going in the wrong direction with it, where you sacrifice all practicality by removing the Smashes as KO moves for instead some wacky effects that really need to be placed on the specials or scrapped entirely. The foe can just smack you out of using that flashlight to grow them at any point in time, and it's also a hold move, really not fitting for a smash. The Up Smash has similar problems and swapping specials with the foe is a really bizarre effect, given I can't see Mabel and Dipper using a lot of opponent's special moves. For that matter, the aerials are incredibly awkward with them throwing what I can only assume is a pumpkin for the Up Aerial and dealing such a tiny amount of damage, while having two infinite recovery measures on other moves with the Nair and Fair(at least I assume the Fair doesn't send them into helpless) and a warp to the ground on back aerial of all inputs.
The lack of KO moves on the Smashes is a real problem here because you only give two KO measures, the Neutral Special and Down Smash. The Down Smash seems to basically be a more effective version of Neutral Special since you provide no detail on lag and it summons two at once and combines their knockback for a KO. But at the same time, the minion you get is luck based, with several being useless or almost entirely useless and even amongst the good ones, looking at the damage percents I wouldn't expect them to be able to KO very well. KOing with this set really just comes down to hoping for the instant KO summon or getting two with reasonable power on Down Smash, making the sets only way of getting kills entirely luck reliant. Aside from that, my knowledge of this show isn't great but from what I know all of these are villains he's summoning, so why the heck are they helping Mabel and Dipper? It's not good for the characterization of Mabel and Dipper to be summoning them, let alone the villains they are summoning.
Lastly I wanted to point out that the set is really really lacking in detail and the writing is terribly confusing. There are plenty of interpretations for what the Up Smash actually means by "changing Specials". For all we know it could attach a half dozen zany effects you never even described to every special move in both players sets, and we'd never know, or swap around which input activates which special. Is it a trap or do they pick it back up afterwards, for that matter? Down Smash is pretty impossible to figure out too and I assume it just summons two copies of one minion at once at random, but it's extremely vague. Aside from that, there's incredibly little detail on knockback, lag, how some of these effects work, and in some cases you even forget damage percents. It gives me the impression that the set was incredibly rushed. The fact that you don't describe any of these wacky items or characters utilized in the set or give pictures and just tell us to go watch the entire first season or read the wiki to figure it out isn't really helping matters.
Despite this I don't think this was a bad set for you to make, as a lot of lessons can be taken from it. First of all, keep your moves that don't deal damage or knockback on the specials. It's perfectly fine if you have a flashier input past the specials but just at least make it usable as an attack. Second, if you're going to reference something from a source material the reader doesn't know about, give a bit more description as opposed to just assuming we know the source material. Third, give us more details in regards to how the set is balanced, as this one seems to be wildly imbalanced in many ways but we don't know enough details to really confirm. Keep those things in mind, and you're sets will improve immensely.[/collapse]
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[collapse="ForwardArrow"]Rain
I appreciate the increase in detail and effort in the individual moves in this set, plus the addition of pictures, while at the same time you've made the organization a lot more pleasant to read than it was in Dive Man. While I'd call the individual moves still a bit on the bland side, there's very clearly more effort put into how they function with the mentions of tech chases and sweet spots and the like. The first 3 specials were also kind of cool with the projectile that is incredibly strong if it specifically hits at max range, a controllable carrying projectile in a set where the positioning actually feels warranted due to how some of his sweetspots work, and the admittedly silly kick that knocks the opponent around the opposite blast zone is one of the rare moments when just discussing follow up options catches my interest due to the absurd nature of the knockback.
It's certainly still a set that could be improved a great deal, I wish the standards interacted a bit more with the specials beyond the couple that provide some powerful follow ups on the kick/water sphere. I do think the animations with him using water to make blades in the later moves or the water sphere to grab are cool, but I sort of wish you had been willing to be a bit more creative in their effects and it makes me feel like this character had more potential than you really capitalized on. A particular thing is that you have a character with water hitbox and electric hitboxes, and yet no lingering water hitbox to conduct electricity? That's a bit disappointing, to be totally honest. The water sphere could also use some number crunching, 2 seconds is a long time in Smash Bros and nobody wants to wait that long to gain control again because they were hit by some projectile, even if Rain's not doing anything in particular while they're in stun. Maybe make the orb move faster while holding them for half as long? Still, this is a pretty nice improvement from you Zigma and I look forward to where you go from here.
As an aside, here's Hoppip, my first set. It was actually pretty well liked but it was likely only as good as it was because I lurked the thread and made sets on my computer for literal years before joining.[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]Rain was a surprisingly good read; considering I'm not the biggest Mortal Kombat aficionado; you've done well in letting the character come across to the reader. The moveset itself is fairly generic, of course, but that's a little forgivable because of the character being worked with (fighting game characters tend to have those generic punches and kicks, after all). Still, while I appreciate that you tried to stay as close to the source game as possible, Rain really could use more interaction between his moves, like ForwardArrow said. For a character so focused on tech chasing and spacing, features like lingering hitboxes that interact with one another would really serve to highlight and expand upon that, making Rain a fighter only like himself, and not just part of the general mold of similar characters like Marth. It's perfectly fine if you like adapting characters from their source material as faithfully as possible, but I wouldn't be averse to trying to get a little more crazy as long as the character is still accurately depicted. It's not like Fox is all about flying around and shooting in Smash Bros, after all, even though that's what he's known for in his own games. So too I think that Rain could be a bit more ambitious and deviating with his playstyle.
The specials are all pretty creative, actually, aside from the so-so Up Special. I like the idea of the thundercloud projectile which gets stronger as it travels; it reminds me of PK Flash, which is a unique move itself, so it's not something we see too often. The roundhouse kick is hilarious and creative to boot (no pun intended), and you do a good job of describing such an odd technique and its unorthodox effect. The Water Sphere is an interesting idea, but could use some number crunching. The rest of Rain's moves suggest he's an upwards killer, which makes the Side Special's horizontal knockback all the more interesting, though not questionable due to its intended use as a combo starter rather than a kill move. There's a coherent playstyle here, which is notable, though it's largely the sort of playstyle you already see in Smash Bros.
This is definitely your best set yet. From the helpful use of images to the increased adherence to description and formatting, Rain is a significant step in the right direction.[/collapse]
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[collapse="Z1GMA"]As soon as I red Scrooge McDuck, I knew what his vB would be. Good choice there, but it's sort of
unclear how his horiznotal movement works while continuously pogo'ing.
>B is pretty cool, but wouldn't it be fantastic if instead of "Other players can't touch the sack of cash", opponents WERE able to catch the sack, making Scrooge rage, zap up to them and deliver a powerful blow with his cane, etc..?
It'd work like when you catch an item thrown at you, but in this case, probably by mistake,
and yr character would freeze until Scrooge hits you.
B: A set time of 2 seconds for a reflector spells trouble for the user. How's the start-up and cooldown? Is it punishable?
I appreciate the creativity in his Ftilt, but a minion-based Ftilt that does 9% damage and kills at 150% seems a bit on the OP side - it totally depends on the start-up/cooldown and Travel Speed of the minions.
When pulling off Dair, what is the duration of the emptying?
Overall, a pretty creative and fun moveset, but there's a lack in Knockback Direction as well as start-up/cooldown on most moves.
We're looking forward to your next set, bro.
Down Taunt: Get a One-stock Lead, and this taunt is pretty much auto-win.
I feel it'd annoy the hell out of ppl. What volume is the clip played at?
(Am I the first person who has commented on a taunt?)[/collapse]
[collapse="Junahu"]
crooge McDuck:
Sorry I couldn't structure this into a more coherant comment, but here are some of my thoughts on the moveset anyway. I love me some DuckTales by-the-way, so thanks for making this moveset.
- I adore his Side B. Something about him diving after a sack of cash, even if it fell offstage, tickles me. I'm glad to see you've put some thought into encapsulating the frugal personality of Scrooge.
- I'm on the fence about whether or not it's alright to have his three nephews tagging along behind him everywhere if they're only going to be used in two attacks. I think some of Scrooge's throws are begging for some nephew hijinks.
- It's not fair to make the player repeat the Down B input every time they want to bounce. In-game, you just hold the button until you want to stop bouncing.
- The way the moveset was written is for the most part clean and intelligible. But there are some desciptions, such as "Scrooge swings his cane downward like a butcher's knife", that read a bit too violent for the cartoonish tone of the set.
- Compared to the rest of the moveset, the aerial attacks feel underdeveloped. It's a shame too, because between his Cane Pogo, Moneybag Dive and his Down Air, Scrooge sounds like he'd be a lot of fun to play in mid-air.[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]As you stated, this moveset's intended as a celebration of the Ducktales re-release, and unfortunately, that shows in that it comes off as rushed. My first problem comes with the neutral and side specials. I'm not extremely familiar with the character, but I find it hard to envision him just throwing away his money like that. Sure, he quickly scrambles to retrieve it, and that obviously accurate side of his character is then seen, but if he's so frugal, then why is he throwing his money out in the first place? It'd be like Yoshi throwing up just so he could eat the food again. It just doesn't sit well with me.
It's hard to make out a playstyle with Scrooge. He's billed (once again, no pun intended, but dang, that's a double pun, with duck bill and dollar bill), as a glass cannon who gives out pain while being poor at taking it himself. Not only is this not very original, but it's not expanded on into something greater. Other than my not liking the money-throwing Side Special, my other dislikes line up with Junahu's. He's supposed to have a great air game, but the aerial section is lacking in detail; in fact, much of the set is, with descriptions becoming less meaty after the specials section. I'm also not a fan of the nephew moves, for much the same reason as Jun. If they're not a major part of his moveset, they just come off as awkward and underused. Most of the inputs in general are tersely described, which makes it difficult to envision much of a playstyle, and the lack of move interactions make Scrooge come off as a fun-to-play, but generally undeveloped, character. That's all I really have to say. It's not a bad moveset, but it's pretty much standard. Keep it up, and you can make something much better.[/collapse]
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[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]In the opposite manner of Rain, Blood Falcon surprised me by being under-detailed, and I think it's a step backward in terms of quality. It's a clone set, which I don't frown upon, but I do dislike your decision to leave out descriptions of moves that aren't "different" from the Captain's. The problem here is that all clone characters' moves are different from those of whom they were cloned, even if they are aesthetically identical. Blood could actually be an interesting character because it'd be cool to see how he could put a unique spin on Captain Falcon's moveset. You can't really expect him to have the rest of his moves be cloned exactly from the Captain, however; if you do, that's a problem because it'd clash with the playstyle you have in mind for Blood. You can't just copy-paste moves from one character to another without making functional changes and expect a flowing playstyle, even if the latter character is a clone. Imagine how different Falco's game would be if he had the exact same Blaster as Fox instead of his own.
Blood has a pretty obvious, clearly-described, and interesting playstyle illustrated by the moves you do provide; unlike the Captain, Blood's a punisher more than an aggressor. It suits his character, and you clearly understand what sort of stats and moves he needs to play that role. This makes me a bit disappointed that you don't detail a full moveset and fully develop the playstyle. I'd like Blood Falcon a lot more if it had the same amount of detail put into it as Rain.[/collapse]
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Nintendog by Staffofsmashing, Keybladeguy and APC99
[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Nintendog
It is a fairly ambitious task to make a set for what is effectively a normal real life dog, and I hate to say it but I don't particularly like this approach. The hand is absolutely bizarre to have assisting the dog in battle, since in the game it is effectively attached to a real life person, and is supposed to represent the player. In the context of Smash Bros, a random floating hand representing the owner feels terribly out of place. The hand unfortunately fails to make the set any more interesting because you just use it to shoehorn in props, which for the most part you just throw around as projectiles or assist in melee in ways that don't really feel all that natural as animations in the case of some throws. It's not anything unplayable, but if you want to include the owner at least include him as a full sized normal human instead of a floating hand, and frankly I don't think the hand is used well given it exists solely to just provide a few random prop attacks that do not manage to make the set more interesting. I don't intend to discourage you from making this kind of character, but it'd be preferable if it was handled in a way that made more sense.[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]Unlike ForwardArrow, I don't necessarily have a problem with the hand being part of the character. My concern comes from the fact that the hand is so vaguely described in its role. You state that the hand takes damage for the dog, but the dog is part of the battle, is it not? It's not like it just spawns on-screen for every move, is it? I can't really tell, and I'm pretty lost. If the dog is still controlled and on the plane of battle, the idea of the hand taking damage when in actuality, the dog is the one getting attacked, doesn't really alleviate the "PETA problem". It's pretty much just a cheap way to handwave the controversy, but really, the set would just be better off ignoring the issue and just having the dog take full ownership of the entity's hurtbox. The hand itself, however, I have no problem with, and I'm fine with the idea of having it spawn items and guide the dog, so long as it's either an aesthetic effect similar to the Pokémon Trainer with the dog itself being what the player controls, or a more unique playstyle in which solely the hand is controlled to direct what is essentially an AI dog. What this set has is (seemingly) a vague middle ground where the dog is on the field but the hand is the one taking damage, and really, it just doesn't work for me, especially because it's never really worked into the moveset, and doesn't make Nintendog unique in playstyle. It's just sort of...there, as a way to shrug off the animal abuse issue.
The moves themselves are fitting enough, but don't really contribute to a grand playstyle for the character, and lack the detail necessary to do so. There are a lot of props which are aesthetically unique, but function no more intuitively than any move already in Brawl. The set's decisions serve to make Nintendog fun to watch, but not necessarily to play, which is a hurdle I hope this puppy can jump over if you decide to take another whack at this character again in the future.[/collapse]
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Pichu
by Staffofsmashing
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Spiky-Eared Pichu
Congrats, StaffofSmashing! You made the first completely random set of the contest! Cheers!
No seriously, let's see where the set filled me with incomprehension:
"DASH ATTACK: ROLLOUT
This is comparable to a combo of Jigglypuff's Rollout and Sonic's Dash. Though, he turns into a rock. This makes the attack affected by slopes and drops. It is a great move if you want to drop on an opponent or if you want to come down a slope fast. It does 6%."
Random petrification and random slopes-and-drops (To speak in your own terms) use? In a Pichu set?
"D-TILT: MUD SLAP
Pichu will put his arm up, and mud will appear. He'll then slap the ground, and mud will splatter up. MOST ending lag of all his moves, but has a side effect of a pitfall effect. A button masher wont have a problem escaping this, but it's still useful in dire situations. 9%."
Random pitfalling? IN A PICHU SET?
"U-SMASH: FRUSTRATION
With a mad expression, Pichu will crouch, before jumping up and doing a double uppercut"
Didn't know Knuckle Joe was giving fighting lessons to small animals, does he give lessons to cats too? Because I'd really like to see my cat do a Shoryuken.
"U-THROW: PETAL DANCE
Pichu spins around, and petals come up, damaging the target with 13%. It'll make Pichu dizzy if used 3 times in a row with no moves in between, and is great for spacing. Be careful though, as that dizziness is pretty deathly."
Why the dizziness? Why the petals? Why would anybody use it three times in a row if it's so great for spacing? And why are all the grabs so powerful???
Those were my favorite random moments in the set, but there is many more in the actual set. Though rejoice, SOS: I think that actually was pretty funny.[/collapse]
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[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Strider Hiryu
I admit that your sets have not really appealed to me in the past at all so I came into Strider with very low expectations... and I came out finding it was better than I expected. The set at least provides a rather unique rushdown tool in the Up Special with both the kick and regular variations allowing for some potentially cool combos, and the Up Smash bird just adds to the decent array of options you have here. He's a bit more straight rushdown aside from those moves, but the fact that he's got a few versatile options in the specials (particularly the DSpecial) and the ability to use a large number of his attacks as projectiles makes me think he at least has more depth than is immediately apparent.
That said there are a few technical issues here and there, namely the mechanic. I imagine that cutting projectiles out of the air and dicing up traps is fun on paper, but characters heavily reliant on those things are pretty screwed over against Strider, never mind the melee characters who always lose in priority battles to literally every sword attack in his set. It's just unfair to a large portion of both Brawl and MYM sets, and it's not like he was exactly underpowered without it when his combo options are a fair bit more advanced than most Brawl characters and his damage, speed, KO percents, and range aren't exactly awful. Lastly, I'd agree with you that the set reaches a point it seems to run low on inspiration, with a few input cop-outs such as the Pummel/Back Throw(I don't demand a creative back throw but can you at least give us a slighly different animation and damage percent or something?) Regardless while I will say I'm not a fan of the set, at the very least I think it's a clear step up from your other work and it wouldn't be too hard to improve for you to improve from here.[/collapse]
[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]
Strider Hiryu
I like this set; Why? Because it's very simple and engaging to read, the character is totally respected and the gameplay is very correct too. I particularily liked the "Smash" input on every attack past the smashes, namely the aerials and the grabs. I'm kinda a fan of Smash inputs.
(However, I'd say the Smash B-Air is too powerful... Okay, there's an half-second of startup, but still!) Also, the fact that you can actually jump and ride on his robotic companions is very fun to me, it's got to be one my favorite aprts of the set! About the Cypher meechanic, it's true it's a bit broken: absolute priority against bare-handed fighters and projectile users? Isn't that a bit too much? Personally, I would have moved this effect to the N-Spec, where it would have been temporary. Finally, I can say that while it was a pretty fun read, the set could probably have digged deeper in Strider Hiryu's gameplay, but since you admitted that flaw, I won't hold it against you.[/collapse]
[collapse="BridgesWithTurtles"]
Strider Hiryu
In an effort to contribute to this thread's waning activity, here's my two cents.
Hiryu falls into many of the same tropes as a lot of similar characters; he's fast, he has range, and he even has that lovable slide kick that likes to pop up every so often. That's not to say the set fails to differentiate itself, but rather, I feel like the character is pretty much portrayed as accurately as possible. Which, I suppose, in a way, makes it difficult to differentiate itself. But I am a quibbler.
The extreme range on so many of Hiryu's moves make him a deadly contender; with his amazing speed and plethora of projectiles, the range on his attacks seemingly serve to make him radically frustrating to fight against, and to top it all off, his nearly unmatched priority makes him scarily powerful. As FA said, the sword attacks eating through projectiles and outprioritizing all melee attacks makes Strider a pain for both projectile- and melee-heavy characters, so no matter what range he or his opponent fights at, Strider has the advantage. The amount of range on this guy alone is pretty nuts, as almost all of his projectiles are screen-wide in range, which almost makes them redundant with one another. The Down Special orbs in particular are mentioned as being used for eating through attacks, but pretty much everything in Hiryu's arsenal serves the same purpose.
On the subject of specials, I like Up Special's combo options and unconventional means of determining distance. I also like the Side Special's multiple functions and the way that it interacts with recovery (ditto for the Up Smash). Down Special, however, I just find redundant, though it's among the more interesting of the projectiles in the set. I don't like the Neutral Special in that it gives Strider a boost I feel that he doesn't need, and the sword beams are just excessive, considering his already fantastic range.
Some more things that I consider positive are the "crumpling" Down Throw, which is unique and useful, and the cancelable Up Tilt. Oh, and the satellite which can be used to cover for another attack's startup (not that he really needs much help in that department).
Not really sure how to end this comment. Overall, I'd rank the set a 7/10. It has everything it needs to be considered a "good" set, but nothing that really made me think of it as "great". Sorry if that all sounded really negative.[/collapse]
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[collapse="ForwardArrow"]
Jet the Hawk
Quite pleased to see another set from you Turtles, especially after how solid Whiscash was. Jet actually has a pretty solid base too, with his specials allowing him to zip along the sides of any structure, create slow projectiles and traps along them, and create structures in fairly interesting ways with that awesome DSpecial. Sets that do "attacking in motion" were a big thing back in MYM11 and admittedly I felt most of them lacked any real depth and that playstyle was overused to hell, so it's nice to see you actually add some substance to it here... in the specials anyway. I think the standards, while functional and occasionally having a decent twist or two thrown in there, are a pretty big let down and yes I understand this isn't exactly an easy character, but I wish the attacks had a little more depth to them than the occasional suggestion of knocking a foe into a tornado or reflecting a projectile, or having one specific follow up. I'm not saying the attacks later on have to be flashy and interaction heavy, but I'd like a little more than what I got later on in the set, say something on par with what Whiscash had past the specials. I wouldn't call this a bad set though on account of what you set up at the start, but I can't really say I like it when it drops off so badly later either.[/collapse]
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[collapse="TWILTHERO"]Dustman
I admittedly don't have too much to say about this set, but overall, I quite liked the set. It was a little simple, but that's something that I never mind. He seems like a pretty fun character to play as. Try and get as much debris as possible on the stage, and suck them all up for use later for some potential crazy damage. I really like the interactions on how Dustman uses and sucks up debris. The grab was also pretty cool; sucking/slamming opponents right into his dustshoot and his general grab game is some pretty fun stuff. Overall, I can imagine myself having a blast trying to experiment with debris and various ways to use them. He does seem a bit underpowered though; what's he going to do against crazy rushdown characters that won't give him a chance to establish himself (I guess he could suck them in via his Dspecial if they get too close).
Overall though, it was a pretty enjoyable read. The organization was nice and fitting (though SPECIALS LAST?! :@) Yeah, nice job Jun! Glad I read it. Okay, maybe I said more than I intended.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]Is it A Little Dusty In Here?
Dust Man is a bit hard to comment, because it feels like a very "there" set: It exists, it isn't really bad or anything, but it also doesn't feel particularly good or enjoyable to read or anything. Dust Man's junk isn't really bad, but there isn't much to play off it, and I don't mean interactions: it feels like the moveset doesn't pull in any direction, like Brawl movesets do, and it doesn't really do anything else to make up for that, which gives it the feel of something that is there. It's kind of like commenting on a sea cucumber: It exists, it is what it is, but there just isn't much to say except that it is a sea cucumber.
(Also, for this specific set, the DAir charging seems odd)[/collapse]
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[collapse="FrozenRoy"]1 Hydrogeddon + 2 Oxygeddon
The lack of Water Dragon being able to jump and in general how jumping is handled in the set feels poor, especially since the image makes it feel like "oh hey it's a jumping dragon!". Perhaps more importantly, it is a really poor carrot/stick thing: Your reward for getting in the air feels really weak, while using it as a downside and just making the air game really bad feels hollow and not particularly in tune with what I understand of the character (For all I know, Water Dragon is chained to the ground in-game...but you can't assume your reader knows this, especially if your bit on it does not mention it). So as a plus, it feels weak, as a minus, it feels more annoying than anything, and it adds little to the character.
The moveset does bring some nice bonuses with the body and uses it satisfactorily. While the grab has a point, it still feels kinda annoying to not give any throws. I'm starting to feel moves like this are more appropriate on a command grab than the character's actual grab. Outside of that, Water Dragon has decent concepts with messing with it's movement and a good modicum of flow, though it feels a bit like an inferior Gyarados in concept...but ultimately an enjoyable read, which is good. I just wish there were not so many things that I don't like![/collapse]
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[collapse="FrozenRoy"]Boner Golem
Yet another set with a freaky jump mechanic that I don't particularly enjoy! Well, not entirely true: I don't hate the mechanic itself, but the fact it is on a jump. That is a horribly awkward place to play with it and really hurts the set. How do you deal with a simple game on Battlefield with this? And it'll annoy the player, worst of all: Players who want to just play as the base Bone Golem or don't want to be very aerial will hate turning forms every time, for example. This is the kind of thing that you don't want on your jump, you want on a move or something. Putting it on the jump is just a way to make some players of it hate the fact they can't move around most stages without seperating...
Also, it makes playing Bone Golem, or at least combined Bone Golem, impossible on some stages, because only one half of it can jump. How is this thing meant to work on stages like Rainbow Ride or even something simple like Brinstar? You could never escape the acid, for example. This whole thing working while it jumps just makes it hideously unviable, while lacking much of a purpose IMO.
Aside from that, the stuff with the bones and all, especially the skull, is fairly nice, but the throws are merely okay and the aerials feel lackluster, especially bringing the mechanic to a bit of a down note. I do quite like the Side Special and Up Special, and it feels like a much improved Dry Bones. Certainly worth a read.[/collapse]
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[collapse="FrozenRoy"]Karsmilla
Carmilla's mechanic is quite simple and yet effective, essentially taking a spin on Ice Climbers-style tag team by mixing up their location and giving your "Nana" different attacks. As a big fan who thinks IC-style sets still have good potential, even with things like Hugo existing, and this set does some nice stuff with it. The blood is a simple but effective mechanic that is truly vampiric, while many of Carmilla and Laura's interactions feel simple and natural, giving it good flow and preventing players from being overwhelmed. At the same time, there are certainly sections where a bit more is left to be desired: For example, the only thing I enjoyed about the grab game was the pummel, as it has the bizarre choice to not let Carmilla throw and the throws feel like they subjugate gameplay too much to animations. I think that the set could have more smoothly integrated itself in there.
I also feel like some moves could have a more complete feel or have a spot in the moveset: For example, I'd have been interested to hear what ways the dragging drill kick DAir could be used...though I could not think of any in specific, it feels like there should be, and while I like having things to figure out for readers, this feels a bit like something that'd be nice to flesh out due to first impressions anyway. There's also number crunching to be done (BAir can stun you both for longer than Ganondorf's Warlock Punch takes to start up) and the latter aerials feel a bit like they don't have a place in the moveset.
But it's a rock solid set with bits like blood and the ability to mess with Carmilla's positioning that make it sound fun but easy to play with a good variety of possibility.[/collapse]
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[collapse="FrozenRoy"]I'll comment you...AND JUNADAY!
I love these specials! They all seem to have some nice and quite well handled uses, with the buffing from the crosserang being particularly noteworthy, and I greatly enjoyed the use of the axe, a very simple yet very effective zoning tool that turns into an interesting projectile/trap combo when you're buffed. One bad thing to note, however, is that the holy water should really cause less uncontrolled flinching on contact: Nobosy wants to be unable to control their character for 1.4 seconds (About as long as Warlock Punch takes to start-up and then probably execute, as it takes 1.1 seconds to start-up) during the hits. Aside from that, they are c'est magnifique.
The dodge arts are all very good, as they provide him abilities to dodge without invulnearability and are extremely intuitive, most players will understand them after a single match or two, but offer a lot of hidden depth for a player who takes time to find more intimate knowledge of the game, the uses of the spot dodge and forward roll versions are particularly impressive and the fact they can be used in the air offers him great air game options. Quite honestly, it probably gives Richter a more interesting air game than Bone Golem. And since they still have properties you can dodge with and Richter still has his normal shieldgrab, he isn't murdered defensively, so it is very viable.
The standards all make good use of sweetspots and help emphasize Richter's game: He is very much about spacing foes into specific areas and crushing defenses while his own defenses are always a bit aggressive. They don't do anything fancy, but they set up the core of his game excellently and have nice depth to them. Little things like the D-Tilt's choice of what to do are fun.
The key attack is another move I have to be critical of, though: The fact it makes him invicible seems odd, although I have NO idea what use keys are in Castlevania...I presume they open doors. The super powerful secret hitbox and the invincibility make it all feel like it comes out of nowhere and a bit disconnected: It would have felt better if, say, it was the cross he pulled out, an item well known for it's protective ability. On the other hand, Richter's D-Smash is a good example of how to make a move elegant and simple in concept and execution make a playstyle richer and deeper.
The aerials are probably the flattest part of the set, though I like the NAir's shorthop abilities and a good deal of the BAir and UAir, but they seem to lack a little bit of the oomph the rest of the moveset carries, even if they are never poor. But the throws return to being nice, as the pummel is a simple yet effective not-quite mechanic, while all the throws add to his game while never being obstructive: I especially enjoy their use as alternative KO options for people who have trouble sweetspotting, the gimping use of BThrow and the additional multiplayer functionality of FThrow.[/collapse]
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[collapse="TWILTHERO"]Nidorino
Y'know, I always preferred Nidorino to the king.
ANYWAY, Nidorino was another set I quite enjoyed. You told me in the chat once that Nidorino had nil potential to work with (he just tackles...and stabs things with his horn), but I think you did a really good job with him. The various ways to poison opponents definitely makes him a threat. Making him scary to even approach the guy, and how he can slowly walk towards them with his side special makes him a far more interesting set than I thought could be possible for Nidorino (though I can see sword/weapon based characters with good reach giving him some trouble), and he seems pretty simple enough to pick up and have a lot of fun to play with. It's also really fitting to the character (and as a side note, I like how faithful moves are like Double Edge).
I don't have much to complain about, I'm still a little iffy on the down special. A counter that hits on any attack near him that misses is really good, though I guess stuff being to grab him during it balances it out. Overall, Nidorino was a really nice set, and seems like my type of character to play as.[/collapse]
[collapse="FrozenRoy"]Vs. Gengar!
Nidorino definitely feels like he falls in line with Toxicroak and Croagunk, even if he is not part of their line...and that isn't really a bad thing. Nidorino has it's own identity to them, a sort of mix between aggro and a staunch feeling of defending one's territory, which fits well with how Nidorino is.
While Nidorino's poison deals damage, it also provides a nice and minor debuff, which is good...but I will say that with the amount of ways Nidorino can poison the foe, and the time, it feels like it might be too easy to keep the foe too poisoned, especially with the easy of badly poisoning the foe. It feels like it wants to add another element to it to...not so much spice it up some, as much as give it a bit sharper focus by adding some contrast. I do quite like things like Horn Drill and the Side Special, but then there is some stuff that feels a bit meh...and the grab doing so much poison so easily is a bit of a downer. I also feel like there is a few hiccups around, like the NAir, that might not have the gameplay be up to the creative.
But at the same time, the poisoning itself is fine, just there is too much, and it gives a staunch view of Nidorino with a good playstyle, though I feel there is definite room for improvement in that regard, so it plays nicely...it might have been a bit hard given the Pokemon, as well, but hey, there was Rattata! An enjoyable end to the early Junaday set rush.[/collapse]
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[collapse="TWILTHERO"]Khold's Harem
Alright, first off to start the glorious Harem movement is Kholdstare, and you have an interesting sort of characters to say the least. You know your waifus way more than I do, but this seems a fun set to play as. Hermione's probably my favorite from the group, for the wide assortment of spells and the back aerial is fun stuff. I really like the characterization in this set, especially Rin. You said that you had a tough time characterizing her properly, but I think you did a really good job here (unlike a certain other Rin set...) The organization is also really well done, showing a lot of "class." If I had stuff to complain/nitpick about, I wouldn't mind some more details here and there, and Flannery...well, I don't really like that it has XX% chance of summoning this random fire Pokemon (and finish Torkoal already!) Personally, I'd make it so Flannery can choose between Pokemon like how Hermione can choose spells, and maybe make the stronger versions of the Pokemon selectable, but there's like an extra second of startup or something. I don't know, but I'm just nitpicking at this point. The point of the movement was to have fun, and I'm glad you made the set.
Overall, it was a nice read man! Oh, and your presentation is awesome.[/collapse]
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[collapse="TWILTHERO"]Junahu's Harem
Man, this is probably the most fun I've had reading a set in a long while. I'm probably super biased when I say this, but this set really was great, Jun. You did a fantastic job characterizing each character in the set. Stuff like Mia Fey never really being gone after being KOed (also her up tilt lol) or Marshal having a pleasant chat for her his grab (which I actually borrowed a little bit for Hanako's side special) really shows me how much you really like the characters. The set itself of course is tons of fun. There's tons of options to play with and explore with, with tons of combo potential and I really like that you have options even if the rest of the group is KOed with Milla (I need to pick up Tales of Xillia now...) Lyn is probably my favorite from the group if only for her crazy quick slashes and my Fire Emblem bias.
Overall, it was a great read and set, and I'm really glad you made it (and helped make this movement happen in the first place!) I've yet to read your Castlevania sets and I only just skimmed Kusumi, but yeah, this is probably my favorite Jun day set.[/collapse]
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[collapse="TWILTHERO"]Tirk's Husabandos
Damnit tirk, I'm almost tempted to create my own husbandos set now, haha. Anyway, I've already told you this like a hundred times, but I really love your writing style man. It makes your sets in general a blast to read. Your husabandos was no exception (even if you really rushed it lol). I was laughing all the way throughout the whole set (I was dying once I reached the Smashes). This wasn't meant to be taken as a "serious" set (what with moves like the neutral special and forward aerial), but for what it's worth, I'm really glad you made the set. I know some people will miss the point and tear it apart amass, but I really enjoyed reading it, though I'd appreciate it if you had included more details about the moves. Toro was probably the star of the set for me, what with his wacky throws and what not. Enjoy your Skullgirls PC. =P[/collapse]
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[collapse="FrozenRoy"]I Won't Face Myself and Search For Nothing
The harem sets were skipped for now for 3 reasons: 1. They look long with fancy text, 2. I was REALLY EXCITED for Kusumi and actually read her before a good deal of the previous sets and 3. They were long.
Kusumi-no-Okami is a fascinating set that opens up an avenue I hope to see explored more, especially as SSB4 gets closer and closer: Utilizing the Wii U Gamepad! Played exclusively with it, the moveset has a bit of a freaky mechanic until you realize it basically means you set the match to Stock, Time or Kusumi. Kusumi respawns endlessly and cannot be perma-killed, but she loses if she doesn't win after X amount of time no matter what, making her a bit of a stallwar maker.
The moveset itself takes interesting advantage of both the Wii U Gamepad and this mode: For example, Kusumi's ZL move makes her totally invincible in every way! ...Except she can't attack, so staying inside it all day means it will just end up with you losing. The obvious route of simply tapping an area and making an attack appear a while later is used, while attacks like Shell of Denial all do the things you'd expect, like let you draw with the pad to create something. It's quite sleek and elegant, and the set is extremely well characterized: the theme of the boss, of ultimate denial, is strong in this one and the feel is great. I particularly enjoy the little things in this set, with even just the slashes and the like.
But on the downside, there is a lot to dislike, I feel: The instant KO feels very powerful and too easy to accomplish, and I really dislike the "control" move, because it is extremely Kunino-Sagiri, not Kusumi-no-Okami, plus it seems a bit easy to take a good deal of control. While incredibly minor, I vaguely dislike only using one of the -Dynes. Shield of Denial also seems...iffy, especially if there is no way to make sure someone doesn't select Kusumi, as I can then imagine someone entering matches (especially online) and just ****ing with everyone. I do like the Gyroscope use, though, and the set overall. Junaday's Junahu sets are a great success![/collapse]
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[collapse="TheKalmarKing"]Son Pikong
Combining Pikachu and Kid Goku? You're awesome! Anyway, it's rather simple, but also pretty enging to read thanks to the presentation; also it's core concept is quite simple while being very fun. Basically, it's based on using the Kaio-Ken and the Side-B cleverly to efficiently destroy your opponent with a Kamehameha, a Volt Tackle or a Side Smash; that's not counting Son Pikong's pretty cool mobility options and his great combo capability. Also on that note, being able to charge the Kamekameha on the Nimbus is pretty cool... Omnidirectional death, yay! Overall a pretty cool set, TWILT![/collapse]
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