Polpo (Left) is the first antagonist from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure part 5. He is a very high ranking member of the mob, and stays in jail in order to protect himself from being backstabbed by any underlings. He has all the food and abstract art he could want in his luxury jail cell, and he is still able to help out the gang from the inside with his automatic long range stand, Black Sabbath (Right). Black Sabbath has the power to manipulate shadows, and can also test out new recruits for the gang by either killing them or giving them a stand based off their performance. Polpo’s inevitable death to Giorno sets in motion some of part 5’s plot, as there is a power struggle to fill the fat gaping hole Polpo left and to find his hidden cache of treasure.
STATISTICS
Weight: 14
Size: 13
Traction: 10
Falling Speed: 10
Aerial Speed: 4
Aerial Control: 2
Jumps: 1
Ground Movement: 0.4
When Jojo’s art style makes everyone appear fairly muscular, Polpo sticks out as a standout heavyweight male antagonist, towering over normal characters. Polpo never stands up straight and has a slouched posture, though even with that he remains at 1.25x Ganondorf’s height. His width is truly a sight to behold at 1.4x Bowser’s – while his appetite is huge, foes will be unable to contain themselves from consuming the raw combo food that is Polpo.
When Polpo is both absurdly easily comboed and incredibly immobile, it’s a good thing he has Black Sabbath to do most of his heavy lifting. Black Sabbath will only show up in moves that utilize him, coming out of Polpo’s gigantic shadow he casts with his huge body. Black Sabbath and Polpo can attack simultaneously while the other is in lag. Black Sabbath is invulnerable to all attacks, but hitting Polpo will cause Black Sabbath to take hitstun and retract back into the shadows in an identical fashion to Jojo.
Polpo does have some protection against being infinited, though, in that if he remains in hitstun for 1.35 seconds, Black Sabbath’s eyes will flash in Polpo’s shadow and Black Sabbath will be able to perform a single attack, immune to stun. This timer puts in some leeway in case foes try to get around it. When Polpo exits hitstun, the timer that detects Polpo doesn’t instantly go down to zero, but instead counts down double as fast as it went up (If Polpo was in stun for a second, half a second must pass before the timer is fully reset).
Black Sabbath will vanish as if he entered hitstun if he leaves a shadow. Since Polpo is so incredibly fat he is physically incapable of crouching, holding down to “crouch” will enable you to move Black Sabbath as a “crawl”. While “crawling”, Black Sabbath will appear at the point in the shadow he currently is, and he can move about at Fox’s dashing speed so long as he remains within a shadow. If the Polpo player releases crouch when Black Sabbath is in the shadow of something else, such as a foe, Black Sabbath will remain in the shadow until he performs an attack without the need for you to manually have Black Sabbath follow them around. While having Black Sabbath pop out of the foe’s shadow is very scary, the foe simply has to casually move away slightly while Black Sabbath is in the middle of an attack in order to get rid of him. If a shadow other than Polpo’s moves away from Black Sabbath to not cover him while he is performing an attack, he instantly reappears in the center of Polpo’s shadow.
Polpo struggles in the air greatly due to not only his obesity, but due to the fact Black Sabbath can only show up out of shadows on the ground. This means Black Sabbath can barely aid Polpo whatsoever off the stage, leaving him extremely vulnerable. Whenever the shadow Black Sabbath is currently inside of leaves the stage, Black Sabbath will leave that object’s shadow and enter the shadow of the ledge. If Polpo passes Black Sabbath while he’s at the ledge, he will instantly rejoin his shadow.
SPECIALS
NEUTRAL SPECIAL – LIGHTER
Polpo takes out a lighter and turns it on, functioning as a source of light to cast shadows for his stand. The lighter is a weak throwing item that deals 4% and knockback that kills at 320%, though characters will oddly hold it above their heads while holding onto it rather than just carrying it at their sides. The lighter increases the shadow of the holder by twice its usual length when held above themselves, making it roughly 1.7x as wide as that character’s height rather than generally matching that height. Throwing the lighter can wildly change shadows as it functions as a realistic light source, with the higher it goes casting larger and larger shadows. If it remains on the floor, the lighter won’t create much additional light at all.
Black Sabbath can carry lighters and other items if he wants, taking them into the shadows with him as he goes down. Black Sabbath doesn’t cast a shadow of his own, but he can still throw the lighter to change the shadows of foes.
UP SPECIAL – SHADOW TETHER
This move will have Black Sabbath cast forward the shadow he is in for its entire current length forwards. If it comes into contact with a foe, they will be tethered to the object that Black Sabbath was in the shadow of, with the maximum distance being the length of the shadow. Foes will be released from the tether after 10 seconds if they haven’t managed to escape yet, but this is more than enough time for Polpo to exploit their helpless state. Polpo can increase the tether’s distance if he wants to by using lighters on the shadow. The shadow tether is indestructible, and to remove it foes will have to go off the stage. Foes will have to dash against Polpo if tethered to him, but the fact weight also greatly factors into who can pull who means foes will find it hard to escape the tether without knocking Polpo off-stage. If the shadow Black Sabbath is tethering the foe to is removed, they are also obviously freed from the tether. Going into the “magnifying glass” at the edge of the screen next to the blast zone will also suffice for walk-off edges stages, with shadows not being able to exist there. If Black Sabbath is in the foe’s shadow and uses this move, he will root them in place until they escape at double grab difficulty. Foes can still attack, but cannot move, with actions like rolls and dashing attacks causing them to use them in place. While Black Sabbath also has the grab in the moveset, the double grab escape difficulty makes it easier for Polpo to land a hit on the opponent than the grab, which is mainly used for Black Sabbath’s throws.
If this move is used while Black Sabbath is on the ledge and Polpo is off-stage, Black Sabbath will extend out the shadow of the ledge in Polpo’s direction to try to drag him into the stage. If shadows are being cast at the edge of the stage, such as if Polpo is very high in the air and somewhat close to the stage, Black Sabbath will add in those shadows to the tether’s length. If the tether hits Polpo, Polpo will gain complete superarmor as he gets dragged into the ledge for a tether. If someone was hogging the ledge, they will find Polpo is a powerful hitbox that deals 16% and spiking Ganon dair level knockback during this move. Polpo will hit through ledge invincibility with this, preventing him from being ledge hogged. If foes want to stop the recovery, they’ll have to go off the stage and hit Polpo away from the tether, not casually wait for him at the ledge.
DOWN SPECIAL – TOP BANANA
Polpo takes out a banana with the peel already wrapped off the top, then squeezes the bottom of it to shoot the whole thing into his mouth. Polpo eats the banana whole to heal himself of 5%, then is left with a banana peel item in his hand to do with as he pleases. Given this has the added boon of healing Polpo, this is unfortunately laggier than Diddy Kong’s Down Special. Like Diddy Kong, though, if Polpo is interrupted the banana peel will still be produced and can potentially trip a foe before they land an additional hit on Polpo. Black Sabbath can also come out of the shadow at this time and use the banana peel himself if need be. Polpo has to be very careful foes don’t use his bananas against him to combo him even further, though Black Sabbath can drag a banana peel with him into the shadows to ensure foes can’t use it. Banana peels cast tiny shadows that Black Sabbath cannot fit inside of normally, though with the aid of a lighter you can use the banana peel as a “super trap” that Black Sabbath can heavily punish anyone for running over if he’s in its shadow.
SIDE SPECIAL – PIZZA ROLL
Polpo takes out an absurdly huge pizza around the size of Donkey Kong and starts munching on it an unstorable charged Side Special. Polpo will heal 1% per fifth of a second he chows down on the pizza, and will consume the whole pizza after 2 seconds. Polpo rotates the pizza wheel in his hands as he eats, starting with the cheese filled crust as he makes his way in towards the center, keeping the circular shape it has. If Polpo releases B before he finishes eating the pizza, he will roll the pizza forwards. As a pizza is hardly the most harmful substance in the world, the power of the pizza is based off the speed it is rolling. As fat as Polpo is, he can’t muster up much strength to roll a gigantic pizza, and with no “charge”, the pizza will roll a mere Bowser width before toppling over, dealing 5% and knockback that KOs at 200%. By eating the pizza for 1.5-1.9 seconds, Polpo will roll forward the center of the pizza with comparable size to one of the wheels on Wario’s bike. This chunk of cheese and tomato sauce will travel the distance of Final Destination at Captain Falcon’s dashing speed, dealing 13% and knockback that kills at 130%.
Giant pizzas unsurprisingly cast giant shadows while rolling, and just taking out a giant pizza to throw forwards is surprisingly fast, giving Black Sabbath some decent room to play around. Black Sabbath can also choose to enter the shadow of a mostly eaten pizza to roll across the stage, and with good timing can use this stage traversing shadow to hop into the shadow of the foe.
When a pizza (or what remains of one) has fallen down onto the ground, characters can attempt to eat it like a food item by pressing “A” in front of it. A single press will just take a single bite, so foes will have to hold or rapidly press A to actually eat enough of it to attain healing, eating it at the same rate as Polpo. This can be somewhat advantageous for Polpo if he manages to nab what remains of the pizza to roll a smaller one. Black Sabbath can also consume pizzas, and given his vitality is bound to Polpo, him eating it will still heal the character’s damage percentage. If Black Sabbath is with Polpo while he’s eating a pizza, he can just input “jab” to start eating it alongside Polpo, causing them to eat it twice as fast as they eat opposite ends of the pizza together. While this can be very useful, it leaves Polpo without any form of defense while he’s eating, and there is some degree of lag after someone stops eating before they can perform other actions.
Pizzas on the ground can be dealt knockback, and have the weight of anywhere from Bowser to 50% to Jigglypuff at 70%. The weight of the pizza is relevant because Black Sabbath can use his shadow tether to bind a foe to a pizza. If the pizza is too far from an edge, foes may choose to simply consume the pizza instead of knocking it off the ledge, or at least to lighten the load before going to dispose of it.
SMASHES
FORWARD SMASH – SUB SANDWICH
Polpo takes out a stupidly large sub sandwich and eats it as he charges the move. The sub sandwich is the length of a platform and casts a huge shadow in front of Polpo as he charges the move for Black Sabbath to abuse. Polpo gradually heals himself as he charges the move, and he can heal himself of up to 10% if he fully charges the move. If he finishes “charging”, the move will end as Polpo will have eaten his weapon. If he releases the charge at any point before the charge is finished, Polpo will bring the sandwich behind his head like a baseball player before swinging the sandwich forward as a club to bludgeon his opponents. Charging the move less means the move has more range, but the swing is laggier with a bigger sandwich due to Polpo’s flabby muscles. At point blank range, the move has the full power of 25% and knockback that kills at 90%, very impressive power. Outside this sweetspot the sandwich does 10% and knockback that kills at 160%. If Polpo has eaten the rest of the sandwich but the sweetspot, the move has no lag, but he will have obviously gone through a long charging process to get that far.
Aside from just using the sandwich’s shadow in front of Polpo, Black Sabbath can also take advantage of the swing during the long starting lag if Polpo has eaten little to none of his sandwich. When Polpo brings the sandwich behind his head to prepare to swing it, this creates a large shadow behind Polpo. This can enable Black Sabbath to punish the enemy who casually rolls behind Polpo. Black Sabbath can also actually try to make Polpo’s sandwich sweetspot hit, knocking foes into the sweetspot as Polpo finishes eating the sandwich and does the swing.
DOWN SMASH – VOMIT
Polpo looks to be in a great deal of pain as he holds his chest and sucks in his gut for what little he can. After the charging period, Polpo vomits a Wario sized hitbox of puke forwards. The puke is disappointingly weak for a dsmash, dealing 12-16% and knockback that kills at 180-160%, and the move isn’t even remotely fast.
Polpo has superarmor during the attack’s starting lag beyond the initial 6 frames, and if he is hit during this time he will skip the remaining lag and add half of the attack’s power to his puke. Each 1% added will increase the width of the puke hitbox by half of a Pokeball width.
Eating food items will also increase the range and power of the puke hitbox! Every 1% Polpo has healed will add 0.5% to the power of the hitbox and increase the size of the hitbox at the same rate as the counter power increase. Knockback increases by KOing 1% earlier for every 0.5% Polpo has healed. Both methods of increasing the power can stack together. All of these power ups only apply to the current dsmash, though, as Polpo will of course have to consume more food before he can puke it up.
Having a “counter” based move massively aids a character like Polpo, and it can be difficult for him to show restraint in using it in order to build up the power. This can become Polpo’s best KO move, and provides better incentive for healing than just bringing Polpo back down to low percentages where he is more easily locked into infinite hitstun. As far as baiting attacks to counter, the best way to do that is to have foes in a rush to interrupt Black Sabbath out of a move.
UP SMASH – SHADOW SPIKES
Black Sabbath’s eyes flash as he charges the smash attack within the shadow. Upon release, he manipulates the shadow to form spikes that point upwards, dealing 16-22% and vertical knockback that kills at 165%. While the knockback does not directly increase with charge, the range of the move massively increases, adding an extra platform of range to either side of Black Sabbath for every fourth the smash charges. If the move is fully charged, the move will have infinite range. The problem is this range can only be used as far as the shadows will go, but if Polpo manages to connect shadows from his various constructs this can be well used. If the player is too unskilled to move Black Sabbath from Polpo’s shadow often or the foe is simply making it too difficult to do so, you can still get plenty of mileage from manipulating shadows simply by turning all connected shadows into a hitbox. Considering Black Sabbath is invulnerable, he will have minimal problem fully charging this attack, though Polpo will have to make use of his defensive options while Black Sabbath does so. Black Sabbath can also make these spikes come out under the stage with the shadows there, though the spikes are small enough that foes will gain ledge invincibility before being hit by this move.
STANDARDS
JAB – WINE CONNOISSEUR
Upon first inputting the jab, Polpo will take out a glass of wine and start drinking it. The first “hit” of the jab is Polpo drinking the wine over a laggy .4 second period, healing 0.8% per .1 seconds. If this portion of the jab is allowed to finish, Polpo will put the glass of wine away and will have to start the jab over if he wants to use the second part. Pressing A while the glass of wine is out will cause Polpo to decide he didn’t like the taste of this particular wine and swing it forwards, causing all of the wine within it to get shot forwards as a projectile. If Polpo has not drunk any wine, the move has the superb range of a platform, decreasing based off how much Polpo has drunk. The wine deals 5% and knockback that kills at 300%, but the minimum knockback of the wine is a platform’s distance.
This move comes out fast and has good range, but when Polpo is holding the glass up to his head, it will take some time for the wine to fall to the ground and actually hit opponents, and Polpo will find himself in quite vulnerable ending lag in exchange for this quick move. The wine will cast a shadow while it is in the air, though, and Black Sabbath can use the wine’s brief existence to punish a foe who would otherwise casually dodge said wine. The wine will remain on the floor as a slippery trap for 4 seconds, causing foes who step on it to treat it as Brawl ice. This includes Polpo, but his traction is completely perfect due to him being so slow, so he won’t be bothered by it nearly as much as his opponents.
When Polpo has other healing moves, actually drinking the wine may seem like something of a waste when it decreases the range of the move. If Polpo has drunk half of the wine or more, though, he will throw the glass rather than just swinging it forwards. The glass will be thrown at a 45 degree angle towards the ground, shattering on contact with foes and dealing 10 hits of 1% and flinching. Any remaining wine will splatter out of the glass towards Polpo, giving Polpo very good defensive coverage. Due to the angle of the wine, it will now deal inwards knockback, sending foes behind Polpo. If Polpo’s shadow is positioned behind himself, this is a great tool to send foes into Black Sabbath’s domain.
DASHING ATTACK – DIVING UPPERCUT
Polpo has no dashing attack, so this input is triggered by pressing A while Black Sabbath is moving through shadows. This will cause Black Sabbath to leap up out of the shadow with his fist punching upwards, dealing 7% and weak knockback forwards that kills at 200%. Black Sabbath will leap in the direction he was moving rather than straight up, and will “dive” back down into the shadow. Aside from this move’s speed, this move is notable because it will cause Black Sabbath to move during it before quickly going back into the shadow. This means that if Black Sabbath is in the shadow of a moving foe or rolling pizza, he can actually move along with them and not have the attack be casually interrupted by their movement. If the foe predicts this attack they can roll backwards to have Black Sabbath jump into the light, but if not mindlessly spammed this is his safest attack to not lose his position in the foe’s shadow.
UP TILT – TOWER OF SHADOW
Black Sabbath brings all of the shadow connected to the one he is in inwards before shooting it straight up as he arises at the center of the shadow, dealing 6% and generic radial knockback that kills at 275%. This move is surprisingly fast, and the vertical range on the move is fantastic. The shadow forms a very thin line to get as much vertical range as possible. The character’s moveset is too bad for them to do any actual effective juggling, but this largely serves as a defensive move in case Polpo is being juggled. This move enables Black Sabbath to poke at foes in the air, where they would normally escape his domain. While it won’t do much against an aerial camper, a couple uses of this to scare a foe off can be enough to secure Polpo’s safety.
If Black Sabbath is in the ledge’s shadow, the giant hitbox he produces can potentially go horizontally or downwards based off the incline of the terrain. The move is too pitifully weak to actually hamper the recovery of foes and will largely help them by refreshing their recovery, but it enables Black Sabbath to have a hitbox to throw out at foes when Polpo isn’t yet in the range of the tether.
DOWN TILT – STAND ARROW
Black Sabbath brings his upper torso out of his shadow as he prepares a stand arrow in his mouth. He then fires it at the ground at a 45 degree angle, impaling any foe hit to deal 14% and knockback that kills at 140% with very high base knockback. The foe will take an additional 0.25% per eighth of a second for the next 1.5 seconds as the arrow remains impaled in their body before it falls out. While this extra 3% isn’t very notable, the arrow impaled in the foe’s body will create an additional shadow. The arrow is quite large and bulky, so it will make the foe’s shadow a more comfortable place to stay and enable Black Sabbath to better land something like a grab. While you have minimal time for a follow-up, the foe will still be recovering from that hefty attack they’ll have taken. This is an actual laggy attack for Polpo to knock foes into for Black Sabbath rather than the other way around with something like the jab, if Polpo somehow manages to attain enough command over the match to go on the offensive.
If Black Sabbath misses, the arrow will remain impaled in the ground in front of him. Any character can pick it up and use it as a heaving throwing item, laggy to pick up and carry as Bonsly, but with only 0.7x the power. The main reason anybody would do this would be to just move it around, mostly to get rid of it in the case of the foe. If the arrow falls out of the foe’s body or is thrown, it will land on its side rather than being impaled in the ground, making it produce a much smaller and relatively useless shadow, causing the arrow to fade away in 3.5 seconds. These 3.5 seconds are reduced by the amount of time the arrow has existed in an idle manner, down to a minimum of half a second. Tethering a foe to the shadow of an arrow is extremely painful for them if they’re not close to an edge as they attempt to make the arrow despawn – even if you fail to pressure them at all, Polpo can casually sit back and chow down. You can even tether the foe to an arrow impaled in their body to root them completely in place, though the arrow will fall out moments later.
FORWARD TILT – ARCING ARROW
Black Sabbath fires an arrow in a half-arch arc, traveling the distance of a platform before it lands impaled in the ground like in the dtilt and reaching the height of Ganondorf at its peak. As the arrow goes, it deals 8% and knockback that kills at 175% in the direction the arrowhead is currently pointing. The arrow produces a shadow the whole time, though since Black Sabbath is in lag he cannot “ride” the shadow of the arrow like Polpo’s projectiles. This covers a great deal of space, requires no extensive shadows, and provides Black Sabbath with additional set-up. If it isn’t possible for foes to simply hit Polpo, the ideal response to this move for foes is to shield the arrow to prevent it from being produced, as the arrow in this move vanishes upon hitting anything due to not being fired with enough force to impale people. The arrow travels quite slowly through the air, so if Black Sabbath manages to reach the end point of the arrow he can obviously punish this technique with a grab.
GRAB-GAME
GRAB – THE TRIAL
Black Sabbath arises from the shadows and grabs onto the opponent with both arms, bringing their face close to his. This is a fast but short range grab, comparable to most of those in Brawl, but characters in Brawl can’t ride the opponent’s shadow. This and Up Special are the primary moves the foe will fear if you manage to get in. While this move is faster than the Up Special, the Up Special can actually catch foes who just jump. Black Sabbath cannot use his grab when sticking out of the ledge.
PUMMEL – HEADBUTT
Black Sabbath headbutts the foe, dealing a token 2% in a pummel that’s honestly quite poor for power to speed ratio. The primary purpose of the pummel is to lock Black Sabbath into an action, as if Black Sabbath is pummeling he can’t be throwing. Normally, moving Polpo will cause Black Sabbath to execute a throw, and this enables Polpo to move during the time the foe is restrained. With how abominably slow Polpo is, he will rarely waddle over in time to hit the foe, even if he was already fairly close, if the foe’s percentage isn’t high.
FORWARD THROW – SHADOW WHIP
Black Sabbath sinks into the foe’s shadow, only keeping his head and hands above ground as he uses his hands to restrain the foe’s ankles. As he does this, the majority of the foe’s shadow (Leaving enough for Black Sabbath to use) is formed into a tentacle that goes to whip the foe. The shadow tentacle deals 8% and knockback that kills at 165% for a very average and generic throw. The knockback is entirely horizontal as the foe slides along the ground – this is due to Black Sabbath restraining the foe, as he will slide with them. If the foe slides out of any shadows, their knockback will very slightly increase and they’ll go flying up at a 45 degree angle if there were no shadows other than their own, going at a lower and more horizontal angle if they’d slid longer. If the knockback finishes with the foe still in shadow, Black Sabbath will still be holding the opponent at the end and will be able to continue pummeling/throwing. The foe’s grab escape difficulty does not reset, but during the throw’s duration foes cannot work towards escaping the grab. The throw has some “starting lag” where foes can still escape the grab, meaning this won’t chaingrab a foe across the whole stage at low percentages.
Black Sabbath will generally never want to use this throw over his others if he doesn’t have enough shadow to use another throw after this, largely functioning as an upgraded pummel. Aside from getting bonus damage, this can move the foe towards the edge or into position for Polpo to actually take advantage of the foe, considering he will rarely be able to move into position himself. If the foe’s percentage is high enough to restrain them long enough, your ultimate goal would probably be to land a point blank fsmash, which requires a significant amount of control of stage/spacing control. While you could simply grab the foe right next to Polpo, this throw has a portion of time where the foe can’t work towards button mashing out, making this actually restrain the foe longer and enable you to pull off a combo earlier with enough skill.
BACK THROW – SHADOW WRAPPING
Black Sabbath grabs onto the foe’s shadow as a tangible object and wraps it around their body. In addition to doing this to the foe’s shadow, Black Sabbath will pull in any shadows connected to that of the foe as well, potentially wrapping the foe into a very large amount of shadow, at maximum the amount of shadow covering the platform he's on.
After wrapping the foe up, Black Sabbath will unravel the shadow in one fell swoop, spinning the foe around. This causes the foe to take a set amount of knockback that is equal to the length of the shadows used to wrap them up, and at the end of that they will take additional knockback that kills at 170% (this KO percentage not taking into account the “bonus” knockback). While this throw’s damage is rather weak, only dealing 7%, the potential to scale the knockback with large set-ups makes the throw a possible killer. Aside from rewarding shadow set-ups with a kill move, the throw will see use when Black Sabbath wants to abuse the set knockback even when the foe’s percentage is low, just to perform large spacing resets away from Polpo. All shadows will go back to their respective owners as the shadow unravels from around the foe.
UP THROW – TORTURE
Black Sabbath knocks the foe to the ground in prone for 3%, then restrains the foe’s wrists and ankles with their shadow as they’re lying on their backs on the ground. The shadows squeeze hard, racking up an additional 5% in multiple hits, then Black Sabbath finishes the throw by diving into the shadow on the ground and rocketing up underneath them with an uppercut, dealing 5% more and vertical knockback that kills at 160%.
If Polpo (or anyone else) interrupts the throw by hitting the foe during the period while they’re restrained, they will not take the knockback of that attack and will instead fall to the floor in prone. This can get some actual prone abuse going in the moveset for this rather awkward character, and having a nearby banana peel to block off a way the foe can roll up can see some use here. The most obvious route players usually take is to try to get Polpo to land a KO move on a restrained foe, but this opens the door for actual further follow-ups.
DOWN THROW – PATH OF DEATH
Black Sabbath prepares a stand arrow in his mouth and goes to impale the grabbed opponent directly. If Black Sabbath is tired of trying to land the dtilt, he can perform in in this move with no fear of retaliation. If you’ve forgotten, landing a dtilt deals a total of 17%, so this is no joke, and it even supplies Black Sabbath with an arrow construct as a bonus. If Black Sabbath manages to land a dthrow or dtilt on a foe who already has an arrow impaled into their body within the 1.5 seconds it remains there, he will skewer them with a second arrow. This will cause both arrows to remain there for 4 seconds, creating larger shadows and causing the foe to take a total of 4% per second for those 4 seconds, as well as cutting their movement speed and jump height by a quarter. Firing further dtilts/dthrows at these foes will not impale further arrows into them giving how horribly mutilated their bodies already are. It’s very rare you will get this effect, as foes who are aware of this will become incredibly cautious of getting grabbed (landing dtilt again in such a short time frame is laughable). The psychological implications are enough, though, putting foes heavily on the defensive and greatly relieving pressure from Polpo.
AERIALS
DOWN AERIAL – HEAVYWEIGHT DROP
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Polpo does a belly flop, and after the stall portion of the stall then fall he immediately drops to the ground like a rock. Polpo falls so fast towards the ground he may as well instantly teleport there. Anybody in his way as he falls will take 20% and be spiked with Ganon dair power. Polpo has superarmor as he falls, but given how briefly he falls it’s rare it will be useful. Polpo’s landing lag lasts a sickening amount of time as he ever so slowly gets up, leaving Black Sabbath on high alert to defend him if he didn’t actually hit with the drop, which he will very rarely do.
Polpo creates a Bowser sized earthshaking hitbox on either side of him on the ground for some protection, dealing 10% and vertical knockback that kills at 200% to anybody it hits. This earthshaking hitbox will knock constructs/items 1.3 Ganondorfs into the air, enabling them to recast their shadows, providing Black Sabbath with more interesting shadow set-ups to use during Polpo’s downtime. Any arrows that were laying on the ground will land with their arrowheads pointing downwards, causing them to form hitboxes comparable to the ftilt as they fall and causing them to cast shadows. Arrows that were already impaled in the ground will not be launched.
If Polpo somehow is actually not in lag and right on top of a foe as they enter prone, this also makes a good tech chasing move as Polpo attempts to hit foes who roll up with the earthshaking hitboxes. Despite how silly it looks, the correct response for foes would be to properly time getting up normally to dodge the primary body slam.
If Polpo’s damage percentage is stupidly high enough to actually knock him high into the air, then he will often like to use this move as he comes back to the stage. Polpo can fall into Black Sabbath’s tether once it’s been cast, with nobody getting in his way and becoming a very powerful blunt object on the way.
NEUTRAL AERIAL – CONDIMENTS
Polpo takes out a salt shaker in one hand and a pepper shaker in the other before spinning around with arms outstretched, spreading salt and pepper around himself. This deals multiple flinching hits that add up to 13%, with the last hit doing knockback that kills at 200%. This move is surprisingly good as a defensive “get away” move in the air, but it’s a lot harder to use it on the ground without triggering the landing lag what with his horrible jumps.
If the landing lag of this move is triggered, half of the flinching hits will still happen as the salt and pepper falls, though Polpo will still be in bad landing lag. The hit that does knockback will not happen when landing lag is triggered, meaning Polpo would get easily punished on his own, but this can be used as a set-up for Black Sabbath to land a move. Foes can still DI during these last few hits, so it’s more commonly used as a defensive spacing reset than an active set-up for anything remotely impressive.
FORWARD AERIAL – BELLY BUMP
Polpo attempts to swing his stomach through the main fighting plane, dealing pitiful damage of 4%, though rather high base knockback that KOs at 170%. The move is slower than you’d want for it to be viable, and he can only just barely finish it before touching the ground from his two jumps. The move has terrible landing lag, making the move quite terrible.
The fair has a slight counter hitbox on it if a foe hits Polpo, which will cause the foe to take 1.5x the knockback of their attack, with the angle of their knockback being at the opposite angle of where it would hit Polpo. Polpo will still take the knockback of the opponent’s attack as well, though he will not take any stun from it, functioning as a good move to get space and possibly to recover. This primarily functions as a defensive reset move, and enables Polpo to use a counter without wasting all of the food he has consumed whenever he wants to use the generally superior dsmash counter.
Polpo’s back is a hitbox that is two thirds as powerful as the attack that hit him as he flies backwards, though this largely appears irrelevant outside of FFAs. What really sets this move apart, though, is that Polpo can “counter” Black Sabbath during this move, enabling Black Sabbath to hit Polpo in order to propel him. While this move won’t enable Black Sabbath to help Polpo much more off-stage, the move gives Polpo far more mobility than he would otherwise on the stage, though it will most commonly just be used for Black Sabbath to help Polpo escape foes. Beware that this isn’t completely free, though, as Polpo will still take the damage from Black Sabbath’s attack, so this shouldn’t be liberally applied and should be used strategically. Black Sabbath obviously will not take any knockback from being “countered” by Polpo due to his invulnerable nature.
BACK AERIAL – ROMAN EMPEROR
Polpo leans onto his back in midair. This is an immediate hitbox that deals 7% and light downwards knockback that kills at 170%. Polpo takes out some grapes as he enters this midair reclining pose, and lazily holds them above his mouth as he chows down in midair, healing 5% by consuming the grapes. The consumption of the grapes largely functions as ending lag for this move, as the hitbox comes out quite fast.
If Polpo triggers the hitbox as he enters the landing lag, the move will instead deal 15% and knockback that kills at 130% in a significant upgrade. In addition, this move has no unique landing lag, as the ending lag will simply continue if Polpo lands on the ground. Considering Polpo’s abysmal jumps, this can be a more desirable form of ending lag compared to his other aerials, as he’ll be healing during it. With how fast the move comes out, it surprisingly functions as one of his most direct attacks.
While Black Sabbath can cover Polpo like when he lands with the dair, if Black Sabbath inputs jab when Polpo is on the ground in this state, he will pop up out of the ground, take the grapes from Polpo’s hand, and feed them to him like a servant. This causes Polpo to eat the grapes twice as quickly though prevents Black Sabbath from defending Polpo.
UP AERIAL – CHOMP
While Polpo’s arms and legs are so hideously underused that using them to fight is impractical, his jaw muscle gets plenty of exercise in his daily “workout”. Tasked with defending himself from aerial opponents, Polpo casually rears his head back and bites at his opponents. This chomp deals 10% and a weak meteor smash sending foes below Polpo. This is Polpo’s fastest aerial, and will bring foes back down into Black Sabbath’s territory. The move is actually fast enough that it can potentially combo into nair or bair if the foe is at a low percentage. While the move is fast, the hitbox is fairly small, and on a character as huge as Polpo it’s problematic getting foes high enough to be hit, usually working as a reactionary hitbox. If Polpo can’t get a good opportunity to send the foe to the stage, he’ll be left with little choice but to collapse onto it by himself. While you’d expect a move like this to deal vertical knockback, juggling foes is something he would have absolutely no interest in doing, and he’d be extremely outclassed by other characters in that field.
FINAL SMASH – BLACK SABBATH REQUIEM
Black Sabbath shoots Polpo with a stand arrow, but since Polpo already has a stand this upgrades his stand to requiem form. This causes Black Sabbath to become horribly fat and bloated with identical size to Polpo. Black Sabbath now no longer has to use/stay inside of shadows, and any moves that use shadows will instead move mountains of food at double the power of his usual shadow moves. If Black Sabbath Requiem grabs the opponent, he will turn them into food before eating them to kill them instantly. This Final Smash lasts 10 seconds.