So, I spent a lot (okay, a good amount) of time trying to think of how Anna would look like in Smash. I wound up with a handful of concepts I liked and the approximate willpower of fleshing out a couple of them. This is something that I sort of wanted to do before Smash at E3, in the event that Anna were actually revealed there. Anyways, as I was jotting down ideas, there’s a concept that I got pretty attached to as I was thinking of specials, and that was the idea of leveraging the whole ‘merchant’ concept into an item-based moveset. It just seemed like a fun idea, and not something expressed in any other character in the roster, so I sat down and gave it a crack. Not sure how, uh, viable this would actually be to play (as the whole principle seems somewhat over-complicated on paper) but oh well!
Specials:
Neutral Special: Supply
Anna reaches into a large burlap sack and tosses out a random Fire Emblem-themed item. They travel about one Bowser away from her, and damage anyone in their arc. Once they hit the floor, they’re a usable item for anyone who picks one up. Anna will either pull out a sword, lance, or axe from her sack, and each, of course, has different properties. Swords have average knockback and average damage and low start-up, axes have high knockback and high damage with high start up, and lances have average knockback, low damage, longer range, and average start-up. All weapons can only be used ten times, hit or miss, before ‘breaking’, as both a reference the mechanic found in every FE game, and as a way to encourage players to keep using and spawning more items.
There’s a low chance of spawning one-use ‘rare’ items, like Vulneraries (which heal 10%) and minute-long ‘stat boosting’ items that improve speed, power, or defense.
There’s also a small chance of spawning ‘legendary’ weapons. These may borrow from every corner of FE’s legacy, from Gungnir to Sol Katti, which inherit special properties distinct from their classes.
There is a small chance that Anna’s bag will start unstoppably pouring out Bob-Ombs.
Down Special: Counter
As something of a traditional for all FE characters, Anna has her own flavor of the Counter ability. It’s a bit different, however, than the variety that Lords use. Rather, Anna simply evades her enemy’s attack, and uses the opening to stun her opponent for a second.
Up Special: Rewarp Staff
A short-ranged, omni-directional teleport, this teleport is less useful for recovery than it is simply getting away from an unruly foe. She may control which direction she teleports to by pointing in that direction during start-up.
Side Special: Elysian Whip
Something of a reference to Anna’s brief role as a Pegasus Knight in the Tellius duology, the Elysian Whip extends a good range in front of Anna, a little shorter than Samus’s energy whip, striking anyone in front of her. It doesn’t do much damage and has almost no knock-back, but it interrupts pretty much anything. It can also be used as a tether. It’s not quite being used as intended, but Anna is nothing if not resourceful.
As an aside, Elysian Whip was a move concept that I got pretty attached to. I first wrote it as her grab, then her Up Special, before deciding to leave it as her Side Special. I also wanted to involve some sort of visual Pegasus motif to it, like phantom wings coming out of Anna, or some sort of ghost whinny, but that seemed a little forced.
Normals:
Neutral A: If continually pressed, Anna lets loose a few swift jabs with a dagger, followed up by a flourish and rising slash, sending her opponent up.
Side Tilt: Anna hits her opponent in the side with her oaken merchant staff.
Up Tilt: Whipping out a Levin Sword, Anna holds it up, letting electricity run through the blade, anyone who is touched by the blade is thrown back, smoking.
Down Tilt: Anna sweep-kicks her opponent’s legs.
Dash Attack: Ever the acrobat, Anna leaps overhead her opponents a distance with Elfire Tome in hand, leaving behind a trail of flame in her wake.
Aerials:
Neutral Air: Anna strikes with a dagger in an attack animation not dissimilar to the Thief attack animation in FE7.
Forward Air: Anna delivers a vicious leg-drop.
Back Air: A quick drop-kick.
Down Air: Taking out a Meteor tome, Anna summons… well, a meteor below her, which reaches out a short distance before exploding. Unsurprisingly, this acts as a Meteor smash, and deals good damage.
Up Air: Anna performs a flash kick.
Smash Attacks:
Side Smash: Anna whips out a heavy sack of gold, slamming anyone within arm’s reach of her, and a clatter of gold is heard on connection.
Down Smash: In a reference to Melee’s Roy, Anna takes out the Sword of Seals, plunging it into the ground where it then explodes. This is a kill move with a deceptively precise hitbox.
Up Smash: Anna takes aim to the skies with a bow, shooting over her a short distance to strike anyone over her. If fully charged, kill potential increases vastly.
Grabs:
Grab Attack: Anna holds up her opponent by the collar, striking them in the face with a staff.
Forward: Tornado blows Anna’s foe away, sending them skidding across the floor.
Backward: Anna slides around her opponent, stabbing them in the back.
Down: Anna tosses her opponent to the ground, then jumps and delivers a head-stomp, landing on them with both feet planted and arms outstretched to her sides.
Up: Anna throws her opponent up, and uses Excalibur’s sharp winds to cut them up in the air.
Final Smash: Outrealm Gate
Exactly what it says on the tin, Anna opens up a portal to the Outrealm, reaching out to every realm in every game. Ten randomly selected units from across the FE franchise storm in through the gate, striking at Anna’s foes until the Gate closes after thirty seconds. It’d be a fun celebration of all the colourful characters that make up Fire Emblem, and also give characters that would otherwise never be seen in Smash a small bit of spotlight.
If modeling a bunch of FE models is too much work, instead of randomized unique FE units, a swarm of Annas from across the realms run out.
I’m obviously not a game designer, least of all a fighting game designer, so my thoughts should be taken with a grain of salt. The main issue was really trying to reconcile the idea of encouraging item-use without making normals seem like an after-thought. The main principle that I tried to convey is that very few of Anna’s normal, or even Smash attacks, have very good KO potential. She relies on her normals to rack up damage and relies on her weapons to deliver finishing blows. Another issue was simply designing around the Supply special, since it meant that I couldn’t use too many weapons in her normals.
I picture the Anna that I designed as a light, hit-and-run character with a lot of tools for harassment. With, obviously, quite a bit left to chance. I can’t say it makes for a superbly performing character, but I think it’s appropriate enough that a representative of all of Fire Emblem relies a bit on the fickleness of the RNG Gods.
Too bad Pac-Man ate her cake...
). But I did feel like I needed to let that be known so no one else that supported Chrom over all the others felt any offense...but I actually don't know of anyone that has Chrom as their top dog *shrugs*
