All things considered, I think of Punch-Out as much of a puzzle game as it is a boxing game. Your task isn't simply to beat up the opponent; It's to learn their moves, learn when to strike, and
then beat them up. I'm going to try and replicate that with Little Mac somewhat.
- Little Mac no longer has the Power Meter - Instead, he has the Star Meter, which is inspired by the Wii's Punch-Out title.
- However, this won't build up as Little Mac simply takes/recieves damage. Instead, the only way to get one of your three maximum stars is to attack the opponent during the endlag frames of one of their attacks, reflecting how you attack an opponent at their most vulnerable in Punch-Out.
- As for losing stars, there's only three ways to do it - Either get KO'd, use your Neutral Special (more on that in a bit), or have a 20% chance of losing a single star upon taking a hit which deals a certain amount of damage.
- Little Mac's attacks take a little bit of a hit in raw power, but in return, they deal high shield damage.
- Little Mac's air game is better - Not exactly Peach or Jigglypuff tier, but he's actually competent off-stage now.
- In exchange, Little Mac loses the super armor on his smash attacks.
- Little Mac's Neutral Special is now always the KO Uppercut, which increases in damage/knockback with how many stars you have - 0-star N-Special is more of a "get off me" tool, but 3-star N-Special would be akin to a full KO Uppercut from vanilla Little Mac. However, you lose all your stars upon use.
- Little Mac's other specials and Final Smash stay the same, aside from buffs/nerfs (for example, Up Special now has more distance).
Overall, I designed Little Mac to focus on punishes rather than raw strength - He's still very much a "bait and punish" character, but now requires deeper thought going into his punishes rather than spamming smash attacks and hoping for the best.