Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!
You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!
It appears that you are using ad block :'(
Hey, we get it. However this website is run by and for the community... and it needs ads in order to keep running.
Please disable your adblock on Smashboards, or go premium to hide all advertisements and this notice. Alternatively, this ad may have just failed to load. Woops!
Grim & Gnarly was a wild but perfectly fitting choice for this JamCon, and a pretty hype series to see get representation in MYM. That said, I find it hard to talk about the depressing duo. The moveset actually starts with a few moves I really like conceptually! The two have, like, next-to-nothing to work with, and the Specials do manage to capture what little they have. Turning their building into a rolling projectile of steamrolling sadness is fun, and I do like how it gets better further on with the distance traveled. Thematically cool and not like anything in Smash really. Their depressing Speech plays in specifically with this, of course, though perhaps halving jump heights is a bit potent of an effect, especially one that could potentially last anywhere from 10 attacks to 20 seconds. Perhaps something futzing with the foe's jumpsquat data? This makes it hard for them to get over the Frowning Ball without kneecapping their mobility and keeping Grim & Gnarly from hanging out up high to avoid the foe.
The summonable creature is a bizarre move in ways I both like and don't like. It's probably the most directly violent thing the duo are responsible for, so it does feel right to throw them in, but screen-length projectiles are spooky. DJ Spit fires off so many shots, and Mr. Man's is described as "much more powerful", though we don't get a good frame of reference for how strong either projectile is. That said, I like the idea of stationed Frowners and being activated by a rolling Frowning Ball, it feels like there's some really cool combo potential between the two moves that the set never quite capitalizes on. Jab is a notably funny move, allowing two quick projectiles with good range, but I'm not sure how I feel about them in the context of the greater set. I do like the disjointed grab game, a style of grab and throws I've considered myself before, and the Smashes having a connecting thread is something I appreciate.
Unfortunately, I think the moveset's just lacking in an overall picture or gameplay feel. At times the duo have fantastic spacing tools that emphasize having range from the foes, but then have moves like FAir that are built around approaching. I think the duo need some more cohesion to effectively spread their despair across Smash Bros. Also, I know damage numbers bla, bla, bla, but it's very hard to tell exactly how strong attacks are without the values. In general the set feels like it does have some potential in spite of the difficult character choice, it just doesn't know where to go with it. Still, a fun read for this duo and I'm glad they got a set regardless.
Today's charges: Rumia by UUserShadow7989
Randall Flagg by BKupa666
Black Mask Goro Akechi by n88
Iz by Katapultar
Hades by BKupa666
Vania & Fatla by Katapultar
New Jersey by n88
Dizzy by Arctic Tern
Patchouli Knowledge by Arctic Tern
Astor by AAwfulBeast
Scáthach by Arctic Tern
Joumae Saori by ForwardArrow
Anna by FrozenRoy
& Daehypeels
Black Alice by OldManHan
Don't Touch Me by ForwardArrow
Witchcrafter Potterie by Arctic Tern
And more to come!
Many a setmaker has joked about someone making a set for a bizarre character, but only n88 would actually go through the effort of making a 30k set just for the meme. If nothing else, you gotta respect that.
New Jersey leans hard into the zoner archetype, being a bit like Vileplume in that she also has very few close range options. Unlike Vileplume, she is also a shipgirl, so she launches actual missiles and cannon rounds for insanely explosive power. The most notable is her NSpec, Dragon's Breath, which fires a series of powerful rounds that home in on the foe and automatically fires after the first 15 seconds of a stock. If Big J wants to use it again, she can use SSpec to Decommission herself to weaken certain attacks, but with the benefit of using it again to fire a long ranged hitbox that sets up well for her other moves and buffs said certain attacks. Topping it off is her DSpec, which summons an anchor that makes her much harder to budge and allows her to potentially cancel the endlag of her more punishable attacks. While the input placement of SSpec is a bit awkward, from what I understand Azur Lane characters have a lot less to work with than a character from, say, F/GO, so I get placing it there, and in any case they’re all very cool.
The rest of her kit keeps in with the general “high-risk/high-reward” idea, with some crazy payoffs. New Jersey can fire a large missile as an absurdly powerful trap with USmash, create a lingering hitbox with immense power on the last frames with FAir, and has a jab that sets up an intense mixup where guessing wrong can lead to the opponent eating a move that deals 37% and kills early. There’s some stupid coverage and zoning potential if everything works out, but it actually feels balanced by her general committal nature and unconventional moves that work poorly for defense, such as UTilt being at an awkward angle. Nevertheless, Big J does still have a good chunk of close range moves such as BAir, USpec, and her grab to fend off the foe if it comes to such, and they tend to work very well with the pressure exerted from the automatic Dragon’s Breath. The grab itself also has some moves worth highlighting, such as UThrow, which fires the opponent out of her cannons alongside projectiles with RNG that makes it so that they never quite know how to respond, and the bury DThrow that works well with the insane reads her kit allows for. And really, any set that allows yourself to launch yourself off the blast zone with a jab is really, really funny.
New Jersey may have been made in large part as a joke, but the set itself is completely serious, and it adds up to a zoner set that ticks my “big stupid hitbox” buttons extremely well and earns a very high rating.
NABOORU (WCF)
This is a little weird - the doc isn’t a full set nor a dodongo, but rather a preview of a full set. As such, there will be no rating on the doc, just me going over the ideas laid out.
DSpec is conceptually pretty cool, summoning a construct that moves with the foe at the same speed and attacks when they do. Anubis has good potential to prevent opponents from attacking Nabooru, so I hope that there are moves that take advantage of this (like fast moves with a strong tipper at mid range).
Using Spirit Temple elements as a basis is definitely the right call, since Nabooru doesn’t actually do that much by herself and she is heavily associated with it.
USpec has a really neat idea in possessing Nabooru’s own constructs so that she can use Anubis’ fireball on her own and approach without being grabbed. There’s not really a specification on whether possessing an Anubis allows it to move past the 5 Unit limit it normally moves, and if it doesn’t then that makes it essentially redundant to just running in normally (her dash speed is good enough for it to be viable from said distance)
NSpec is a neat application of the Mirror Shield, where Nabooru can use it to absorb the Anubis’ fireballs to spawn an attack out of it. I also like the applications it has for controlling its movement and suddenly mixing up how the foe deals with Anubis.
SSpec is a nice throwback to the only other Gerudo in Smash, and a command grab with follow ups is a neat idea as well. Its utility in moving around her constructs is also nice.
Paragraph 2 of SSpec ends with an incomplete sentence.
Ah yes, the almighty boulder makes yet another appearance. I kind of like the fact that it just breaks upon being hit, since it prevents it from being too oppressive as a solid hitbox.
The boulder has a rolling hitbox, but the actual damage it has and how it scales with slopes is never stated. I assume that this will be mentioned when Nabooru’s slope creating tools are actually brought up in the full set, but IMO it would be better organization wise to state these factoids in the same section the boulder is first brought up
The boulder section of SSpec mentions that Nabooru has moves that terraform. I am vaguely concerned given how the idea is inherently difficult to balance, but since I don’t know anything else about these moves I can’t really judge for now. In any case, here is another reminder that the “weird” option is not always as beneficial to a set’s core than a simpler, practical attack.
SSpec’s up option is a sick animation.
SSpec’s side option is a cargo throw, working well with the sandbox gameplan envisioned for Nabooru.
Overall, there’s a lot of neat ideas here! Depending on how the rest of the set goes, I can see Nabooru being a decently strong contender next contest.
SATSUKI KIRYUIN (Slavic/Froy)
Satsuki is a character I’ve thought about doing on occasion, and while I wouldn’t do everything this set does I am still a fan of this interpretation of her. Her Specials have her summon the Elite Four, a neat parallel to how all of the members with solo sets thus far have had Specials that summon a student - the most overall important is Inumuta, who downloads data that progressive buffs her set. The first level allows Satsuki to cancel any of her non-summon moves into her Specials, the second buffs her Specials, and the last turns has her access the full power of Junketsu, granting her great speed and buffs on various moves at the expense of taking recoil damage. While I think that dealing half recoil for every attack that hits is too harsh given the stages of the match Satsuki will get Junketsu, it is a nice way of ensuring that her otherwise overpowering kit can get taken down with a good hit. Her other Specials are nice as well, such as having Gamagori serve as a shield that potentially becomes a command grab she can act out of or having Nonon help her recover while aiding in her combo game.
The standards section starts off with a very wacky input, where the jab summons Honnoji students to serve as body shields! While I think it’s too weird of a jab for the input, I do enjoy the myriad applications of students as projectiles, and it does create another parallel with the Elite 4 sets - they need a Special to summon a student, Satsuki does so with her basic attack. Her Dash Attack is easily my favorite input in the set, a rekka move where each hit has different follow up possibilities that works well with her ability to cancel attacks into her Specials. Satsuki’s Smashes are suitably over-the-top, as she grows in size for an absurdly powerful but slow FSmash, crucifies the foe for potential followups with USmash, and makes her signature glowing light beams for DSmash that serve as recoilless combo extenders with Junketsu. I do feel the set ends up falling off a bit around the aerials, mainly since there’s not a lot of mention of her cancels or tricks you can do with her Junkestu’s fast fall increase, but none of the moves in that or the throws are outright bad. Additionally, the BThrow’s wall creation is really just for effect, but it would have been cool to have some way to bounce the opponent off of it for combos.
While my opinion of the set is probably a bit hampered by not being what I envisioned for her, Satsuki is still a very fine entry and one that still has the oppressive, authoritarian feel that defines her. Read it and weep, you pigs in human clothing!
Before I begin, I just want to say something - I have never been so excited for a new moveset in my entire 14 years as a setmaker. When you have niche tastes and delve into a lot of obscure-ish franchises that no one else touches, you’ll naturally get really excited when someone suddenly goes hard on one of those franchises. In fact, this is the first time in my entire career that someone has made a moveset for a character for one of my “personal” franchises. I never asked or really expressed any hopes that someone else would join in, so thank you so, so much for making this moveset. It’s an honour that my Blue Archive movesets influenced you to look up the franchise and join in with a big hype moveset that exceeds any of my current 5 in wordcount.
Saori is giving me Ferrijit vibes right off the bat, between her high mobility and 3 allies that you lose for the rest of your stock if they’re KO’ed.
This might be the first time we’ve had a fighter take emotional damage when one of their summons is KO’ed. I like it for balancing purposes, and for characterization. Actually reminds me of a gimmick in Komikaze Rabu’s boss fight in one of the Abydos Summer challenge stages, where she gets stunned if you wipe out all of her Helmet Gang subordinates.
Thought: give Saori’s squadmates extra HP when she’s fighting more than one opponent. Like, maybe 1.2-1.3x as much health for every extra opponent. It feels like Saori would be prone to losing her squadmates more easily than she’d like in FFA matches, which would be more serious for her compared to Ferrijit when she gets stunned when one of them is KO’ed. Hiyori’s personal defense mechanism is helpful for her survival, anyway.
Yes, passive attacks from your squadmates is what I want to see in minion-based Blue Archive sets. Attacks that occur every X seconds or after performing X number of attacks fits in with various Normal and EX Skills that Blue Archive Students have. The former works well with the squadmates’ minion status and the sheer risk of keeping them out for an extended period of time.
Popped onto Hiyori’s page on the Blue Archive wiki when I read that she gets damage multipliers for keeping her crosshair on her opponent for longer and being farther away from them. I thought this was based on a crit-based skill Hiyori had, but she has no such skills in her kit. She does have def-reducing skills, though.
Man, that Hiyori Easter Egg is just sadistic.
Misaki’s buffs after she’s kept out for 15 seconds are what I’d want from her set - good translation of her in-game Normal Skill that boosts her ATK after 50 seconds.
Oooh, neat to see Saori following the orthodox Neutral Special gun formula that her Blue Archive predecessors set out. This one works well with Saori’s squad gameplan, as the attack is only really potent if Saori takes the risk of popping out her squadmates.
Never considered Saori using illegal bombs with the ideas I had. Reminds me of Iroha’s grenade D-Smash. Using fire patch to detonate your grenade reminds me of stuff I did in Michiru. I do think the grenade overlaps with the delayed hitboxes Hiyori and Misaki can bring to be as substantial of an input as it could have been, but most of Saori’s tricks are concentrated on her squadmates anyway.
I like using different coloured text to note when a particular squad members has a hard interaction for a specific move, similar to what I would do in my movesets.
Up Special is good for its squadmate repositioning, and the benefits they provide Saori - the cartwheel’s tech chase potential into Misaki’s big powerful blast is particularly neat.
Standard inputs are all good, some in ways I wouldn’t have expected: Jab with its marking effect, F-tilt having a pseudo-counter that benefits from smoke and the grenade, Dash Attack as a burst kill and D-tilt benefitting if you have a squad mate out. The latter is particularly neat for its set-up implications into Hiyori’s delayed sniper shot.
“a Bible quote in latin ” I did not know this.
F-Smash has more Ferrijit vibes, but this time your squadmates are helping you to land a big flashy KO move.
“Atsuko throws a smoke grenade in an arc following the path of Saori’s intended shot.” This does make the smoke grenade’s exact range and arcing properties a bit vague when this sentence is all readers have to go by, but it’s not a big deal if it stays that way.
The way Hiyori’s 3 shots are aimed during the F-Smash is very cool. F-Smash also goes much harder when Atsuko’s buff is factored in, very typical FA fashion here.
U-Smash’s specific overhead sweetspot has W vibes. Its usages with Atsuko’s tools ala Smokescreen and the damage boost help to sell it. The move is hilariously-written in a way: the opening paragraph makes the attack appear to lack substance, only for a sweetspot to pop in after all the squadmate interactions are wrapped up.
D-Smash is a simple but neat move in its squadmate applications - it just lets Saori make explosions near them to cover them defensively, and catch out a foe’s defensive options against their attacks. Works very well with her gameplan of protecting her teammates indirectly. Might be my favourite of Saori’s great Smashes, which is saying something given her F-Smash.
I like the synergy N-air has with Hiyori’s sniper shot. Big lingering frontal hitbox reminds me of Wakamo’s N-air.
F-air is a simple but interesting combo tool that rewards Saori for the risk of having Atsuko out. A small part of me gets iffy when special stale-move-negation mechanics are only applied to one regular move in a set, like Quackfaster’s U-tilt last contest, but it does serve to make the move’s combo potential less insane.
Definitely (re-)noticing the trend of big powerful sweetspots on some of the regular moves you write. It probably helps that you sell their scariness with the way you talk about them in your writing, introducing them in a different paragraph instead of clumping them together with the main hitbox.
Immediately sold on D-air with its talk on DI’ing and walling off opponents.
I like that D-throw delves into some specifics regarding Hiyori’s rifle set-up and how she can play off of it with her established moves. This trend is also continued with F-throw w. Atsuko, and U-throw kind of playing off of Misaki while B-throw is a general widespread buff that is very potent, but Saori has to be quick about it and gets the most benefit if she has teammates out so she can abuse F-Smash.
“If the character happens to have a halo, whether it be a Blue Archive character or some unlucky angel, the halo will shatter if the knockback is enough to kill.” Boy, I’m glad that the FA’verse and Katverse are separated from each other. That means I don’t have to worry about my ninja girls suffering a horrible fate.
Overall, I found Saori to be a very strong set, just as you hoped she would be. This is largely due to her strong execution and having interesting moves on the vast majority of her inputs, which is certainly helped by her reliance on her teammates. These land her a comfortable Super Vote slot that I don’t think will be overthrown when all is read and done. The only thing that prevents Saori from being among the absolute best is that her concepts don’t feel as innovative as other high-end sets that boast some new and exciting takes on various movesetting genres. I’m not entirely sure how well Saori will do this contest when I think about Ferrijit being conceptually similar, but only time and further readings of Saori will tell.
The final Majora set for this contest, I was looking forward to this one when I saw his name mentioned in your little story mode write-up - an obvious connection to Emidius - and the fact that FA approved of some crazy concepts from you from what I heard. Quite happy to see the (first?) protagonist of your very own book series get a moveset, because FA helped to put Anima Project on the MYM Map with his Knight moveset. Good to see Felix get a picture. His intro and stats section portray a satisfying amount of characterization, which is much-needed on what is more or less an OC character. This man absolutely has Shonen protagonist vibes.
The Slow-Burn Pyromancy delivers some neat takes on the typical meter. The speed boost and lag cut relative to your meter count are to like here, turning Felix a more aggressive combo character as his meter goes up. I do think a potential 1.8x cut to Felix’s starting and end lag might be a bit strong - I’d suggest that the end lag reduction only gets applied if Felix successfully lands his attack, so he can still be punished for whiffing it regardless of his meter. I like the “use it or lose it” approach to losing heat when you lose a stock, and the Overclock mechanic that only occurs if Felix KOs an opponent using a heat-empowered attack is neat when it encourages him to go for certain KO options for big benefits.
A good part of me thinks “it would be cool if Felix had the option to spend Heat on the attacks that use it,” but I actually like that Heat is compulsory to spend if Felix has the required amount to spend on moves that use it. It means that Felix has to hold back on using a few of his moves if he wants to build up Heat further, and the fact that 50% is expended on Smashes prevents him from getting too insane with the lag reduction benefits on such powerful inputs. Felix is also forced to hold back and pick the right time to fire off his Specials once he does reach 100% Heat - especially if he’s fishing for those juicy Burn Mark effects - but he can be forced to waste it on his recovery if he hesitates too much.
I do like seeing a tether move, especially one that interacts with the Burn Mark effect and slows opponents who already have the effect, opening up Felix to get aggressive.
I assume that the tether remains in play even if Felix gets full Heat and uses his enhanced Side Special. You know what would be cool? If the enhanced Side Special beam got some kind of bonus for performing it while an opponent was tethered to you, like coming out instantly or just much more quickly.
Up Special feels like it could particularly benefit from added clarification, like its melee uses (maybe mix-ups, since you can travel in multiple directions?) and even how Felix could make use of the smoke effect. I think the spin attack could be sold more as a melee attack, like stating whether it’s a good defensive hitbox (sounds like the spinning would last a while) or so.
Down Special’s 100% Heat variant is nice - gives you a ton of Burn Marks to play around with, and the healing synergizes with how Felix gains more Heat when he takes damage and increases his survivability so he can actually use that Heat. Almost wish that these benefits were applied to the non-100% version of Down Special, which feels kind of unrewarding for something that takes long to start up and uses up all of your Heat. What if the pre-max-Heat move functioned as an Incineroar-style counter that gave you extra Heat if you countered an attack? Or Felix just got some super armour on his starting lag, and maybe extra Heat if he tanks an attack? Feels like a move with some untapped potential, in any case.
Dash Attack is a nice enough spacing/follow-up utility tool, especially the early hitbox’s Burn Mark effect of popping foes back towards you! Feels like Felix could loop this on foes with multiple Burn Marks, though I assume that the Medium starting lag prevents this from being a true chain. The Heat version is a satisfying enough finisher if Felix has 25% Heat to spend.
F-tilt counter.
14% feels a bit too strong for a low start-up Up Tilt that can chain into itself.
Down Tilt’s Burn Mark effect sounds potent for combo extensions in a nice way, due to its delayed hitbox.
The Smashes are unexpectedly projectile and trap-orientated for a character that was established as being aggressive, feeling a bit contrary and perhaps out-of-character, but I do like these hard-interaction type moves, especially ones that are powerful in exchange for being limited in use. I like how F-Smash is described to be a potent kill move and option for Overclocking, but it requires at least 75% Heat and is naturally just difficult to land. Burning Ground is a good trap, and U-Smash’s embers seem like they’d be potent for combos - pretty unique that the latter bops opponents away and makes it harder for Felix to follow up on them, if I’m understanding the trap correctly. It’s a shame that Felix can’t use his better Heat Special projectiles on the flaming crescent due to Heat consumption, unless he’s Overclocked. I could see U-Smash coming off much more strongly if its many applications were expanded upon. The knockback-increasing effect from landing a Burn Mark explosion in a D-Smash geyser is particularly cool, the passive Heat gain as well to a degree, but part of me thinks that the latter clashes with Felix’s aggressive game when it incentivizes him to stand in the geyser. It’s at least something he can do from a distance, anyway.
I actually kind of like N-air’s controlled Heat consumption. How much knockback does it deal? Is it a drag-down move?
I could see N-air’s Firebird having easy synergy with the U-Smash trap, and the fact that you can use U-tilt to pop it up - might be worth editing that little detail in.
B-air is an unorthodox little attack, but an interesting one for its Corrin/R.O.B like movement properties. There is a missed opportunity to state that it is one of Felix’s few moves that applies a Burn Mark without using Heat, so it feels like he would be fishing for this move quite a lot. There’s also the fact that, well, Felix’s N-air and F-air consume Heat on use, which would leave his not-super-fast B-air as his only way to attack horizontally from the air without using Heat.
I think some later parts of this moveset delve into unorthodox territory that can feel a little out-of-place when Felix is stated to be a combo character - aside from something obvious like U-tilt > U-air, I’m not entirely sure on how Felix’s combo game would work in general, and how some of his Heat-demanding moves might interfere with that. F-Smash is the only move that brings up the lag reduction from having higher Heat, but lag reduction in general could open up some compelling combo paths for Felix that might not be available with lesser Heat, if they were brought up.
D-throw is surprisingly neat with Heat, essentially being a prone state that applies Burn so Felix can get some serious fun if he follows it up.
Overall, Felix is a set with a lot of untapped potential, but I did enjoy seeing his character and ideas. MYM’ing at a higher level is hard, but I have no doubt you could make consistently great works if you can expand upon the ideas and melee presented in your sets. Even so, you’ve honestly had quite a good return contest - 11 sets under your belt, perfect Jamcon/Slavic Day attendance record, and even have like half of the entire contest read and commented upon. That’s some dedication!
Also, I’m enjoying the Rival dialogue write-ups and almost want to do some myself now.
Felix is a pyromancer with a suitably aggressive playstyle, where he passively builds up Heat as the match progresses that is automatically expended on certain attacks. Since the more Heat he has when he loses a stock the less he gets upon returning, this encourages the player to use it as much as possible, fitting for a hot-headed, impulsive character. This is encouraged by Felix’s ability to inflict Burn Marks on the foe that make his hits deal even more damage, as well as serving as combo extenders. There’s a lot of neat attacks sprinkled in here, such as FTilt’s pseudo-counter and several attacks that allow him to create patches of ground that let him passively build up heat. Lastly, the payoffs for the Heat expended moves are quite cool, from making FSmash an even harder hitting move and granting Felix the ability to potentially heal himself if he lands an enhanced DSpec.
My main issue with the set isn’t in the actual playstyle or moves themselves, but rather the Burn Mark mechanics. Most of the ones that don’t add anything substantial add a flat 5% damage buff, with several having a 10% explosion take place a second after the foe gets hit. Since most of Felix’s set inflicts Burn Marks, this means he gets absurd amounts of damage off a combo for basically nothing, especially since his attack will likely apply another Burn Mark to them. This is made worse by the fact that the marks last for 5 seconds and he has good run speed, making it hard to shake off for several characters. My suggestion would be to both decrease the time they last for 2 seconds (weakening the passive pressure and encouraging Felix to get aggressive to exploit them) and decrease the damage the base effects deal (around half potency seems nice). Despite these balance issues, they’re nothing a bit of number crunching can’t fix, and overall Felix ends up alright in my book.
ODDISH (Froy/n88)
Oddish is a nice little set centered around defending against its foes assaults with a variety of defensive moves. It has a DSpec that fires various powders based on a cycle and a USpec that counters grabs, serving as a nice defensive mixup, and it also has a SSpec that drags the opponent to it to press further assaults. Despite its small size, Oddish has quite the selection of power moves, such as DSmash and FSmash, to make tech chases against it harrowing, as well as several ways to heal itself and poison the foe, making it much more viable than you’d think. There weren’t that many standout moves, but the aerials that vary based on the powder cycle definitely were, for both being versatile and allowing it to choose what specific power Oddish wants from DSpec. The only real issue is that there’s no approaching options listed, which is important when it has no projectiles and super slow mobility - the Dash Attack could serve as such, but the actual distance Oddish travels during it isn’t stated, so I’m not sure how good of one it is. Nevertheless, the set is still way more impressive than I’d expect for a set for Oddish of all Pokemon, and I’m still happy a set for the little guy exists.
MINAMI (US)
Minami has a concept similar to Vania and Falta’s in that they’re a two-in-one set - not surprising, since a major reason as to why she was posted this contest was to compliment them. Unlike the leviathans, Mina and Nami are drastically different stat wise: the former an extreme lightweight, the latter an extreme heavyweight. What makes them work is their ability to switch out at will by using various attacks, and have one body use their Specials so that the other can capitalize on it. They work off each other very well, from a Bowser NSpec both Mina and Nami can exploit, to a SSpec that serves as a free desyncing tool to the most intriguing, a DSpec that creates a mobile ice block that can be used to approach behind or combo off of. Additionally, switching out will give Mina a one-time burst movement and Nami decently strong armor on one hit, further encouraging switching out While superficially similar to Vania and Fatla in the general idea, Minami goes into different places with overall more basic moves, but still interesting in their own right.
The Smashes are where the set gets truly over the top, using the combined power of both bodies. FSmash summons a dragon head with absurd range and power, but equally long startlag - it’s only viable because Mina can burst ahead of it and use her own, weaker version to cover its bases, and their setup allows the full power version to actually be landed off a read. DSmash creates a very tiny, but very strong hitbox that works well with both bursting to get in range as Mina and trading hits as Nami. Lastly, USmash creates a thin, but powerful and ranged laser beam that hard counters anti-airs and serves as a powerful OoS option. All of them can be powerful, but they are all reactable and two of them are quite precise, requiring Minami to work with both bodies to get the most mileage out of.
The rest of the moves are where the main switch mechanic is implemented, a tap/hold variant. There’s plenty of ways to have one of Mina’s weak hits set up for Nami’s stronger but slower hits, and a lot of cool individual moves. Nami UTilt is the standout here, being a Ganon UTilt that is far more practical thanks to Mina being able to lead into it, but Mina has nice moves as well like her FAir projectiles, that work well as approach tools and combo starters with her burst movements. I particularly like the strategy of using Nami’s DAir, a stall-than-fall, as a suicide KO since depending on the circumstances it won’t actually count for a stock loss and allows Mina to get a heads up on the foe’s next stock. Finally, the grab game actually reverses the two bodies’ dynamics and has some neat throws - the highlight being the DThrows, which are all meant to set up into strong advantage states for the other body. While the uses of desyncing the bodies or reducing endlag with ice blocks aren’t elaborated upon that much, with how much there is elaborating too much would very much bloat the set.
Overall, while I still prefer Vania/Falta, Minami certainly doesn’t fall far behind, and manages to eke itself out as a very strong closing set.
Next up on my list of "sets I extensively previewed but never did a reread / ranking / comment of" is Omega, an earlier Majora set this contest. Bomb-ass character choice by the way, love to see some Final Fantasy 14 representation here.
The near-purely horizontal second jump Omega has is quite novel, can't really think of another Make Your Move set that quite did that. Omega overall definitely feels like a prototype (fitting?) of your general set style: Set up an interesting premise early in the set, in this case the Level Checker and Adaptive Armor, introduce some twists and turns early perhaps, and then close it out with attacks that are simple but hopefully effective. Not a bad formula, really. The Level Checkers I thought were interesting in how they utilized weighted RNG, and while normally dud rolls are not ideal in this case the "Do Nothing" on a 1 roll is clever. Usually those kinda suck due to being chances to do Nothing on active moves, although given Mr. Game & Watch's Judge 1 it isn't impossible to make work (on the flipside Judge would go over terribly in MYM I wager), but in the Level Checker's case it is more to help ensure it cannot spam the opponent to death by giving a reprieve. Ferrofluid's magnetism also feels kinda wild in a positive way, one of the more interesting "magnetism" effects we've seen in a while I wager. I feel like a moveset that utilized "Plus / Minus Magnetism" more intensely could be a real winner, especially since most magnetism sets in MYM history have not done so.
After that, Omega largely settles into a somewhat standard but nonetheless fairly well done projectile camper kind of character. Delta Attack is a pretty fun "ultimate attack" and I feel the way it just Disintegrates items and destructible terrain definitely sells its power. In these regards though I find the set hard to add meaningful commentary to beyond what I already even mentioned in previewing, especially since later sets like Tinker Knight feel like they already outdid it. Stuff like Down Tilt makes for a fine bit of melee, I worry Up Smash has a level of missile spam that could be overpowered, I actually really like Neutral Aerial and it feels like an especially standout move past the Specials. It feels like it takes advantage of Omega's unique jump mechanics and Ferrofluid well, Up Aerial also is a good method to play into his vertical weaknesses, I assume he sheds the plates by using Up Aerial again? The Simulations on the throws feel like wild animations to suddenly toss out, but they fit the character. I'm not opposed.
If there's one thing about this set I guess it is that I feel like it could be More. The Humanity Simulations feel like they honestly could have been some kind of high end Level Checker payoff, maybe one that only comes about after long periods of checking the opponent given how Omega's Adaptive Armor rewards longer and grinding play. I also feel like this set doesn't take full advantage of Omega's unique jump mechanic and aerials both in weaknesses (Omega's edgeguarding and how deep he can go is different than a lot of characters along with making it hard for him to recover low) and strengths (great horizontal chasing potential for example). I think that using Dash Attack in the air maybe could have done something special? Or honestly maybe even, like, Aerial Smashes since given what I know of Omega this is the kind of character that can do some wild and over the top stuff. Not sure of exact ideas, just a general sense.
Overall, Omega is a Fine set that could get a WV in the right contest but given how strong this contest became late will likely get pushed out including by your own stronger sets like Tinker Knight. Cool character though and the set is a fun, breezy read!
Luffy, being a stretchy boi, naturally has his main gimmick centered around stretching. Holding the input allows him to charge up his normally standard attacks so that their range is drastically extended at the expense of more lag and his limbs becoming a hitbox. While the range of the stretch and exact time it takes to charge isn’t stated on any of the moves, which is fairly important, I do like the idea behind it a lot! Additionally, Luffy can access three different modes with DSpec, allowing him to buff his movement speed, give him a big strong fist, or change into a floaty heavyweight with a ton of range and power. They all have their niches in his gameplan, and they certainly work to give off the overall feel of the character.
The rest of Luffy’s moves don’t have that many gimmicks to them, but are still quite solid. Jab and its inability to stretch works well as a reliable close range spacer, and the full on command grab in Dash Attack is something that I wouldn’t do but does have nice utility in comboing and anti-airing. The Smashes have neat tricks as well, from USmash having a sweetspot that does massively enhanced shield damage and DSmash gaining an anti-air hitbox once stretched to the max. Lastly, the grab gives Luffy an extendo-grab that keeps the foe where they are when he grabs them, allowing him to potentially dunk them offstage with DThrow. Throughout, the set displays knowledge of moves that combo through mixing and matching what to stretch - a favorite was the pseudo-infinite unlocked with Gear 2, which seems balanced due to the hoops Luffy has to get to unlock it and the fact the opponent can escape with DI. Overall, a vast improvement over your earlier works!
JOUMAE SAORI (FA)
Saori’s primary gimmick revolves around summoning the other members of her squad to assist her in battle. Atsuko provides smoke to hide her attacks in and provides healing and buffs, Hiyori packs a strong sniper rifle that Saori can aid in the potency of by hitting the foe, and Misaki fires rockets that serve as strong anti-air and stage control tools. All of these are strong, especially when two of them can be onstage at once, but once KOed they can not be brought back for the rest of the stock and Saori takes a good chunk of damage and stun. She also has a DSpec that creates a powerful timed grenade hitbox, but can also hit her teammates and cause her to get more damage and stun, forcing her to place it carefully. The last of Saori’s Specials include a gun NSpec that gives her just enough time to get a fast hit or reposition and a USpec meant for saving squadmates.
The feel of the rest of the set can best be described as “FA does a Kat-style set”, appropriate given the character choice. Saori’s moves are much more interaction based than most of FA’s set, mainly based around follow ups with her squadmates - these include having them fire their weapons to accompany her Smashes and a DTilt that if sweetspotted unlocks a follow up that only works if a squadmate is out. Three of her aerials also get buffs if she has a specific squadmate onstage, with the highlight being the FAir and the ability to make it an absurd combo tool. The Smashes standout as a highlight of the set, with Saori’s FSmash being a long-ranged, super strong gunshot that would normally be too slow to be viable, but her squadmates can provide hitboxes that allow it to actually hit into it and the Smash buff lets her fire out up to 4 at the expense of gradually increasing lag. Her other Smashes are cool as well, with an USmash sweetspot that works well with her smokescreens preventing the foe from knowing if she’s in range of it and a DSmash that can both cover the stage and protect her squadmates with a button input. Last but not least is the grabs, which have a lot of unique effects at the cost of a poor actual grab, like the standard prone throw and a BThrow that buffs a select few of her moves. Saori may have a lot of options for overwhelming the opponent, but it ends up balanced by being easy to combo, the repercussions of losing squadmates, and her poor recovery without assistance.
There’s a lot more I can say, but I’m kinda burnt out from reading so I’ll just say that Saori is a definite top contender in my book.
Scathach by Arctic Tern
I was very excited about the NSpec gif but the Darkseid style visuals are, distressingly, not in the move. This still has its own cool visual identity, though. I feel like “knockback that instantly gets cut short” is just not a common aesthetic thing? It reminds me of the walls on the KoF stage. As a thought, it might be worth capping the opponent’s knockback based on distance from Scathach versus actual distance they’ve been knocked back. Super small distinction in most cases, but going off distance from Scathach means that connecting the move from the edge of its range is still as effective as getting inside to use it, which feels right.
The USpec cancel/lag cut is neat - reminds me of Seth. Control complexity feels like it’s starting to creep up with her already having a lot of tap/hold and “press B during Smashes” stuff. It’s not too bad but definitely feels very easy to misinput stuff, especially given the speed of the teleport and the need to aim that and then quickly input whatever attack you want on reappearance.
As a minor note on numbers, some of the distances in the set feel a little off from what the moveset intends. This isn’t quite universal, Dash Attack and DTilt feel like they travel pretty reasonable distances. But, say… the NSpec knockback is not actually far enough to really inconvenience Scathach’s follow ups like the move says, I don’t think. She might need to take a half-step forward before short hopping a FAir. Likewise, DTilt doesn’t move her far enough for her to end up outside melee range if she lands it early. That latter point especially is not really a problem with the set, but the DTilt description seems to think she cares about where in the move she lands it. USmash talks about its big range hitting the lower Battlefield platforms but for a humanoid character, pretty much any amount of upward reach does that. Marth FTilt can shark Battlefield platforms.
I don’t love the design on her USpec and how she uses stars there. The base recovery distance is perilously low. I know it’s meant to be a weakness, but I feel like giving her a Little Mac tier recovery that she can use stars to improve just kind of dominates the star economy and pressures her to save them for that. Might be more fun if she had like a passable-but-flawed recovery and the star upgrades made it tougher to beat or turned it into something she could get advantage off of. Something like that could bring more of a risk/reward element where you can try to go for a riskier recovery to conserve stars. The set doesn’t really allow choice on recovery as-is, she just has to spend stars to get back to the stage.
“Once the charge is released, she thrusts her spear upwards, not a hitbox,” - the big difference between you and me is that I would absolutely make this a hitbox. Up Smash is generally cool though, I like these kinds of big, flashy follow-ups that ask for a hard commitment. Generally the Smashes are fun. DSmash feels pretty zany by the set’s standards.
Jab might be pushing it as a rangey frame 2 hit? Generally big disjoint weapon-using jabs come out on the slow end of jabdom, like frame 5 or so. Super high speed on a rangey move can be tough to beat. The identity of the move feels a bit more tied to the speed than the range so I might advise just making it a punch or kick or what have you in place of a weapon strike.
I do wish there were a little more consistency in the way the crit stars affected attacks - I don’t mind things being a little wacky in the Specials and Smashes but past that it can feel a little hard to keep track of it all. There’s a geeeeneral vibe of more shield safety one way or another in the standards, but then DTilt is kinda doing its own thing and the upgrades start getting nuttier in the aerials. They do at least dovetail well enough with the base functions of the moves, though, and it’s easy to overrate consistency in these things. She’s got a fairly straightforward kit overall, so maybe it’s not so bad.
Overall this is probably a solid RV sort of thing for me? There’s nothing real above-and-beyond about it for me, but there’s solid melee and a few fun inputs. Also a lot of stuff in the kit feels like it’d be pretty cool visually. I broke the read up across two days and I think I liked it a bit more after having a little time to mull it over.
FTilt is a fun attack, I like these sorts of little tricks like the step forward at the end.
There are a couple places where the set talks about moves going from frame ~7 start-up to frame ~2 start-up and becoming unreactable but frame 7 is already plenty unreactable.
The universal charge mechanic is fun, I always dig that kind of “ignore me at your own peril” type dynamic.
FAir being a wall-of-pain with the disclaimer that she can’t actually get people off-stage is funny.
DAir is another standout attack, very big and fun.
“in order to test the mettle of aspiring students, Scáthach would have other champions under her tutelage impale them with spears so that all of their blood was drained out. This was done so that, no matter what situations they encountered afterwards, they would show no fear” - corpses rarely show fear, so this checks out.
The BThrow crumple is very long, I think that’s more of a confirm than a tech chase unless she just has a ton of endlag. Might be better to frame it as how much advantage she gets vs the duration of the crumple.
Ah hell yeah, “throws with downward knockback that can just miss the stage if you pull it off right at the ledge” one of my favorite types of throws.
I love Princess and the Frog, a big reason why is definitely Facilier, I feel like he is one of the last big Disney villains, and his style is so fun and unique. This set does indeed capture a lot of what is unique about the Doc, he has voodoo, he has hoodoo and he has things he ain't even tried. I loved the way you translated his tricks and the powers from the friends from the other side, the debt mechanic is also great and the moves that use it feel powerful enough to warrant it. Also, the way Down Throw changes based on the buff he applied to his foe is a great idea. And the visuals of the set are also fantastic, love the purples and greens as well with the font. Buuuuut I do wish he had extras, I understand is cause he is a Jamcon set so is not the end of the world. I had a good time reading Facilier, made me wanna rewatch his film. 3 out of 5 stars.
I love this pick, they were my favorites back when I watched the anime, and this set captures their goofy but still threatening vibes really well with their moves, they all share the theme of having lots of startup, long animations, end lag the works. But the Disguise Down Special really helps them out on top of being a loveable reference (it would be a lot to animate but it would be funny). The descriptions in general of the team are great, from describing and making me read phrases with Meowth's voice, to the grab gif is all very charming. I will however say I wish the team had extra animations like taunts and victory animations, but Jamcon time do be short and they do have a ton of unique very well-written attacks. I also like how the attack names are Pokémon attacks, neat. And yeah I understand that team rocket has A LOT of stuff so not everything could appear, so their other iconic pokémon couldn't show up, but at least the big boys came out, I love the Victrebell attack, fits him a lot. Sooo yeah, Team Rocket for once didn't fail at their task, their task in this case was being a nice fun moveset, I give the trio a 4 stars.
Seeing how other people commented and ranked Radical I was looking forward to reading him, he did not disappoint. Being the embodiment of the Spongebob soda commercial this man is awesome. His Special Moves all feel very unique and cool, I liked his Neutral Special items and how they have varying utilities. I also liked how they combo with his bike, the Side Special is probably my favorite, it has so many unique uses, and when you add all you can do with Neutral Special and the movement it really feels like you can express yourself while using the bike. His Down Special summoning and how the Rad Meter work are great, I also liked getting to learn about the King as I had never even heard of him, my first impressions of him were good, this set really sells his character as well as just making sense for a King who is Rad. Also just genuinely impressed that this was done within the time period of a Jamcon, it is genuinely surreal with how much content this set has, overall an impressive set I give it 4 out of 5
I was actually quite excited for this set among the last day entries, because its wordcount and presentation are an astronomical step-up from your MYM25 sets. You will -definitely- be at home in MYM if you’ve come to love One Piece, especially with Rychu as they are essentially the biggest One Piece fan in MYM alongside Smady I’d say.
“Is that an Arbys 4 for 10? Government destroyed. A four dollar happy meal with the boy toy? Boom, saved your dad.” Okay, so I suspected this when I unintentionally glanced at this set’s grab game when it was first posted, but this set’s writing is comedic and is probably the funniest moveset I’ve read this contest, which is saying something when we’ve gotten a lot of good comedy like the McDonalds Chicken Tenders. The assistance of random funny pictures helps too.
Giving Luffy slight damage resistance to electric + physical damage but worse damage from bladed attacks reminds me of how the MYM7 Luffy set did the same thing. It’s a small enough damage increase that it doesn’t bother me.
Luffy’s stretching mechanic reminds me of Hades’s awesome extendable grab, and I’m all for it. It is well-handled here - the limb intangibility on attack prevents Luffy from being cheesed out by those dreaded sword disjoints, while the limb vulnerability during his end lag means that he can be punished from a distance if he messes up.
Okay, it’s clear that a lot of passion went into this set. I love that the first move on this set is literally the first attack that Luffy used in One Piece. A simple enough Special, I admittedly thought that a basic stretchy punch like this would have been Luffy’s Forward Tilt or his Forward Air.
It took me a little while to understand, but Side Special works neat for how it allows Luffy to position himself and his opponents for his ranged game, and get really mean if they try to gimp him at the ledge.
“Around him will now appear 3 selections sort of like how Monado Arts is used. Because gosh darnit, that gimmick really changed how we make movesets now.” Sure has.
Luffy’s Specials are actually pretty well-ordered from a flavour and characterization perspective. The Neutral Special starts off simple, Side Special and Up Special are really goofy flavour-wise, while Down Special taps into the more serious Shonen nature of Luffy’s character.
Gear makes for a surprising whopper of a Special after the more simple moves that came before it. The 3 forms available give Luffy some distinctive buffs. Gear 2’s lag cut means a lot to Luffy when many of his attacks pack considerable reach, and the damage cut even makes his attacks easier to combo. Gear 3 gives Luffy a giant death attack, and Gear 4 is the most creative and ambitious of the lot as it gives Luffy a more bouncy nature and reduces his movesets to a set of 4 powerful Specials. Kind of reminds me of Trol from this contest, but unlike Trol, Gear 4 is entirely optional to use. Python is particularly cool among these options, not unlike a ranged version of Sora’s Side Special that allows Luffy to punch foes from different directions to set up for many scenarios from mid-range, but it’s punishable if he misses. Up Special also works well with Python and just making Gear 4 a lot more feasible to play with with its Quick Attack-like movement.
“Wait, who is this?” I’d like to know too.
I have a few issues with Gear overall. I wonder if some of the self-damage here is excessive when the Gear states all come with other drawbacks (reduced weight/power, impractically slow attack, smaller movesets, all usable only once per stock), especially Gear 4 which deals an insane 50% in self-damage. Don’t get me wrong, I do like self-damage in movesets, especially when the damage serves a purpose with mechanics or rage, it just might be a bit much damage. I also wonder if Luffy should have the ability to cancel out of Gear 4 early with something like a Shield Special - strong as the options are, Luffy still has less utility than his regular set, like not having any quick and reliable coverage against enemies above or below him (Up Special is there for quick and easy repositioning, but still).
Did you draw those Luffy hitbox images? Because those are really cool.
D-tilt’s ability to pull foes in for follow-ups when less than half-charged is kinda neat, and seemingly balanced by its slow speed. N-air is kinda reverse where it pulls in opponents when it’s charged. Also good to see the implications of Gear 2’s speed boost being explored in a combo loop that can theoretically infinite opponents if they don’t DI - I’d be worried if they couldn’t escape at all.
If U-air’s first barrage is a dragging move, could you use it to pull opponents down to the ground to combo into vertical attacks like your U-tilt?
B-air is kind of trippy, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the move itself. I know that might sound weird for anyone who is reading this comment and hasn’t ready Luffy. Anyway, the Aerials all manage to have their own purpose in Luffy’s air game, between combos and spacers.
I can’t help but think that OldManHan’s way of ordering input sections was an influence in Luffy’s Smashes being listed after his Aerials.
Pfft, would be scary if Luffy’s charged U-Smash had an actual minute of end lag.
Up Smash might be one of the best uses of Luffy’s stretching mechanics - crazy rewarding if he brings his extended foot down on a shielding or recovering opponent, but he actually has to space it and is going to suffer if he misses. Sweetspots that require precision are fun in general, and that gives this particular attack that none of Luffy’s previous attacks quite have. Does the entire U-Smash hitbox deal downwards knockback? It can be a tad hard to tell with the way information is presented in this set at times, and the general assumption that U-Smashes knock your opponent upwards.
I assumed that F-Smash would have low start-up because of it is stated to be “Fast” in speed, but the move description says it is start-up heavy - the way the move is described, saying that the attack itself launches as “fast as a bullet”, makes me think that the start-up you are referring to is the move’s “charge hold” or the lag a fighter undergoes before they start charging their Smash attack.
D-Smash channels an aspect that I liked about Astor’s Smashes, where charging it gives you a different hitbox. I don’t think these different attacks have the built-in mix-ups vs different enemy reactions that Astor had that made them appealing, but it’s still good to see.
The way you open into the Grab game writing-wise is strangely memorable to me. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen it a few times before I read the move section in earnest.
I like ranged grabs that keep your opponent in place instead of pulling them towards you, as they give you a lot of fun variety from your throws depending on where you land your grab.
What happens if Luffy uses his Back Throw against an opponent he grabbed in the air?
“Having Parental Controls set on, Luffy’s voice actor will change to Erica Schroeder, the original voice actor for the 4K!ds Dub of One Piece.
The cost being that you have to ask your parents to put parental controls on your switch, what else are you gonna do? Lie? ” Pffffffffft!
The subtle, transparent images of the other One Piece characters throughout this set is a really cool presentation touch that you don’t see in other sets. As well as the rope border.
Overall, Luffy is a huge improvement over your MYM25 sets, with a pretty solid moveset altogether and a well-balanced mechanic (I don’t think he was overpowered, in spite of what you seemed to believe). If I have any issues, it’s that Gear 3 and 4 feel disconnected from Luffy’s main set - them being laggy and committal states means that they don’t really get to play off of Luffy’s regular attacks, which would have made them considerably more cool if they could have. But I get how that would be tricky when Luffy is meant to be a straightforward fighter, and I absolutely appreciate the Gears being incorporated in the set and balanced in a way that doesn’t make them absurdly oppressive.
Honestly, this is the absolute closest we have to a definitive Luffy set in MYM, which is great when the set is jam-packed with flavour and nails Luffy’s fighting style in Smash without ever feeling out-of-place. Intense competition keeps Luffy out of my votelist by a few spots as of now, but he is high among the sets I wish I could vote because of the effort that went into him. Maybe you can refine him further with the feedback you get during the reading period?
"Now, I could make a moveset where any opponent's attack would press the button and then everyone else on screen immediately dies." Is this [The Ultimate Chimera]?
I definitely think that Don't Touch Me's stylings mesh well with your stylings of humor, giving this set a bit of a dry combination of wit and anti-wit that keep it an amusing read. Considering the inherent absurdity of the premise of making a set for A Button the fact that it has that level of amusement is pretty vital. Relatedly, I do find it amusing how Chicken Tenders and Don't Touch Me are both inanimate (Question Mark?) objects with proximity-based mechanics and ideas.
Don't Touch Me's biggest ability revolves around an incredibly unique Down Special counter, which just Obliterates the opponent as an instant kill if they happen to trigger it with an even-smaller-than-Rest level hitbox. Within reason that kind of hitbox is so difficult to land that you can get away with almost anything for a reward and honestly the instant kill sounds not only appropriate but very funny. It reminds me a lot of those very silly Smash mods where they make Duck Hunt Dog's can becomes an instant kill. Obviously part of why it is getting away with this is the rarity: Despite the fact that Don't Touch Me revolves around trying to get the foe really close to trigger the counter, the secondary effect of getting Lotso Huggin' Bear tends to more often be the "real" reward and that itself offers interesting gameplay. Plus if Don't Touch Me has to play a game of damage racking, spacing etc then it isn't necessarily more broken than a normal KO, I suppose?
By the by, I appreciate the little flavor touches here like cutesy Kirby-style characters exploding into stars or making squeaky noises compared to hardcore characters. Feels quite actively fitting to the material.
Obviously just fishing for counters with that kind of hitbox would be, uh, Not Ideal. So Don't Touch Me combines that with overly curious employees (which to me also feels like translating Lobotomy Corporation's gameplay) and a Side Special that works in specific attack timings forced on the foe. These kind of "compulsion" effects have traditionally been rejected in Make Your Move, but I don't mind it so much here. One reason being it just forces an attack which feels pretty logical for Smash. Another reason is that, like, literally this thing's entire existence is tempting people to push a button as an eldritch being. It'd be out of character if it couldn't and if anything can get away with using this for potential it is an ACTUAL BUTTON that has that ability.
"Its a button, I think I'm allowed some liberty to abuse the particle effects." So true...Don't Touch Me's recovery is definitely very unique. Part of me does wonder if it is a bit TOO easy to interrupt for opponents, but given how powerfully spooky the counter is for opponent's to try and stop it is probably fine.
Don't Touch Me's grab mechanic is definitely bold! Messing with the opponent while they've grabbed you is an interesting space to play in and shows that between Ninetails and Venusaur you can find inspiration from some truly wild old MYM places, but obviously this implementation is no Ninetails. Making them more debuffs and not stuff that directly keeps the opponent from getting off their throws is a very good idea, and it does feel like it has a place in how Don't Touch Me both does and doesn't want the opponent to touch it and making grabs a dicey prospect for the foe. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit divided on it, but I think it adds to the set rather than detracts. The pummel KO is very funny in a positive manner. The grab animation of getting grabbed is also wild but fits the character lmao
"This throw's malicious effect comes from an Abnormality popping up underneath the foe, specifically a pretty harmless looking little flower." Flower
I don't know that I have anything too specific to say on the grab game past that. It's pretty fun, [Francis] amused me (the three Side Special projectiles seem really powerful until you remember they do no damage, hitstun or knockback!), Down Throw is probably my favorite because the brief knockback boost feels like it plays quite well into Don't Touch Me's awkward-yet-potently-killing gameplan. Forward Throw's debuff plays well into Don't Touch Me's overall gameplan and feels like a clever application of a movement speed debuff. Jab's ability to do 38% and 40% in la-la land is absolutely hilarious, but the base buffs in more usable ways still play into the overall gameplan in a way that's interesting and fitting. I also think it is a good way to use one of Don't Touch Me's only completely from the game..."animations"? Dash Attack is one of my favorite moves in the set, the armor feels natural and I do like the Brawl DACUS-style Down Special "slide" as a way to grant Don't Touch Me a little burst option on the counter. The way that the core trio of tilts and Dash Attack create synergistic basic gameplay to condition opponents into the main core of Don't Touch Me's playstyle is a good example to learn from for people who want an idea of how to make basic attacks flow into a general gameplan without much in the way of hard interactions.
Aerials are mostly standard, fairly good, this and the standards are very much "glue moves" to make this hunk of button Work. Up Aerial and Down Aerial are the highlights obviously, taking mechanics from standards and keeping them close but repurposing them with a little edge. The smashes go back to being Wild, Forward Smash again is a hell of an animation for modern Make Your Move and I still think this set gets away with it but still you get what I mean. I seem to recall you being real happy with Up Smash and I do think it is an important move: Don't Touch Me would probably not be viable if ALL it had was counters and the like at that range.
And for what it is worth, I do think Don't Touch Me is on the underpowered side. The counter is VERY difficult to hit, realize that Rest will whiff if all you do is stand point blank so considering the counter doesn't take into account limb extension it is VERY difficult to land on non-aerials. I almost wonder if Don't Touch Me should have, like, an anti-jostle mechanic that lets it be "inside" characters kinda like older Smash games to help with that. The grab mechanics require getting grabbed and it otherwise is largely a ****ing lump of box and button with mediocre damage potential albeit surprising kill potential. At the same time I don't mind that and if anything actively enjoy it? It doesn't feel too underpowered to play satisfyingly and it really fits the vibe of Don't Touch Me given it is such a simple Abnormality that's considered low risk and that if this was in a fighter it would clearly be a bit of a shock / comedic character like "oh hell they put in THE BUTTON???" and thus the vibe of being weak on a tier list but with surprising potential absolutely fits. Plus when it comes to a concept like this, I'm more inclined to shoot for being too weak than too strong. I know Make Your Move tends to tilt towards being overpowered for worries instead (it makes for flashier reading), but from a game design standpoint Don't Touch Me being too strong could be an actual game killer with how it works in stuff like instant kills. In a sense it fits the character.
So overall I do think Don't Touch Me is good albeit without flaws. It definitely, in my opinion, does rely on novelty to a pretty strong extent. And while the core mechanics of the set are interesting, I don't think it is a surprise to say that something like Joumae Saori (another set I previewed) has more top-to-bottom quality to her. I didn't mind the grab mechanic here but I do worry to an extent about how good it will feel for the grab alone to be punished so often, plus it requires VERY quick inputs on Don't Touch Me's part and feels very easy to misinput. Hard to complain given how tough the character is and how well done it feels, but it does feel like it has enough rough edges to touch that it keeps it out of like. 9 Star or w/e.
Karma is my Boyfriend (Manfred von Karma by Arctic Tern
)
Manfred von Karma is apparently somewhat of a legendary old set. I personally never played AA nor have I read the original set, so I can’t call out any specific references, sadly.
That said, the flavor of the set is really good. Karma is a perfectionist, so he has both tippers and a narrow counter and it‘s both interwoven in the set’s mechanics so that it makes sense. The jump from the visual novel Ace Attorney to Smash is a big one, but unlike Saul Goodman (and its offshoot Irene Landry), there aren’t any super tacky moves around. Sure, the speech bubble hitbox from basically any Phoenix-Wright-in-Smash is here, but that’s a timehonored tradition. Giving a burst of energy to finger snaps is far from the worst leap of logic to make (especially since it’s based on the anime, nice deep cut there!)
Similar praise goes to the handling of the cop minion: It’s not the most complex minion of the lot, but there’s a lot of depth to be found here by taking the grab mechanic from Melee ans then filling out the cop’s moves with the precision of a Von Karma. It really makes the set feel more put together than simply saying it’s a minion set and that the minion does minion things. Knowing when and where the cop performs which attack might sound technical, but it fills out Von Karma’s playstyle in a huge chunk since he relies on the cop so much to get hits off.
My biggest gripe with the set however is that, aside from the whole “has precision tools but the cop is a distraction”, von Karma doesn’t really find any flow or center to its set and almost feels disjointed by nature to sell the minion dependence better. The melee is spruced up by extra tap-or-hold mechanics and evidence-based extras, but since it is all reliant on an AI controlled minion, von Karma feels like a set that has to react to the cop instead of taking charge himself. Though the Neutral B itself described plenty of ways to make use of the cop’s presence thanks to its grabbability and ability to soak projectiles, the rest of the melee is in service of the minion and barely the other way around. The melee is all really in-depth, so even if it might not make for an idea; gameplay scenario, von Karma remains well-written and a solid vote on the list so far above the non-frontrunner sets I’ve read so far.
Hey EXpand, sorry for the long wait! I remember this set was listed among the entries for the current FFC Tournament, so it was a bit of a surprise to see her posted in MYM. Is nice to see a Megaman Legends character on display.
Jab, F-tilt and Dash Attack have a respectable place on a zoner character like Roll. Forward Tilt’s animation sounds particularly cartoony - I could easily imagine it on Servbot in his Marvel vs Capcom 2 appearance.
Up Tilt is a little funky in lieu of being a wind hitbox, but it has a neat place in its ability to reposition and punish opponents who get too aggressive against you from the air.
Down Tilt is cool, essentially functioning as a Hothead lite.
I do have an issue with the Specials and the mechanic, specifically on how they are ordered. MYM generally appreciates it when Specials are listed first, especially when you’ve got a mechanic that utilizes the Specials like with this set. It is not necessary for readers to know about Roll’s mechanic from the get-go if the Specials aren’t listed first, as it is not referenced in her Standards, Aerials or Smashes. Listing the Specials later also gives the non-Special attacks less to play off of. To be fair, most of FFC put Specials later on their first MYM submissions, and didn’t start doing so until we told them about it.
Down Special is kind of neat mechanically: it gives Roll a few options to pick from, but she only gets access to one of them in a single stock. On one hand, I like the “adapt to your opponent” approach this move is going for. On the other hand, I don’t think it would be overpowered if Roll had access to all 3 Down Specials, as they are all pretty reasonable attacks.
Throws all manage to have a distinct purpose in Roll’s gameplan. Nice.
All things considered, I’d say Roll was conceptually average, as the mining mechanic and Specials didn't feel like they had as strong of a "hook" compared to a lot of other entries this contest. Her gameplan simply involves keeping foes away and getting time to dig materials to upgrade some pretty simple Specials, Side Special being the most dangerous for kill confirms at full upgrade, but it’s all held up by some decent enough execution and Smash understanding. As nice as projectile N-airs go, I do think the move is redundant with Neutral Special, as they seem to share the same purpose in being zoning projectiles that can eventually KO. Maybe clarify that one travels slower than the other? A wrench toss sounds like it would travel slower than a raygun shot, so I could see the former being used as a brief space-controller.
Well now, this was quite the surprise choice as a last-day entry.
Alright, so this isn’t going to affect my rating of this set too much, but I personally think that using the Elite Four and other students to fight for her is not the best way to represent Satsuki in a fighting game. I certainly like assist-based sets, but strong, independent characters should fight using their own abilities in my opinion, especially someone like Satsuki who is built up to be a force of nature in Kill la Kill, compared to fighters who are either dependent, like using pawns or work in teams. Assist-based sets feels like a common Slavic movesetting trope on bigger sets like Madoka, Nino, Ikkyu and Kaiba, not unlike US’s “do lots of things with your inputs” sets (Hina, Pegasus, Jodie, Roxanne), which is interesting to note. Satsuki sticks out more than those sets, as it feels like the design choice was more about giving her lots of MYM potential than prioritizing how she would fight as a character, but I’m not about to deny the set’s concepts and execution.
With that out of the way, the set does get some fun mileage out of the Elite Four, starting with Inumuta (who would be hard-pressed to get his own set from what I remember/understand). He can upgrade your set if foes ignore him, but his fake duplicates make him harder to deal with in the final stretch where Satsuki gets her Junketsu upgrade. It does feel a bit too underhanded for Satsuki character-wise, and exploiting enemies who attack Inumuta is understandably not played upon, but it’s still fun.
Contradiction gets solid use from Elite Four canceling mechanics, while still being held back by its end lag, recoil and not being a big killer when it’s uncharged. Up Special naturally gets some of the most juicy cancel benefits with its Quick Attack nature. Jab kind of feels like a 5th Special - not out-of-character for Satsuki to bash them around, but a little weird that such a capable fighter needs a summon when she could Jab herself, even if you characterize it as Satsuki not wanting to get her hands dirty.
Standard moves past the Jab are definitely Froy’s work.
F-tilt is a substantial and versatile enough input. I do have a little problem though: yes, extra F-tilts you can perform with Wedding Dress give Satsuki more end lag, but she can just use her Specials to cancel that end lag and negate this drawback altogether. Unless it was intended to be this way.
D-tilt is a pretty neat move, having some nice combo reward in exchange for being a bit slow.
Dash Attack is definitely channeling that multi-hit Whitebeard energy. Feels like this would have been Satsuki’s Side Special if she had an assist-less set. Don’t need to tell you both that Rekka-based attacks are sweet, especially when foes can escape the whole thing ala 10-Hit Combo. This move alone pops up the set a bit for me, particularly with the Recoil and Special Cancels.
Aaah, I always wanted to do a “you temporarily become big when you’re charging a Smash” type move myself. I guess it fits well enough on Satsuki, even if it’s a little weird when size-shifting isn’t actually a power she is.
U-Smash is more proppy than what I was expecting from a swordfighter. I get why Special Cancels aren’t mentioned with the Junketsu pin version - Gamagori’s grab wouldn’t work against pinned opponents.
D-Smash is a respectable enough move for its exception to recoil and student interactions. Reminds me of Midori Gang having a D-Smash that has no hitbox against shields.
N-air gets great mileage out of Up Special, making it one of my favourite moves in the set so far. F-air also does a good job with integrating Elite Four mix-ups, and U-air with its juggling capabilities. D-air feels like the weakest of the Aerials, but it’s still decent and doesn't stop the Aerials from being the best input section in this set in my opinion. Probably helps that the N-air has some vague Mikazuki vibes.
Throws manage to do their jobs and don’t bring the set up or down for me, but they are all satisfyingly "Shonen anime" animation-wise and showcase Satsuki's coolness and competence. Very cool!
To circle back around to Special-canceling, I do have one issue with how it works right now: being able to cancel out of your non-Specials feels a bit too oppressive and cheats out on moves like F-tilt and D-Smash, even if it takes a bit of set-up time to get that one star symbol to do so and said cancels all have their own weaknesses. Personally I think Satsuki should only be able to cancel attacks if they connect (so she can still do Dash Attack and Aerial mix-up tricks) or if she fully-charges a Smash attack, as the time it takes to commit to one would be well worth the ability to cancel out its end lag.
All things said, Satsuki is quite a solid set! The student projectiles don’t add much to the set in my opinion, but the design behind the cancels and Dash Attack + Aerial follow-ups that Satsuki can get from them prop up the set for me to be around RV tier. Thinking upon it, I actually think that Satsuki’s Special Cancels being tied to her protectively loyal Elite Four and mostly being strong defensive options is great characterization in its own right. I think I prefer Nonon from Slavic’s entries this contest, but it is great that Slavic was able to push in one bigger set in the final hour this contest, especially for a character they were passionate about making a good set for. Nice work here, you two!
Coming out of my hidey hole to comment on a second set, Manfred von Karma is just the type of character to once again reinvigorate me enough to read a full-blown set! This one is not quite the epic that Hades was to read, which was welcome, and certainly had many a moment of fan service that felt practically tailored to my taste. There is a modern streak of sensibilities coursing through this set and its playstyle that manages to toe the line between Ace Attorney goofy and realism for what could be achieved in Smash. Just implementing the mechanic, cops, and judge in this manner is impressive enough, but von Karma also manages to incorporate several other difficult mechanics. However, the set is not without a few issues that might stem from this perfectionist approach to the character. Overall, this is another set I greatly enjoyed; while not fittingly perfect for the character, it is nonetheless a worthy successor to many of the past AA sets.
Firstly, that mechanic, it’s great: the evidence, the cops, and the judge, and it’s so simple! Certainly, a great deal simpler than the original von Karma set. Turning the evidence into simple ammunition like this is really smart and sets up the best moves in the set later as well. I also love the way it incorporates the cops and judge. The cops are portrayed as von Karma’s lackeys, which is very appropriate and feels like a great in-character moment for the series, and the judge’s appearance as he is in Justice For All is another revelation that just makes sense. Why not tap into the goofy? When you’re making a set for this character, you really should, and whenever you do, this set is at its best.
Generally, I did like the playstyle for von Karma. He has clear weaknesses statistically and in many individual moves. Of note, I really liked the utilt’s weak defensiveness and the ingenious way that nair does not work into his prominent prone game. The Objection counter is another moment of sheer brilliance and feels like the best execution of the Objection counter possibly ever in MYM for the series. It is a real accomplishment considering it’s used in about a dozen sets like this, but the knowledge of frame data and use of evidence goes a long way. Speaking of weaknesses, the way that up special can work to mitigate von Karma’s weaknesses by ‘countering’ a gimp attempt is genius, and I absolutely love incorporating the art from Turnabout Goodbyes. Would never have thought of that, but love it, and the way you meld Ganondorf’s set so fittingly at times on this and dtilt feels very apt. The dtilt and a few other moves like the up special also reminded me a little bit of Kristoph, which was cool, though I doubt it was intentional.
Where the set was also really good was in the creativity of some of the moves like the up smash (which is funny, as in the original set, that was one of the few moves I created conceptually), this might be the best move in the set, honestly. I love how goofy it is, and yet it makes sense how powerful it can become with evidence. It’s easy to see why the concept is returned to on several other moves making the evidence into even more of an ammo bank. The jab is hilarious, and I kind of like the idea of von Karma facing one way considering the ‘courtroom,’ though it is another thing I’m unsure was intentional. The RAR on bair likewise is neat for similar reasons, and glad it’s mentioned, punishing foes extra hard for allowing von Karma to do something so uncharacteristically mobile. It’s also cool how much K. Rool inspiration there is on bair and, to a lesser extent, uair, as the prideful king definitely tracks as a comparable character to von Karma in a funny way despite being so different in more obvious areas. Oh, and I love the indicator for using evidence (not having something like this is also a huge pet peeve for me) and the table in usmash (though it’s referred to as a graph?). These further cement it as probably my favourite move. Special mention to the grab mechanic for being fun and a very cool visual; as with many of the set’s best aspects, it’s a neat, thoughtful little feature.
While a ton of fun to read and comment on, the set does have some downsides. Where the set lost me most, I think, is how much it focuses on utilizing the cane and its sweetspots. Don’t get me wrong, von Karma is a hard character, especially when you go to the route of only utilizing things like the cops and judge in the mechanic, not even on a special. I would sure struggle with this ‘perfectionist’ approach having to make von Karma rely on his cane so hard. Truth be told, it was probably something I didn’t like in the original set much either (despite it being a technical joint my later sets for the series divulged hard from that original idea, though credit where it’s due I guess). The fsmash is an impressive, long melee move that really lays out von Karma’s cane, but it honestly does such a good job; I was expecting less of it later because you really didn’t need to see it much more after that. Considering it’s a set for von Karma, I would have expected it to go even goofier, if anything. Like, where the set does have some fun with props, it’s almost like it feels the need to justify him using basic police items from his own series? Hell, man, I would’ve been fine if you literally set the stage on fire with his buffed grab; summoned Polly, even Yanni Yogi in the set! It was all fair game, as far as I’m concerned.
There were also a couple of moves where even considering my complaint there, felt a bit off, like the bthrow summoning a permanent gust of wind (for 3 seconds, anyway). I have seen the anime, and I thought it was clever mostly to interpret the ‘wind’ like that on nair, but I think that’s a little too much, and also, honestly not sure if it really serves that much of a purpose to be worth the tackiness. I also kinda wish that dsmash did more, like serving as another way to create evidence. On the topic of dsmash, a pet peeve of mine is not getting to the hitbox quickly enough, and here it takes a long time to actually mention how this is an attack if you read it. I also feel like, with how cool the mechanic is, the set just could’ve had a bit more fun with it? The idea of summoning cops and the judge is mostly used for his prone game, but really, he could’ve had some more fun there.
Overall, this set was a lot of fun, and I had a blast reading it. There were points like the up special and up smash where I loved every moment of reading. In fact, this set just has some really strong upward inputs, generally, funnily enough. I’m really glad von Karma gets to have a modern set by a very competent writer, he really deserves it. There are a few issues I have with the set’s execution, but if you know my history in MYM with this series, you know how unhinged I am, so I was probably always going to come down harshly there. Hopefully, I can read and comment on some more of your sets in the future, as I doubt this is even a frontrunner for you this MYM, but you can understand why I felt compelled to comment on it. It’s a very good set nonetheless, and one I really enjoyed reading; good job, and welcome to the AA moveset maker club!
Shadow Naoto
The core concept here with Heat Riser is a lot of fun, with Shadow Naoto having a lot of strategy in how she uses it in how all purpose it is. You can use it to cancel end lag, cancel knockback, extend combos she couldn't usually get, or even just to approach from some uniquely threatening angles, and this all sounds pretty absurd. It is, but the thing is Shadow Naoto's kit is appropriately kind of undertuned so she needs to rely on this mechanic, and storing up charges for the right moment can come undone quite easily when the foe grabs you and you immediately lose all of them. I like the dichotomy on display here, and I think the rest of the set uses it pretty well. USmash was kind of a standout move to me in that its both terrifyingly powerful with the knockback buffing specials and can have its one weakness removed by her mechanic if she's willing to blow a LOT of charges on it, and Jab also stuck in my head as a nice way to make attacks that would normally struggle to combo together more imposing in the face of her mechanic.
While I do think the melee is quite solid though, the set definitely never tries to go above and beyond much, which is perfectly fine on its own merits, the core is strong enough to speak for itself and the set is consistently making a point of enabling it. But it doesn't let the set bat as high as it could with this mechanic, especially when two of the Specials are dedicated to knockback enhancement. Now, I don't think these Specials are badly designed, they both seem interesting to try and land and then figure out how best to utilize the payoff of. But I feel like it is a little lame to have both specials dedicated to the same purpose of 'make your kill moves kill harder' and then there's a mechanic on the Smashes that just doubles down even harder on that, and like... that's fine but I feel like Shadow Naoto's skill ceiling and how fun her playstyle could really get would be more fun if it branched out from stacking knockback buffs a bit more, I guess. This isn't a huge slight against the set to be honest, I think Shadow Naoto's quite solid at what it does, and I actually found this set stuck out to me a fair bit more than Nui Harime did earlier in the contest, I just kinda wish the set either went less hard on the knockback buff stacking. Or, y'know, went all the way in on it because that could at least be pretty wild and fun in its own way.
Grim and Gnarly
I think the big thing I have to say about this mechanic is I'm not a big fan of the frown monologue special. I've given quite a few sets a pass for having a mental alteration effect this time around, like Porky's crying effect, but I feel like the way Grim and Gnarly are portrayed in the show, nothing supernatural is going on with their frown spreading. They just are appealing to base level cynicism to feel smart and I dunno, something rubs me the wrong way about them having a supernatural ability to spread frowns as an actual gameplay mechanic. I don't care much for the actual mechanic either, mostly because halving jump height just seems like it would be awful to play against. Obviously some of their moves play into halved jump height in obvious but like, at least decently planned out ways, but I think dealing with jumps being nerfed by half all the time just seems like it'd result in some incredibly cheesy, obnoxious kills and screw with character's ability to combo in a way that'd make removing the insanely high duration status effect much more complicated than you make it sound. Both from a characterization standpoint and gameplay standpoint I just don't like this mechanic, especially when for the rest of the set Grim and Gnarl don't have any other status effects based on forcing their frowning mental state on the opponents.
If I had to make a suggestion, honestly? You could argue the core reason they're into the philosophy of frowning is its their way of making themselves feel smart and special, their own way of coping that the world is a ****ty place. This might sound overly philosophical, but maybe this could be more of a buffing effect with a potentially nasty downside? I think that'd be more true to what they represent in the show, especially if you could have your allies or even the foe voluntarily choose to take up the philosophy of frowning somehow. IDK, just trying to make this concept work and what I've seen of these characters and what they represent got me thinking.
Honestly the rest of the set's pretty disorganized, so I'm not terribly high on it even beyond this special, but I do think it demonstrates a solid knowledge of how to get mileage out of simple melee moves and work off the concepts presented in the specials. I don't think there's much of an overarching goal beyond 'be obnoxious to foes with halved jump height' but that does feel sorta character fitting, and I do think the weird ways the set stretches their limited screentime for potential are honestly pretty fun. I'm sorry if I'm being a little harsh on the set as, like Joe Swanson, I've noticed you're not actually bad at writing melee, the concepts you pitch for the core of the set just haven't been consistently played off enough or strong enough to really carry it. Having read Frank West I know you can do better, and this was like a 2 day set for a JamCon, where I think the novelty of having these goofy characters get a suitably goofy set is probably enough to make it worthwhile anyway. I just know you can do better, even with the limited material these two had.
One thing I will say is I appreciate that this set doesn't rely on just explaining the source material's jokes as its only source of expressing its comedy. The set has some of its own jokes, both obvious and some a bit more subtle, like summoning this giant TV to try to portray the various things they want you to be cynical about.... and then they just use it as a bludgeon instead of doing some stupid status effect or whatever. Translating a pure comedy like Smiling Friends into moveset form is inherently hard, but this set does a much better job than a lot of attempts I've seen, so I want to at least give credit where its due.
The Sorceress, the Crusader, and the Ace Detective
So I promised Awful I would read Lana, I may not have fulfilled that quickly, but I fulfilled it nonetheless and I gotta say I really like her moveset. My connection to Hyrule Warriors and by extension Lana, is limited to watching gameplays of the game way back when in the Wii U days so my knowledge was a bit rusty. Right from the start tho my favorite move is Jab, coming from the game series she comes it makes absolute sense that she would have multiple routes from her Jab, and they are all fairly interesting and unique. A common feature I liked in her moves was how she would do a little leap backward after certain moves, combined with her walls it fits in perfectly. I also liked the way you present it, with Lana being there and adding onto her own set, seems about right for someone as powerful as her. I also liked Forward Tilt for just being a page skewer and Cuccos are nice. Some of the moves get a small description as far as uses go but it didn't feel like a big issue. Also amazing work for doing art in every attack, also my boy Mickey!!! I need to maybe some day bring his set over to MYM, probly won't do it but I'm glad he got to be there and take beatings for the sake of the move demonstration. The inclusions of stats and actual matchup stuff is always fantastic to see, love that stuff, tho poor Lana and her 9-1 Sephiroth matchup. Overall Lana was a nice fun read with a fitting moveset for the sorceress, probly my second favorite from yours after Cursola (i am nostalgic for Cursola) I give her a 4 out of 5 stars and also sorry I took so long to fully read her
Rein is my favorite tank in Overwatch, and also the first hero I ever bought a Golden Gun for! So this interested me from the start, especially cause I never really saw ways for him to come into Smash, when compared to other Ow characters he really doesn't translate that well but you made it work. One thing that gets sold very well is how powerful he is, this man can do a lotta damage, as he should. I also like how you incorporate voice lines and talk about where he would say certain lines, that was something I picked from your Junkrat set but it's really nice as someone who listens to them a lot. I wasn't expecting the Barrier as a Special, more like a shield mechanic but it works well being like in the source material but adjusted for Smash, I also believe you gave him a Brig styled Shield Bash which is cute. I will say however the Up Special doesn't jive with me, I don't know- I get that he has the rockets but actually flying feels a bit weird. Outside of that I think all other moves fit him and are well described, I like how you usually mention how his Steadfast passive comes into play with each move, but I do wish there was more talk about how his moves link together, you obviously have Jab with the burry and Throws but not much else, the extras are fun tho. All in all Rein was fine, I believe your Junkrat set is better which is nice since it came later, improvement is good. Overall I'd give Rein 2.5 out of 5
Hoo boy, Akechi was one of the few movesets I read in MYM25, he is one of my favorite characters from Persona 5, and seeing him again so soon was not expected, but it weirdly fits his character. But it's not even like it's a remake or revamp, Black Mask Akechi is completely different from the prior Crow Akechi, and I honestly believe he is a step up. Black Mask has some great presentation and organization in the set that makes it so despite him being a long read he is still very enjoyable. I like how extra info is put into his moves descriptions with different colors and the use of the Docs comment feature, I don't recall ever seeing anything like that being done before but it's a smart and not intrusive way to add cool extra details, like in the Eigaon section, getting to understand why you designed Robin and Loki as you did is really nice, always appreciate getting to see these decisions that went through in the making of the set. The way the Persona is done is also in my view, a lot better and cooler than the previous Akechi, having the tier system feels real cool, I also like how it was done to reflect his position as a Boss character. Him having Beserk also is just perfect for Akechi at the state he was at with Black Mask, characterization in this one is super well done, making it really easy to see why the distinction between the two "versions" of him matter. All in all, Akechi is incredibly well done, clearly, a ton of work was put into him, and he gets a 4.5 out of 5.
CitizenV
This set is really cool in some ways I wouldn't have expected, and leans into the "False" theming among the most of any set in the JamCon. Its all about fake outs from a fake hero, and I was surprised how much mileage the set gets out of that silly little cape trick it throws out at the start. Turns out, when you build a set around cancelling all into one move, it really does just add a lot of interesting properties to attacks and lets you get away with things you otherwise couldn't. DSmash comes to mind a bit, its a fast and powerful move but only hits behind Citizen V, a pretty wonky place to hit especially low to the ground, but when he can at least cancel into the cape feint it has some real frontal coverage, and the move feels like its doing a lot of work in his kit on threatening back rolls. There's a lot of moves like that in his set, FSmash honestly strikes me as another standout in reminding me a lot of the big FSmashes I've seen in popular MYM sets but instead of focusing on various ways to bring up its power and coverage to absurd levels, its kinda weak but so loaded with interesting utility it feels just as rich as a lot of those moves do. I also kinda like how the super meter doesn't give him strong effects, but moreso ones that cover flaws in his playstyle(low KO potential, shields really messing up cape feint stuff), and then when you think it doesn't have the hype factor you'd want out of that kinda super it gives him a snowballing Final Smash. Its not the strongest Final Smash in the world but he PROBABLY shouldn't be cleanly getting 2 stocks off each super meter kill.
As for criticisms, like... I don't really have a lot? Honestly this set knows what it wants to be, and while it certainly could've gone with more basic answers to 'what do I use cape feint for' the set does a good job giving the mechanic depth and interesting back and forth play for both players. I guess, mostly, I just don't think the set manages to stay as interesting as I'd like the whole way through? It never becomes bad, but the latter aerials and throws don't carry the same kind of inventiveness and depth of the moves before that, which is a bit of a shame because I think if this set managed a higher level of consistency there King Radical might actually have had to sweat for that nomination slot.
Team Rocket
Man, I wish I had more to say about this one, but its hard for me to talk about sets where it feels like the big picture doesn't come together at times. Team Rocket has a lot of cool individual moves, the explosive barrage on FSmash and the crazy electric web USmash sticking out in my mind as individual moves that are genuinely really interesting to mess around with and I'd love to see expanded upon in future sets. I think the flammable gas tricks with Weezing and the costume are fun ways for a weird heavyweight like this to be able to sneak hits in. I do tend to like sets like that, its just I think the latter sections of melee with Meowth never really felt like they sold the conceptual strengths of some of this set's earlier moves, and there just isn't as much of a cohesive goal to these fancy moves as much as I felt they were individually neat. I can't argue that's inaccurate to Team Rocket as characters, they're no the most competent or forward thinking bunch, but I guess to give an example of a set with a similar playstyle: Porky also had a whole 'invisibility gas in a small area to help land big attacks' gimmick going with less fancy individual attacks, but there was a clear sense in that set of how those attacks were supposed to work together. Team Rocket is a bit more content to just go 'use this with this special'. And, I don't know, I don't really like the set's command grabs that are just kind of a freebie setup to big hits elsewhere or... just kind of there to slowly rack up damage like Victreebel in exchange for a huge downside to Team Rocket if they whiff. Victreebel really needs to be stronger than that if the consequence of whiffing is grabbing yourself. On the opposite end, the speed at which Team Rocket can put a trap out on the stage is absurd, I really feel like the frame data there needs to be dialed back a lot.
I'm probably complaining too much in this comment for a set I honestly think is decent, the individual move quality here feels much higher than Ikkyu earlier this contest, for example. There's a lot of good personality on display here and just because I don't think the set didn't flow off the strong mechanics of Weezing and the disguises as well as I'd want doesn't mean I don't still like what's there. Its just a bit of a weird feeling I'm left with when for decent chunks of the set I feel like I'm really starting to click with it, then it just... never quite feels like it gets there for me, if that makes sense. Ah well, solid set with some fun writing and characterization, I just think its a little too disorganized to reach any higher than that.
Tinker Knight
Its like night and day seeing the level of ambition of your first couple sets and latest few, which feels particularly wild here as this one was made on a JamCon time limit? Tinker Knight's mechs reminds me of, weirdly, MYM6 Vile, and how some people retroactively hated the Ride Armor in that set for putting you in a vehicle which had 2 moves total it could use, feeling like it made the player riding it overly predictable and useless. Tinker Knight's mechs feel like that concept actually done right. He has to work to earn them by dealing damage and collecting ores, with a nice little reward on each mech if you wait a while to collect a bunch extra and max out its stamina... and of course you can use one of the mechs you like playing less to build up the resource supply to commit to the one you really want in its full glory. They also aren't always equipped with full movesets, but unlike Vile's ride armor the options they get feel expansive enough that you're not suddenly becoming super predictable by riding one. I even am 100% fine with the Blue Mech not having aerials or a proper grab game: You can dismount that thing any time you want to, and the slightly janky feel of it just using its grounded inputs in the air honestly feels both right for that massive bulky mech and makes it feel less like a real playable character and more like, well, a temporary mount like its supposed to be.
I do think the set is stronger in terms of concepts than execution, admittedly. The red mech I think is meant to be straightforward but its almost too much so, really not standing out much in the face of the yellow mech's aerial shenanigans and the blue mech's heavy projectile potential. The individual moves can be cool at times, the rat DSmash standing out as a highlight like many other people have mentioned, but I do like Blue Mech Up Smash and the odd novelty of Yellow Mech's 'grab'. Those both seem like very fun standout moves to play with on those mechs, with one shot to land a big hit in the case of the Yellow Mech grab before you lose the input for a while and nerf some of your set, and the potential for some VERY big plays off the blue mech Up Smash if you commit to it. I find myself feeling that these centerpiece moves would be a lot better if some of the less immediately exciting moves spent more time playing around them and setting them up, getting a stronger sense of cohesion to each mech's playstyle. It doesn't need to go into individual tech chases or whatever, I just find when I compare the set to say, Legion, the mech's goals don't feel as strongly focused on, which leaves a lot of the inputs that don't have some big concept like that on them feeling a bit limper by comparison. I still do like this set overall though, commenting on it has actually improved my opinion some as I realize how fun the concepts would be to just mess around with to the point I think its cleanly one of your best.
Toedscruel
'Sedentary creature now' being the only way an attack's effect is described is going to live in my head rent free for a while after this one. Honestly, the set doesn't really give a lot to talk about given how its basically just a set of Specials and some very basic descriptions of post Specials, so I'm at a bit of a loss for how to comment it. I think Spore is pretty overbearing as a trap and its hard for me to evaluate how the other Specials would actually play out without more time spent on them, but it is certainly interesting to see you make animations for this Pokemon's weird body type and powerset if nothing else. And while it probably did hurt your ability to flesh out a lot of the later actual moves making that Creation of Adam Toedscruel image, I certainly enjoyed it and I think MYM26 would've been just a little worse without it. There's not much here and what is there isn't giving me a lot to work with for a comment, but I appreciate the amusing writing and image work if nothing else.
My JamCon nomination goes to King Radical. This was actually a pretty strong JamCon overall, with not only a large number of sets but basically all of them at minimum pitching fun concepts or solid execution, but K. Rad just felt above and beyond in terms of the amount of effort put in.
Our final AwfulBeast set for this contest spices things up with a Fire Emblem character. This time Azura focuses on a meter that gains and depletes when she deals and takes damage respectively, and bubbles that serve for stage control and hard interactions from movement-based attacks. Even with the bubbles, Azura feels a bit more melee-focused than Lana or Astor.
I like that while Locket’s Tide is a snowball-based mechanic, the fact that the meter caps out at a modest 35% means that it doesn’t feel too hard to build up from scratch or regain it if opponents wail on you. Azura only needs to deal 17.5% to gain access to her boosted stats, anyway. I particularly like the significantly reduced traction in said state, as it enhances Azura’s offensive prowess by letting her slide in but also makes it harder for her to get shield punishes.
I wonder if bubbles should have their popping hitboxes negated if opponents hit one without destroying it. Just to prevent cheese in case an opponent is recovering and their Up Special doesn’t deal enough damage to destroy a bubble you set offstage.
I like it when MYM characters take direct inspiration from existing Smash characters from their own source material, as seen in Azura’s Side Special being similar to Corrin’s. Main appeal here is the Locket’s Tide bonus, which allows Azura to go into one of her 4 pin options without hitting an opponent. This makes her bubble interactions easier to pull off.
Down Special is a simple enough counter, but it plays well into giving Azura a defensive tool against opponents who try to rush her to deplete her meter. The ability to hold the counter in midair to extend its duration at the cost of meter is particularly unique.
As much as I like hard interactions AKA Azura’s melee attacks interacting with bubbles, there are times when I am not sold on the logic of some of these interactions - like why going through a bubble with your Up Special extends your travel distance, or why going through a bubble with your Dash Attack cuts your end lag (if the attack doesn’t miss) and lets you go offstage with Dash Attack.
F-tilt’s inwards shield push is nice. Azura has some nice mix-ups going with her Standard attacks, which further sells her melee nature. I think it’s good that the set doesn’t lean too heavily into bubble hard interactions, which leaves Azura with a good balance between melee and bubble uses.
I kinda like how the Smashes are all simple, but manage to have their own little gimmicks. Down Smash leaves Azura in the air, making her a little hard to punish and easier to follow up on launched opponents. Up Smash comes out slower uncharged without Locket’s Tide, and Forward Smash being an alternate way to grab your opponent is the kind of funky MYM5-type attack that I wouldn’t expect to see on a modern set. I can see what you were going for by giving Azura a way to grab opponents from a distance when her regular grab has low range, while also being a hitgrab so it can be blocked, but I think this is the one case in this moveset where an input is redundant.
D-Smash > drag-down N-air on Battlefield to land on a platform is actually a rather cool combo! N-air is also convincing for its low-percent combo potential being a useful way to set up into Locket’s Tide easily at earlier percents.
Azura’s Aerial attacks are all solid. I rather like how U-air goes into some pretty specific follow-ups for what is a simple enough juggling move.
Grab’s turnaround and spacing gimmicks make a surprising amount of sense on a dancer character like Azura, instead of feeling shoe-horned into the set. These extra grab perks kind of remind me of Herminia’s various dance-based throw options from last contest.
Would it be worth mentioning that Pummel is good for building up damage for Locket’s Tide? Anyway, Azura’s throws are all pretty simple, but they all find some purpose in her gameplan, like U-throw only really being effective if your jump was enhanced from Locket’s Tide.
Overall, Azura is a solid entry that feels like a middle ground between Lana and Astor. She feels notably stronger than Lana, particularly from a melee standpoint, but Astor’s concepts and some of his melee like his Smashes appealed to me much more. A nice way to finish the contest, nonetheless!
Naturally a short and simple pre-evolution moveset, Oddish is an interesting companion set to Slavic’s Vileplume set this contest (despite the fact that Oddish was Dodongo’d a while before Vileplume was finished). The stats and Side Special write-ups are refreshingly short - the latter reminds me of Victreebel’s weird sweet scent that causes sleeping opponents to float towards it, so part of me thinks that it’s a little weird that opponents within the Sweet Scent are float’d towards Oddish.
Up Special is interesting for its out-of-shield implications, while Down Special puts all 3 spores in one spot and gives Oddish a mix-up cancel to cover its vulnerable Neutral and Up Specials. I wondered whether it was a tad potent until I saw that canceling another Special into a Down Special counter means more end lag if you whiff. Don’t need to say that Up Smash is a pretty MYM’ian attack, either, while F-Smash and D-Smash are respectable enough given how low-key of an entry Oddish was meant to be. I actually kind of like Dash Attack’s take on 3-turn-style moves like Petal Dance, Thrash and Outrage, where you can pick how many attacks you throw out. Will keep that in mind. Wasn’t expecting two Aerials to utilize the spores, which do give the Aerials a little extra spice.
Overall, Oddish is a simple little set, one that understandably doesn’t stick out too much conceptually or melee-wise given Froy’s philosophy on giving pre-evolved Pokemon smaller and more simplistic sets. This approach does mean that Sweet Scent’s pushing effect isn’t utilized as much as it would be on a more serious entry, and I think the Aerials can sometimes feel a little same-y when F-air and D-air can both go into grounded options, while F-air and N-air can both wall out opponents. D-throw dealing more damage when Oddish is at a higher percent also feels a little random when it only applies to a single non-Special move, and somewhat goes against healing being its main way of survival. Maybe damage healed off isn’t removed from D-throw’s damage calculations? Maybe not on this set, but it would be fun if a move like D-throw dealt more knockback with rage and got harder to combo from as your damage got higher, but all of Oddish’s healing served the extra purpose of bringing your damage back down to combo levels while still retaining your extra damage output.
Also, this set really embraces referencing violence and war crimes in its writing. Certainly gives me the impression that the both of you (or just n88?) were having a nice and chill time with this set. It did kind of make me want to work on something small.
I always pegged you as being a Marvel/Persona/Fire Emblem/Arc Sys guy, so seeing a massive set for a gacha girl character from you is as wild as it gets. Right off the bat we have a pretty darn unique reticule-based attack, which I strongly assume is based on the standard (or special?) attacking animation from units in Azur Lane - it just sounds that way from my understanding of gacha game attack animations, given the way the first two beams appear close to their target.
The main thing that makes Dragon’s Breath appealing and feel well-balanced is the fact that NJ can’t target opponents below her, which makes it harder to gimp recovering opponents and makes it tricky to use in midair. The auto-fire is particularly risky by MYM time bomb standards, a delayed hitbox that NJ doesn’t have to work for at all, aside from not getting hit or taking defensive actions when it goes off. That NJ only gets this once-per-stock without using her Side Special prevents the auto-fire from being too insane, like making NJ feel like some kind of modern 3v1 boss character.
Okay, didn’t notice the design notes hidden away in this set, they confirm NSpec’s in-game origins (and prop up this set’s monstrous wordcount to what it is). Gacha characters do indeed have a lot of set potential, and reading this set kind of leaves me in the mood for one.
Down Special is a rather enticing move for its rebound and cancel capabilities in midair, all held back by its start-up and NJ’s limited aerial capabilities. That the same input doubles as a self-tether if the anchor hits the ground is great design: NJ can now float around freely within a limited space, but she can’t throw an anchor out to cancel aerials from this state!
Up Special goes for the Kimblee approach of inducing self-knockback for recovery purposes, but with a safeguard in the form of a secondary input launching New Jersey downwards. I rather like that the self-knockback functions as a state of hitstun that prevents the auto NSpec from coming out, so NJ can’t just Up Special to rocket up and stall for the attack. Side Special caps off the unique set of Specials by being an optional de-buff that locks away Dragon’s Breath and other options, but gives NJ a powerful beam attack when Side Special is used again if she can live through it. I can see how this set got so long when Recommissioning comes into play on various attacks.
Up Tilt being an upwards-slanted mid-ranged projectile for catching aerial approaches and the first Standard move mentioned is funky in a neat way.
Forward Tilt reminds me of a more meaty and aimable version of Tsukuyo’s F-tilt, thanks to it hitting at mid-range from NJ. It also works particularly well with NJ’s various cancel and Recommission tricks.
Tapped Jab is simple, but goes into a satisfying amount of detail on NJ’s options out of it. The control scheme of Tap > Infinite Jab or Tap > Hold for bigger attack is good. Big fan of “self-knockback” style attacks like Held Jab and just having unique downsides for such a slow attack beyond high end lag, where using the attack from the wrong position from a high enough percentage means death. The move becomes extra convincing and feasible when the automatic Dragon’s Breath is brought into play.
U-air is simple, but works effectively for NJ, while B-air has some funny interplay with being anchored at the ledge.
N-air is kind of crazy, essentially a mini NSpec and a regular N-air combined so it can be both a ranged and a melee attack depending on the situation. You can use the kick as a mean gimper, or lock onto a foe and land early to get yourself a nice and powerful hitbox earlier. Honestly might be one of the more unique Aerials I’ve read in a while, and that’s just the move in a vacuum without bringing Side Special and other moves into it. It’s these types of original-feeling moves that really stick out as a strong selling point for me regarding your modern sets, even among smaller entries like Citizen V.
I like the way F-air’s targeting works by not moving with NJ, because it reminds me of Yui Hirasawa’s F-air. This move makes particularly good use of aerial mechanics and its progressively stronger multi-hits to net NJ fun neutral-based mix-ups. The extra blasts from Recommission being able to hit a foe knocked into them from a close-ranged auto Dragon’s Breath might be one of the most awesome things I’ve seen in this set so far, and that’s saying something.
I never thought Bob-omb blasts were particularly large hitboxes, but that’s what I get for not playing Smash Ultimate for like 4 years.
U-Smash does seem like it’d be very hard to use in practice for how threatening it can be, since the missile explodes in midair rather than on contact and requires really good precision. Falling fully-charged falling missile is classic MYM stuff.
F-Smash is quite the detailed and crazy move, essentially being a melee and a projectile move in one. I’m admittedly not all that convinced that the move’s obscene start-up is worth the pay-offs even with auto Dragon’s Breath, as the move’s benefits are spread thin between its long duration melee + projectiles and mean that it’s not as powerful as you’d expect a frame 52 F-Smash to be, even if the 3 missiles rack up some decent damage if they all hit. To be fair, you probably didn’t give New Jersey a giant power attack to balance out auto Dragon’s Breath, and the F-Smash missiles do become more potent with Recommissioning.
Was not expecting a throw where New Jersey sucks her opponent into a vortex and shoots them out of her cannons. This U-throw is rather fun - I could see it being a fun base for a command grab Special on a different set, if you had the option to fire out your opponent with any of the 3 shots rather than relying on luck.
I kind of like how F-throw’s niche “spacing” of NJ not leaping off the ledge works with the specific ranges of her F-tilt and F-airs, so she can generally milk any kind of horizontal spacing. I also like how this works with her anchor.
While I did praise Citizen V for being super concise with detailing follow-ups from throws, I wonder if Back Throw’s usages at lower percents could be expanded upon - the throw deals low base knockback, and New Jersey doesn’t have any other throws that consistently lead into a close-ranged situation. I could see B-air being useful at lower percents, and NJ taking her pick between F-tilt or F-air (depending on spacing) as the foe’s percent climbs a bit.
Bury throw that goes into full detail on melee follow-ups is good.
D-throw’s hidden prone state made me realize that NJ does surprisingly little in the prone / tech chase department, even though parts of her kit would be useful towards it like F-tilt. Not to say the set is any worse for it, just interesting because a lot of sets go into detail about tech chasing.
Not a proper complaint, I do think that Dragon’s Breath appeal and use case mostly came down to its automatic counterpart, while the manual lock-on variant partly existed as a big set-up for its automatic variant and doesn’t feel like it does all -that- much in the context of New Jersey’s kit from a distance. Probably the type of move that would be a lot more threatening if New Jersey had some notable delayed hitboxes or projectiles she could use to threaten with. Automatic Dragon’s Breath is still fun, but I did like the whole “ go above New Jersey” counterplay to the manual variant, and thought the set could have still been really cool if you made it more of a focus.
While she is no Akechi - an insane demand from anyone in MYM, really - New Jersey is nonetheless an excellent set that is worthy of her big wordcount. This mostly comes down to her having some pretty original concepts and entertaining attacks most of the way, being ridiculous in some areas without being outright dumb. Great work n88 - you really outdid yourself this contest, with a ton of strong entries that have almost all enjoyed a solid amount of popularity.
NONON JAKUZURE:
A rad musically-themed work with moveset beats that rise off the page! Jakuzure has one of the better takes on a tether concept that I can recall, not being limited to being attached to just a single subject, but having the potential to freeze and link to multiple projectiles, on top of opponents and marching band students, at any given point. I like that she doesn't just invalidate projectile-using opponents with Neutral Special, what with its somewhat committal frame data and foes' ability to remove projectiles she's caught with a single hit. It lends to far more of a push-and-pull feel in her gameplay, compared to how Smash proper can function with its various reflectors. Jakuzure's staff also has an enjoyable dual function, serving as a means for controlling where students can march — letting their customizable inward knockback play off of her melee while keeping them close as needed for their hilarious missile application.
There's decent diversification among the other projectiles Jakuzure herself can send out, between the recorder missiles, F-Tilt notes, F-Smash wave and D-Air (though I question whether she can reliably fast-fall down to catch these in Neutral Special, seems like it'd be a close call given her floatiness). D-Smash is a great crescendo (heh) to the set, giving Jakuzure what seem to be some pretty potentially obscene payoffs if she lands it after tethering to the maximum five subjects (seriously, if my math is right, a 1.2x multiplier for each of the five subjects would come out to 2.49x damage and knockback — probably a ways too strong, honestly, but she's a glass cannon anyway, so it's not as bad as it could be). All told, a quality first set for you in this contest, looking forward to seeing what else you cooked up this go-round! Slavic
SAURON:
The eponymous Lord of the Rings returns with a doozy of a joint set for his third and grandest MYM incarnation to date. His One Ring mechanic comes with strong sequential progression that really clicked with me starting out — Sauron loses his ring over time, transitioning to a weaker, flightier character once it's dislodged; his opponent then can either put on or pocket the ring to play keepaway or harness its power; and finally, Sauron reclaims the ring and all hell breaks loose, as he positions himself to obliterate the depleted foe with his own vampiric buffs. From the specific comprehensive buff and nerf levels to how different characters can interact with the ring at different points, it's clear you both put a ton of thought into each stage of this mechanic. From where I'm standing, it doesn't seem like something guaranteed to fully play out at all times — in cases where foes struggle to deal 50% to Sauron; if they decide against touching his ring or else he just trollishly declines to grab them so they're stuck with the ring, with some mix of his Eye and the Nazgul hot on their tail. I could understand why someone might think less of the mechanic on those grounds, though to me, that optionality helps the ring avoid being too over-centralizing, while not taking away from the different branching gameplay paths it can produce. Its general sequences notwithstanding, this is anything but a flowchart.
Sauron doesn't take his figurative foot off the gas getting into his Specials by any stretch. Keeping the tower of Barad-dûr in the stage background allows for a nice, atmospheric Neutral Special with proximity-based damage and healing, depending on its application and his foes' interactions with the One Ring. Side Special is one of my favorite moves in the set, effectively taking three Randall Flagg-esque animal transformations and setting each apart with its own fun applications, to include shield decimation and aerial maneuverability on the werewolf and bat, and a poison countdown of sorts on the serpent. Up Special is a threatening teleport of the same ilk I shot for with Hades' own recovery, and the input's shadow variant is another highlight as far as a parasitic concept, forcing Sauron's opponent to save him if they are to recover themselves, albeit with him situated closeby for potential punishment if he's not careful. Down Special rounds things out as a threatening Negative Zone-type move, gradually building up enemies' damage and preying on them with the fear of an inopportune occasional flinch, for the tradeoff of lesser knockback on Sauron's attacks. Nazgûl then serve as multi-faceted stage control tools, with the regular and horseback variants, periodic movement bursts and cooldowns upon getting hit, and most intriguingly, the ability to force reactions from invisible ring-wearers.
Getting into the meat of Sauron's melee, there are a few odd attacks I wasn't fully enamored with; B-Throw is a bit too variable for my tastes, given the stark differences between different foes' jabs, and while I adore N-Air's animation, I'm not sure why it became the go-to input for attracting the Eye and Nazgûl (something like Shield Special might have felt more organic). Otherwise, though, Sauron's attacks excel at capturing the indomitable force of his ancient evil, from made-in-a-lab HMA moves like F-Smash and D-Smash to force-of-nature attacks like D-Air and U-Smash. While not individually the most exciting stage constructs, there's something distinctly fitting about a character like Sauron just casually producing a f**king mountain on U-Throw or, to a lesser extent, a lava pool on F-Throw, both all the better for foes to be bullied into with his army-rush of a B-Throw. A less diligently crafted Sauron could easily have had a preponderance of filler moves thrown in to pad his unique armored and shadow forms, but never did I feel that to be the case in reading through. His standards in particular kept the forms' attacks meaningfully different, with single and multi-hit move archetypes that seemed to serve their varying melee goals.
In a contest full of villainous set supremacy, Sauron is my personal mark to beat so far. Time will tell if that holds, but I have great respect for the grandiose swings he takes while bringing together his disparate ideas into one nevertheless cohesive, compelling narrative of a work. Fantastic job! n88GolisoPower
ANNA:
Anna's latest MYM incarnation is a compelling blend of both of your setmaking styles, showcased nicely by the color-coded text (and behind-the-scenes page) denoting your respective contributions. As far as the central mechanics go, Anna's coin accrual and weapon durability layer on top of each other in complementary fashion, lending new depth to what individually would be more simple systems. Anna's ability to stash away her earnings for later use, or for stronger sack attacks and statistical tweaks, in particular is conducive to good player decision later in each stock — does Anna splurge on a pricier weapon to seal the KO (or try mounting a comeback, if she's at high damage), or sock away savings for more optimal use after she or her opponent respawns? I did find myself questioning just how big a commitment it is on Anna's part going for her silver or Special weapons, when (as far as I could find) there's not a sense of how durable each weapon class is, outside of their relative tiers. As noted, Anna will need to deal at least 60% to earn those higher-tier weapons, or more if she's damaged in the process, and her stronger weapons are the least durable. It's good that that's the case, when, factoring in their chip damage, a lack of a balance safeguard could lead to snowballing in Anna's favor, but without a sense of, say, how many hits or how much damage she can do before a single Armorslayer expires, I couldn't gauge just what sort of payoff she's getting on the heels of significant effort on her part.
Beyond that, though, I like a lot of what Anna has to offer! She's got fun ways to expend gold on attacks directly, rather than just generally through better weapons, in filling her sack in Neutral Special and powering up progressively scarier Side Special rushes. There's nice mechanical meat scattered throughout much of the melee, with some of my favorites being her control over where her intangibility can happen on dash attack and ability to secure different tripping percentages from different weapons on D-Tilt. Her control over different arrow shots on N-Air, U-Smash and F-Throw also got my mind going as to the possibilities for creative stage control and follow-ups. I did question whether F-Smash (and to a lesser extent N-Air) needed the word count they did (4,169 and 2,484 words, respectively), when other areas could instead have warranted deeper background — the weapons durability and maybe more info on how Anna's combos stand to change based on her coin-sack stats changes. On the whole, though, she's a strong well-rounded set, and, much as she stands to eke out some extra earnings from the likes of Winnie the Pooh and McDonalds Chicken Tenders on B-Throw, I daresay the same will hold true with a higher-end vote from me as well. DaehypeelsFrozenRoy
JOUMAE SAORI:
Saori brings one of the fresher takes on the multi-character genre this side of Tri-Brigade Ferrijit. She's got three possible companions, with the potential to bring out up to two at a time for some pretty wild interactivity, but if she overextends, she'll lose the partner in question for the remainder of her stock while suffering damage and stun herself (FYI - Side Special lists her penalty as 15%, whereas it's said to be 25% midway through Down Special). For starters, I really like how each of Atsuko, Hiyori and Misaki set themselves apart by virtue of their movement, either following Saori, backing away from or approaching foes. It gives her a multitude of automatic hitbox placements to play around with, without overcomplicating her controls with some sort of manual movement system. That's not to say it's mindless at all; far from it, when the supports have not just their own HP but distinct recovery competencies and, in Hiyori's case, even a context where she'll take half her usual damage. Then, getting into their actual properties, there's strong differentiation in terms of how each summons works on a passive basis, between Atsuko's more defensive mist clouds and healing, Hiyori's reticle and bullet shot, and Misaki's more bombastic missile fire. None of the three stand out as inherently more valuable than the rest, with there theoretically being situations where Saori would want any possible combination of them out at once — a great, well-rounded feeling design.
From there, Saori's other Specials offer simpler, yet nicely crafted attacks to play off of her potential partner(s) in different capacities. Her Down Special grenades, already an exciting high-risk, high-reward item, take on further nuance where Misaki's fire traps or F-Tilt enter the picture. Up Special also is a standout for Saori's ability to either save a partner (in Atsuko) or pick them up and carry them while throwing out a new, potentially explosive hitbox. I like how Saori's Smashes don't have all three supports lending bonuses to all three inputs, which could run the risk of some effects winding up superfluous. Rather, the three squad members all contribute to F-Smash specifically, while leaving the section-wide buffs firmly in Atsuko's camp to bring about those patented obscene KO payoffs as low as 10%. And Saori's momentum mostly keeps up through aerials and grab-game, outside of a few stray attacks where effects felt somewhat arbitrary for the inputs in question — I'm not sure why U-Air's animation in particular should logically prompt Misaki to fire directly at foes, and I wonder whether there could've been any more fitting placement than B-Throw for its (admittedly cool) one-second buff effect. In any case, Saori is likely to enjoy a comfortable spot on my vote list; she benefits not just from FA's ever-masterful setmaking, but also what felt like a case of him cutting loose and having fun with her writing the whole way through. Never forget to war crime responsibly! ForwardArrow
Anna is a fascinating take on a FFC’er taking one of their sets from MYM25 and using their experiences from MYM to give them a massive tune-up - with a little help from a veteran MYM’er, at that. It’s clear that the both of you had fun with Anna’s shopkeeper character in the writing parts of the set, with lines like “Good luck avoiding her clearance sales.”, as well as the attack names. Fun as it can be to guess who wrote what in a joint set, I really like Dae’s idea of colour-coding each author’s writing.
Anna’s weapon and gold-based mechanics give a lot of sense to how her set ended up so long when Dae has such a descriptive and self-retrospective writing style - earn gold from opponents, funnel it into different parts of Anna’s moveset (bag, Side Special, weapons) to concentrate one of them into a potentially mega-kill move threat. The Specials felt a bit basic for what I was expecting from such a long set, compared to something like Bandit Gal’s Neutral Special which was a cool and involved NSpec, but Side Special is kind of neat with its full-charge invincibility and weapon-less money-back guarantee, and the set naturally picks up later into the moves. U-tilt and D-tilt felt like some highlights among the Standard moves, thanks to their follow-up options. The infamous F-Smash was easier to get through than I thought, and did manage to sell me with how it’s effectively a “customizable” hitbox based on how much money you invest in your bag. Dash Attack is neat too.
Neutral Air is surprisingly cool for reasons I wouldn’t have expected an aerial projectile to be - going into landing lag, which means that Anna can’t fire her arrow from any height equally like a fighter would be able to with their Specials. It gets a bit more meaty with the held variant and how it can be angled + timed to mix up the regular version. Feels a bit more balanced + the landing lag trickery works well when one factors in that Anna only has limited arrows, so she can’t camp forever in spite of having projectiles. B-air working better into the foe’s stock later on, while U-air is a funny slow but excellent combo tool for farming gold. D-throw gives Anna a risk-free reward for committing to fattening her bag, and kind of fun since it can both prone and bury opponents! It’s also surprisingly interesting that some of your bigger moves like B-air and F-Smash are too slow to work effectively once D-throw gets to the stage where it starts to bury.
While I don’t think she lives up to her sheer wordcount like a lot of 20k+ sets this contest, as a good number of sets feel more powerful conceptually or in the melee department like Astor and Black Alice from FFC, Anna is still quite a solid set and handily Dae’s best work, thanks to some neat moves and the interesting dynamics that the bag offers for a few of the moves. It’s quite the dedication to see Dae make Anna twice between two contests - I’ll definitely be associating them with Anna for the time being.
Note: I gave my thoughts on the updated Team Fortress 2 in the Discord chat. Just in case anyone checks this thread in the future and thinks that I didn’t.
This set had a long planning phase, so it’s good to finally see it - and a full-fledged, non-Jamcon set from you - come to fruition. I remember that you were stuck on this set for a while: you wanted to capture the desire to die and reincarnate from the original game, which was tricky because dying goes against the fundamental goal of fighting games. Iirc, Rin’s original concepts involved cycling between different forms with each stock, but the final product of simply scattering his forms across a single moveset and giving him a stronger set when he finishes all 9 of his tasks works well without being a convoluted read.
It is kind of funny that one of Rin’s 9 tasks involves him “dying”, but it doesn’t involve him losing a stock so he can still go Golden even in single-stock scenarios like Classic Mode. The fact that Rin’s Golden form lasts throughout the match once it’s obtained captures what you were originally going for in a sense, as many buffs in MYM sets are lost when that fighter loses a stock.
Rin’s moveset is riddled with interesting facets. He has an item inventory with a weak item, a strong peach, a shooting item and a one-time super armour franklin badge, and the intriguing ability to sell one of his current items or even an -opponent’s- item to get one of his items that are currently on cooldown. I like that Z-drop is mentioned with items, and how the powerful Peach item can’t be Z-dropped.
Other cool tricks include Rin having an F-Smash that cycles, where each move generally synergizes well from the hit of the previous one, and Golden Light Down Special essentially being a counter and Flare Blade-style attack in one - the counter shortening the time it takes to charge the attack when you next use it. We haven’t really seen that kind of thing in a moveset, and I kind of want to use the trick myself. I also like the dynamic of GL Side Special being a Shadow Flare style move where the time bombs can be used as ammo on other moves, like giving Rin extra uses of GL Up Special to carry opponents farther if he hits them. GL D-Smash is kind of neat too. N-air is a bit of a wild move, as it gets stronger when Rin lands more of his Lost Soul F-Smash’s hits.
I like how Rin uses an assortment of props from his source material for his attacks. And, while short, attack uses for each of Rin’s two states are noted.
Some nitpicks:
Side Special’s hitbox upon analyzing an enemy, or whether it has a hitbox at all, isn’t elaborated upon.
Does Up Special and Rin’s LS Down Special and Smashes need to hit to complete their tasks?
3 seconds of stun from Side Special-enhanced water F-Smash is an awfully long time. Might want to bring that down to 1.5 seconds at most.
Does Golden Light Side Special deal knockback? Or just a lot of damage at best?
Golden Light Down Special would absolutely be justified in being an insta-kill when fully-charged (Ala Flare Blade) when it takes so long to charge, even when the counter properties are factored in. Rin does have to put in work to enter Golden Light state, after all. It would also be cool if the move interacted with the stars on Golden Light Side Special, like absorbing them to shorten Down Special’s charging time - Down Special is listed right after Side Special, which states that the stars can be spent on Rin’s other moves, so it would make a lot of sense to apply an interaction.
How far does Golden Light Up Special travel?
I wonder if GL F-Smash could have a star interaction too? But then, maybe it doesn’t need to.
Rin ended up being a solid set, but I actually preferred Dr. Facilier because his concepts just felt more appealing and lent themselves to the non-Specials in more exciting ways (he also had stronger presentation, even if that doesn’t influence my rankings). Rin’s attacks are on the shorter side and do talk about some applications, but… how do I say this? I feel like the melee side of his set could stand to have more substance to them, like how they work with Rin’s neutral game. Just give them a bit more beyond “they can combo, space or confirm into your Smashes”. Maybe even talk about mix-ups? Rin has some tricks with his items and maybe even his Golden Light Up Special’s ability to chain into itself. Regardless, good work for finishing Rin, and for getting out a set of this effort in general.
I'm immediately a fan of the set's central mechanic, producing one-use weapons and being able to save them up to use as you see fit. Making the weapons function as 'shooting' items, both to prevent excess complexity with the five weapons having too many inputs and allowing them to see use in the air as well as the ground, was a brilliant touch. The ability to then buff a weapon- be it an item she picked up from the match, one of her limited time creations, or just her tool of choice- adds an extra layer of complexity in which to buff and how to spend your precious time between clashes with the foe to set up without being too prone to snowballing.
The individual attacks of each weapon- two a piece- gives them a defined general role while keeping their actual in the moment usage flexible due to context-sensitive details like how they work based on positioning, in the air vs the ground, and what easy follow-ups you have from the next weapon you have prepared. The individualized buffs are a gas as well- some are simple enough, but then you get tricks like the bow's arrow reappearing from the other blast zone behind you and continuing its trip once as a delayed hitbox that can get the most out of its reverse-s.kick nature! Then there's the option to hurl the weapon from afar as a projectile via Side Special and, as it makes its way back to you, repeat the Side Special input to have it perform its attack from its current position (the axe, as noted, is a standout for its gravity effect and back hit). Or just blow it up.
Going past the Specials, the set keeps its quality- Dash Attack works to set up for her other moves and her assorted weapons, and has a fun effect on her Tongs/Staff if it's been deployed via Side Special. Forward Tilt is a strong but slow-multi-tool, with its weaknesses being removed if similarly deployed. Forward Smash takes a page right out of Dedede's playbook, with some added benefits (lingering pillar of fire hitbox, self-knockback making it very hard to punish on whiff and can even be used as a bizarre approaching option into NAir as a non-tong KO option) but with a notable drawback of costing her her tongs.
I could go on, but I'd basically be recapping the whole set. Maybe there's a little too many ways to get an enchantment aside from the Special meant for it, and Up Tilt is very simplistic? That's really nitpicky though. The set does everything I could want- main gimmick is connected with everything but not intrusive, moves all flow together, everything has its purpose and is interesting in its own way, the works. This could easily be my favorite set this contest.
Some other notes, mostly typos:
(A bit of a display issue with some of the text disappearing off the side of a text box, usually at the end of a sentence and a couple characters at a time. Mobile allows scrolling left or right, but also requires it due to the boxes extending far past the edges of the screen on the mobile googledoc app, making that way more difficult to read. No option to adjust how it's displayed by googledocs on mobile either for some reason, which I'm led to believe is weird.)
(Gravity Axe held version's charge damage says it can be increased 'by as much as 28%' when it should probably say 'to as much as 28%')
(I assume stabbing/thrusting attacks receive a 20% (as in 1.2x) damage boost? It doesn't say what the specific boost is, but one can assume from context.)
(Down Smash's first sentence: "Facing the screen with her arms crossed in focus, Schmietta points out to either to have two of her weapons fly out low much like Olimar’s D-Smash." Was this supposed to say 'either side'?)
(Down Throw's first sentence: "The floating tongs slam into the side of the foe and back into Schmietta’s hands, dealing the latter 10% and high-angled comboing knockback that’s relatively consistent among percents." Should say 'dealing the former'.)
Ok so first off; This doesn’t have to do with the mosveset itself but Akutagawa my beloved, I’m such a sucker for unapologetically edgy characters, and Akutagawa specifically makes my monkey brain go brrr from vibes alone so this was literally the first set in my “to read” list, plus it's a character I know.
I like the idea of a zoner without proyectiles, I don’t think we have that in smash (Maybe Min Min? I don’t have her so I wouldn’t know for sure), and you definitely made it sound like a fun concept. Also the fact that you mostly use rashoumon brings a smile to my face because I just have to mention how you managed to make every move involving it feel different, ‘cause I would not be able to write a whole moveset with only one weapon/ability, I feel I’d definitely run out of ideas very soon.
I agree with other people in that the specials are pretty basic, but honeslty I’m ok with that, I tend to prefer movesets that don’t take several days to read, lord knows I’d get distracted If I had to go through ten pages of just the Neutral Special (No shade to those kinds of movesets by the way). Like, I thnk it works well enough regardless of being simple or not. I specially liked two things in specific;
Down B might not be a super original move but I still like that trope in fan smash movesets where there’s counter moves that don’t just literally hit you while negating your own attack. And I think adding the ability to heal you a bit is a nice touch, I really liked that.
I might be biased ‘cause I like the trope where sharp objects come out of the ground bellow you to attack but I also really enjoyed Side Especial, definitely the kinda move I’d make the second I realize my charcter has some kind of acces to roots or a way to manipulate the structure or the floor like my Ursaluna from past contest.
I just generally like this a lot, I’m not sure about how to give feedback on the balancing on most of these moves because my ass isn’t sure about what makes a good or bad move. But I still like this moveset a lot just for the fact that, like I said before; You managed to make a whole moveset out of what’s basically the same exact ability stretched atound around 20 different inputs. Also, the visuals make my inner edgy 13yo happy.
Virtua Fighter has always struck me as a very serious martial arts fighting game, like tekken has goofy ****, but VF is no-nonsense fighting with a high level of execution and knowledge of the character you use. In my point of view I think Akira perfectly gets the style and feel of his home series by having technical but highly effective attacks, stuff like his super precise Neutral Special or his 3 frame counter, the payoff is that he gets either high damage or a chance to do a combo that brings that high damage. Super nice how many moves you give him, even allowing his aerials to change, that's not something you normally get to see. Initially I thought Akira's recovery was gonna be weird or not fit since I don't really see VF characters really doing something super fitting of an Up Special but the move he has combats in every way this doubt I had. If anything I think the throws could improve but I dont mind them being shorter when the rest of the set is so filled with details and techniques. While I never think I could master Akira he does justice to his series and gets 4 stars out of 5 from me.
Brisket my beloved has a very cool set that takes mainly from Strive, which helps as it's my main exposure to the series. I like how she is translated into being a mid-ranged zoner, it fits her and the yo-yo and feels natural. I like how you describe the style her grounded and aerials attack have, it just feels nice to understand what you were going for. The specials also feel fitting which like, yeah Fighting Game characters usually have moves be easy to translate over to Smash but Bridget's have depth to them which is always appreciated. I do wish the Side Special and you section was put after Side Special, feels like it would make more sense, also there is not one mention of the fact she has a town inside her. I also chuckled with the first paragraph of Down Air, thats just perfect lmao. But yeah Brisket was a nice read with good visuals and nice moves, she gets a 3 out of 5.
Okay let me get my biggest complaint out of the way first, this moveset has ZERO mentions of the hit song Venom by Eminem, unreadable. But yeah, I have limited knowledge of Venom, mainly just his movie, fighting game and lego marvel super heroes incarnations, but you do a good job giving more context for who he is and the style feels cool and fitting of him, tho I wish maybe you used more stuff from the comics or movies. I also feel like an extras section would have been great as he has so much potential for cool taunts and victory animations-. But when it comes to his specials and Special Attribute, it kinda makes him really work for me. ESPECIALLY neutral special, I love the whole concept and it fits him so well that he forces you to deal with his strong power by not letting you leave via a web, its honestly perfect when you pair it with his tough guy armor. The Venom for dummies is also great, not only for having the dunking image, but because i be a dummy, I appreciate these, always; Overall Venom is a fine and quick read, I give him a 3 out of 5.
Before you ask, Luffy gets to be with the fighting game cast cause 1- I told Comic I'd read him, and 2- he was in Jump Force, the best fighting game. As someone who's watched very little One Piece but knows a lot about it due to a ton of friends who love it Luffy feels kinda right in how you represent him, he has a ton of over-the-top moves like his Up Smash or his Specials but it fits him and the series very well. The main thing I can praise this set for is that you clearly love the series and straw hat and did your best to make this a great moveset, I'd say you succeded. It's also impressive how you have art for basically every move that's super cool, even get a Celica cameo, how nice. Austin is also there, as he does, and the set is very fun, the Spongebob end-lag joke and the movie posters bit were really funnne. I also think that Luffy having to sacrifice his percent to get into his stronger forms feels in character, he just gives it his all and never gives up even when faced with adversity, and justified by how powerful they are. A heads up tho, when going over Back Throw and how it buries you then refer to it as Down Throw, probly just a mistake but still worth pointing out for you to adjust it. All in all Luffy is a fun read all throughout with your passion really showing, Straw Hat gets a 4 out of 5 from me.
Rin has a fascinating overarching mechanic, with him having to land certain attacks in his base state so that he can ascend into his “Golden Light” state. This mechanic persists between stocks, meaning that he doesn’t have to do them all in one go, which is handy given that otherwise it’d be much too difficult. Rin’s “Lost Soul” state is primarily focused on buying time to fulfill his tasks, with a counter DSpec and a DSmash that creates an area that debuffs the foe’s movement speed as long as they are in it. In addition to the DSmash, the FSmash is also interesting for being a cycle based move that can potentially mix up the opponent since there’s no indicator for it. Golden Light is where most of the power moves are, including a DSpec with an absurdly long charge time that is essentially an instakill at full power; this can have its charge time reduced with the smashed variant, a counter that decreases the charge time proportionally to the power of the attack it countered. Rin can also apply stars to the foe with SSpec that he can either let stay for huge burst damage/a free grab or expend on buffs to select moves, with the most interesting being the FSmash and its bury effect - though it is worth noting that the actual strength of the bury isn’t actually stated.
His more basic attacks are less interesting on a mechanical level, but the fact that all of them are references to something in Eastern Mind is appreciated. Rin’s FTilt stands out for being a move that deals heavy shield damage while also being unsafe on shield, something I’m pretty sure I used myself, as well as his star enhanced UTilt for its setup properties. While the star buffs are neat and help make the Golden Light state strong, but not overpoweringly so, they are a bit simple, which isn’t really an issue but just something I was irked by with how much work you have to put in to get the buffs. Additionally, while edits have made this less of an issue, several aspects of Rin’s kit are under elaborated upon, such as his NSpec items and the usage of Golden Light DSmash in tech chases. While I definitely enjoyed the set a good deal, it definitely suffers from a lack of detail as well, so it ultimately doesn’t find itself on the upper echelon of sets this contest.
Fuma Kotaro
So, first of all, this set is a vast improvement over Nui. Focusing on a more universal mechanic in her ability to repeatedly inject herself to buff up her next attack(and movement speed before she attacks) is a pretty basic one, but I always enjoy using Incineroar's grab weakness to mess with buffs like this. I should probably do that in a future set tbh, I haven't yet for some reason. I think what helps the set is the fact this effect can alter range, armor, and lag as well as just being a power boost, and the variety means even if she's got only one shot to use it, you can really set the foe up to land anything with the right conditioning or just throw out whatever feels right for the moment. The buffs are high enough potency for the investment they'll probably be good enough. I think some of them are actually too potent despite this being a single move buff: FSmash's kill power on a Level 1/2 is still absolutely ludicrous and with it being a 'storable charge' kind of affair I don't think its that unreasonable to land, as is Uair/Bair just piling on upwards of 40% in one hit. I'm not really a big fan of straight up disabling shield for 5 seconds either, especially without a strong visual and flavor justification. But its ultimately still solid stuff and enough detail is given on how the moves and their applications work it feels like a strong improvement for you.
With that said, I'm really not a fan of this set's presentation. There's some smaller things, like the set spending I think a little too much time talking about specific matchups in places and a few strange writing moments. The move that typos Fuma Kotaro having a 3 second speed boost as her having a speed boat is mostly just funny, but there's also a move I remember where the set just says she 'has priority' on a move now and like. Don't all moves in smash have some amount of priority? Did it lose to every move in the game beforehand in clashes? But my biggest issue is that the organizational choices are very rough. The standards are quite hard to read when your eyes have to dart between 5 different text boxes that each separate out an element of the move that would process much more smoothly in my head if it was just written out like a paragraph. I know that's less visually interesting and long paragraphs can be a drag to read, I'm as aware of that as anyone, but throwing the information all over the screen like this set does makes for a worse reading experience overall. It also makes the actual move applications read worse when you're presenting them as bullet points rather than in a logical order: you can do a lot more to control how parts of the move stick out in a reader's mind if you write it in paragraph format. Even the bullet format would probably read better if each level's benefits were listed in numerical order. I also think this set would've benefitted from picking an individual image to focus on and blowing it up to a larger size as opposed to just pasting in the entire manga panel: as it is I find it hard to actually see the attack animation you're pulling from in a lot of those manga panels.
I think the set's desire to be visually interesting ultimately gets in its own way, and it would do a lot better if it had a different kind of organization. I'd reference the visuals on Slavic, Nate, Majora, and Katapultar's sets as some good starting points for how to keep a set from getting too boring visually and but also allowing for a more coherent reading experience. I don't usually go out of my way to complain about a set's presentation this much and I'm sorry to subject you to that, but it feels like there's some genuinely interesting meat on this set's bones here that I feel like I'd like a lot more with a mix of more focused writing and a better reading flow. What is there when you get past that is cool though, I'm glad to see you've stepped up so much on the non-Specials parts of the sets from your earlier efforts.
Finally finished reading the King himself, and as you tend to do, US, you popped right off for this JamCon. King Radical is a downright impressive JamCon set, boasting not just a sizable wordcount in the time limit but also fleshing out its ideas and weaving them together with much of the effluence of a strong planned set. I think Radical gets a bit busy for my taste, but overall the set is filled with some brilliant writing and fun ideas that undeniably play off each other well. At one point while reading I was going to criticize the number of vehicles / mounts Radical has access too, leading to a decent learning curve amongst using all of them, but then I got to Dash Attack, Neutral Aerial, and Forward Throw and it really did start feeling like a cohesive theme. He's got all sorts of weird movement, so a big part of balancing some of the crazy stuff he can do (Dash Attack offstage with the kinds of rad aerials he has access to? Very cool!) is managing his multitude of 'stances' and learning the intricacies of each. Conceptually neat for me, IMO, whether or not that was the intention. And I'm led to believe everything King Radical drives is quite cool, especially a pterodactyl Birdosaurus.
King K. Rad manages a pretty fine balancing act where he expands a lot of ideas broadly but doesn't focus particularly on one. He's got the basis for cool projectile shenanigans, customizable minions, all these vehicles, and of course the True Dew, but none of these individual parts feel like they overshadow the big picture of "this guy is cool" in a way I'm definitely reading too much into. I'm not normally the world's biggest fan of sets that have a bajillion working pieces but the specific pieces, and the way they're utilized, really makes that approach work for Kraid. I mentioned the scooter Dash Attack briefly earlier, but it does really highlight how cool this set feels, great synergy with how his aerials work. Neutral Aerial is a phenomenal move and is in the running for my favorite in the set overall, really cool attack, really cool mobility tool, 10/10 with that attack.
In terms of criticism, I don't have a ton on the King, but there are a few things I suppose. Well, one big one is that I feel like the minions are a bit... IDK, but they don't sit right with me. I definitely don't disagree with the choice to give Calvin his subjects to work with, but their use as a customizable sentry-minion seems meh and something like stage clutter (to clarify, just talking about the Common Man one, I think the minions later in the move are good). I think there's some promise to the pitiful Common Man minions filling a more supportive role where they maybe lose the customizability and instead focus on, like, retrieving or maintaining the various elements throughout Katie's set (grab the dirt bike, retrieve True Dew, bounce the tennis ball around). Two of those things they already do, but one is locked behind a customizable item, so maybe the more expendable minions could be less offense-based. Let me know if this part of the comment makes any sense, I'm still pretty messed up from likely breaking my toe, but that's enough about my feet for this comment.
I'm writing this comment with the edits you've done considered, even if that won't affect my JamCon voting, for simplicity sake. Good changes in general, I don't disagree with any of them really. Really well done on this JamCon, US, a very strong set for a very radical man. Great work!
First off, I want to say you have one of the best writing styles for succinct movesetting, and there's not too many points where I find Tinker Knight woefully underdeveloped, despite the fact that many attacks are only a few sentences of description. The more abbreviated writing style also helps while juggling the three different mechs and their individual moves, making this a very pleasant read following King Radical. The obvious centerpiece for Tinker Knight is his mechs, given that he's just a dinky little guy without them, and the system for collecting material, selecting a mech, and possibly upgrading it with enough resources makes for a strong core to the set. It doesn't just feel like 'play Tinker Knight's bad moveset until you unlock a mech' and adds an element of 'how long are you willing to forgo a mech to make it better?' Somehow, making it more involved improves it for me more than just an on-off thing.
The mechs themselves are decently well developed, though as you can tell by the carefully crafted meme above the Blue Mech really gets to be the star of the show. Changing grounded attacks instead of aerials or grabs already puts the Blue Mech in the spotlight by not requiring a specific state, though it does not get to terrorize the skies thanks to the double-effect of Up Special. Alas! There's some really cool moves in the moveset besides the Mech ones, the Electrorodent is a really fun tool to play around with, and for some reason Neutral Special's frantic wrench-tossing while running back and forth just sits well with me. Up Special allowing for grounded moves or the defensive Neutral Special is fun, personally a fan of rocket-powered platform recoveries myself!
Everything positive about the use of brevity here said, there's definitely some areas where the set could use expanding. The Red Mech's addition, aside from the conveyor belt punch which I adore, doesn't feel particularly deep, and seems to mainly take utility in attacks and replace it with more power. Part of it is a factor of being locked behind the Grab Game primarily, where it doesn't get a big chance to shine between the nature of grabs and the very short throws in this set. Gold Mech does fine, though most of what it gets through its unique moves are mobility tools, which while cool doesn't feel like a huge improvement over the base set, instead being more of a lateral change in how the aerials function. Additionally, the damage numbers on the grab game are high, especially when we start seeing things like 17%. Having a power throw like that, especially if relying on a mech that specializes in that, is fine I think, but when most of the throws are dealing over 10% damage it starts to shine through as both a balance and redundancy issue.
Ultimately, Tinker Knight is a pretty cool set I enjoyed reading, and has some interesting tools to think about between the mechs and some of the standard attacks. However, there's undeniably areas that could use some heavy development, particularly on the tail end of the set with the grab game and the Red Mech in general. Still, neat set and a good read!
Goliso continues his brand of really pushing the fundamentals of what a moveset is and can do with Alternate Gabriel here, a piece of horror I'm admittedly wholly unfamiliar with. And while my comment here will certainly have its gripes, this is still a moveset I find myself somewhat enchanted by, as it really is something unusual, especially to pop out for a JamCon. In many ways, Gabriel here feels like a streamlined version of the summoner-style sets that have been popular, relying entirely on his summons to perform most attacks. Splitting the input sections into different summons here, rather than individual attacks or just one input section like Kaiba or Pegasus, allows some cool options with Gabriel playing as a puppet fighter. Conceptually, if nothing else, Alternate Gabriel feels like the next step in this genre (which I guess is looping around back to Hugo sets if we project this trajectory forward).
The set obviously revolves heavily around the idea of Undesirable Information (which is ripe with meme potential) and afflicting the foe with M.A.D. to deal big damage and to try and kill the foe in MYM26's continued trend towards gamifying suicide. And as an alternate win condition, I obviously have no qualms with meter-building using subpar attacks since I did it this very contest. Additionally, Alternate Gabriel has some particularly neat moves, especially his Smashes. The teleporting Smash is a favorite that I think works really well with what Gabe's trying to do, since almost all of his attacks have zilch for knockback he needs a dedicated spacing tool and this fills the role to a T. As I went through the input sections, I found myself enjoying the idea of the set and how it works despite having one major issue I'll get to soon. Generally, though, he's got combo tools, tech options, and even highlights some combo chains and how much Undesirable Information he can get out of them, which is something I particularly wanted to see to get an idea for how strong a multiplier M.A.D. could get with optimal play. Strong but not oppressive is my takeaway, which is good!
Now my big problem with Alternate Gabriel, and it is a big one despite my praise: he has no other real kill tools at his disposal besides M.A.D. proccing, and that's not guaranteed to kill. To my memory and a quick scan through the set, none of his moves kill under 200%, meaning if for one reason or another M.A.D. isn't cutting it Gabriel is essentially out of the game. He doesn't have to have reliable options, since you do want to encourage people to engage with the mechanic, but having anything else would do wonders for Gabriel. AFAIK the only other "kill method" mentioned in the set involves poking recovering foes with N's Down Tilt, which is unlikely to actually take stocks against most opponents. Additionally, the universally low knockback creates a problem for Gabriel against anyone with armor, like Bowser or Kazuya, and the generally low damage on attacks also means shields are a nuisance for Gabe to pressure. Admirable as it is to go in so heavy on the M.A.D. mechanic, I think it puts Alternate Gabriel in a place where he's just not quite practical enough as a moveset and relies very heavily on his one mechanic to do pretty much everything for him.
At the end of the day, all my praise stands still. Alternate Gabriel is an extreme summoner who relies very heavily on controlling the stage and knowing the specific range and effects of every move. His proposed chains can fill the M.A.D. meter frighteningly fast if allowed, and I think this extreme "glass cannon"-esque fighter is neat to think about. As a moveset, Gabriel unfortunately is coming up short where he has less kill options than almost any other character in MYM or Smash otherwise, which is not ideal. Intriguing read and something I imagine could be edited to a stronger position with a few mathematical changes, at least for me.
Citizen V is a pretty short set that gets some good mileage out of that wordcount, even if it doesn't leave a ton of things to talk about. At his heart, Citizen V is a dedicated duelist, using his mobility and sword to weave attacks in and out from the foe. Citizen V has some great tools to make that work, too, which is good since it's essentially all the set is. The Neutral Special cape is a really fun technical tool that gives access to a cool cancel option. The choice between a weak punch, a footstool, or a backdash gives a neat mobile edge to V, especially combined with his dashing Forward Smash and dodging Up Smash. The cape's weakness to shields also makes for an interesting balancing tool to the canceling. The moveset does fall into JamCon problems as the set goes on with the grab game being notably short (IIRC you started a JamCon set, changed your mind, and then changed your mind again this last one? ...which does not do favors with a time limit).
Citizen V starts to feel a little one-note later into the set, basically starting with the aerials where his Cape Feint is noted as not being particularly useful. I think a big part of this one-note-ness is that V introduces a few concepts in the Specials and then just kind of leaves them there. The cool superstate gets a few mentions but doesn't get the spotlight enough to feel like a central part of V, and the glider to my memory is not acknowledged past the first move, despite a lot of promise in being able to cancel recovery into something like a dashing Forward Smash or a dodge-Up Smash. One grounded move cancel is a really cool thing that should definitely be explored, especially with the funky angles available! Additionally, the set never really calls attention back to the neat transcendent-tipper V's sword has, which is a cool trick for winning trades.
I enjoy reading Citizen V and he has some seriously cool tools at his disposal. Unfortunately, a lot of them are left on the table and instead the set focuses really heavily on the Cape Feint cancel across the inputs which grows stale as the set gets to later parts. Definitely feels like the toolkit provided is being underutilized a lot here, but the promise is there and admittedly somewhat extensive edits could put V in a really good place for me. Still, I did enjoy the set and he's fun to think about, so good work on him!
Welp, you guys did it. Ya'll made me reset my password and log onto this website for the first time in at least a decade. Are you proud of yourselves? May as well post my 2 cents on a few movesets while I'm here.
Peppino
On the whole, good stuff. Making him a hit-and-run with a bunch of raw heavy hits makes him play like he's in a Pizza Tower boss fight, a natural fit for a full blown fighting game. It's fun how all his wacky animations manage to line up with Smash Bros inputs, and giving Mach Run a turnaround time means he can't just spam it back and forth like Sonic's spindashes. With all the collateral damage his attacks can inflict, I'd love to send him into an 8-player match and just cause havoc.
Asgore
Incorporating the soul colors into his moveset writ large is really cool, and making shields negate blue attacks is a great way to ensure orange is still relevant against really mobile characters. I especially love how he can swap colors during FSmash to replicate his trident attack from Undertale.
I wish the Fire Circle projectiles would spiral out rather than go in a straight line. Besides making it more accurate to the game, it would make the chargeup more worthwhile, especially since the aerial version puts him into freefall. Perhaps they only spiral after a certain level of charging is met, so he can still release 1 as a straightforwards projectile.
Regarding his throws, IIRC Undyne seemed to imply Asgore has some notable hand-to-hand skills, so his throws could be a way to make use of it. Like having his DThrow be some martial arts toss. On the gameplay side, something I like to do is give at least 1 throw the potential to hit multiple opponents in a FFA setting. It allows all 4 throws to be relevant without them necessarilly needing to be good in a 1v1 fight.
Annihlape
First off, that pummel and F/BThrow are perfection. I can already see the clips of it spamming them with stock angry monkey noises playing.
Its overall gameplay is solid, relentlessly beating things into submission, with a few ranged attacks to utilize its ghost type. I could see this getting OP quickly, since it seems to have several "better than the average rushdown" quirks in addition to quick normals that reliably combo into each other AND grappler-tier throws, but in the end that's all nitpicky number stuff.
If you want to give it an Up Special that it can learn in-game, I think Thrash would make for a fun one. It could flail around so hard it propels itself up, dealing a lot of hits along the way. Its freefall animation could even have it holding its head as a nod to the self-confusion effect.
Between its small size, moderate weight, counter mixups (love the mandrake anti-grab) and various life drains, this little fella sure is durable. A part of me wants to declare it too much, but "tiny tank" is such a silly and unique concept that I gotta let it pass.
Its animations are fittingly adorable, and I appreciate it utilizing the /poison part of its type better than Ivysaur. Letting shields negate the poison damage is a good way to balance it while also giving Oddish some chances to go for throws. Now it's an itty-bitty grappler! I am very much that guy who would constantly go for BThrow setups and flub every single time.
The aerial attacks are where I think it maybe goes a little too far. "Grass Jigglypuff" feels more like Jumpluff's thing, and Jiggs herself doesn't have the tankiness and grappler stuff on top of her air game.
Sauron
I didn't expect to read 2 n88 jointsets in a row but here we are!
Long story short, he's pretty cool. His armored form goes hard with the animations and power, like this was originally a boss fight for a LotR game (RIP Multiversus). The shadow form is likewise a writhing tentacle monster that simply flails around and gives everyone whiplash. I kinda wish he had a couple more mace attacks, but I'm not what sure what magical demolition I'd be willing to give up.
The ring mechanic is interesting, and I must admit, does feel reasonable as something that could work in an actual playable game. Its basically gives the wearer general buffs in exchange for later weakness, and letting enemies choose to just pocket the ring keeps it from warping everyone's gameplay around it. I wonder if anyone would truly want to wear the ring, though. It feels like ringbearers get punished several different ways (recoil damage, stat loss over time, Sauron's reclamation buffs), and even the invisibility effect gets negated by the Eye and Nazgul. I think it would only ever be worn on Sauron's last stock, and then it's a matter of rushing him down and wrecking his lightweight shadow form with your spammiest buffed attack.
Huff n' Puff
Firstly, where's the special move names? 0/10 worst moveset ever
Seriously though this is pretty damn good. The Tuff Puff mechanic is as diabolical as ever and I wouldn't have it any other way. There's a good balance of having them be the special effects of the A buton without overshadowing the actual attacks of their boss. Gotta love that a cloud is a heavyweight, and making him into a literal blowhard both feels right and leads to some nifty attacks like Jab and USmash. I think my favorite attack is FAir, I am spamming the thunderclap as much as I can get away with it.
I don't think it mentions anywhere how his hitboxes retain their size even as he shrinks. I assume it's some fancy wind hitbox, but it would be nice to have it pointed out. Unless the intent is to make him into Brawl Snake. Certainly OP enough for the character, but maybe not an association one wants to have.
Update 9/24 Hades
Kupa made a Hades moveset with a kanonical K.Rool smash comparison. Truly we are in the good timeline.
He feels like a combination of the things I remember your sets for: A heavyweight with (situational) combos, projectiles with combo potential, a secondary damage/meter you're trying to build up, and of course the smokey arm grab. Using the blue/orange fire as a way to distinguish soul damage is a nice touch, and it gives me an excuse to FThrow as much as possible, fireball shot-put is my favorite attack. It was a surprise to not include Pain&Panic in gameplay but those two would probably accidentally reunite opponents' souls anyway.
It's clear you had a lot of fun revisiting this guy, and overall I like him a lot, with the caveat that I had to skim through most of the metagame talk. I am not Smashcius, but a mere mortal who enjoys the occasional platform fighter. With that said, I can't shake the feeling he's got too many things going on with his specials for a single character. Especially the USpecial. It's a teleport with a shield-ignoring sweetspot, or you can transition into faster attacks, OR you can place two different traps...Hades players online will be spamming that thing more than Zelda!
That neutral special...Charge up a lingering hitbox that can be used for combos...Isn't that Disco K-
Ilyana by WeirdChillFever
Ilyana is unexpectedly ambitious and very strong in places, but also has some mechanics that don't feel fully paid off. The idea of her attacks having limited coverage and needing to supplement with the merchants is neat but the implications of her being a puppet fighter don't feel like they're being explored all the time (like the set doesn't really play with how wack her disadvantage state can get if she's forced away from where she wants to be relative to the merchants), and some of the "missing" inputs it imposes on her don't feel entirely compensated for by the advantages of having the merchants around. On the flipside I do appreciate some of the little touches to keep such a difficult moveset archetype from becoming too unwieldy; Aimee's inputs are basically direct attacks and Jorge/Daniel work from a fixed point so you mooooostly only have one puppet to worry about.
I'd agree with the FA take that she's probably not getting enough reward versus the amount of tricky mechanics she has to put up with. I think having to worry about the merchants' Biorhythm and the precise workings of all their myriad upgrades is probably just a bit too complex for my tastes. The biorhythm shopping channel isn't all bad - the structure of it is cool as hell and there are little concepts in here I like. The stamina potion is fun, and the set-up/pay-off of the forge coins is a really fun premise that feels like it can only exist in this architecture. I think the move upgrades you can buy, though, end up feeling much more complex than they need to be given that they already exist in a complex structure. Particularly stuff like the way the Censer upgrade can change Ilyana's Biorhythm (not necessarily for better) is a subtle double-edged sword to sneak into a move like this.
Personally I was enjoying the set more when it's all-in on Ilyana and how she plays around her own Biorhythm. NAir is maybe my favorite input in the set, feels like a really cool and well-considered addition to her melee game. And I really like a lot of the little moves in the set in general. The set generally has a pretty good sense of when to go hard and when to ease up and do something low key that fits in well. Stuff like the way NSpec and FSpec work around Biorhythm is really cool.
I think generally where I'm landing on it is kind of a positive-with-reservations. Fun read, you won't catch me trash-talking anything that pulled me through it that quickly. Some of the more out-there parts of the set are implemented in a way that feels obtrusive, though.
On a less "mechanically judging the set" note and a more "musing on thematics" wavelength, even though I'm not completely sold on how active the merchants are in the set, I do think there's a charm to an FE mage set that sends out some bozo to frontline so she can stand back and make with the magic. It's a relatively indirect example of how the set reps FE in unconventional ways - Shove is even here! It really feels like you're using the whole buffalo.
Ganondorf by MaSpoofs
Impressive work on the visuals, and the new moves are fun! Also feel like you kept the right stuff for sure, was glad to see DAir and FSpec still around. Definitely a sharper set than you see from most people venturing into MYM for the first time. Bit of a different beast in general since it's kind of pitching itself as a rework vs a from-scratch thing. One of the early moves that just says "Same" at the start threw me, was thinking "Same as what?" for a minute or two.
Springboarding off that thought, the set excels at image work and visual presentation of attacks but does feel like it could do more to present information more clearly. Particularly there's the odd big paragraph that could get busted up, and the order of things can feel strange at times - like the float and general movement stuff coming in at the end is a little odd. It'd be good to know about the float especially before the aerials, having that on tap really changes stuff like DAir.
Altogether it's a very cool package though, I like the funky projectile additions and I'm always a sucker for a super-state, NSpec/DSpec feel like the stand-out moves. The new UTilt is also neat, though I was a little unclear on if it's a grab (hitgrab?) or just a move with really weird hitboxes. (There's also a bit of text on one images that says it only hits grounded foes? That doesn't seem to track with the move description so maybe it only applies to some specific part of the hitbox but wasn't sure what the intent was there). I appreciate that it's still a kinda slow weird option even if it's a more practical one.
(PS there's a bit of USpec where images are covering up the move text)
Those of you from last contest might remember that we ran "Movetober" last year, a little event (suggested by bubbyboytoo
with a pretty simple premise: Just like "Inktober" or the like, write one move per day matching the theme provided! This isn't a competition but instead is an optional little side thing people can join in if they want, a way to get those creative juices flowing. Just make sure you keep that reading up as you do, alright? And if you miss a day, don't panic, you can always pop in the next day or be retroactive or something!
This time around, Bubby provided me with a list so nice I used it almost wholesale, although I did squish a theme or two together, added a single day of my own, and also added the October 15th theme which was provided by n88
so a huge thanks for that!
Without any further ado, I present to you this go around's Movetober list!
October 1st: Write a Jab or Neutral Aerial.
October 2nd: Write a move with a light or darkness theme.
October 3rd: Write a move with a variable range, under any conditions you want.
October 4th: Write a move that inflicts a status effect.
October 5th: Write an angleable move. (This doesn't have to be a side input...)
October 6th: Write a non-Special or Grab move that grabs the foe.
October 7th: Write a move for a basic hero-type character.
October 8th: Write a move that can hurt you. (Self-damage, Gordo-style projectile reflection, etc)
October 9th: Write a move that heals, either the user or target.
October 10th: Write a move for a character from a "guilty pleasure" source for you.
October 11th: Write a move for a character you setted in your first contest.
October 12th: Write a cargo throw.
October 13th: Write a move that can conditionally instant KO.
October 14th: Write a plant-themed or water-themed move.
October 15th: Write a move that puts you into a "super" state.
October 16th: Write a move for a "final boss" character.
October 17th: Write a move that interacts with a status effect inflicted by another move.
October 18th: Write a non-Up Special that changes significantly when used in the air.
October 19th: Write a Grab Aerial (ZAir).
October 20th: Write a move for a real person or mythological figure. (Online personas count too!)
October 21st: Write a move that changes if its input is smashed.
October 22nd: Write a move with a heavy technology theme (transforming machinery, battery charge levels, etc.)
October 23rd: Write a move with a heavy magic theme (rune circles, incantations, etc.)
October 24th: Write a "defensive" move (grants super armor, interacts with your shield, etc.)
October 25th: Write a set of idle animations, taunts, and victory poses.
October 26th: Write an elemental move that can change its element somehow.
October 27th: Write a music-based move, either attacking with song or inspired by a lyric.
October 28th: Write a move for a character that isn't quite in your wheelhouse.
October 29th: Write a "multi-stage" move, e.g. Villager's Down Special.
October 30th: Write a move that would fit any of MYM26’s JamCon themes, whether by character or the move itself.
October 31st: Write a Final Smash or Playstyle Section.
I really like Oddish, a short but sweet moveset which tends to be my preference, specially if it’s a series I recognize. I like that this is a mostly defensive moveset, which, I might be wrong about this, but I don’t think we have too many of in smash. And I agree with Tern on the sentiment that it’s surprising how deep you went for, of all the 1000+ options, a pokemon like Oddish, I definitely didn’t see that coming. Which honestly sounds like a very MyM thing to do. Some things that stuck out to me;
Neutral B is cool, Oddish using his leaves to grab the enemy wasn’t something I ever expected.
I also like Side B, I love how you translated a move as unorthodox (At least when it comes to pokemon moves in smash) as Sweet Scent. The way it works seems incredibly annoying to deal for the opposite player. Good.
All of the 3 big dust moves in a same move which just so happens to be a counter, that seems fun. Also, those other two moves with effects depending on Down B’s dust rotation is a neat touch.
Up Smash is really cool, it’s always fun to see regular moves with unorthodox effects.
Also like, a fun sized tank is not something I thought was possible in smash.
Make Your Move (MYM) is a 15-year strong writing contest centered around designing hypothetical movesets for Smash Bros. The moveset can be for any character from any medium - books, video games, anime, comics, films, mythology or real life. You can even invent an Original Character! Character love is the name of the game here.
Movesets are generally made for the most recent installment of the Smash series, that being Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as of now, but movesets for older Smash games or even Project M are allowed.
✯ MYM Overview ✯
Moveset Creation
A moveset is made up of 23 inputs:
4 Special Moves [ Neutral | Down | Side | Up ]
5 Standard Attacks [ Jab | Dash Attack | Forward Tilt | Down Tilt | Up Tilt ]
3 Smash Attacks [ Forward | Down | Up ]
5 Aerial Attacks [ Neutral | Forward | Back | Up | Down ]
6 Grab-Game Inputs [ Grab | Pummel | Forward Throw | Back Throw | Down Throw | Up Throw ]
Plus a Stats Section [ Movement | Size | Weight | any Unique Mechanics |etc.]
You can list them in whatever order you want. Most movesets list Special Moves first, since their unique properties often tie a moveset together as a "core" and can be relevant to the rest of the moves. For example, Shulk's Monado Arts change up how the rest of his moves are used, so it'd be helpful to list his Special Moves at the beginning. Similarly, a character's Stats should go in the beginning bit.
Outside of that, the order varies a lot, but moves are almost always grouped together into the five sections bullet-pointed above. Do whatever you'd like here!
Miscellaneous Flavor [ Home Stage | Alternate Costumes | etc. ]
Having trouble writing a set? Just post in the thread or DM one of the five Leaders listed later in this post! We're always happy to check out WIP sets and provide feedback.
Traditionally, movesets are posted in the thread itself, as regular posts. However, a good number of MYMers instead host movesets offsite, such as with Google Docs, for the sake of formatting control, reliability or the like. For Google Docs in particular, there is a handy [TEMPLATE] you can use. If you're signed into Docs, just hit file > make a copy and you're good to go.
Commenting
"Famous writers got to where they are due to reading a large amount of literature, and it’s the same with movesets. Commenting forces you to articulate that knowledge and put it to word; the helpfulness of this exercise cannot be overstated."
Movesets aren't the only form of writing that maintains MYM. All artists seek acknowledgement, whether it's critique for where they can improve or just straight-up praise. Even leaving a "Like" on the set or just saying "I liked it," is a semblance of acknowledgment. The time it takes to receive a comment varies between readers, but these days you can expect to receive at least 2 comments within 3 days of posting your set - one from Arctic Tern and myself. If you would like to write a comment yourself but are having trouble, you may find this article on writing comments helpful.
To emphasize the importance of reading and commenting, readers are required to post [at least 10 Comments] throughout the contest in order to vote. Reading every moveset in a contest is the hard part, especially when we get 20-30k behemoths, but you'll be a much stronger and more informed setmaker for the challenge - you'll learn how setmakers roll, and you might even receive inspiration for your own movesets.
Ranking
An extension of Commenting is to form your own [Rankings] - take the movesets you've read and rank them from strongest to weakest in your own opinion. Be it a ten-star system, five-star system or category-based. Make your votelist public, as it were. Ranking sets is completely optional, though.
Created by KholdStare in MYM24, Jamcons are monthly, thematic mini-contests designed to give the contest extra, shorter movesets and more feedback. A participant has 4 days to write and submit a moveset that adheres to the Jamcon's theme. After that, readers - whether they posted a submission or not - have 2 weeks to comment on every entry, then nominate their favourite entry. The winner gets to choose the theme for the next Jamcon.
Jamcons are typically held between Friday to Tuesday at PST, which is the weekend for most people. The first Jamcon of a contest normally starts two weeks after the contest opens, to give time for people to read the opening movesets first, but it is up to the discretion of previous Jamcon's winner. I will update the OP with the submission and commenting periods of any Jamcons that are active at the time.
Contest's End
MYM25 went on for six months, but the sheer quantity of quality sets posted made it an insanely competitive contest. To dial it down, Make Your Move 26's submission period is set to [end on July 31st], so little over four months this time around to submit your movesets. After that, it's a reading period where readers catch up on all the moveset submissions, should they desire to vote.
Once a reader has posted at least 10 Comments and voting opens, they can submit a votelist to the contests' Vote Gurus on Smashboards via DM. More on reading + voting deadlines and the Vote Gurus when the submission period ends. Voters have up to 44 Votes to use, each split into 3 types of varying strength:
8 Super Votes [ 9 Points ]
16 Regular Votes [ 5 Points ]
20 Weak Votes [ 2 Points ]
A number of votes from each type can be upgraded into a [Vote Plus] (+), which is worth a few extra points:
1 Super Vote Plus [ 11 Points ]
3 Regular Vote Pluses [ 6 Points ]
5 Weak Vote Pluses [ 3 Points ]
The Super Vote Plus (SV+) is typically awarded to your favourite moveset in the contest, a badge of honour for any movesetter(s) lucky enough to receive it. To give you a general idea of what a votelist looks like, here are all the votelists from last contest. Be warned - 44 votes might sound like a lot, but it won't be enough room to fit in every moveset that you'll like!
You can't vote for your own movesets, of course. Otherwise everyone would SV+ their best moveset and so on.
The Top 50
Once the reading + voting deadline has been reached and everyone has voted, the Leaders will tally up all the votes, break up the ties and pretty up the presentation to finalize everything. Then it's Top 50 time, baby! It's what MYM lives and dies for: a glorious list of the 50 best sets in the contest, or at least according to the clashing opinions of everyone who chooses to vote. A moveset needs at least two votes or the magic touch of a Super Vote in order to place, but chances are you'll need more than 9 points to place. Top 50s can consists of less than 50 sets, but be warned - MYM contests have become more fiercely competitive and stronger in quality since MYM24. Good movesets have and will missed placing in recent times, but there's no shame in not placing here.
After that, we wait a few weeks and then go do it all again in the next contest. It's an endless cycle of movesetting, until the day Make Your Move ends or one moves on with their life.
✯ Beyond The Thread ✯
MYM-Operated Communities and Sites
Our Discord[LINK] is the lifeblood of the MYM community - you'll find a ton of conversation that that goes far beyond the Make Your Move threads, including moveset comments and discussion. It is highly recommended to join if you wish to be a part of the Make Your Move community, whether it's for direct movesetting discussion or just talking about hobbies and life in general. Our community is more peaceful than it's ever been!
Equally important are our ancient Wordpress websites:
The Bunker[LINK] archives MYM's older works: moveset lists from previous contests, links to older MYM threads as well as MYM-related articles, which anyone is free to write if they have a Wordpress account. The home page contains handy links to "The MYM'er Encyclopedia" (a list of every set made by every relevant and modern setmaker, including more recent newcomers) and "Every Moveset listed by Franchise", which is handy if you want to see whether an existing character has had a moveset made for them.
The Stadium[LINK] displays an up-to-date list of every moveset that's been posted in MYM's current contest. It also, on lesser occasions, is used to post Top 50 and raw vote data from a contest when it ends, as well as announce a change of Leadership.
Unaffiliated Resources
KuroganeHammer [LINK] and UltimateFrameData [LINK] both are treasure troves of technical details about moves in Smash Ultimate, as well as a handful of other games such as Smash 4. The latter even offers frame-by-frame hitbox visuals for every single attack in the game! Check them out if you want a reference point for how much damage a move should deal, how quick it should be, or anything like that.
The Smash Wiki [LINK] also has a decent amount of data, including statistics like character jump height, terminology, Smash Bros trivia from across the series, and more information of possible interest.
Redditor u/Nachowcheese has created an exhaustive spreadsheet [LINK] with KO percentages and trajectories for each of Ultimate's attacks, as experienced by the middling Mii Swordfighter from the center of Final Destination.
There exists a thread on Smashboards [LINK] which houses GIFs for some characters' attack hitboxes. The data is from Smash 4 and not Ultimate, but it's still a handy resource for the range and animation of moves.
Art of Smash [LINK] is a video series by Izaw about the intricacies of how Smash 4 is played. The first four videos are a little bit outdated, since Smash Ultimate has changes from Smash 4 (see the next paragraph for a better resource). The useful part is the videos that come after: an expansive list of character-specific videos, going over lots of tricks, combos, and techniques which can inspire moves in a MYM set. Most important, perhaps, is the videos' emphasis on the "playstyle" of a character, or the method by which one makes a moveset feel like a cohesive whole. In MYM, understanding this concept separates the wheat from the chaff.
There's also an ongoing sequel series to Art of Smash, called Art of Smash Ultimate, made by the same person and for the same purpose: [LINK]
✯ Leadership ✯
The [Leaders] are five old fossils who have been making their moves for more or less a decade. We moderate the MYM community where needed, and just serve as faces to turn to if any of you need problems or help with Make Your Move stuff.
The Leaders are:
BKupa666 - Oldest of all the leaders, he's the big daddy with an even bigger association with King K. Rool. Loves Heavyweights, DKC, MCU, Breaking Bad and sneaking giant passion projects into the thread.
UserShadow7989- A friendly fellow who goes by the name ProfessorHawke on Discord. Best known for Original Characters and creating the Witchverse - an OC universe with entries from a good few setmakers - but is also big on LiveALive and Yu-Gi-Oh!.
Katapultar - I'm an agent of esotericism and chaos who will go anywhere for cute and comical anime girls - especially ninjas. My character choices tend to be among the most obscure in Make Your Move.
FrozenRoy - If it's cool, he likes it. Known for his strong grasp on Smash fundamentals, making joint sets with everyone and being one of the most gregarious members of the community. His comments brim with detail.
Slavic - Reviver of the User Rankings, Slavic has a variety of tastes that range from classic animes (Madoka, classic Yu-Gi-Oh!, My Hero Academia) to MCU and various video games like Resident Evil, and of course Fire Emblem which 80% of the MYM community loves. A master of comedic writing, you'll never be bored when reading a Slavic set.
There are more reliable members beyond us, too!
KholdStare - An old flame who took a hiatus and returned to us in MYM21. He's a consistently funny guy and now packing great vibes. He has also been working on a grand project to remake all of his first 40 movesets to modern sensibilities - a feat that no one else has undertaken on such a scale so far. Look out for that this contest!
Junahu - Another old and influential setmaker who returned recently, Junahu is historically known for having some of the most stylish presentation of any setmaker. He is also the keeper of the Bunker - the icons on the site are his handiwork.
Smash Daddy - One of the absolute biggest and most influential setmakers who truly lives up to his username. Effectively a 6th leader, the grind of real life has slowed Smady down over the last few contests, but he is still a presence and hanging in there with a few joint sets. Also a giant K. Rool advocate alongside Kupa, which is very important for everyone to know.
n88 - A former leader who returned last contest after a long absence. The original Marvel guy, also associated with Persona 5 and Arc System games like BlazBlue. Sets range from short and funny to big and serious, but they all come with a witty charm. One of MYM's more comedic characters.
Rychu - An older setmaker and master of stylish Google Docs presentations to fit the character - you'll always find something inspirational with these sets. Currently very associated with One Piece, with two OP 10th placings over the last two contests.
ForwardArrow - One of MYM's most long-standing and influential members with more wins than any other setmaker. He's a former leader who has stepped back to focus on other writing projects, but he can be relied upon for strong commentary and even stronger movesets when the inspiration strikes. A fan of dark, serious works like the Fate series.
BridgesWithTurtles - A recent MYM returnee like n88, Jay aims for in-Smash movesets and many characters that could make it into Smash, primarily Nintendo and Sega characters.
WeirdChillFever - A duck-orientated fellow and enjoyer of Ducktales, Fire Emblem and Nintendo franchises. Tends to put all their duck eggs in one basket with one big, ambitious project every contest.
GolisoPower - A social butterfly who has picked up some great tastes from MYM, like the Fate and LiveALive series. Goliso is a very frequent presence in the chat, and is perhaps the setmaker who is most associated with modern hypothetical story modes (where we all discuss story mode potential with every set that's been posted in a given contest - it's very fun, and another reason you should join the Discord if you haven't already).
bubbyboytoo - An advocate for simple sets who can always be relied upon to write clean, pleasant movesets. Strongly associated with Kirby and Hololive.
Almand - A fighting game guru with a joyous persona. Doesn't frequent the chat often, but the works they do post are big-time passion projects. Their Alex moveset from last contest weighed in at 40,000 words!
dilliam - A fellow who has recently associated themselves with the Nostalgia Critic. Has been quiet over the last few contests, but is said to have some evil plans for this contest...
Arctic Tern - A long-time lurker who finally joined in MYM25 and blessed us with quick comments and a dozen quality movesets. Associated with many anime-themed video games like Touhou, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Fate and many others. Also advocates for the Sam & Max games.
Old Man Han/Daehypeels - Do you know about the FFC community? Neither did we, until they came on the last day of MYM25 and offered up 40+ movesets. Han knows where it's at in MYM with the big heavyweights and villains, while Daehypeels managed to slip into the Top 50 last contest - more difficult and competitive than anay contest before it. With FFC and MYM now one, you can bet that we have more setmakers than ever... and naturally a more competitive MYM than ever.
Now that you know the crew, take a look at the finest MYM25 had to offer from its Top 10. They're long, but worth the read!
Make Your Move has [RULES], just like the rest of Smashboards. In the rare case where someone does break the rules, make sure you report them instead of replying to their post.
Whoa, that was weird. I was commenting on Hades, then suddenly my soul is swimming around in the underworld, and now I'm alive again. Hey there, girl with the teddy bear, do you know what happened?
"Ufufufu, I brought you back to life so you may read the moveset of a true God!"
Why thank you, super-powered gal! I think I shall read and comment on Black Alice right now!
There's more restraint in the standards' design than I was expecting. Not that it's a bad thing; I was worried there was gonna be random status effects stapled everywhere just to go "lul Chaos". And I know a thing or two about overloading a moveset with status effects. Instead, a lot of her divine might is shown through animations and sheer power, with a redirecting comet and time bombs layered on top, and atop that we have her timeline swapping and "instant kills". It's kinda funny that her most lethal attacks are also the moves she's least likely to score a true KO with.
I'm surprised at how well I could understand the timeline shenanigans. Must be my love of Undertale and dealing with Flowey. The interactions with the match timer itself, while novel, feel like they won't be relevant for many players. It's a particular missed opportunity when she has a bunch of attacks that actively work on timers, so she could be screwing around with the detonations of NSpecial or the time someone has to defuse the FAir "kill".
Stuffing someone in Beary is a fun take on a capture effect, and making someone mash themself to death offstage is just plain evil. I wish it didn't have the 110% execute; It just limits the chances to do the fun tossing mixups and steps on the toes of her pseudo-kill stuff.
A couple of move descriptions are confusing. Neutral Special doesn't mention Black Alice being harmed by her own explosions until halfway through the attack, and it's presented like I would just assume that aspect to begin with. FAir, within the same sentence at the end, claims that it's both safe and unsafe on wiff. Speaking of FAir and its time-bomb effect, while 6 seconds is a lot in moment-to-moment frame data, when it comes to something like a status timer, it's pretty easy for most characters to play keepaway for that long. Especially when Alice has decent base mobility and a bunch of powerful ranged attacks to keep enemies from rushing in to stop her.
I want to see Alice and Sauron clash with their DTilt earthquakes.
Update 10/17
Alright, I survived the most infamous moveset of MYM26, who or what shall I read next?
Grimace
With this and Plankton in NASB2, we have two fast-food heavyweights with projectiles in platformer fighters. I did not expect to check that box on my 2023 Bingo card.
This was a fun read, and I can see this working out (something Grimace never does) in a real game, but the timers are all kinda screwy. The statuses, for as funny as they are, are all way too short in duration. Like I said for Black Alice above, a few seconds is nothing to stall out, and this is a slow grappler who's depending on them. I think you could get away with making them very long, they're already kept in check by the 1-status limit and needing to deal with menu cycling. Granted, it's a goofy jamcon moveset, so it's not a dealbreaker, but Grimace ate all my fries, so I'm gonna make an example of him as payback.
On the flipside, while I love the idea of needing to beat the clock for the breakfast menu, I think the breakfast/lunch swap could be cut to 45 or even 30 seconds. Not even sure how this would affect balance, I just think he should get more chances to use ALL the food. My favorite breakfast item is the hotcakes boomerang, and for lunch I've gotta go with the holy Sprite both in-game and for real-life soda fountains. And of course, MCRib is the objectively correct choice for a final smash.
"Eating this item offers no added benefits outside of more weight" That could be said of the entire McDonald's menu
I like how the FSmash deals more damage at close range, just like a real thrown handful of McNuggets. The Up-Special is also pretty clever.
Update 11/18
Cataquack
So first, the outline seems to have gotten messed up. Maybe it's just on my end, but there's literal paragraphs being turned into outline sections. Got an unintentional chuckle from me.
With that out of the way, what a fun moveset! From the Dune Buds to the sand stairs (and bird) to the watermelon shoving, he's the embodiment of Gelato Beach. It's impressive how well the various references fit into this critter's gameplay, doing his thing while reprimanding whoever is invading his space. I could hear Mario's YAAAAAAHAHAHAH as I read about Dune Bud. It's a shame there isn't an actual Gelato Beach stage to go along with him.
Now for a criticism: I'm not sure how he's supposed to eat durians or watermelon if those fruits can't be held. Surprised there isn't a biting attack that can be used to that effect.
Dr. Facilier
My first thought before even starting to read was wondering how his shadow would be involved. It did not disappoint as a versatile puppet summon. There are some funky plays he can make with short hops, like using NAir and Shadow Jab for a wall of cane hitboxes, or mixing UAir with Shadow UTilt to deny air space. Then there's the more exotic stuff like recording DTilt, attaching it to an enemy, and making them shield it before going in for a grab...
The debt mechanic is a very fitting way of keeping his shenanigans in check. I can't wait for the montages of online players spamming themselves to death. I'll no doubt be featured in one as I tunnel vision on landing a special grab into DThrow. Getting to buff his normals for a (low) price is a simple fun way of incorporating it into his more standard attacks, though it's unfortunate his Big Finish dash attack doesn't get something. Like conjuring those voodoo fireworks from the GIF for a true finishing blow.
Granting the opponent a boon in exchange for empowering Facilier's DThrow is pretty cool, but I can't help but feel like I'd only ever pick health or fortitude. Strength and speed don't seem worth the momentary boost when they give the Shadow Man an early KO throw or a total speed debuff. Meanwhile fortitude is granting me extra shield HP to deal with the curse, and health granting 10% speaks for itself.
Gotta love how Facilier and Hades both have a disrespect KO BAir. And they've both got Up-Special teleport mixups. Are you perchance a Kupa alt?
Update 11/30
Geno
How fitting to have a Geno moveset this year when SMRPG got a remake
Visually it's on point, and I do like your Up-Special idea much more than the typical Geno Boost. I also appreciate not trying to shoehorn action commands into it besides the obligatory Geno Whirl reference. Smash is a real-time game, everything is an action command!
Geno Whirl is perhaps the biggest hurdle in translating Geno to a PvP game. There's no way to not include the crits, they're a literally critical component. I think you may have discovered the answer, in allowing Whirl to be thrown at an angle. It provides just enough utility for the attack to be useful even without a crit, so there's more to it than training mode crit combos.
For an artillery mage, the projectiles feel overshadowed by close-range stuff. A cancelable slide is something hardly seen on rushdown characters, let alone someone who's supposed to be a zoner. Meanwhile, it takes a lot of charging to get any mileage for Geno Beam and Blast outside of light pokes. Then he's got a spammable combo DTilt kick, but a situational projectile in BAir...The best zoning he can do is spamming Whirl, which could quickly turn back into mindlessly fishing for crits.
Waluigi (Time)
Geno AND Waluigi in the MYM I return to? I'd make a time machine joke, but Ridley and K.Rool are now canon, so I guess these are the next 2 speculation celebrities.
How fitting that the first few attacks we see are ripping off borrowing from Luigi's stuff. Waluigi's purple-flavored attacks are a good way to differentiate him from the other plumbers without going full-on meme mode. The UTilt's Γ sweetspot and FSmash creating a tennis ball that it can then reflect are particularly inspired. Only thing he's missing is a baseball bat with a wacky "weaker but more contact" charge mechanic. Like it could be his USmash, and charging lowers the damage but makes the bat grow in size.
I love the item box special, especially since you gave him unique items instead of just copying Mario Kart. Though the roulette sounds need to stay While the coins got a chuckle from me, I feel like they should do something, since he has to get through the roulette without taking damage AND a cooldown just to pull an item to begin with. Could even be as simple as healing 2% as a consolation prize.
Whirluigi could use a bit more offensive punch, it was his offensive power shot after all. Like the ground version could go along the ground really fast and bypass projectiles, so he could use it to close in against zoners. Maybe it could even have a special type of knockback that sends enemies more slowly spiraling away, so he has time to reposition or get an item roulette going.
While Chance Time is a neat idea for a Final Smash, I'm not a fan of the backfire potential. Consider that if FS meters are enabled, there will inevitably be a point where it's "ready", but now he's effectively locked out of using Item Box unless he's either KO'd or is forced to risk Chance Time. I think having a chance to simply do nothing would be enough of a "risk" without screwing him over.
Including the crotch-chop taunt automatically makes this better than Mario Strikers Battle League. Also appreciate the callbacks to Mario Tennis 64 and Mario Party 3, he was my main in those games.
Update 12/22
Team Fortress 2
I never thought I'd see the day when I need to mark spoilers on a moveset. Speaking of which, the first thing I did was scroll through the table of contents since I was intrigued by the mini movesets of the mercs. I registered that Spy had a full moveset, started reading...and STILL found myself caught off-guard by the reveal. Bravo
I remember the (in)famous CtF Spy fondly, so I'm happy to say this lives up to that legacy. Including the summoned mercs is a really clever way of allowing his disguise to work in a 1v1, and the parry mechanic still allows for proper multiplayer shenanigans. Dead Ringer likewise feels better as an Up-Special than some "invisible teleport" I'm sure would be most folk's first thought. I can already see the videos of Ganondorf USmashing the double only to get trickstabbed afterwards. Would be cool if the double had a chance of fast-falling to make it even sneakier for onstage plays.
There's a really good balance of utilizing the Spy's arsenal without letting any single weapon type become too gimmicky or domineering. The knives of course have backstabbing buffs, and I appreciate that it's not some binary broken/useless effect depending on back/face stabs. Having the revolvers be essentially variants of the same attack is a great way to showcase the alt weapons while adding to the trickery. The L’Etranger even feels right as a meter-building juggling tool. The USmash, DAir, and throws smartly allow for some straightforwards attacks that don't need backstabbing or ammo counting. Even the UTilt taunt-kill fits as the obligatory "summons pin them down so you can land it" attack! The only real tacky effect is the projectile reflection on FAir, which is unfortunate considering Pyro's airblast is right there but there's no way to combine the two for fake-out reflections.
Onto his more exotic tools. Giving the sapper an effect besides constructs is appreciated, but I think it could do without the place/sliding variations. Especially since the sliding one seems to be straight-up better, so that may as well just be the attack without adding wierd special inputs to a character who's already complex and technical. DSmash is a cool use for the cigarettes, but it feels really OP, with the flinching hits immediately taking it from a damaging smokescreen to an aimable, AoE, high-damage lockdown field. He may even be able to just spam that while the mercs do the rest, which I suppose is technically a "support" action, but not in a way that leads to healthy gameplay (or lungs). On a more positive note, I love the final smash, a counter-style final smash is something I've considered but this is the first time I've seen someone actually pull it off.
This comment/review wouldn't be complete without discussing the other mercs. This is the kind of thing that could quickly become a bloated forced "authenticity" gimmick, but you pulled it off. As I said before, it allows for Spy to actually use his disguises regardless of match type, and giving the summons (mostly) straightforwards ranged attacks allows for him to be on the weaker/gimmicky side by default. It's also cool how, despite their playability being a ruse, the various overarching mechanics like aiming have a payoff in the Spy's moveset proper.
There's one missed opportunity: The summoned mercs should sometimes use the voice commands. Right now the moment you use one in a disguise it gives you away, and while you could simply wait until you're about to make your move play before making a callout, if the summons could say stuff that would add the extra nuance of the Spy player trying to go along with the callout, and add to the disguise mixups. It wouldn't even need to be often, maybe each summon gets 1 callout, since the Spy wouldn't want to constantly micromanage THEM to begin with.
As a final note, I really need to commend the writing in itself. With the other big movesets I've read, I pretty much just skim through all the meta analysis, and to an extent I did that here with the mini mercs. But when it came time for the main event, I was captivated and wanted to read everything you had to say. Great work, and long live TF2!
Update 1/5
Joe Swanson
As someone who DOES have nostalgia for the early days of Family Guy, this was a fun read. The animations are great, especially using his legs as disjointed weapon hitboxes. Even the gun FSmash has a comedic element since so many characters look silly in the first few frames of their tripping animation before getting capped.
It's neat how his wheelchair affects gameplay in organic ways. The "crawl" is the kind of thing that feels obvious seeing it written out. Likewise with giving his chair the Jr Clown Car treatment, considering the jokes about Jr being paralyzed in Mario Tennis. And of course, there's the DAir and its pseudo wavedash effect.
I think a lot of people would leave "Bring it on!" as a taunt, but turning it into a full-blown special is a great way to involve one of my favorite Joe moments. Gotta love how he can gain the buff, then side-special through a projectile before pummeling the enemy into the dirt.
The Nightstick is a clever twist on a throwable "item" projectile, by simply having it be a battering item. It might be better if anyone could equip it, but to be fair it is meant to be Joe's weapon above all else. There does, however, seem to be something missing: It mentions DThrow having a nightstick version, but there's no mention of this in the actual DThrow. Speaking of throws, BThrow totally needs a collateral hitbox, it is a big spinny throw after all.
Not intentionally, but these do tend to run a while since we end up with so many sets (a good few of which will have sizable word counts).
We usually start the next one a short time after voting is done and votes have been calculated for the previous contest. We have a submission period, followed by a reading period where we're not taking new submissions but still allow and encourage people to read and comment on each other's sets and edit their own based on feedback (which is the period we're currently at), then a voting period where no edits are allowed and votes are cast and tallied.
Not intentionally, but these do tend to run a while since we end up with so many sets (a good few of which will have sizable word counts).
We usually start the next one a short time after voting is done and votes have been calculated for the previous contest. We have a submission period, followed by a reading period where we're not taking new submissions but still allow and encourage people to read and comment on each other's sets and edit their own based on feedback (which is the period we're currently at), then a voting period where no edits are allowed and votes are cast and tallied.
BrazilianGuy
While the coins got a chuckle from me, I feel like they should do something, since he has to get through the roulette without taking damage AND a cooldown just to pull an item to begin with. Could even be as simple as healing 2% as a consolation prize.