Doc Monocle
Smash Ace
Swanky Kong is a Donkey Kong series character who first appears in Diddy's Kong Quest, making a second appearance in Dixie's Double Trouble. In the former, he runs a quiz show called Bonus Bonanza, in which he asks game related questions, rewarding the player with red (one-life), green (two-life) , and blue (three-life) extra-life ballons, depending on how many questions are answered correctly, which come from prize barrels in the background (as you would expect, it costs banana coins, the tender used throughout the game, to play); and in the latter, he owns Swanky's Side Show, a carnival-themed minigame (still costing money in bear coins, newly minted in Dixie's Double Trouble) in which the player faces off against Cranky Kong in one of two versions of play where the player enters rear-view and must side step and throw balls at targets which randomly appear through a window, and if you hit more targets than Cranky, Swanky, who awaits from within a prize barrel, throws a combination of bananas and bear coins. Despite his sucessive appearances in these games and membership within the Kong family, Swanky is ,unfortunately, not a very significanr character overall. However, WE CAN GIVE HIM HIS CHANCE!
Would it not be quite an eye catching novelty if this extravagant Kong was a playable character? He would have similar passive qualities to Donkey Kong, such as launch resistance, except that the former does not travel as fast on the ground or in the air. I am glad if you asked, "How is Swanky Possibly going to do battle without being a Donkey Kong echo?" I shall detail this momentarily. Swanky does not have a combat capacity in his home series (that I know of), but five points say he should in Smash Bros. and one point in particular would be an incentive for Nintendo to cut him in:
1: he has yet to make a playable appearance, and he therefore would have an extensive following in the Kong fanbase, if only for the appeal of novelty.
2: I would argue that he has the greatest potential of the Kongs to have a unique moveset type, since he has not had the chance to be "battle hardened" (presumed to have or not have certain moves because they were or were not seen in a fighting context)
3: Of course, this is my opinion, but he has the potential to have ,amongst the Kongs, the most interesting sense of personality traceable to his on-screen appearances in the Donkey Kong franchise and displayed in his moves (possibly barring Cranky), not consisting of typically overused demeanors like the "happy-go-lucky-by-coffee-and-candy," "hero-and-not-much-else," "hero's-oversupportive-sidekick-and-inferiority-contrast...and-not-much-else," or " 'assistive'-but-not-helpful-tag-along" molds. There is much room for making him practically and aesthetically stand out in the roster as an entrepreneur with flare, and ex-noncombatant, turned Smash Bros. favorite.
4: Many options exist (due to his demeanor and unprecedented former role by the roster) for unique mechanics, yet there is enough information to the character's appearance, environment and theme of residence, and actions within that residence that deriving inspiration for his playstyle, attributes, and animations does not totally subject itself to the whims of imagination when you are looking to justify the majority of his moves.
5: Let us be frank. HE IS AN APE ! It is bound to happen that he would have some use for his natural strength other than throwing bananas, money, and (you may laugh) balloons, and stroking his hair!
6. Due to his assistive nature in the home series, obscure history, and his semi-mysterious relationship to the rest of the Kongs, he has the potential after Ultimate to star in his own spinoff series, which could be quite popular. I could even see him later becoming a turncoat or teeter totter, a traitor who sells out the Kongs in times of danger. There are many ways to make an intriguing story with him.
2: I would argue that he has the greatest potential of the Kongs to have a unique moveset type, since he has not had the chance to be "battle hardened" (presumed to have or not have certain moves because they were or were not seen in a fighting context)
3: Of course, this is my opinion, but he has the potential to have ,amongst the Kongs, the most interesting sense of personality traceable to his on-screen appearances in the Donkey Kong franchise and displayed in his moves (possibly barring Cranky), not consisting of typically overused demeanors like the "happy-go-lucky-by-coffee-and-candy," "hero-and-not-much-else," "hero's-oversupportive-sidekick-and-inferiority-contrast...and-not-much-else," or " 'assistive'-but-not-helpful-tag-along" molds. There is much room for making him practically and aesthetically stand out in the roster as an entrepreneur with flare, and ex-noncombatant, turned Smash Bros. favorite.
4: Many options exist (due to his demeanor and unprecedented former role by the roster) for unique mechanics, yet there is enough information to the character's appearance, environment and theme of residence, and actions within that residence that deriving inspiration for his playstyle, attributes, and animations does not totally subject itself to the whims of imagination when you are looking to justify the majority of his moves.
5: Let us be frank. HE IS AN APE ! It is bound to happen that he would have some use for his natural strength other than throwing bananas, money, and (you may laugh) balloons, and stroking his hair!
6. Due to his assistive nature in the home series, obscure history, and his semi-mysterious relationship to the rest of the Kongs, he has the potential after Ultimate to star in his own spinoff series, which could be quite popular. I could even see him later becoming a turncoat or teeter totter, a traitor who sells out the Kongs in times of danger. There are many ways to make an intriguing story with him.
I failed to save my first draft, so some of my original thoughts are lost, but in brevity, he borrows some moves from Donkey Kong, but mostly has his own. He has the ability to dispense items from and shield himself in prize barrels, uses a shield special to sidestep into the background and move with intangibility for a total of thirty seconds for the whole match, and has a mechanic 'Shined Shoes and Waxed Floors' which initially gives him less traction than Luigi, but as he takes damage, this increases, giving him beneficially quirky shield, neutral, and mind games. Though his weakness is inconsistent results on his moves and an inability to play a homogenous game on many fronts.
Neutral Attack (AA): Swanky extends his right arm in front of him in a thumbs down gesture (3%), steps forward, clasps his hands together, and swings from his lower left to his upper right (6%). This move does good damage if both hits connect, and has decent range, but is not disjointed, and both hits ordinarily do not land consecutively after the opponent has sustained 30%. It comes out quickly though; frame 5 is my first thought, and Swanky slides back slightly after the thumbs down. So it works well as a halting move, even against shielding opponents when properly spaced. However the end lag after the diagonal swing is simply awful for a jab, so neutral attack probably works best as a single move poke.
Ftilt (5%): Swanky swing his right arm quickly in a similar fashion to Donkey Kong, but slightly more diagonally oriented, meant to resemble an announcer showcasing an attraction, but visually more practical as an attack, giving the move decent horizontal and vertical range.
Running Animation: Swanky sprints, holding his arms in place as if he is bracing for a shoulder tackle.
Dash Attack (12%): Swanky stops in his tracks and fully extends his left arm in a forward punch. This move comes out quickly and does good damage, but has contemptible endlag. It will K.O. horizontally after about 140%. (All launches are referenced from the center of Final Destination against a character in Mario's ballpark weight range.)
Utilt: This move is identical to Donkey Kong's Utilt.
Dtilt: Swanky extends both arms forward and downward in a thumbs down motion (8%), tripping low damage opponents. He then automatically smiles and raises one eyebrow as he extends his arms downward for an additional 5%, though the second hit does almost no flinch, so if he misses the first hit, this proves itself as little more than an extension to his endlag. It starts at frame 9.
Fsmash (12%, uncharged): Swanky lifts his right leg, pulls his foot back with both hands, and then releases it to launch close range opponent a considerable distance horizontally for its damage. In reality, a move like this would be extremely slow, but this is not reality, is it? No, it starts up rather quick.
Usmash: This move is identical to Donkey Kong's Usmash.
Dsmash (53%!, any charge): This would undoubtedly be his most controversial smash attack. Strike that... This would probably be the most controversial smash attack in Smash Bros. history! A button appears in the foreground in front of Swanky, who then faces the screen, lifts his right arm high in the air, and 'smashes' the button. If no prize barrels (explained later) are present on the stage, that is really all that happens-- empty smash. However, if there are any prize barrels in play, one of three things happen to each of them as mutually exclusive events: A puff of smoke comes out a barrel and nothing happens, the barrel disappearing afterwards; a random item flies out of a barrel and lands on the ground, the barrel disappearing afterwards; or the barrel detonates, inflicting the aforementioned damage, guaranteeing a K.O. on most characters, and obviously disappearing afterwards. Extremely high risk, high reward this move is as it has a full second of startup, and each barrel exclusively has a 33% probability of detonating, 65% probability of launching an item, and 2% chance of smoking. However, the end lag can be acted out of (and is thus not true endlag).
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Fair, Dair, and Uair are all borrowed from Donkey Kong.
Nair: Swanky tucks his body in and punches behind him and upward with his left arm (5%), and then in front of him and downward with his right arm (8%).Each punch accelerates Swanky backward and forward, respectively, aiding his retreat and approach as well as shrinking his hurtbox in the opposite direction of each punch. However, the move causes great landing lag if not completely terminated mid air, which does not happen without double jumping, and there is a significant delay between each punch.
Bair: Swanky extends his right arm behind him in a thumbs up gesture (13%). The move has a late hitbox (3%), good range and comes out quickly, but has a quirk exploitable by a correct read. If the opponent perfect shields the initial or late part of the attack, they heal 13% or 3% , respectively.
Standing dodge invulnerability lasts 64 frames! It is useful against lingering hit boxes, but not so much against quick, low-endlag, single hit attacks like jabs. It is best used preemptively.
Bthrow, Dthrow, and Uthrow, as well as grab and pummel are from Donkey Kong's grapple set, but...
Fthrow: Swanky manually spins the opponent around with both arms (2% for each of three spins), dizzying them. They are forced into the shield break stun animation. This is a great combo move and kill confirm at high percents. That it comes out from a grab and has the mentioned effect would arguably make it the best kill confirm in the game.
Neutral Special - Award Winning Smile: Swanky steps back and slightly opens his arms with bent elbows in invitation before brightly smiling. His gold tooth then twinkles, blinding and stunning an opponent within deku nut blast range of his teeth. It deals no damage and is quite hard to place thanks to its fairly short range and telegraphic start lag, but it acts through shields and can be cancelled into a roll. Endlag is very punishable due to his post-move chuckling.
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Down Special - Step Right Up!: Swanky climbs into a prize barrel, in which he stands up. From there he can jump out, leaving the barrel on the stage (or falling if the move is used off stage), duck to reduce his hurtbox, or throw an item along a trajectory that is controllable in a similar fashion to Yoshi's Egg Toss (this can only happen while standing up), but only one thrown item can be in play at time unless his Final Smash (mentioned later) is active . The barrel absorbs all attacks until it sustains 30%, at which point, Swanky must wait 10 seconds before being able to spawn another. A maximum of three prize barrels can be on stage at once.
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Side Special - Play to Win!: Swanky faces the screen and leans toward the background, pointing with both index fingers in the direction of the nearest prize barrel. The said barrel then has an image appear on its surface revealing what item, if any will be launched if triggered or attacked. When smash inputted , this move plays out as before, but the image if any is NOT what is actually in the barrel. The deception! This move can be used to toy with your opponents or be certain of the outcome for Dsmash, but has no immediate combat value.
Up Special - Extra Life: Swanky grasps a cluster of balloons, whose qualities depend on color, which in turn depend on damage, and rises as the balloons ascend. By using the control stick, Swanky may swing back and forth to drift left or right, but this takes practice to get a 'hang' of. The ballons pop by taking enough damage or hitting a ceiling or blast zone. At any time, he may release or jump from the balloons. This is a virtually infinite recovery. The colors are:
Gold ( Swanky's damage= 0%): A single 'Swanky face' balloon. It has the second best controllability, and vertical and horizontal air speed. It also takes up to 12% damage before popping, but be warned. If the balloon pops, you will have no other life line, and Swanky enters helpless state. Goodbye!
Blue (1% - 29%): A pentuple of 'Dixie face' ballons. These have the best, non-gold horizontal movement, and are moderately easy to control. They take 8% damage, but if one balloon pops, there are four others to continue lifting Swanky (though at a proportionally slower speed), thus an attack to the balloons in order to gimp must be ranged.
Green(30% - 99%): A trio of 'Diddy face' balloons. These have the greatest vertical and horizontal speed of the non-gold balloons, but pop at (5%) and are the most difficult to control.
If you guessed Red, then you are today's winner( 100%+): A single 'Donkey Face' balloon. It travels the slowest in any direction, and has no back up, but is more controllable than even the gold ballon. It takes up to 18% damage.
Final Smash Swanky's Side Show: Swanky motions his right hand toward the screen in visual announcement. Then, after a delay, balls fly from random coordinates supposed to be behind the screen, and along random trajectories, pelting opponents with 12% damage and minor flinch on each hit. Targets then start appearing on the screen at random locations and at an increasing rate. Each target that is hit by an attack or ball emits a shockwave that deals a drastic 23% damage, causing a K.O. at around 85%. The balls can be grabbed with precise timing, but it is more practical to dodge. All the while, Swanky is controllable! He can throw items while in a prize barrel, and three may be on the field at once during the final smash. It is total chaos! The move concludes about 10 seconds later with a bonus deluge of items gushing from the prize barrels (if present), with more, and more items when the opponent has less, and less damage.
Up Taunt: Swanky strokes his hair as he does in Donkey Kong Country 2.
Down Taunt: Swanky extends both hands in front of him. Coins then fall through his fingers as he appears to be enticing someone
Side Taunt: Swanky faces the screen. A flashing sign saying "SWANKY'S !" then appears above the screen while he smiles.
Idle 1: Swanky smiles brightly and folds his arms.
Idle 2: Swanky faces toward from the screen, turns his head, and turns an open palm away the screen. This is another reference to a Donkey Kong Country 2 animation..
Idle 3: Swanky faces the screen and smiles. A banana coin appears in front of him as he gives a thumbs up.
Victory Pose 1: Swanky spreads out his arms and slowly places his closed hands on his chest as if grasping suspenders. All the while he is wearing a shiny smile.
Victory Pose 2: He borrows Donkey's bonus-level-complete animation.
Victory Pose 3: Swanky is initially facing toward the losers. He then abruptly turns his head and gives a thumbs up to the camera, donning his now signature smile, which twinkles.
Ftilt (5%): Swanky swing his right arm quickly in a similar fashion to Donkey Kong, but slightly more diagonally oriented, meant to resemble an announcer showcasing an attraction, but visually more practical as an attack, giving the move decent horizontal and vertical range.
Running Animation: Swanky sprints, holding his arms in place as if he is bracing for a shoulder tackle.
Dash Attack (12%): Swanky stops in his tracks and fully extends his left arm in a forward punch. This move comes out quickly and does good damage, but has contemptible endlag. It will K.O. horizontally after about 140%. (All launches are referenced from the center of Final Destination against a character in Mario's ballpark weight range.)
Utilt: This move is identical to Donkey Kong's Utilt.
Dtilt: Swanky extends both arms forward and downward in a thumbs down motion (8%), tripping low damage opponents. He then automatically smiles and raises one eyebrow as he extends his arms downward for an additional 5%, though the second hit does almost no flinch, so if he misses the first hit, this proves itself as little more than an extension to his endlag. It starts at frame 9.
Fsmash (12%, uncharged): Swanky lifts his right leg, pulls his foot back with both hands, and then releases it to launch close range opponent a considerable distance horizontally for its damage. In reality, a move like this would be extremely slow, but this is not reality, is it? No, it starts up rather quick.
Usmash: This move is identical to Donkey Kong's Usmash.
Dsmash (53%!, any charge): This would undoubtedly be his most controversial smash attack. Strike that... This would probably be the most controversial smash attack in Smash Bros. history! A button appears in the foreground in front of Swanky, who then faces the screen, lifts his right arm high in the air, and 'smashes' the button. If no prize barrels (explained later) are present on the stage, that is really all that happens-- empty smash. However, if there are any prize barrels in play, one of three things happen to each of them as mutually exclusive events: A puff of smoke comes out a barrel and nothing happens, the barrel disappearing afterwards; a random item flies out of a barrel and lands on the ground, the barrel disappearing afterwards; or the barrel detonates, inflicting the aforementioned damage, guaranteeing a K.O. on most characters, and obviously disappearing afterwards. Extremely high risk, high reward this move is as it has a full second of startup, and each barrel exclusively has a 33% probability of detonating, 65% probability of launching an item, and 2% chance of smoking. However, the end lag can be acted out of (and is thus not true endlag).
Fair, Dair, and Uair are all borrowed from Donkey Kong.
Nair: Swanky tucks his body in and punches behind him and upward with his left arm (5%), and then in front of him and downward with his right arm (8%).Each punch accelerates Swanky backward and forward, respectively, aiding his retreat and approach as well as shrinking his hurtbox in the opposite direction of each punch. However, the move causes great landing lag if not completely terminated mid air, which does not happen without double jumping, and there is a significant delay between each punch.
Bair: Swanky extends his right arm behind him in a thumbs up gesture (13%). The move has a late hitbox (3%), good range and comes out quickly, but has a quirk exploitable by a correct read. If the opponent perfect shields the initial or late part of the attack, they heal 13% or 3% , respectively.
Standing dodge invulnerability lasts 64 frames! It is useful against lingering hit boxes, but not so much against quick, low-endlag, single hit attacks like jabs. It is best used preemptively.
Bthrow, Dthrow, and Uthrow, as well as grab and pummel are from Donkey Kong's grapple set, but...
Fthrow: Swanky manually spins the opponent around with both arms (2% for each of three spins), dizzying them. They are forced into the shield break stun animation. This is a great combo move and kill confirm at high percents. That it comes out from a grab and has the mentioned effect would arguably make it the best kill confirm in the game.
Neutral Special - Award Winning Smile: Swanky steps back and slightly opens his arms with bent elbows in invitation before brightly smiling. His gold tooth then twinkles, blinding and stunning an opponent within deku nut blast range of his teeth. It deals no damage and is quite hard to place thanks to its fairly short range and telegraphic start lag, but it acts through shields and can be cancelled into a roll. Endlag is very punishable due to his post-move chuckling.
Down Special - Step Right Up!: Swanky climbs into a prize barrel, in which he stands up. From there he can jump out, leaving the barrel on the stage (or falling if the move is used off stage), duck to reduce his hurtbox, or throw an item along a trajectory that is controllable in a similar fashion to Yoshi's Egg Toss (this can only happen while standing up), but only one thrown item can be in play at time unless his Final Smash (mentioned later) is active . The barrel absorbs all attacks until it sustains 30%, at which point, Swanky must wait 10 seconds before being able to spawn another. A maximum of three prize barrels can be on stage at once.
Side Special - Play to Win!: Swanky faces the screen and leans toward the background, pointing with both index fingers in the direction of the nearest prize barrel. The said barrel then has an image appear on its surface revealing what item, if any will be launched if triggered or attacked. When smash inputted , this move plays out as before, but the image if any is NOT what is actually in the barrel. The deception! This move can be used to toy with your opponents or be certain of the outcome for Dsmash, but has no immediate combat value.
Up Special - Extra Life: Swanky grasps a cluster of balloons, whose qualities depend on color, which in turn depend on damage, and rises as the balloons ascend. By using the control stick, Swanky may swing back and forth to drift left or right, but this takes practice to get a 'hang' of. The ballons pop by taking enough damage or hitting a ceiling or blast zone. At any time, he may release or jump from the balloons. This is a virtually infinite recovery. The colors are:
Gold ( Swanky's damage= 0%): A single 'Swanky face' balloon. It has the second best controllability, and vertical and horizontal air speed. It also takes up to 12% damage before popping, but be warned. If the balloon pops, you will have no other life line, and Swanky enters helpless state. Goodbye!
Blue (1% - 29%): A pentuple of 'Dixie face' ballons. These have the best, non-gold horizontal movement, and are moderately easy to control. They take 8% damage, but if one balloon pops, there are four others to continue lifting Swanky (though at a proportionally slower speed), thus an attack to the balloons in order to gimp must be ranged.
Green(30% - 99%): A trio of 'Diddy face' balloons. These have the greatest vertical and horizontal speed of the non-gold balloons, but pop at (5%) and are the most difficult to control.
If you guessed Red, then you are today's winner( 100%+): A single 'Donkey Face' balloon. It travels the slowest in any direction, and has no back up, but is more controllable than even the gold ballon. It takes up to 18% damage.
Final Smash Swanky's Side Show: Swanky motions his right hand toward the screen in visual announcement. Then, after a delay, balls fly from random coordinates supposed to be behind the screen, and along random trajectories, pelting opponents with 12% damage and minor flinch on each hit. Targets then start appearing on the screen at random locations and at an increasing rate. Each target that is hit by an attack or ball emits a shockwave that deals a drastic 23% damage, causing a K.O. at around 85%. The balls can be grabbed with precise timing, but it is more practical to dodge. All the while, Swanky is controllable! He can throw items while in a prize barrel, and three may be on the field at once during the final smash. It is total chaos! The move concludes about 10 seconds later with a bonus deluge of items gushing from the prize barrels (if present), with more, and more items when the opponent has less, and less damage.
Up Taunt: Swanky strokes his hair as he does in Donkey Kong Country 2.
Down Taunt: Swanky extends both hands in front of him. Coins then fall through his fingers as he appears to be enticing someone
Side Taunt: Swanky faces the screen. A flashing sign saying "SWANKY'S !" then appears above the screen while he smiles.
Idle 1: Swanky smiles brightly and folds his arms.
Idle 2: Swanky faces toward from the screen, turns his head, and turns an open palm away the screen. This is another reference to a Donkey Kong Country 2 animation..
Idle 3: Swanky faces the screen and smiles. A banana coin appears in front of him as he gives a thumbs up.
Victory Pose 1: Swanky spreads out his arms and slowly places his closed hands on his chest as if grasping suspenders. All the while he is wearing a shiny smile.
Victory Pose 2: He borrows Donkey's bonus-level-complete animation.
Victory Pose 3: Swanky is initially facing toward the losers. He then abruptly turns his head and gives a thumbs up to the camera, donning his now signature smile, which twinkles.
Classic Mode: "Ya Wanna Be Rich!"
Swanky's route would mostly consist of various allusions to his background as an announcer and bonus round host, with money-hungry opponents, large or flashy stages, or characters from games with emphasis on paying special visits to rooms to receive rewards. Earthbound was of poor marketing and reception before Smash Bros. so it is acknowledged.
And there you have it, support this fancy Kong, please!
Supporters:
R RetrogamerMax
Dolph63
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