Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series)
Palette swaps based on Vergil (dark blue jacket), Trish (black jacket, yellow shirt underneath, blond hair), Lady (black hair, white jacket, white undershirt, dark green pants), Nero (lighter blue jacket than Vergil's, red shirt), V (all black outfit, black hair), Nico (brown jacket, white undershirt, blue pants), and Sparda (purple jacket, red shirt).
The series' logo would be
the hilt of Rebellion - while the sword won't make an appearance in Dante's moveset, it's got a pretty distinct look. As an alternative, like I said last time,
Trish's silhouette from DMC 1 could be used.
For a stage, I'm torn. Third party characters tend to get stages that are either recurring locations or early on in the games in question. Dante's shop, Devil May Cry, seems to be the most commonly recurring location, but it's a bit cramped, along with being an interior location. Then again, given Dante's luck, it could be a stage with destructible walls, spilling out onto the street to give fighters more room and make it so they could be KO'd off the sides as well as the top. On the other hand, from what I recall, stages with destructible elements tend to reset themselves eventually, which might result in that stage not being fun from a gameplay perspective.
Another idea is Urizen's throne room, where Urizen lounges about and launches attacks at the stage. Perhaps Nero could show up from time to time in order to attack Urizen, drawing his attention away from the fighters. (if hazards are turned off, either Urizen's not there, he's just sitting there and watching, or Nero's fighting him the whole time - not sure which would be better)
I'm still sticking with Dante's entrance being him driving in on a motorcycle. While the Cavaliere would work better given the DMC5 theme, that raises the question of why he's not using it, and my previous intro was funnier, so he drives in on Lady's motorcycle, which explodes when it hits the ground, leaving him holding the handlebars before he tosses them to the side. Idle animations would be him putting his fists on his hips and smirking, or slowly falling asleep, like in the DMC games (I think those were his idle animations in 4?).
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Dante's almost entirely going to be using
Devil Sword Dante,
Ebony, and Ivory. Smash hasn't exactly shied away from spoilers (Sheik being used as a transformation for Zelda in Melee, about three years after Ocarina of Time came out, is one of the tamer examples), and Devil Sword Dante offers more to work with than its predecessors. I'll also be including some moves from
Balrog, though since they're going to be punches and kicks, he doesn't necessarily need Balrog equipped to use them - they'll just be used as visual references.
Descriptions of the moves that I'll be referencing are in the links above, though I might add video references later on. For a general overview, here's video clips of
Ebony and Ivory's attacks,
Devil Sword Dante's attacks, and
Balrog's attacks, though I might add specific time-stamps to the moves in question later. Without further ado, here is Dante's moveset!
A --> AA --> AAA: Devil Sword Dante combo B - two basic swings followed by Million Stab, with a finisher to launch foes away from Dante.
Forward A: Four Handed - four red energy blades slash in front of Dante; they don't have much knockback, and are mainly used to build up damage
Up A: Prop - Dante spins his sword in front of him in a circular motion, catching opponents in a multi-hit attack that launches them upwards slightly
Down A: the third hit of Devil Sword Dante combo A - a low sweeping horizontal slash
Forward Smash: Dance Macabre Finisher - Dante winds up like he's about to hit a baseball before sending the opponent flying
Up Smash: Launcher - Dante swings his sword upwards, knocking his opponents into the air
Down Smash: Twosome Time - Dante fires his guns on either side of him. The bullets are laced with demonic energy, which gets larger the more that the move is charged, though the bullets don't go very far. (they go slightly farther the more it's charged)
Neutral Air: Aerial Rave - Dante swings his sword four times to keep his opponent airborne, with the fourth hit knocking them away from him
Forward Air: Feather Combo - a three hit combo that ends with Dante punching his opponent downwards
Back Air: Switch Kick - Dante does a roundhouse kick that hits behind him
Up Air: Updraft - Dante does a backflip, kicking upwards to knock his opponent higher into the air
Down Air: Rainstorm - Dante spins around, shooting Ebony and Ivory downwards at the ground. It's the attack that Joker stole from him.
Dash Attack: Stingers - not to be confused with Stinger - this is the Devil Sword Dante attack where red swords appear in front of Dante, spiraling like a drill. For the sake of Smash, they'll stick close to him, acting as a sort of barrier as he dashes
Wake Up Attack: Break Spiral - Dante does a break dance, spinning around to trip up his opponent
Climb Attack: the first hit of Balrog's kick combo, a sweeping kick
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Grab: a standard one-handed grab
Pummel: pistol whipping the opponent
Forward Throw: Jackpot - Dante lets go of the opponent and energy charges in his guns before they shoot out a red and yellow beam to knock the opponent away - the move that he finished off Mundus with
Back Throw: Drive - previously his neutral special, it's now demoted to a throw. Dante turns around and charges his sword, holding it behind him in a reverse grip before swinging it forward. A red crescent beam of energy launches from the sword, carrying the opponent with it.
Up Throw: Bullet Juggle - Dante tosses his opponent into the air before shooting them with Ebony and Ivory to keep them suspended there for a bit
Down Throw: Wild Stomp - Dante stomps on his downed opponent before firing rapidly at them with Ebony and Ivory, kicking them away at the end
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All taunts are referenced from
here.
Up Taunt: "Huh, this should make things easier." Dante steps forward, swinging Devil Sword Dante. (it doesn't do any damage) The sword disappears at the end of each swing before reappearing in his hand. He holds it up to examine it and says the line in question.
Side Taunt: "Not slacking, are ya?" Dante shrugs his shoulders, looking disappointed.
Down Taunt: "Come on, you can do it! Over here!" Dante crouches over, claps, and beckons, as though he's calling a dog.
Dante also has an air taunt, because of course he does. Pressing any taunt button in the air causes him to toss out a rose, which deals 1% damage if it hits and can be used to gimp an opponent's recovery. For the sake of balance, this can only be used once until he lands.
If you hold down any taunt button while on the ground, Dante goes into an extended taunt
which needs to be seen to be believed. The game doesn't have a style gauge or Red Orbs, so it has no practical function, but it would be pretty impressive to see the full animation. Maybe the red orbs that fall from the sky around Dante could deal some damage.
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Now we get to the specials, which is where it gets complicated. I'll save his Neutral B for last, since that requires the most explanation.
Up B: High Time/Helm Splitter - Dante swings upwards like his up smash, except this time, he launches himself into the air with his opponent. Pressing B again causes Dante to swing his sword, plummeting towards the ground. It's similar to Cloud's up B move.
Side B: Stinger - DAH! Dante dashes forward, stabbing his sword and covering a lot of ground, though it's very unsafe on shield
Down B: Style Switch - Dante changes which style he's using, striking the related pose from DMC4 and 5 as he does so. You can hold B to select the style, like Shulk's Monado arts, or you can tap it to cycle through them. Yes, this can be spammed, so either the individual poses or the button mashing variants can effectively be taunts online. The Style that you're using is indicated near Dante's stock icon, and the set-up is similar to DMC5 - T (Trickster) on top, G (Gunslinger) and S (Swordmaster) on the sides, and R (Royal Guard) on the bottom, with a circle around it to show how much the gauge has built up.
B: Style Button - using it depends on which style you have equipped.
-Trickster: Dash/Sky Star - Dante disappears, dashing forward - the direction can be influenced slightly by using up or down while Dante's vanished. If you're holding B and you touch an opponent, Dante uses Mustang, jumping off of his opponent and gaining another use of Sky Star.
-Swordmaster: Round Trips - spinning red energy swords are launched forward as a projectile. If held down, this becomes Swords Formation, where Dante summons red energy swords around himself. The functionality of these changes based on which style you have equipped.
a) Chaser - in Swordmaster form, the energy swords follow up Dante's A attacks that use swords
b) Interceptor - in Gunslinger form, swords home in on the nearest opponent that's in front of Dante, though they don't do much damage or go very far
c) Reactor - you get an extra Trick use (so if you're knocked off stage while this is active, you can use Sky Star twice)
d) Escort - the swords will tank up to two hits, and each hit they tank fills up the Royal Guard gauge
If you use Swords Formation, the letter S is darkened, and you can't use it again until it refills. It will only start refilling once the summoned swords have disappeared.
-Gunslinger: Honeycomb Fire - Dante fires both guns rapidly in front of himself, which has a range comparable to Bayonetta's neutral special. The B button can be held to charge the move, which gives it greater knockback and more damage.
-Royal Guard: Block/Royal Block - Dante flashes red at the start of the block animation to indicate the timing for Royal Block, which is fairly tight. Dante gets into a guarding stance for a moment, though there's a decent amount of endlag to keep it from being spammed. While in this stance (which he only holds for a short time), it acts similarly to Joker's Rebels' Guard, making Dante take less damage (though he can be grabbed out of it) and filling the Royal Guard gauge by a notch. If you successfully pull off Royal Block, Dante takes even less damage and the gauge fills up faster, though blocking with Royal Guard is the only way to fill up that gauge - it doesn't fill up by attacking, and it doesn't increase over time. If you hold B, this becomes Release, where Dante empties the gauge to release a fast but (if the gauge is high enough) powerful blow. Using this while the gauge is full turns it into Royal Release, where he dashes forward slightly and punches while surrounded by red energy, dealing significantly more damage. (though it takes a lot of work to get to that point)
For his Final Smash, Dante uses Judgement. Stabbing himself with Devil Sword Dante (or maybe having it merge with his body if the animation of stabbing himself in the chest is a bit excessive), Dante turns into his
Sin Devil Trigger form, delivering a series of rapid slashes before ending with an explosion that engulfs him, turning back to normal in the aftermath.
Words don't do it justice, but it instantly KO's any opponent who's unfortunate enough to get caught in it and be over 100% damage at the end.
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For his victory poses, one would be the same as in
Marvel vs. Capcom 3, while another would be
his victory pose from the Bloody Palace mode in DMC5. For the third, there are several options that I'm torn between (something from his Shakespearean moment in DMC4, tossing a rose at the screen), but I'll go with my gut and having him chowing down on some pizza.
I'll stick with
a snippet from the DMC1 title theme for his victory music, though the theme for beating Bloody Palace with Dante could work as well.
When Kirby absorbs Dante, he gets Dante's hair, and maybe a bit of Dante's stubble since it would look funny on him. While Dante defaults to Trickster, the idea of Kirby with up to two horizontal teleports and potentially another jump on top of his recovery seems extreme, to say the least, so instead, he'll use Round Trips, throwing out four spinning energy swords.
) but hey it's never enough.
