I know it may not be balanced or anything, but I don't have the knowledge or means to do a Brawl hack so I definitely can't know if this theoretical would be Brawl Meta Knight broken or Melee Kirby bad.
Weight: same as Bowser
Ground jump height: between Greninja and Captain Falcon
Mid-air jump height: same as Mr. Game & Watch
Air speed: same as Peach/Samus
Falling speed: same as Falco/Mega Man/Little Mac
Walking speed: same as Lucario
Running speed: between Pit and Rosalina
Explanations:
> Weight: I had to give him a higher weight than Donkey Kong, but I didn't want to go crazy by giving him a higher weight than Bowser.
> Jump height: I gave him a high ground jump because of that DKC1 boss fight when he jumps crazy high and because I guess his powerful muscles would make him jump high, but I gave him a low midair jump as K. Rool isn't supposed to be an acrobat, plus he can't rely on his muscles to jump high mid-air because there is no ground under him... High ground jump and low midair jump seems fitting for him and is rather unique.
> Air speed: I don't think K. Rool should be oriented towards aerial combos, so I gave him a bellow average air speed (Peach and Samus are tied for 16th worst air speed in SSB4).
> Falling speed: he looks like he should be a fast-faller for me.
> Walking speed: he doesn't look like he would walk fast, but he doesn't look like he should be sluggish either. This is rather bellow average.
> Running speed: I wanted to give him a dashing speed slightly lower than Donkey Kong's considering K. Rool is slightly slower than DK in the DKC1 boss fight before you hit him for the first (or second?) time. This running speed is slightly above average.
Unique mechanic: King K. Rool's crown acts like a spiny hat and hurts whoever wants to footstool jump on him, inflicting 5% damage and low knockback than can only kill at ridiculous damages like 500%. However, for a few of his attacks, he's not protected by his crown, and if he's footstoll jumped on while this is the case, he will fall completely helpless (in the air) or go to lying on the floor (on the ground). Talking about that, K. Rool's lying position is the same as the one he does when he's defeated (or makes look like so) in DKC1, regardless of if it was done regularly or by footstool jumping.
And now it's... time to talk about aesthetics. Here are how I imagine K. Rool's costumes:
- (Default) King K. Rool
- Kaptain K. Rool
- Baron K. Roolenstein
- King Krusha K. Rool
- King K. Rool (brown skin)
- Kaptain K. Rool (purple skin)
- Baron K. Roolenstein (gray skin)
- King Krusha K. Rool (blue skin)
Note: the first four costumes all show K. Rool with his regular green skin. Also, contrary to what could be understood here, K. Rool doesn't get the "Bowser Jr. treatment", in other words, he doesn't get different announcer calls according to his costumes, and he will always be designated as "King K. Rool" regardless. All his non-King K. Rool costumes also have redesigns to accommodate to his immutable SSB name as well as his moveset: Kaptain and Baron has a crown just like King and Krusha instead of a pirate hat and Frankenstein hair respectively, while Baron and Krusha lack their respective gloves.
And now it's time to show the moveset! Here's the legend:
Unique looking move clearly inspired from the source material
Move inspired from the source material, but looks like generic brawling
Made up filler move
Ground attacks
Jab: a two-hit punching combo using the boxing gloves from DK64. Rather laggy in order to contrast with other jabs using tiny boxing gloves (Little Mac/Villager/Bowser Jr.), not a kill move except at ridiculous percentages, best used to combo into a projectile. This actually looks like a "generic brawling move" but at least the boxing gloves make this move look unique.
Forward tilt: a laggy but powerful forward claw slashing with a wide hitbox.
Up tilt: similar to Bowser's, but K. Rool has his crown in the hand he uses to attack above him. The move has a sweetspot at the crown, and thus is less powerful in the enemy is only hit my K. Rool's arm. Noticeable ending lag leaves K. Rool vulnerable to footstool jump.
Down tilt: basically cloned from Bowser's.
Dash attack: based from those hard-to-dodge forward leaps from the DKC1 boss fight. K. Rool's entire body becomes the move's hitbox during its entire duration, though it is rather weak at the start of the move. It only inflicts high damage and knockback when he lands, then he suffers from a rather noticeable ending lag.
Smash attacks
Up smash: K. Rool does a small jump then two cannonballs fall from above him. See this as a mix between Pikachu's Thunder and Villager's forward smash. Obviously inspired from the cannonball fall from the DKC1 boss fight.
Forward smash: K. Rool uses his blunderbuss from DKC2 to shoot a spiked cannonball forward him. Once the spiked cannonball falls in the ground, it acts like an Unira for about 2 seconds. Charging the move increases the power obviously but also the distance traveled by the cannonball before it falls.
Down smash: inspired from the butt stomp from the DK64 final boss battle. This move has two hitboxes: one that buries if the enemy is hit by K. Rool himself, and one that inflicts vertical knockback if the enemy is hit by the shockwave produced by the butt stomp. Also, the range of the shockwave's hitbox increases alongside the move's charge. It is risky to use, however, due to the huge ending lag. I don't qualify it as "unique looking" and "clearly inspired from the source material" because I don't see the shockwaves aesthetically identical to the N64 ones.
Aerials
Neutral air: basically cloned from Pac-Man's and Sonic's, K. Rool curls himself and spins to attack. Inspired from King of Swim and Jungle Climber boss fight (according to what I read on the OP).
Up aerial:: basically the same as the up tilt.
Forward aerial: a biting attack. Tiny hitbox and low knockback, but inflicts high damage. Even though I think K. Rool never used his jaw to attack in Donkey Kong games (correct me if I'm wrong), he's a crocodile and I had to give him a biting attack, right?
Back air: K. Rool uses his blunderbuss, aiming at his back to attack with a powerful fire burst. This also makes him gain a little horizontal distance, similar to R.O.B.'s back aerial. This move has two hitboxes: one for K. Rool's body, and one for the fire burst from the blunderbuss. Inspired from the DKC2 boss fight where Kaptain K. Rool uses a similar method to move across the battlefield.
Down air: the belly flop attack from Donkey Kong Land. Can meteor. Due to the pose K. Rool takes when using this move, he's vulnerable to footstool jumping, as only the belly, not the back, constitutes the move's hitbox. Considerable landing lag.
Grab
Grab: quite possibly the most unique grab in the entire game, K. Rool uses his blunderbuss to vacuum his opponents. The grab itself has a tiny range, but if the enemy is close enough, it will be trapped in a vacuum vortex and thus able to be grabbed by K. Rool himself. He also uses the blunderbuss to pummel grabbed enemies. The throws look nothing out of the ordinary, but while up, forward and down throw are designed to combo with projectiles, back throw is on the other hand designed to inflict high knockback and can be a kill move by itself at very high damage.
Another unique thing about this grab is that it leaves K. Rool particularly vulnerable to exploding items. If the enemy throws an exploding item inside the blunderbuss while K. Rool is using his vacuum through his grab (items like Bob-Omb or Bombchu, but also Link's bombs or Mega Man's Crash Bomb), then he will do the same confused pose as in the DKC2 battle when a Kong throws a cannonball inside the blunderbuss (he has super armor while doing this pose), then there's a small explosion that hurts K. Rool by inflicting high damage and knockback but also makes the blunderbuss shoot a fast non-spiked cannonball that can kill a highly damaged enemy if hit.
Specials
Neutral B: Freezing gas. Using the blue gas from DKC2, K. Rool quickly shots up to three blue clouds, according to the number of times you press the B button. It doesn't freeze enemies like it does in DKC2, but instead does like Lucas' PK Freeze.
The 2nd variation is called Slowing-down gas, coming from DKC2 as well. The clouds are slower and travel a shorter distance but, instead of freezing the enemy, slow it down like if it was under the effect of the Shadow AT's Chaos Control while inflicting low hitstun. In order to keep things balanced, it doesn't last for long, only for about two seconds, but it may let you enough time to fully charge a smash attack!
The 3rd variation is called Confusing gas and is the final sort of status gas used by Kaptain K. Rool in the DKC2 boss fight. It travels a longer distance than the default variation and inflicts fair knockback, though not enough to reliably kill, and reverses the right and left controls of the target for about three seconds. This doesn't stack with Skull Kid's own control reversing.
Side B: Krown toss. Inspired from the iconic move from the King K. Rool boss fight from DKC1. A strong projectiles than goes far and is quick, but the crown's hitbox is rather small. The farther the crown is from K. Rool, the strongest it becomes. At close range it acts like poor man's Metal Blade (Mega Man's neutral special), but once it goes farther, it inflicts rather high knockback and, at the farthest, it becomes a very strong kill move! However, when during this move, K. Rool is vulnerable to footstool jumping and the knockback he takes is multiplied by 1.5, and contrary to Link he can't move whatsoever until he's hit of naturally gets the crown back!
The 2nd variation is called Swirling krown. It's a crown toss as well, but it doesn't go as far as the default variation and the crown swirls in its trajectory, which means it can hit enemies more easily. Its killing power is also lower than for the default variation. The trajectory is inspired from the swirling spiked cannonballs from DKC2.
The 3rd variation is called Bouncing krown. The crown does three bounces after being thrown and before it returns to K. Rool. The first bounce doesn't go high, but the second goes higher, and the third goes even higher. The crown is more powerful at the top of each bounce. The trajectory is inspired from the bouncing spiked cannonballs from DKC2.
Up B: Helikopter pack. Yes I know, this is pretty much the most common suggestion for K. Rool's recovery, but it would work wonderfully. This move, coming from DKC3, gives to K. Rool an excellent horizontal recovery but only gives him small vertical height. Additionally, it gives him super armor and doesn't let him helpless when the starts to fall, and he can stop to fly at any moment using an aerial move. However, the helicopter pack itself is vulnerable, having a duration of 10 hit points. If the pack loses all of its hit points, then K. Rool falls helpless with a huge landing lag when he hits the ground. Instead of just giving him the helicopter pack and calling it a day, I tried to make this move really faithful to the source material by giving K. Rool the same weak point as in the original game.
The 2nd variation is called Slashing helikopter pack. The helicopter pack is bigger, thus increasing its hurtbox, and it has less HP (6 instead of 10), but its propeller can hurt opponents.
The 3rd variation is called Helikopter assault. It's like the default variation, except that it doesn't go as far (80% or both the duration and speed of the default move), but by pressing the B button, you can now launch small spiny mines that explode quickly or when an enemy hits it. Those mines come from DK: Jungle Climber.
Down B: Invisibility. K. Rool slowly becomes invisible, which gives him 30 frames of invincibility during the move's startup (half a second), then he becomes invisible (but not invincible!) for about 3 seconds. Using this move repetitively will reduce the time during when K. Rool is invincible and invisible. Inspired from the DKC2 and DK64 boss fights.
The 2nd variation is called Tricky teleport. Works similar to Meta Knight's down B, except that you don't attack automatically once you're teleported, and you're still invisible for about one second and half after the teleport. After pressing B+down, you can use the left stick to move, then you can enter the command to use any non-special, non-dash attack move (smash attack, jab, tilt, or grab if on the ground. aerial if in the air). The move you will use as such will have its starting lag ignored. Using this move repetitively also reduces the time during when you're invisible after the teleport. This variation is inspired from how Kaptain K. Rool uses a similar teleporting technique to try to vacuum the Kongs in DKC2.
The 3rd variation is called Kounter and, as its name suggests, it's yet another generic counter. I'm honestly tired of counter down-B specials (no seriously, almost half of the SSB4 newcomer has one), but it would be fine for me if it is only used as a custom variation, similar to Pit's side B. A counter move also fits K. Rool's tricky personality very well, so I kinda wanted to give him one.
Beware, King K. Rool's Final Smash!!
Final Smash: Blast-o-Matic. King K. Rool freezes the battlefield and vanishes similar to the default down B. Then a cutscene shows the Kremling ship from Donkey Kong 64 approaching from the stage, and the Blast-o-Matic is aimed at the stage and is shown blasting a powerful beam. The cutscene ends and a blast of energy hits anyone who's close to King K. Rool when he initiated his Final Smash. This blast inflicts a total of 40% if all hits connect and can reliably kill Bowser (or another K. Rool, btw) from the center of Final Destination at 35%.
cannonball charge. I was thinking maybe it would be similar to Pac Man's 
