Arle Nadja (Puyo Puyo)
Moveset:
General playstyle: Arle is a lightweight character with average height and stamina. Her movement speed is below average across the board, with no additional movement techniques. While she has access to multiple projectiles, she usually can’t use them effectively to zone out her opponents unless they are even slower than her. Therefore, Arle needs to use her down special effectively with the rest of her moveset to gain stage control by placing Puyo block at strategic places and using them to her advantage, by which she can deal much higher damage than her meager normal attack damage and can trap her opponents for devastating damage.
Notable normal attacks:
Normal Attacks
All of Arle’s tilts and air attacks are simple kicks and slaps enhanced by magic, indicated by various fire, light and electric effects.
Smash Attacks
Forward Smash: Thunder. Arle puts her hands together and puts them in front of her, creating a multi-hitting ball of electric from them.
Up Smash: Judgement. Arle focuses and lifts her hand, creating a column of light in front of her. It has a lot of lag but also great vertical reach.
Down Smash: Blizzard. Arle thrusts her palms out, creating two snowflakes at the ground at both her sides. This attack hits multiple times and freezes opponents with low stamina.
Grabs
Arle will grab her opponents with magic, shock them for pummel and then use elemental spells to launch them.
Specials Moves:
Neutral Special: Fireball. Arle sends a zigzagging fireball from her extended fingertip. The projectile deals small damage and burns the opponents. If it hits a Puyo block of her own, it leaves a flaming wall that stops projectiles and traps opponents by dealing contact damage.
Side Special: Heaven’s Ray. Arle swipes her hand and sends a small ball of light that moves forward as long as the special button is held. When the button is released, the sparkle shoots an arrow of light that travels diagonally downward, dealing moderate knockback. If it hits a Puyo block of her own, the block will explode into a burst of light, sending anyone caught into explosion towards where Heaven’s Ray came from.
Up Special: Mind Blast. Arle levitates in place before shooting up by sending waves of psychic energy from her hands downward. Travels a good distance but only vertically. Anyone caught in the initial burst will be meteor smashed. If it hits a Puyo block of her own, the block will disappear by leaving orange waves behind it, stunning anyone who comes near.
Down Special: Puyo Drop. Arle takes a thoughtful pose as two conjoined Puyo block appear above and in front of her. She can hold down the special button to keep them in place for about three seconds during which she can rotate them. When dropped, Puyo blocks are affected by gravity, dealing weak damage when falling and stay in place where they dropped for ten or so seconds. The color of the blocks is determined by player’s selected color palette so they can be red, blue, yellow, green, orange, pink, cyan or purple.
While Puyo blocks are not very useful by themselves, they greatly improve Arle’s other specials when connected, giving her incredible stage control ability when used correctly. If Arle connects four Puyo blocks of her own, she’ll receive a temporary boost to her smash attacks, as indicated by a fire in her hand. These blocks also explode when hit with a strong attack, dealing low damage to Arle and her teammates but high knockback to her opponents.
All-Star Move: Bayoen. Arle raises her hand and summons four large Puyo blocks to her sides, which stun opponents on contact. She then calls the name of her spell and a large column of light with sparkles and flowers in it raises from the ground, pulling in opponents and dealing continuous damage before launching them.
Other:
Aesthetics: Arle’s design is taken from her modern look in Puyo Puyo games. Her design is updated for 3D and therefore feature some texturing in her clothes. Arle’s color palettes are mostly taken from other playable characters in Puyo Puyo, respectively:
(Credit to @PK_King544)
Arle’s shield animation creates a blue magic circle in front of her, inspired by her Counter spell.
Entrance animation: Four Puyo blocks drop on to the stage and pop each other, revealing Arle behind them. She taps her foot impatiently before getting ready for the battle.
Taunts:
Taunt 1: Arle chuckles and makes a V sign.
Taunt 2: Arle creates a small flame at her fingertip before realizing it got too big and frantically putting it off
Taunt 3: Carbuncle appears and jumps at her feet. Arle excitedly waves at her.
Victory Theme:
Chapter Clear
Victory Animations:
Victory 1: Carbuncle jumps into Arle’s hands and she laughs and spins him around., yelling “We did it, Carbuncle!”
Victory 2: A bunch of Puyo blocks jump around as Arle floats down among them and snaps her fingers, creating a burst of confetti around herself.
Victory 3: Arle yells “Yeah! Victory!” and jumps into the air, tripping at landing and catching herself at the last second. She nervously laughs and rubs the back of her head, giving a sheepish victory sign.