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1. Gilius
2. Beat
3. Hornet
1. Honey
2. Horatio
3. Jack
2. Beat
3. Hornet
1. Honey
2. Horatio
3. Jack
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Oh, the "misc. info" section is for things like taunts, palette swaps, victory animations, that kinda stuffWell, here's my thinking for #135.
With Beat as a playable character, I'd like to bring elements of what makes him, and his game series, unique - meaning that there's a lot of things to consider. In terms of movement, however, I'd say that bringing the feel of the JSR series into three words would look something like:
Speed, Rhythm, and Style.
Allow me to explain each one.
Speed comes from the basic nature of how you move in the world of JSR. Being on roller blades (and having ROCKETS in JSRF), you're obviously much faster than most - and this speed and evasiveness is a key aspect in many situations. For example, looking at how combat is handled in the series, you often find yourself fighting tanky enemies, having to evade them with the tools at your disposal - often coming down to simply "where are you going and what are you going to do." With this game being based on conflict, this evasive, pincer-striking playstyle seems like an effective one.
Rhythm comes from a slightly different aspect of the JSR series. In the original Jet Set Radio, for example, controller prompts not unlike those seen in rhythm games were how you'd spray graffiti - and furthermore, performing tricks and stunts as you traverse the world of Tokyo-To requires a sense of rhythm, an attunement with one's surroundings as you try and progress. I think that this would lend well, in addition to the first point, to a playstyle that rewards you being able to react on the fly, keeping a pace as you go along - and maintaining it even in stressful situations.
Style comes from the final point I think is important to JSR. It's undeniable that the series has its own unique "look," but aside from that, even smaller matters such as the characters' designs and personalities are important to consider as well. The nature we see of the characters, primarily Beat in this case, is that of a rebellious youth - not "stylish" in the same way as the Lupin-esque flamboyance of Joker, but rather, stylish in his late-90s to early-00s, pop-culture-based appearance. It's key to catch this.
As such, this suggests a combination of these is necessary, and my best way of describing it would be "A fast-moving character with lots of combo strings, though who has low-enough weight to easily be knocked back if they screw up. Their playstyle rewards a sense of rhythm and speed, running circles around your opponents, in order to attain victory."
Yes, the word "gimmick" is probably the equivalent to being set on fire to some people, but hey - what's a character without a weird, slightly unusual mechanic?... ah.
Anyways, back on track - I have two gimmicks in mind for him. The first is one that'll bring a whole new element to Beat's overall gameplay unique to other characters. See, unlike other characters, there are wheels on his shoes, and that means that physics work... a little differently for him. Given that Beat doesn't run, his movement rather uses a skating style that's unique to the rest of the cast, whilst still fitting in. My thinking is this:
As you would normally walk, Beat would skate. Now, this means that his "initial" walking speed is quite slow, but speeds up over time - it's possible to go straight into a dash by holding the joystick completely to the side, but this allows you to control Beat's speed quite well depending how much you hold the stick to one side. Should you completely let go of the stick, Beat's going to follow the laws of physics like a good boy, and continue rolling. He'll of course slow down over time, but where this is interesting is in that this allows many of Beat's moves to combo more effectively on the ground. For instance, he's theoretically able to use a smash attack whilst moving, but you need to bear in mind that this'll be difficult to manage effectively for laggy moves.
You're probably thinking, "wouldn't it make it difficult to turn around?" Well, yes - Beat's dash attack will help there, though. (I'm aware this bleeds into the next section, but ech, I'll get into it here.) It functions similarly to the ability to stop by turning in the source material, and will bring you to a stop when used. However, if you hold the stick in the other direction as you dash attack, you'll actually keep your momentum but in the opposite direction. As it happens, the same animation is used for turning around - but it won't activate a hitbox unless you hit the jab button at the same time.
On that - your speed will be shown with a little indicator next to your UI. This is a ****ty mockup I made about a year ago, but it's a basic idea. (IGNORE THE SPRAY CANS. For now...)
View attachment 343478
Your speed is indicated by the meter on the side. It might seem useless, but many of your grounded attacks may be marginally more powerful or have slightly altered stats such as knockback depending on your speed (overall, it'll be useful to keep your speed up as much as possible for optimum results.)
The second "gimmick" is in the form of spray cans. Similar to Inkling, Beat has a paint mechanic, though his differs in that it uses spray cans with descrete numberings. He can carry up to 30 at a time, and builds them up by attacking opponents, as well as slowly over time. These can be used in certain attacks, as well as one of the specials that I'll get into later.
So, we need to keep with the idea of our attacks being based on the tenets of Speed, Rhythm and Style that I originally proposed.
Here's my first thought - aerials. Pretty much every notable non-grinding stunt that the characters perform in JSR is in the air, and I think it's unreasonable not to give them these tricks and stunts in the air too. It'll be a little difficult to bring it down to 5, but here's my best shot!
For example, Down Air is a stunt named the 1080. Similar to characters in Smash like Joker and Samus, Beat would twirl around in a downward direction a total of three times. Interestingly, the stunt itself would cover a surprising amount of ground, as the first attack would lean forward slightly (maybe at around 70 degrees?), the second directly downward, and the third backward at the same angle. The sweet spot would of course be in his feet given how heavy those skates must be, but being hit by the legs would still multi-hit. The last hit spikes.
I won't do every single move in his arsenal because it'd be a nightmare, but here's a few I'd like to go into detail with.
Beat's Dash Attack was touched on earlier, but my concept is that it's both an attack and a mobility tool considering Beat's unique movement mechanics. Whilst it doesn't do much damage, it does kick up sparks that can make opponents flinch (the equivalent of kicking dirt into someone's eyes... harsh.)
Notably, I'd like to point out that his Down Smash will always stop him in place as well. Being based on his introduction in JSR as well as breakdancing as a whole, he'll plant his hands on the ground and spin with his legs open, multi-hitting opponents around him. It's a surprisingly solid tool for crowd control.
Beat's Down Tilt could maybe use one of his moves used when grinding on rails?
Also, I'd suggest maybe his Up Tilt and Jab Combo could use cans... just a thought. Some might, some may not.
Neutral Air would have Beat use an Abstract 360 where he tucks into a ball and spins, but if he has cans and uses it, he sprays them as he spins, using up a can but still dealing extra damage in the process, as well as added range.
That should do for now! Next up:
For specials, let's do something a little unusual. First I'll start with:
Neutral B: Tagger's Tag. Being from arguably one of the most important mechanics in the original game, this attack allows him to spray a can of spray paint in front of him, "tagging." If an enemy is caught in the cloud of spray paint, they get “tagged” - shown by Beat’s tag (a small amount of graffiti as well as some paint!) being placed upon them. This does 5% damage at first, then minimal progressive damage similar to the effect of the Lip’s Stick, though the effect will eventually wear off. If an enemy gets caught inside the spray, then a “target” similar to Sonic’s homing attack will appear over them to indicate that they’ve been hit, that appears like the graffiti areas in the source game.
Notably, if it misses an enemy, then the tag will just be sprayed onto the floor in most stages (unless it's not possible for whatever reason.) It doesn’t actually do anything, but acts as a sort of reference to how it’s, well… graffiti. Notably, it actually sprays the SS symbol on opponents (the colourful one) but sprays the S symbol on the floor (the blue one.) I'll expand on this later.
Side B: Boost Dash. Ripped from JSRF, one of the new mechanics in the game was the ability to suddenly shoot like a rocket! This works similarly - using up 5 cans (instead of 10 like in the original game), Beat will suddenly gain a burst of speed to his movement that will let him do damage whilst moving at such a speed, as well as increasing his jump height and even letting him do certain attacks faster, as well as being a valuable recovery tool. There are, of course, catches - for instance, it takes up 5 cans each time, plus if you turn around, the animation will cancel out your dash just as it did in the original game.
Up B: Grind Rail. It essentially summons a “rail” underneath his feet when used in the air, which appears like a telephone wire in a horizontal direction, allowing you to jump off it or grind on it, tricking as you do it! Notably, leaping off doesn’t leave you in freefall, though you can’t use Grind Rail again until you’re on the ground. If you tap the B button when on the rail, Beat does a variety of tricks on the rail, including but not limited to the Makio, Torque Soul, Acid Soul, Star (renamed from “Pornstar” for that E rating) and others. Each trick has a small amount of damage and knockback that can combo into each other. However, you need to time them perfectly for optimum speed and distance, because if you do it too late, you lose speed, and if you do it too early, you lose much more speed.
When used on the ground, the rail simply “pops up” from the ground in front of Beat, similar to the rails seen on the ground in Dogenzaka Hill, and can be used right up until he reaches the edge, at which point he shorthops off… and, well, off the stage. When ground-based, using the tricks will result in Beat maintaining his momentum, as well as being able to combo into enemies. However, hitting an enemy on the rail will slow Beat down a little even if perfectly timed for balancing purposes.
Down B: XL Graffiti. Whilst the fun little side effect of Neutral B doesn’t actually do anything when used on the floor, Down B does. It essentially works like the original game, bringing up prompts to tilt your stick in different ways in order to fill the graffiti in - and you'll be able to fill it depending how many consecutive "strokes" you complete. You can come back to it to complete it, too! However, the whole graffiti will last only 30 seconds from the first use, after which it can be placed anywhere else on the stage. Attempting to use Down B again will have the original graffiti's effects rendered null and void.
Should Beat fill in the whole graffiti on the floor, he gets a buff for the remaining time until the graffiti disappears. (There’s also a little jingle when it’s completed, which is actually the jingle for when Beat completes graffiti in JSRF. There’s a small chance that the jingle of when Beat collects a Graffiti Soul will play instead, though this has no gameplay effects.) This specifically gives a slight buff to his speed, jump height, and attack power, though notably slightly decreases his defence.
All-Star: Graffiti Soul. Despite being named for the collectibles, it's not related. Rather, it involves him breakdancing as he does sometimes in the game at the end of missions. Picking up two spray cans (please note that these cans aren’t dependent on the number of cans Beat has to his disposal), he begins breakdancing with inputs similar to those of the original Jet Set Radio placed on the screen above him. The more of these inputs you get successfully, the more effective his attack will actually be. Throughout the attack, there’s a cloud of spray paint around Beat, and enemies caught in it will get minor constant damage as well as flinching - a little like Piranha Plant’s Side B. The amount of damage it does will depend on the success rate of your inputs. At the end of the attack, Beat does a flip and upon landing, the cloud disperses, dealing high damage and knockback to opponents caught within it. Again, the level of damage and knockback is dependent on how well you input the commands.
Not really sure what to add here? Beat's quite fast and light, but given he takes a while to get up to speed, I guess he has some of the weirder movement in the game. Huh. I don't think I'm supposed to add stuff to do with added content such as stages yet, so I won't.
Do you have any pictures or screenshots? As someone who hasn't played Jet Set Radio, I find it helps to have a visual to get an idea of what the stage could be like.Jet Set Radio Stage:
Downtown Shibuya
Downtown Shibuya is one of Most known places in JSR games. It's a district, where Beat and GGs like to spend time and paint the walls with Graffiti. Downtown Shibuya appeared first in game called Jet Set Radio, released on Dreamcast and it also appeared as Track in SaSAR and it returned in Transformed sequel.
Downtown Shibuya could have Walk-off Layout, where it takes place on Streets of Shibuya.
There are no Hazards, making this fight fair.
The Cameos are all characters from JSR series, who are rollerblading in background, tagging themselves.
I nominate this map, because it's very iconic place for Beat, plus it could work as simple stage. It also it's very known Location that people would recognize when they will play Beat.
I hope you guys like this idea, because you guys know this place...
No, but okay.Do you have any pictures or screenshots? As someone who hasn't played Jet Set Radio, I find it helps to have a visual to get an idea of what the stage could be like.
Who is William Cracker?1. William Cracker
2. Sisyphus Buddy
3. Danny