http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2_Kml6vEbA
GANGREEN GANG
The Gangreen Gang are a group of “antagonists” from the Powerpuff Girls. They do little more than things like prank calls just to get a laugh, with the closest thing they ever do to “getting serious” being a rare robbery or two. . .Considering they don’t actually do all that much, they are actually antagonized more by the Powerpuff Girls more than they antagonize them, causing their motives to devolve into getting revenge on the girls when they’re not just goofing off.
In Brawl, the Gangreen Gang all start directly next to each other and can be controlled as one massive unit. All five must be KO’d to take off a stock and cause them to all respawn, and they can all attack independently of one another when the others are in hitstun/lag. They even have separate percentages as well – only the most recently attacked character’s percentage is shown as the group’s icon becomes that gang member.
ACE
Ace is the leader of the Gangreen Gang, and is the only one intelligent –or- ambitious enough to prevent the group from being a bunch of generic dirty Mexicans. . .Instead, he further obscures what race they’re supposed to be parodying by having them do robberies. In any case, Ace largely takes advantage of the stupidity of the other gang members to have them do the vast majority of the dirty work, and pretty much only participates directly when they’re just doing pranks for fun.
He has similar stats in pretty much every aspect to Marth, and he’ll be the primary target for the foe considering that most of his “attacks” consist of ordering the other members about – without Ace, the other members can barely move at all.
Side Special – Move Out
Ace simply says “Gangreen Gang, move out!” before pointing in the input direction, causing him and all the other members to walk in that direction at their walking speeds until they reach the edge of the stage. Inputting this again will cause them to run in the desired direction instead of walking, while inputting the opposite direction will simply cause Ace to stop. Note that they will automatically attempt to jump over anything in their way, and that the gang does not need to be ordered to recover – they will attempt to make their way back to the stage automatically with their jumps if knocked off-stage. The gang can use any of their attacks while moving (Unless stated otherwise), continuing to do so as they move.
Up Special - Pursuit
Ace points to the nearest foe to him personally, then says “Don’t let ‘em get away!”. This causes all of the gang to relentlessly run towards the point the foe –was- at when Ace used the move rather than chasing them directly. Of course, you can just have Ace spam this move (At which point he’ll simply say “After ‘em!” for less lag) to keep constantly chasing after the foe. The gang won’t care about making their way back to the stage until they reach the target point. If you change your mind and want them to stop, you can just override the command with a Side Special.
Neutral Special – Marked Man
A controllable cursor spawns on the map. Rather than the cursor being 100% controllable, you can simply cycle through all the people on the field with the cursor by inputting left and right, then pressing any button to make your selection. It can target enemies, summons, the other gang members, or Ace himself.
If you target a Gangreen Gang member, Ace will say “You ain’t listenin’ (Name)!” if he didn’t target himself. This causes all of his Specials to only command that individual member. If he targeted himself, then his Specials reset to commanding everyone again.
Targeting an enemy has him taunt them. “Awww, whatsa matter, ya big baby?”. This causes the foe to be unable to move more than a platform away from Ace (Getting forced to move towards him if he’s on-stage and they weren’t already in range) or turn their back on him until they hit him with an attack. Any attack will do, but Ace still has four other gang members to use as meat shields. This taunt has infinite range, but can still be dodged and is rather laggy.
Down Special – Gang Up
Ace motions his arms towards himself. “Aight, aight, regroup!”. This causes all gang members to make their way towards Ace at their dash speeds. Once the last member gets there and they’re still all within half a platform of each other, they will enter a group stance. In this stance, they are controlled like a single regular Brawl character for movement and jumps, but can only have one attack going at a time. The Gangreen Gang actually start in this stance when they spawn, but they are still individually attackable and any member getting separated causes them to leave the stance. The gang has a unique set of attacks when all ganged up, located after everybody’s individual attacks in this moveset. You’re allowed to not have all 5 gang members if some of them have gotten killed off, but you won’t be able to use certain attacks.
Shield Special – Roundhouse Kick
Yes, Ace does get an actual attack to himself outside his taunt. If individually input, Ace simply does a roundhouse kick in place that deals 10% and knockback that kills at 165%. If you input this move with a direction, though, Ace will run in the desired direction for as long as you hold B before doing the kick upon release, flying forwards an extra half a platform as he does so from the momentum and boosting the attack’s power by 1.5x. Ace will automatically release the kick at the top of his jump if you input this move up into the air, while if you input it towards the ground he’ll knock grounded foes into prone.
GRUBBER
Grubber’s character is pretty self explanatory for the most part, being just about as stupid as he looks as he communicates by sticking out his tongue and shooting drool out of it. None the less, the others seem to understand Grubber just fine, and Grubber –does- seem to be able to talk normally considering he can somehow do perfect voice impersonations for prank calls. . .Which only adds to the guy’s sky high levels of creepy.
In Brawl, he’s Wario’s height while being a good bit skinnier, and only weighs as much as Meta Knight. He has a dash on par with said blue ball of doom when ordered to, and walks at the average pace of Mario’s walk.
Down Tilt – Droolbucket
Grubber lets his tongue droop down to the ground, coming into contact with it. This causes that portion of the stage his tongue is on to get covered in drool for 10x as long as his tongue stayed in contact with it, and he can very easily cover the entire stage if he lets his tongue droop as he walks across.
The drool is slippery, causing anybody who dashes along it to dash about 1.5x as quickly as normal. Their momentum will carry if they jump or stop dashing, though, taking variable time to stop based off the character’s dash speed. This does indeed apply to all of the Gangreen Gang members as well, hence why walking rather than dashing can be beneficial. If a character attempts to turn around while dashing in a way that would bring their traction into play, they will trip. Speaking of which, yes, the Gangreen Gang can be put into prone and such, at which point they will automatically use generic get-up attacks ASAP.
Jab - Slobber
Grubber sticks out his tongue as drool splatters from it in every which way. “Blllllp!”. This doesn’t actually create drool, rather making his tongue a straight up hitbox here, dealing 5 hits of 1% and flinching per second. Grubber will automatically keep the jab combo up forever until you input anything else for him or he takes hitstun. Grubber won’t be finding many situations where he can trap an enemy up against a wall with his tongue, but considering he can walk forwards while he flails his tongue he doesn’t need to – if he wants them anyway, the other gang members work just fine. Enemies will have to DI up into the air and over Grubber as he walks forwards to get out – DIing away will do enemies no good. Then again, you can just have Ace order Grubber to turn around while he does this if you predict their DI correctly, in which case they would indeed have to DI away instead.
Up Tilt - Belch
While his belches aren’t explosive beams of death like when he randomly gained superpowers, Grubber can still put his burping to –some- use here by simply grossing the foe out. He belches upwards, creating a Ganon sized hitbox above himself that causes foes to enter helpless and take 11%. The hitbox then keeps in contact with Grubber’s mouth after he uses the move for 5 seconds, causing anybody who comes in contact with Grubber to turn around and run a platform uncontrollably for a platform. They have some actions available while dashing – first they can use their dash attack, and secondly they can jump, at which point they can use any of their aerials or air dodge. . .Though they will still uncontrollably DI forwards for the remaining distance, of course. If the foe is already coming towards Ace or doing another similar order, issuing them another order (Such as this move) will do nothing.
Forward Tilt – Tongue Tether
Grubber sticks out his tongue in an attempt to grab the foe with it. Once he does, he’ll automatically pummel the foe by squeezing them for 1% every half a second. They can still do everything normally while Grubber has them grabbed by his tongue, pulling Grubber around as they do so. Every time Grubber pummels the foe, though, they will flinch, interrupting whatever they were doing. This prevents them from attacking to do pretty much anything but defend themselves with generic GTFO until they button mash Grubber off.
If Grubber still has bad breath from his ftilt, then the foe will be in constant contact with it due to Grubber having them grabbed, causing them to constantly run forward until either it wears off or they button mash Grubber off. This is a prime KO method, though it can potentially sacrifice Grubber. Alternatively, you can just use it as a zoning tool to force the foe to move around at low percentages.
BIG BILLY
Billy is even stupider than Grubber – there’s no hidden intelligence under his surface like with Grubber, though there is more to him than meets the eye with his rather child-like innocence, largely just getting taken advantage of by Ace and the rest of the gang as the group’s “muscle”. While he did actively try to help the Powerpuff Girls at one point, they rejected his help due to him being too stupid to do what he intended most of the time and brutally beat the crap out of him for no particular reason, leaving him little reason to not stay with the gang.
Billy is as tall as Ganon and wide as Bowser, but is 1.25x as heavy as Bowser so you don’t have to worry about defending him all that much regardless of his size – they’ll be much more concerned with killing off Ace and the featherweights on the team when Billy’s weight is taken into account. This means Billy’s a pretty permanent stage hazard you can send into harm’s way without much thought – he doesn’t even need to be attacking to become one! While characters will ignore Billy if they walk past him, if they dash past his front/get knocked into it they’ll go directly into Billy’s fat. The –moment- they stop dashing/DIing forwards or their knockback runs out (Billy will get dragged with the enemy, slowing their momentum/movement by 25%), they’ll get catapulted in the opposite direction with double the original speed they ran into Billy with. Yes, this can apply to other Gangreen Gang members, but they are intelligent enough to stop dashing and –walk- past him when it comes time to pass by him. Foes will generally be intelligent enough to not fall for this either, hence why you must send them sliding/fleeing into Billy’s stomach via Grubber’s drool/bad breath, or simply knock them into him the old fashioned way.
Neutral Grab – Layers of Fat
Billy squishes anybody who dashed/was knocked into his stomach with his fat, grabbing them with his skin and enveloping them in his fat. Aside from snatching people inside your belly, the overlapping hitbox of this is easier to land than you’d think when Billy’s size and his ability to move while using the grab are taken into account.
If Billy grabs Grubber with his stomach while he has bad breath, then the status effect will last inside Billy’s stomach for 5 seconds – foes will run away from Billy the moment they would normally be free to do actual actions, not immediately.
Side Grab – Collapse
Billy falls forwards/backwards, pinning anybody he hits underneath his body and dealing 8%. He won’t automatically get up from this prone position until you input Z, and will roll over to be laying on his back if he collapsed forwards (While still keeping the enemy pinned under him). Anyone who goes to stand on top of Billy will get trampolined up into the air a platform’s worth – higher if they had momentum when they came down. Billy can roll up by inputting anything but Neutral Z – Neutral Z still works normally. This lets you put a gang member on top of Billy’s stomach in a defensive position, say, Ace, for instance, with constant momentum to go upwards. Ace in particular can do a downward aimed roundhouse kick to bounce up to 3x as high as normal immediately, then higher and higher as Ace does the kick from higher in the air. If the foe attempts to intercept Ace, Billy can just grab Ace in his stomach to “protect” him as he comes down and throw him to a new location.
Down Grab – Belly Bounce
Billy turns to face the screen and does a body slam, laughing stupidly as he does so. This deals 11% and spikes foes in the air, sends grounded foes into prone, and pitfalls prone foes. On contact with the ground, Billy bounces a platform back into the air before repeating the body slamming in an infinite loop until you tell him to stop. Yes, he can indeed move about the stage while in this stance, though only at his walking speed. Billy can come out of this by inputting anything, causing him to grab the ground the next time he slams into it (and pin foes under him instead of pitfalling them if there was a prone foe there) and enter his prone state from his side grab. If foes are ambitious, they can give Billy –horrible- ending lag by attacking him from above while he’s in this stance to smack him into the ground hard, though more often than not this will just result in them getting slammed. If you’re telling Billy to pursue the foe, this is pretty much the only way he’s going to be competently pressuring them.
Up Grab – Rock Crush
Billy turns to face the camera and grabs two circular Wario sized chunks of the stage from either side of himself. He then proceeds to smack them together above his head. Any foe caught in-between them will take 16% and immediately fall down to the floor, entering prone with a slight bit of stun before they can even attempt to get out of it. Going over Billy is the only fast way to move past him (from the front), so this has obvious immediate uses. A not so immediate use is when you’re bouncing Ace on your stomach en mass, and the foe joins in to try to kill Ace. Rather than wait for the foe to try to use your stomach, you can get up and use this to more actively try to kill them.
If this move doesn’t hit a foe, one of the two rocks will shatter the other two before Billy carelessly drops the “winner” in front of himself. If Billy already has a rock on the stage, both rocks shatter when they get smashed together. Rocks are solid with 40 stamina, and can be attacked by anyone to send it rolling about similarly to a much heavier (Wario’s weight at 40%) soccer ball. Whoever hit it last is the one that’s immune to it, much like the Soccer Ball, though if any gang member is the last one to have hit it all of them are immune to it. Drool is the easiest way to build the rock’s momentum, but Billy can also grab the rock in his fat. The ball deals damage and knockback based off its’ momentum, dealing about 10% and knockback that KOs at 150% if hit by Mario’s fsmash. While foes would normally be unlikely to help you build the momentum of the rock and play tennis with it back and forth, the fact that it’s solid means if they attempt to dodge they’ll get dragged along with it during their invulnerability frames then get hit by it. Hitting a rock that already has momentum (And yes, all attacks out-prioritize the rock) does indeed cause said momentum to stack.
If Billy grabs a rock in his stomach when he recently grabbed Grubber after he burped with utilt and got bad breath, the smell will indeed stick to the rock for 5 seconds before wearing off.
Pummel - Nom
Billy takes the foe out of his stomach and stupidly attempts to chew on the foe’s head stupidly, drooling over it and dealing 5% in a laggy pummel. If used on a rock, Billy will actually be stupid enough to devour it. . .
Forward Throw – Launch
Billy launches the foe out of his stomach at a diagonally downward angle. If the foe comes into contact with the ground, they will enter prone and slide along the ground as they take their knockback. While the throw only KOs at 150% normally, foes’ momentum can be boosted by drool as they slide along the ground, potentially KOing them as early as 95%. Their momentum gets boosted more if they have more stage to slide across, though considering that means they’re farther from the blast zone it means there’s not much difference – what it does mean is Billy doesn’t have to painstakingly corner the foe against the edge to pull off a KO.
Back Throw – Passing Gas
Billy takes the foe out of his fat and places them gently behind himself before harshly patting them on the head, dealing 4%. He then proceeds to enter a constipated position and fart, dealing an extra 2% and knockback that KOs at 200% by default. For each rock Billy has eaten, though, the damage of the fart is boosted by 4% and the knockback KOs 20% sooner.
Billy will get propelled forwards by his fart based off how strong it is – one Bowser width for each rock he consumed. This turns Billy into a hitbox that deals 1.5x as much damage as his fart, possibly getting boosted even more if he slides forward along some drool. The trail of fart that propelled him forwards lasts 5 seconds, and any foe who enters it will be forced to dash out of it towards the nearest exit until they get out.
If Billy farts on a rock or another gang member (To which they will show blatant protest, save for Grubber), they will cause anyone they come in contact with to run a platform away from them on contact, the fart lasting for 5 seconds on them.
Up Throw – Throw Up
Getting the enemy knocked into his stomach so many times eventually triggers a gag reflex out of Billy, causing him to grab the foe out of his stomach before lightly tossing them upwards for 4% and vomiting on them. If he hasn’t eaten any rocks, the vomit will be generic nasty green crap, dealing 6% to the foe and causing them to be covered in the vomit for 10 seconds. While they have vomit on them, they’ll take 1% per second and have the lag of their attacks increased by 50%. This time can be reduced if the foe runs a full platform, in which case they can shake it off. . .Of course, your drool coated stage has no problems with that.
If Billy has eaten rocks, he will vomit up mass rock chunks from inside of himself, dealing 6 hits of 1% and flinching per second, it lasting for as many seconds as rocks Billy devoured. Aside from dealing more damage, the stalling capabilities for you to re-position the other members /coat the stage in drool/etc increase with this throw. The foe cannot ever hope to DI out of this move and will get slowly propelled towards the top blast zone during it, saving them from any zany combos, though potentially making them vulnerable to a guaranteed KO if you’ve somehow eaten 20 rocks or something.
What’s the point of giving Billy the ability to benefit from set-up time with bthrow and uthrow? The fact that nobody would bother attacking him otherwise so it’s easy to do it. If they’re actually afraid of you setting up, this becomes an even more useful tool as you use it to threaten foes, forcing them to attack the tank of the team instead of the other featherweights.
Down Throw – The Cyclops
Billy raises up his hair, bending down to face the foe in his stomach if necessary, before showing them the fact that he’s a Cyclops. The foe is understandably freaked out and will dash -2- platforms from Billy before being able to do anything without Billy having to interact with Grubber or eat rocks or what have you, though the throw deals no damage. They can jump and use their dashing attack like when they run from Grubber’s bad breath, but what they can do is still just as limited as ever. Used on an ally or rock, this will release them with no penalty, which is good if you want to release them without damaging them.
ARTURO
Arturo is the main thing that confirms the gang as Mexican, considering his obscenely stereotypical Mexican accent. Beyond that, the main thing that defines him is his ****** status, considering he actually has perfectly normal intelligence.
In Brawl, Arturo is lighter than Jigglypuff, but is a small fast moving target the same size as the pink puffball, having a walk on par with Ganon’s dash and a dash as fast as Captain Falcon’s. Arturo’s non-existent weight also helps him move around faster when launched out of Billy’s belly.
Down Smash – Cyclone
Arturo goes to run around in a circle overly quickly three times – he doesn’t have Marvel level super speed anymore, but it’s not like he needs it. There’s 1.5 Bowsers worth of space in the middle of this little cyclone. The edges of the cyclone where Arturo physically is deals 11-22% and knockback that kills at 170-140%. The interior of the cyclone has a different hitbox that doesn’t deal hitstun, damage, or knockback. . .Instead, it simply flips the target like Mario’s cape and reverses all of their momentum. If the foe is specifically running away/towards something from some status effect, they’ll go to turn around after getting flipped before continuing to run in the intended direction – this will trip the foe on drool. Aside from that, you can just send the foe right back towards wherever they get knocked away from to repeat the process, though beware that Arturo can be out-prioritized by anything so it’s not exactly a guarantee. The move becomes more threatening when you take into account Arturo can still walk (Unfortunately not dash) while using it.
This also of course applies to rocks and other members, in which case you can prevent them from sliding off-stage.
Forward Smash – MARIA
Arturo takes out what blatantly seems to be a pocket knife, before switching out the “blade” to show that it’s just a comb – not just any comb, however, as this comb has apparently gotten Arturo through some sort wars with the drug cartel or something. He then proceeds to attempt to stab foes with the spines on the comb, dealing a token 5-12%, though embedding the comb into the foe’s body. . .Very, very, lightly. It will deal 1% every other second it’s embedded, and the foe only has to stand still for .2 seconds to pull it out of themselves.
If the foe dashes into the comb or comes into it with any form of momentum, though, the comb will deal more damage based off how fast they were going (15% uncharged to a dashing Sonic), the interval where the damage is dealt will be smaller (Dashing Sonic taking 1% every .3 seconds), AND it will take longer to pull out (Dashing Sonic must stand still for a full second). Needless to say, if the foe –ever- dashes they’re not gonna stop if you have drool out properly, and even if you don’t have it you have other direct methods of forcing the foe to get off their a
ss and move around. The move also gets proportionately buffed when taking Arturo’s own momentum into account, so if you get do a “drive by” with this move you can expect even better results.
Up Smash – Piggyback
Arturo leaps into the air anywhere from a Kirby height to 1.5x Ganon’s based off charge. The move is largely lagless ignoring charge, but the hitbox of the move is very specific. It requires you to either land on top of characters as tall as/shorter than Arturo, or to get onto the foe’s back/behind their head if they are taller than him. Granted, the hitbox –is- a grab one.
Once Arturo grabs the foe, he pushes against them to try to knock them forwards. This has the limited effect of making foes lean forwards when standing still and walking slightly faster, but if they dash for so much as halt a platform they’ll fall forwards on their face into prone.
Inputting fsmash/dsmash from here will cause Arturo to smack the foe in the face for 5% and cause the foe’s controls to be randomly scrambled (Not simply reversed) for 7 seconds. However, the punch has a slight bit of lag on it, and if Arturo is hit during this time (By –anything) he’ll get knocked off due to not using both his hands to keep his grip on the foe. Otherwise, the foes must button mash to knock Arturo off. Inputting usmash while piggybacking a foe causes Arturo to hop off early. Foes will generally want to stand still while doing a generic test to figure out their new controls – don’t let them and keep up the pressure.
SNAKE
Due to the stupidity of Grubber and Billy and how Arturo is perfectly happy in the position he’s in, Snake is the technical second in command of the group. In order to earn this position, though, he pretty much has to degrade himself to be the Ace’s flunky, doing all of Ace’s throwaway tasks for him. Yes, Snake does speak with a stereotypical long “hiss” sound whenever the letter S comes up and has a snake-like tongue, as you’d expect.
One of his more notable traits carried over into Brawl is his method of walking – he never lifts his feet up from the ground, simply sliding his feet back and forth as if he were on ice. He’s around as tall as Peach while being a fair bit skinnier, and weighs as much as Luigi. His walk is one of the slower ones out there, a bit slower than Mario’s, but when he needs to dash he’ll be on par with Mario.
Forward Shield – Wind-Up Punch
Snake rolls up his sleeve as hie winds up his arm, then does a punch forward. This attack does damage based off how fast Snake is going, dealing 6% and knockback that KOs at 300%. by default, but being doubled or tripled if he’s walking/dashing, and finally quadrupled if Snake is dashing along Grubber’s drool. The power obviously varies more significantly if he used this move after having revved up or getting launched by something.
Back Shield – Drag
Snake reaches behind himself before attempting to claw the foe, sweeping them in front of himself and dealing 7 hits of 1% and flinching, with the last hit doing mediocre knockback. This means if he picks somebody up with the attack as he’s moving (Probably somebody already in prone), he’ll drag them along until the last hit of his hitbox comes out, at which point he’ll fling the foe forward with them gaining all the momentum Snake has. Aside from giving Snake an additional incentive to build up his own momentum, having two very distinct hitboxes he can generate to invest it in also greatly helps him in being less predictable.
Neutral Shield – Moonwalker
If Snake is moving, doing this causes Snake to stop moving (Not stopping his momentum) – however, Snake will continue to moonwalk in place. He will then proceed to start “revving up” his legs, moving them back and forth at faster and faster speeds, turning them into hitboxes that deal 1% and flinching initially, but can deal up to 10% and knockback that kills at 135% after 2 seconds of charge, at which point Snake’s legs look like Sonic’s during his infamous taunt. At any point Snake can input any shield inputs to let his momentum loose and start heading forward – if he input a direction along with shield, he’ll head in that specific direction instead. At a full charge, he’ll burst in the chosen direction (Turning to face it) at Sonic’s dash speed, taking two thirds of Battlefield to slow down back to his regular speed.
Yes, Snake has obvious ways to make use of this momentum, but an important thing to note here is that if Snake has momentum outside his own movement speed (Drool), that he can rev up while moving forwards. Once he unleashes his momentum, if it wasn’t in the way he was already going it will completely overwrite his previous momentum, enabling him to make a second pass by the foe. A shortcut to having Ace individually order Snake to go the other way? Sure, but you can also prepare this before you ever go past the foe as a third option to nail them, delaying the actual hit.
Down Shield – Skid
No, Snake is not intending to use this attack to kick up dust so they can’t dodge his momentum powered hit, regardless of how mandatory a move that is for normal momentum characters – he has more than enough options to competently hit foes without it, and that’s ignoring the existence of the rest of the gang.
For the move, Snake does a generic stomp that deals 8% and knockback that KOs at 145% when standing in place. While it doesn’t knock foes into prone, it out-prioritizes the invincibility frames on prone attacks/rolling to get up from it. If he has momentum, he digs his feet into the ground, destroying his momentum at a rate of 25% per Bowser width traveled. Snake will sink into the ground as he travels forward from how much of an indent he’s making – yes this actually affects the terrain on the stage. Snake, who is Peach’s height if you’ve forgotten, sinks into the ground by 25% every Bowser width he travels.
So what’s the purpose of indents? Well, indents is an inaccurate description, as you can smoothly run down into one. . .At which point you’ll run into a wall, the portion of terrain Snake got to before he stopped. People who have momentum boosted from drool will splat on contact with walls, losing all of it, and these walls are no exception. If a drool boosted dashing Mario ran into it, he’d take 15%. While slightly more immediately damaging to foe than Arturo’s haircomb, the comb almost always will deal more damage due to the damage over time it deals to foes. You also don’t have to choose between the wall and the comb, as embedding the comb in the foe does not stop their momentum. If you do, though, the wall will always passively be there for you to send foes into, while Arturo may not. Foes will have to make a jump to avoid splatting into the wall, while a gang member (Preferably Billy) can be standing on top to meet them for when they do.
Foes running down a slope with drool on it will get their momentum boosted by 1.75x instead of 1.5x (Their speed does not get boosted otherwise due to Brawl not caring about slopes for movement speed – see the Melee Yoshi stage). If you somehow make two slopes next to each other, the bonus will be boosted by another .25x as they reach the second slope, though the only real way to pull this off is to make the lower half of the slope first. . .Why go through all this trouble? There’s nothing stopping you from making the slope right against the ledge to create an easy runway to send people down to their deaths, that’s why.
Up Shield – Hiss
Snake leans forward and extends out his hissing tongue as he misses in an obnoxious manner like a snake. This is Snake’s fastest attack by far, though all it does is 5 hits of 1% and flinching. . .From the front. If you use this from behind a foe, they’ll uncontrollably flee for half a platform. Sure, an unimpressive distance, but the important thing is it starts them dashing and it’s a fair reward considering how fast the attack is. As far as stealthily coming up on foes, true, Snake doesn’t have much of anything to let him do that. The gang provides decent distractions for their sheer quantity, yes, but Arturo can flip foes around and you have plenty of other ways to direct the foe’s movement.
If you don’t have the raw multitasking ability to bother with much of Snake’s set-up at the current time, this is the simplest way to keep him relevant. Even if the foe has nothing to stop Snake from doing like they do with Billy, they’ll still have to be overly conscious of him.
GROUP ATTACKS
Considering how long ago it was, this stance is the one Ace can bring the group into with his Down Special and is the one they start the match in. Attacking any gang member here will separate them from the group and end the stance immediately, so the main purpose of this stance are more ways to space the gang around before you exit it. The gang moves at Ganon’s dash speed due to moving about with “style”, though considering that you have actual real dodges, a –massive- shield that covers the whole gang, and surprisingly decent jumps, you can generally get something or other done before you’re forced to exit the stance. As stated before, you –can- enter this stance without all 5 members if some of them are dead, but you can’t use certain attacks. Considering Ace is required to enter this stance at all, he is not listed for attacks that require him.
Neutral B – Atomic Burp (Grubber)
Grubber gets in the middle of the gang and inhales deeply, causing his eyes to inflate to ridiculous proportions rather than his chest for lord knows what reason, then exhales in the form of a gigantic burp. He angles his mouth downwards, causing him to get propelled upwards by the force of his burp and to immediately cause a wind effect where the gang was to separate them based off their weight. Ace gets pushed a platform to the right, Billy half a platform, Snake a platform to the left, and Arturo 1.5 to the left. Any foes who are present get similarly pushed based off their weight.
But that’s not all to the attack, though. While the four other gang members are immediately controllable, you can control Grubber’s flight through the air with his burp propulsion as he moves about at Meta Knight’s dash speed. Contact with his back does a simple 10% and knockback that KOs at 150%, nothing too impressive, but if you can somehow make contact with your face you’ll apply the usual bad breath status effect to make the foe flee from Grubber. Considering it’s possible to hit off-stage foes with this, it becomes the gang’s most (and pretty much only) threatening gimping option. The burp will linger for 10 seconds in Grubber’s mouth rather than the usual 5 from the utilt, though if it spreads through Billy’s stomach it will only last 5 from there on. Grubber can propel himself around for 5 seconds and has anti-grab armor and flinch resistance, but can still take knockback and damage during the attack. Assuming you curve him around enemy attacks properly, enemies will likely be fleeing from Grubber, making him an excellent way to zone the foe around the stage.
Side B – Belly Cannon (Billy)
Ace gets in front of Billy, grabs his wrists, then goes to kick him hard in the gut, digging his feet in, while holding onto him. He and Billy gain anti-everything armor for the duration of the move. Arturo, Grubber, and Snake then go to jump into the gap in Billy’s stomach in that order before Ace brings out his feet, causing them to get launched at a selectable trajectory, going at Sonic’s dash speed and dealing 20% and knockback that kills at 110% on contact. Seeing Ace has to launch everybody out of Billy’s stomach one at a time, he can cancel the move at any time by pressing shield. Ace will finally launch himself out of Belly’s stomach after launching Arturo, Grubber, and Snake, releasing his grip on Billy’s wrists.
Up B – Hurricane (Arturo)
Arturo goes to run around in circles even faster than he does so in his dsmash. Arturo’s physical hitbox is the same as in dsmash here. If somebody enters the middle, though, they’re caught in a sort of grab hitbox, meaning they must attack Arturo to interrupt the move and better not dare enter the tornado.
After the normal duration of Arturo’s dsmash is up, he continues running around in circles. You see, anybody who was in the middle will be spinning around en mass, including the other four gang members. At this point, you can input any direction on the control stick for the gang members to get shot out, with a .2 second interval between them, moving roughly 2 platforms in the desired direction. The order is Billy, Grubber, Snake, then Ace, then any foes who were shot out. While they all get shot out the same distance, you can more specifically space them by angling the trajectories they get shot out at.
Characters who were shot out will continue to spin for 3 seconds, being constant hitboxes that deal 10% and knockback that KOs at 150%. If the foe already had momentum when coming into contact with a spinning character, the knockback will stack with their momentum and it will be reversed, enabling you to pinball foes between gang members. Nothing can out-prioritize them as they have every sort of armor and what have you, but once the 3 seconds are up they will enter their dizzy stance. If you managed to catch a foe in the initial swirl to make them spin around, they’ll get dizzy too, though, and seeing the gang members all take damage separately some of them will inevitably get out of it before the foe does. If you didn’t catch them, you’ll generally know –before- you launch the gang members out of the hurricane, in which case you can shoot them out to positions where Arturo (Who is not dizzed by this attack) can defend them properly. This attack in general makes a good way to open the match, considering they’ll all get out of the dizzy stance almost instantly.
Down B – Green Javelin (Billy)
Grubber grabs Arturo’s feet, Snake grabs Grubber’s, Ace grabs Snake’s, then Billy finally grabs Ace’s. All gang members outside Billy gain anti-everything armor as Billy proceeds to rapidly spin around, turning the rest of the gang members (Which when put together, are about as long as 2.5x Ganon’s height) into a constant hitbox. It takes a second for them to reach their full power of 12% and knockback that kills at 130%, but they still deal damage before that point.
Billy has full access to his grab-game in this stance, though using any grab other than his Neutral Grab will cause him to release the rest of the gang automatically (Which he can also do by pressing anything other than B. Getting attacked also causes him to let go of the others.). Billy can also move left and right at Ganon’s walking speed and even jump. Pressing up and down causes Billy to angle the living javelin he’s spinning around himself, and at max charge the gang will fly 4 platforms away.
Pressing B causes the gang member further down the line to get released from the javelin and fly forward independently. This gives you much more freedom about positioning all gang members individually without being pressured to do it all at once, unlike the other Specials. As soon as you drop off a member and they finish flying forwards, they are free to attack while the control stick still is given to Billy’s movement, seeing Ace is the last gang member Billy throws.
Neutral A – Surround (Snake, Arturo)
Snake goes into the background while Arturo goes into the foreground. They then proceed to pursue the nearest foe, moving at Mario’s dashing speed. As soon as they go to leave, the other three gang members become immediately controllable. Once they both overlap with the foe, they’ll attempt to grab them. Aside from simply pressuring the foe to make sure they get hit, if you have Ace specifically order Arturo or Snake the orders will apply to both of them during the duration of this move, enabling you to mindgame the foe a bit instead of simply homing in on them. Once they fail a grab attempt, they will exit the stance and become normally controllable/attackable.
If they successfully grab a foe, they’ll hold them at double grab difficulty, automatically pummeling them every half a second (They take turns on who smacks the foe) for 2%. Ace can command Snake and Arturo to move the foe around in this stance, though the foe can resist and potentially overpower Snake and Arturo if their dash speed is higher than Mario’s, but their movement speed will be reduced proportionately. You can potentially predict it, though, and have them suddenly carry the foe in the same direction to give them some unintentional momentum. Inputting any smash or shield causes both Snake and Arturo to let go of the foe.
Side A – Mexican Bowling (Snake, Arturo)
Arturo curls up into a ball and Snake grabs him, then moonwalks backwards a platform, the two of them gaining anti-everything armor. He then proceeds to roll Arturo forward like a bowling ball, making him function exactly like the Soccer Ball like rocks that Billy can generate. Snake’s roll counts as hitting Arturo with an attack as powerful as Wario’s fsmash. Arturo can potentially fly farther or less far than the rock, due to the fact he has an actual percentage. If you’re worried about Arturo flying off-stage to his death, then keep inputting any smash causes Arturo to swipe his haircomb in that direction, dealing 5% and flinching. . .But more importantly, if he swipes it against the ground, his momentum will stop at a rate of 25% for every Bowser width he travels, enabling him to easily save himself if you just smack him along the ground.
As Arturo rolls past the other three gang members, Ace and Grubber get knocked up 2 platforms into the air, while Billy simply gets tripped over to fall onto his back. He won’t automatically get up from the stance, and it sets up Grubber and Ace to start bouncing off of his stomach. Snake, who is way off behind all of these distractions, would be wise to use this chance to build up some momentum.
Up A – Green Drop (Billy)
The gang jumps up into the air with some control over their trajectory as they do so. Naturally, Billy isn’t able to jump as high as the others. . .All the other gang members then kick Billy down, able to angle which direction they kick him at, causing him to fall as fast as Bowser’s Down B and be 1.5x as powerful. Aside from being a way to individually position Billy and Billy alone, Billy causes two Bowser widths portion of terrain he crashes down onto to become sloped the same way Snake does with his Down Shield. It does not automatically become angled though – you must angle Billy’s a
ss to come down on its’ side to do so.
Down A – Tongue Paddleball (Grubber, Arturo)
Grubber grabs Arturo with his tongue, tightly wrapping it around him and causing their weights to be combined. Ace then picks up and grabs Grubber before rapidly shaking him horizontally and Grubber’s tongue to flail around – he essentially starts playing paddleball, with Grubber was the paddle and Arturo as the ball. Arturo becomes a hitbox that deals 8% and knockback that KOs at 160%. The longer Ace does this (Press any input to make him stop), the faster Arturo moves back and forth from the max length of Grubber’s tongue. Ace can angle Grubber and Arturo in any way he desires, even turning around if necessary, as he builds up Arturo’s momentum. Once Ace puts Grubber down, the group exits the stance.
From here, you must order Grubber to move around to move Arturo, with Arturo constantly being half a Kirby off the ground due to being grabbed by Grubber’s tongue. Arturo’s momentum from being used as a paddleball will stay in-tact and he’ll keep bouncing back and forth for as long as Ace paddled him, a constant hitbox. Arturo still has access to all of his moves, even his leaping usmash, in which case he’ll reach down for the ground before dragging Grubber with him as he jumps. If he actually lands the usmash, Grubber will let go of Arturo and tie himself to the foe like in his ftilt. Speaking of ftilt, using it is the one way to release Arturo, and you may want to use Arturo’s built-up momentum from Ace by just immediately releasing him and using the haircomb. Attacking Arturo does no knockback to him. . .But if the attack would deal a Battlefield’s worth of knockback to him, he’ll fly out of Grubber’s tongue.
So what’s the point of combining them outside potentially pulling off two grabs at once? Grubber’s tongue attacks still work as normal, meaning that Grubber’s jab will flail Arturo around and give him a defensive hitbox behind him, and Grubber’s dtilt will drag Arturo along the ground and let him apply more pressure to prone foes. Grubber will even hoist Arturo up into the air in the path of his burp for utilt, in which case Arturo will also gain the bad breath status effect. Arturo’s Dsmash will cause Grubber to be unable to attack for the duration of the move, his body flailing out behind Arturo and extending Arturo’s physical hitbox. This also has the added benefit, of, y’know, semi-combining two of the characters to give you less to micromanage. Of course this prevents them from spacing out as well, too, regardless of several of the benefits it provides, so having “less characters” will obviously give you less stage control.
Grab – Gangbang (All)
The group all reach out in one direction with all their hands, forming a gigantic wall of grab hitboxes 1.5x as tall as Ganon. If they successfully grab a foe, all the members save Ace will grab a single limb and start attempting to rip the foe apart with quadruple the regular grab escape difficulty. From here, you can input any direction to toss the foe around while still holding onto them, building up realistic momentum. The foe can still DI about during this and their DI is stronger than what you can do until you build up significant momentum, so you’ll have to properly mindgame them. . .
Or just input Neutral Z to have Ace smack the foe in the face, dealing 2% but more importantly dealing significant stun to the foe if they were DIing in any way. The punch has a slight bit of lag so foes use DI then still have time to react to avoid taking the stun from Ace’s fist, but it’s a very complicated balancing act. To release the foe, input Z and a direction to give one final heave as the gang members release the foe. If you swing the foe around for a maximum of 4 seconds building momentum before you release them, they’ll take knockback that can KO as early as 65%. The throw deals no damage, but the foe takes 1% every third of a second while in the grab. If the foe comes in contact with the ground at any point while they’re still in hitstun from the throw, they enter prone and slide along the ground, getting momentum boosted by drool, letting the gang KO at pathetically easy percents. Considering this is the –one- attack the gang has that doesn’t split them up from the grouped up stance, though, it’s pretty d
amn predictable.
PLAYSTYLE SUMMARY
So you might have just finished that goliath of a group attacks section exclusive to –this- Hugo set and wondering just what the relevance of it was to the set. Quite honestly, it could be removed and the set would still have perfectly fine flow as is – the stance simply allows the gang to properly spread out in very specific and customizable formations that would take painstaking amounts of time to get by having Ace command each member of the gang individually. The attacks are also generally quite individually overpowered in nature, giving you a chance to start an offensive or buy time to set-up with Billy/Snake/Grubber. Drool in particular is absolutely mandatory to bring out on the stage. If you’re a pessimist and don’t think you can properly defend Grubber as he walks across the stage, this is one of the most immediate benefits of the tongue paddleball – let Arturo defend Grubber as he coats the stage in drool.
Aside from your positioning which is all too easy with the group stance, the main playstyle of the gang is obvious – get the foe moving as quickly as possible to send them either into a wall, the haircomb, Billy, or ultimately to simply whisk them off-stage to the blast zone. Sure, Snake can get momentum of his own to ram the foe with, but it’s more a bonus considering he can just give the momentum he’s racked up to the foe instead or use it to make things even more hectic with the foe for a slope. That, and using momentum yourself is generally awkward just because you are pretty much required to have either Billy, Arturo (Dsmash), or a wall from Snake’s skidding/Billy’s a
ss to prevent them from dying. . .In which case the foe will be saved by these things as well, save in Arturo’s case. A better way to take advantage of momentum yourself is with Billy’s rocks, as you don’t have to worry about saving them from going off-stage. That said, Arturo in ball form and Snake can actually stop their momentum if they have enough stage, something the foe can’t boast.
Speaking of Billy’s rocks, the set-up of the gang has more purpose than just the reward of the set-up – it’s an excellent way of directing the foe where you want to go without even hitting them with anything. They don’t want Snake to build momentum, they don’t want Billy to chow down on rocks, they don’t want the stage covered in drool. Baiting the foe to specific gang members is often the single easiest way to bring the foe where you want them to. You can encourage dashing specifically if that gang member is obnoxiously far away from the foe to start shenanigans with your drool. If they attempt to jump over the drool, it’s not like you don’t have plenty of anti-air. If the foe is actually determined to prevent something or other from getting set up no matter what (Probably Billy), or simply is going in for the kill on Ace, then you can potentially play somewhat of a more campy game as you just use your tools to control the foe’s movement to prevent them from reaching that gang member. Of course, if foes get stubborn, you have plenty of ways to directly force them to move – one on every single gang member save Arturo, if not many more in Billy’s case. Snake’s Up Shield that forces the foe to run when he’s behind them becomes not an afterthought, but one of the most common ways to prompt a dash from the foe.
FINAL SMASH – POWER LUNCH
The stomachs of the gang members all rumble as they randomly gain superpowers – the Smash Ball aura makes more sense than how they obtained these powers in the episode, so yeah, that’s saying something. All members become invincible for the 15 second duration of the Final Smash, and each member has a single input to himself. . .Outside Billy, anyway, who sits around uselessly as a solid rock.
Ace is fully controllable with the control stick, moving about at Mario’s dash speed as he sprays a constant ice path in front of him, ripping off countless superheroes that are too numerous to name. The ice path is solid, but only has 10 stamina. Inputting B causes Ace to stop moving for the moment and spray his ice in whatever direction you angle. If it hits the foe, it deals 15% and freezes them freezie style.
Grubber will move to the nearest edge. Inputting A causes him to emit a gigantic burp beam that reaches all the way to the other blast zone, and it can be angled. It deals 20% and knockback that KOs at 90%, and will shatter any and all ice leftover from Ace, turning every Bowser sized portion of it into 10 icicles that deal 1% and flinching as they go to the ground.
Arturo isn’t visibly present on the battlefield. Pressing R causes him to run in from the right blast zone off the left blast zone, crossing every single foe in his mad dash across the screen. Inputting this again has Arturo run in from the opposite side. This deals no damage, but whooshes foes 2 platforms towards the blast zone. It can easily be avoided with a jump, but the attack is obviously incredibly spammable, and the mass solid ice everywhere makes it difficult to jump.
Snake stands on the ground next to Billy casually. Inputting Z causes him to extend out his arms directly towards the foe at Ganon’s dash speed before attempting to grab them, at which point he’ll hold them at double grab escape difficulty. Ace does not retract his hands after a failed grab attempt, and will instead stretch them further on another grab. Ace’s hands can go around solid objects (AKA Ice), entering the foreground/background as necessary to curve.
Inputting Z + the direction Billy is in will cause Snake to grab Billy and proceed to stretch up as high as he can go. He will automatically shift the horizontal position of Billy to overlap with the foe. Press Z again to cause Snake to drop Billy. Billy KOs at 150% at default and deals 10%. Every Ganon he falls, the power is doubled, to the point the move can easily insta KO. If it gets to that point, it won’t deal knockback, with the foe getting crushed under him for a –literal- insta KO. Billy obviously shatters all ice in his way in his mad drop downwards the same way Grubber’s burp beam does. Billy’s drop is obviously very telegraphed – use Arturo when Billy isn’t currently over the foe’s head to get the positioning and immediately drop him on them to give them no chance to adjust.
If the clock on the console says the year is 2018 or later, the Final Smash will cause all of the Gangreen members other than Ace to be replaced with the members of Gorillaz. They all have generic clone sets of Smash Bros characters, which means they can actually move and attack without any gimmicks. Meanwhile, Ace himself gets the superpowers from the regular Final Smash. The Final Smash ends after 20 seconds with the Powerpuff Girls from the 2016 reboot showing up and dabbing, which causes the Gorillaz to be killed on sight. Ace survives because of his shades protecting his vision. The original Gangreen Gang comes back onto the stage after that.
