BRAWL CHARIZARD
I know you are a fan of Brawl Charizard, but I find it to be one of the worst movesets in Smash. I find it very strange you did not include the Seismic Toss throw when you were the one who got it put into Project M as one of his more fun moves on a characterization level. Many of the bad Charizard moves from Brawl are largely kept in this moveset, and the changes that are made don’t make much sense, such as making Fly the Down Special (???). This and your other Pokesets also have some fascination with attacking with any extraneous appendages that the character has for as many moves as possible instead of punching or stomping to actually showcase their strength, most blatant in Charizard, Blastoise, and Feraligatr, though worst in this particular set. Charizard’s wings are a tacked on aspect to enable him to fly and not a defining feature, but they get far more time dedicated to them in this set than fire breathing.
AVERAGE JOE
Axton has problems with his writing style in the Specials and Smashes, though the set basically just drops off after that with what looks to be minimal effort. I really don’t have much to say about the set beyond that, as it just simply isn’t a set that appeals to me personally.
While it can apply to your general movesetting style, a problem you have is going into elaborate detail about rather mundane things. If you’re not talking about new effects, talking about uses of attacks is generally best reserved for how things are relevant to that specific character over other ones, how it fits into their personal playstyle. Talking about general uses of the attack is of course necessary to convey a proper picture of the move, but to go into elaborate detail on them will generally be lost on the MYM audience. That sort of information would be more appropriate for a strategy guide in the event that the character was actually in the game, but they’re not. This applies most strongly to Charizard and Axton of your sets this contest, with Charizard’s nair providing one of the best examples of you getting really excited over nothing.
ENDLESS COMBOS
Typhlosion’s mechanic just doesn’t seem to very appealing to me as a basic ammo bank, and his game amounts to very basic comboing. When vaguely talking about combos as you do in Typhlosion, it’s kind of cheating when not talking about what specifically combos. The most direct example you provide during the uair (“Nair->Uair->Uair->Flame Wheel->Double Jump->Dair->Downward Flame Wheel”) sounds like a ridiculously long chain, and doesn’t sound balanced for even Project M/Melee. His ability to use Blaze also feels absurdly powerful, and I don’t know why you think using Side Special to attain 28% is balanced, much less when the hitbox creates a huge lingering trap. While the Neutral Special doesn’t feel that scary at first, it’s actually quite powerful in the context of these combos, adding on significant chunks of damage.
A small complaint I made on Heracross that echos much more loudly on your Pokesets is feeling the arbitrary need to name every single one of your moves after a Pokemon attack. Generic actions don’t need to be named after Pokemon attacks, with one of the most common examples throughout your Pokesets being the arbitrary need to insert “mega” before generic punches and kicks to make them be named after Pokemon moves. Moves like Fling (Charizard), Explosion (Typhlosion), Spikes (Feraligatr) and Rollout (Typhlosion) are also present despite the actual moves having nothing to do with the Pokemon moves and them not even learning those Pokemon moves, just because the names vaguely correlate to the action. Yes, Feraligatr has spikes on his back, that doesn’t mean that it has anything to do with shooting out spikes as a trap.
ACID RAIN
It’s a tradition of yours to use the passive ability of Pokemon as passive mechanics in your movesets. You’ve done this to great success with many of your sets, but when doing so many sets for all of the starters you run into the large problem of them all having the exact same ability, which makes me think you should’ve just left it out on at least some of these. While you try to interpret it in different ways, it looks like it proved awkward with some of the starters, and the starters it hurts the most are Blastoise and Typhlosion. Ammo banks are rarely done well, though you do a decent job of evading some of the common pitfalls with Typhlosion by just playing it down as much as possible, basically not coming into play unless he uses the Down Special or plays stupidly. While it doesn’t add much to Typhlosion, it doesn’t actively interfere with the experience of playing the set. With Blastoise, you present a huge problem by making him use up his entire ammo bank whenever he uses a move that uses it. This makes him extremely hesitant to use any of the moves that use his mechanic already, but it becomes even worse when one of these moves is his recovery. He basically has to reserve Torrent entirely for recovery if he’s at a remotely high percentage, and at lower percentages he is still risking making himself very gimpable.
Rain Dance is a level up move of Blastoise, but it’s a move that feels forced on the vast majority of Pokemon regardless. Even if a move is a level up, it’s best to exercise some caution with them on a characterization level. As a random example, you wouldn’t give Zapdos the ability to fire random rocks simply because Ancientpower is in its movelist. The flow of the move is basically just one to generically buff his ammo bank mechanic, with the crippling mechanic largely serving as a crutch to make the set’s playstyle flow better.
More importantly, Rain Dance magically removes all traps from the stage. This is crippling to many characters and contributes nothing, even if it was intended to only remove things like lingering fire and poisonous goo, which it doesn’t with the current wording.
Blastoise has countless moves that have him tuck into his shell, and they start to feel very redundant. I would’ve liked to see more with him sliding along pools of water, firing his cannons while inside of his shell, or more unique takes on the armor in individual moves. A set that I find handled this much better that is basically a Blastoise set is
Venustoise by Blackfox, enabling him to fire his various projectile moves while inside of the shell. This isn’t particularly wacky stuff that I’m linking here, I think you could appreciate what’s going on in this set compared to what you have laid out for your set. When Blastoise isn’t going into his shell, he’s using very stubby kicks and bites that feel uncharacteristic of Blastoise, largely because he’s obligated to have as few moves as possible where he shoots water given it empties his entire ammo bank.
UNPICKED STARTER
Meganium is your set this contest that most feels like it was made for my demographic. I actually really want to like this set and heavily appreciate the effort. I am very thankful for the more direct attempts at playstyle flow present in this set, and I think you actually did a great job of making a 2v2 set without making it feel tacked on or too focused on 2v2 at the cost of 1v1 like so many other sets before Meganium have done. I do think the set has writing style problems, as you definitely could’ve got through the mechanics on each section much quicker given the mechanic itself is actually very simple. The grab-game doesn’t even need such a large section before it, as the only move effected is the pummel anyway.
I would happily forgive the writing style quirks, but the sole thing keeping me from voting for this set right now is the very overpowered sleep present on the grab-game. It feels like an easy infinite, and you even admit that it can “chaingrab at low percentages”. I don’t know why it couldn’t simply infinite people, as you don’t present any reason why it can’t. I also think the shield from Aromatherapy is a bit too strong, at least on characters with poor grabs like Falco and Ike, but that is much more tolerable by comparison.
JOE FERALIGATR #4
Feraligatr is easily my favorite Joe set of the contest. Not only is the use of the universal starter ability the best in Feraligatr, it also actually makes sense, strengthening Feraligatr when he’s at a specific high percentage while giving him more than a generic boost. Feraligatr does nothing revolutionary and feels just as home in your style as all of the other sets, but he has a much richer playstyle and feels legitimately fun to play in the basic Smash terms you seek with the superarmor and increased power from Rage, giving his heavyweight moves much more interesting contexts to be used in.
There is much more of an effort to be interesting throughout the individual inputs sections than you’d usually expect in your sets of this style. While he has the obligatory basic combos all of your sets have, he can transition in and out of defensive moves at higher percentages, with his utilt, dsmash, his powerful crawl enabling him to walk backwards, and his gushing water hitboxes from Torrent giving him much more coverage to protect him from behind. The superarmor from Rage is of course my favorite aspect in this regard, and the other uses of superarmor spliced throughout also help to contribute to this theme.
Of course it’s not perfect for my taste. The aerials mostly exist as something to transition into landing on the stage with and are primarily combo fodder, and the grab-game is very uninspired. The uthrow does at least make an active effort to try to bring these elements into his game, though, with the pseudo chaingrabs and pressuring situations it presents with your aerials being legitimately entertaining compared to some of the blander aspects of the set.
NIGHT’S END SORCEROR
Viktor’s mechanic is extremely ambitious to attempt without just half-assing it and squandering the potential, and I commend you for the effort you did make. The set starts out very strong and presents some decent projectile manipulation/buffing concepts, and you do a great job of expanding Viktor’s character to include things that would make sense for him. While I abused the vague characterization of Nature’s Prophet to include things that weren’t all that fitting for him in some cases, your additions feel completely natural and thought out.
Aside from the obvious filler later on in the set, the set’s problems for me lie in that the projectile manipulation eventually becomes projectile manipulation for the sake of it and starts to become a bit redundant/not contribute much new. While these moves are still better executed and more logical than those in some of your other sets, the next problem lies in your attempts to try to give him a viable melee game. While this is difficult, other sets have done it, as Vander Decken has proven. I certainly agree that he needs one, but I thought it was executed poorly, and it doesn’t help that some of the biggest components of it are the set’s most blatant filler. When he has so much for his projectile game, it feels obvious that players would primarily focus on that even if his melee “combo” playstyle does exist with how the upgrade system works, and his much weaker melee playstyle would be used as an afterthought as a generic defense.
FLYING DUTCHMAN
Vander Decken is a set for a character with an ability that has a rather obvious route to take for a great set in MYM. You ride this wave of the character’s potential as long as possible without making it get ridiculous or redundant which is very commendable. Where the far more difficult part comes in is when you’ve dried up the character’s primary resources, especially when you don’t heavily abuse his projectiles to fill inputs. When the rubber meets the road, Decken does a great job of mixing his melee game into his projectile game without it ever coming off as the generic “defense” or “GTFO” you’d expect from this archetype, focusing as direct supplements to his existing playstyle. The ground chunk is the coolest move in the set for me, as it enables Decken to fly alongside his projectiles to introduce many more layers to his game. It’s a fresh take on the ground chunk that makes great sense for his character, and it shows in a movement where two other characters use it in a more traditional manner. Ground chunks are basically the racial trait of the fishmen, and it’s great that you managed to weasel one in when his characterization is otherwise very focused on his stalker persona (as it should be).
The set’s problems lie in that it is one of those MYM sets that were more common in earlier MYMs that appear to crumble quite easily to pressure. While his melee game does go with his projectile game quite well once it gets started, I see Decken having a lot of trouble getting started against an especially aggressive opponent. The ground chunk helps in that it lets him move as he summons more projectiles, though it’s really not enough. In the least, Decken isn’t just setting up constructs and is actively firing hitboxes at the foe during this “set-up”, but more should’ve been given to address this very important part of Decken’s game that lets him get to the fun stuff. Like other sets that struggle with this problem, Decken of course also landslides quite quickly if he’s allowed to get going, and characters with consistently one sided matches are generally less exciting. That said, it says a lot that I can talk about this as my primary complaint with the set in this day and age, as sets like Jarad largely had this attached to them as a cliffnote complaint from me and this set handles it better than the aforementioned sets anyway. There’s really very little to criticize about the set, as while it’s tackling an appealing MYM concept on a character built for it, the thing that sets it apart is it actually executes it very well.
TERRIBLE XAT MEME
There’s not much for me to say about “Chew”, as it is a very basic set. I wish you had invested the effort you put into Custom Specials and spread it more throughout the moveset, with the most obvious candidate being the naked smashes. The main thing the set does after the specials is to interact with water puddles a couple of times, with most of the moveset feeling barren and unfinished. There’s not much I can say other than generically request you attempt to make moves synergize more to form a coherent and unique playstyle. I will say it is dumb that Chu can’t absorb his own water when that’s the entire point of his character, and you make very little use of the character when you could’ve had him puff up like a pufferfish and shoot water on various moves, as he does in his fight.
JINBE JR.
I can take a little more pity on Kuroobi than Chu given he has even less potential, being a generic tough guy that knows karate, a style with minimal potential for Smash Bros. That said, his obvious main sources of potential are his hair and suplexes. His hair is used as a generic grab animation, and there is no suplex in the moveset. I say he should use suplexes because of his attempts to make Sanji’s lungs burst underwater in his fight by rushing to the bottom water level and back, something that could definitely be interpreted into Smash Bros. While not as big of a deal as the hair and the suplex, given Kuroobi has such little potential it would be very forgivable for him to use his sword, as it could add some much needed spice to this very mundane moveset.
EPIC MEMES
I will not talk about the abundance of stun or the characterization issues with Shrek’s shielding mechanic, as these were very well detailed within FA’s comment on the moveset. I hate the abundance of grab-games throughout the set. Shrek has 3 sets of throws between his normal grab-game, his fthrow, and his Side Special. Shrek doesn’t have enough playstyle relevant effects to work one grab-game, and making yourself more inputs to do is always a huge risk if you don’t have anything to actually fill those inputs with that furthers the character’s playstyle in any meaningful way. The abundance of Shrek’s many grabs and weird moves that ignore shields such as his stunning fart gas and his dashing attack also actively work against his primary playstyle hook of his onion shields. With so many moves that simply ignore shields, it feels like a tremendous waste that Shrek can manipulate his opponent’s shield in such interesting ways. Opportunities exist for you to play off the various shields in your attempts to make an interesting melee game, but the moveset did not capitalize upon them.
Contrary to David, I find the fsmash to be the most well done move in the set outside of the shielding Special. The issue is that it simply belongs on a Special instead of a Smash. Smashes demand some kind of oomph, with the only real exception for versatility being the dsmash as a potential (preferably hard hitting) trap or counter. The set in general has poor input placement, as while there are decent ideas for interactions they greatly override any intention the moves had to be actual attacks.
SIDESHOW BOB REMIX
Yosemite Sam has edited out most of the more obviously bad moves, leaving the set mostly as bland with a handful of weird move choices straggling along into the current rendition of the moveset. The remaining playstyle is based around a large arsenal of attacks that move Sam while he’s attacking. These spacing moves are not over the top momentum or ridiculous broad motions as seen in Sideshow Bob, and Sam also has some actual projectiles and the TNT under the name of “boom box” to actually take any kind of real advantage of these moves spacing himself. Moves that generically push Sam seem to make up the entirety of the moveset outside of raw filler, leading to obvious redundancy as you use them as the moveset’s primary crutch to make flowing playstyle. That said, this moveset has a much better vision of what it’s even trying to accomplish than your usual and has no especially glaring errors that would stop it from doing so.
DETRACTOR’S VISION OF K. ROOL
Honest is a hilarious set that is non-stop mocking of a terrible source material. While I and others have never heard of this source material, you have a great passion in the writing style that gives a great sense of who these people are and why they deserve to be mocked. The characterization goes to ridiculous extremes, but the set is somewhat joking in nature and it works wonderfully on a character that really cannot have a completely serious moveset on his own. The characterization deserves to be experienced, and I will not spoil any of it here for those who have yet to read it.
While the guards are obviously generic, I actually like a lot that they can fill in for Syura at Honest’s side if Syura is used as a minion or outright replace him if he dies. That they will even show up and potentially vanish if Honest lacks guards makes for a great way of making a “partner” set, where the partners perform the majority of the character’s moves on his behalf. It gives a great sense of just how pathetic Honest is, much less when nearly all of his personal moves amount to how fat he is. The basic teleportation manipulations with Syura’s ability to assault the foe with minions provides for a good basic moveset, and Honest has a surprising degree of control over his minions when he can control them directly. While plenty of other characters can do this, Honest is unique in that he won’t be going out of his way in order to do so, as minion based attacks form the majority of his moveset and are extremely necessary to play him viably.
Of course the set has obvious filler, and that is the primary thing holding it back at this moment. While it is hilarious and fits in with the set’s borderline joke nature to use food as a primary resource for projectile bullet hell, the set could really obviously use some more projectile manipulation as the missing link to make a better playstyle. Teleporting random things is all the “manipulation” you need, so all you have to throw in are some projectiles. As far as what those projectiles could be, with the vague nature of Syura’s ability it seems logical that he could teleport debris out of the stage to send at the foe. Making greater use of the guards throwing weapons also feels like an obvious source, and I’m sure you could find some interesting uses with thrown axes and spears. Any difficulty in mapping it to inputs can be given to Syura’s AI, given how awkwardly (and hilariously) specific it already is.
ANDROGYNOUS DICTATOR
Kuvira is a very good educational experience for you on learning how to make a character’s moves factor into their playstyle and on avoiding filler. While filler is obviously present, it’s at an all-time low for you and I obviously agree with everyone else that this is the best effort you’ve made. While your interactions are decent, the issue with this set is that the set’s attacks contribute little to the character’s playstyle when not interacting – when used as actual melee attacks, her attacks are just the same as any other character’s instead of providing unique playstyle incentives to her specifically as a character to use them. A handful of moves have no purpose at all with no plates, with the Down Special not even doing anything with nothing set up first.
VILLAIN WITH GOOD PUBLICITY
Chou Chou Infinite is a fairly appealing minion manipulation set that I can’t say much bad about beyond seeing a couple of aerials and most of the throws as filler, which stick out a bit when this set is so wacky as most of the time. I can tell that the character is obligated to turn random objects into minions for her characterization. While it would obviously be more beneficial to her playstyle to make it so she can only turn her own stuff into minions, you manage to weasel in an elaborate mechanic to let her “moe kill” objects from other characters without making it overly obtrusive or overpowered. I am normally incredibly worried at the sight of such mechanics, but the mechanic is vague enough that it has additional lag based off the importance of whatever object it is deleting.
While the set gets quite wacky at several points, it actually feels quite tame and manageable to play. A lot of the more interesting effects are in the minions themselves, and these minions are passively produced by attacks in great numbers and it isn’t essential to use everything manually given their many passive abilities. Otherwise simplistic effects are made interesting by the use of her minions like the cannon and block Shampurus. While the attacks themselves can sometimes feel like afterthoughts, the fact that Chou Chou makes minions through offense rather than turtling and uses them alongside her attacks in a very direct way makes these blander moves work much better. Even the usual argument that you may not want to “accidentally” manipulate minions with melee attacks doesn’t particularly apply, as you have such a ridiculous quantity of minions that using a handful in an attack isn’t particularly harmful. That said, sometimes I’m looking for something that’s more direct in this moveset when it’s from a mind as creative as Katapultar’s, as Chou Chou already has her fair share of powerful melee.
