Smady
Smash Master
First of all, sorry for how late I am to the party on Liz Eird. Didn’t’ realize until I looked at the set list just now how early this came out, and now I am commenting it at the very end as I’m about to vote, so pretty unhelpful. This set certainly has some ideas I like in it but they’re hurt by the execution which is very unpolished and unfocused. There’s several warring movesets within this behemoth and unlike some titanic work such as Yangus or Iguana you aren’t able to focus down into one single id. For example, the tilt that summons the sphere that surrounds enemies, but it’s on an “axe kick”, this is because the set basically has to list a new status effect for every move. These effects have no real connection to the inputs they’re on, so end up feeling completely interchangeable.
There’s no real chance to connect the two, as their very nature, activating after the move is already over, gives little room for there to be a whole lot of synergy. Then when you have to try and marry these effects to the playstyle of course you’re tripping over yourself trying to explain how these many effects can be cohesive and they simply couldn’t be. That’s not to say some of the effects aren’t fun, I really liked some of the ideas you have with that sphere, the duplicates aren’t a bad idea though executed poorly, the Marina-like idea of status effect stacking and manipulation is fun, but there’s got to be some level of polish.
I feel as though the mindset taken with the tail moves is part of the problem too. If you wanted some simple tail moves that’d be a good thing, but not on the smashes where she has some of the most complex status effects ever. I mean seriously, those two latter smashes are insane. It comes off as wanting to have your cake and eat it too, having moves that use the tail for the appeal of a melee move without much flash, then you put on the end a very complicated effect that has nothing to do with the hitbox or attack portion of the move. I wouldn’t even mind this if the hitbox had literally anything to do with the effect, but I find it hard to believe you couldn’t re-arrange these in no particular order and no one would notice, sans the write ups. All that said there is something like a good set hidden amongst all this mess, just not anywhere near your best.
Storm was a nice change of pace from you Joe, one of the most complex of the AvX sets with all the interactions. The way that the meter is used is most relevant in this of all the sets, compared to sets like Thor where it's mostly played down and it does make some sense for Storm and her flashy powers. The shield special is among the most logical ones I've seen, as it's an extension of a minor mechanic using a meter. The moves have the most consistency and are pushed the move in this style, as even up to the aerials, the moves try to keep up the playstyle relevance with mobility options in her set up, or letting her change her moves in small ways depending on the set up she has out. All in all, it felt like a great marriage of flashier concepts in her wind powers and the balance you get out of a meter.
As far as complaints go, I remember being a little wary of how long some of the weather effects last in the specials, and I'm still a tiny bit worried how long for example the Whispy Woods wind lasts. Her effects in general feel like some of the strongest generally speaking compared to the other AvX characters, she gets so much mileage, gigantic lingering hitboxes and then this only feeds into her meter due to dealing more damage too, and it doesn't feel like she has much of a weakness. It's not like it's broken, but it's hard to see how this set wouldn't be an immediate top tier zoner. The important part is she can't camp that amazingly well without meter, but certainly she'd be hard to approach. Thing is that it's a very weak balance argument I'm making, as it's not like the set is broken, it's more of a fine-tuning process that I'm not entirely sold on. Overall I still really like the set and just wanted to air some smaller concern, would like to hear your thoughts on this one. Good job, JOE!
Coming off of Liz Eird, I much preferred Izuna. This set is far more polished and focused in terms of playstyle and reminds me a lot of the Agiri set from years ago, only a lot better executed here. The talisman are ultimately not that flashy, but all fulfil a very relevant purpose in the playstyle that revolves around Izuna’s rushdown and contribute something, and the way these effects stack or are stored make perfect sense. It feels like a very intuitive system and then later on, all the moves play well into her playstyle of subterfuge and using her huge tool set to get one over on the foe. It’s not the most complex of playstyles but it definitely works, and is definitely well executed too.
I would say the set has some weaker moves, the most obvious examples being the throws where the set peters out a little bit. I wasn’t too sold on a couple of the concepts too like throwing down caltrops on down tilt, I mean down smash is one thing but down tilt? But thankfully this was only a handful of moves; it’s more harmful when the set’s appeal is very much in the execution area of the set, that it’s worse a few moves miss their mark. However this is definitely my favourite set of yours this contest
After a few versions of Inkling, I think I know what I'm in for. The weapons, now pronounced compared to previous Inkling sets, play a big role here, but compared to the previous sets you can see how your style has evolved. It's almost a measuring stick now to compare your many, many Inkling sets over the years. The ink isn't as much of a universal mechanic as in the others, and the weapons while pronounced, aren't made a focal point, but are used to focus onto certain sections or individual moves to give them a bit more oomph, and overall make for a more interesting latter half of the set. I think this is definitely the best approach you've taken, focusing more on each move by itself, and instead letting them play more naturally into the mines and squid-cancelling. I do think the squid-cancelling is a little underutilized, and despite the use of weapons like the roller or paintbrush the set is pretty desperate in trying to keep the playstyle together as it does lack the strong link given by the ink mechanics in older sets. The playstyle is a pretty general one.
If I was going to nitpick as well it felt a bit awkward just how proppy it gets though I can hardly blame you for that. As an example Inkling pulls out the paintbrush on two aerials, the massive roller on down aerial, the powerful blaster on back aerial, and just kicks for up aerial. I'd like some consistency here, even if it's just something like Villager's forward/back and up/down of aerials. It should be the weapons that most make sense for Inkling to use on those inputs, not what makes most sense for the archetype of move Smash and MYM is used to on those inputs, otherwise we're just going to end up just emulating how Smash sets work, and that's no good. In any case, a good set, and the best we've seen for Inkling.
I left N Brio until almost last and I'm glad I did, as the set did manage to keep my attention throughout the entire set, something your sets manage to do compared to a lot of others. It's always impressive seeing you bring out a 2in1 set, and I do think you avoided the most obvious pitfalls involved in a 2in1 by being explicit about the way the transformation works, giving some brief invulnerability like I did for Birkin, and always being aware of the fact the monster form can transform back. The best parts of the set for me were the monster aerials and monster tilts, though they were somewhat generic they felt pretty much perfect fits for those inputs. The monster grab game was a little too generic, but mostly fine. As far as the scientist form goes, I did love the gems as platforms (pretty clever way to interpret The Great Hall in a set). There were however some things I felt were not done as well that I will go over now.
The gems are very weak and easy to destroy at 13HP. The only time they’re used directly is the scientist up smash, which at 50 frames of start lag without gems is pretty awful, so you basically have banned this up smash to only be used with gems out, and it doesn't hit in front of him, yes that move is pretty terribly weak because it has to give the gems some logical reason to exist.
I really did not like the up throw healing the foe after exploding in their mouth, and goes without saying for similar reasons the down throw is excessively tacky. Granted, a hilarious move. I don't really get the point of the rain cloud and why it exists among the slimes, but the rain cloud ends up getting more attention than slimes do. The down smash has a very elaborate animation for a move said to be very fast. The monster form up tilt is one of its only interactions that is pretty random. I don't know why there are minions in this set outside of them generically moving around to fill up more space, as they are never referenced except as generic goo to stick people to. The set can get fairly awkward with moves like the scientist fair using up half his up special fuel so he basically dies ever using it off or under the stage and not heading towards the stage.
The monster form is very dry for Warlordian standards. This could actually be a positive if the scientist form had a lot of interesting set up, but mostly it comes down to setting up these incredibly weak gems as platforms, and not much else is really relevant. After thinking about the balance, I think ti works just about. Mostly you have to spam the gems as the scientist and the foe can’t just kill them in one hit, so you’re going to be spamming the gems… a lot. You also are going to need to get out as many slimes as possible. This should see him well enough he’s viable but I still think this set is underpowered, but saved by simple fun had with the monster form.
It's been some years since Yutaka came into our lives, and now we have its spiritual successor, Koboyashi! I am shocked this set even exists because this character seems ridiculous. Not quite as hard as Yutaka herself (that might be an impossible feat) but it's definitely a struggle when the character is a little girl, can't fight and her series is a slice-of-life, so you chose to instead focus on the idea that drunkenness helps her come to grips with her weaknesses. Not a bad idea, but you have to realize that this is very tacky, treating Smash Bros as more of a state of mind than a physical battle. I could definitely accept this if the set only delved into Popeye logic with the drunkenness, but this set...
The most bizarre tackiness in the set is the parts where she deals emotional damage to the foe, by just pointing at them. This damage is then amplified if they're in a maid outfit. Are we really to believe that I don't know, an actual maid character, who could easily be in the game, would care about being in the maid outfit? For these moves themselves like the standard where she laughs at a foe and does passive damage... what about characters who have no shame or are monsters? This is then continued in the grab game with the "telling off". This move itself is quite a memetic down throw, as it makes time pass but only for Koboyashi and the throw victim, so in FFA and teams it makes absolutely no sense. It's also really, really odd how she pulls out a sword on down smash only when drunk, but I'm willing to forgive that instance.
I could get past all that but the part of the set I thought was just irredeemable was the shouting move. It starts off doing minimal damage which makes sense. But then as it gets more and more buffs from being drunk or other requirements, it starts to do insane damage. This is a little girl shouting that does 25% or more damage! I mean, it's a hard character, but surely this didn't need to be a core smash move. It'd be weird as just a normal smash attack doing low damage as a shout, but the entire point of it being a smash attack is it can deal ridiculous damage, and I mean, shouting probably isn't a good attack unless the character is Exploud. Surely just some more shenanigans with the sword would've sufficed?
To go over some positives here, I don't think this set is totally bad as it does have some fun ideas with the drunkenness, like the way down aerial changes to her flapping her arms like a bird (reminds me of FANG in SF5). The food and the up special monster are utilized in a fun way. The maid costume stuff is about as good as it could be. The humour certainly goes a long way in making the set enjoyable to read, but I swear I was just amazed by this set's tackiness more than I have been by a set in years. It was pretty entertaining, especially writing this comment. I just feel like you went too far in a few places. This set could've been a lot better if you cut down the tackiness a few notches. Probably just want to get rid of the shouting and emotional damage moves. Then I could get on board. A hilarious set though if not always for the right reasons.
I came into Sucy not sure what to expect, but you can see the same quality that was in Gamagori in this set, just let down a little bit. This is primarily the mushroom weapon switch. This is unfortunate as the specials were very exciting in how imaginative the moves were, particularly the animations that felt incredibly fitting for the character. The moves where they’re not held back by all the references to the mushrooms are some of the better moves I’ve seen on a witch character, not something we see too often in MYM. It’s all seamlessly put together in the specials to make way for what could’ve been a great set.
Later on the moves start to just feel like they're becoming an excuse to go over the differences brought on by mushrooms. The hitbox and attack portion of many moves is glossed over so that you can go over the various effects the mushrooms have, and frankly you had enough in the specials alone to just work into a normal moveset besides that. The effects themselves are just so arbitrary too. You add some knockback, or damage, or change the direction of knockback and there’s no way you couldn’t simply have a universal effect on each mushroom up front, as this ends up feeling like it’s padded out. What would’ve helped more is if the mere existence of a mushroom had some minor effect on the moves and then the passive effects of the mushroom naturally had an impact. I still like the set in spite of this, and it’s not all bad having a big collection of effects to play around with, so at least the set has tons of depth. It’s just a bit too hard to imagine this all playing in a coherent fashion.
So there's been much said on Necrid in the chat and it's sadly not reflected whatsoever in the thread, and of the criticism I do agree with some of it, but I'm glad this set was made as it's really interesting to discuss if nothing else. This set takes the concept of the Almighty Lizard Challenge, where 1 frame moves reign, and tries to make it into a serious MYM moveset. This is as experimental as it gets, but as a result it has to make sacrifices in other aspects of the design. Necrid ends up being very, very UP in the early game, because 1 frame moves are very broken, and there's no real middle ground. Necrid will naturally go from below Jigglypuff to above Cloud on the tier list over the course of a match, and there's no way to mitigate the resulting whiplash. That's the actual core problem that was pointed out with the set, as it struggles to try and balance 1 frame moves.
As far as everything else goes, there's a reason I liked the set before this one aspect of the balance was found. It tries all it can to make a stupid character like Necrid into a fun moveset and it has good ideas in terms of how it balances the move copying, and the moves taken from Astaroth especially were fun. I've seen others point out different moves as their favourites here too, and it's not without good individual moves that take advantage of his Soulcalibur set. As the only other person here who plays Soulcalibur, this set obviously isn’t going for accuracy to Necrid but it must be pointed out he is missing some of his most memorable attacks. In the game he spams the Lizardman axe as a launcher and jab-like move after punches, and it’s a bit weird how close it is to Astaroth, making me just want to see an Astaroth set. You may have also gone for the angle of copying existing Smash 4 attacks.
I do think the set is slightly awkward for the character though as it's basically the same playstyle as Jr. Troopa, where Necrid goes from an absolute loser to top tier. If it was more accurate, without 1 frame stuff I assume, it should be more of a simply viable set at best, if not going for an outright low tier balance angle to make it accurate for the butt monkey character. I was not a fan of the purposefully bad move in the first place, and do feel the down tilt would be really awkward in practice. Necrid's playstyle also largely revolves around upgrading his set, which gives him a lot of depth strategically, but none for short-term tactics. Again, not exactly what I'd expect out of a brutish moron like Necrid. Ultimately though, this set is a very interesting study with how you decided to balance it and not without good elements.
Andy is not exactly your strongest moveset Conren, but at least you got it out for this contest. It's a bit similar to the downfalls with Nisashi that I commented earlier, in that it is chuck full of very illogical interactions that suffocate the moves, where the effect isn't particularly interesting and the hitbox isn't too relevant. For example the very arbitrary down smash that causes his vehicles to explode, and the most obvious example of holding a move back in the up special, where Andy is forced to summon a helicopter first before he can summon helicopter blades for his recovery. I feel that the way you have a universal animation for Andy upgrading his vehicles is such a huge loss, as if it took place during say, extended hit lag as he hit a vehicle, that'd improve the set hugely. Then, you might be able to craft more of a playstyle around it where he chooses to use certain moves not only because of the upgrade, but because of the speed or location of the upgrade, and then the upgrades themselves could scale a little in usefulness depending on the upgrade itself.
There's not much else to say on the set, as it's all so focused on the upgrade system and the vehicles. Not that it's wrong but it's so incredibly simplistic and feels pretty annoying to play the way it is balanced as Andy stops to do the same animation constantly breaking the flow of his gameplay if he's near vehicles and the design is so bottle-necked it's painful. I will say the balance itself isn't necessarily bad, it's at least got that going for it, but the concepts and playstyle largely come down to an upgrade system. It definitely needs a lot of polish to bring that system more elegantly into the metagame, as right now it seems so set up dependant, and even fighting alongside the minions isn't that significant as part of the playstyle. I'd say it's skewed slightly to UP due to the recovery alone, but the vehicles what with their repairs make it snowball really quickly. The balance scales from UP to OP, without feeling like it's nuanced enough to fit in the Smash 4 metagame. I don't mean for this comment to be super harsh by the way, but I feel like if anything, you need more confidence to go the full hog with your ideas and be more ambitious with them, as while the balance sort of works that's not all there is to a complicated set like this heavy minion summoner. Honestly might’ve been smarter to base it off the Assist Trophy in Brawl or something.
I'm actually writing these comments in reverse order and so I come to Ohana after commenting the good Quinn set, and Ohana is certianly not good. This comes across as basically a joke set, and maybe it is? It's hard to tell. It is very, very funny however. Trying to balance the customers like a politician is hilarious. This set actually reminds me the most of Junahu's Fluttershy set where Fluttershy has an awfully UP set but has to rely on her terrible minions to fight, whereas Ohana has to please her customers to not end up getting down in the F tier dungeons. It's to say the least, very tacky, and I forgot what the balance problems are at this point but there are a lot of balance issues. It's mostly just amusing though that you could play as this pathetic character whose entire playstyle revolves around pleasing customers and getting "paid" for satisfying them. Maybe I'll throw it a vote if there aren't any unhappy HMA customers who don't like her moveset?
I felt like Marion Quinn was a redemption of everything about Esty Dee, that set was all about the gunplay and trying to be cool. This set is very fun and creative about all the way it does gunplay without any of the failings of Esty Dee, to a shocking degree having come off the back of Pinstripe who relies heavily on his one gun. Quinn is one of the only sets I can ever remember having to focus on just that and making such a good going of the premise. The interesting quasi-platform stuff was a creative and simple outlet. It's a fitting playstyle as well, when it's obviously just a bit self-aware of how over the top it is, from that developer and franchise with the fat Warlord guy.
The set has some small flaws, it's obviously pretty dependant on interactions with moves like the smashes, not that those are bad moves it's just running out of steam by the time it gets to the last inputs. I don't really need to point out why the back aerial is a bit, er, simplistic. I also feel like this set is probably a little overpowered with all the projectiles and disjointed hitboxes, and I'd prefer if it went over what is projectiles and what is simply disjointed. Let me just rant on this a little bit as there is a significant difference. Bayonetta's bullets a lot of the time are disjointed hitboxes, not real projectiles, and either way Quinn would either get these moves reflected (making it UP depending on the foe) or just give incredibly range (OP), so there should be some more distinction, I assume it's just the former. Oh well though, MegaMan's already heavily projectile reliant and he is top tier, this is just something I wanted to bring up. There's little else to really criticize here, as this was a very fun set.
Zenyatta's just a Goldman clone! Just kidding, this set coincidentally focuses on the orbs like Goldman and does so in its own fun way that focuses more on the offensive capabilities of the orbs. It's funny it's literally posted right after Goldman too. It was very fun after making Goldman, to come to a set that handled the same concept from another angle. Whereas Goldman's are based off the Leaf Shield and mostly just a small buff to his set, Zenyatta lives and dies by his orb use, almost in a dichotomy similar to that of Rosalina & Luma. It's a great way of going about the orbs for this Overwatch character and feels like a very intelligent design decision. And you did an excellent job of squeezing all the potential out of him, digging into his taunts and other excess material from the game.
It's about as clean and logical as you'd expect. In other sets, you're off the mark a little, but I feel like Zenyatta is pretty spot on, and I was very happy about the overall playstyle too. The light touch that Zenyatta has on his orbs and the small ways his playstyle changes based around him is clever, and the utility of the orbs really squeezes all it can out of the concept. My only real problem with the set is that it does peter out at the end, and in a fairly weird way, where the grab game and smashes end up being some of the more underwhelming moves. The set could've ended up something really good if those were consistent, but it's still a very respectable moveset, maybe one of your best! Good job Muno.
I forgot about commenting Magearna apparently? That's a shame as I really enjoyed this set, and must've slipped my mind to leave it some form of comment as I discussed it in chat so much it was a massive distraction. This set has some interesting dichotomies to play at by swapping around statistics with its foes, and while it's dead simple, it is hard to point out literally any balance flaws as it's extremely polished. I do think the concept is very simple, but the correct thing to do is to then do as this set does, and do the necessary research to keep the simple concept from simply being a massive flop. This set is not interesting in a vacuum, but actually embraces the kind of sets MYM does in its own quirky and thoughtful way. By far my favourite Jamie set.
There’s no real chance to connect the two, as their very nature, activating after the move is already over, gives little room for there to be a whole lot of synergy. Then when you have to try and marry these effects to the playstyle of course you’re tripping over yourself trying to explain how these many effects can be cohesive and they simply couldn’t be. That’s not to say some of the effects aren’t fun, I really liked some of the ideas you have with that sphere, the duplicates aren’t a bad idea though executed poorly, the Marina-like idea of status effect stacking and manipulation is fun, but there’s got to be some level of polish.
I feel as though the mindset taken with the tail moves is part of the problem too. If you wanted some simple tail moves that’d be a good thing, but not on the smashes where she has some of the most complex status effects ever. I mean seriously, those two latter smashes are insane. It comes off as wanting to have your cake and eat it too, having moves that use the tail for the appeal of a melee move without much flash, then you put on the end a very complicated effect that has nothing to do with the hitbox or attack portion of the move. I wouldn’t even mind this if the hitbox had literally anything to do with the effect, but I find it hard to believe you couldn’t re-arrange these in no particular order and no one would notice, sans the write ups. All that said there is something like a good set hidden amongst all this mess, just not anywhere near your best.
Storm was a nice change of pace from you Joe, one of the most complex of the AvX sets with all the interactions. The way that the meter is used is most relevant in this of all the sets, compared to sets like Thor where it's mostly played down and it does make some sense for Storm and her flashy powers. The shield special is among the most logical ones I've seen, as it's an extension of a minor mechanic using a meter. The moves have the most consistency and are pushed the move in this style, as even up to the aerials, the moves try to keep up the playstyle relevance with mobility options in her set up, or letting her change her moves in small ways depending on the set up she has out. All in all, it felt like a great marriage of flashier concepts in her wind powers and the balance you get out of a meter.
As far as complaints go, I remember being a little wary of how long some of the weather effects last in the specials, and I'm still a tiny bit worried how long for example the Whispy Woods wind lasts. Her effects in general feel like some of the strongest generally speaking compared to the other AvX characters, she gets so much mileage, gigantic lingering hitboxes and then this only feeds into her meter due to dealing more damage too, and it doesn't feel like she has much of a weakness. It's not like it's broken, but it's hard to see how this set wouldn't be an immediate top tier zoner. The important part is she can't camp that amazingly well without meter, but certainly she'd be hard to approach. Thing is that it's a very weak balance argument I'm making, as it's not like the set is broken, it's more of a fine-tuning process that I'm not entirely sold on. Overall I still really like the set and just wanted to air some smaller concern, would like to hear your thoughts on this one. Good job, JOE!
Coming off of Liz Eird, I much preferred Izuna. This set is far more polished and focused in terms of playstyle and reminds me a lot of the Agiri set from years ago, only a lot better executed here. The talisman are ultimately not that flashy, but all fulfil a very relevant purpose in the playstyle that revolves around Izuna’s rushdown and contribute something, and the way these effects stack or are stored make perfect sense. It feels like a very intuitive system and then later on, all the moves play well into her playstyle of subterfuge and using her huge tool set to get one over on the foe. It’s not the most complex of playstyles but it definitely works, and is definitely well executed too.
I would say the set has some weaker moves, the most obvious examples being the throws where the set peters out a little bit. I wasn’t too sold on a couple of the concepts too like throwing down caltrops on down tilt, I mean down smash is one thing but down tilt? But thankfully this was only a handful of moves; it’s more harmful when the set’s appeal is very much in the execution area of the set, that it’s worse a few moves miss their mark. However this is definitely my favourite set of yours this contest
After a few versions of Inkling, I think I know what I'm in for. The weapons, now pronounced compared to previous Inkling sets, play a big role here, but compared to the previous sets you can see how your style has evolved. It's almost a measuring stick now to compare your many, many Inkling sets over the years. The ink isn't as much of a universal mechanic as in the others, and the weapons while pronounced, aren't made a focal point, but are used to focus onto certain sections or individual moves to give them a bit more oomph, and overall make for a more interesting latter half of the set. I think this is definitely the best approach you've taken, focusing more on each move by itself, and instead letting them play more naturally into the mines and squid-cancelling. I do think the squid-cancelling is a little underutilized, and despite the use of weapons like the roller or paintbrush the set is pretty desperate in trying to keep the playstyle together as it does lack the strong link given by the ink mechanics in older sets. The playstyle is a pretty general one.
If I was going to nitpick as well it felt a bit awkward just how proppy it gets though I can hardly blame you for that. As an example Inkling pulls out the paintbrush on two aerials, the massive roller on down aerial, the powerful blaster on back aerial, and just kicks for up aerial. I'd like some consistency here, even if it's just something like Villager's forward/back and up/down of aerials. It should be the weapons that most make sense for Inkling to use on those inputs, not what makes most sense for the archetype of move Smash and MYM is used to on those inputs, otherwise we're just going to end up just emulating how Smash sets work, and that's no good. In any case, a good set, and the best we've seen for Inkling.
I left N Brio until almost last and I'm glad I did, as the set did manage to keep my attention throughout the entire set, something your sets manage to do compared to a lot of others. It's always impressive seeing you bring out a 2in1 set, and I do think you avoided the most obvious pitfalls involved in a 2in1 by being explicit about the way the transformation works, giving some brief invulnerability like I did for Birkin, and always being aware of the fact the monster form can transform back. The best parts of the set for me were the monster aerials and monster tilts, though they were somewhat generic they felt pretty much perfect fits for those inputs. The monster grab game was a little too generic, but mostly fine. As far as the scientist form goes, I did love the gems as platforms (pretty clever way to interpret The Great Hall in a set). There were however some things I felt were not done as well that I will go over now.
The gems are very weak and easy to destroy at 13HP. The only time they’re used directly is the scientist up smash, which at 50 frames of start lag without gems is pretty awful, so you basically have banned this up smash to only be used with gems out, and it doesn't hit in front of him, yes that move is pretty terribly weak because it has to give the gems some logical reason to exist.
I really did not like the up throw healing the foe after exploding in their mouth, and goes without saying for similar reasons the down throw is excessively tacky. Granted, a hilarious move. I don't really get the point of the rain cloud and why it exists among the slimes, but the rain cloud ends up getting more attention than slimes do. The down smash has a very elaborate animation for a move said to be very fast. The monster form up tilt is one of its only interactions that is pretty random. I don't know why there are minions in this set outside of them generically moving around to fill up more space, as they are never referenced except as generic goo to stick people to. The set can get fairly awkward with moves like the scientist fair using up half his up special fuel so he basically dies ever using it off or under the stage and not heading towards the stage.
The monster form is very dry for Warlordian standards. This could actually be a positive if the scientist form had a lot of interesting set up, but mostly it comes down to setting up these incredibly weak gems as platforms, and not much else is really relevant. After thinking about the balance, I think ti works just about. Mostly you have to spam the gems as the scientist and the foe can’t just kill them in one hit, so you’re going to be spamming the gems… a lot. You also are going to need to get out as many slimes as possible. This should see him well enough he’s viable but I still think this set is underpowered, but saved by simple fun had with the monster form.
It's been some years since Yutaka came into our lives, and now we have its spiritual successor, Koboyashi! I am shocked this set even exists because this character seems ridiculous. Not quite as hard as Yutaka herself (that might be an impossible feat) but it's definitely a struggle when the character is a little girl, can't fight and her series is a slice-of-life, so you chose to instead focus on the idea that drunkenness helps her come to grips with her weaknesses. Not a bad idea, but you have to realize that this is very tacky, treating Smash Bros as more of a state of mind than a physical battle. I could definitely accept this if the set only delved into Popeye logic with the drunkenness, but this set...
The most bizarre tackiness in the set is the parts where she deals emotional damage to the foe, by just pointing at them. This damage is then amplified if they're in a maid outfit. Are we really to believe that I don't know, an actual maid character, who could easily be in the game, would care about being in the maid outfit? For these moves themselves like the standard where she laughs at a foe and does passive damage... what about characters who have no shame or are monsters? This is then continued in the grab game with the "telling off". This move itself is quite a memetic down throw, as it makes time pass but only for Koboyashi and the throw victim, so in FFA and teams it makes absolutely no sense. It's also really, really odd how she pulls out a sword on down smash only when drunk, but I'm willing to forgive that instance.
I could get past all that but the part of the set I thought was just irredeemable was the shouting move. It starts off doing minimal damage which makes sense. But then as it gets more and more buffs from being drunk or other requirements, it starts to do insane damage. This is a little girl shouting that does 25% or more damage! I mean, it's a hard character, but surely this didn't need to be a core smash move. It'd be weird as just a normal smash attack doing low damage as a shout, but the entire point of it being a smash attack is it can deal ridiculous damage, and I mean, shouting probably isn't a good attack unless the character is Exploud. Surely just some more shenanigans with the sword would've sufficed?
To go over some positives here, I don't think this set is totally bad as it does have some fun ideas with the drunkenness, like the way down aerial changes to her flapping her arms like a bird (reminds me of FANG in SF5). The food and the up special monster are utilized in a fun way. The maid costume stuff is about as good as it could be. The humour certainly goes a long way in making the set enjoyable to read, but I swear I was just amazed by this set's tackiness more than I have been by a set in years. It was pretty entertaining, especially writing this comment. I just feel like you went too far in a few places. This set could've been a lot better if you cut down the tackiness a few notches. Probably just want to get rid of the shouting and emotional damage moves. Then I could get on board. A hilarious set though if not always for the right reasons.
I came into Sucy not sure what to expect, but you can see the same quality that was in Gamagori in this set, just let down a little bit. This is primarily the mushroom weapon switch. This is unfortunate as the specials were very exciting in how imaginative the moves were, particularly the animations that felt incredibly fitting for the character. The moves where they’re not held back by all the references to the mushrooms are some of the better moves I’ve seen on a witch character, not something we see too often in MYM. It’s all seamlessly put together in the specials to make way for what could’ve been a great set.
Later on the moves start to just feel like they're becoming an excuse to go over the differences brought on by mushrooms. The hitbox and attack portion of many moves is glossed over so that you can go over the various effects the mushrooms have, and frankly you had enough in the specials alone to just work into a normal moveset besides that. The effects themselves are just so arbitrary too. You add some knockback, or damage, or change the direction of knockback and there’s no way you couldn’t simply have a universal effect on each mushroom up front, as this ends up feeling like it’s padded out. What would’ve helped more is if the mere existence of a mushroom had some minor effect on the moves and then the passive effects of the mushroom naturally had an impact. I still like the set in spite of this, and it’s not all bad having a big collection of effects to play around with, so at least the set has tons of depth. It’s just a bit too hard to imagine this all playing in a coherent fashion.
So there's been much said on Necrid in the chat and it's sadly not reflected whatsoever in the thread, and of the criticism I do agree with some of it, but I'm glad this set was made as it's really interesting to discuss if nothing else. This set takes the concept of the Almighty Lizard Challenge, where 1 frame moves reign, and tries to make it into a serious MYM moveset. This is as experimental as it gets, but as a result it has to make sacrifices in other aspects of the design. Necrid ends up being very, very UP in the early game, because 1 frame moves are very broken, and there's no real middle ground. Necrid will naturally go from below Jigglypuff to above Cloud on the tier list over the course of a match, and there's no way to mitigate the resulting whiplash. That's the actual core problem that was pointed out with the set, as it struggles to try and balance 1 frame moves.
As far as everything else goes, there's a reason I liked the set before this one aspect of the balance was found. It tries all it can to make a stupid character like Necrid into a fun moveset and it has good ideas in terms of how it balances the move copying, and the moves taken from Astaroth especially were fun. I've seen others point out different moves as their favourites here too, and it's not without good individual moves that take advantage of his Soulcalibur set. As the only other person here who plays Soulcalibur, this set obviously isn’t going for accuracy to Necrid but it must be pointed out he is missing some of his most memorable attacks. In the game he spams the Lizardman axe as a launcher and jab-like move after punches, and it’s a bit weird how close it is to Astaroth, making me just want to see an Astaroth set. You may have also gone for the angle of copying existing Smash 4 attacks.
I do think the set is slightly awkward for the character though as it's basically the same playstyle as Jr. Troopa, where Necrid goes from an absolute loser to top tier. If it was more accurate, without 1 frame stuff I assume, it should be more of a simply viable set at best, if not going for an outright low tier balance angle to make it accurate for the butt monkey character. I was not a fan of the purposefully bad move in the first place, and do feel the down tilt would be really awkward in practice. Necrid's playstyle also largely revolves around upgrading his set, which gives him a lot of depth strategically, but none for short-term tactics. Again, not exactly what I'd expect out of a brutish moron like Necrid. Ultimately though, this set is a very interesting study with how you decided to balance it and not without good elements.
Andy is not exactly your strongest moveset Conren, but at least you got it out for this contest. It's a bit similar to the downfalls with Nisashi that I commented earlier, in that it is chuck full of very illogical interactions that suffocate the moves, where the effect isn't particularly interesting and the hitbox isn't too relevant. For example the very arbitrary down smash that causes his vehicles to explode, and the most obvious example of holding a move back in the up special, where Andy is forced to summon a helicopter first before he can summon helicopter blades for his recovery. I feel that the way you have a universal animation for Andy upgrading his vehicles is such a huge loss, as if it took place during say, extended hit lag as he hit a vehicle, that'd improve the set hugely. Then, you might be able to craft more of a playstyle around it where he chooses to use certain moves not only because of the upgrade, but because of the speed or location of the upgrade, and then the upgrades themselves could scale a little in usefulness depending on the upgrade itself.
There's not much else to say on the set, as it's all so focused on the upgrade system and the vehicles. Not that it's wrong but it's so incredibly simplistic and feels pretty annoying to play the way it is balanced as Andy stops to do the same animation constantly breaking the flow of his gameplay if he's near vehicles and the design is so bottle-necked it's painful. I will say the balance itself isn't necessarily bad, it's at least got that going for it, but the concepts and playstyle largely come down to an upgrade system. It definitely needs a lot of polish to bring that system more elegantly into the metagame, as right now it seems so set up dependant, and even fighting alongside the minions isn't that significant as part of the playstyle. I'd say it's skewed slightly to UP due to the recovery alone, but the vehicles what with their repairs make it snowball really quickly. The balance scales from UP to OP, without feeling like it's nuanced enough to fit in the Smash 4 metagame. I don't mean for this comment to be super harsh by the way, but I feel like if anything, you need more confidence to go the full hog with your ideas and be more ambitious with them, as while the balance sort of works that's not all there is to a complicated set like this heavy minion summoner. Honestly might’ve been smarter to base it off the Assist Trophy in Brawl or something.
I'm actually writing these comments in reverse order and so I come to Ohana after commenting the good Quinn set, and Ohana is certianly not good. This comes across as basically a joke set, and maybe it is? It's hard to tell. It is very, very funny however. Trying to balance the customers like a politician is hilarious. This set actually reminds me the most of Junahu's Fluttershy set where Fluttershy has an awfully UP set but has to rely on her terrible minions to fight, whereas Ohana has to please her customers to not end up getting down in the F tier dungeons. It's to say the least, very tacky, and I forgot what the balance problems are at this point but there are a lot of balance issues. It's mostly just amusing though that you could play as this pathetic character whose entire playstyle revolves around pleasing customers and getting "paid" for satisfying them. Maybe I'll throw it a vote if there aren't any unhappy HMA customers who don't like her moveset?
I felt like Marion Quinn was a redemption of everything about Esty Dee, that set was all about the gunplay and trying to be cool. This set is very fun and creative about all the way it does gunplay without any of the failings of Esty Dee, to a shocking degree having come off the back of Pinstripe who relies heavily on his one gun. Quinn is one of the only sets I can ever remember having to focus on just that and making such a good going of the premise. The interesting quasi-platform stuff was a creative and simple outlet. It's a fitting playstyle as well, when it's obviously just a bit self-aware of how over the top it is, from that developer and franchise with the fat Warlord guy.
The set has some small flaws, it's obviously pretty dependant on interactions with moves like the smashes, not that those are bad moves it's just running out of steam by the time it gets to the last inputs. I don't really need to point out why the back aerial is a bit, er, simplistic. I also feel like this set is probably a little overpowered with all the projectiles and disjointed hitboxes, and I'd prefer if it went over what is projectiles and what is simply disjointed. Let me just rant on this a little bit as there is a significant difference. Bayonetta's bullets a lot of the time are disjointed hitboxes, not real projectiles, and either way Quinn would either get these moves reflected (making it UP depending on the foe) or just give incredibly range (OP), so there should be some more distinction, I assume it's just the former. Oh well though, MegaMan's already heavily projectile reliant and he is top tier, this is just something I wanted to bring up. There's little else to really criticize here, as this was a very fun set.
Zenyatta's just a Goldman clone! Just kidding, this set coincidentally focuses on the orbs like Goldman and does so in its own fun way that focuses more on the offensive capabilities of the orbs. It's funny it's literally posted right after Goldman too. It was very fun after making Goldman, to come to a set that handled the same concept from another angle. Whereas Goldman's are based off the Leaf Shield and mostly just a small buff to his set, Zenyatta lives and dies by his orb use, almost in a dichotomy similar to that of Rosalina & Luma. It's a great way of going about the orbs for this Overwatch character and feels like a very intelligent design decision. And you did an excellent job of squeezing all the potential out of him, digging into his taunts and other excess material from the game.
It's about as clean and logical as you'd expect. In other sets, you're off the mark a little, but I feel like Zenyatta is pretty spot on, and I was very happy about the overall playstyle too. The light touch that Zenyatta has on his orbs and the small ways his playstyle changes based around him is clever, and the utility of the orbs really squeezes all it can out of the concept. My only real problem with the set is that it does peter out at the end, and in a fairly weird way, where the grab game and smashes end up being some of the more underwhelming moves. The set could've ended up something really good if those were consistent, but it's still a very respectable moveset, maybe one of your best! Good job Muno.
I forgot about commenting Magearna apparently? That's a shame as I really enjoyed this set, and must've slipped my mind to leave it some form of comment as I discussed it in chat so much it was a massive distraction. This set has some interesting dichotomies to play at by swapping around statistics with its foes, and while it's dead simple, it is hard to point out literally any balance flaws as it's extremely polished. I do think the concept is very simple, but the correct thing to do is to then do as this set does, and do the necessary research to keep the simple concept from simply being a massive flop. This set is not interesting in a vacuum, but actually embraces the kind of sets MYM does in its own quirky and thoughtful way. By far my favourite Jamie set.
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Seriously I wasn't really expecting that, especially not from a rush job like Sailor Moon. What surprised me even more was that Commander Keen also scored; honestly I was hoping just to score and I finally did so I'm happy both sets scored, but to hit the top 50 is well beyond what I aimed for.
TALE
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