Make Your Move 25: Moveset Design Contest — Contest is Donezo! MYM 26 Starts March 17th!

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Apothecary Gary

I appreciate that you were willing to throw this out in spite of being in an unfinished state: just seeing a new set from you, from a piece of media you really like, is great in itself. Jamcons are also a good way to get attention and force people to give you feedback as they climb their way to nominationhood. I wrote this comment with the intention of giving you suggestions, so I’ll run by them one by one:

• I like the glow-in-the-dark aesthetic of spores.
• Spore timers on minions feels relatively fair given that the stronger ones require more spores. Being able to control an opponent’s Nana in a tag team set might lead to some weirdness/being unfair.
• The actual concept behind summoning frog minions to dish out stronger versions of your attacks Nana style is promising! It’s particularly unique on a fighter who is tiny compared to their partner/minions: I could see situations where an enemy’s attack hits a frog, but not Gary.
• Do the frog minions have stamina, or do they need to be KO’ed like regular fighters? Is there a limit to how many frogs Gary can have out?

• Down Special feels decent enough as a way to keep frogs in place and return them to Gary’s side on a second use. Could lead to some fun effects, like a frog using Up Tilt on the ground while Gary uses his U-air while he’s airborne, maybe comboing off of the frog’s attack.
• It would be cool if the frogs could actually weaponize the crops they grow. As either a throwing item or battering item. I understand that this is a very ambitious idea, so you don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to. But… it would be very cool if you could “customize” the frogs’ attacks, like make them throw an item upwards instead of use their Up Tilt? Even have Gary catch that item? Maybe you could even have the giant pumpkin roll along the stage like a barrel item?

• You could make the Side Special projectile a conventional projectile (could be similar to Duck Hunt’s Side Special if the throw is compared to a frisbee toss), deal some damage and hitstun.
• As frogs don’t use Up Special, it could open them up to use other attacks while Gary is recovering?
• What if Gary could spread a temporary cloud spores while he’s flying during his Up Special?

• Side Tilt is the kind of tag-team interaction I like to see: where the frogs’ rake attack can follow up on Gary’s spore attack. I’d be interested in seeing details like knockback or move applications for the frogs’ attack and melee attacks in general.
• The idea of an input that has no hitbox on one fighter, but a hitbox on the other is interesting @ D-tilt.
• Wasn’t expecting to see Dodongo’d moves, heh.

Overall, a very promising moveset concept! I could see Gary being a solid moveset with a more fleshed-out melee game, which is generally the big highlight of tag team sets. If you wanted to go in that direction, we would be happy to help. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Jamcon 5 nomination goes to Alcohol Witch Daniella. It was close this time around, but I was long overdue to give Tern a Jamcon nomination. Great work!

Spoiler: Remilia Scarlet

It’s fascinating to see you take up the Touhou mantle, and tackle the highest-placing Touhou character at that. Definitely invoking Froy’s presentation style by placing pictures above each move section.

Of immediate interest is Remilia’s increased jumpsquat frames, as I tackled a very similar concept last contest. You also do a good job at emulating the movement style in Touhou games (and I believe the air dashes from the fighters) in Remilia having really good air speed and long dodges. Teleports in the place of your midair jump is bold and fascinating, and something I once attempted in a MYM8 set that I long deleted. The mechanic prevents Remilia from attacking in the middle of a midair jump like other fighters, which is normally fun to explore in a set, but it uses as a dodge, gimp and extreme mix-up or approach are cool and balance with her jumpsquat frames really nicely!

The post-attack teleport is definitely cool too, and having finished Jamcon sets the lag cut of course reminds me of Daniella. That Remilia can only teleport if she performs her first jump, but is able to teleport if she hits a foe, is a neat balance factor too, and justified in a cool way as Remilia is designed to be a feast-or-famine character in a way that suits her character fantastically. All and all, I really dig Remilia’s mechanic, and that’s not even getting into her moveset!

Neutral Special is an interesting enough charge-and-store projectile, where Reminila has to pick between a neutral tool or committing to stronger projectiles and losing said good neutral tool. Side Special is a nice twist on Pac-Man’s Side Special, where you stun the foe for longer the longer the chain was, and can potentially start up and smack them with an attack. Seems strong, but if Remilia manages to hit with the long, telegraphed chain, she deserves it, and she is also limited by the angle she approached her opponent.

Down Special reminds me a bit about Froy’s Patchouli set: the projectile does feel too powerful when Remilia can aim it in any direction and it deals radial knockback. Combined with its slow movement speed and low end lag, it feels a bit too easy to throw it downwards offstage to gimp opponents (Remilia could just run offstage to circumvent her 12 frame jumpsquat). Maybe it should have some kind of limit when thrown downwards? By comparison, the delayed U-Smash knives are quite cool and feel a lot more balanced with their radial knockback, as they are fired from high off the ground from a grounded input. The blood puddles further remind me of Daniella: you must have had your finished Remilia set in mind when you made that set! Beyond this, all of Remilia’s Smashes are quite cool and play off of her blood puddles nicely.

Air Smashes? Now we’re really talking Froy! Well-balanced, and a great extra input that adds a lot more to Remilia’s air mechanics and an extra variety of Aerials. I like how the projectile Air F-Smash plays off of Remilia’s teleport and the lag cut she can get, while Air U-Smash is a solid anti air-dodge tool. And Air D-Smash is a fun, reasonably over-the-top stall-then-fall that adds a great fear factor out of Remilia’s Aerials.

Onto the main Aerials, N-air is a really fun melee move for Remilia: it’s not only simple but has the cool prone set-up application from the spike on its second hit, which gets harder to land at higher percents, and I really like the landing shield mix-up between hits 1 and 2. F-air is a funny move that wouldn’t be great on any other character, but it’s very cool for its customizable knockback and being Remilia’s premier wall-of-pain move with her teleport mechanic. D-air is particularly fun to imagine being used while traveling along the air to spray bullets beneath your opponent, doing a great job of capturing the bullet hell nature of Touhou.

Really, the Aerials do an excellent job at complimenting Remilia’s aerial mechanics, serving as a high input section for a fantastic mechanic. From there, Dash Attack and F-tilt are neat for their mix-up capabilities. D-tilt slide is another move similar to Daniella, but a fun little armour and damage boost for sliding over blood. B-throw’s bat bomb does seem a bit strong and last a long time given it homes, but is otherwise a cool move. And D-throw is a very unique “tether-them-in-place” throw that we don’t see often in modern MYM, and doesn’t seem to be too imbalanced from what I see.

So, all and all? I really, really like this set. This is easily my favourite set of yours so far: a really strong set that I would have easily Super Voted for last contest, and would be shocked if I didn’t SV it this contest. It’s the Tern set that I always wanted, that I knew you always had in you. Really, I have little doubt this set will be one of the more popular entries this contest. Fantastic work, Tern!

Also, nice Classic Mode extras. We don’t really get Classic Mode Ending Screens much, either.

 

[UserShadow7989]

Herminia by Junahu ***

A delightful surprise, being another Jun set so soon and an Octopath Traveler-related one at that! ...well, from the Gacha game, at least, but it still counts in my book. Herminia is fairly ambitious as a set, especially as a Jamcon entry, with as much as she has going on- a mechanic of creating simple constructs with multiple simple benefits and interactions as she takes damage, her shield lowering her traction dramatically, the ability to lock off an opponent's moves, a self-damaging effect that gives her a passive hitbox and lets her set up her gold piles as she pleases, a simple minion who serves as part of an attack and a long term reward after if she makes proper use of it, a float, the ability to get a 'super' version of an attack as part of locking it and being able to cheat that lock by being near her gold, the ability to 'combine' her basic throws, a status tied to foes damaging her gold piles...

All of which is surprisingly balanced and feels pretty intuitive? Despite how many moving parts she has, it's all simple enough to grasp and keep in mind, even for me. The inputs are all simple enough in and of themselves, but creative and functional, and play nicely off of her assorted mechanics with mentioned made where relevant. Each mechanic has plenty of thought and care put into them, such as the incense not being able to prevent movement in the air so she can't ban a recovery after sending foes off stage, and grab being off-limits entirely so she can't lock off what's a very important tool in most match-ups (especially since normal attacks will shove her to safety if they hit her shield with her lowered traction!).

She even interweaves them pretty well, as addressed by the playstyle section- use gold piles to control how far Herminia slides when she shields something to pick your follow-up option utilizing her range, hang around in optimal positions so opponents have to carefully pry her from a spot or settle for dealing with the consequences of that pile, smacking foes into piles with her smashes to double down on them or banning a move and abusing it from that position- I think the gold piles acting as a bonding substance for the moveset's many tricks and mechanics is what lets it work so effectively.

I think the only hiccups I saw were that FAir notes it lacks an autocancel window when landing, but then notes it has one later, and that UAir's input image is a repeat of DAir's. In a set this complex, that's pretty small potatoes. To top it off, the flavor is fantastic from top to bottom- the constant disdain she shows her opponents, her Lady-in-Waiting's lack of loyalty when money is involved, her revulsion toward her opponent's banned inputs and the side effects of being struck by it if they break her seal, her pummel and throws having dance-like movements that the former even swapping her position with the foe at high enough percents/with enough uses, there's an excellent melding of flavor and mechanics here.

If I had anything I could add, when Jamcon is over and edits are allowed, it might be that there's some more fun to be had with the mix and match throws. DI for example is something I like referencing in grab games, where Throws that look alike or are very quick can benefit from foes DI-ing the wrong way expecting a different throw to come out. Given she can switch up which throw she uses at the last moment, Herminia could wreak merry havoc with foes by toying with expectations. This is an excellent set, and I'm interested to see the rest of the playstyle section done given how in-depth it is.

 

[FrozenRoy]

Proftopath Traveler (Herminia Junahu )

Funny enough, I actually considered making Tressa's Chapter 2 boss Morlock as a villainous money grubber. I found Octopath a nice, fun game and so I'm happy to see a set from it! I remember Profiteur from Bravely and that gives me some same vibes JRPG-wise. Plus, a Junahu Jamcon especially after so long is pretty hype, hope you're not a stranger as much!

When it comes to the notes and organization, I think the biggest danger of seperating between the body of the moveset and notes is the mental disconnect that it can create. Reading moves as one big thing without notes creates an uninterrupted connection, and your mind pieces together the lag, damage, animation and so on together. By comparison, if the lag of a move is in the corner on a note only, then you have to pull yourself from reading the move to look at the info, and then pull yourself back into the move, perhaps even only looking afterwards if you are reading it in one block. I generally think it makes reading moves come off a bit more artificial and harder to grok. Or, put more directly: I like the use of notes like in the Specials or non-numbers to kind of distill the point of the move or specifics, and to summarize things within the move. Saying stuff like "this attack has a little start-up" and then putting the more technical lag info in a box feels like a good way to do it by keeping the natural flow of the move but then providing additional info if desired.

I do really like the "Point of Comparison" that you add and would like to see that remain in the future. And, unsurprisingly, the visuals are very good. You've taken to Google Docs quite well and that might be the least surprising thing, for Junahu to go big into organization.

Bro 2 frames of ending lag on FAir? What? I don't think I really need to go into why that should be increased as it is pretty self-evidently too low. I wonder if this came about due to the landing lag confusion? The ending lag of the rest of the set seems all in line, so.

In an overall sense, I like the old school MYM ideas at display here such as the return of the money pile with some unique uses to it that range from the subtle but interesting (increased traction to make shield grabbing more of a thing for her) to the very direct (hitting opponents with Smash Attack / Dash Attack to Gild them and kill or combo), and in this case tying it to money and combining it with the idea of self damage adds a new air to it that can be combined with things like her dress mechanic. I like how this plays into, say, her Down There where the opponent might not want to mash out if it is advantageous to damage rack both of them (like getting Herminia to kil %) but at the same time it might allow her to drop more gold. The Gold Curse I'm a bit divided on but I'll touch on that in a bit. I really like the way the incense works, some weird-ass move locking can be my jam and I think the ebb and flow of powered up move -> both players being locked gives not only good game feel but the character feel of "power for me, not for thee" with how it works.

And Herminia, additionally, has a good number of individual moves I like. I think the simple powerful call out on Forward Smash is fun (and I like how the note basically goes "Powdered Move: Die"), the way the Lady-in-Waiting works out of shield, the Forward Tilt feels like a good example of her spacing playstyle, the alternative Down Tilt on gold coin piles, Dash Attack's useful guilding and I did particularly like Down Tilt's use of that effect as well. In general all of the Smashes had different effects when Gilded in a good way. The aforementioned Down Throw and also actually the pummel are good, with the pummel in addition to the uses with her combined throws I think it is just very fun "ballroom" flavor that fits.

There's some pretty big issues I have too, and one of them is when the set can be frustratingly vague. This is my biggest issue with the Gold Curse: The set fails to provide a frame of reference for the reader to imagine how it works. I don't need direct numbers per se, nice as they are, but the set doesn't even really provide context for how much a good number is. Does getting to 15 Gold Curse matter? What kinda Gold Curse are we needing before it starts meaningfully affecting combos? When should we be worrying about the opponent putting so much Gold weight on it hurts our KO power? The set needs to provide some kind of idea of what's worthwhile here or the reader is blind and I feel like the Gold Curse does not do an adequate job of that. I can, however, infer that I dislike just how much the last throw gives in Gold Curse: +50 when you have to work soooooo hard for it normally (you would need opponents to KO almost three full gold piles for that!) feels like too much of a shortcut to the point it would be the main way to get Gold Curse on foes. I'd cut it to +10 or +15 or something.

Similarly, I feel like things like combos can be overly vague, even in the playstyle section. And as much as for balance it does a disservice to imagining the character play, how it would all turn out, since the set never really says how it works. I found this particularly disappointing with the Up Special Lady in Waiting because the way the disjointed hit can lead to air combos, especially given her unique downward float, could lead to some cool stuff...none of which really pops up and lets the reader imagine, get engrossed, vibe with the set. On top of that I do wonder how much the set has some of that stuff mentioned in the playstyle section just logically thinking on the moves, but the spacer playstyle is strong enough and I can see glimmers of how it would work with some of the aerials like DAir for example. I think one reason the moveset feels like it lacks some "flash" in it, at least to me, is how it is generally kinda hazy on some of the cool specifics. Even some small stuff (like, say, mentioning an example of 1-2 starters and why you'd use them even if it is just "this is an air combo starter and this is a ground combo starter" on Down Throw's last paragraph) would be helpful.

There are also some individual moves I find weird or have trouble with, the last throw is one I had, but Back + Up throw is also one since it very much reads as "IDK what to do here so it does nothing", at the least I'd enjoy if it had a funni hitbox with recoil like a failed Incineroar Side Special for comedy...maybe you could even then use the self damage to potentially bust out a gold pile even if it is small! Up Smash adding stamina to the coin piles feels a bit odd and out of place, mostly because it's the only move that really hard interacts with them in this kind of manner, and how it ends up feeling a bit artificial due to it. I actually kind of like the effect but wonder if it means we should have had another gold pile effect or two. I'd also say in a general sense it feels like some of the powdered moves are kinda general, there's quite a lot of suction / windbox here, and I could see Herminia mixing in a little more "flashy" into some of them, or rather to different purposes.

Overall, Herminia has a strong concept with some solid execution that does feel like it falters to a degree on melee and is at times frustratingly vague. The characterization and writing was fun and on point as well. I feel like with at least a few tweaks it could hit a low 7 for me, but it seems like a pretty likely vote without them (in part because many of my issues tie into "could be better" more outside of stuff like the Gold Curse info / last throw). Junacon here was fun as expected and, really, after all these years seeing you pump out a solid, voteworthy set in four days like this was very heartening to see. Keep up the good work!

 

[UserShadow7989]

Giganotosaurus by Slavic ***

O-kay, behind schedule a bit but will try to be comprehensive. Giganotosaurus is fluffed as a joke set in all aspects, but the mechanics are laced together to be something functional and crazy and this is the stated intent of the set, so I'll go over the crunch accordingly with a note that I got a kick out of the flavor, which was nice. Giganotosaurus is an ultra-heavyweight in many respects from a huge hurtbox to high weight and massive attacks, and through her Smashes can shift to a more defensive playstyle where her laundry list of crazy gimmicks and interactions give her some intense stage control at the cost of emphasizing those weaknesses or sacrifice her long-game effects and limiting her stage control that normally balances her weakness out to go into a hyper aggressive playstyle emphasizing her strengths and reducing said weaknesses. It's an interesting dichotomy where the player has some very oppressive options however they decide to play it and can adapt as the match-up changes, and a good chunk of it feels pretty functional despite the insanity of flavor and concept alike.

The interactions interlace heavily, which is important when there's so much going on to make the set feel cohesive, but it goes to such an extreme that it starts to be a downside. Starting at the aerials, ascribing a whole section of inputs to a small secondary 'body' that needs to be micromanaged separate from Giganotosaurus herself means you're unlikely to have him where you really need him, especially with only one of those inputs having much range to speak of and the second body being vulnerable to being temporarily removed from the match. There's also, as a nitpick, language early into the section mentioning multiple Buzzes being in play at once, while the rest goes on to make it clear it's one at a time.

Your Grab Game can similarly run around without you, triggering at a bad time as noted if you happen to be off-stage when it happens, and Up Special's ladder outright hinders you more than the opponent (which isn't too bad off-stage when recovering but even the interactions make it difficult to make use of). All this on a body that would logically be super vulnerable to juggles and air combos means opponents can get her away from Buzz and batter her against her own 'wall' for fun and profit, and that she is nigh-helpless off stage.

There's also some interactions that are there more for the fun value than something pragmatic, or come up only once as a corner case that'd be another thing to track; the train/ladder is a neat thing but mostly superfluous, and infecting the opponent with the living vampire curse flips the meat mechanic on its head in a way that would make the input undesirable in the middle of a match.

If it were to be taken in more of a serious direction, I'd trim down the number of gimmicks and adjust how Buzz works to partly follow Giganotosaurus and move into position when she is in her time of need, but the former at least adds to the set's crazy charm, so it may be that a more unified set of gimmicks on the throws section would be called for if focusing on the mechanical crunch. I'd also buff her attacks across the board; as-is, she's hitting about as hard as some other more typical characters, a few very good but set-up dependent damage racking options aside, but coming with a much bigger work load attached to it. This set was a blast to read and I'm very happy it exists, it just falls a bit on the side of 'too much' for me (and yes, I know that's a RIOT with how my first set of the contest turned out).



Baron Mordo by n88 ***

Another Strange character choice, Baron Mordo comes packed with abilities centered around summoning in a boss-tier ally he needs to work around carefully if he has them in play while also being able to hold his own in a fight besides that. Everything about the set screams 'power at a price' with highly rewarding options that come with their own flaws or drawbacks to keep them grounded and especially all the ways to spend his Darkness Meter.

Dormammu himself ends up being both an excellent boss fight and an excellent sort of stage hazard to fight around, with Mordo bearing quite a few tricks that synergize well with his benefactor, provided he's careful when he takes his shots or prepared to deal with turning the fight into a free-for-all. Up tilt against opponents trying to avoid the ground as part of fighting him, for a listed example.

His Forward Aerial and Dash Attack being so unconventional were a point of concern for me, but plays into his need to fight in a less direct manner by depriving him of conventional approach tool. His own roundabout and deceptive nature is his undoing in many cases, as it undermines what otherwise is a solid set of tricks and attacks by forcing him to rethink his positioning constantly. The set still functions perfectly fine once you're used to it, and these little touches of forced movement and unconventional hitboxes make him difficult to face for opponents used to more straightforward combat.

I think it works out well overall, showing why he needs his dark powers as a crutch to make up for his shortcomings, and allowing him to be a commanding threat when his plans align. It's far from the craziest set this Jamcon (which is impressive when his set has summoning a boss onto the field as a core mechanic), but it's a well-tuned set that encapsulates its character and has lots of small ideas that gel nicely and are individually a treat. Nice work!

 

[Junahu]

Gigantosaur
There's an artistic interpretation of this moveset that puts it on the upper echelons of MYM satire. The issue, and the reason why I've been so hesitant to commit this to words, is that it's probably not intentional on your part. So me calling it out as a brilliant takedown on certain MYMing sensibilities is essentially just a big ol' insult to everybody.
At best I draw attention to some accidental brilliance on your part. At worst, I compliment the set for doing the exact opposite of what you had set out to achieve. Either way I'm a bit of a jerk.

The moveset begins as a fairly well-considered moveset for a dinosaur. Big roar, vore neutral special, a ladder recovery that's a bit weird but still on-theme, and... er a locust swarm? That's fine I guess. Then, through the Tilts, it becomes increasingly obvious that the ideas are running away from the core character. The big dinosaur basically has no physical attacks, choosing instead to summon other dinosaurs to do the deed in her stead. But still, it feels like a moveset that's being built around a dino-queen. Maybe not a particularly focused one, but the beating heart of a moveset is still there.

And then all that just gets nuked from orbit by a satellite that was always in the background somehow and is now the conduit of Gigantosaur's Smashes.. also somehow. What I think I admire about this section is that the veneer of being a serious work starts to peel away here. Okay yeah it's obviously a super wacky mechanic, but more than that the effects these climates have on the earlier aspects of the moveset are quite revealing. They feel almost incompatible in a sense, forcing the dinosaur to now spew fireballs, tearing the ladders to shreds, leaving the locusts limp and motionless on the floor. The existing "sensible" moveset is deconstructed through her Smash Attacks, and cobbled back together in a twisted form that never seems quite right. The details are a net negative to read. They aren't a complement to the prior parts of the moveset. They act upon it, sure, but in no way that advances understanding, creates cohesion, or generates humour.

Of course, that is only the first in a series of rapid left-turns-at-albuquerque. Well... I say "rapid", but this is MYM, so they're more like whiplash moments that occur every 3,000 words or so. The experience never really recovers into a state that can be considered coherent; the moving pieces all demand attention, and they all pull in different directions. Practically, thematically, emotionally. Nothing fits. It's 5 different movesets, lashed together and presented as a completed work. It's quite novel how unflinchingly these swerves are presented in the writing.

Whether intentionally or otherwise, you've crafted an experience that expresses a very potent disdain for the investment of its reader. Whatever understanding the reader has built up about the moveset, Gigantosaur is determined to punish that. At every step, in every way. The moveset yanks itself out of the readers' hands, scribbles down a new idea, then gaslights the reader into accepting that this is somehow just another piece in a normal moveset. It beats the reader down with interactions and details, woven together in a way that feigns a greater plan. Then it upends the table to fling something else at the wall.
The moveset ends up being an effective discourse on the hubris of just adding more stuff until the moveset becomes good. Not just in the literal sense of each section adding a new disparate arm to the writhing homunculus, but even in the microcosm of every attack insisting on demonstrating cohesion with a patchwork of interactions that don't really amount to anything. The excess of excess drags everything down until all that's left is increasingly frantic gesturing toward stage control being the intended playstyle. Morbius Morbs across the stage while you simultaneously try to move a laser reticule and your Luma while on top of a ladder and oh my! We've travelled back in time to MYM6!

MYM6 was just the sort of contest where you needed to be there to understand it, y'know? Battlelines were finally being drawn in the sand between the Roolinites and Warlordians. Of course that's ignoring the very pertinent point that we were all doing our own things, independent of one another. But it's more effective to simplify older contests into a two faction war than to bother reaching into the back of our brains to find the truth buried 11 years deep.
So we have these two factions: "Movesets are king", and "Movesetting is king". On one side your content mattered more than your pitching. On the other, pitching the idea reigned over the idea itself. And, well, see.. I'm lying again. We weren't like that either, just another crystalised lie we tell ourselves when we cuddle up with a scary book in bed (that book is called "Etranger and TAC 2.0 are actually good movesets"). MYMers have always been screaming into the void of their own souls, and it was apparant right from the start that nobody was compelled to listen if they didn't want to. So we made movesets with appeal. A heady blend of a catchy idea, and just the right amount of showmanship to drum up a readership.

Common wisdom places KingK.Rool at the head of such an epiphany , but that feels a bit like convenient revisionism. I can tell you that my personal inspiration for improving the writing of my movesets was MasterWarlord. Perhaps not the best muse to pick, but his was the only work that I regularly read, so he was probably doing something right. It was fun to discover, through him, elements of movesetting that we had never formally considered important. Things like characterisation, for example. But I'm getting sidetracked from my point. MYM6 was a time of transformation. It marked my blossoming from an ugly Cutesy Beau, into a beautiful Clefable. From circular, pointless detail, into cute bouncy prose. Let's put aside the obvious counterargument that, Clefable is a stupid gimmick set whose literal gimmick was ignoring your stupid gimmick set's gimmick. I stopped writing blobs of text with no purpose but to satisfy an arbitrary desire for detail. I could just imply those anyway. What a convenient story. Just imagine if that was the truth!

The big marquee moments of MYM6 are common knowledge, passed down by the sagely old-guard of MYM. We had, of course, the Punch Out movement. A mostly harmless and only slightly spiteful response to a moveset for Little Mac that was big on props and other non-sequitur ideas. Nevermind how Little Mac is actually interesting to read, thanks to a combination of its brevity and its consistently blocked design elements that naturally built upon itself (even if what it was building was.. a bit weird?). The history has been set already; a gaggle of sensible boxing movesets that forced themselves to have nothing interesting to talk about other than their playstyles, created in response to a silly prop moveset. I was there too, if only to dunk on the dunkers by actually demonstrating even a basic understanding of the goddamn sport we were supposedly making sets about.
But hey, I shouldn't act all spiteful in this comment for Gigantosaur (er, this is still a comment for Gigantosaur, right?), and that's all in the past anyway so literally who cares?

But man, isn't it still kinda whack though? To leave the legacy of one's own work at the mercy of some nebulous floating criteria? In the end it all boils down to one's own personal satisfaction, and it just sucks to leave that to the whims of other people. They might miss the point, or worse, decide that the point should be pushed back upon. Maybe they dedicate entire paragraphs, eulogising the death of creative art, somehow killed by you. How presumptuous, contemptuous even. Negativity spurls quickly, revealing a congealed mess of thought that speaks more to the emotion of the person, than any actual point being made.

Ah, then there's hollow positivity. Perhaps a more incidious evil. It reads of a politeness most foul and duplicitous. There is credulity at play when one encounters one's own words parroted back at them. "yes miss, we read the book" claims one student, before tabling the idea that perhaps Moby Dlck was about a man hunting a whale. How gross, how childish.
How obviously literally necessary. For what else can feedback be? There's a right answer, and it is what is written. Affirmation of the known, and nothing more.

Argh, that's even less satisfying! Hostility is at least a differing viewpoint. We can use that. Expand the view of our art through the lens of some angry guy. But what value is there, to our art, when we receive the literary equivalent of a good job sticker? We did a good job? We keep going? Thanks for reading, I guess?
These approaches aren't working. Amplifying the existing good. Complaining about the imagined bad. Reject them. And accept this.

Slavic, you made art. Gigantosaur is art. This moveset was one of the worst times I've ever had reading a set. It wasn't funny. The ideas didn't run. It kneecaps its own stream-of-consciousness with MYM's insufferable commitment to explanation. It basically had nothing even vaguely interesting to say. Every small success I had in understanding its machinations was spat back in my face the moment your pendulous interests swung in another direction. It was bad. I hated reading it. It inspired a frustration within me that I haven't felt since Smady wrote Banballow. This emotion of mine, it is now yours. It belongs to Gigantosaurus. You can wear that with pride, claim it as a new truth of the moveset. That's a good thing. Great even. I would even go so far as to say it is the best thing. It's something you can shout from the top of a 8 grid tall ladder.
Just, y'know, climb back down afterward, because you don't have aerials for some goddamn reason.

 

[GolisoPower]

A Very High-Class Cocktail
Alcohol Witch Daniella by Arctic Tern

Glad we managed to get our second Witchverse set this contest! Reading Alcohol Witch Daniella was like having Sex On The Beach. It's a good Old Fashioned moveset with more kick than a Moscow Mule that never once Sours and always seems to get the Last Word in. I'm a fan of the Drunkenness mechanics: it's a very flexible status effect that can do a lot of things: even the playing field, give you an advantage, disorient your foe, there seems to be a lot to it that would make Daniella mains feel like masterminds.

Even the constructs seem very simple, to boot! The idea of a version of the classic Barrel item that Dani can enhance with her Smashes is a really fun prospect, especially with Down Smash, where you're basically throwing a booze bomb at them. You know what? The amount of barrel shenanigans to be had with Dani is just beautiful. I think the Down Special is also really fun, mainly because having played a bit of Guilty Gear as Slayer made me smile a bit with the amount of options she has with it, and it gets even better when she's drunk, too!

A lot of her attacks show off a surprising amount of class, with enough rose petals to make Nero Claudius proud, and that absolute "Majima of the Night" suaveness that you'd come to expect from an establishment such as this! I especially love F-tilt for the way it just pictures in my mind, U-air because of course a Molly's gonna be made here, and D-throw showcasing a less than savory part of her job that also plays into her unwilling position in the mafia. I'd love to order a drink from her place, that's for sure! Good work!

 

[UserShadow7989]

Elimine by WeirdChillFever ***

Something a bit simpler, though a little more tongue in cheek than the prior set; Elimine builds off of some very slim pickings in terms of moveset potential, drawing on her cameo and her Heroes appearance for mechanics and animations while building toward an intended fluff. There's lots of neat little tricks and sub-mechanics here, such as the gacha elements on the throws and her mix and match snowballing buffs, that keep the set interesting throughout.

However, I feel Elimine's mechanics don't come together as well as they could. There's a couple of hard interactions, but no real description of combos or how her buffs might help her do things she otherwise couldn't do, and some of the mechanics feel a little abandoned in the bigger scheme of things like her Up Special being influenced by conditions based on how much she's done in line with one of her current buffs (damaging foes, not taking damage, etc).

She has an overall game plan of being a slightly campy zoner, keeping on her holy ground for both scaling benefits and better options to zone foes out, plus her Canto aerials letting her zip to safety as needed (or pursue a foe for a combo I imagine), but it feels like the set could be slimmed down or better interwoven. There's touches of what I'm looking for like in Down Tilt referencing her Up Special's conditions when using a defensive blessing or to keep/reclaim positioning inside her Holy Ground, or Dash Attack leaving her with some momentum she can use with her Canto aerials, as an example.

Elimine is far from a bad set, having a complete game plan, novelty with her attacks that draw upon her appearances and don't render them awkward to use, but maybe a bit of bloat in breadth over depth when it comes to her mechanics.



The King of Sorrow by FrozenRoy ***

A big contribution to the Jamcon, and a welcome one; the King of Sorrow has a focus on aerial acrobatics and combo chains, with some mechanics connecting to tricky platforming shenanigans via his minions to shoot around and string together moves he has no business putting to use. The set focuses strongly on fundamentals, explaining the more exotic concepts like the minions and explosive crystals and their applications early and then switching gears to explain the moment to moment action he uses his moves for.

The King of Sorrow has a ton of set up options and stage control tools, though all intentionally designed to not really hem in the foe or stall them out or the sort. He's got some zoner to him, sure, but the primary purpose of everything is to enhance mobility while limiting the foe's as a secondary purpose- all minions making for an additional command dash of sorts that he can chain multiple of in the air if done right, Neutral Special itself even letting him get another if he nails a counter, Down Aerial letting him bounce off of foes, and more- he can stay airborne for an incredible length of time if you play all your cards right, but he won't be stalling out the match with some old era MYM-ian infinite flight shenanigans.

The minions are threaded into the set nicely and the explosive options from Forward Smash and a held Side Special serve as payoffs and means to threaten the foe with a surprise KO, and while the set doesn't refer back to the latter as often or the individual mooks' attacks, they're still present as yet another means of combo glue and mobility that is cemented into the reader's mind early so they don't need to be repeated every input (something I'm guilty of with my mechanics). It's a nice balance, and one I'm hoping to reach at some point so I'm not constantly putting out 25k+ word behemoths.

Back to the set at hand; the melee itself is tightly designed, with everything having its purpose and either fitting the theme or, in the case of Dash Attack, serving a necessary niche to keep it working. Animations and flavor are there, with the gifs and mood of the set conveying the character well (and the latter doing so without spoilers, which I appreciate for the sake of those looking to get the game for the first time). All the more complicated details like about AI behavior for each of the minions, hitstun multiplying via Down Smash, his explosives, etc are accounted for, balanced, and explained simply.

I'm a very big fan of this set. Daniella's stiff competition to the point I'm not sure I can call it my favorite so far, but it's up there and I'll have to think on how I feel about them more in depth before casting my vote (to say nothing of the remaining two competitors, and Herminia certainly gave it a strong go as a close third place candidate). Nicely done!



Akira Tadokoro by GolisoPower ***

Ever since MYM 6, I've felt Akira deserved a better set than the one I made for him, and I'm happy to see him get it. The set makes use of his assorted powers to let him aggressively dominate the space around him with widespread and flashy hitboxes mixed in with some basic but workable melee tools that sell Akira as a young punk under all his unrefined psychic powers.

The charge gauge mechanic is an excellent character touch and mechanical twist- he's no Dr. Xavier with years of practice and self-discipline, he's just a teen working with what he's got and learning as he goes, as exemplified by the Teleport command often dumping him off in random locations in his chapter. His gauge fills in a manner you can control and predict, but once he has it, you're gonna use it on the next attack- no saving it up and playing 4d chess with special effects. It allows you to fit in his assorted status effects, debuffs, and even his heal without it them feeling awkwardly sprinkled around, tying it to a central mechanic as much as the individual moves. Said debuffs get pretty creative at points, such as nerfing jumps a touch to interfere with recoveries and air combos/short hop options.

He's not so hideously oppressive with his ranged tools as to be unfun or unfair to fight against, but they definitely put him into the long range combatant category, his melee tools serviceable but far from a match in a fist fight with the likes of Little Mac or Ganondorf. He's also got a decent couple of combo options highlighted; psychic powers or no, he's very much got the mindset of a brawler, and uses his options to chain together hits or bait and punish foes even from a distance, which is a fun way to toy with that. He also does have plenty of reason to get up close, most of his more practical high damage tools requiring he fight at mid or close range instead of camping forever, and his ability to Teleport pulls its weight in letting him convert his long-reaching attacks into proper combo tools.

On the negative side, I feel that the set doesn't have much of a 'wow' factor beyond making good use of the character's visual flair. The playstyle is solid if simple, the mechanic is a nice twist but doesn't add a crazy new context that turns everything on its head, and his moves flow into each other somewhat but not to the extent of being incredibly strong on a fundamental level. I normally dislike using this as a sticking point, since it's not like a more common issue of moves not gelling or a poor balance choice or even nitpicks and minor oversights (like the Up Tilt debuff not listing its duration) where you'd I could give useful advice on what to change.

Akira's a perfectly good set that does an excellent job of selling the character, and trying to make it stand out more or making any big revision feels like it'd be less "Akira"; going nuts with his teleport or trying to twist the set more around the charge gauge than its current level of integration just wouldn't fit (though maybe I'm wrong and others will point out it would work well). It's a set that does everything it needs to do, and that's all it should do.



Apothecary Gary by Torgo the Bear ***

While currently unfinished, Apothecary Gary is the start of something potentially really good- an interesting character choice that lends itself to some cool ideas you're already tapping into, with the established Specials in particular appealing to me, as well as the concept of the spores helping to hamper the opponent's ability to escape them while also helping Gary survive despite his balloonweight classification.

Skipping the stuff that's going to be filled in later (at least I hope, this is really cool, but I can get if this was a 'why not' pick for the Jamcon over something you're excited for- I've been there), there could stand to be a bit more info on some things. Gray's Frogs need their stats defined (my guess is a smidge faster than Gary, slightly better jumps, slightly shorter/wider than Mario, and notably better but still light weight than Gary?).

A little more detail would be appreciated in general- things like knockback where notable as the Frogs might bat foes around between each other if positioned right, or if one move might drop foes into prone (with multiple semi-Nanas set around, Gary could have a heck of a tech chase game he can corner foes with), and so on. Contrasting or synergizing the Frog's own moves with Gary's is fun, like if their Jab had longer active frames than his and thus could be used to cover him or serve as combo glue, or their hit had different knockback to give Gary different stuff he could do out of the hit. Frog Up Tilt could halt the opponent's momentum, letting them act as a stopper for opponents that got flung back or are trying to approach by air, things like that.

There's already elements of this with Forward Tilt being an nice one-two punch with a Frog, while also doing a swell job of providing stage control while the Frog has been set to a stationary point thanks to its reach. Up Tilt coming from a taller fighter gives Gary more coverage and effective disjoint against airborne foes; tweak the knockback to be weak up and slightly inward, and you could have a semi-juggle where a line of Frogs following Gary can pass some poor schmuck along to the back. Frog Down Tilt is an effective shield poke where it's needed. Dash Attack is a solid hit, and can come out as a surprise finishing blow if used by a vegetable-guarding Frog thanks to skipping the run. Pointing out one or two applications of each move like this, especially if it plays nice into another move, would do a lot for a little (the set getting some ideas brewing in my mind with what's there already, and without having to go into the insane word counts we sometimes get up to).

I should bring up the mechanic before I get ahead of myself. The concept behind the spores is sound, downright cool in fact. I do have to nitpick the numbers on the movement/attack power debuff- a 0.3x multiplier is brutal even with one stack; slow characters will barely be able to move, and fast characters are dropped to or below the slowest (non-debuffed) canon characters. I think the intent is 'reduced by 3/10ths, with the effect being multiplicative instead of additive' or similar and it's a phrasing issue, in which case it feels appropriate. The number of spores needed to hijack minions and summons on the other hand feels perfect to me, and the fluff of the glowing mushrooms and the note that they're visible even in the dark are a very nice touch.

I quite like the set up of the specials as they are; one tweak I recommend is to reduce the distance of Up Special by 1/5th for each Frog with Gary instead of 1/4th so he can get at least a tiny bit of distance when he uses Up Special with a full four Frogs. I do like the potential means of toying with the distance, though- if the end lag is low and/or hit stun is high, he could potentially use the nerfed distance (or a nearby Frog in the right spot) to turn it into a combo move. Maybe it can even hit opponents back the way he came, setting up his minions for a combo (and into that Up Tilt semi-juggle)? Having a little downside to the full length of Frogs is a good idea so it's not a matter of spamming them out without micromanagement, but I do like that the benefits outweigh the downsides as they should- he does have to get the time and space to call in more, after all.

Like WCF's Mrs. Quackfaster set, I'll be sure to give the set another pass once it's finished up; what's here is very promising, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do next, whether it be finishing this set or moving on to one of the sets you've been planning/itching to do for a while.



EDIT: Took me a while to think on what set I preferred, but I think I ultimately have to hand it to The King of Sorrow by FrozenRoy as my Jamcon nomination, by a hair. The idea of using set-up to allow for increasingly versatile movement tech is something my brain hooked onto and made me want to try a similar concept sometime.

 

[Junahu]

Baron Mordo
Obvious things first, summoning a boss creature into the match is a cool central hook for the set. It's the sort of marquee feature you could squeeze into a tweet about 'this cool idea I had for a Baron Mordo moveset'. This makes it very easy to on-board myself with what this moveset is trying to push.

The fiendish Dormammu acts a foundational pillar that allows the moveset to build a unique experience out of some very familiar building blocks. Too familiar.. perhaps? There are some staples in here that were old-hat even when I was last active; a portal recovery and a clone move where one of them is a fake, being the most noteworthy ones.

I ought to stress that I am not complaining here; what you've built works here, so it doesn't matter if you incorporate some well-worn ideas into the mix. It's quiite comfy, in a way, and it helps keep my attention on the showstopper Dormammu.

There's a good balance in the regular attacks that keeps the moveset relatively accessible, while still imbuing Mordo with a strong mechanical identity. A lot of intangibility and warping, and big flashy "look at me!" energy attacks. Dash Attack in particular is a delight to envision playing out in a match.

Your writing is fun and light. It's quick to throw in a joke to lighten the mood, or to act as connective tissue between consecutive paragraphs. And while that is generally a good thing it also comes with its downsides.
I am personally unfamiliar with the character of Baron Mordo, so I am left to infer what I can from the moveset's writing. There's a lot in the presentation that casts Mordo as an incompetant, copycat magician who makes deals with demons because he feels upstaged by Dr Strange. He strikes me as a coward who is only a threat when Dormammu hits the field. I think that's the interpretation that gives the most life to this moveset's mechanics, and it would be super convenient if that was actually his character. But I don't know, maybe he's supposed to be a serious villain, and I've been waylaid by your quips into thinking otherwise.

What I'm saying is that the tone you use to write with is something that can convey a character's personality, and I worry that I might have allowed the moveset's levity cloud my judgement on who the character IS.
Or maybe I was right and this entire complaint was pointless.

{Note} The inclusion of Dev Notes is an interesting one. It is always a joy to take a peek into the mind of a moveset creator, and it's another step in humanising the set with a little dose of humour. But they probably don't suit most movesets; I can imagine breaking up the flow of a read with little trips back to reality can end up being disruptive. I'd like to see them again, albeit in a form where the reader can choose whether or not they see them. I don't know if Google Docs even has that functionality, so that may just be wishful thinking.

 

[SaltySuicune]

Coming in with my second Mym entry ever. My boy Deku is smashing through! (Also, kinda weird that there's this much of the main cast already in MyM, yet nobody had done anything for Midoriya)

 

[Arctic Tern]

DEKU (Salty)

If MYM were to start today, someone totally would’ve made a Deku set.

Right off the bat, there’s improvement from Mr. Rime in that there is an explicit playstyle; that of a glass cannon. I have not read/watched MHA but I’ve osmosed enough about it that I can safely say this is a quite fitting playstyle for Deku to have. I also appreciate the decision for him to use his later OFA powers, which isn’t really the obvious way to go. More moves have an explicit purpose in the gameplan, another improvement, and I like the multiple references to both the series and the games Deku appears in. Finally, there are actually a few moves I like, most notably DAir; hard hitting sweetspot moves are something I quite like, and a concept I’ve used quite a few times myself.

There are notable flaws holding the set back, however, aside from general lack of detail. FSmash is described as a slow, but powerful move comparable to Kazuya’s FSmash, but only deals 18% damage (presumably uncharged). Kazuya’s move deals 26% uncharged at the sweetspot, so this is nowhere near as powerful (at least damage wise) as the Kazuya move. Also, UAir is notably overpowered; it says that there’s enough knockback to it that it’s an instant KO if it lands from the top Battlefield platform, but with a lack of descriptions of the move’s speed and KO percentages there’s room to believe that this applies at all percentages and comes out fast, which the move’s animation suggests. The speed isn’t really a problem, there are plenty of fast, strong aerials in canon Smash, but the real kicker is the lack of KO percentages. Also, FAir states that Deku doesn’t move a lot when one of his central mechanics ensures he’ll be moving a lot, so it kinda contradicts itself there.

Nevertheless, Deku still marks a notable improvement in terms of set quality. I know placing isn’t really a concern you have, just making sets for characters you like, but it’s still nice to see improvement.

See more comments and ratings on my personal page!

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Deku

Loving the character choice here: it's about time we got a set for Midoryia, given we already got Ochako, Bakugo, Shigaraki and Himiko. While not everyone in MYM is up-to-date with the manga, the details in the set don't feel super spoilery, and I can understand why you'd want to make a set for Deku with his most up-to-date powerset rather than stick to what the anime has caught up to.

Definitely agreed with Tern that there's an improvement over Mr. Rime, as Deku has a noted playstyle in being glass cannon. There are still details in the set that are vague, and these can make it difficult to discern how balanced the set is.

• I don't know if you read Slavic's Bakugo set, but the way Deku's Fa Jin meter builds up through movement ironically reminds me of the way Bakugo built up his meter. If you want to be more specific on how long it takes to build the meter, you could say that the meter has 100 points that need to be filled, and attacking and moving + jumping adds 1 point for every unit Deku travels, or something like 4-10 points if he attacks. Goliso's Akira set did something pretty similar for the recent Jamcon, so you might be interested in checking that out. I still maintain that it would be a good idea for the Fa Jin buff to not affect the end lag of Deku's attacks, so he can still be punished for them as easily as in his base form.
• Tern bringing up how Kazuya's (sweetspotted) F-Smash deals more damage than Deku's F-Smash is kind of my fault, as I suggested Kazuya's F-Smash as a comparison to Deku's. Making comparisons to existing smash attacks or saying how laggy a move is is a good start.
• U-Smash feels particularly starved for detail: not just in how strong and laggy the move is (deals more damage than F-Smash, so I assume it has a lot of start-up), but also the coverage on the hitbox as Deku is attacking with air pressure rather than with his body. Given the GIF that you use, my first assumption is that the attack is a tall hitbox comparable to Palutena's U-Smash. Detailing a move's range can really sell its effectiveness.
• If Deku were in Smash, I would expect his Neutral Special to involve firing off air pressure as a projectile or be a flashy chargable melee/rushdown attack, so giving him the smokescreen was an unexpected choice. While the smoke is something that Deku uses later in the manga, it's probably not the most fitting power to represent Deku on one of his more important inputs. I would personally implement it as an animation or a gimmick on his dodges, not unlike Bayonetta's Bat Within or Mythra's Foresight. That would fit better with I believe is Deku using smoke as a "spur-of-the-moment" trick, rather than something he revolves his entire fighting style around like a one-shot Shonen Jump villain would.
• Balance-wise, one minute is a fairly long time for smoke to last for, when compared to the Smoke Ball item or Piranha Plant's Side Special which only lasts a few seconds. The concept of obscuring your actions is always cool, but you would need more detail in your attacks and to run down the applications in Neutral Special to sell how well Deku could use the smoke for mix-ups.

Some details and applications you could add to your set. Lag is a notable one: it doesn't have to be on every move - something like Deku's Down Tilt is obviously a quick move - but you can even say low, medium or high lag to sell how difficult a move is to land or how punishable it can be if it misses. Also applications like how effective a move is against shields, knockback angle, mix-ups, and you could play around with sweetspots to give a move multiple hitboxes. I don't know whether you intend to work on this in future sets, but no one is going to force you to add in modern MYM levels of detail to your sets if that's not your style. I noticed that you've commented on a few sets like Nomad, so that's a good start to see the level of detail other setmakers implement in their sets.

All and all, very cool to see a new MHA set. And glad to see that you added extras! Very fitting Classic Mode theme: I like how fighting 4 Heros in the final round could be considered a reference to the previous All For One users, in which case Deku could fight against 7 Heros. My thought on a Deku Classic Mode was that he would fight Master Hand as his final boss: not an original boss, but Master Hand has All Might vibes, being a giant fist with a booming laugh and has a heroic role in the World of Light.

Ayway, I know that not all of the sets you show off in MYM are intended for the MYM audience, but I'd always be interested in seeing more works from you. It was fun to see the Twisted Wonderland character you showed off, for instance.

 

[UserShadow7989]

Remilia Scarlet by Arctic Tern ***

Remilia's a doozy of a set, but with a strong central concept and oozing charisma that carries it through, from the crazy cool specials and smashes to the more technical aerials, standards, and throws. All of her abilities and everything about her aerial movements and mechanics are a treat that the set makes good use of throughout, capturing her stated personality plainly- a dangerous youkai with delusions of grandeur who is nevertheless still a child.

Aside from Waki, I haven't seen a set lock a strong air game behind longer jump frames, and man is Remilia an impressive exploration and presentation of the concept. The loss of her primary air gimmick when knocked into the air until she hits a foe in turn or gets to terra-firma is a nice added touch that keeps Remilia's intended balance of horrifying advantage and horrible disadvantage, and her presence of air smashes cement her aerial superiority. Side Special stole the show for me a bit, just with the ability to make a custom flight path to your opponent you can attack during if you make proper use of it- all without feeling redundant with her air jump teleporting letting her chase down opponents after landing an aerial or letting her shave down start up.

I can't find much of anything to even nitpick, aside from one or two typos. The only thing that comes to mind is that having to double tap to use Neutral Special's blood puddle effect might work against the listed use of uncharged NSpec as a semi-spammable projectile to build damage due to accidental triggers of the puddles, but I have no solution as to how to work around that- it's about as functional as you can get in that regard.

The high quality of your sets we've come to expect are here; excellent melee that laces nicely into the mechanics and quirks of the set, good characterization, interesting animations, well thought out and explained playstyle, and a cool core concept. It's a set that has it all, and I'm gonna be hard pressed not to at minimum Super Vote it when voting comes- even with us rapidly approaching 100 VERY strong sets in a single contest, Remilia stands out. Nicely done!

 

[n88]

Alcohol Witch Daniella by Arctic Tern

I think this is the first one of these Witchverse sets I’ve fully read, since I still owe WWV a look-see. The character premise is cool here! Daniella feels very archetypal on a couple levels: both as the seemingly-shady character in a detective story that ends up helping our hero and as a video game's early boss that turns out not to be a bad guy. It’s a natural way to blend video game tropes and detective story tropes, and it manages that without feeling like a stock character. Good stuff.

The centerpiece mutual buff/debuff that Daniella is built around is a fun design space to explore; not too surprised that it got a shout in an article right away. It’s a cool risk/reward mechanic to give to an already-light character, and I’m always a sucker for that kind of thing.

The Smashes had more hard interactions than I was expecting - there’s a charm to it with the centerpiece barrel mechanics, those are really fun to visualize and there’s definitely a ‘themed boss battle’ sensibility to those attacks, in my mind. I think the puddle interactions push a little too far into galaxy brain territory for me, though. The DSmash one ain’t so bad, but the other two feel like pretty dramatic changes to foist on smash attacks. I think puddle management/awareness would end up taking more brainspace than it really needs to.

I also worry that the scarier puddle manipulation options in the Smashes and the Throws kinda train foes to avoid the puddles altogether when they can, which feels like it’d be kind of a shame (at least to me personally, YMMV) because I like the base-level risk/reward interplay of how they affect movement and Daniella’s attacks more than the MYMy stage control aspects of the set. Be nice if foes were a little more tempted to not worry about the puddles and just get into the spirit of the barroom brawl.

Not a huge complaint despite the fact that I spent two paragraphs on it though! Sometimes these things just take long enough to articulate that they overflow the stray thoughts. There’s a really well-defined melee core to the set that pairs well with the Specials' concepts, and I had fun here.

Stray thoughts:

• I have never thought of drunks as particularly fast, but the set leverages that aspect of the buff well, so what do I know. Maybe this is the real reason people run Beer Miles.
• Not convinced that enemies clocked with the mug are Drunk rather than Concussed.
• Man these fractions are tiny.
• Aha, ‘tripping’ was my first thought for the Drunkenness status effect. Cool to see it show up in FSpec, in a sensibly limited way.
• “This is unable to KO until absurd percentages” - DSpec grab option. Previous sentence describes it as set knockback but it seems to become low knockback in this sentence.
• “DSpec is most comparable in function to Dandy Step, the signature move of Guilty Gear’s Slayer.” - Ahhh, this takes me back to my college days and showing up to a lecture without having done the required reading. This certainly is a fighting game move, though and it’s a fun little meta touch to give it its origin in a Witchverse fighting game adaptation.
• “this combo can, in addition, discourage the foe from roll-ins towards Daniella” - no force on this earth can discourage me from rolling in.
• “creating a wave of brown alcohol in her wake” - this confused me for a sec. The wave seems to be going forward, based on the rest of the description.
• FTilt’s animation caught me off-guard - to this point her non-magical (or mildly magical) attacks have painted her as a brawler with a bit of martial arts expertise. This feels a little… like something on a slice of life character? Got a real hands-off, not-really-an-attack nature to it. Not a complaint or a criticism, just something that jumped out at me.
• Forward Tilts only come out when you tilt the analog into the forward region, anything else is just a sparkling Jab combo.
• “a hitbox that comes out on frame 4 and lasts for 26 frames.” - that’s pretty long even by NAir standards, isn’t it? Pac-Man’s NAir hitbox is supposed to be a long one I think and it ‘only’ stays out for 17 frames. Not like it’s unworkably crazy (and idk maybe there are a bunch of super long NAirs I don’t know about), but I’d’ve expected the length to be played up a bit more in the description.
• “Endlag is fairly long, with Daniella taking 41 frames to act after the last kick; the landing lag during this, however, is fairly short.” - any amount of time is FAirly something-or-other on a FAir.
• “In fact, in many cases this is such a common move to throw out that it eventually starts getting predictable” - this kinda clashes with the idea of BAir being situational, no?
• “As Daniella swings it upwards in an overhead motion, anyone hit by this will realize why it was glowing” - it’s subtle, but if you pause while they’re in hitlag you can see the distinct look of a painful understanding dawning on them.
• “she knows to moderate her consumption and not get completely drunk off her wine (unlike some people).” - geez, no need to get personal.

 

[GolisoPower]

Cop Five Haircuts At The Same Time, White Gold Dress, Jet Ski Made Of Yuan, Foie Gras Bust Of Albert Einstein, Get Money!
Herminia by Junahu

After being utterly intimidated by the bombshell that was Mao and his entourage of three other sets, Herminia feels like a breath of fresh air, and honestly? I think the set benefits from there being more focus since it's the only thing you posted this JamCon, and also it seems to better show off your talent here. Not to cast judgement before I've read your Mao catalog, I'll eventually get to that, but right now, let's focus on this riq biq.

Between the gold piles and the powders, Herminia already sends a nigh-infallible message to her foes: wherever she goes is hers and hers alone. The way the Specials change based on whether or not you're inside your powder is really fun, and they're all extremely unique and fun to work with. I especially love Up Special and how it becomes even more ridiculous with the powder version activated.

But the highlight of this entire set is by and far that utterly ridiculous grab game. My brother in Christ, you gave her 16 throws and I am all for it. As a side note, the image of Herminia, an elegant and refined if utterly evil lady, performing a goddamn suplex is just the most hilarious thing to me in this set and I don't know why. I also really like how you organized this set: it arguably makes the set a lot easier to read, making it easy to get into without sacrificing the nitty-gritty in a competitive match. On that note, everything about this character is just utterly beautiful, and is a general contender for another gold medal for her treasure hoard. Nice work, Junahu, you really knocked it out of the park!

 

[n88]

Herminia by Junahu

If I have fewer jokes and asides in this comment than is typical for me, it’s only because I was rarely moved to look away from the set. Perhaps also an effect of reading this over coffee in the morning? In any case, Herminia is a breezy read that pulled me right through. There’s a consistent charm to both the set’s animations and the writing that keeps the mood light and the set moving forward.

It all feels pretty grounded and sensible except that the incense is sort of a big wild alien-feeling thing. (The gold piles are also mechanically novel, but felt generally like the kind of thing I’d expect from MYM if not from Smash). DSpec was definitely a move I had to back-reference a couple times to feel confident in the workings. It’s an interesting take on a move-ban effect and I like that there are some big limiting factors on it so that she can get punished if she just tries to ban something and sit back.

The throws did feel like a weird note to end the main inputs on, I think because they feel like they ought to be a big flashy centerpiece mechanic, but they end up feeling a little muted in presentation; they get a bit perfunctory as the set delves into every possible throw combination. It’s kind of inevitable and I think that section might be a bit tedious if the throws weren’t on the quick side, so I’m not sure I have any bright ideas about what might have been done differently. They do still have a lot going for them though. It says something about Herminia that she has this level of control over how things go once she’s got someone in her grip, and it’s funny to see a heavyweight have a grab game with this dancing theme to it. Feels like it’s embracing heavy tropes but with a very distinct flavor.

Admittedly I've only read a couple of the jamcon sets, but this is definitely a strong nomination contender in my mind.

Stray thoughts:

• Interesting that Neutral Special, right at the top of the set, starts calling forward to yet-unintroduced mechanics. It’s an effective presentation choice here - the gold piles aren’t entirely need-to-know info for the Specials and setting them aside creates a little intrigue.
• Good choice of character for the ‘no you’ experiment. The occasional reference to ‘one’ doing such and such doesn’t feel out of place here.
• I did take a couple reads to grok the incense bit in NSpec - I don’t think that’s a problem of the mechanic not being introduced yet so much as the description using ‘the move’ twice in quick succession to refer to different moves.
• “the world of Octopath Traveler has no yo-yos” - it’s hard to prove a negative.
• I enjoy the gag of Herminia envying Shulk’s shield.
• “Point of Comparison: Mao Forward Aerial” - once again, I haven’t done the required reading.
• The attack descriptions are pretty economical but evocative. I was reading the descriptions before checking the Point of Comparisons and usually had an idea of what you were going for.
• Man, seeing the R-Button for grab felt profoundly wrong, despite not having used a gamecube controller in years.

Giganotosaurus by Slavic

Stray thoughts:

• “Giganotosaurus is famed for being a dinosaur” - questionable when everyone thinks its name is Gigantosaurus, which as far as I can tell is not actually a name in use by any legit dinosaur.
• “can mess with a foe throwing out quick attacks as they get inadvertently poisoned. “ - this is actually a pretty interesting design space to explore. I have some concepts that toy around with it but it always feels a bit too meta to mess with the opponent by making them accidentally pick up items instead of attacking.
• “The Giga Tooth” - this is an upsetting name because I have to pronounce “Giga” either very weirdly or differently from the “Giga” in “Giganotosaurus”.
• “Speaking of deadly situations, this move becomes an instant-kill option at high enough percentages. That percentage is based on how much weight the foe has” - :mindgames:
• “a liable amount of Meat” - for some reason this turn of phrase feels more unhinged to me than a lot of the rest of what the set is doing.
• Truly a bold move for the first special to encourage you to stock up a resource and then the second special to immediately destroy that resource.
• “This ladder is surrounded by a safety cage, preventing creatures from mauling sanctuary workers.” - ???
• If nothing else this moveset taught me the word “pronation”. Or at least prompted me to teach myself.
• “Dash Attack - Dimetrodon Surprise” - oh nice, I had a lil Lego Dimetrodon as a kid that I think was not terribly accurate to its anatomy. Always had a soft spot for these things.
• “Yes, this type of ‘hatchet’ hunting is more associated with Abelisaurs like Carnotaurus” - I do enjoy the little bits of dino trivia peppered into the set as jokes.
• In general I feel like the set starts being a lot more actively jokey in the standards, to its benefit.
• The standards don’t feel unreasonably constructed for the most part though? Bit weird to spin Gigano as a sort of prop fighter but the set still makes sense as a silly Jurassic Park set at this point.
• “Everyone’s got a plan and Jokersaurus here is no exception” - she doesn’t look like a guy with a plan.
• I was hoping for more Joker content but I suppose so were movie-goers. The standards do arguably portray a whole society of dinosaurs, but seemingly in a pro-that-society way, making this an anti-Joker moveset.
• “Alright, it’s time to address the gigantic futuristic satellite in the room. “ - finally.
• “This leads to great neutral moments where two Gigas just stand across the stage from each other, manipulating the satellite above.” - this reminds me a lot of the drinking game in Hitch Hiker’s where both participants attempt to telekinetically pour the other a shot.
• “, or something.” - or something, indeed.
• “it will break apart into small sections like a corncob” - ????
• The way this set handles the latter/satellite stuff is not tip-top, but I’d be down to see this sort of idea space further explored, around creating really advantageous but dangerous areas of the stage for the foe to be in.
• I skimmed this set when it was first posted and also have been aware of the broader conversations around it but it’s still absurd to me that I’m less than halfway through this doc in the middle of the second smash.
• I think I share in the general consensus that this set is a bit too long and stuffed for the humor of the swerves in the set to really land.
• The set puts me in mind of the kinds of jokes you see in comedy sequels sometimes, where they take a joke that was already over-the-top in the original and repeat it, expanding it in the process and blowing it up to a scale where it loses its punch without adding anything. Kind of fascinating to see that in moveset form.
• There’re some solid laugh lines in it, mind you, and I didn’t hate the time I spent here. The funny parts of the set are largely witticisms that don’t rely on the over-the-top mechanical stuffing though.
• “a single locust the size of a Pikmin” - dang, was that established before and I missed it? I’m not checking. Dang big bug.
• “Some men just want to watch the world burn” - finally some Joker stuff.
• “To people asking if Dimorphodon was actually in Dominion” - I’m scared and confused at the suggestion that these people could be conceived of, let alone actually exist.
• Shadow the Hedgehog has been brought up as a point of comparison to this. This set takes the current premise semi-seriously (at least on the mechanical level) for a whole input section before swerving, whereas Shadow is straight chaos and most every new input is trolling the rest of the set. I’m not sure which is a worse idea.
• “Buzz can be repositioned by holding the Shield Other input, utilizing the Other button” - oh dear
• “There’s no intrinsic benefit gained by doing this, just makes it easier to keep him safe until Giga needs his help. “ - do love all my aerial attacks being locked behind the lil man I stashed under the stage.
• The sort of ‘special item interaction’ bits of Buzz’s aerials I do like.
• God in heaven, why is FAir this long? Before this the set is too long for the joke to really land in places, but this is too much.
• “This has poor knockback, to be sure, and only deals 4% damage” - there is an internal logic to innards being this disposable in that the NSpec also treats flesh as being pretty worthless.
• Wesley Snipes is a good bit.
• I don’t like the Fast & the Furious reference here because the F&F movies are good. Well, no, that’s too broad a statement. “There are good F&F movies” is something I can stand behind more firmly.

 

[UserShadow7989]

Deku by SaltySuicune

An excellent second character pick that I'm honestly surprised we hadn't seen done yet (I know we tend to focus on villains and secondary characters here as a matter of taste, but still). Deku's another nice proof of concept set that shows off some of his potential, a promising power set and a playstyle direction to go with it. I don't have much to say that Kat didn't say better, it does what it sets out to do.

I only have one or two nitpicks. NSpec might not have a lot of use in local play/vs CPUs- maybe it could provide some small armor frames on his attacks rather than/in addition to concealment, letting his planning emphasize his 'cannon' aspects by partly bypassing his 'glass' aspect (though at cost to himself since he'd still be eating the damage)? Side Special's shockwave knockback sounds potentially crazy, but if it's a slower move that isn't so bad.

I'll second Kat that I appreciate seeing the extras and comments; I'm glad that there's more of both to go around this contest, and thank you for contributing to them.

 

[UserShadow7989]

Down an unassuming street, not far from the main road of the bustling modern city, sits a stone building with a simple sign on its front:


"We make magic items."

(Temporary location! - Management)

 

[Arctic Tern]

"That imbecile! She dares to make an entrance before me, the leader of this menagerie?

I believe that it's time to show her that all threads can be cut by glass."

 

[GolisoPower]

This Is Your Brain On Slavic
Giganotosaurus by Slavic

Hey guys, it's me Goliso, and today we're going to be talking about the most baffling reptile exhibit in MYM. In this moveset we will be diving philosophically into the anti-soul grindset of Hollywood, marveling at this Burning Man Festival of a set's balance and questioning Slavic's sanity, because this set apparently goes from 0 to 100 faster than Anne Heche's car, traffic laws be damned.

Chapter 1: I Wanna Feel Special

So we boot up the set and are faced with Society first-off. This already tells me I'm going to have a very hard time keeping up. In fact, showing this to a Benedictine monk would probably kill him. As we press onwards, we run into the first Special in our grocery list of cocaine abuse: the Food Chain, which is apparently such good vore that Letosaurus decide to spit them out just to eat them a second time. That fighter is going to win godhood in Atlantis. The fact that Meat can be cooked in addition to potentially giving Joaquinodon salmonella makes me want to get my propane and propane accessories. After this, we are treated to every Egyptian's worst nightmare: a cloud of bugs that will S L O W L Y eat away at their flesh over time. I think DeviantArt might've been on the writer's mind while writing this. Stop it, get some help. Though if I were to be a bit concerned, I need to remind you that locusts are not cockroaches; they are not that difficult to kill, and although burning them under a magnifying glass shrinks the colony, I feel like they need to let themselves go. My first recommendation would be to make them Reddit mods. Next, we move on to Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, entirely condensed into Ledgersaurus's Up Special. I know she really wants some iron in her diet, but she seems a little too eager to get a tongue piercing. This also tells me that the author seems to favor Alolan Exeggutor quite a bit because that is a very tall boi. Afterwards, we take a look at the Down Special, and I am down bad for plagiarizing Rathalos. Capcom's lawyers are standing by waiting to take the shot. Romerosaurus Rex is ****ing ridiculous with this Special, mainly because she has a better singing voice than popular idol singer Elizabeth Bathory. And while you kill time trying to get a single verse to your off-stage audience, it should be noted that up close, your listeners will go deaf trying to join their favorite Dino-pop singer. I believe the decibels are dangerously nearing Krakatoa levels since having a roar loud enough to be heard from the edges of the stage when she's in the center is a bit concerning regardless of damage, as it incentivizes camping from the center and mindlessly dropping your dino mixtape in its fullest and turning fighters into Alex DeLarge. Overall, however, I have to say that the Specials are a drug trip and a half and will be requesting the contact info of whatever dealer provides your nose candy. We will be the one that knocks on the door of-

Chapter 2: Lightheaded From The High

Welcome everyone to the YouTube Rewind MYM edition, where the celebrities are all over the place and the hype is meticulously made hollow. This set has summons dangerously nearing Jestro while still maintaining the ridiculous size and weight of Shin Godzilla. The call-backs to previous the prestigious Cretaceous Garden books feel like Hollywood 101 and yet they have the barest-minimum quality and soul to rake viewers in. The SlavicSweep is starting to get real and I legitimately don't know how to react to this. I feel more confused and scared than a Zionist on a bacon plantation. But it's the smashes where the Breaking Bad-brand meth starts to kick in as we go from throwing nameless call-backs to playing God. Tornadoes, cold fronts, and lasers oh my! Down Smash is a germaphobe's greatest weapon against salmonella as this gives Food Chain the interaction Hamillsaurus needs to upgrade her meat, provided Butcher Pete doesn't get to her first. To make up for Nicholsonodon's lack of aerials, we look to Buzz Aldrin for assistance, and his several moon landings may have made him crazy. Buzz McCallister is the only way Galifianakisaurus can properly use items just to even the playing field, but we are literally playing as Hannibal Barca's armies and fighting Rome. Targeting lasers, a wingspan larger than a hummingbird, and a scale model of a Chinese dinner are but some of the many attacks that play into this Devil's deal of an aerial set and gives DiMaggiosaurus more trouble for the air than a professional Duck Hunt player. And then we make our way to the moment we all have been waiting for. That's right, it's finally Morbing time and it was well worth the LSD trip. Stephanie Meyer's Marvel Comics counterpart does a lot for Bradleybakersaurus's hatred for germs by replenishing himself from the Raw Meat and taking all the salmonella for himself. The FDA is probably ****ting themselves watching this occur. It is rather weird that a vampire is using weapons specifically designed to kill other vampires. Are we watching Hellsing? Anyways, the versatility of Morbius's throws allows us to further make deadly any items he may be carrying, or to send them on the Yakumo Express with B-throw. It has certainly been a long trip but I eventually find the point where Slavic gives themselves the LowTierGod-style motivation, and I entirely feel that. This set has taken a lot out of me and I am glad that this level of insanity and soul-draining has motivated me further, 10/Sweep.

 

[Arctic Tern]

WITCHCRAFTER HAINE (US)

I actually previewed this set earlier, and I had quite a few concerns about the balance. Haine’s gimmick is that her NSpec summons a line of thread along its path that she can transmit the hitboxes of her attacks to. Up to 4 of these threads can be out at once, with each thread being 4 Units long normally. Even with the stipulations in play - lack of shield damage on Thread hitboxes, a general lack of good defensive options, and the thinness of the Threads - I still thought that it was a tad too excessive of stage control. “16 Units is most of Battlefield!” I thought in my head. Then I looked up the Battlefield section of the Training stage, figured out that Battlefield’s main playable area is around 50 Units large (and as such Haine could only cover 32% of it), and realized that this mechanic was actually pretty cool.

Haine makes fairly good use of said mechanic as well. There’s the obvious interactions of making precise sweetspots easier to hit with or weak hitboxes into rangey combo extenders, but the Smashes get into weirder territory with DSmash being a delayed hitbox and FSmash using the Threads as walls to bounce a projectile off of (funnily enough, something similar is done in my corresponding Madame Verre set). Even outside of Threads, the melee stands on its own; my personal favorite move would have to be the Dash Attack where Haine teleports that serves as an strangely inputted combo starter. My biggest complaint would have to be that I don’t feel the Threads are utilized enough. Maybe there’s not as much to it as I think, but it’s kind of a pet peeve when a set introduces a cool mechanic and goes far with it, but not far enough. But either way, I walked away from Haine a satisfied customer indeed.

See more comments and ratings on my personal page!

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Witchcrafter Madame Verre

Between a new YGO waifu and the promise of an inventive take on Smash’s stale move mechanics, this is a set that I’ve been hyped for since you brought up her. Of immediate interest is the way Verre is handled stat-wise: I was genuinely surprised that you made her sit on her throne by default. It’s not how I would have thought to handle the character, but it makes so much sense given her smug character, and throne lets her do fun things for her attack.

Like Remilia, Verre’s mechanic is highly original, and you manage to sell its intrigue gameplay-wise (Shiek-style character who needs to work hard to hit with different moves) and how it ties in with her character (the mechanic is hard to work with, just like Verre). Verre being a Shiek-style character whose attacks culminate in a big, varying reward reminds me of my Izuna set, so the Polish mechanic has a little extra appeal to me. Staleness is not something that’s played around with much in movesets, but I love it when setmakers do mess with it, similar to Walter White or Washizu to name a few examples.

I like the idea of being able to check your stale que with shield + B. In a way, Verre not having the stale que above her percent gives her the impression of being more simple and inviting to new players, which… could be considered fitting given her child-like appearance.

The first 2 Specials are nice, serviceable moves that serve as neutral tools and get good enough mileage from the Polish mechanic. Up Special is more MYM’ian territory with glass walls that you can create from anywhere. But Down Special is very cool and my favourite move among the Specials: a simple counter that plays off the Polish mechanic, a type of move that makes sense in the context of the mechanic because it’s not easy to stale a counter. It’s fun that Down Special alone makes Verre a big threat in neutral when she has built up her Polish mechanic. Finally, beam redirection with counter and walls adds spice to the otherwise nice and simple Side Special projectile. Oh, and Down Special clearing your stale que on use is a cool touch: doubles as a handy tool for players if they mess up their Polish, but also means that Verre only gets one shot at landing her strengthened counter. The animation quirks of Verre getting more determined and serious when she uses her Side Special or redirects it are neat touches too.

Onto the Smashes. As cool as big heavy F-Smashes are, I also find quick frame 8-12 F-Smashes refreshing: Verre’s quick and safe F-Smash that can score casual kills with high polish is nice and justified in the set, and the follow-up hit sees decent mileage with walls. I like the naginata trivia on U-Smash and how it hits with Verre’s character: feels like something straight out of a Goliso set! I like the downwards knockback sweetspot of the U-Smash. D-Smash is an interesting that’s a disproportionately bad kill move for how much damage it deals: very well-justified on a Shiek-style character who has a difficult time racking up damage.

I was not expecting Jab 2 to lay a trap! An interesting input to put a special-like move on, but it works surprisingly well. It and D-tilt’s triangular hitbox kind of remind me of Mysterio’s Jab. Dash Attack is nice too; I could see it being canceled by running off one of your walls. N-air is another neat N-air from you, and here the beam redirection is cool in the context of combining it with the attack’s radial knockback. It’s funny how you keep updating the Side Special beam’s potential reflected damage with each new move that can reflect it. I could see F-air being a bit more powerful, but it’s a nice move. U-air’s reverse sex kick is fun as a combo starter or kill move, and the input placement makes good sense on Verre’s high midair jump. F-throw is a fun debuff, not dissimilar to something ForwardArrow would do on a more ambitious set! B-throw getting stronger with more moves on the stale que reminds me of my Yui set’s reverse-staling mechanic, but here it’s easier to use because you can have any moves staled repeatedly to activate it. Also love the writing and character on U-throw, and item creation is fun fun fun. Really, I’d say that Verre’s grab game was a bit of a high for me.

I approve of the other Witchcrafters being summoned for the Final Smash. Reminds me of our Dragonmaid Final Smashes. Also love the win pose against other Witchcrafters.

All and all, Verre was a great experience, wringing some fun character and writing out of the madame. I always enjoy seeing how people tackle sets for YGO monsters, especially if most of the attacks for the monsters are made up like they are here. I was more excited for Verre’s Polish mechanic and (your usual) well-polished melee game compared to her walls and projectile redirection, but what I did like made for a strong read. It is extra commendable that you were able to produce this for a YGO monster, as these types of characters don’t have super obvious moveset potential compared to anime or JRPG characters. Honestly, this set makes me want to take a crack at another Yu-Gi-Oh! set, an urge that I’m sure Haine will fuel when I finish reading her next.

Spoiler: Witchcrafter Haine

I’m glad you were able to get Haine out: she’s a very fitting character for you, a witch and another mature female YGO monster not dissimilar to Dragonmaid Tillroo. Like Verre, Haine has some well-crafted characterization that matches her playstyle, here being the extreme advantage she can get from a set-up in exchange for lacking in defensive options.

Neutral Special I remember from the original draft; the threads remind me of Victoria and Hopper in that they can duplicate Haine’s hitboxes. The threads get particularly cool with Up Special where you can create a ton of moving platforms with the right set-up: feels like something that Kupa would particularly like. The threads and platforms can feel extreme as you intended, making it tricky to discern how balanced they are, but it’s not a real detriment for me.

F-Smash is your trademark “slow, powerful projectile,” but it’s utilized to elevated effect with Haine’s threads and platforms to redirect it. It’s funny that both Haine and Verre can create platforms on their Up Special, and they both have a projectile that bounces along surfaces in their F-Smash and Side Special. I enjoy the darkness visuals on Haine’s attacks to represent her DARK attribute, similar to what Madame Verre did in her set. Also they can both go offstage with their Dash Attacks. U-Smash’s pre-charge suction hitbox is a highlight of the move: it feels like it has good synergy with the lingering hitboxes of the other Smashes, which combined with her platform and threads to extend it can mess up opponents dodging her other stuff.

D-tilt’s semi-spiking sweetspot feels like a particularly good use of Haine’s threads, allowing her to connect with the sweetspot against airborne foes to start tech chases. That threads prioritze the sweetspots on your attacks is neat. The melee attacks that make use of this are some of the cooler ones in the set, in my opinion. It’s also neat that you pay attention to Haine hurtbox placement on F-Smash and B-air, given she needs to be touching her threads to copy her hitbox onto them.

N-air is another move that makes use of the threads, an interesting take on the dragging archetype as you can drag opponents along the path of a thread! D-air’s “teleport to contact point” is a type of Aerial move that I like, and is put to particularly awesome use as Haine can teleport herself to opponents touching her threads. Probably my favourite thread interaction in the set. Beyond the Aerials is coolness in D-throw, which I like for playing directly off Haine’s main mechanic like Verre did in her grab game. U-throw is unique time bomb that chases after opponents vertically, easier to avoid than your average time bomb in exchange for being more potent. The way it works is especially fun with your threads as you can imbue them with its spiking hitbox, hitting foes even if they dodge the beam itself.

I feel like Haine’s threads and platforms would be solid centerpieces for one of your hitbox-manipulating frontrunners, in the style of Hina, Pegasus or Jodie. I wouldn’t say that Haine utilized the full potential of her concepts, but she does get some surprisingly fun use out of her threads that bring her set a bit higher up for me. As with Verre, working with YGO monsters isn't easy; and Haine arguably had less material to work with given her card effect is less obvious to translate than Verre's.

 

[SaltySuicune]

"Off with their heads!"

Edit: The link wouldn't work.
​

 

[n88]

Elimine by WeirdChillFever

This was a fun read! I don’t think the core pieces of the moveset entirely come together, though - in particular a lot of her self-buffs kinda fade into the background once they’re established. Holy Ground comes up a good bit but more-so for the hard interactions with the ground itself vs the buffing aspect. Granted, the style of buff here with the flat +/- to various sorts of damages, speeds, etc. isn’t the easiest thing to build on. It’d be nice if those concepts felt a little more linked into the set though.

Still, the set has some really cool ideas about how to play with its concepts when it goes for it - love the variable distance on USpec’s recovery based on current buff & performance. It would have been interesting to see more of that kind of effect throughout the set. I’m also a huge fan of the grab game and its weird gacha-inspired orb mechanics.

But I’d say the highlight is in the banter and writing style here, generally. Elimine’s a light read with some solid laugh lines, and had ideas strong enough to get my brain turning over. Very worthy jamcon submission!

Stray thoughts:

• Always
  Be
  Csumonning
• False Start feels a little juiced - three seconds is a long time to not get to do anything, for what sounds like a fairly easy move to hit with. It’d be nice if opponents had some kind of counterplay while affected by it and only certain options were walled off instead of all of them.
• NAir is an interesting riff on Canto, which isn’t the most straightforward ability to try to adapt.
• Since USpec doesn’t put her into helpless, it could have been fun to let it send her at a more horizontal angle to play with NAir/FAir’s momentum effects.
• DAir is a really damn cool stall then fall. (Though it does renege on the moveset’s promise not to bring up the dragon stuff again)
• Love that the stat boosters came back around in the grab game as something to give to the opponent. (Admittedly ‘giving’ a little more aggressively than in Double Dash)
• The set’s mobility options in FAir/NAir/Dash Attack are interesting in the context of Holy Ground - fun to imagine weaving in and out of one.

 

[Arctic Tern]

RIDDLE ROSEHEARTS (Salty)

Riddle’s source material is fairly interesting; from what I can gather it’s a Disney gacha with characters based off characters from the films. The character choice is also fairly interesting, especially given my general fascination with Alice in Wonderland; I’ve half/somewhat seriously considered sets for various iterations of Alice.

As for the set itself, I don’t have much to say that I didn’t already say about Deku, but I do like the idea of having a tantrum DTilt, fits Riddle’s character. I do have a few thoughts about the NSpec, which bans the foe’s NSpec for up to 3 minutes or until stock loss. Aside from the fact that most debuffs last for way shorter time periods, the way the move is described makes me think that this can’t be dodged - though the fact that there’s only one move banned does lessen the balance concerns. More importantly, I actually think NSpec’s debuff is a bit underpowered in its current state; it only bans one move. I can see why you’d do this, but the way I’d do it is make the move dodgeable but allow Riddle to choose what inputs to ban at the expense of high lag.

In addition, I do have issues with the playstyle. Riddle is described as a “ranged rushdown” character, which does fit his anger issues, but from the description I feel that he’s not constantly mad, just easily angered. I feel that burst damage is the best way of getting across the nature of Riddle’s temper, with burst movements to sell the feel he gives off. Summons could also be incorporated since he’s the house warden, but I don’t know enough about Twisted Wonderland to know if there are other people to summon.

I’m a bit sorry for the more negative comment, but this still shows a good deal of improvement over Mr. Rime.

See more comments and ratings on my personal page!

 

[SaltySuicune]

Spoiler: Madame Verre by Arctic Tern

As someone who knows nothing about YGO I don't really have anything to say other than; I like it. I think the gimmick is cool, and this character just looks fun. Not only to write, but also to play as, I also really like how Side B and Up B work together, it genuinely feels like a way better version of what I did with Mr.Rime's barriers.

 

[Katapultar]

Jamcon 5's reading period is extended indefinitely due to business in our lives and working on last sets before September the 10th. I'll let everyone read at their own pace during the reading and voting period, as the next Jamcon won't start until MYM26.

Spoiler: Riddle Rosehearts

Riddle had my interest when you first showed him off, to the point where I did a little search on Twisted Wonderland and a few of its boss fights (what little music I heard was fantastic, as expected of a gacha game).

Coming from the perspective of someone who isn’t familiar with Twisted Wonderland, I enjoy how this set educates readers on the game’s lore and gameplay and Riddle’s personal skills. Jab brings up the wardens’ staves, and Dash Attack the fact that everyone attends a magic school, Down Tilt for bratty shockwave, Neutral Air introduces broom riding for training, and Side Special displays elemental magic. As with the recent sets, I also appreciate that Riddles’ noted playstyle ties in with his character.

Like Deku, a few extra details could help flesh out the attacks. For starters, you could talk about the moves’ knockback, like their kill potential and launch trajectory. For instance: “Dair: Riddle, filled with rage, gets a black goop suddenly covering both legs as he stomps them on the enemy, as the heeled boots deal a quick blow to the enemy’s head, nothing fatal, luckily. 8%” I don’t get a sense for what this attack does gameplay-wise. Does it deal downwards knockback like other Dairs? Does it knock the enemy forward or upwards? Is it a slow or fast move? How effective is it against shields? What does it do for Riddle’s gameplan? Details like those would add more spice to the reading experience, give readers a better idea of how Riddle would play as a whole. Riddle is described as a range-y rushdown character, so I assume a lot of his attacks would be aggressive combo or zoning moves that are easily punishable.

Having read the original version of Riddle, I appreciate that Neutral Special was nerfed to make it a lot more balanced. Giving the collar a tight timer and needing to be close to apply it work nicely with Riddle’s rushdown game. Only banning the opponent’s Neutral Special doesn’t seem like a big reward (though it will vary on the match-up), but I understand why you wouldn’t want to ban all of the opponent’s Specials so you don’t gimp their recovery. Junahu’s Herminia set recently did input-locking as well: Up Specials could be banned in that set, but Junahu handled that in a neat way by not banning fighters from moving while they’re using recovery-based Specials.

One way the magic-locking effects of the collar could be interpreted is to ban (or weaken) the opponent’s shield, by interpreting Smash’s bubble shields as being magic: it wouldn’t feel unbalanced given the conditions behind placing it. Stopping the foe from shielding could play nicely into Riddles’ rushdown game! Prevents them from punishing your aggression.

Side Special is a good example of a move that sounds cool on paper, but needs more detail to discern how it actually works. Do the projectiles get shot off one-by-one like the Ice Climbers’ Neutral Special? Do the projectiles get shot out at the same time and travel alongside each other vertically? How big are the projectiles? Can you angle them, or angle them individually? And how fast do the projectiles move? Given Riddle’s playstyle, I assume that the balls would travel somewhat slowly and serve as a means of opening up opponents, or just general pressure/approaching tools like Mario’s Fireballs.

I appreciate Down Special for having lag listed, and being self-aware of how potent downwards knockback is offstage. The Final Smash is neat too, in the sense that the Overblot is foreshadowed in Riddle’s Smashes and some of his Aerials.

Once again, I enjoyed this set’s extras. Curiously, I appreciated Riddle’s extras more than Deku in spite of being into My Hero Academia, due to not knowing about his character. The alt costume references probably helped, with the characters being based on classic Disney villains.

 

[SaltySuicune]

Figured out now’d be a good time to go read some older sets I hadn’t seen yet, so have some comments.

Spoiler: Broken Vessel by n88

This... Oh, this speaks to me. Knowing as much as I know about the funny bug game, I knew from the start I’d like it anyway. I love the characterization here, a mindless monster without control of his own body, I just like the edginess. And the set itself does translate the feel of Hollow Knight pretty well. Also, bonus point for the top tier presentation.

Spoiler: Elder Princess Shroob by BKupa666

I love Elder Princess Shroob, I love Mario rpg games, and I, as well, really enjoyed this set, even if it was definitely a chunky thing to read and understand for my monkey brain. I appreciate that SMRPG reference in the Up B’s name. I also like the variety of uses in the specials, and it’s cool that there’s an up that ain’t simply recovery, there’s nothing wrong with those, I just think this one’s nice. On the more negative side, I did get confused when I got to time hole, and I've seen that so did others, so maybe you should simplify that in order to make it easier to understand.

Spoiler: Alolan Marowak by UserShadow7989

The way you incorporated bonemerang, that’s it, I don’t need anything else. Seriously though, I love what you did with the bone, the way you did it just makes sense for both Marowak and a ghost type. The fact that it's one of my fave Alolan Forms also helps

 

[WeirdChillFever]

I am not Cranky! I know he swapped those numbers. 12.16, one after Minecraft Alex (Cranky Kong by BKupa666 and @Smash Daddy)

Spoiler: chuck mcduck

Cranky is an interesting sort of set. I know I talked about it in chat a little bit, but potions and other stat buffs are generally hard to create a set around, especially if they are so varied in effect as Cranky’s. There’s five different effects and five different power moves, which makes it hard to funnel the playstyle into one direction or have all roads lead back to hard-interaction-mechanic-Rome. The mechanic works around the set here, rather than the other way around.
Cranky manages to juggle all effects deftly and leaves no potion behind (while also avoiding the shopping-list sort of set where every single move ends with a rundown of how every single potion affects it). It’s a choice that could only be pulled off by buddying-up two setmakers that are almost as experienced as Cranky. The moves combine simplicity with nice in-Smash interactions and overt DK references. Cranky doesn’t need lightning shooting from its kid-named-fingertips, it’s beneath him and does more than just fine with his cane capers. Flavor-wise, it’s all so so neat.

Still, splitting the main mechanic in five with the potions does lead to the set occassionally missing a certain direction or playstyle that a usual MYM centerpiece forces upon its set. Pogo fills that niche, nicely placed in the simple Neutral Air slot whilst elevated to the top of the set as a mechanic, but I would’ve liked to see that love go towards the other Specials on occassion as well. Dentures and Barrels give Cranky a strong weaving-projectileish playstyle and I think the set would’ve had a bit more punch if those elements were brought up throughout the set, because they do fit the Cranky character of being relatively simple tools that are actually playstyle-defining in the same vein Pogo is.

 

[n88]

Mad Dog by U UserShadow7989

The trap move is very well-implemented here - the different traps feel naturally complementary and distinct from each other while still being conceptually lightweight and easy to grok. There’s an admirable restraint to the implementation; the traps end up feeling less like the big flashy centerpiece you might expect and more like a pretty subtle complement to a well-defined melee fighter (or well, mid-range gunplay guy… you get me).

Mad Dog is really solid throughout - he feels kind of unusual for a jamcon set, in my mind, in that he isn’t packing a big flashy mechanical hook and he doesn’t indulge in the madcap energy that jamcon sets often have behind them. He’s just a very laid-back-in-presentation, to-the-point shooty-boy with clever implementation. I’m a definite fan, but I think conceptually he probably doesn’t pack enough punch to be my favorite from this jamcon.

I do wish the set brought the Specials back around a little more? I think Goldie comes up often enough and the traps generally do, but I found myself losing track of some of the finer points of his shooty Special moves as the set went on. Not a big complaint though. I think keeping things lightweight keeps the wordcount down and helps him read smoothly for a jamcon set, which is nice. Might benefit from a playstyle section just to bring some of the set's older ideas back around a little more. (I say as the guy who almost never writes those even when it would be very helpful)

Stray thoughts:

• “minus the ability to pop a wheelie or break into smaller parts” - my kingdom for a disassemblable rad-stunt horse
• Pretty smooth implementation of “horse” though, in all seriousness.
• Not played MYM’s favorite cowboy sim LAL, but I’ve always had a soft spot for westerns and dig the feel here.
• He’s got a few different “Gun!” moves but they manage to keep themselves all pretty distinct.
• Love the pacing-to-charge effect on FSmash.
• “something vaguely vulgar sounding” - here are some of my ideas for things he could say:
  • Thrud
  • Rindr
  • Geirskogul
• “Mad Dog is willing to indulge in a different genre for one move.” - honestly a little hard not to, Old West type characters can be a little hard to imagine in aerial combat
• “Worked well for his Up Tilt, so seems he's putting what he's practiced to good use. “ - obviously this makes the throw less powerful if you use it for the first time in a match without having previously used Up Tilt.
• Google suggests this as a possible alternative spelling for traps, if you’d like to update the set:
  • 

 

[SaltySuicune]

"May the Anemo god protect you, stranger!"

​

 

[n88]

The King of Sorrow by FrozenRoy

Always a big fan of sets that use items in a clever way, and the Moos + the way the Z-Air works are a cool spin on an item mechanic. There’s a very dynamic and fun-to-visualize suite of movement/projectile stuff here that’s built on mostly simple, if a little unorthodox, mechanics. It’s a unique approach to a high-flying, mobile character that feels really rooted in Smash’s engine and plays up the platforming in a platform fighter. Really slick stuff.

Personally I know I always have a hard time when trying to write something aerially-focused in terms of just how to write the ground game to transition smoothly without feeling railroad-y. It feels like this set strikes a pretty good balance and gives him a robust kit on the ground that gives him the tools to try and take the fight to the air, without making him feel one-dimensional.

Stray thoughts:

• “This is not helpful given that Klonoa is not in Smash” - bummer
• “like if King Dedede's Waddle Dees were still around” - I was just lamenting their loss yesterday with some friends.
• “or Dr. Strangelove's bomb” - King is gonna have a disadvantage in the Doctor Strangelove match-up now.
• Does feel like he might be able to do some real annoying minion/projectile set-ups at the ledge. Helps that it sounds like Glibz won’t fire off-stage, but he’s got a lot of tools in his kit and I know that I, a bad player, would be tempted to knock the foe off-stage and then just create a big pile of crap at the ledge.
• “making it the King of Sorrow's fastest aerial to boot, and with fittingly low ending lag to boot” - I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone double up on ‘boots’ like that, but honestly it makes sense.
• “a secret hitbox” - I’ll be sure to keep it under my hat.
• Bold to explain size in terms of a character that’s not in Smash, but refuse to say what a Baguji is.
• “This attack can be angled up or down.” - I was envisioning this as a big overhand from the description, so a little weird to think of it getting angled.
• “With how knockback stacking works in Smash Ultimate, the explosion's knockback will take priority (unless I misunderstand)” - I too have to refer back to an explanation on how that works whenever I reference it.

 

[Arctic Tern]

AMBER (Salty)

Amber is a set I don’t really have much to say that I haven’t already said about other sets. The playstyle does feel fitting for what little I know of the character, and I like the idea of controllable movement angles with the glide mechanic. I will say that I think there should be a limit to how long Amber can use the glide for, since with her high jumps she can very feasibly stall on FD, and the attack options out of the glide aren’t really elaborated on as much as they should. Can’t really say more that I haven’t said already, so yeah, keep up the good work!

See more comments and ratings on my personal page!

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Amber

At last, our first Genshin Impact set! This has always been an intriguing-looking franchise, and Amber is a great character pick.

Echo fighters have been thrown around a little in MYM, but Amber is one of the very few movesets to include an echo fighter. I admire the work you put into Collei for what is essentially an extra to Amber’s own set, right down to having her own extras. Amber’s moveset also does an exceedingly unique take on echo fighters: the Elemental Infusion mechanic that rewards you for having both Amber and Collei fighting on the same team! The mechanic is simple, but it doesn’t need to be complex or game-changing for the circumstances behind its activation. Rather, I commend the mechanic for bringing the reader’s attention to the Collei echo, and giving them an incentive to read Collei rather than skip her over. Reading Collei’s moveset, she is definitely justified as being an echo of Amber.

Amber’s moveset is a good improvement over Deku and Riddle! Basic usages on each attack helps a lot. I especially appreciate the level of detail on the Neutral Special, which feels especially satisfying after going through Amber’s more simple attacks. Most movesets put Specials first, after all. The way aim mode works is pretty cool, and I like the way Amber can score headshots similar to Marth’s Neutral Special (headshot mechanic is an actual thing in Smash, little known fact) and the versatility of being able to charge a stronger arrow. Does the fire arrow get stronger the longer you charge it? Going by the percents listed, I’m assuming it doesn’t. I’m curious if fire arrows deal knockback - it could be cool if headshots deal knockback on a different angle, like launching foes slightly downwards if you headshot them.

Baron Bunny is a pretty fun move that works well with Amber’s zoning and her arrows. Didn’t catch a countdown on the explosion, but that’s easy to edit into the set. Up Special is another move that, like Riddle’s Side Special, sounds very cool on paper but needs extra detail to sell it. How fast is the move? How far from Amber do the arrows land? How wide is the arrow rain? And do they deal knockback? If so, how much and in which direction?

Extra details would also help to discern how balanced the move is. The way the arrows rain down and that multiple of them hit do make them sound powerful at gimping, so I imagine the arrows would be decently laggy to throw out and land a fixed distance. Each arrow dealing 8% per hit also makes me think that they deal knockback individually, because otherwise you’re getting 40% off of one attack of indeterminable lag. Reading this move did make me think that a “falling arrow” type attack would be cool if you could determine where it lands in a similar way to the Warp Star item, but that might be a bit too powerful here. Perhaps one way you could go about Arrow Rain is making it a chargeable attack: could work well with Amber’s high midair jump.

I assume that Down Special is maintained while the button is held and prevents Amber from attacking. A defensive option if enemies get too close. Like Up Special, it’s a bit short on detail and detracts from an otherwise solid set of Specials, especially Neutral Special, but I’d be interested to know your intentions behind the move. I could see this move doing more: like having a keep-away hitbox, reflecting projectiles or being a traditional counter.

I like the music track collection at the end of the set: gacha games tend to have great music. And the promise of seeing more Genshin Impact sets from you is exciting.

All and all, Amber is the most satisfied I’ve been while reading one of your sets. That her character appeals to my inherent enjoyment of lightweight female protagonist helps a bit. There’s room for improvement detail-wise, but with your improvement and steady stream of sets and reading, I’m sure you’ll get there. Nice work here, Salty.

 

[GolisoPower]

A Flying Circus And A Mage From Prussia
Baron Mordo by n88

Baron Mordo is a concept that already got me hooked: a dude who can summon a boss to fight alongside him. This gives me the idea of reverse-engineering the concept and placing it into an Icon of Sin set in the future, but that's another time. The way Dormammu works is extremely fun. You could've made Dormammu a separate set that takes his abilities from comics, movies, and UMvC3 into account, and yet you decided to go the extra mile and give Dormammu a slot next to Mordo as a summonable boss. I cannot stress enough how much I love it.

Darkness also fueling your Neutral Special really opens up the options for Baron Mordo, especially when it turns your burst damage into sustained damage when your foe is Cursed. It really seems to give Mordo a better chance for pressure on top of being able to summon a boss. And with a speed increase like that, I'd half expect him to be like Magneto or Zamasu in the sense that he could fly. The way the portal works is also pretty fun, too, being an anchor recovery that allows him to lure foes over to Dormammu and even throw them to his location for some significant burst damage, although I do wonder if that strategy would be too strong. Dormammu's already crazy powerful what with him summoning minions and creating hazards and the like, but if sending your opponent to him is that easy, then it would kind of make it a bit unfun to play against Mordo because he has a greater incentive to abuse that strategy harder than a Hollywood ex-wife. The clone thing really mixes things up, too: reminds me a bit of Mysterio from the MYM23, except a lot more subdued, but regardless it's still a fun little ditty.

Demon summonings aside, the meat of it all comes from your attacks. Side Smash is a major highlight mainly because it's effectively a Leaf Shield/Shadow Flare with a little extra oomph to it. It really adds a good layer of defense to Mordo's approach game and gives some ease in shield-breaking, too. Also, a Down Smash that's a hitgrab like that is also freakin' ridiculous. Pummel being a damage-primer pummel is an interesting approach to it, too. You sold your soul to make this and scammed the devil to get it back, you madlad. Nice work!

 

[n88]

Akira Tadokoro by GolisoPower

A lot of stray details about LAL creep their way into this set. That’s not necessarily a problem, but a lot of the particular factoids don’t always help me, as someone who’s never played LAL, understand the set or why you’ve made the choices you’ve made. I really don’t get anything at all from knowing that he learns a certain move at level 8 in-game. I’d assume that’s a low level in most RPGs, but maybe the segmented nature of LAL means that’s a mid or high level? Even if I had a frame of reference for that, what’s the broader meaning behind ‘when the move is learned’ that makes this interpretation of the move interesting?

I don’t at all want to discourage you from taking the time to talk about the source material in your sets. You’ve got a real natural positivity and exuberance to share your interests. That’s part of your voice and I’d never fault you for leaning in. But I would encourage you to try to share in a way that’s easier for a reader to connect with and take something away from.

To put on my ‘good cop’ hat and pick out an example of a detail that does help inform the set, I like the statistics section bringing up that he has a high initial dash speed to reflect LAL’s grid-based movement. That’s good stuff! It tells me something about the game, fills me in on an adaptation choice, and makes a little light-bulb go off in my brain because something clever happened. I think the set would be a smoother read if more of the info about LAL was imparted like that, in a way that helped me connect the dots between what the set is doing and what the source material is like.

Anyway, that’s a small note on presentation in spite of my taking several paragraphs to articulate it. I’m glad you took the time to jump back into a jamcon! Akira has some cool tools in his specials and unorthodox choices (like a hitgrab jab) that make him an entertaining read. The set’s mechanics maybe don’t come together quite as clearly as they could have with a little more time in the oven, but there’re a lot of interesting ideas in the mix that’d be cool to see you iterate on in future sets.

I think Akira’d benefit a lot from being able to choose when he used the Charge Gauge, or not having the effect on every move so that he could play around the boosted moves more. He’s only getting the effect once or twice a stock, so it’s a shame if he can’t exercise some control on how it gets used. (The Smashes do seem to talk a bit like he can use it selectively, but USpec and the Charge Gauge section definitely didn’t give me that impression)

I also feel that the rarity of Charge Gauge coupled with the widely-divergent effects would make it difficult to learn the different Charge Gauge effects for every move. The status effect ones are a really interesting space to explore but I feel like that direction would probably require the mechanic as a whole to take up less headspace. If I’m not sure what Charge Gauge Up Tilt does but I bust it out because I need it defensively, and I land the hit, I probably have no idea about the status effect I just inflicted.

Some of the Charge Gauge effects feel a little under-tuned for what they are. I’d point at say, Down Tilt or Down Throw. Other fighters have moves that can Just Do those things without expending a once-or-twice-a-stock resource. (And it’s not like those effects are wildly more powerful in Akira’s hands than they are in other fighters’, so far as I can tell) On the other hand, these Charge Gauge effects are also some of the most intuitive in the set: they make the move do what it would have done, but more-so, in a way the player can immediately grok and feel great about. I think more effects on that sort of level would work well if he got Charge Gauge a little faster.

Anyway, if I have a thesis on the Charge Gauge it’s that it feels a little unwieldy in its current form, largely due to the set having too many ideas about exactly what to do with it. I think it’d be more of a feel-good for the hypothetical player if it either interacted with moves in a more predictable way, or was more constrained in which moves it was applicable to. Kinda cool to see a set just go nuts and throw in as many mechanical twiddles as possible though.

Stray thoughts:

• I dig that Charge Gauge benefits from movement on the stage to push him toward playing in a mobile way, considering he has a few tools that lend themselves to campy stuff.
• "Projectile Cape" is a dastard move I would use a lot (badly).
• The workings of Charge SSpec feel a little murky to me - it seems to suggest you can’t face him at all, but then softens that to more of a Reverse Ryu auto-turn mechanic? 10 seconds is a dang long time if the former is correct.
• Outrageous that Behind You isn't the move that puts Akira behind you.
• Stand aside, King of Sorrow. “Mother’s Shame” is the saddest name for an attack I’ve ever heard.
• Speaking of which, that attack is super juicy (too juicy?) and fun to visualize - I would have expected it to be treated as more of a centerpiece, that’s the kinda attack that people will be real fast to bust out. Doesn’t seem to come up much in the rest of the set, though.
• I cannot for the life of me stop myself from typing "Guage".
• Ah, NAir provides some perspective on level scaling.
• The aerial animations go hard.
• BAir is weird though, feels off-brand for his aesthetics/powerset and just there for the pun. (I trust that LAL is to blame)
• I’m just gonna come out and say it, this is the weirdest cowboy I’ve ever heard of in my life.
• A comment with two “anyway”s, the sure sign of self-indulgent yammering. Sometimes the stray thoughts overflow.

Apothecary Gary by Torgo the Bear
Interesting commitment to extremes in the mechanics here - the choice that damage to his frogs is transmitted to Gary particularly raised an eyebrow. Then it was also established that they hamper his recovery. Way to double and triple down on fragility for an already-featherweight; it puts an interesting spin on this as a kind of more extreme version of Smash’s puppet fighters where the puppeteer is incredibly vulnerable.

Obviously things are still a bit WIP here, but I’m looking forward to seeing you flesh it out! The core direction is conceptually interesting.

Stray thoughts:

• Might be cool if Gary was exempt from the usual fighters-can’t-walk-through-each-other rule.
• You've probably gotten this note elsewhere, but frogs are really hurtin' for some size/weight/HP(?) info.
• “If Gary gets an opponent in between himself and a Frog stationed by a crop, he can potentially lock the opponent into a chain of jabs coming in from both sides.” - I’d probably give him a jab finisher after a bit, just to avoid that being too much of a problem.
• I’d probably have creating a DTilt puddle come with some kind of hitbox as a concession to practicality. Helps it still function as a DTilt in a scenario where players want that.
• Alternatively, I could see going in a different direction with DTilt altogether? He's packing some severe debuff potential with his spores, but has a cool mitigating factor in that he kinda has to get risky to apply Spores normally, since he’s so vulnerable in melee. Having a Spore ‘trap’ mitigates that and pushes him in a more conventionally MYMy stage control direction.

-------
I'm going with Froy's King of Sorrow for my jamcon nomination, with a tip of the hat to Herminia.

 

[SaltySuicune]

Spoiler: Asbestos by Bubby

As per usual; I know next to nothing about Asbestos, even less than previous comments where I at least was aware of either them or someone else from the source material. So it only makes it more impressive that you managed to make an entire moveset on a character you know nothing about and also made it sound so fun, just look at that. I agree with everyone else that the Up B is the coolest thing ever, and I would love for her to enter smash just for that reason, I also like the few gimmicks, it genuinely looks like a better and awesome version of tough guy. It also helps a lot that she seems to be just the kind of character I'd usually play, so I'm a little biased. Genuinely my fave set out of the ones I've read so far.

 

[UserShadow7989]

Witchcrafter Madame Verre by Arctic Tern **

Took me longer than I'd have liked (forgot it was posted Monday so I'm a day later than my usual deadline), it's my comment for Madame Verre! The polishing mechanic and barriers steal the show here, being incredibly good implementations of both her card effect and her magical specialty, with the set oozing her smug personality and collected demeanor from every pore while cementing she's well earned both. I love her figurine-creating throw especially in this fluff regard, all the better that it works so nicely with her mechanic.

The set's combo-focused playstyle rewards varying your moves over spamming the same input, but allows a few outs for when you're pushed to repeat the same attack (as well as making that a valid choice in and of itself now and then thanks to moves that can chain into themselves and the fact foes who know her mechanic might not expect it). The set even throws a nod or two at other Yugioh cards that fit the glass aesthetic, like Down Special and Forward Aerial.

The set does also make note of good combo options out of each move that's relevant for it, and makes sure to establish when a move improves or worsens at a given job depending on your level of polish. Her set evolving and changing as you play is a fantastic touch that would make matches against her interesting, though as you mention it means she has a higher skill floor than other characters- not a bad thing in any way, just interesting in this context.

And of course, the little details are all here, small bits of polish (pardon the pun) that elevate the execution. Shield Special letting you check your stale queue, use of her throne to justify a high weight to represent her high DEF in combination with some soft and hard stage control options- all while also providing simpler explanations that makes it easy to process. She shares Shiek's weaknesses and combo focus, but is able to overcome the former with the use of her mechanic via the latter. It's easy to grasp, but fantastical in concept.

To top it all off, Side Special works to give her a ridiculous pay off option she can build to independent from or in tandem with her main mechanic, though its best use is how it ties into her tech chase game and makes foes wary of just smashing her walls (or ignoring them entirely) by its existence.

While Remilia still is my favorite of your sets, Madame Verre is a strong set in her own right, and well worth the read. Nice work!



Riddle Rosehearts by SaltySuicune ***

An interesting character pick to be sure, I hadn't known this series was a thing until this set. Riddle carries his personality over from the game clearly, showing it in each input- and I do appreciate how you work to capture the character and the references you make to their source material.

Mechanically the set feels a bit bare; there's mentions of some simple applications of each input (Jab right away mentions its long reach, which would be great for poking foes in neutral), but I'd like to see interplay; noting FSmash leads into USmash is an example of something in the set already that I would enjoy seeing more of, just a reference to a combo or two. Back Throw mentions its use as a kill throw, but the other three don't mention their niches; I could see Up Throw being good for aerial combos or to threaten foes with Down Special, FThrow a tech chase starter, and DThrow either a grounded combo throw or a raw damage throw that reset to neutral.

I do like the oppressive playstyle he's going for here between his speed and his Specials; what with Neutral Special locking out the opponent's, Side Special's homing quality, and Down Special being a nice delayed hitbox. In the same vein, his Up Special is fairly vulnerable for lack of a hitbox, so he's not quite as good at retaking control as he is when he's in control already.

I could see some small tweaks like letting him input a different input to ban during the start up of NSpec (other than Up Special of course), and making Down Special's cauldron appear further ahead of him with a little delay after performing the move so he can bully opponents out of their space, to name some ideas for building on what's there.

The ideas and character picks you have are always cool, so I'm interested in seeing where you go from here- I'm already quite excited to read Amber as is! Nice job on getting out so many sets already.

 

[GolisoPower]

A Real SSR Pull
Elimine by WeirdChillFever

I had difficulty reading through this set because the Google Doc it was on kept giving me an "Unable to load" error for some reason. Happens at the places where there are GIFs, so you may wanna get that checked out real quick. But technical difficulties aside, this was a pretty fun set overall!

The Neutral Special presents us with what is effectively Monado Arts if they added some more bells and whistles to her Specials, giving her some extra territory control with her Down Special, not only alleviating any disadvantages she may have against other terrain-shifting characters in this contest like Whitebeard, Eldlich and Ode Iou, but also granting her advantages for her throws, which we'll get to later. I like the take on using a game mode trait for an Up Special. I'm all for digging deep into unconventional sources for Specials and attacks (I did that for Shin Godzilla, if you may recall), so doing so for other game modes was a bit of a hoot. I kind of like Side Special's little gimmick of being a disruptor, it really gives Elimine another layer of defense that she can use to save herself from any further harm.

I find it a real shame that I can't enjoy the set to its fullest because I barely played any Fire Emblem at all aside from an Awakening Demo, but I still found it enjoyable, regardless. I love how Aerial Down B grants her items to enhance her throws, which dare I say endearingly references the gacha. RNG can be a double-edged sword when it comes to Smash characters. On the one hand, you have characters that have next to none like Incineroar, and on the other, you have almost everything about Hero. But it's all only self-contained in three of her throws so some concerns are unfounded. I will say, using F-throw expecting to get a set-up throw for a kill confirm only to send them careening with a Mythic Orb makes for a pretty funny and hype moment. Almost like a clip I remember seeing where Hero cast Whack and missed Bowser, but Hero threw Bowser into the Whack and instantly killed him. That kind of "funny and hype". Speaking of, I also love the idea of there being a reward for using a move a certain number of times with that Celestial Stone. It kind of gives Elimine some incentive to throw her foe around like a ragdoll and give her a free Warp Star to blow up her foes with.

Overall, though, I'd say you did a nice job, WCF!

 

[UserShadow7989]

Amber (and Collei) by SaltySuicune ***

I already see some improvement coming off of Riddle, with more depth to their specials and the way Collei and Amber can support each other in tag matches making them feel like a whole when paired together, though still functional on their own- Collei's Up Special providing Amber with a recovery aid and Amber's Down Special giving her friend some needed protection to compensate for Collei not being quite as proficient at stage control being stand outs, not counting the obvious mechanical synergy of their elements letting them pile on extra damage.

That dynamic adds a lot to the sets, I think. Taking a pair of sets that function well on their own but have obvious mechanical benefits to working as a duo isn't a concept that's been explored much in MYM- to give you an idea, the sole example I can think of was a set that was made reliant on another's constructs to work, but then the other never manifested. There's certainly sets that would be fun (or frustrating) to play as/against in a team setting, but that's usually not a deliberate design choice/pairing at the outset.

The added depth seen in the Specials extends to the rest of the duo's mostly shared kit, too- Amber's individual moves going a little more into detail about how they work and teasing some interactions or options. An example of this is the Up and Down Throws. Forward and Back Throws need a mention of what their niches are, but otherwise the set pushes toward that while still being succinct and flavorful. I feel these two are a step in the right direction, and I'll say that these sets may have done more to stoke my interest in Genshin Impact than anything else I've seen of the game, so that's a job well done in my book.



Quackfaster Volume 2: Quacking Faster WeirdChillFever

Don't think I forgot about my promise; since the throws weren't done by the time I commented the set the first time around, I finally circled back to reading the finished product today. And I have to say, I love this grab game. Focused on lingering effects and a ticking timer foes need to deal with, what are powerful effects are carefully balanced with small tweaks compared to their item-based comparison points and a limit to what Quackfaster can do while they're active without dismissing them.

Aside from the fluff of her weaponizing a potent mcguffin to access a magical location being cool as all get out, it feels like the perfect way to add an extra layer on top of her multitude of tricks without overcomplicating things. That said, the section is a touch rushed; throwing the foe into the shaft in Down Throw should come with a little damage, and it doesn't mention what happens when someone is in the shaft when the Library closes (presumably they'd take damage and be forced up to the nearest open area above the shaft they're in). Up Throw makes a joking note of the rush and leaves the use cases to the reader, which is fine (there's obvious ones like using the time to set up and get your everything in order while opponents mash out of the ghosts' grasp).

Everything here is clearly conveyed and a brisk read, so my one nitpick from before is gone, too (or maybe I'm just more focused now?). This isn't the most helpful comment given I'm not a big numbers guy, but everything in the throws seems to be in order, and even the pummel option is quite nice. Quackfaster still stands as a top-tier set even after all the crazy cool entries we've had this contest, and I wanted to acknowledge to work that went into it as I'm going over my notes and trying to pump out one last set.

 

[n88]

Give it everything, and you might live a little longer.


A Froy/n88 Joint | Link​