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

[SaltySuicune]

Spoiler: Nomad by BridgesWithTurtles

The fact alone that it's a Dillon character was already a great surprise, but on top of that it's also a very creative set with a neat gimmick that just makes sense. I also really liked the presentation, it's always nice to see people trying to make their content look nice. I don't really have anything else to say, I just think this one is really enjoyable.

 

[GolisoPower]

Off-Brand NFF Services
Kosaka Wakamo by Katapultar

Zamn, bruh, Kat's going full-steam ahead with these Blue Archive sets for this contest, lol. Makes me wonder what the record for "quickest franchise slot" was. Probably Cuphead or something, I dunno. ANYWAYS! Let's move on to Wakamo!

The set seems to be Ferrijit Alter in the sense that she has generally the same arsenal with the rifle, but applies it much differently, too. Really digging what she has for Neutral Special, being effectively the cross between the Staff item and Mega Man's Side Special, except it gets stronger the more times you hit them before the blast. It really gives Wakamo a unique snowballing gameplan with her kit and sounds like it'll penetrate almost any defense. The "Impassioned" state granted by Down Special seems to really help reach the "50% Kill Percentage" variant of Neutral Special, if you can avoid getting hit too much in that short period of time. Side Special is freakin' packed, being a Wario Bike on crack that not only includes a long disjoint, but also summons minions to your side to further help Neutral Special's raw power. Hooking a Helmet to your NSpec bomb is also really fun way to turn you into a combat masochist. And then we have Up Special which...I actually like, don't get me wrong, but now I'm curious if firing a strong-enough calibre gun in free fall will slow your fall speed in real life. You'd think so because of the recoil, right?


I love how she uses comically large weapons for Smash attacks, the Down Smash is really funny toe for some reason. And her attacks seems almost like she were the lovechild of Ferrijit and W with both minion-based rifle shenanigans and unhinged explosive work. It really makes her take from both sides and turn it into something well and truly unique. Balance-wise, it's pretty solid, having to force you to go all in on offense to get the strongest version of Neutral Special. Overall, this seems like a fun, aggressive character who's great at all ranges and turns the place into a total riot. Nice work, Kat, you might just get my nomination once I'm done with the others!

 

[BKupa666]

QUAXLY:
Better late than never for me to get around to comments for some of this contest's earlier sets! While not the most intricate duck you've written so far, Quaxly comes with plenty of charm in his own right. The down feathers work nicely in the context of a featherweight character, serving to prolong Quaxly's survivability with enemy debuffs. The various ways down can get spread across the stage are fun to weigh against each other; Quaxly and foes both can carry it around, with the former having an upper hand with his ability to shake it off with Down Special verus throwing out punishable attacks.

He's also got flexibility in choosing to reposition down indirectly with his neat Side Special wave rush or directly on his person, thanks to his strong mobility and extra jump. In the latter case, Quaxly takes decent advantage of the debuffs to his own moves; you can better land stuff like F-Air strings at the cost of potentially falling behind in damage-dealing, no small thing for a character who gets KOed faster than most others. Then, down goes on to get the mileage it deserves in connection withregular attacks, with interactivity I particularly enjoyed on D-Tilt and dash attack, and an under-the-radar lynchpin on D-Throw, letting the feathers transfer between characters.

In some other areas, Quaxly sees some more figuratively ruffled feathers. I like the whirlpool's wave interaction and movement boosts for its web-footed user (especially with the D-Air mix-up). However, with some uncertainty as to how fast it is to summon, it seems like a rather strong option, given the vortex's six-second duration and as best I can tell, the opponent seemingly staying stuck until Quaxly hits them out or the move ends. From a similar balance standpoint, the otherwise cool F-Smash water bubble doesn't seem to function differently if Quaxly lobs it offstage, turning it into an especially powerful gimping tool. And while I like the down imperviousness concept on paper, a timed button press on U-Throw strikes me as an unusual input placement for it (perhaps it could've been featured more centrally via some whirlpool interaction?).

Beyond that, I don't have all that much in the way of complaints, and happened to experience a good amount of personal nostalgia based on Quaxly's various swimming references sprinkled throughout. He's a healthy accompaniment to Quackfaster and a good benchmark for any future Pokesets you decide to make. WeirdChillFever

SLEAZE:
Sleaze is one I remember encouraging you to pursue off of one of your preview documents on account of his unorthodox cool factor as an OC, and after reading through, I can say he turned out even better than I envisioned at the time. Full disclosure, it took me a few times reading through the pocket and sacrifice mechanics to grasp how they work in practice. That said, once I got down the link between the two — the need to sacrifice to fill a pocket — the wheels started turning as to the sheer possibilities any given Sleaze player can access, tailoring what specifically they want to sacrifice, and at what level, based on their opponent and match context. Then, of course, there's the degree to which a player seeks to build up as strong a pocket as possible, to potentially harrowing extremes, versus weaving them in among Sleaze's regular attacks for more measured benefits.

Moving on to Neutral Special, Sleaze's Pathways are probably the best use of portals I've seen in a set since Quilby. The choice to have an individual Pathway function as a wall, while turning into a portal once a second is summoned, allows all the gameplay benefits of both concepts to be leveraged, and that the portal specifically forms between the oldest two Pathways means Sleaze can strategically adjust where he's reaching with his attacks on the fly. The addition of a few extra frames to attacks and projectiles is an understated, but really great touch to give these portals some added punch, letting him extend his hitboxes to an even more literal degree. It might just be because of your (lovingly drawn/animated) gameplay images, but I feel as though Sleaze paints the clearest picture I've seen to date of how potent two well-placed portals can be from a combo perspective. I do wonder whether 50 HP is a bit much for an individual Pathway, when as far as I can tell Sleaze doesn't have much trouble in placing them, but that's largely a number crunching matter.

From there, Sleaze goes on to deliver the sort of fighting game melee promise you demonstrated in Hugo to an even greater extent, as you pull bits and pieces from different non-Smash fighters that feel appropriate on this sort of eldritch salesman. Down Special and its different throw variants are vintage grappler goodness. There's also some great ranged hijinxs, as Side Special becomes utterly off the chain when full needle spreads pass through Pathways, on top of Sleaze's options for throwing pockets. Later on in the set, organization-wise there were occasions I found myself wishing attacks had color-coding, based on which pocket hitboxes they correspond with, which could've saved me some scrolling back and forth. But that's not a huge deal when the attacks themselves mostly mesh together well, no small feat when there are this many moving parts. Some favorites in a vacuum were Sleaze's sluggish regular F-Tilt headbutt, with its projectile nullification and shield crunching, and enhanced D-Smash, with his multiple visceral hits culminating in a debuff to victims he manages to snag.

Sleaze might well stand as your MYM magnum opus, elevating the promise I saw in Ditto and Hugo to even higher highs. Pending rereads of both, he's definitely competitive with Jodie Reynolds for my favorite MYM25 set so far. Well done! Almand

 

[Katapultar]

"Sorry for, um, staring at you all weird.

Err, well, you see... ummm... How do I put this?

The "my lord" that Izuna-chan always talks about. Ever since she joined the Ninjutsu Research Club, she's been repeating the same line ' Izuna is going to become the best ninja in all of Kivotos for her lord!' Ah- and each time our club president asks, 'So, uh, you sure you're not being tricked by some weirdo?'

Wait. no! I didn't mean to imply that you're a shady person or anything...! Err, well the thought did cross my mind a couple times before we met. But every time Izuna says that, she has a big smile on her face. So it made me want to meet you for myself.

Umm, well, no bad impressions, of course...! You didn't turn us away... even though we barged in so suddenly. And you didn't get mad at us. You didn't laugh at us when we talked about ninjas. When we went to the Shirai Ryu, you even advocated for us. I was... surprised. I never knew someone like you was out there. It made me happy to know that there was. I'm sure Izuna-chan and our president are happy too.

At first, I was really worried... like, is it okay for me to be here? I like Izuna-chan, and I respect our president. I-I'm a nobody with a big body and nothing else, and yet...

She took in... someone like me...

Anyway, that's why I... I want to work hard! I'm going to follow all of the laws of the ninja, and be just as good as them!"



"Ah- Lady Tsukuyo!"


"You two are so late. We're getting tired of waiting~"





"Ah...s-sorry... for making you wait!"
​

 

[Arctic Tern]

OONO TSUKUYO (Kat)

The third member of the NInjutsu Research Club finally gets a set! And wouldn’t you know it, it does indeed surpass Izuna in quality.

Tsukuyo here is a superheavy, based on her status as the group tank, which automatically appeals to me - always been fascinated with the idea of a superheavy who doesn’t look the part. She’s got all the power you’d expect despite her build, best exemplified with her SSpec command grab that’s an instakill if it lands raw at mid charge. Unfortunately for her, she also has all the startlag you’d expect, with said SSpec taking 2 seconds to full charge. This lends to a defensive style, fitting for a tank, which her unique shield allows her to get a lot of mileage out of; it has more HP than a regular shield, makes Tsukuyo solid, and allows her to cancel the lag of her attacks into a shield for tricky combos. The shield isn’t just better, however, as it causes a debuff to the strength of her normally very strong moves and, if it is broken, instakills her.

This is just the most immediate hook out of many in the set. There’s a variety of shurikens that can be thrown at all sorts of angles, one of which increases in power the more hits Tsukuyo takes, dodges, or shields, and a USpec that creates a hydrant-esque construct if she doesn’t have her tree costume on. Despite the fact that all of these would serve as good bases for a set on their own, Tsukuyo never feels disjointed, with every aspect mentioned having plenty of interplay with her standard melee tools. And even without the base concepts, there’s some very cool standard melee tools, such as FSmash having superarmor to serve as a counter tool, UTilt’s stomp hitbox that launches her tree stump upward for follow ups, and Neutral and Forward Air’s ability to condition shields for her grab game; which seeing how defensive Tsukuyo is is not as immediately powerful to compensate for how much she’ll be landing it.

I also have to give a nod to the characterization, which seeps into multiple aspects of the set. Tsukuyo is a very shy girl often bullied due to her height, and in Smash her exaggerated height combined with her floaty fall speed means she’s just as easily bullied by foes. There’s all sorts of neat touches too, such as her not using her gun as much as the other ninja girls because she’s not as good with it as the others. Even the defensive playstyle feeds into this, although I’m not sure if this aspect was intentional; of course a shy girl like Tsukuyo wouldn’t want to directly approach her foes!

If you couldn’t tell by the length of this comment, I’m a huge fan of Tsukuyo. While I’ll probably be the biggest fan of this set, I highly recommend checking her out as soon as possible! Just, er… not all at once, please.

See more comments and ratings on my personal page!

 

[GolisoPower]

A Real Spaghetti Western. or is it calamari western?
Nomad by BridgesWithTurtles

Now I know next to nothing about Dillon's Rolling Western, other than that Dillon is an Assist Trophy, and I saw a game of his in a Nintendo Direct. Maybe if they release a Switch collection soon I could try it out. Regardless of my lack of knowledge, Nomad is hella unique, not just as a character, but as a set. I really love the customizable layout aspect of Nomad, allowing you to mix and match your arsenal and perhaps focus on either sword or gun attacks. There seems to be a lot to work with regarding range and attack power, although everything seems to be well-balanced. I love the prospect of throwing ridiculous numbers of bombs with Down Special; it almost sounds like a communist Gigaflare, and I'd happily join in the shared means of destruction for the people's dopamine. Up Special-Side Special combo also sounds like a lot of fun, hiding in your ink clouds and waiting for the foe to be in your line of sight before, BOOM! Headshot! Self-imposed challenge: can I get a Killimanjaro as Nomad in a Smash match? I'd probably fail that, but I'd strive for that nonetheless. ANYWAYS, tho. I love the Jab a whole lot because it's a great take on the "pocket sand" technique (which you actually referenced in-doc) and Neutral Air being a spray-and-pray gun attack sounds amazing. These are just a few highlights of a set that really plays up the "dirty outlaw" aspect he seems to employ. I like this a lot, good job, man!

"Delicious. Finally, Some Good ****ing Food."
Isabella by Slavic

Isabella is unnerving, and not just from a character standpoint: everything about her kit feels just...wrong, in the sense that there's always something off about her usually-friendly demeanor and caring actions before Adoption Day comes. You seem to nail a horror aspect that the first arc of Promised Neverland gives you and I applaud you for it, speaking as one who has seen very little about it. The kit itself, dread notwithstanding, is actually pretty fun to work with: from buffing your speed with the Radar to sending your assistant Ms. Krone after your foe to hiding certain things like ladders and trap doors on the stage, Isabella seems to have everything to ensure nobody gets away. Down Special, meanwhile, is the very meat of the kit itself, being coincidentally reminiscent of Velma's gimmick from MultiVersus while still somewhat unique to Isabella as a character. The conditions for getting Down Special to kill are really specific, but I feel as though they kinda overshadow the normal method of scoring KO's, but on the other hand, that same Insta-KO threshold is also locked behind a calendar, so I guess that balances it out a bit. Her attacks seem to blend disarming motherly charm with hidden cult-like predatory instinct, really playing her up as a wolf in sheep's clothing that she seems to uphold in the story. I also really like how you implement anime OP imagery as her Smash attacks, I honestly never would've thought of doing it that way and it opens the door for other creative aspects in anime sets in the future. I'd say you did a good job, Slavic! My compliments to the chef!

 

[Junahu]

Hey, lady. I have a package here for you, and I need you to sign for it, okay?
Ugh, finally! I placed this order with you guys three weeks ago! What gives?
There was a mix up with the packages at the Amazombie warehouse. I'll spare you the deets, but seriously I need that signature.
Yeah yeah, here. You better not be expecting a tip.
Don't sweat it, I'm just here to clear out some of this backlog. It's a real pain... Well I'm off! Thank you for shopping with Amazombie!
Well she was awful chipper. I'll leave her a nice 1-star review later..
Yo, Prince! They're here! ... ... where's that brat gone this time?
Ooh, mail. How exciting! Is it my Effort Ninja Gorillian Unchained Edition Bluray?
Nah, I tossed that crap in the can yesterda-- I mean hey Flonne! Have you seen prince pain-in-the-ass anywhere?
Prince Laharl? I saw him in the Oratory, practicing his evil laugh
Tsk, figures he'd be doing something stupid like that. Alright, let's go give his highness the mail.
I'm coming too? Okay.

Haaaaaaa hahahahahaaaa! Hmm.. not bad. I'm a natural at this.
Morning Laharl! Mail call!
Gah! What the hell guys, haven't you heard of knocking!?
We're demons, we're not supposed to knock. Anyway, have I got some good news for you! They're here!
!! The invitations!?
Yup, a whooooole box! We'll fill these babies out and finally get into Smash!
And not a moment too soon! I've been bored outta my mind here. Crushing nameless peons, snuffing uprisings from nobody heroes.
That's right, prince. Smash is where all the greatest and strongest main characters hang out, and we just got our tickets to knock them upside their own heads!
Smash invites? And a whole box of them! How in the world did you manage to-- Gasp! They're counterfeits, aren't they?
Of course they're fake! You know how much the genuine article costs? We'd be working off our debt as Smash Spirits for decades if they were real!
Don't tell me you're gonna be all high and mighty about this. Don't you want to meet.. I dunno, Pit? He's an angel too right?
Oh, actually we're already acquainted. We had a thing last summer. But he wouldn't stop talking about other girls; "Lady Palutena" this, "Lady Palutena" that.. it was really awkward. I'd rather not see him again.
Wha? Flonne, I never took you for that kinda girl! You're gonna make the prince here jealous
Me? Jealous? Like hell I am! Just open the box already so we can blow this joint!
You got it, prince! ... ... What the hell is this!?
Is this, a moveset? And it's not even for me! I've been gypped!
To whoever it may concern, Mwwaaaa hahahaaaaaa! It is my great pleasure to inform you that your Smash invites now belong to me! If only I could be there in person, to see the looks on your faces. Oh I bet you're wallowing in despair! So exquisite, I might be drooling just thinking about it! In fact, I think I'll come see for myself. With my 1.8 million EQ I should have no trouble remaining hidden while I observe your anguish! [Note to Prinny: tear this part of the letter out] Worst regards, Mao​
Is this guy for real?
I see him, he's behind that bench.
Ah, in hindsight this might not have been my smartest moment..

 

[BridgesWithTurtles]

Last-minute comments on all the Jamcon sets - I hope I made it in time. This has been an extremely hectic past two weeks for me and so I barely managed to finish reading in time. My commentary might be lacking because of this, so apologies.

Spoiler: Sundown Kid

Having never played the game, Sundown Kid comes across as more or less all the generic cowboy tropes rolled into one character. Seems appropriate then that this moveset plays exactly how you'd picture a cowboy to play, which is no knock against it. A lot of mileage is achieved with the character's tools, making for a unique blend of zoning and ledge pressure that feels natural and appropriate. There aren't a lot of moves that I'd say stand out in particular, but every move has well thought-out interactions with the others and slots nicely into a coherent playstyle. Up Smash is probably my favorite move of the set simply because of the myriad ways one can imagine applying it in a match, having a commendable presence for a projectile not created by a special move. Despite this fact and the general minmaxing around the Neutral Special as a primary core to the set (in which I noticed a lot of amusing convergent parallels with my own Nomad set due to the shared character archetypes), Sundown still comes off as rather grounded and believable as a "realistic" Smash character, which always earns points from me.

Spoiler: O. Dio

It's funnily appropriate how O. Dio's centralization around his gatling gun Neutral Special as the all-encompassing component of his moveset so elegantly mirrors the role played by the vastly different NSpec in the Sundown Kid moveset directly preceding it. The gatling gun is a real doozy of a projectile, and I really enjoy how much you run with its insane power as a catalyst for not only O. Dio's entire playstyle, but also his biggest universal drawback, factoring into everything from his subpar frame data, to his poor jumps, to his dearth of anti-air options. It really feels like you created the craziest move possible and then built and balanced everything around that. The set as a whole is incredibly detailed, every potential action having been thought out and planned around, and it's an exemplary demonstration of the kind of thorough understanding of the game that I've come to expect from your writing.

Minions are hard to implement without coming off as tacky or superfluous in my opinion, but I think O. Dio's service his playstyle well even while I think the set - with a few adjustments - would work perfectly fine even without them. That's not at all to say they're not well thought-out; far from it. If anything, it's a testament of how solid O. Dio's own moves are as a core. I wish I had time to say more about this set, because I do really like it, but I hope my short comment suffices to communicate that it's a great achievement on your part.

Spoiler: Kosaka Wakamo

I really like how Neutral Special resets its own effect; the move is rewarding enough to encourage frequent usage, but outright spamming the move undoes your progress, so it's a move that's highly central to the character's playstyle but in a manner that doesn't simply call for the player to constantly throw it out. Side Special is really ridiculous as a concept and would normally be too prop-reliant for my tastes, but the absurdity of the attack and the fun way in which it meshes with Wakamo's playstyle makes me give it a thumb-up anyway, even if I think there are probably too many inputs tacked onto this single move. I always like to see how movesets implement minions that aren't actually "allies" to the character per se, and there's a ton of flavor here that really lends a lot to the Helmets as summonable spawns. Really love being able to steal their weapons in particular. Not sure I agree with the decision to have Wakamo be immune to a Helmet's CFD blast - might be a canon thing I'm not aware of, but it feels a little logically inconsistent if they'll still affect her Down Special.

In all though, every move in this set is well thought-out, as I'd expect from this setmaker's pedigree. There are a handful of questionable elements, but they're all easily outweighed by the moveset's strengths. If I had more time, I could go into detail over what I like about each input, but I don't. A very strong set that I can see being a contender for this Jamcon's winner.

Spoiler: Isabella

There seems to be some debate as to how controversial unconventional KO mechanics are, but I really like the concept when done right. Isabella's "Adoption Day" truck seems like a smart way to implement such a thing, being strictly contingent on multiple prerequisites. It also helps that it fits with the whole shtick of the character, sensibly framing Isabella's playstyle around methodical sacrifice rather than relying sheerly on mechanical novelty.

The grab game is a particular highlight. I like the movement-crippling effect of the Back Throw and how it complements Isabella's floor-based traps. Down Throw's functional synergy with the truck is also a very thematically appropriate element that I appreciate. I really like how it encourages interaction from the opponent and incentivizes self-sabotage with Isabella's traps in order to risk a more favorable, but still compromising, trade. The complexity of interactions falls off in the standards and aerials, but I don't think it harms things much considering the set is relatively grounded and intuitive from the start, even with the unconventional Down Special. Still, I'd have liked to see a bit more of a direct connection to Isabella's traps in some way with these moves.

Obviously, the ladder Up Special, a Slavic staple and hallmark of your style, is the set's best input. Ladder Up Specials are just inherently superior; no need to try and top it. Even if you want to read that as sarcasm, though (but why would you?), I do think the grounded version is a creative "unassuming trap" move that has fun gameplay applications and fits with the character to my limited knowledge (which amounts entirely to what you laid out in the introduction). Good job with this set!

Spoiler: Paul Bunyan

Here I am, expecting a moveset for a giant bearded lumberjack, and...well, I feel a little cheated. Oh well.

I like the idea of a size-changing character, and Bunyan is especially interesting in that regard because while her "default" size is very small, her stats still make her feel like a lumbering heavyweight even when her appearance doesn't match, so she always feels like a giant even when she isn't. This is a good workaround to the mechanical problems of characters always being giant-sized by default. With that said, Bunyan at max size is kind of frightening. Yeah, she's combo fodder, but she benefits proportionately from her disjointed axe/chainsaw - a Dair spiking hitbox that size is really scary! I imagine she'd be able to keep opponents locked in hitstun for quite a while. This is one of those sets that's admittedly hard to picture the balance of without actually seeing it in action.

Minor balance concerns aside, this was a fun read, and I'm grateful it was so short to end off with - gave me a nice break after all that text absorption.

My nomination is O. Dio.

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Mao

I had the pleasure of previewing this set before MYM25 started, and was surprised by the amount of time and passion you poured into this set. It’s absolutely great to see an old Disgaea set from you - they were among your most passionate works, and I couldn’t help but be in awe of the Smashboards intro post, if partly for the nostalgia. This set’s writing is praiseworthy too: it feels very Disgaea-like, and manages to catch Mao’s character perfectly. That’s a love letter to Disgaea 3 right there.

This set has a lot of quirky ideas that borrow from Mao’s character rather than his in-game skills. I wouldn’t have thought to make heart-shifting, “experimenting” or summoning Geoffrey the basis for Mao’s Specials. They are simple enough moves, but the real meat of the set comes from the Magichange mechanic, which is seriously cool and offers Mao a lot of ways to play off his regular set. Most of these moves are essentially Special attacks! The mechanic itself is implemented in a smart and intriguing way that doesn’t lean on Mao’s Specials: charge one of 3 Smash attacks to get a buff, but if you trade poorly with that hitbox you’ll lose those weapon inputs temporarily. But the lost weapon becomes a monster that performs a single attack! The balance behind this “minion” is neat, as Mao won’t have access to his entire set to play off the minion’s attack.

I enjoyed Magichange F-tilt’s effect: a minion that weakly tracks the fall of the foe it launched and uppercuts them back up if they land over it. It even feels feasible to perform Magichange F-tilt out of a regular F-tilt that clanked with an enemy hitbox from a decent distance. Magichange F-air was cool for a different reason, as it plays off of Mao’s regular F-air in a neat mix-up way that can be used to catch cross-ups. Magichange B-air I enjoyed for a similar reason. Magichange D-tilt was a big cool one too, as the Prinny minions tie in with Mao’s throw tricks that would otherwise be niche applications in FFA matches. The multiple options of BOTH Mao’s regular D-tilt and Magichange D-tilt, the consistency between the control scheme of the two, is particularly delicious. The small list of applications at the end of the Magichange doc is of help too.

I also have to give props to how smartly spell-storing was implemented. See, making your magic attacks frame 1 might sound scary, but only 4 of Mao’s attacks are affected. These are not that strong or slow to begin with, and the one attack that does hit hard (U-air’s Smash variant) is on an awkward input, has a bunch of end lag and doesn’t have a wide hitbox. They don’t have huge range either, so if you miss you have to go through the trouble of storing that spell again.

I also found Jab a particularly interesting move on its own: a slow but powerful third hit that benefits from the lag cut, and even if you can’t land the third hit you can delay the attack to go for a projectile option that could catch out foes knocked away by Jab 2. Dash Attack benefits from the lag cut as a quick defensive option, and Neutral Air as a fantastic combo breaker. While the set doesn’t always detail range, like how far the ice projectile from Jab flies, the images the set provides do actually help in that area as well as hitbox size. Love the stuff you’ve drawn here.

While Kactuar was already good, Mao appealed to me more for his bigger emphasis on his crazy and cool ideas. The melee and its applications aren't quite as developed as modern sets in a vacuum, but that’s something that could change if you stuck around for longer. And honestly, what this set does do concept-wise is very good and stands on its own. Top marks for you, Junahu!


To round off this comment, I adored the extras.

• I love Mao’s Final Smash, giving his evil form a name and shoeing it in as a potential 3v1 boss. And the atmosphere and character implications behind Mao burning himself up if he stays as Dead End Mao for too long. The atmosphere reminds me of Lucio Fulci’s Final Smash, while the 3v1 thing reminds me of Dormammu. Man, I love being able to bring up all these old, nostalgic sets.

• You talked to me about giving Mao match-ups against other Disgaea characters in private. I love the approach you’ve taken here, giving these old sets changelogs to make the more “viable” for the modern era (and Smash Ultimate) while retaining the original flavour of those sets. That’s a ton of effort right there. Your changes to Salvatore’s set (that you proposed to me before implementing them) were particularly genius: banning Salvatore from using any firearm she drops, giving her a thematic resemblance to Mao’s magichange mechanic. Even more fitting when both characters hail from Disgaea 3!

• Hero Prinny, Asagai and Almaz movesets! I take it you’re going to make a Majorly set in the near future, too? She’s a pretty Junahian character too.
• Great to see Tyrant Overlord Baal boss. This is an ambitious and over-the-top write-up too!

I consider this set entirely a solo effort from you, as it’s a huge labor of love and your own personal project, but I’m flattered to have the acknowledgement at the end of the set! Was a pleasure to work with you.

 

[GolisoPower]

Would She Rock High Heels, Suspenders, And A Bra?
Paul Bunyan by FrozenRoy

Rounding out the whole JamCon, mere moments before the JamCon ends, is Paul Bunyan, Berserker of Learning with Manga! She was an especially fun set to read, especially after going through the All The Statesmen event in FGO. Bunyan has a Neutral Special which, along with another set for a character that will hopefully get a set before the end of the month, seems to get some creative juices pumping for a Kingprotea set in the future, really mixing up being either a tiny nuisance like Pichu or a towering powerhouse like Ganondorf. The Down Special being either a healing move or a debuff counter is really fun too, Revenge-abusing Incineroar mains oughtta be a bit more careful around her LOL. I also really love how Side Special allows you to use both the axe and the chainsaw while riding on Babe. It's also really interesting how much crazier the bury in Down Throw gets when growing giant, along with how much scarier her disjoint are, basically turning her into a Byleth that can shrink herself and avoid further damage. It has a little something for everyone and make Bunyan really good for a lot of players, whether you enjoy being smaller, bigger, or both. I'd say these were some Marvelous Exploits, my man!

My nomination goes to Kosaka Wakamo!

 

[UserShadow7989]

Jamcon 25 - 4's voting period is closed! Thank you to everyone who contributed to this Jamcon, whether it be with a set, votes, or just general words of advice and encouragement. The results of the voting are:


1. Kosaka Wakamo by Katapultar with 4.5 points (Arctic Tern, Slavic, UserShadow7989, GolisoPower, Voter bonus)
2. Isabella by Slavic with 1.5 points (Katapultar, Voter bonus)
2. O. Dio by U UserShadow7989 with 1.5 points (BridgesWithTurtles, Voter bonus)
3. Sundown Kid by Arctic Tern with 0.5 points (Voter bonus)
3. Nomad by BridgesWithTurtles with 0.5 points (Voter bonus)
4. Paul Bunyan by FrozenRoy


Congratulations to Katapultar on the runaway victory here! Looking forward to your chosen theme when the time comes. Jamcon 25 - 5's start date is to be determined, but we'll update you all when it's chosen!

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Marjoly

I remember watching a playthrough of Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure years ago in my Nippon Ichi phase. The game gave me Disney film vibes with its singing and focus on a prince, and Marjoly reminds me of Jessie from Pokemon (you did make Team Rocket, lol) and Naga from the Slayers series. With the slew of extras and art accompanying each attack, I can see why you took your time getting Mao out.

Skulls are a good old callback to some old MYM-style, where the Standards summon them and the Smashes destroy or utilize them for hard interaction benefits. The pictures and animations convey a good deal of personality: I particularly love Dash Attack for both its comical, tricky animation and its gameplay effect. A prone attack on a self-proning move has not really been done: the move is great for its ability to potentially combo from regular Dash Attack near the ledge, and the funny “reflect projectiles after running away from your enemy” trick. It’s a move that captures Marjoly’s character so well: someone who is hard to take seriously, but does need to be taken seriously because of her power.

Part of me wonders if skulls are a bit hard to remove for how much damage 5 of them can deal with Neutral Special, but that move is at least something of a challenge to land. The fake-out is a good trick, and I especially like how the floating rose can be primed to detonate skulls automatically! A unique take on the “detonate your constructs” type Special. Back Air is a fun little melee move for its unique knockback and hard read applications, and I quite like how D-air interacts with skulls - the projectile is strong offstage, sure, but Marjoly has to time her stomp with a rotating or frozen skull, making it more rewarding.

Up Special is a bizarre move - but I would strongly recommend that Marjoly can only teleport foes within a certain radius of her (4 or so grids?). The move is very potent offstage, where Marjoly doesn’t have to worry about being interrupted and can get a free footstool out of the deal. Nothing a little number-crunching can’t fix! Also bizarre is the ability to steal a foe’s shield and beat on it yourself. It’s certainly an extreme concept, but I would need to be convinced of its place in the set: it would work well on a fighter who struggles very, very badly against shields. Still a fun idea, though!

Overally, Marjoly’s set feels less polished than Mao’s, but no less of an undertaking! A similar set of great ideas, a consistently entertaining read (definitely helped by the banter from Marjoly’s 3 minions) and chock-full of extras. Whereas Mao represented the Disgaea series, Marjoly no doubt represents some of Nippon Ichi’s more classic and retro games like Phantom Brave, Makaki Kingdom and Soul Nomad. I’m sure Froy would enjoy seeing that. Multiple Final Smashes, shamelessly titillating extra descriptions (I like it), music tracks, spirit battles and more.

 

[Arctic Tern]

Mao, and every other set included with his set, has been commented! please junahu never do this again

 

[Katapultar]

Note: this set is hidden away in Mao’s moveset.

Spoiler: Almaz

It’s entertaining to get a moveset written in first person, and with your writing style you deliver on that! Neutral Special is a funny little multi-sword mechanic that can turn Almaz into early One Piece Zoro, and Sapphire can be used to create openings with the rest of Alamz’s Specials. The set certainly does a good job of characterizing Almaz as heroic, but someone who needs help, and I was impressed with the detail that went into the sword animations for what was intended to be an “extra” set.

Almaz has a nice arrangement on his sword attacks. Single-sword attacks hit hard, dual-wielding combos more easily, and Almaz’s ability to stick extra swords into his enemy allows him to transition from comboing to KO’ing nicely. I feel like Almaz could have stood on his own two feet with a little polish, had the set gone into extra detail on his stats and applications of his melee game (shield damage, 50/50s, how a move can combo or play off the set).

Beyond the Standards, the Smashes were all surprisingly fun in their own way. Forward Smash with its multiple traps: one that propelz Almaz, one that sets a weak damaging trap, and a third that activates if Almaz uses 2 charged two-sword F-Smashes in a row. U-Smash invokes some of your “level up aura” attacks from older sets, but the idea of a Smash that massively scales in knockback with charge is quite nice. Used as a central concept, I could see there being a trade-off of U-Smash’s buffs, like a cooldown period or the move being committal to start, and the fact that it’s tied to a ground move would incentivize opponents to keep Almaz off the ground.

Dash Attack is also a funny, unusual attack not unlike Marjoly’s Dash Attack. And an Aerial that temporarily changes your other Aerials when you use it would be really fun to try in a set (it’s funny to hear a fighter admit to not knowing how they perform a weird skill). The grabgame was surprisingly fun with Sapphire’s involvement: particularly B-throw to use the uppercut to reposition Almaz during his long animation, as well as U-throw for its repositioning versatility. I also enjoyed U-throw’s reference to tower throwing. And D-throw for being a potentially flashy attack when you have all 3 swords on you.

All and all, Almaz was a set that I surprisingly enjoyed more than Marjoly, and would genuinely vote for were this contest not already so packed with high-quality sets. Good work!

 

[UserShadow7989]

Oono Tsukuyo by Katapultar ***

Better late than never, the ninja trio is complete! With a few well-thought out adjustments to her shield, Oono manages to be a properly defensive and oppressive wall to her opponents, pushing them back and restricting their options for punishing her typical super heavyweight frame data, with enough stage control and range on her assorted moves and a smattering of surprisingly fast tricks that even the score in terms of mobility.

Tsukuyo's not especially crazy in concept, but 'crazy' isn't needed for a concept to be 'strong' as she shows, each move showing a meticulous amount of thought into how they can play off of her unique traits and advantages, from her Dash Attack teleporting her back and forth to better exploit her boomeranging projectiles to Up Special leaving a small tree 'platform' she can stand on to better leverage certain aspects of low-hitting hitboxes or radial knockback effects while also being a possible projectile in itself with one good hit- the set creates an incredibly intricate web of interactions and tricks without ever being hard to follow, all flowing naturally just from the simple qualities of her attacks interacting in obvious ways. Each attack is also fairly interesting in and of itself, never going overboard with extra bells and whistles but being visually entertaining and having a lot of mechanical depth for not too much complexity.

Others have beaten me to the punch about the set in better detail, but I have to agree that she's an incredibly strong set even by the standards of a fairly stellar contest, and I'm glad to see you're still trucking along with your set output even with your constant and consistent set commentary.

For a nitpick so I have something more useful to add: there's a few sentences left hanging/sentence fragments here and there. A few examples are the first pink bullet point under Up Tilt and second green bullet point under Forward Smash, with one that's easy to extrapolate in the first bullet point for Neutral Aerial. Nothing major, but did throw me off for a moment while I was reading through.

 

[Katapultar]

Note: this set is also hidden away in Mao’s moveset.

Spoiler: Hero Prinny

Another surprisingly solid “extra” moveset, Hero Prinny is a wild and gimmicky ride. His bombs are a concept worthy of a more ambitous set: I especially enjoyed the funny angles colliding bombs bounce away from, and how two bombs share their timers between them on contact. Up Special has its unexpectedly “powerful” secondary option, but makes you die to enemy throws at a risk to opponents: the way the Prinny explosion works reminds me of an idea I had for a Prinny explosion mechanic a while ago, which was essentially Hero’s Kamikaze but it activated when your shield broke (but didn’t damage the opponent who broke your shield). Neutral Special I surprisingly enjoyed too, because we don’t get many sets with non-flinching projectiles that deal hitlag to opponents and effectively slow them down. I assumed that the extra damage against stunned foes is a reference to an in-game effect? Side Special is a simple enough pocket move that’s welcome on Prinny’s bomb-centric moveset.

The wildness doesn’t end at the Specials. I wasn’t expecting a mind-control move, which I could see Prinny use to steer opponents into your bombs. It’s also surprisingly well-balanced! D-throw is a big but fair reward if you chase the foe’s DI, and U-air has the bizarre effect of hurting you if the pan doesn’t hit an opponent. And let’s not get started with the fact that you wrote a ledge attack for Prinny, which really takes me back to the MYM5-6 era! U-tilt also reminds me of MYM5, where it was common for regular attack inputs to lay traps like Snake’s D-Smash instead of having a proper hitbox. And U-Smash is a neat place to put a Piranha Plant-style Down Special move on - will have to keep that in mind for future sets.

This set is also hidden away in Mao’s moveset.

Spoiler: Asagi Asagiri

As someone who made 3 gun-based movesets with (similar) reloading mechanics this contest, the way Asagi’s reloading mechanic works intrigues me, especially when the set is handling TWO guns at once. A Special for firing in the middle of regular moves, and a Special that either reloads stylishly and goes into a chosen attack quickly, or performs a quick roll forward. That you can use Jab to empty one of your guns and get access to both options is cool!

Side Special also reminds me of W’s Side Special, a rocket launcher that becomes a quick and powerful finisher after fulfilling some melee conditions. I have to admire the regular attacks being so dedicated to the art of firing bullets in different ways: it reminds me of older MYM sets where the move’s actual hitbox was an afterthought, and I don’t mean that as offense to this set. While most of the attacks are pretty simple compared to Mao and his hanger-ons, though U-throw and D-throw utilized Asagi’s mechanics, it’s great to finally get an actual set for this fun character. In spite of being extras for an extra-ridden moveset, Hero Prinny, Almaz and Asagi could hold their own as movesets - they’re all worth reading in their own rights.

 

[UserShadow7989]

Mao by Junahu ***

Another great entry (or five) from you, brimming with character and creativity. Mao personifies his home series nicely, with violence and layered mechanics galore, but the simple presentation that lays out the basics of the moves, then the added layers of his mechanics, and finally a summary of how it all comes together gets everything across as an easy read. I find the Magichange absolutely fascinating, of course, being a big fan of basically everything Mao can do with them, and his melee game underlying it all is solid enough to be interesting on its own.

The heart mechanic is worth mention, too- I've always been the sort to prefer a fresh stock to be a reset just for how different modes might affect a given set (I'm the kid who would play 50 stocks or the like on the most chaotic stage possible in melee when I had time to burn), but the way things can carry over and the added level of strategy it adds to any reasonable match rule set makes for a good case for long-term planning mechanics you don't tend to see in sets. Befitting his honor student status, Mao is well-versed in evil plans, and the way he can force buffs and debuffs on opponents to disrupt their game plan and combo strings befits his mad genius. It's powerful enough to justify the restrictions and drawbacks, without unbalancing Mao or leaving him helpless if he over-commits (though he'll definitely be worse off for it).

Kat already covered all the more in-depth mechanical craziness and small touches that keep the multi-layered set from getting too crazy despite his wide variety of tools, but it's worth repeating that Mao is incredibly tightly designed as a set to make this work in a way that'd be easy to learn for players despite all he can do and avoids being overpowered or any dead simple exploits that'd get spammed to the netherworld and back that'd invalidate bothering with the other options.

Mao feels like a mix of all I liked about Kactuar and Pete from last contest without any issues that might've plagued them. It's a legitimately strong set even in a contest that's been full of them (I'm getting to be a broken record pointing this out but holy CRAP has this contest been consistently strong across the board), and was more than worth the wait. Excellent job!

(Also, thanks for the small cameo, heheh!)


Hero Prinny by Junahu ***

Digging further into Mao, we have a joke character in the line-up who is an excellent take on the genre. Far from unplayable, Hero Prinny is nevertheless designed to be fighting an uphill battle at all points, with subpar stats all around aside from being a slightly small target, and moves that either hover around mediocre, are outright bad unless used in a specific manner, or are actually good at the cost of serious risk to oneself- including quite a few ways to do in your own stock by accident or even by choice!

Hero Prinny's design isn't just 'make it bad and call it a day', however; the Specials outline an interesting gameplan with explosive results if you manage to keep control of the situation, with some minor touches like the bombs being solid obstacles to force foes to jump past and the means to exploit that (including Prinny's air game being perhaps its 'strongest' position relatively speaking) as well as a solid shield punish game. It can make a big sacrifice by losing its scarf to get an extra recovery, at the cost of turning the foe's grab into an instant KO, but this comes with the side effect that its self-destruct can make a damaged foe trying to toss him a stock trade in Hero Prinny's favor; your 'advantage' state comes from having a stock or point lead, allowing you to abuse its strong but costly options to keep that lead any time the foe threatens to turn things around- fitting that a soul so wretched as to be punished with the form of a Prinny would practice the time-honored tradition of kicking them while they're down!

I feel it's a good example of how a deliberately underpowered set should be designed, and it carries with it some good humor that's on-brand for the series. Hero Prinny is a legitimately fun set front to back, and is a fast enough read that I recommend everyone give it a go.



Majorly by Junahu ***

I love what Majorly has going on with her skulls and assorted uses thereof, the 'throw stuff everywhere and then use it do nasty stage control things' archetype being right up my alley. There's plenty of nuance to how she can set them up and place them, leave alone her smashes and Neutral Special all being fantastic pay-off. The core concept and flavor of the set is on point as always, though I will note that compared to Mao, Majorly feels a bit threadbare in the more nitty gritty stuff; there's the fact she doesn't have the same amount of stuff going as he does, of course, but in some areas like her throws it feels like the set could stand to have a twist or two more?

I feel like Majorly would benefit greatly from an 'Appendix' section as per Mao and your other recent sets; noting how certain moves synergize, like moves that aren't necessarily 'combos' but can punt foes into skulls from x, y, or z move for the purpose of blowing them up or slapping a few skulls on them, a move that can bait shields, etc- Jab and DTilt pushing foes back safely feels like a good reference point, especially with Forward Aerial producing a skull that'll hug the ground- maybe note what moves she can use to punish jumps or rolls in with that as an aspect? If I remember right, FTilt's hitbox is great for the former. Back Aerial to drag a skull behind you or 'hook' it under a ledge as you fight for fun and profit is also an idea.

Aside from that, I think what itches at me is that she has a few neat tricks in her kit that aren't explored or toyed with the same way her skulls are, which I feel could be the extra bit she needs. Doesn't have to be insane with it, again, but stuff like Up Special directly teleporting the opponent in front of herself seems like a potential goldmine for shenanigans, like if she had a move that's a more middling launcher/late KO tool that also has low end lag, letting her opt to either set up or abruptly yank the foe back when they're not expecting it. Side Special being a command dash/grab is its own fun, especially when her skulls are all moving with her. Down Special feels the least tied into the set at a glance, but I think there's things that could work with it- just the fact it's a projectile of sorts in a set that's not really loaded for bear with them or approaching options helps out.

You expressed interest in editing Majorly at some point when that's normally not something you like to do, and I can see why; aside from having been part-way in production for some time, there's a lot of potential here that could be tapped with only a bit more polish or elaboration rather than needing any sort of overhaul or refurbishing, and even then, she's a perfectly good set with interesting mechanics, animations, and playstyle. Hopefully this was of some help if you do go in for another pass.



Almaz by Junahu ***

Almaz is an interesting twist on the combo character, with a mode change where he is either lacking in attack speed or movement speed and using the other tools of his kit to compensate. From burst movement options and short-lived buffs, to a limited supply of free combo glue hits via Neutral Special applications, to an assist from his princess in his other specials, Almaz the set nicely embodies the lesson he learned in his source material- try going solo and you'll find yourself in hot water, but be willing to ask for and accept help and you can go far. Maybe he'll even get some respect from his oppo- heh, yeah, probably not.

He's not fully without more natural combo options, ones that don't require his limited resources or leveraging Sapphire to glue moves together, mind. He also has some nice tricks as a 'plan b', scoring an early KO or simply trading with his opponents. This is all without touching on his own mechanic, which can make him a combo food punching bag for foes, but still keeps him in the game long enough that he can pull out that heroic comeback he longs for, and even lets him leverage the tail end of his stock if he KOs the foe first. Contrasting Hero Prinny who is an intentional joke character, Almaz is a more seriously balanced set who seems pathetic on that level at first glance (aided by the first person narration riddled with lacking self-confidence) and can even become downright deadly when used to his fullest potential, and his mechanic helps him stick around long enough to reach those heights. It's a cool touch.

I ended up not having much to say about Almaz, but ignoring all that, he's a good reminder that 'swordies' can be plenty interesting.



Asagi by Junahu ***

Coming in under the wire, we have a comment for Asagi, who finally gets a little taste of stardom in the fictional realm of MYM. Asagi's fighting style is heavy on the flash, dramatic poses and bullet arts-like follow ups that take advantage of the odd firing angles her attacks provide to pile on excessive amounts of damage- albeit with the limit that she needs to break off and reload at some point. Despite her plethora of ranged angles of attacks, she's still equipped for melee and better uses them to cap off an up close encounter over trying to camp, all the while grandstanding and providing some sick looking tricks like Down Tilt into Down Aerial. Whether up close or at a distance, Asagi keeps the punishment and pressure coming, as if trying to hog the spotlight with a constant flurry of attacks that doesn't give foes any time to breathe.

All of this helps her build up a resource for a proper finishing blow with her bazooka, though she can set herself back some on its build up to get extra recovery or even float through the air some, doggedly hanging in there or pursuing foes skyward to finish the job, with her throws providing a nice finale to the set by giving her alternate payoffs for building up her charge. All the same, being overenthusiastic or getting tunnel vision on piling on damage may leads you to running out of bullets at the wrong time and eating a punish as some far less effective melee hitboxes come from the tip of her guns- getting ahead of herself is an issue she struggles with, fittingly enough, and her efforts to dominate the match non-stop will have her learn the hard way that Smash has no 'main' character.

I do feel Asagi could benefit from an appendix section quickly going over some of her tools/summing up her playstyle, even if not as in depth as Almaz has for the latter, though it may not be needed. She's a simple, good set, and her match-up section provides some very helpful context for how she plays.

 

[Katapultar]

JAMCON 25-5​

Jamcons are a monthly mini-competition where MYM'ers write up a set under a chosen "theme" within a 4-day period: starting from 9PM PST and ending on Tuesday that same time. Once the submission period is over, MYM'ers have 2 weeks to read and comment all of the entries, after which they can nominate their favourite entry. The entry that receives the most votes wins! The winner then picks the theme for the next Jamcon.

• The set needs to be serious, not a joke entry or missing inputs on purpose.
• Commenting and nominating a set is recommended, especially if you participated yourself.
• To encourage commenting, anyone who nominates will receive a 0.5 point voter bonus on their Jamcon entries. Jamcon nominations count as 1 point. Nominating a set can mean the difference between a tie and a win!
• Major edits are not allowed until the Jamcon competition is finished. Minor edits like grammar, number-crunching, presentation or adding pictures or even extras are still allowed.
• Multiple Jamcon entries are allowed!
• Joint sets between more than one setmaker are allowed! Team up with someone to finish your entry quicker!
• You can use a pre-existing "skeleton" as the base for a Jamcon set: intro, presentation, move images, Final Smash and even extras are allowed to be done before or after the Jamcon. Only the stats and usual 23 moves (Specials, Standards, Smashes, Aerials and Grabs + Throws) need to be done during the Jamcon.

Jamcon 25-5's theme is...

2 0 2 2 ​

This one should explain itself: make a moveset for a character from something this year. Channel your newfound interests into a brand-new moveset!

• The purest form of this Jamcon is a character who made their debut this year. To give an example of a character from this contest, Chidori Michiru wasn't revealed until Blue Archive's Shinobi's Heart event, which was revealed mid-April this year! New Pokemon and characters from Pokemon Legends: Arceus or Pokemon Scarlet and Violet would qualify, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, or the boys from Holostars.
• The character is present in a piece of media that got or will get released this year. This can be canon, a fan work or even a meme that originated this year. For instance: Morbius existed long before 2022, but his film was released early this year, so he qualifies. Likewise, Marvel's Thor would qualify because of the Thor: Thunder and Love movie.
• It could be a piece of media that was re-released this year. For example, the Live-A-Live or Klonoa remakes! Ode Iou, The Sundown Kid and O. Dio would qualify for the Live-A-Live remake (somebody please make a set for another LAL villain).
• Likewise, an adaptation of an existing media qualifies, like an anime. The manga could have been released in 2017 or 2002, but got an anime this year.
• Media crossovers qualify. For example, Albert Wesker has been around since the first Resident Evil, but he was recently revealed as a new Killer for Dead by Daylight. Likewise, Mash Kyrelight originated in Fate/Grand Order in 2015, but she was recently announced as a playable character in Melty Blood: Type Lumina. And Archetype Earth from Tsukihime being obtainable in Fate/Grand Order.
• It can be a character from piece of media that was revealed this year, even if it won't be released this year.
• Game-wise, it could be a character who existed before 2022, but became playable this year. Kosaka Wakamo appeared in Blue Archive's prologue story back in February 2021, but she didn't become a playable character until 1 year later.
• An alternate version of an existing character qualifies. For instance, Paul Bunyan was released in Fate/Grand Order JP in 2017, but she got an alternate form in Super Bunyan in April this year!
• A character or piece of media that was delayed between reasons. For instance, Fate/Grand Order has a 2 year-gap between releases in the JP version and the NA version. Yang Guifei was released in New Year's 2020 in JP, but the 2-year delay means that she wasn't released in NA until 2022!
• It could be an original character you made up this year!

The character or media doesn't have to have originated in 2022 - it could have ended in 2022.

• For example, the TV show Better Call Saul first aired in 2015, but is set to end soon this year.
• A character who has permanently retired or been killed off in their media. An example would be the VTuber Tsukumo Sana, who recently retired from Hololive. You might know of a character from a long-running game, manga, anime or TV show who died this year.
• A real life person who passed away this year. I don't expect anyone to be comfortable with making a set for a recently-departed individual - instead, the set could be for a character associated with the person to pay tribute to them. For example, you could make a set for a classic Yu-Gi-Oh! character or monster like Yugi or Blue-Eyes White Dragon, as they are associated with Kazuki Takahashi due to being from a manga and a franchise that he created.

 

[Arctic Tern]

As you walk into the bar, the sounds immediately overwhelm you. Classy music plays in the background, barely audible over the sounds of innumerable people chattering. At your front lays a nice table, with only one empty seat. Nearby, you hear angry threats: "Why I oughta!" "Them's fighting words." You'd best get drinking before you wind up in any more trouble than you need to.

You take a seat at the bar. It's fairly clean, all things considered, with scarcely a trace of booze or vomit; the bartender must be very attentive. As you wait, you see the bartender at the end of the bar. As you notice her, she looks back at you with a warm smile. You've been to this bar many a night, and she's come to recognize you. She walks over to you, a pen and paper in her hands.

"Well, well...I believe you've had a hard night. Would you like a drink?"

(Jamcon 5 entry)​

 

[Junahu]

Mercilessly crushing anyone who stood in her
way, she amassed boundless wealth.
People whispered of her with fear, saying...

"That witch could even
buy men's souls."


​

Jamcon #5 entry​

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Alcohol Witch Daniella

I wasn’t quite expecting you to make an OC for this Jamcon, but I’m happy that another setmaker has thrown their hat into the Witchverse ring.

I like the way the drunk buff is designed: the speed, lag cut and knockback boost looks insane, but the knockback boost makes it harder to combo, and you take more damage and more end lag (which in turn makes your attacks easier to punish, and compliments the knockback boost making your attacks harder to combo with).

As someone who recently wrote Tsukuyo, I enjoy seeing moveset effects that make your shield stronger or weaker. It would be funny if Daniella slapping herself on the face to remove the drunkenness early dealt a bit of damage to her (though it might be silly). Making the opponent drunk also reminds me of the old Bowser the Brash moveset where he force-fed opponents milk to make them drunk. The ability to apply drunkness to your opponent and create a big risk-reward game when you are drunk yourself is fascinating.

Side Special reminds me of Smady’s Copypaste, where he could produce projectiles that were comparable to barrels but also much weaker. Being able to press different buttons for different options when you spawn the barrel is a neat control scheme, where I would normally think to do tap vs hold or tap vs smash the control stick. The wine puddle that Daniella can make also feels very MYM’ain, like something I’d see in MYM11-12 or on a Kupa set. Said puddle reminds me of your Blastoise set, and is very neat in how it plays in the double-edged sword factor of her drunkenness, especially when brought up later on her dash attack. Barrels on a Witchverse OC remind me that I was going to implement a barrel Special on my old swordfish OC idea.

Down Special is a different beast altogether: more inspired by fighting games, fitting when you made Kula Diamond and Daniella’s design is modeled after Fatal Fury’s King. I approve of FG-inspired moves! It works nicely with Daniella’s dodgy-nature, and gives the moveset a unique charm where it has MYM’y and FG-based moves, not dissimilar to Sleaze. Up Special works well with Neutral Special, and after that we go back into more MYM’y territory with the Smashes.

Smashes being storable in the barrel or played off a wine puddle is neat. I enjoy how F-tilt works in tandem with the set: it’s a funny little move that I wouldn’t have expected from the punchy Daniella, given its animation, duration and shield damage. Giving Daniella non-physical moves that are not affected by drunkenness in F-tilt and U-tilt is a good choice too. F-air having a low landing hitbox that can poke though and punish weakened shields is fun. I enjoy how B-air works with prone/roll punishes and fear conditioning with F-air. Also, I imagine that Kupa would appreciate the barrel F-throw. U-throw is particularly cool for how the (thankfully short) “time bomb” can interact with wine puddles to mess with the foe’s landing.

Also, I like the attack names on this set. Interesting that her Final Smash is punchy rather than magic-based, and I like the references to the hypothetical Witchverse fighting game: attacks being based on hypothetical special moves from that game, and boxing ring title being a title from the game.

All and all, Daniella is an extra ambitious (solo) Jamcon display from you, and an impressive display! Especially when the Jamcon period isn’t even over yet as of this comment’s posting. This set is good enough that it would have been my nomination in Jamcons 2-4 this contest, and I believe it could end up being your most popular Jamcon set this contest.

 

[Slavic]

Two men traversed the dark halls of the abandoned facility. Their footsteps echoed, though under their helmets neither could hear it. Every sound set them on edge. Something shut this place down and neither man was too keen to find out what it was. The man on the right, accented in green and white, daydreamt about his cat at home, a recent attachment he couldn't go without.

The two passed a window and stopped to gaze out at the infinite void of space. The Earth seemed so small here. The man opposite the greenman wasn't looking out the window, though, merely looking at it. While there were two suits reflected, only one showed a figure inside. The second man contemplated if he would ever find a cure for his condition, or if he would perhaps be better left to rot on this tin can alone.

The two's musings left them distracted and unprepared for when they entered the server room; computers, machinery, all sorts of instruments, each having been slashed, smashed, and utterly destroyed. The greenman checked his wrist and saw air levels in this room remained fine. He retracted his visor to better survey the damage.

This was a place meant to save the world, protect humanity from disaster after disaster. It was a dream that he fully believed in. What kind of monster would perform such atrocities? And the crew... the greenman shuddered. He didn't even want to think about the crew. As the two investigated the rubble, the greenman felt the touch of the sadman on his chest, telling him silently to hold on.

Sure enough, the distant sound of a rhythmic rumble could be heard getting louder. At first the two dismissed this as engine failure, or perhaps an air compressor acting up. Now, though, the sound was unmistakable. They were footsteps. They were big, and they were heading straight for the two men. Before the greenman could devise a plan the sadman began writhing uncontrollably. He tore the helmet off his head, gripping his face in pain.

In a panic, the greenman grabbed a can of emergency air from his utility belt and placed a hand on his compatriot's shoulder. "Are you alright?? What's wrong??"

The sadman turned to the greenman, and the latter was shocked at the visage that confronted him.

"It's Morbin' Time."​

 

[n88]

This isn't over, Stephen. You haven't paid!
Magic comes with a price.






MYM25-05 }{ Link
Jamcon }{ 2022​

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Herminia

I am pleasantly surprised and honored that you attempted a Jamcon set and chose to do so now. I’m always interested in seeing how setmakers fare when they have to make a quick set within a time limit. Here we have a new franchise from you and for MYM in general: in my opinion, both the franchise and the character suit you very well and would fit into your canon.

Herminia has your trademark of quirky (but unique) mechanics and ideas: like her dress taking damage but not knockback or hitstun, a float where she slowly falls, and reducing her traction while she’s shielding (I like how this is acknowledged in her grab game). The way the stats section is written does make a bit tricky to grasp her specific statistics (it’s a bit hard to tell whether she’s meant to be a lightweight or a heavyweight, but this is cleared up in the moveset), but I enjoy the writing: back when Warlord posted MYM6 Gluttony, many people complained that Gluttony had no stats section, but you praised Gluttony not having a stats section. Just wanted to say that I was reminded of that.

Beyond the stats are some extreme ideas, like a self-damaging Superspicy Curry effect that prevents you from using Specials, and Down Special having a screen-wide effect that’s uncommon in modern sets. I admire your boldness in implementing a move that locks all fighters out of a buffed input that you used, but it doesn’t ban movement on attacks so it doesn’t destroy fighters’ recoveries.

A foe’s countermeasure for removing the incense is very interesting, and means that Herminia can’t just sit around and twiddle her thumbs once the incense is out. I could see it being frustrating for Herminia players in FFA matches where the player can’t keep track of how many times her enemies have attempted to unlock their banned move - not a complaint against the set, but it does feel character-fitting for her in a way. Imagine if there were 8 Herminia players in the match, and they each banned 8 different attack inputs!

I like how Up Special can be used as an out-of-shield option without dropping your shield, as the Lady In-Waiting acts independently to Herminia. The implementation of the minion is smart with how powder works, and I enjoy the characterisation of the Lady In-Waiting being subject to greed and pocketing gold while her mistress isn’t looking. The money pile is a very unique mechanic, though I would be interested in getting a more specific idea on how much the foe’s stats change with the gold curse. I’m assuming the change isn’t a huge one, in any case. Could the fact that the foe needs to shield to remove the gold curse tie in with Herminia’s melee game?

Man, the Dance Cancel mechanic is crazy and cool! The ability to cancel a throw’s animation into a different throw before you deal damage is really neat, it gets mileage out of B-throw for instance. This is my favourite concept in the entire set, enough so that I would be interested in stealing it for a moveset myself. The various throw combinations that Herminia can go into is just icing on the cake. The concept feels like it would be fitting on a grappler character, and feels like something I’d see in an Almand set. Flavour-wise, it feels pretty in-character with the “ball dance” theme of the grab game, like the various throw options are going into all of the different (albeit lethal) dance moves that Herminia knows. It gives the impression that Herminia is a proficient dancer character-wise.

Also, that Final Smash is dark. Really shows off how evil Herminia is.

Herminia’s various damaging methods against shields - remove gold curse, F-Smash - and mentions of Shulk’s Shield Monado Arts makes me wonder how she would fare against Tsukuyo match-up wise, heh…

On a more aesthetic note, I’m a fan of this set’s writing style and presentation (boxes, the way the information is spread out, pictures of the controller’s buttons in the place of the input’s name).

Like your other modern sets in general, I feel like Herminia’s melee game is less developed than many modern sets. Like how the attacks work together or further applications, for instance, and some technical details (I could see U-tilt’s low-angled knockback being useful for forcing tech situations on the ground). I still liked some of the individual moves though, like the F-Smash, U-Smash, N-air, F-air, and some of the powdered effects like on U-tilt. And strong writing, presentation and imaginative concepts make the set a great time all the same. Not every set has to have super-detailed, modernized melee! Good job getting this one out Junahu, and thanks for participating in this Jamcon!

Spoiler: Jokersaurus

I was very interested in this set as you were mentioning it, as Tumble was an amazing read last contest, and from a glance it looks crazier than I thought. A first read gives the impression that Jokersaurus is, well… a joke set, but no one would commit to a 18k set and not take it seriously, right?

So, to start with, I can see that this set is channeling Krow energy by alternating between being described as a “she” and a “he”. Makes sense, when you consider that it’s a female dinosaur who is nicknamed after an iconic male villain. I love how the meat poisons the opponent if they’re not a dinosaur - I wonder how many dinosaur sets we have in MYM, aside from The Raptors in MYM4, Velociaptors in MYM6, various fossil Pokemon and T-Rex in MYM15. Would Lizard and Iguana still get poisoned if they ate the meat? Wasn’t expecting the Passionlip-style insta-kill at the end, either.

Meanwhile, Side Special is channeling King Ramses’s ability to summon a locust swarm, and Up Special is a ridiculous and funny take on your ladder-trend. The take on Norfair’s lava shelters is neat: never thought to incorporate something like that in a moveset, and it’s done in a fascinating way that makes use of the fact that Jokersaurus is too big to enter the cage herself. I get the impression that the other Specials aren’t as “central” to the moveset as they would be in a more serious set, or what I’d expect them to be for a set this long, but they don’t have to be. Down Tilt is a pretty fun move too, and I enjoy seeing the various dinosaurs that get introduced and facts + your opinions on them.

Also, I am assuming that the set has GIFs because you can’t get them, given the movie is new; I doubt Youtube clips would be readily available.

Where the set gets truly insane is on the Smashes, where an entity from an entirely different franchise is introduced! I love how the Jokersaurus summoning dinosaurs and controlling a freaking weather-controlling satellite characterizes them as being this mastermind-type character. That the satellite Dutch Boy can be attacked and destroyed is hilarious and I love it, it’s so ridiculous.

Ironically, the flavour of a giant reptile relying on man-made weapons and just having an unorthodox Smash reminds me of Shin Godzilla. It’s funny that we got 2 sets in a row that have screen-wide effects (Dutch Boy’s climate change), because as I mentioned in Herminia’s comment those rarely happen in modern MYM. Said climate change effects and how they alter existing moves, listed one by one, make this moveset deliciously MYM’ian. It would be cool if cooling the stage down gave the stage and the screen icy aesthetics like the ground being frozen over, similar to what FA did with Primordial Darkness.

(Also, using a satellite laser to cook meat is a funny thought. Lol, really, Jokersaurus actually shoots out a fireball in her source material? I imagine that the Jurassic Park/World movies being so unrealistic was an inspiration for the absurdity seen in this set.)

Pfft, I actually laughed when I read that Buzz Lightyear was the size of a toy rather than a human like he is in the recent Lightyear movie. The Slavic Jokersaurus canon continues, where Buzz Lightyear is apparently responsible for maintaining Dutch Boy. The more I read of this set, the more it reads like a MYM story mode in moveset format - like Buzz eating cooked meat, and being able to make Atrociraptors target opponents by hitting them with his laser. The control scheme and execution behind the Aerials feels messy and like something I’d see in a MYM11-13 set, but it’s fun to get something crazy like this in a modern set! And onto the grab, a throw that changes based on the type of item you were holding is interesting. Also, the D-throw turning the foe into a vampire reminds me of older MYM sets where altering the foe's physical appearance or species for a status effect was more common, like in Jin-Gitaxias.

I see that you had fun writing the Final Smash: it was enjoyable to read the surprisingly involved cinematic. And it continued Bucky Barnes’ trend of attacking with a minigun

Between the crazy mechanics of the Smashes, Aerials and budget Morbius grab, it’s hard to get a feel for how Jokersaurus would play in Smash, and there are times where I glazed over the application of certain moves. I know it wasn’t your intention for the set to be taken seriously, but still I think you did a good job making Jokersaurus still function as a serious modern set. A committal but very entertaining read, a very different style of joke set from the shorter and legendary Tumble.

 

[WeirdChillFever]

Hello and welcome to “This Duckburg Life”, JamCon edition! Today, we will discuss the mystery of the Scouring Saint with an avid collector of mythical memorabilia, Scrooge McDuck! He has claimed that 2022 has seen the resurfacing of a saint lost to mystery, until she was summoned to our world. How will this mystery rewrire history? I’m Huey Duck, hold onto your tails!

A Saint Summoned
“Uncle Scrooge, please tell us more of your adventure capturing the essence of this saint!”
“Very well….ahem…there was once a legend of mythical heroes of a faraway realm that could be summoned to our very world with nothing more than their visual appearance. Since then, I have gathered many a legendary hero with this device, however, one saint remained particularly elusive.”
”Why was that, did she prove impervious to your dimensional travelling skills?”
”Nah me lad, I just never could find a Mario Kart Double Dash Bonus Disc that wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg! Nineteen years I have waited for an easier way, but it was only this year that I could summon her in Fire Emblem: Heroes on me mobile phone. It proved to be even more expensive than that dismal downing Double Dash disc could’ve cost me, and I even asked yer Uncle Gladstone to help, but he only got the purple haired basement queer from the Three Houses game. It was infuriatin’. Finally, after those tempestuous trials gave me enough riches, I brought here home. To Duckburg. You might want to interview her later now that she hasn’t started organized religion yet.”
“There you have it folks, an exclusive interview with the duck clever enough to capture the last of the hidden saints….I’m Huey Duck, you can let go of your tails now”

 

[UserShadow7989]

Today had been a long day. It had been a long week, at the end of a particularly long month, in fact. It started with him arriving just in time to see a man vanish into thin air at the beckoning of an inhuman voice, there was a blur of mushroom monsters from the stars around the middle, and finally things settling down to exploring massive cities of sprawling towers and crumbling architecture of all styles and sizes he had never seen before, ending with him finding the person he'd almost given up on seeing again just sitting in a bar nursing a drink.

Five figures- two outlaws, a bounty hunter, an officer of the law, and a bar owner- sat together quietly. Heated tensions and confusion had given way to shouting, from threats of violence to those of legal repercussions and angry questions, to a very long, very uncomfortable story that had led the five to be surrounded by empty shot glasses (or a pile of empty mugs in the case of the mountain-sized man) and a heavy silence. Some secrets had been spilled that nobody was happy about- he was downright enraged, and he wasn't even sure what part of it to be more furious about than the rest- but it somehow was quashed by the more important details about... everything.

...it was a mite distressing to think about how he'd been getting around all this time in the wake of all of this.

Still, he had seen enough evidence, and enough strangeness in the last few months of his life (even before the skies were blotted by those glorified tea saucers) to know it was the truth.

It took the lawman- law woman? The inhumanly large lady to finally break the silence. "I know you're not exactly friends, and I can't tell you how to carry on about everything from here once things are done. But desperate times mean desperate measures."

His eyes narrowed at her, immediately knowing what she was about to propose, and hating that he really did not have a good argument against it. In lieu of protest, he downed another shot. Nope, the world still didn't make sense, maybe another would help.

"Given the situation, I'm able to offer a temporary contract and hire you all on."

Okay, money. That made sense. But it was what got him into this whole mess to begin with, and at this point it hardly seemed worth it; he'd been going more for pride than anything else after a while, and now, even thinking about finally bagging his target- or the massive pile of money he'd get from the man towering over them- tainted his drink with the distinct taste of ashes.

...still, he needed the money. After everything, work had dried up and supplies run thin, and even his drinks were on the behalf of the Minder's (still needed an explanation about THAT title) generosity.

"...alright. I can't turn down a request from a lady, and this whole story's a little too familiar to those Greek tragedies for my tastes. We'll have to pen a happier ending." He turned from her, to the cowboy sitting next to him, something unspoken passing between the two of them.

"I'm in. Only question is, what do we do about all this?"

 

[FrozenRoy]

...He...lp...

...Help...Help me...

Help me...Help me...

---

"Are you...the King of Sorrow?!"

"You're here...to stop me?"

"....................."

The final boss of Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil, the King of Sorrow is largely an unknown character throughout the game in comparison to the first game's Ghadius who is in the earliest of level cutscenes. This also makes the King of Sorrow nigh impossible to discuss without spoiling the game. So if you don't want to be spoiled, stop at the music I'm providing below and skip to the start of the set! (Though even just them having a set is a bit of a spoiler, so...)

The King of Sorrow
King of Sorrow 2
Hyuponia - Ruin of Sadness​

Klonoa 2 is now availabile in 2022's Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series and while it is not the way I played it this year, I DID play it this year and let me tell you: It's a REALLY good game. Please buy it to tell Namco we want Klonoa 3!

Sorrowful Statistics​

"Explain yourself!

What were you planning to do, by making the Fifth Bell, appear in our world?"

"Making it appear? No.

The Fifth Bell was always a part of your world.

It was always there. But you pulled the veil over your eyes, and refused to see it."​

The King of Sorrow is similar in build to Klonoa, but slightly taller and slightly thinner. This is not helpful given that Klonoa is not in Smash, but knowing Klonoa's size and mascot nature...let's say Klonoa is roughly the same size but slightly wider than Mario and the same is true for the King. In terms of weight the King of Sorrow is quite light, with an 81 weight equal to Bayonetta (14th lightest in the game). His dash speed is modest-at-best and equal to Wolf's 1.645, putting him 0.005 below Luigi (and Wario/Lucas). His walk speed is equal to Bayonetta, which is fast, and he floats as he walks or dashes. Low traction equal to Dark Samus.

Aerially, the King of Sorrow is a classic floaty character with Ness level fall speed and Gravity, and moderate air speed (Rosalina/Toon Link/Robin/Ridley) and fairly high aerial acceleration (Samus/Dark Samus/Lucario/Toon Link among others at a total of 0.09). His first jump is basically the same as Lucario's while his second jump of 51 is above Falco (50.51) but below Yoshi (51.56). He also has a "delayed Double Jump" like Ness, Kazuya, Sora and the like, which means a delay before a slower and gradual speed up (vs. most double jumps immediate vertical boost). This gives it a "floatier" feel and more aerial potential.

The King of Sorrow also has a "float" but it is MUCH shorter than Peach or Daisy's, with a flailing of limbs and ears that are very similar to Klonoa's flutter in the game series (although the King of Sorrow doesn't visibly strain and instead has an expression of light, neutral annoyance). This allows the King to turn around in midair, delay himself for landings due to the float having essentially no lag or to mix up approaches, brief jump-cancelled fastfalls, and quick ground floating for pressure.

Lamentable Specials​

"Huh?"

"We refused...to see it?"

Neutral Special - Lunatea's Veil​

"So I used the ark to lift Lunatea's Veil. All so that you could save the Kingdom of Sorrow. So that Lunatea can once again remember..."​

The King of Sorrow's Neutral Special is a bit of a unique attack. Sadly, it will take some time to get through. When B is pressed, a barrier appears as seen above with a vibrant sheen and color based on the costume picked. Pressing B has it only appear for a moment, but it can additionally be held for up to 1.2 seconds. The King of Sorrow can move during this time but cannot attack (or shield or dodge or the like). If the King of Sorrow is hit during this time, the opponent bounces off against the shield while taking 3% damage if it is a physical attack and the barrier disappears, seeming to "absorb" itself into the King. There isn't a ton of lag on a successful counter, so this will usually reset neutral. Pulling the shield up and putting it down to begin with is also not that laggy, but it isn't easy enough to be called "free", there's enough room for foes to punish you and like any good counter grabs go right through it. Projectiles that hit the barrier are deflected (lamentably not REFLECTED) and cause the King to absorb his barrier like normal.

Once that is done, the counter's "charge" remains for as long as the King wants (there's no time limit) or until he is KO'd, with a teal aura around him indicating he has a counter stored. The two methods the King can utilize this charge is by tapping B or by holding B + a direction. He can't try to counter another attack while he has a counter charge, obviously. Pressing B causes the King to resummon the barrier around him, which instantly shatters into shards in a 360 multihitting attack around him. The damage this attack deals is equal to 1.4x the attack that he countered, dealt over a total of 6 hits. A suction effect on the multihit makes it impossible for humans to reasonably SDI out of. This is particularly high for a countered attack, although one must keep in mind that unlike most countered attacks he doesn't just get it for free off of the countered attack and has to actually LAND it, although the fast start-up means it isn't too hard (and it isn't punishably laggy either).

The knockback itself is variable and depends on if the King is on the ground or in the air (sad, salty Little Mac fans rise up!). The shattering burst is more violent on the ground and has standard knockback, making it a killing attack that can destroy opponents very early into a stock with the right countered move, your Ganondorf Forward Smashes and the like. Even when you don't have that level of power, though, the quick starting lag of the attack makes it an effective combo ending move. This move is particularly adept at adding threat to the King of Sorrow's grounded game, which compared to his combo-centric aerial game is generally more focused on controlling the neutral to help his stage control tools. A fairly strong Neutral Special's scariness to convert those more stray neutral hits into big damage or a finisher is a great boon.

In the air, however, the explosive force of the burst is more scattered, greatly reducing its knockback! This has low ending lag and even powerful attacks like a countered Ganondorf Forward Smash simply draw the opponent in and then lightly knock them away. In short, it instead turns the countered attack into a potentially-massively powerful combo starter or extender! This fits perfectly well into the King of Sorrow's comboful aerial game, with plenty of potential to combo this out of a Neutral Aerial, Forward Aerial or up Aerial. It should also be noted that the King's Up Tilt is a combo starter that, up to decently long medium percents, can combo into a grounded OR an aerial Neutral Special counter attack depending on if the King decides to short hop or not.

So, what about the other way of using this move? That has the barrier appear around the King of Sorrow briefly before it instead is absorbed by him, with him holding out his arms as he does so like when he's inside his sphere in Klonoa 2. The King of Sorrow then rockets forward in the held direction at incredible speeds! This has about the distance of Fire Fox, travels at the speed of a quick Extremespeed and has two hitboxes associated with it. The first is most of the hitbox that deals 5% damage and lightly knocks opponents the direction the King of Sorrow is traveling, although this won't necessarily combo into the second hit and is pretty damage and DI dependent. You'll want to hit the second hit raw most of the times instead, which deals 12% damage multiplied by the damage of the countered attack, using the first number and then adding a decimal and using that as a multiplier. Easy example: Let's say the King countered an attack that did exactly 20%. That means it multiplies the attack by 2x, so it now does 24%. A 15% attack is 1.5x, so it does 18%. An attack that deals 12.2% multiplies it by 1.22x and causes it to deal 14.64% damage. You get the idea. Knockback kills at about 200% at a base but can scale rapidly with powerful countered attacks, with a 2.0x multiplier causing it to kill at 70% or so. It also can kill much earlier, albeit in a risky way, if the King ladders the foe towards the top of the stage with his great aerial prowess and then uses this as a flashy finisher you can potentially get some super early stocks!

This attack does have some start-up to it (roughly equal to Extremespeed) and you have to be at a specific range since while you can angle it you can't adjust the overall distance, but it has a lot of killing potential even compared to normal. The King doesn't enter helpless after the move, so you could even try to pick someone offstage for early kills and then either recover with your multiple options or even chase harder due to the many ways that the King of Sorrow can recover in the process. You could also just use it for mobility in a pinch, but that's rather a waste of a valuable counter resource. Ending lag is low.

Side Special - Hyuponia, the Kingdom of Sorrow​

It's time for everyone's favorite, a minion move! What? Minions have fallen out of style? A relic of the past best forgotten? O-oh...

Well, anyway, minion move! Wahoo! The King of Sorrow can summon up to four different minions and can have one minion of each type out at once, with the actual summoning's lag and positioning depending on the minion summoned. The King of Sorrow can choose between one of three minions depending on if he either doesn't angle the attack (Armored Moo), angles the attack upwards (Flying Moo) or angles the attack downwards (Glibz). Alternately, if the King of Sorrow holds down B, he will summon a fourth minion (Likuri) regardless of the angle, with the angle instead being used to determine what angle the Likuri is launched out at. Since the lag depends on each minion, I'll get to that when we get to them.

But before we get to all of those minions, we need to discuss a universal trait of each of them, which is how the King of Sorrow can store them. You see, through the grab, which we'll get to in a bit...actually, you know what? That'd be awkward. Let's just do the grab now.

Grab - Sorrow Bullet

The King of Sorrow's grab is based on the Wind Bullet ability from the Klonoa series, although the King himself does not use a Ring to perform it. Instead, he puts both of his hands out and release a spherical "bullet" of energy forward. This functions as a tether grab of somewhat short length, although in return this is a fast grab with low ending lag that's more like a fast non-tether grab. This move is critical to the King of Sorrow for multiple reasons, the first being that he has a very good set of throws that help glue his playstyle together.

The second is in relation to his minions and anything "solid" that fighters can create. This includes items like Link's bomb, minions (like if King Dedede's Waddle Dees were still around), and things of that nature, but NOT projectiles like Samus' charge shot or whatnot. You can grab Bowser Jr.'s Mechakooper but not his cannonball basically. Objects that the King of Sorrow grabs are stored, for all intents and purposes you can imagine this as a Pocket, complete with the item that he stored being visible on the HUD in the exact same spot. As you can imagine, all of the King of Sorrow's minions qualify as objects for this, so he is self-sufficient. The object that the King of Sorrow has stored visibly floats around him: His own minions have their "inflated" grab state from the Klonoa games, while anything too large is compressed down to be about the same size. The King of Sorrow's grab does not stop when grabbing a minion but continues. If a foe would be grabbed, then the minion is stored AND the foe is grabbed. If an enemy object AND one of your friendly objects would be grabbed, the closest object is prioritized.

What to do with this storage, though? Well, holding down the grab button + a direction will cause the King of Sorrow to raise that stored object above his head, then kick off of it! This sends the object flying in the opposite direction that the King of Sorrow input and pushes HIM in the direction that you selected! This sends the King of Sorrow in that direction at a high speed, although the distance depends on if the control stick had been smashed or tilted. A tilt is equal to his shorthop height and a smash is equal to his full first jump. This can be used on the ground or in the air, although obviously trying to push yourself against the ground...won't do much.

Whatever the King of Sorrow tossed travels the same distance as either a normal-thrown or smash-thrown capsule (tilt vs. smash) and if the object already had an effect or hitbox when thrown (like a Mechakoopa), it retains that hitbox. If not, it has the same power as a normal-thrown or smash-thrown capsule (tilt vs. smash). Conveniently, the minions the King of Sorrow can make have that same strength when thrown! Leaving aside the movement tech for a bit, this gives the King of Sorrow a fairly powerful projectile with a little setup that he can keep hidden until the right time and has Fire Fox-style true 360 aiming to noscope opponents. Furthermore, minions which are captured do not count towards the overall minion count that the King of Sorrow has, and while this has limited use (they can't be placed back down as minions after all), it does mean that you don't have to worry about losing a minion type just due to keeping it around for this purpose. It also has one additional use, but we'll get to that later (I promise).

The movement opens up a LOT of options for the King, especially because it is not limited to once per air trip, although the King can only use each minion type once for jumping per air trip and as you'll see using certan minions in mid-air isn't really viable. A key reason is because while the starting lag is merely "quick", the ending lag for this movement tech is nearly non-existant, with the King of Sorrow able to move so fast that he can start aerials while still in the momentum from the movement! This can ALSO be combined with the Neutral Special Counter-Movement for ADDITIONAL movement options, with the NSpec being very notable as a kill mixup after chasing opponents upwards with your minion-jumps. You can stall with your float to keep opponents guessing on if you will jump or, say, catch them with an aerial instead if they fastfall or air dodge to avoid it.

And of course these are merely the offensive capabilities. The King of Sorrow has plenty of spacing and projectile options, and you can just as easily throw a projectile towards the foe while using the movement to zip back, giving him space while tossing out a projectile. Or when landing you can use the omnidirectional dash to vary it up in a way that makes catching it very difficult, perhaps even baiting an opponent to try and react with a float first. Plus if you go further into the air you're tossing a projectile down at the foe! Or maybe you rush down unexpectedly and with your low lag get off an aerial or turn the landing into a tomahawk grab-esque situation. I hope I've made it clear why this minion "third jump" has so much value compared to somebody that has merely multiple jumps like Jigglypuff.

ZAir - Aerial Sorrow Bullet

Having a tether grab means that unsurprisingly the King of Sorrow also has a grab aerial, or "ZAir" as it is called, although you need to be to just tap it given how holding works for the throw. The King of Sorrow moves a single hand grasp in front of him, shooting out a sorrow bullet like his grab. This goes about the same distance as Toon Link's ZAir and has a similar lag to it. On the flip side this can grab the King of Sorrow's minions just like his grab, which also gives a slight lag reduction to make chaining it into a minion jump more viable. The hitbox continues even when a minion is grabbed for storage, same as the grab.

This attack has two hitboxes. The close hitbox deals more damage, 5%, and lightly pushes opponents away. It's decent enough at getting space, but it doesn't have the combo potential of even some other Z-Airs, making it strictly an admittedly solid disjointed spacing tool. A sweetspot at the end of the hitbox deals only 3% damage but INWARDS knockback with a small hitstun multiplier, which can potentially lead into combos or pressure in the right situation, with the most common true combo being a Jab from a shorthop. Something like a Neutral Aerial or Forward Aerial can combo depending on percent, positioning and the foe's option speed. But that'll usually be non-true. It's an additive option for the King of Sorrow's neutral game, but not a huge one.

Obviously in addition to all of this it functions as a tether for recovery and while it is a short one it adds an additional tool to the King's multifaceted movement and recovery. It is particularly useful just out of a float, since you can float just out of range to, say, threaten a ledge trump and then ZAir to the ledge if nothing happens. It also just lets him mix up recovery options or maybe squeeze that last bit of distance from going out far for an edge guard.​

So, we've gone through all of the grab, let's get back to the actual move of Side Special. We'll start with the middle, non-angled minion, the Armored Moo!

The King of Sorrow can only actually summon the smaller Armored Moos, but I couldn't find an adequate render of JUST them. Sorry. Forgive me? When summoning a minion, the King of Sorrow opens a portal to do so just like when enemies spawn in Klonoa 2, in this case the Armored Moo just steps out in front of the King of Sorrow. The Armored Moo mindlessly walks towards the nearest enemy on the screen like Waddle Dees in Brawl, and every Battlefield Platform that it travels it hops up in an attempt to hit foes. They have Waddle Dee-esque size of a smaller Kirby. They will hop up every Battlefield Platform's worth of distance a little bit to try and hit foes, and can either full hop or short hop at will, with a full hop able to get up to Battlefield Platform height platforms and the short hop unable. They will usually shorthop but may full hop in some scenarios, most commonly on scrolling stages or if an opponent is only in range of a full hop but not a short hop. No matter when the foe is hit, they take 6% damage and light knockback away from the Armored Moo. Takes about 2/3rds the speed of Gordo Toss for an Armored Moo to come out.

These Moos are, well, ARMORED Moos, so their HP is a bit different. When summoned, they have their armor on, which allows them to take one hit of ANY strength, excepting Final Smashes or Dr. Strangelove's bomb or the like. The hit will not cause the Armored Moo to enter hitstun as it sheds the armor, being reduced to a normal Moo. Can we get a picture of that?

Moos, as essentially the Goombas of Klonoa, are quite weak. You only need to deal 8% damage to take one out, so most fighters can take one out with a solid tilt. As a note, all of the minion HPs (and other constructs) scale with 1v1 bonus. This DOESN'T just instantly destroy the Moo, a trait shared with all of the King's minions. Instead, the minion inflates like when the King of Sorrow grabs it and remains stationary in place for 2.5 seconds after all of its HP is depleted. During this time it becomes a throwable item that either player can use! Just like with the jump-toss, all of the data on how this works when thrown is equal to a capsule save for the size (they are instead R O U N D). They also get destroyed with just one hit against the foe, so you can't really use them for Z-Drop combos past a start. Enemies are the only ones who can damage the King's minions, which gives them a slight advantage in grabbing them, BUT as items they can still be grabbed by the King's grab and ZAir so he has a defensive advantage when they are used!

This adds an element of item play to the King's moveset, especially since he CAN store a minion while also holding one as an item, which means you can launch off a minion for a jump and then toss the item while moving at will! Another thing is that while they'll be destroyed upon hitting an opponent, they won't just disappear in flight, so the King could throw an itemized minion upwards, perform an attack and then grab the minion with his grab to store it for later, or grab it before it impacts anything since it CAN be re-used that way. They can be utilized into his aerial combos, you could Z-Drop an item or toss it and then throw a stored minion against a recoverying opponent while returning to stage, you get the idea. A lot of item shenanigans going on here!

As a minion itself, the Armored Moo is pretty simple, being a basic pressure tool and space controller. The fact it can absorb any one hit makes it harder to pick off with projectiles and advanced players can use it as a psuedo-counter by throwing out an Armored Moo in front of the King of Sorrow with good timing to block an attack if the minion slot is open, being especially adept against enemies reliant on strong projectiles like Samus Aran. There's not too much to add here for now, so onto the next ally!

The next minion we have is done via the Upwards angle and is the Flying Moo. It looks like a Moo that flies. How descriptive. It is summoned above and in front of the King of Sorrow, appearing about a King of Sorrow's height above him. The Flying Moo has slightly more HP than the normal Moo at 10 HP but no protective armor, depending on the opponent it will take 1-2 aerials to hit. At the same time, the Flying Moo is more mobile and moves at a faster pace than the Waddle Dee speed Armored Moos, moving through the air at a speed described as "decent" and always in flight. Unlike the Armored Moo, which follow the opponent, the Flying Moo follows a strict pattern to its movements. It moves one Ganondorf downwards, then two Ganondorfs upwards (meaning it ends one Ganondorf above where it started), then return to the first position and moves one Battlefield Platform in the direction it was facing, then moves two Battlefield Platforms the other direction (meaning it ends one Battlefield Platform opposite of where it started). It then returns to its original position and repeats the pattern into infinity. Opponents struck by the Flying Moo take 8% damage and slightly more knockback than when hit by an Armored Moo. This is the fastest of the King of Sorrow's minions to be summoned and fairly hard to punish. Flying Moos are the size of Armored Moos with small wings.

The Flying Moo serves two main purposes. The first is that it controls aerial space in a way that no other minion in the King of Sorrow's set does, first by essentially being a vertical "wall" against approaches, then a horizontal "ceiling" against escaping or landing jumps. Like most of the King's minions the damage output isn't all that hot, but it's more about the utility of it, the fact that it means opponents either get chipped by that 9% or risk taking more damage from the King of Sorrow's approach. It is also his best minion for combo extensions or the like given its airborne nature and higher damage, so that is worth keeping in mind as well.

The other reason is that it is the King of Sorrow's only minion that is naturally going into the air excepting the Armored Moo's periodic hops, making it VITAL for super complex movement tech! For one thing, you can just set a Flying Moo near a ledge to both try to pre-setup an edgeguard and give the King of Sorrow a minion to grab for recoveries in the process. But you also have to remember that you CAN chain minion jumps into minion jumps as long as you vary the minion type up! The Armored Moo can't do this without having to fall a bit first via fastfall because of the Armored Moo dropping to the ground, but as long as you have some form of jump (be it double, minion jump, Up Special or Neutral Special) you will be able to reach a Flying Moo after summoning it, so you can do something like...let's use an example: Up Aerial -> Minion Jump -> Neutral Aerial -> Forward Aerial -> Summon Flying Moo -> Double Jump + ZAir sweetspot the foe -> Forward Aerial -> Minion Jump -> Neutral Special Counter Dash! This isn't something that'd really be a True Combo but is more an example of how the sheer chaining of the King of Sorrow's options can lead to a truly crazy options, I didn't even use Up Special in that chain!, and gives you an idea of how using the Flying Moo in midair can let you freestyle combos for big damage. It also means that you can do crazy edgeguard options as not only does it let you recover from afar but it IS an omnidirectional dash, so you can use this for snap repositioning for gimp attempts to use your edgeguarding move of choice! Do remember you can only use one minion type per air trip, so you can't chain Flying Moos AND you need to be careful if your Stored minion is a Flying Moo because it prevents you from doing that. It really emulates the feel of the tricky chain jumps in Klonoa 2, doesn't it?

The last of the King of Sorrow's angled minions is the Glibz, that missile lookin' guy you see there, who is the Down angle of the Side Special. Fittingly, the Glibz drops straight down at high speeds when it is summoned in midair and is summoned directly in front of the King of Sorrow on the ground. The Glibz is a hitbox dealing 10% damage and moderate upwards knockback when summoned in the air and falls at the speed of a fast stall than fall, so the King of Sorrow could summon it in midair as a dropping projectile if he's edgeguarding an opponent or landing. Note that this IS the laggiest of the King of Sorrow's minions to summon, so it isn't really as "free" as the others and is more reactable, having slightly more lag in the air (equal to a Bowser Bomb in the air, while being slightly faster than Gordo Toss on the ground). Unlike the other minions, the Glibz doesn't really move much: It will slightly move forward or back periodically to try and keep opponents in aim of its projectiles, but it moves very slowly. Touching the Glibz on the ground deals 4% damage and very light upwards knockback, which will let opponents escape it. Glibz are slightly shorter but decently wider than an Armored Moo.

Every 2.5 seconds, the Glibz will fire off two missiles, the closest travelling the default distance of Yoshi's Egg Toss and the furthest the distance of just smashing Yoshi's Egg Toss forward. It aims towards the nearest foe on the stage as best it can. This creates a "blind spot" in the middle, but having a pair of projectiles periodically launched for free from a minion with a bunch of other packed-in utility is super useful, not to mention the strongest attack out of the 3 base minions at 12% damage that KOs at 180%. While the Armored Moo is a bit more of an aggressive tool and the Flying Moo provides the most utility usage and anti-airing, the Glibz is instead a straightforward projectile machine with all that entails for stage control. If the King of Sorrow wants to try and play a campier game with his item tosses and to-be-seen Down Special, then the Glibz is what he wants to go for. The nature of how fast it falls means that summoning one for midair minion jumps won't work, which makes the Glibz the best minion to have in reserve for minion jumps generally speaking.

Glibz have 15 HP, making them the sturdiest minion that most characters will need 2-3 Tilts to take down, but it doesn't have that one hit of protection that an Armored Moo has. In short, it can be safely picked off at range pretty easily for a ranged option itself. Consider summoning an Armored Moo in front of it or summoning it first and then the Glibz behind it, forcing foes to either wait for the Armored Moo to jump or to take out its armor before taking out the Glibz. Be careful of spending TOO long on just setting up these kinda minion interactions too: Ultimately, all of these King of Sorrow minion's are fragile and fleeting and also useful for their utility when grabbed or dying rather than stage clutter. Plus an opponent picking it off at range will leave the Glibz itemized form much closer to the King of Sorrow usually, making it easier for the King to grab them first and so also not always advisable.

And next finally we have the Likuri. Remember how you can toss this fella out by holding B at any angle, with the angle affecting how it is thrown out? Well now you do. Because I reminded you. Unlike the other Minions who are more "summoned", the Likuri gets ejected out of the summoned portal as a projectile at the speed of Wii Fit Trainer's Header. Getting hit by the Likuri while it is flying deals 9% damage and low knockback in the direction the Likuri was flying. After travelling up to 2 Battlefield Platforms, stopping at anything solid, the Likuri floats in place and does not move in any way, passively dealing 4% damage and essentially non-existent knockback to any foe who touches them. Their hitbox is pretty small, kind of a horizontal Pichu with a few crystals growing out of it, so this isn't exactly the most useful trap-minion around. Start-up to shoot out the Likuri is the same as Samus' Super Missile with similar ending lag.

The TRUE power of the Likuri is revealed when you hit one of your own minions with it! Just like in Klonoa 2, the Likuri will fuse with the minion into a mass of crystal, as seen here with the final form of the red crystal. It goes Yellow -> Blue -> Red, for the record and the same follows in the King of Sorrow's set, although in the moveset each one has different attack power and size! The exact way this works is that the Likuri and the minion fuse into a crystal form over about 15 frames, which then returns back to the King of Sorrow at lightning speeds (a bit faster than Pac-Man's Key). When it reaches the King of Sorrow (and it will keep trying until it does and like in Klonoa 2 can go through solid objects), it becomes held by him as an item. If the King of Sorrow already has an item held, that item is dropped. Like in Klonoa 2, the 15 frame delay of the crystal being made gives the King of Sorrow time to decide on what to do with the item or move himself in preparation of receiving it, like getting into position to chuck it at another minion ASAP or tossing an item up so the crystal can be grabbed and then throwing the crystal before the item reaches him so he can grab it again!

Unlike storing a minion, a crystalized minion does count towards that 1-minion cap, so if you want to power the Likuri to the max (dude) then you'll be eating up all 3 of your minions...well, okay, as you'll see there IS a fourth target, so you have a little wiggle room. And since the stored minion doesn't count towards any minion limits, you can store a minion for a minion jump while having the crystal out as an item. But one thing to consider is that you can store the crystal itself! This doesn't remove it from the caps or anything but it IS important because it allows the potentially potent projectile to become omnidirectionally aimable, adding a real sense of dread to opponents when it is pocketed. This also allows the King of Sorrow to utilize items and the pocketed crystal in conjunction, adding another layer of play to the mix. Now then onto the power of the crystals attacks themselves.

The Yellow crystal is 1/3rd the size of a fully charged Charge Shot and deals 11% damage with light knockback, although like all of the crystal hits it has a bit of extra hitstun (Charge Shot-esque too!). The main use of the Yellow Crystal is that it is much more available than most of the later crystals as it isn't hard to hit a single minion with a Likuri, and that if used at relatively close ranges it allows the King of Sorrow to go in and get stuff done, such as grabs against shield, shorthop Forward Aerial if it lands raw or an Up Tilt combo starter. Throwing it as an item and then dashing in is one of the King of Sorrow's more reasonable approach options, which is good because he isn't the best at approaching overall.

The Blue crystal is 2/3rd the size of a fully charged Charge Shot, shattering against foes for 22% damage and pretty reasonable knockback that kills at around 110%. It's stuck in a bit of an awkward spot between the easier access of the Yellow form and the much stronger Red form, but the niche it has is the fact that since it can have 1 (well, 2) other minions out at the same time, it can genuinely use them for kill confirms compared to the Red crystal or the more combo-centered Yellow! You'll most commonly be doing this with the Glibz' missiles, but a foe getting rammed into with an Armored Moo or Flying Moo could reasonably still kill confirm if the King of Sorrow predicts it (the hitstun is unlikely to be high enough to easily kill confirm off pure reaction). Do be careful that if the crystal hits the minion, it will stop and absorb it, so don't mess up your kill confirms with bad aiming!

And then we have the mighty Red crystal, which is the full size of a Charge Shot and deals a devastating 33%, and kills 15% earlier than a fully charged Charge Shot (so 55%-95% depending on opponent, rage and DI according to SSBwiki dot com). This is a very strong kill option for the King of Sorrow that outpaces even legendary moves like Charge Shot, but do keep in mind this requires a LOT of setup from absorbing three minions without interruption or missing plus summoning all three and to remove them from the field while you have it prepared. In short while it can be an omnidirectional Charge Shot it is also much less reliable and forces the King of Sorrow away from most minion-based kill confirms.

A few final notes about the crystal: Like all of the item-projectiles here, it will break after hitting anyone once, so you can't just do like a triple Z-Drop with a red crystal to deal 99% to a foe and kill them. The Likuri / Crystal must be the one thrown at a minion for it to count, if a minion is thrown as an item at the crystal then it will not fuse. It cannot be grabbed as an item by opponents unlike the other itemized minions, but it can be grabbed by the King of Sorrow. In mirror matches, the King of Sorrow can store enemy minions, and it can also absorb them into crystals, so both King of Sorrows will have to think carefully about their minion usage! Enemy Kings of Sorrow do NOT have their minion cap reduced if an enemy is crystalized to prevent just crystalizing their minions and then not using the crystal to block them, but in team matches an allied King of Sorrow WILL have their minion cap reduced. Crystals cannot absorb other crystals and cannot absorb other Likuri.

Forward Smash - Nemo Moo​

"Wait!" You say, looking at this move. "That's not a Special, that's a Forward Smash!" And, yes, true...l-look, it has the other minion you can store outside of the Specials and we won't get to the other Smashes until much later, so I want it out of the way now. I'm sure it's fine...Sob...

Forward Smash has the King of Sorrow summoning this thing from his first phase boss fight into his hand, known as a Nemo Moo! It's about the same size as an Armored Moo and can be angled up / down like a lot of Forward Smashes. The default angle is basically a Yoshi Egg Toss, the down angle throws it diagonally down right in front of the King of Sorrow, and up causes it to go high in the air but the shortest distance horizontally. This is a time bomb attack that DOES still detonate on hit, although it deals a pretty pathetic 12%-16.8% damage with low knockback that makes it underwhelming power-wise, especially as an attack with a bit of high starting lag. Ending lag is on the lower end and harder to punish, though. The time bomb nature of the attack makes it so that you can also "set and forget" this attack, with particularly deadly spots to put it on being to cover a getup option on ledge (forcing more predictability when recovering, can be combined with a Flying Moo if one wants to invest heavily into strong edgeguards) or on platforms (potential to combo Up Tilt -> Aerials into it, reduces where foes can hide from Glibz projectiles or a walking Armored Moo). Nemo Moos will last 10 seconds before exploding naturally.

The time bomb nature isn't JUST so it can be a trap: The power of the hitbox goes up every second that it is out, starting at 1.1x the damage it would normally deal and ending at 2.0x when it explodes from natural time. The maximum knockback of the attack kills at 110%-80% or so, which is a pretty great reward for the amount of time you had to put in for the time bomb! Additionally, the Nemo Moo isn't JUST a bomb, but is a grabbable minion just like in Klonoa 2, which means that the King of Sorrow can grab and store it if he wants or consume it with a Likuri for a crystal. Note that this also means that there is a 1-minion cap on it like all of the other minions.

This move gets really crazy when you store it, though! First off, the stored bomb retains the exact timer it had when grabbed, no more and no less, with the timer resuming when it is thrown. This allows the King of Sorrow to store a bomb close to detonation and then toss it out in a way it can hit the foe and explode, helping ease the difficulty of getting someone with such a long time bomb. Another thing to note is that, like Klonoa 2, the time bomb acts a bit different when hitting solid non-destructible elements of the stage, sticking itself to it (including walls) while continuing to count down from that position. This allows a few obvious things, the biggest being like a Gordo and sticking it onto a ledge in order to prevent ledgegrabs. This is much stronger than a Gordo due to the extreme time limit, but it's also a good deal harder to set up since you need to go through the pain of summoning and storing the Nemo Moo and then on top of that need to likely rocket away from the stage in order to send it flying towards the stage to stick to the ledge. But if you are going far off stage to try to edgeguard a foe anyway that might be just what you wanted!

The OTHER big reason, though, relates to the minion cap, as this allows the King of Sorrow to put out a second time bomb! Obviously this can double the King of Sorrow's stage control if he then sticks the Stored bomb somewhere (this won't erase the first bomb), but an important thing is that if one bomb or it's explosion hits another, it will set off the other bomb! This creates a single explosion with the combined range and power of both bombs. So if two bombs without any powering up over time did this, it would be 24%-33.6% damage depending on how much you charged each Nemo Moo, and then the power increasing with time. Note that the multiplications do NOT multiply themselves, but work seperately for each bomb. So two minimum strength bombs each getting to 2x strength would be a 48% strength explosion, and two full charge bombs both reaching 10 seconds to 2x strength becomes 64.8% and will kill at incredibly low numbers. Of course that requires you to cook two bombs to the exact same number of seconds and place them all and it is MUCh more likely you'll end up doing stuff like mixing together a 1.4x with a 1.6x or whatever instead. These all give substantial power boosts and serve as the premium KO tool, the high end one alongside the Likuri crystal shots that are harder and riskier to get.

While cooking two Nemo Moos next to each other can maximize the power, you can also just store a high powered Nemo Moo and toss it at an active Nemo Moo to combine them in a more direct way, most commonly if the set Nemo Moo is somewhere for edgeguarding or a platform and you think the opponent will make a wrong move. It's harder to get super high power levels this way, but gives the King of Sorrow more active control of when the bombs trigger. Just be aware that any minion jumps will have to eject the Nemo Moo when you're storing, so if you're trying to keep it there until that point you are dramatically reducing your combo potential. And of course the fact it requires setup means just storing a prepared bomb and chucking it at the foe is more reliable, if later to kill.

The King of Sorrow's minions will not trigger Nemo Moos when they run into them passively and Armored Moos along with Glibz will always attempt to avoid running into them in general, Armored Moos by hopping even off-timer (which can be useful to time a hop and grab them from the air for a jump) and Glibz by not moving towards them after a certain point. An itemized minion being tossed at it WILL explode it along with anything else that would normally detonate a Young Link / Toon Link bomb. This means that the King of Sorrow could toss a non-Likuri minion at a Nemo Moo to detonate it early without the bonus damage of combining two Nemo Moos. Likuri will turn Nemo Moos into a crystal as per normal and take up the Nemo Moo minion cap slot as normal.

Up Special - Nightmare Travel​

Let's cool it with the minion moves for a moment and get to the King of Sorrow's recovery, shall we?

A cannon appears around the King of Sorrow, apologies for that crappy image but I couldn't find a better one easily, taking a moment to angle the cannon at a diagonal upwards angle and then shooting the King of Sorrow out of it at high speeds. Unlike Klonoa, who wahoos out of the cannon with a big ol' :D face on, the King of Sorrow has a pretty visible face on. It seems that even the joys of Sonic Adventure 2 cannon cinematics aren't enough to put a smile on his face. The King of Sorrow cannot be hit while inside the cannon during the 12 frames it takes to fire, but there are 7 frames of the cannon appearing during which the King of Sorrow is still vulnerable. There is a brief hitbox of 12% in the direction the King of Sorrow is fired around his body and the cannon when he is first fired, but after only about 1/4th of the distance the hitbox is gone. The King of Sorrow finishes the attack's ending lag about halfway through the distance and is not put into helpless, although all the normal rules about those attacks not being usable in the air forever still apply.

This is the least versatile of the King of Sorrow's movement options, having no directional change ability and an overall weak hitbox for a recovery that leaves the King of Sorrow vulnerable to edgeguards at different points to it, in particular the spot where the initial hitbox runs out but before he regains control. The upside is that it is unconditional and the King of Sorrow travels both quickly and quite far (most comparable to Rosalina's Up Special or Robin's). This gives the King of Sorrow a long evergreen recovery and the multitude of ways he can mix up his recovery helps compensate for the weaknesses it has. In a pinch it can be used for aerial chases if he lacks a minion jump or counter-jump, but be aware that the longer starting lag AND ending lag severely limits the upside here and can often times mean there's not even a true combo out of it. The fact that the King doesn't go into helpless can be very nice with his float and tether to vary timing or get that last bit of distance needed. Overall, a very simple recovery.

Down Special - Laser Prophecy​

An attack that depends on if the King of Sorrow taps or holds the B button. Tapping B causes the King of Sorrow to summon one of those green orb...things from his boss fight, which fires off a single laser. This has very similar size to R.O.B.'s normal Robo Beam, and deals 10% damage with spacing knockback at point blank range and 6.5% damage with light knockback outside of point blank range. Like with the Robo Beam it has quite a lot of range to it despite being a bit thin, and is notable as being the only projectile that the King of Sorrow can reliably camp with at all times as Glibz require setup, Likuri can't be thrown while one is out, grabbing a minion to store as a projectile has prerequisites and so on. In general you'll be seeing this in long range neutral a lot, and it'll be thrown out with Glibz as the standard ranged option if the King of Sorrow is playing it slow. Start-up is about the same as Robo Beam, 1-2 frames faster actually, but in exchange for the lack of a recharge timer it has noticeably longer ending lag which makes it harder to use as an approach option and limits it to more of a poking, camping and defensive tool.

Holding down B instead has the King of Sorrow summon one of these Probe (?) things in front of him (they don't have an enemy name that I can find), which fall to the ground like Glibz but without a falling hitbox given their smaller size. Summoning them is about the same speed as summoning a Glibz, but slightly faster. These do not fire immediately and will not move, charging up passively over the next 3/6 seconds. The Probes can take one hit before becoming itemized, BUT they won't actually stop their minion actions until picked up as an item, so you can't just pick them off with a projectile to stop them, you must get in close to actively stop them. They will also despawn 12 seconds after being hit if nobody picks them up after being hit, so you COULD wait that long to take them out without getting close. That cedes a good 12 seconds of large scale stage control to the King of Sorrow though as the trade-off. The Probe is subjected to the usual 1-of-each-minion cap all the rest are and it can be stored like the rest, although unlike the Nemo Moo it cannot be placed again to double up on Probes due to how they work as items.

As for what the Probe does, well after it charges the "eye" on the front of it will flash, indicating it is ready to fire. And if any opponent enters 2/3rds of a Smart Bomb blast radius around the Probe, the probe's "eye" moves to where they entered and begins to fire, which takes 35 frames (10 more than R.O.B.'s Robo Beam) and thus is more-than-reactable. This won't usually catch anyone raw unless they flatout miss the Probe, but it forces them to either keep on the move (the Probe will try to track the foes but moves at a slow pace, meaning all dashes, general air movement and even some walks will outpace it) or take a defensive action to avoid it. If the Probe only had 3 seconds to charge, then the power of the beam is the same as the normal Down Special laser. But if it gets to 6 seconds then it gets to power up, same as R.O.B., into a Super beam! This deals 15% damage at close range, and can even kill at 145%!, while it does 11% damage and more moderate knockback outside of that range. The eye flashes brighter when the Super beam is ready. It has to charge for 3/6 seconds before firing again no matter what happens and will fire off the laser even if the opponent exits the activation range, and will not track them if they leave the range.

The stationary and trap-like nature of the Probe means you could try to combo foes into its range and use the laser as some extension, but be aware that the poor tracking and high lag means it is more likely you'll use it as a mixup or to apply post-combo pressure. Still, you CAN get the occassional sick play. The nature of the Probe having to charge up when first summoned and the ease of destroying it, especially if the foe can pressure, means you will usually only summon the Probe after other minions or in advantage. There's generally two ways to summon the Probe, one of which is to put it somewhere fighting will be constant (like the middle of a Battlefield style stage) to maximize how often it fires but also make it easier and more likely to be destroyed fast, or put it say on one end of a stage while trying to move the fighting elsewhere and knock opponents into it as a more setup oriented option.

The Probe as an item is rather unique in the same way as it is in his Final Boss fight, in that it is reusable! The laser "tether" that appears in the fight will also appear when the Probe is thrown as an item, allowing it to rebound back to whoever threw it once without the Probe breaking, although the laser part will break so it only gets to rebound once. This also applies to when it is thrown for jumps, but remember that you can only Minion Jump once per minion type in the air so that can actually muck up more jumps. It DOES take a bit for the Probe to return after being thrown though, so if you can Store another minion while it is gone you can keep the Probe from returning to storage! If the storage is full on return, then the King of Sorrow will grab it as an item. If he already has an item, he will drop it for the Probe.

There's obviously a lot of uses to this, the most obvious being something like Z-Drop -> Footstool -> Z-Drop although unlike some characters the combo is going to be forced to end there. It can be thrown out as a more safe projectile or it can get used in combos more, especially since the delay in return means you can do something like Item Toss -> Up Aerial (from a double jump or minion jump potentially) -> Item Toss on the returned probe. Or just toss it around wildly if you're casual. The King of Sorrow DOES need to be aware that opponents can use the item techniques as well, and the rebound is particularly useful to try and gunk up his landing mixups, along with combo use. That just means he should make sure HE has the item and not the foe, correct? And the grab/tether being able to Store it always gives an inherent defensive advantage to the King of Sorrow. Overall, a unique minion in a lot of ways.

Despairing Throws​

"We...would save...?"

""Welcome, Dream Traveler!""

​

Pummel - Eulogy​

A very simple pummel, the King of Sorrow simply shocks the opponent with some energy from the Sorrow Bullet. 2% damage and moderate speed.

Down Throw - Sulking Slam​

Lifting the grasped opponent with his ears, the King of Sorrow slams the opponent to the ground directly in front of him, bouncing the opponent off of the ground. This deals 7.5% damage and is an IDEAL combo starter: Enough starting knockback to position opponents well for aerials, very low knockback growth that makes it consistent at all percents, and an ideal diagonal knockback angle. This attack leads into combos at aaaaall sorts of percents, with the main options being an Up Tilt or an Aerial. Which one to go for depends on percents and the Minion Jumps or other movement tech that he has ready.

As a general rule of thumb, Up Tilt is the best starter at low percents because the hitstun isn't quite high enough for consistent aerial follow-ups. As mid percents get up there, the aerial follow-ups become more valuable because they are stronger starters and the foe can get knocked out of range of the Up Tilt more. Forward Aerial is the best combo tool for drag-downs into grounded attacks and can mix up another grab if the opponent is wildly spamming rolls or spot dodges out of it, can lead into an Up Tilt to go back to the air (though this doesn't True loop), or a Forward Tilt for space. Up Aerial is good for ladder chains and can combo into itself multiple times, it becomes the most rewarding option more often with minion jumps or other extra mobility options ready. And Neutral Aerial leads best into the King of Sorrow's overall aerial game, and will be the best aerial chain option without additional mobility.

This move does let you kinda freestyle though, you can assume almost any of the fast moves in the King of Sorrow's set can combo out of this at some point. Forward Tilt very consistently combos and resets neutral, although the reward is low. A particularly potent option is that the King of Sorrow can combo or 50/50 (at higher percents) throwing out whatever he has stored up, which if he has gotten a Red crystal can potentially be a kill confirm, while an itemized Probe could allow him to true combo a probe toss into Neutral Aerial or Forward Aerial into another item toss. This requires low percents, otherwise the probe hit might be too far, but you could also try stuff like an NSpec counter-command dash to follow them at more mid percents to combo and then do more toss shenanigans. This is particularly useful because since the combo starts on the ground you can use the probe for a minion jump afterwards. Feel free to let your mind wander throughout the set on all the ways you can freestyle with the pieces in place!

Forward Throw - Trash's Treasure​

Summoning a Probe behind him, the King of Sorrow commands it to crash into the opponent's body at high speeds, with it travelling 1.2 Battlefield Platforms with them in tow before it vanishes and leaves the opponent in prone. If the Probe goes off stage, they are simply let go off with only a little bit of hitstun. Dealing a crushing 13% damage, this is a devastating spacing throw that not only puts opponents at a very set distance but gives the King of Sorrow a lot of time to do what he pleases as they are in vulnerable prone. The long distance means that normal techniques out of prone throws, like tech chasing, isn't really a thing though.

While Down Throw is all about those direct damage combos, the Forward Throw is instead all about spacing and setup: If the King of Sorrow wants to get out any of his minions, for example, this throw gives him the time to do so, so if he's running low or wants to start up a more neutral game this is the tool for him. Similarly, this can be used to jam opponents into your minions for extra damage (this pushes the minion to half a Battlefield Platform past where the Probe stops) or especially potently into the Nemo Moos, who will explode for damage but not knock the foe out of the throw and thus can be the King of Sorrow's most potent damaging throw conditionally.

Finally, this throw can simply be used to deposit the opponent off stage and try to guard their return. While it doesn't put the opponent below the stage, making them roughly level with it is still an appealing position for the King of Sorrow to be in, and his high jump potential and a few traps mean that edge guarding is overall valuable for him. It's also simply a high damage throw and Down Throw won't combo forever (and depending on the situation, character etc the combos might be DI-dependent), so it's never a bad idea to throw out. The default throw for people learning the character.

Back Throw - End of Heartache​

By far the simplest of the King of Sorrow's throws, he simply wraps his ears around the foe and spins them multiple times, before releasing his ears to toss them with enough strength that his stance becomes unsteady briefly as they fly! Dealing a high 12% damage, this is the King of Sorrow's KO Throw that kills at 129%, making it one of the most potent kill throws in the game (almost exactly on par with Zelda's Back Throw). The angle isn't particularly beneficial for anything, so this move is about as pure of a kill throw as possible. Use it when the foe's at high percents to knock 'em out or force 'em to recover from afar, otherwise one of your other throws is a superior option. It is worth noting that a lot of the King of Sorrow's projectiles can keep opponents locked down easier than, say, a melee-only character given their delayed nature, so it's a bit easier to land his grab and do late kill throws than average. Nice!

Up Throw - All Mixed Up​

One of the more involved throw inputs from the King of Sorrow, his Up Throw starts off simple enough as he tosses the foe into the air for 3% damage while channeling energy into his other hand. The toss has pretty good base knockback and is quickly followed up by a pair of energy blasts that deal 4% damage each. Each of the blasts lightly sends the opponent further into the air, but this isn't a viable kill throw and instead puts opponents decently high into the air for the King of Sorrow to catch their landings or juggle them, which given how his aerials work is appreciated. It kind of has the feel of a combined Mewtwo Up Throw/Forward Throw.

This throw changes things up if the King of Sorrow has something stored, as he will forego the first energy blast and toss that at the foe! This is thrown at the foe with the power and range of the tilt-thrown level, which does still make it the most outright damaging of the King of Sorrow's throws if it hits. Higher damage amounts will likely put the foe out of range of this toss (the energy blasts go further), but since it'll be right under them and they're falling it still applies pressure. And of course the real winner here is the Crystal, which becomes a kill confirm off the top at those crispy percents before it won't reach the foe. Down Throw vs. Up Throw on this depends on the foe in what is the better crystal kill confirm, but Up Throw overall remains reliable for longer, while Down Throw has more versatility as a throw.

This CAN work with items, although it is a bit weird! Obviously you can't grab a foe when you have an item in hand, but you can toss an item upwards or in another way it can land with you, or just have the item next to you. In any of these scenarios, the King of Sorrow will pick it up and throw it in place of an energy blast! If it has not thrown either energy blast, it will prioritize using the item first. In addition to those shenanigans, the easiest way the King of Sorrow can do this is either via his Probe's rebound or a Crystal returning to him after crystalizing a minion, both of which return to him as items! This not only can allow the King of Sorrow to double up on the item pressure, but the high hitstun of things like a SMALLER crystal can lead to, say, a Yellow Crystal into stored item combo which can easily deal enough damage to match the combo potential of Down Tilt, or get two projectiles higher into the air and give people twice the trouble to deal with landing.

Of course, you might not want to toss away your Stored item, in which case...use one of your other throws, dummy! The King of Sorrow's powerful grab game is one of his core strengths between one of the best kill throws in the game, a top tier combo throw and a potent spacer, so nobody is going to be dying for options if they don't happen to desire getting rid of a stored object. Sure, sometimes people will get sad when they thoughtlessly toss one away, but they'll forget it ever existed pretty soon...right?

Anguished Aerials​

Neutral Aerial - Free Pirouette​

The King of Sorrow spings with his ears outstretched to both sides, honestly most similar to the twirl attack in Freedom Planet but just know they're spinning more like a Daisy/Peach style NAir but with ears rather than an Ivysaur NAir, dealing multiple hits of damage in the process. The six hits total 12% damage with a lightly launching last hit of 4% damage. This knockback is very small in a Palutena-esque way, although unlike Palutena's which has great knockback scaling this instead has pitifaul knockback scaling, and as you can imagine this means the attack has great combo potential. It can potentially loop into itself 2-3 times with good positioning at very low percents, although this isn't very shorthopping but instead jumps or platform use, and it'll combo into Forward Aerial or Up Aerial extremely reliably even at high percents. Starting lag isn't too high but maybe a bit higher than anticipated (Frame 8), ending lag is VERY low and makes it highly effective.

While Neutral Aerial is a great combo aerial, it has to be noted the hitbox placement has little vertical movement to it and starts at the King of Sorrow's head height obviously. This means it is actually rather poor starting combos on the ground because it can flatout miss shorter / crouching opponents and it has no coverage below making it ridiculously vulnerable to being anti-aired by grounded opponents. You'll want to move to Forward Aerial for your shorthop combo potential is what I'm saying, while Neutral Aerial will be for aerial foes, opponents on platforms, combos from other aerial or grounded starters (such as Up Tilt or Down Throw)...or from a minion jump, since you could angle yourself to kinda "glide" right above the ground while Neutral Aerialing for a closer to the ground approach!

Neutral Aerial has a "suction" effect that has two effects. The first is that it keeps opponents in the multihit attack and means that they won't just fall out when you're hitting opponents auto link style. The OTHER purpose of it largely comes from minion jumping with it. See, opponents will start on one side of the King of Sorrow when Neutral Aerial begins and usually the inward suction is only enough to keep them at about the same spot not counting for their DI. But with the rush of speed the minion jump gives plus the suction of the knockback being inwards will end up with the opponent BEHIND the King of Sorrow instead! This can also be achieved with an Up Special and so is not exclusive to the minion jump, which allows the King of Sorrow to do things like Up Special -> NAir cross-up -> Minion Jump -> NAir cross-up which actually will be true a lot of percents because usually the issue with looping Neutral Aerial isn't hitstun but hitbox placement. Obviously all of the limitations on minion jumping a bunch keeps you from looping this much more, but it IS possible to ZAir into a minion jump NAir again if the positioning is right (usually the foe needs to be far enough away to be hit by NAir's inward knockback hit, lest they exit hitstun before the King can minion jump and thus punish him). If one doesn't want to do this aerial cross-up, then they have to activate Neutral Aerial later into the dash's life, usually doing it about halfway or so will keep the opponent in front of the King of Sorrow. Note that while the auto linking is pretty good, opponents at the very edge of Neutral Aerial's range while the King of Sorrow has high momentum from their movement tech might still cause foes to drop out just due to going too fast for it, but this shouldn't happen with the vast majority of hits.

Crossing up the opponent allows for some different combos, the most prominent of which are the late back hit of Up Aerial which can otherwise be difficult to access but very valuable situationally, and Back Aerial which is the strongest of the aerial finishers that the King of Sorrow has. You could also, instead of minion tossing for combos, toss a minion at the foe's face while also retreating, in which case if you want to cross the foe up or keep them in front is going to depend on where you want to land positionally. Neutral Special's actual counter hit can be used for a combo continuance regardless of which side the opponent is on and combined with B-Reversing or Wavebouncing can allow for the King of Sorrow to really mix the opponent up on what side the attack will come from and how to properly DI it, which can lead to cleaner or higher rewards. Forward Aerial and Up Aerial retain their properties as highly effective combo tools when the opponent is kept in front and double jump Down Aerial can combo as well until higher percents. While Neutral Aerial's hitbox makes it poor for shorthopping, it CAN autocancel (albeit with a bit of awkward timing, you have to delay a full hop, but you're probably doing this off of a more true aerial interaction anyway) and if so it can combo into your faster grounded normals or often but not always Up Smash (you can't let the foe get too close to the ground) as a later kill confirm. A highly versatile combo move that plays well into a lot of the King's kit!

Forward Aerial - Sonic Bird​

Performing the rare forward-oriented drill kick, the King of Sorrow sticks out both of his legs to kick and spins! Think of it like a Diddy Kong FAir that multihits, a Falco FAir style move with a two-kick animation or the like. A 5-hit attack that deals a total of 8% damage, again with a weak finishing 4% hit for the last hit, the two feet have some surprising range above and below them (IE vertically) like a lot of drill kicks and thus tends to be more effective at shorthop assaults than the King's Neutral Aerial. It has slightly less horizontal reach than Neutral Aerial and while still solid it isn't a "small" difference, you WILL notice it during matches. Comes out the same speed as Falco's Forward Aerial (Frame 7), but it has very low ending lag, and combined with the knockback forms one of the other cores to the King of Sorrow's combo game!

First off, Forward Aerial is the King's best shorthop combo starter, and forms a bit of an interesting part of his neutral. It WON'T autocancel out of a shorthop, but it does have very low landing lag regardless, so those kind of combos are still quite possible. Jab is the quick option from that which combos from any percent if you're close enough, Forward Tilt is a basic spacer at sweetspot range, at close range Up Tilt can lead into more aerial combos but falls off as the mid percents get higher, and you could try for another shorthop aerial at low percents. In the air, the King of Sorrow can usually combo this into an Up Aerial, a minion jump -> Neutral Aerial, try to go for another Forward Aerial or go for a ZAir to draw the opponent in for whatever else he wants, in addition to more mixup based options like throwing a minion jump directly at the foe (which will combo at low to low-mid percents) or at high percents a 50/50 Neutral Special Counter-Dash.

When it comes to shorthopping, the use of Forward Aerial as a neutral or approach tool is a bit odd. Forward Aerial IS safe on shield at maximum range if you shorthop it, along with a little closer than maximum range, but basically all of your shorthop combos out of it require being very close. This means that the King of Sorrow has to commit to either getting the most out of the Forward Aerial, otherwise likely settling for just Forward Tilt or even the stray FAir hit, or to having very safe pressure. This is especially true when the other tools he might throw out are Back Aerial (a strong individual hit, but not a combo tool), Forward Tilt (basically a pure spacer) or going in with something like Dash Attack (highly punishable) or Neutral Aerial (as mentioned, highly vulnerable when shorthopping). This tension is a core part of how the neutral game with the King of Sorrow works, so that's very worth keeping in mind.

The auto linking on Forward Aerial keeps opponents in front of the King of Sorrow, so it won't do aerial cross-ups like Neutral Aerial will which makes it a more valuable tool if you want to combo with the foe in front of you, like more Forward Aerials or Up Aerial to begin juggling chains or what have you. It also generally is better for dragging the opponent vertically due to the hitbox's better vertical alignment, which makes it a stronger drag-down option compared to Neutral Aerial. You could even drag down an opponent on a platform and cancel into an Up Smash Sheik-style, but it is generally more timing-strict and a rather difficult technique. And naturally all of your mobility tricks can play around with this attack, with the launching hit of Up Special comboing out of close Forward Aerial, which can lead to some nifty aerial chase options. Mess around with it and find out!

Back Aerial - Heavy Slash​

Summoning the golden claw from the first phase of his boss fight, the King of Sorrow thrusts it behind him, a single strike range-y option with a slight downward angle to the thrust. A much more straightforward attack in application, this attack has a sweetspot on the latter half of the attack and a sourspot close, with the sweetspot dealing 14% damage and killing at 135% while the sourspot deals 10% and kills much later at 175%. Compared to the King of Sorrow's overall quick-hitting aerial, Back Aerial is also notable for being laggy to come out (same startup as Byleth, Corrin, Mewtwo's BAirs) and having poor ending lag as well, although the ending lag isn't some horrendous heavyweight level it still isn't good.

When it comes to usage for this move, it generally has three. The first is simply as a powerful callout for people who, say, are dodging all over the place wildly trying to get out of combos, especially if they're at mid or higher percents. Pretty simple. Secondly, it is a reasonable neutral tool to throw out and is his range-y one alongside Forward Tilt, the landing lag on this attack isn't...good but it is reasonable and combined with the range it'll be safe on shield if you hit with the sweetspot. This means Forward Tilts mixed up with Back Aerials or Reverse Aerial Rushed Back Aerials are a go-to for more safe neutral play, and can be good to throw out at higher percents for a later kill (especially at ledge).

Finally, it can serve as a combo ender. This is most common with a Neutral Aerial Cross-Up to put the foe behind the King of Sorrow, putting opponents right in place to get hit by Back Aerial and a very natural combo finish, but you could also do stuff like minion jump into position and Back Aerial as you drive by, or reverse a Neutral Special's Counter and then use Back Aerial as the finisher out of that! It's not as robust as his other options given the lag, but that's also very fair given the actual KO potential late as it may be.

Up Aerial - Hawk's Lament​

The King of Sorrow performs a rather quick and quite sick flipkick, similar in animation to Ganondorf and the various other characters who kickflip all over the place, with the attack having three different hitboxes. Before we get into those, though, I'll emphasize that this move is fast! Think Zero Suit Samus' Up Aerial in terms of speed to come out, making it the King of Sorrow's fastest aerial to boot, and with fittingly low ending lag to boot. Do note that the King of Sorrow's smaller body leads to noticeably more stubby range though. When you consider the float to stall air progress, the multitude of jumping options available to the King of Sorrow, his rising double jump and even just his general floaty aerial stats he can become a force to be reckoned with whenever he's below you and you're trying to get down! Donkey Kongs hate this one trick!

Onto the hitboxes. The first is right in front of the King of Sorrow when the kickflip is first initiated, which serves as a sweetspot that deals 8.5% damage and "decent" upwards knockback, which given the low damage still doesn't kill until 210% from the ground and 170% from a top Battlefield Platform. That might sound quite bad, but do consider that the King of Sorrow can juggle people very high and has nearly unparalleled aerial chase potential with his movement. Or put most directly: The King of Sorrow can get foes a lot closer to the blast zone easier than a ton of the cast, even without platforms, so this initial hit can actually steal sneaky kills reasonably early if you combo a foe upwards. The biggest obstacle to this is honestly staling as you'll probably Up Aerial foes up a few times to get them there and Up Aerial is such a crucial combo tool to the King of Sorrow that it'll be staled pretty frequently. Still, it can be a finisher when need be. Another potent use of this is that the higher knockback can set up for a Neutral Special Command Dash sweetspot earlier than the other hitboxes, though it won't usually be a true combo, which can be an early off the top kill!

The middle hitbox has the lower damage than the first hit and comprises most of the attack's hitbox and is the main one you'll be using! It deals 7% damage and light upwards knockback that lets you combo into another Up Aerial quite well until nice percents, although each Up Aerial is going to be hitting from higher on the hitbox and so chains are limited, and depending on the foe/% (generally speaking, larger foes and those that fall fast will be chained for longer, with fall speed and gravity playing a bigger part) you might be able to combo or mix in minion jumps. Both this hit and the first hit of Up Aerial can combo from a Neutral Aerial or Forward Aerial depending on timing, which will usually come down to if the King of Sorrow wants to put the opponent further upwards or not. Minion jumps can either combo or 50/50 foes after a standard Up Aerial hit even at higher percentages, although comboing is much harder, and the multihit nature of Neutral Aerial or Forward Aerial can be great for beating out panic air dodges. But on top of that the King of Sorrow can simply abuse his high mobility once he gets a foe high in the air, like tossing a minion at the foe and ZAiring a Flying Moo while they deal with that so that he can jump back in, which if you add in an item toss or having a Neutral Special counter later can just plain get crazy! This is where most of the King of Sorrow's high flying antics will be set up, Up Aerial chains, so it is one of the really vital moves to learn in the King of Sorrow's set.

Ah, yes, but I did mention a third hitbox before, didn't I? At the very end of the flip kick (when the kick is going behind and down the King of Sorrow) is a secret hitbox, one that also deals 7% damage and surprisingly high hitstun in a semi-spike angle! This has a VERY low horizontal angle and feels very similar to the super-late hit of Ganondorf's Up Aerial, albeit not nearly as strong, and can really send foes down and out offstage. Spoiler alert, the King of Sorrow has no other spikes in his moveset, so this very brief hitbox is the only way he can abuse his high aerial mobility to Ronaldo foes and it isn't THAT strong. This is actually one of the really potent options out of a Neutral Aerial cross-up out of a minion jump though! The reversed position of the foe will pretty much always line them up to be struck by this reverse hit of Up Aerial, so trying to carry an opponent off with Forward Aerials or Neutral Aerials and then finish with a minion jump early Neutral Aerial into reverse Up Aerial can be a super stylish kill strat! Difficult, yes, but it is a unique way to kill and depending on how the King of Sorrow is able to minion jump (obviously taking opponents further down makes it easier) can be an effective early kill. Other uses include spiking an opponent back towards the ground after flying up with them and then using mobility to chase them (or even land before them and cover it!) and that it can lead to a dash in grab if you land it on a grounded opponent. It'd be very risky to land on a grounded opponent, but the high hitstun DOES lead to that and a fair number of other grounded moves, so it's valuable at least! Just...something to only pull out occassionally, you know?

Down Aerial - Solemn Landing​

The King of Sorrow performs a very quick stomp under him, at Frame 6 it ties with Up Aerial as his fastest aerial, a small spark of sorrowful energy emanating from his foot and stalling him briefly in a very similar vein to Lucario. This deals very small damage, 4%, and nearly-non-existant knockback with enough hitstun for the King of Sorrow to have about a 2 frame advantage on the foe on average. This isn't too helpful on its own but does allow a safe landing from the King of Sorrow if he lands it, and he could go for a fast aerial to try and catch out opponents who are attacking. The shieldstun on this attack makes it usually safe but ends up roughly frame neutral or so as the move has only decent ending lag. This is still fairly useful to stall and mix up landings but isn't exactly a super safe approach tool in the end.

There is an optional second hit to this attack you can perform with another Down + A input, which has the King of Sorrow stomp with his other foot and create a larger burst of energy, which deals 9% damage and low-moderate upwards knockback while sending the King of Sorrow upwards during its first aerial use in a manner akin to R.O.B.'s DAir. This comes out 9 frames after the first hit if immediately cancelled and has a 15 frame cancel window, so it'll true combo from the first hit if you want too. The upwards knockback isn't really the best for follow-ups but the King of Sorrow could try for a Forward Aerial or Neutral Aerial if he wanted. The most common thing to do, though, is simply back off: DI away with the upwards momentum and the King of Sorrow has gained decent space and is in his element in the air. The ending lag on this move is pretty aggressively average.

Overall, the main purpose of Down Aerial is landings: It adds another option to mix up your timing alongside the float without committing to the more expensive options like Neutral Special or minion jumping, with two modes of "small delay" and "small hop" to pick from and vary based on if you do the follow-up attack or not. It's safe enough on shields to not be too dangerous, but at the same time offers a small reward in the process. The coverage is decent for a downwards striking attack as well, and the fact that it stalls his momentum means he could use it to cut a minion jump drastically short. This can be used to avoid punishment but almost all scenarios where you would be punished from that won't put the foe where Down Aerial's hitbox is, so be aware that unless their punishing option is committal they could just...walk up and hit you during Down Aerial. It's still another trick in the cap of movement the King of Sorrow has, though!

Suffering Standards​

Jab - Last Resort​

The King of Sorrow's jab is one of the simplest moves in his entire set, starting with a single punch forward, followed by a second and then ending with a straight thrust of the Baguji form claw to finish the combo. The first two hits are very similar visually to Sonic's Jab and have similar frame data with the King of Sorrow's having 1 frame slower start-up. Both of these hits do pretty low damage, 1.7% each, while the final hit deals 4.6% damage for a total of a clean 8%. Knockback is pretty standard Sakurai Angle knockback, with decent base knockback and low scaling. Ending lag is on the low side, but like most jabs it won't deal enough shieldstun to be safe against shields.

The main use of the King's jab is as a panic button. Opponent getting too close for comfort when you're trying to win neutral? Throw out a Jab and push back to a bit of a neutral reset, and at low percents a good range for Forward Tilt. A bit more advantage from a minion than you expect and thus not sure of your follow-up options? Jab is always a fast tool for that. You can toss an item upwards, Jab and have plenty of time to catch it before it comes down, very useful for itemized minions or the like. It can also be used as a jab reset in times the foe is proned. The downside of this attack is low reward, the King of Sorrow receives no combos out of this move and it largely just serves as a situational reset, and that the first two hits have some pretty stubby and jointed range that can easily be kept out of if you're too jittery about the enemy. Overall, though, it has a pretty straightforward point in the King of Sorrow's gameplay.

Forward Tilt - Indecisive Demise​

The King of Sorrow summons the claw from his Baguji-esque first form, which he crashes down in front of him as golden claw marks slash in place, looking very similar to Wolf's Forward Tilt. He only does a single slash and it isn't outwards like Wolf's, but the move is still very similar in having moderate start-up (one frame later than Wolf, frame 9 for the close hit and frame 10 for the far hit) and fairly quick recovery (2 frames later). The claw is of higher size and has more range to it, and the way the hitboxes work also mean that the move is primarily a neutral-focused spacing tool.

The close hit is the weaker hit, dealing only 5% damage and light knockback. The hitstun is high enough for it to be safe on hit, but it doesn't give the King of Sorrow any frame advantage and it doesn't even send opponents far enough to feel like a true "neutral reset", so it is mostly a low reward compensation for not spacing it right. The second and later hit, which has much more range, deals 9% damage and some good knockback. It is primarily meant for spacing but if matches go PARTICULARLY long it will kill at about 200% and obviously it'll launch people away enough to get slick edge advantage before then.

Before that however it serves as the primary neutral tool for the King of Sorrow: The range and ending lag make it fairly safe to throw out and the damage is high for a tilt, with it granting enough knockback for the more spacing-oriented ground and minion game of the King. While it doesn't have combo potential due to distance the King of Sorrow DOES get a nice frame advantage off of it, which he can either try to set up during, or at lower or low-mid percents the spacing is close enough to get aggressive and force the opponent to react with a minion jump, a shorthop aerial (usually Forward Aerial or Back Aerial) or a Dash Attack. At mid percents the opponent will usually get launched at about the distance for a sweetspotted Neutral Special Counter-Command Dash, and while that's not true it can deal high damage to an unprepared opponent and near the ledge even be a kill confirm! This mid-percent threat can also make opponents air dodge in fear if the King of Sorrow does a little movement, at which point he can run in for a grab or land another quick attack off of it. Another thing to consider is simply flinging your stored object at the foe, retreating to get even more space while giving them a projectile to deal with. This is a true combo from the sweetspot at 0%-20% on most characters for whatever that is worth.

This attack can be angled up or down. The up angle can catch out shorthops and has a slight upward arc to the knockback, KOing slightly later but allowing the King of Sorrow to also use this move as a potential anti-air without having to meet air-to-air. Angling down hits low enough to strike opponents hanging from the ledge and so serves as a similar tool to many Down Tilts as a tool to keep people from hanging on the ledge too long or 2-frame opponents. Note that the King of Sorrow's Down Smash (and Forward Smash) cannot two frame opponents, so he doesn't have a lot of super powerful options there outside of traps. The slight downward angle added to the move's hitbox when angled down adds a small trip chance (20%) to foes at low percents hit with it and also adds some more danger to hitting a foe on the ledge with it. At the ledge it kills at around 165%, which is reasonable enough to keep in mind (since it can also just send opponents in a bad recovery spot before then!).

Up Tilt - Tranquil Gesture​

Lifting a fist down to the ground, the King of Sorrow performs a Mario-esque uppercut with his fist. The King of Sorrow slightly hops up as he performs the hit, with it being a fast move on both ends (although a bit slower than Mario's Up Tilt by comparison on both ends, 1 frame more start-up and 2 frames more end lag) and deals 5% damage in the process. The hitbox in front of the King of Sorrow is quite poor: It can certainly scoop up opponents right in front of him, but that's about as far as it goes unless the opponent is a bit higher in the air as the top of his fist has a bit more horizontal range. This makes it slightly more effective against taller characters. You'll basically want to be up close and personal with the foe or catch them out of the air, anyway.

Once you do, it is combo city! Up Tilt can link into itself 2-3 times at very low percents, but past that point it basically leads into whatever the King of Sorrow wants out of Forward Aeria/Up Aerial/Neutral Aerial/ZAir and can potentially combo into Up Special or throwing a stored item as well, and can actually combo into a stored Neutral Special counter as well, although unless you countered a spectacularly strong move it'll stop comboing before the NSpec kills. ZAir is a particularly interesting choice since it will effectively let you drag opponents backwards with a backwards shorthop for the inwards sweetspot. If you read the aerials, you probably have a pretty good idea of the combo paths you can start going down from here, and overall it makes Up Tilt the valued ground starter he craves despite all the range and other weaknesses. Despite being so fast, Up Tilt is unsafe on shield at any range so keep that in mind. It also deals quite little damage by itself even for a combo starter. Up Tilt -> Up Smash is true at lower percents if you just want to launch opponents high into the air and you can charge an Up Smash after Up Tilt to catch air dodges until pretty late percents, which is the power option out of Up Tilt for him.

Down Tilt - Royal Entreatment​

From his crouching position, the King of Sorrow simply stabs forward with one of his hands as an open palm, a quick action that has low starting lag and low ending lag. It's actually the fastest option in the King of Sorrow's ground game, with two hitboxes to it. His arm is a sourspot that deals 5% damage and lightly knocks opponents away, failing to launch them particularly far until 60%+, at which point it'll force a tech situation from opponents for about 20%-30% depending on the foe. The sourspot has a 30% trip chance at all percents. The hand itself is a sweetspout that deals 6% damage and knocks opponents upwards and slightly away from the King, serving as an aerial launcher that is best for a grounded or shorthop follow-up with Forward Tilt or Forward Aerial, although it loses combo ability rather quickly. Both hits can shieldpoke and hit quite low, and while the sweetspot isn't "safe" on shield quickly using another Down Tilt will likely stuff slower out of shield options. The sourspot will essentially always be unsafe on shield due to the closer proximity to the foe, although how well opponents can meaningfully reply to it as a fast attack is a different story. It's not like it is unreactable though, so be careful against any opponent with strong out of shield options if you can't poke 'em!

The primary use of the Down Tilt is to shield poke and low profile opponents, with the sourspot able to provide some unique rewards such as a tech chase that Down Special is adept at following up on or that minions can help out with and a trip that gives its own chase options. The secondary use is that it provides another aerial launcher after Up Tilt. The reward is basically always lesser and if you have to choose from the two you should always go for Up Tilt, but there's some scenarios where you can't do that (Down Tilt, despite stubby range overall, still has longer horizontal range than Up Tilt!), and being able to convert a poked shield into a Forward Aerial is at low and early mid percents is valuable. Fun trick at parties: Tilt toss a minion held as an item into the air, trip an opponent with Down Tilt, grab it as it lands and throw it or ZAir it out of the air and jump off it. Not a combo, but a flashy way to catch people off guard!

Dash Attack - Consuming Sorrow​

The King of Sorrow rushes forward as energy surges inside of his hand, a burst of quick speed allowing him to launch forward as he swipes with the energy as a strong physical attack that reminds one of Mewtwo's Dash Attack. This attack lingers for a fairly long time and lacks any sweetspot/sourspot positioning, but it DOES degrade in power on the latter half of the hitbox. The initial hitbox deals 13% damage and KOs at 133%, fairly powerful for a Dash Attack with Frame 12 start-up, while the late hit deals 9% damage and mediocre knockback that's best for spacing. The ending lag is on the long end and makes this attack punishable both on shield and on whiff, so you don't want to casually be throwing this attack out without backup.

Dash Attack's placement in the King of Sorrow's gameplan can seem very odd at first, as his ground game largely focuses on either starting an aerial combo or spacing out foes and his air game focuses on either mobility-combos or air-to-ground / landing mixups, while the Dash Attack is a risky call-out approaching option with no ground-to-air capability. Ultimately, what it comes down to is that Dash Attack helps keep opponents "honest" as it were. The King of Sorrow's approach options can be very varied with setup, but there are times that an opponent turtling up against his campier playstyle can be difficult to crack, and the opponent can rely on dodging the very predictable minion patterns and trying to anti-air the King of Sorrow constantly. Dash Attack calls out these habits!

Opponent keeps rolling back to avoid Glibz missiles, or playing back to catch items thrown? Try tossing an item forward and then Dash Attacking to punish people mindlessly focused on item collection, and the burst of speed allows the King of Sorrow to punish people at the edge of a missile range by waiting near Dash Attack range and forcing opponents to consider if it is running in for a Dash Attack, staying back to counter the foe's own approach (you could go under the missiles, after all!) with a Forward Tilt or Back Aerial, or even going to instead empty dash / empty hop into a grab, all of which can be enhanced with the threat of suddenly darting a new direction with a minion jump. The attack's duration allows it to catch out rolls and spot dodges with more frequency, and being one of the King's unconditional later end KO options means that he can fish for it when his Crystals or Nemo Moos aren't working out (and the opponent isn't getting somewhere Up Smash can appropriately react).

Similarly, the range of this attack is enough to catch out some hops, so if an opponent is escaping your air space by landing or perhaps they are mindlessly swinging at ghosts with short hop aerials to try and anti-air you, a Dash Attack in with a sudden burst of speed can be the key to breaking it! That burst of speed does a lot given the mediocre movement that the King of Sorrow is saddled with. Maybe an opponent is playing around the edge of a Probe's range, so you're sticking around the edge yourself and threatening to rush in with a Dash Attack / Minion Jump / NSpec Command Dash mixup if they come in or stay put! It can be a risky follow-up after a Forward Aerial drag down or a Forward Tilt sweetspot and is also the strongest common ground combo "finisher" as while Up Smash is stronger it also can't hit in a lot of scenarios.

Dash Attack has a lot of weaknesses, it folds to shield pressure and the hitbox being focused on the hand can allow attacking around it while the overall starting lag is pretty average, and there are a lot of time in the King's gameplan where it might not work. But it provides an important piece of the overall puzzle that a lot of his other moves don't and so is a valuable if niche tool, and you'll get an unexpected number of kills with it if you're cognizant of when it's a good time to throw out!

Melancholy Smashes​

Up Smash - Sojourn Smash​

Crouching down with an early frame to charge on, the King of Sorrow leaps into the sky and performs a 540 kick as he does so! Visually it is very similar to Falco's Up Smash with a touch of Sonic's Up Tilt thrown in for good measure. A 2-hit attack, the first hit deals a simple 4.5%-6.3% damage and exists solely to set up for the second hit, which deals 11.5%-16.1% damage, resulting in a grand total of 16%-22.4% damage as the highest damaging of the King's Smashes. This attack kills at 120%-90%, and while disappointing for the strongest (base) Smash Attack in his arsenal it is still a reasonable kill percent for a combo/spacing focused character. The attack itself comes out decently fast (Frame 9 for the first hit, Frame 15 for the second), with fairly average (though trending a bit towards the slower side) ending lag. Like most Smash Attacks it'll probably be punishable if you flatout miss.

The primary use of this attack is to snag people landing or from your aerial assault, with the high aerial striking capability letting people get hit from high and the power behind the King of Sorrow's entire air game. The hitbox starts in front of the King as expected from that kind of kick and so it is also really strong at intercepting shorthop approaches. If you drag an opponent down on a platform with Forward Aerial then Up Smash is pretty much always the follow-up you want and can be a kill confirm even! You can also try drag down Neutral Aerial to Up Smash even without platforms, but that is Unreliable. That's because while the jump upwards is a strength against aerial opponents, it can also be a weakness: The horizontal range on the ground of this move is kinda poor and can result in some opponents being too short for the attack, an issue that gets worse the further away the foe is horizontally (as the leg is further in the air the farther into the kick it goes, meaning it'll whiff more and more). The back hit also basically entirely misses grounded opponents with disturbing regularity and low crouches can be a pain. Basically while it'll scoop opponents pretty close to the King of Sorrow into the Up Smash overall, it doesn't have the horizontal range you might anticipate. Still an overall reliable killing tool for later in stocks when you use it properly.

Down Smash - Void Joy​

And finally we come to the King of Sorrow's Down Smash and, hey, we saved a big one for last! That makes you happy, right? Or...would you rather have a shorter move at the end, so you could be done with such a long set? Ah, ah, sorry...

Taking out a spike ball from the first phase of his boss fight, kinda cobweb-y lookin' honestly, and joylessly rolls it forward like a bowler who's gotten 3 gutterballs in a row. This move shares how it handles charge with Snake's Up Smash in that the damage it deals doesn't change with charge and instead it deals a constant 13% damage. Instead, speed and range is what increased with charge. At no charge, the spike ball goes forward one Battlefield Platform at a slow pace. At maximum charge, it goes two Battlefield Platforms and travels MUCH faster. It goes through its 2 BFP of range before an uncharged Smash would go through its one BFP pace to give a comparitive idea. This makes the uncharged Smash fairly good at controlling space for longer periods of time, while the charged version is instead a projectile that travels fast and thus is hard to block. This attack is overall somewhat less laggy than Snake's Up Smash, but note that the King of Sorrow can only have one spike ball out at a time, with the previous one vanishing as soon as a new one is produced by this move (6 frames into the attack, even if being interrupted obviously stops it from actually being used). The spike ball will fall off of platforms, so you COULD roll this off a ledge if you wanted to edgeguard that way albeit as a somewhat slow option. Note it will disappear after the normal distance after falling, counting vertical distance as horizontal.

Spike balls stay out on the field for 10 seconds after they stop rolling as stationary traps, although they cannot be grabbed by the King of Sorrow's grabs as they aren't "objects", which deal 8% damage and moderate upwards knockback. Spike balls will only deal damage once, dissolving in a dream-like unraveling way after doing so. This has all the usual uses of a trap, and if you have a Glibz out then putting this roughly between where its missiles are landing can make for a treacherous war field for the foe to traverse! Where this trap gets REAL, though, is whenever a foe who is in hitstun hits the trap!

When an opponent in hitstun hits the trap, they will be pressed harder against it with a piercing sound effect, and while this deals the same 8% damage and knockback as normal, it converts the total hitstun the foe had into 1.3x the hitstun as they fly! This essentially allows the King of Sorrow to use this trap as a particularly potent combo extender, although the nature of the hitstun multiplication means that it can be better to hit with an unorthodox move like Forward Tilt rather than his multihit combo tools like Forward Aerial. Placing a spike ball onto a platform can be adepted at this to put a grounded opponent into it from, say, Dash Attack or Back Aerial with high knockback/hitstun to get a higher reward. At the same time, something like drag down Forward Aerial will have a lot less ending lag and the ability to more properly control the foe's positioning due to said dragging nature mean it is more than viable to get added combos off of something like a Forward Aerial. No matter the situation, a minion jump can be very helpful because otherwise the King of Sorrow's slower second jump might leave him a bit behind on getting to the foe for combos. Feel free to try and combine this with a lot of other options: Maybe Down Tilt's tech chasing would work nicely, or how about Down Aerial's second hit under a spike ball so that the foe is hit into it while the King of Sorrow rises from that Down Aerial and then gets to effectively chase?

And on top of that, the Down Smash is considered solid, and so if you want you can stick a Nemo Moo to it! This is particularly notable since an opponent could easily be hit by the Nemo Moo and then strike the Down Smash, which will multiply the hitstun of the Nemo Moo! With how knockback stacking works in Smash Ultimate, the explosion's knockback will take priority (unless I misunderstand), which can lead to high flying escapades as the King of Sorrow follows. But it also simply allows a vehicle for the King of Sorrow to stick TWO Nemo Moos too in advance setups, with the spike ball's size being small enough that the Nemo Moos can still activate each other's explosions. And leaving aside purely sticking a Nemo Moo to the spike ball, sticking one on a platform directly above a spike ball can be an effective way to make the time bomb more viable to hit, as you can either hit people into the Nemo Moo OR lead them into the spike ball which launches them into the Nemo Moo itself!

Armored Moo will hop over spike balls to avoid them and thus like Nemo Moos this is another way to control when they hop, while Glibz will try to avoid backing into them. Spike balls cannot actually harm any minions like all of the King's kit. Spike balls will not multiply any hitstun that has already been multiplied to prevent any very silly shenanigans by chaining spike balls in 2v2 or something, instead always delivering the normal hitstun. The stationary nature of the trap and usually fairly predictable path of the knockback + it not being as large as something like a Nemo Moo or as short in hitstun as something like an Armored Moo makes it a solid choice to try and finish a foe off with a Neutral Special command dash. I'll leave any more fun ideas to you readers, so don't be too sad about our travel ending here...

Final Smash - For Whom The Bell Tolls​

The King of Sorrow spreads his arms wide as he calls for the foe to "Atone for the sins of this world!" in Klonoaspeech, a burst of energy surrounding him as he does so as an activating hit.

If anyone is hit by this activation strike, then it will transport everybody to the same throne room and arena from his final boss fight in Klonoa 2, the King of Sorrow looking away from them and out the arena solemnly. As he does so, the Bell of Sorrow in the center of the room begins to ring: If Klonoa is not in the match, then he will trigger it in the process, while Leorina from Klonoa 2 will do so if Klonoa is in the match, and the bell will begin to ring mysteriously by itself if BOTH are in a match. Whatever the case, the bell rings three times as the King of Sorrow begins to cry, closing his eyes and tilting his head back as the screen fades to white and we return to the match. This Final Smash deals three hits of 20% damage for a total of 60% and kills at 50% and earlier (pre-hit damage to be clear it isn't a OHKO).

"You...don't have to...run anymore. You don't have to...be afraid.

The voice calling me...the one crying out to the world for help...

It was you, wasn't it?"​

 

[GolisoPower]

The youth lay on the park bench, sleeping soundly. His black leather jacket and studded scarf may be uncomfortable to sleep in for some, but for him, he was used to it.

Suddenly, a shadow loomed over the young man, his face peaceful in his sleep.

“Sir. Wake up.”

A gloved hand pushed at his side before he slowly stirred. His yellow eyes slowly pried themselves open before he looked up to the yellow eyes of a tall, muscular woman, the top part of her face obscured in what looked like the shards of a wolf skull. He let out a casual yawn as he stretched his legs and got on his feet.

“Is…is there a problem, ma’am?”

“I’m here to ask you a couple of questions,” said the woman. “I’ve noticed a bunch of missing person reports in this area, and when I asked around they point to a local group of thugs in this area. You wouldn’t happen to know a part of it, would you?”

The boy, his eyebrow raised, grew suspicious. Before he decided to say anything, he began to glow with multicolored waves as his eyes started to roll into the back of his head. In this state, her brain was loud and clear.

“He looks like the kind of punk who will fight back regardless of whether or not he’s one of them,” said the woman’s thoughts. “He tries anything funny, I’ll have to subjugate him and bring him in.”

As his power flared down, the boy looked back up at the woman with a distrustful glare.

“Look, I don’t know what you think of me,” he said, trying to feign a civilian. “But if you think I’m gonna-”

“If you’re gonna read the mind of a law-woman, at least make it less obvious,” she said, throwing him off-guard.

“What the sh*t,” hollered the kid.

“That expulsion of power you irradiated to read my mind. They came from your head. You’re a Nerveflarer, aren’t you? And quite the inexperienced one considering the amount of strain you put into the technique. I’ve dealt with your kind of people before. But I don’t wanna go about hurting kids like you. So please comply and I promise you no harm will come to you.”

This really set the boy off. His fist started to glow with a holy power before clocking her tattooed stomach with a haymaker that shocked even the woman, who was sent careening across the park and into a tree.

“You're with those punks that tried to screw over the town a while back!? Well tell you what, I’ve kicked your asses once, don’t think I won’t do it again!”

Nursing her stomach for a moment, the woman’s head looked back up at the delinquent, her golden eyes slowly flashing red for a moment. She got up and glared down at him.

“I think you have the wrong impression of me, brat,” she growled. “Make it easier on yourself, and back down.”

“...to hell with that,” he growled as he cracked his knuckles.

“I’m gonna kick your ass before I do any of that!”

 

[Torgo the Bear]

The Sign Painter had led the Customer through the woods on what seemed like a wild goose chase. The trees became larger and larger. The vegetation grew wilder and wilder. And the fog grew thicker and thicker... but the Signs still persisted, constantly encouraging the Customer to travel further. A squadron of Gooballs were following behind the Customer, transporting a group of subdued, corrupted Goo that had been overtaken by the strange influence of the Broken Vessel and Shroob technology. According to the Sign Painter, there was probably someone in these woods who would know how to help...

After a long while, the Customer slipped and fell, leading them to tumble down a steep cliff. Upon crashing to the ground below, they found themselves in a quaint little village safely hidden and protected by the fog and powerful woodland vegetation. The place was filled with beautiful farmland, and unbelievably gigantic crops of all kinds were growing in the fields. The Customer wandered through the town until a quartet of Frogs approached them.

"Welcome, traveler!" Said one of the Frogs. "This is the humble village of Gardenton."

One expositiony Sign left by the Sign Painter later, and the Frogs were taking the Customer and the corrupted Gooballs to the village's leader...

"You've encountered another living Spore? Please... tell me everything you know."​

 

[Katapultar]

Jamcon 5's Submission Period is over! I feel like this was our second-strongest Jamcon this contest after Jamcon 1, with some incredible entries and absolutely hype character choices. You all went above and beyond this time around. Let's take a look at the contestants:

1. First up is a large serving of Alcohol Witch Daniella by Arctic Tern, the master of speed and the first one to post their Jamcon set in all 5 of MYM25's Jamcon contests! This is especially impressive when you consider that Daniella is 17k, and a Witchverse OC with ties to Goliso's Wolf Witch Veronica from this contest. Daniella qualifies for 2022 because Tern conceptualized her character in 2022, as many of you would know from their huge list of set plans.
2. Next is Herminia by Junahu and their debut Jamcon entry. Hailing from Octopath Traveler, which got a gacha in 2022, this Heavyweight Female Antagonist is all about money and gold, and can bust out some killer dance moves too. Don't let her essences make you forget to read her!
3. Third is Giganotosaurus (Jokersaurus) by Slavic, the big dinosaur from the Jurassic World: Dominion movie that came out this year. Slavic has talked a lot about the Jurassic Park franchise and done rankings recently, so it feels fitting that a dinosaur would make their way into a set. But, as I'm sure is the case with the Jurassic Park movies, be sure to expect the unexpected...
4. Fourth is Baron Mordo by n88, a Dr. Strange bad guy who is effectively characterized by summoning n88's highest-placing set from MYM9 as a boss. Anyone who enjoys reading boss write-ups will definitely like this one. Like Giganotosaurus, the dude appeared in the latest installment of a mainstream American film franchise that was released this year, that being Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
5. Elimine by WeirdChillFever is a similar case to the above: a setmaker who sets a trend for tackling a specific franchise for their Jamcon sets, as this priestess hails from the Fire Emblem franchise just like Daisy. She's an oldie who first appeared in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, but she qualifies for 2022 because she made her debut in the gacha Fire Emblem: Heroes.
6. Here is a 3rd franchise repeater: Mad Dog by UserShadow7989, hailing from LiveALive because it got a remake this year. That we got sets for The Sundown Kid and O. Dio last Jamcon makes this entry incredibly fitting, and extra hype because US said earlier that the LAL remake elevated Mad Dog to be his favourite character in the game.
7. The King of Sorrow by FrozenRoy is the main antagonist of the Klonoa 2 remake, which Froy said he played recently so that's really cool. The Klonoa franchise has not gotten any entries for a loooong time, either. This is a big boy set from our boy, so expect a lot from this Jamcon entry!
8. Speaking of entities that came from a long time, Akira Tadokoro by GolisoPower is... in fact the very first LAL character who got a moveset, way back in MYM6! He was made by UserShadow, but it seems that our boy Akira teleported into the modern era to be with the other 4 LAL sets. It's truly a LiveALive contest. Not gonna lie, LiveALive was the franchise I was most hoping to see get more sets, so I'm quite happy that we got 2 more this time around. Will also say that Goliso played the LiveALive remake, and it was fun to read their reactions to events and happenings from the game.
9. The final entry for this Jamcon.... Apothecary Gary by Torgo the Bear! This invasive mushroom is our first entry from the Amphibia franchise, which is particularly special because it is Torgo's favourite Disney TV series. I love it when setmakers establish a franchise that they love and make sets for, the more the merrier. Unlike our other Jamcon entries which came from a source material that originated in 2022, Gary comes from a TV show that ended in 2022! This makes the set a perfect fit to close off this Jamcon.

As usual, you have 2 weeks to read and comment entries before you nominate your favourite one. If people are having trouble finishing up their reading, I can extend the deadline by a week if necessary.

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Baron Mordo

I was excited when I thought you pumped out a Dormammu remake, but a Dr. Strange enemy is equally exciting given Venom Strange exists in this contest. Nonetheless, this set could be considered a “Dormammu remake”, albeit in a way that has never been attempted before - instead being a playable character, Dormammu is a summonable boss! Talk about setting a cool atmosphere - last summonable boss I remember was Numeronious on Don Thousand’s set. If Jokersaurus was a “literally MYM crossover” in moveset form, then Baron Mordo is a boss write-up in moveset form.

Boss write-ups are rare in MYM, despite their prominence in older MYM story modes like Playing God. Not a complaint, but it might be a good idea to give Dormammu’s teleport -some- visual indication if it has a hitbox: feels like it would be a bit annoying to play against as a boss, even if the actual hitbox can’t KO. That aside, the boss set-up with the random, vanishing platform formation, and homing fireball that leaves behind a wall of flames is nice fun, the type of fun you can only get away with on a boss.

Onto the main set, I was curious how Dormammu would be balanced as a boss, whether the player would lose control of Mordo, but making Dormammu hostile to Mordo was a fun touch. Presenting Dormammu’s boss write-up first, then noting balance changes for the main set (shorter Wall of Fire, Dormammu loses HP over time, stage doesn’t change to the Dark Dimension, etc.) was actually really clever, so said write-up means that Dormammu could be fought as a boss on his own.

Mordo has a clever trick to manipulate his Darkness and Dormammu’s time in his double-edged Neutral Special, and neat that you were able to reuse Venom Strange’s portals in a way (and telekinetically throw opponents around, which oddly reminds me of MYM6 Raven set). I could see situations where the first portal could be dumped far below the stage for cheap gimps, where you use your empowered midair jump to return to the stage without needing to recover, but it’s not such a big issue that it would detract from my opinion of the set.

Closing off the Specials is Side Special, which has a concise but interesting duplicate control scheme that almost feels like something I would incorporate in a ninja set. I’m a bit iffy that attacking the duplicate is a pseudo-counter, and that foes have no way to tell between the real and fake aside from the fake’s attacks being illusory: maybe the illusion could have a short time limit? I do like how the illusion works with F-tilt, though. That aside, I like the little note write-up on how the move was taken from MYM9 Dr. Strange, and that MYM9 Strange’s playstyle works better on Mordo. Funny how that works!

Mordo channels some Venom Strange in having some regular inputs that are entertaining or have unique ideas: U-tilt and D-tilt’s knockback trajectories, the damage boost on pummel, U-throw “teleport” rather than throw-em-up reminds me a bit of Acid Seaforce’s D-throw. Being the magic man must help with making wild attack inputs. Soul manipulation mechanics would have been crazy, but I think you made the right call in cutting it out. I also admire your boldness for writing a F-air that effectively has no hitbox, just a windbox: that feels like something from old MYM! But more fitting here when Mordo is partly based off of an old MYM set.

Whereas Venom Strange felt like a fully complete set in spite of time constraints, I get the impression that Mordo petered out a bit starting from the Throws or Aerials. But that’s okay! I can see how his mechanics and Specials aren’t the easiest to play off of compellingly. The curse effect feels played off finely. While writing this part of the comment before I read the Smashes, I thought Mordo could have some magic fluff where he can duplicate or reproduce hitboxes, like exploit Dormammu’s flame wall.

Nonetheless, Baron Mordo was a memorable set - or rather, Dormammu made the set very memorable by being a boss in a moveset, which was a real treat. I wouldn’t mind ever doing my own take on the genre: I now know that it’s a great way to sneak in boss write-ups and make people read them! Good job on this set, n88.

Also, that Final Smash is hilarious.

 

[Arctic Tern]

All sets for this Jamcon have been commented!

My nomination for this goes to the King of Sorrow by Froy.

 

[UserShadow7989]

Alcohol Witch Daniella by Arctic Tern ***

I remember you bringing up the idea of the character in the past, but I hadn't expected her to get a fully fleshed out set for a Jamcon. Not only does she have the same mechanical depth that allows the reader to imagine her in practice that's been one of your consistent strong points from the start, she manages to do what I always try to do with Witchverse sets and has a decent few playground elements that interweave with each other nicely- the Barrels, Puddles, Shots, etc all add up to an extra layer over her strong fundamentals without ever feeling overwhelming to track or tacked on.

As always, there's a strong feel of the character in the set, with small references to the character's story and a demonstration of their personality laced throughout each section. Daniella's well introduced at the start of the set in history, personality, and appearance, and the set ensures you'll never forget who it's for and who she is. I'm always impressed with how everyone fleshes out the setting and the people in it so well.

As ever, I'm a big fan of the playground elements; the barrels sound like a ton of fun to make use of, and the puddles bring to mind that old MYM styling of slip and slide mechanics- executed far better here, of course. The Drunken status ties it all together nicely to give her a strong playstyle conceit, managing to keep a controlled calm to her style of play even through the drunken haze that emphasizes her personal motto.

The Jamcon starts off strong with a good set even by the standards of the strong contest at large.

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Elimine

I’m glad to see you’re delving more and more into the Fire Emblem franchise, which I’m starting to associate you with more and more. I thought you were going to tackle a Three Houses or Three Hopes set this Jamcon, so seeing a character not from those games was a bit of a surprise. As someone who enjoys gacha games, it was enjoyable to hear the set reference typical gacha elements, like reusing attack animations, and referencing cash grabs. Great stuff. This set has a surprising amount of FE references for how short it is, and I’m sure that MYM’s resident FE fans will get a good amount of enjoyment from them.

The set is clearly buff-based and has some understandably basic Specials, but boosting your stats further by staying around Holy Ground and your recovery gaining or losing height with damage are interesting concepts. Funny enough, I feel like Elimine revolving around buffs is pretty fitting for her, given she seems to be a good representation of the Fire Emblem: Heroes game. Side Special sort of reminds me of a more simplified version of Herminia’s more crazy Up Special, an attack that stuns your opponent if they attack.

The 3 different attack animations behind F-Smash are fascinating, and part of me wishes this was a fully-fleshed out attack (if you had more time). Black holes, meteors. Bold of you to tease us with such an attack. The grab and throws being a big reference to FEH’s banners and summon rates is great fun. Makes me interested in seeing a set for Guadko to meme in F/GO or Blue Archive. The mass references make Elimine feel more like a FE / FEH representative than her own character, but given her character history that makes sense in a way. The moves are generally simple, but Dash Attack is a nice way to end the set with it complimenting the momentum-based Aerials, and I enjoyed the little line about gacha players knowing how to spend their resources.

All and all, a fun little read and love letter to gacha games in general, which was a fun side of you to see.

 

[FrozenRoy]

The Heaviest of Novas (Idar n88 )

It's time to start this Jamcon but...commenting on an old Jamcon set that I read about a month ago or so! I was responsible for this existing via playing through the monstrosity that was Heavy Nova, so it is my cross to bear.

Idar takes on the difficult task of translating the game Heavy Nova into Smash, which is a real jankfest of a title, but the way Idar does it is actually kinda interesting? Despite the fact that Terry introduced a Back Special ages ago in MYM time, there hasn't been much exploration of the concept afterwards. Idar uses attacks like Back Tilt to help cover for the fact that, much like in Heavy Nova, Idar has turning lag that would make Xemnas blush. As somebody who PLAYED Heavy Nova I also got quite the chuckle from various writing in this set, such as "The big thing this has going for it over ROB’s version of the move is that the Idar is INVINCIBLE during it. Or, well, kinda. Not really. Details to follow. Look, it’d be straight busted if you could just hop around and force the enemy to wait for brief windows where you were on the ground to try to attack. What kind of psychopath would design something like that?", but it also gets across the jank feel of Idar and Heavy Nova itself well.

In general, Idar gives off the feeling of low tier, but tricky heavyweight, one with incredibly weird yet potent options with its Down Special crouch (I almost wish it was just a crouch with lag for more jank rather than a Special), Up Special flight, moonwalking, Stamina meter, all backed up by using missiles and lasers to keep the opponent away when Idar isn't ready to fight which is most of the time. The "perfect counter" on the Up Special feels particularly fascinating! The standard melee moves aren't spectacularly fresh but they play into an overall playstyle well and have enough flow to be Fine, although I found Back Smash pretty disappointing as it seems to just send you forward less distance. This set seems clearly designed to go for a back hit and I think it would be much better if the Back Smash was some big, dumb, hard to hit attack (because Heavy Nova) and F-Smash distance just depended on Charge or Stamina. Stamina's higher levels also feel a bit weak, I might make it go to 1.15x or 1.18x or something at max with steps of 0.05x or 0.06x. It isn't like Idar is a set that can take massive combo advantage of damage raising, after all. Down Special emulating the "pick up -> throw to prone -> pick up" infinite from Heavy Nova is fun and it avoids actually going infinite. Forward Tilt also feels like a highlight and how this somewhat-awkward mobility attack plays into the hyper-immobile Idar is good. I like the way Down Tilt mixes up with Forward Tilt and kinda wish there was a way to do it out of the Crouch Special for mixups.

"The named attacks have dried up at this point because the named ones are the ones from Heavy Nova, and Heavy Nova has no aerial attacks, and nothing cool enough to be a Smash. This game has so many problems I didn’t even completely register how bland the attacks were until I started writing this."

So true, man, so true...

Overall, Idar surprised me as I didn't expect it to be Good and not just Funny, but I'd say it hit that low 6 kinda interesting level and that I'd be willing to vote it in the right contest. That's pretty good for a Heavy Nova. And of course I got plenty of chuckles from the writing and sheer existence in general. Heavy Nova franchise when???

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Mad Dog

It’s incredible that you actually made Mad Dog, and I was curious how you’d handle him compared to Tern’s handling of Sundown Kid, especially when his set is nearly twice as long. As with O. Dio, I enjoy LAL gameplay and story references that pop up in the set.

Mad Dog having the option to obscure which of his traps he sets is quite cool: it reminds me of Tesse from Waku Waku 7, and ideas for a YGO Crump set where a Neutral Special was used to set a trap card, but foes didn’t know what card you set. It would be exciting to see this type of concept reused and developed further in a future set. The Specials have a strikingly similar base to O. Dio - Down Special for construct, Neutral Special for main projectile, Side Special for alternate projectile, and Up Special for horse - which is fine by me and a fun way to tie the two characters together. Shooting while riding on the horse is pretty fun for how Mad Dog’s two projectile Specials work. And man, I love the duel aesthetics behind Mad Dog’s F-Smash. It’s interesting to see Texas Jitterbug as a stronger move in Mad Dog’s hands compared to use its Kid’s N-air (also on Dog’s N-air), and Mad Dog miming Kid by using a moltov in his U-Smash. It’s neat that you were able to express Mad Dog’s anger issues in his set.

I don’t have a lot to say about the rest of Mad Dog, but his melee game and set are solid for how little time and potential the character had to play off melee and MYM-wise. Nonetheless, this was a character I recently took an interest in seeing from you when you brought up how his character was elevated in the LAL remake, so I’m very happy that he ended up getting a set! I am all too happy that you’ve been mining LAL for Jamcon sets - I’m curious if you’ll continue to do so next contest, or whether you would try your hand at a more ambitious entry?

Spoiler: Akira Tadakoro

It’s hype to see you make a LAL set after you played the remake, and for the very first character to get a set at that! Here Akira utilizes a LAL mechanic absent from the previous sets, which is neat enough that it’s food for thought as far as (near?-)future LAL sets. Looking at Side Special, now I know why you were asking about applications for turning your opponent around.

Moving 100 units + dealing 200% does feel like too long for a meter that can be reduced: maybe reduce the meter to 30 points? The charge version of Specials would all feel justified with a smaller meter, but Side Special’s seems like it was designed with the ambitious 100 points in mind: even if it’s tied to a projectile that you need to hit with, making the foe unable to face you for 10 seconds seems a bit too oppressive; 5 seconds would be more reasonable. Also, U-Smash’s sample combo with two charge attacks incorporated makes me think that you intended for Akira to have access to his charged attacks at relatively frequent intervals in the match. Balance thoughts aside, the set does a nice job at having some decent moves and giving them regular and charged applications within the Jamcon’s time limit. Some of the moves I was more interested in were D-Smash, charged F-throw, charged U-throw and Side Aerials. Charged Up Special is also a nice base for the Aerials.

Overall, a nice and simple set, but I’m glad to see you’re getting back into Jamcons and setmaking, on a new and fun character choice at that! Maybe you’ll whip out something for the last month of MYM25?

 

[ForwardArrow]

King of Sorrow
I remember a growing sense of excitement from you about this set as you made it and, to be honest, the final product makes it clear why. Its always impressive to me when someone's JamCon project grows in scope like this and yet it gets finished in the end. The set takes a lot of the fun mechanics of Klonoa and puts them on a character who, logically, has a lot of stuff he can summon to play off them with, utilizing the ability to bounce off minions as an incredibly potent jump and aerial combo extender. Its a very fun core, the nuances of which such as the ability to snag minions out of the air but only getting one bounce per type and the presense of NSpecial's stored dash-counter hybrid in combination with it leaves room for a ton of depth and experimentation, and given how resource locked it is it feels a lot more fair compared to something like the old Smash 4 Bayonetta ladder combos. I do like that given his need for setup, his ground game is actually kind of built around a more zoning-based style, with some interesting leads here and there into his potent aerial comboing to make the two styles feel connected beyond just "use grounded tools for setup, aerial moves to go crazy once you have it". Nair, Uair, and Fair are all given a lot of nuance as his combo tools go too, with little weaknesses to each preventing them from being oppressive while having absurd levels of synergy and potency when you use your minion jumps right. Not to mention all the cool setups you can get by building up a crystal with a Likuri or the explosive power of Nemo Moos, the combo and setup potential this set has are both fascinating in their own right and its especially cool to see how well they intersect.

Its not, mind you, a flawless project, I think in part because it gets a little excessive in places. When you give a character really long and potent aerial strings like this, I can't help but think they might not end up as exciting as they seem on paper because the really crazy stuff doesn't play out and you just Smash 4 Bayonetta ladder combo someone to death. With how KoS' tools are designed, I think he's just restricted enough that he's not just going to be able to just do a full kill string off one minion jump at 0% like Bayonetta could, sure, so I think there's plenty of room for stylish aerial combos on him. Its just enough to worry me, especially when you consider that it feels like he has... maybe one or two more traps/minions than he needs. I was thinking the Nemo Moos would extend his item/minion combo potential pretty far already when you add them past the basic selection, but then you ALSO add the probes which boomerang back to him after their first throw and a spike ball to extend hitstun on Down Smash and it starts to feel maybe a little ridiculous? I don't dislike any of these tools and I don't know which to suggest to cut if any, but if you really want to be perfectionist about it I think DSmash would be my first pick along with maybe taking away some of the potential to use Nemo Moos for specific minion things? IDK. I don't feel good making these suggestions as I like what the set can do right now so much, I'm just wondering if there's some changes that could be calculated out for a bit better balance and overall feel.

To balance that out, aside from my complaints with that, the whole set just feels really well thought out. Its both a highly interlinked puzzle and also something that I don't think would be hard to pick up and play, with attacks having a pretty snappy feel in how they play out despite being weird and unconventional in places and having enough baseline potency to make it possible to play the king without fully understanding his fancy tricks. But once you do, the layers of depth are really something to behold: I feel its rare to see a set that both has these kinds of setups for aerial combos and then makes the aerial combo tools this fun and nuanced. Its to the point it might be my overall favorite set I've read from a JamCon, given its my favorite set of yours I've read this contest and Nino was already up there with Catarina for the best set I've seen from a JamCon. So like, REALLY solid work for a 3-4 day set, you should be proud of it, even if I think "favorite JamCon set ever" is an opinion I might end up being the only one to hold with how popular Nino and Venom Strange are.

 

[Arctic Tern]

"The moon is so red tonight... I will end your life for real."

(In commemoration of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil's 20th anniversary)​

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: The King of Sorrow

Froy told me he had an idea for a Klonoa remake character when I told him about my Jamcon idea, and given his ideas I was expecting the final boss and a character and set of this magnitude. I am not familiar with the Klonoa franchise, but I know it has some history in old MYM, like Guntz having a set and Janga from Klonoa Heroes being a boss in old MYM story modes. Anyway, Froy’s ideas for his Jamcon entry were very promising - and they did not disappoint!

Right off the bat, I like that King of Sorrow’s storable counter attack only deals its high knockback when used on the ground. In the air, it fittingly feeds into his aerial combo game, which in turn makes that scary 1.4x damage multiplier much less scary offstage! A smartly-designed move. I remember you brought up this move in private and was considering making one of its stored variants a buff, so it was interesting that you made it an Extremespeed style attack instead. Feels more fitting for a platformer boss.

Placing a Villager-style Pocket on the grab input rather than Specials is not something I would have thought of - clever. Looking at the minion jump-off applications, I see what you meant by “using minions differently”, and I was interested in seeing how you’d balance out what sounded like a potentially insane move before getting into the minions themselves. That defeated minions can be thrown as items adds a fun “backfire” potential to them that I like to see in minion sets: it reminds me of your Forlorn Junk Heap moveset! So that’s where the items you were talking about come into play. Actually, Likuri is the real item. Getting real crazy and MYM’ian with the minion fusion, and the F-Smash time bomb and potential to leave it behind when you jump off of it.

Said craziness actually makes me appreciate the more simplistic nature of KoS’s throws: smart choice not to do anything over-the-top like time bombs when KoS has so much going on with his minions and items and bombs. And U-throw, the more wild of the throws, plays off of KoS’s storage mechanic nicely. Neutral Air is a neat move that plays off of the minion jump well with its cross-up, U-air and D-air fit in nicely too. I wonder if KoS’s Dash Attack could be used to punish the end lag of an enemy move that itemized one of your minions, where the mechanics of Standard attacks would allow KoS to pick up that itemized minion and follow it up after launching the foe! Finally, Smash attacks not being super strong feels pretty fair with KoS’s minions and stuff. D-Smash’s unexpected W-style hitstun bonus is a pretty cool and fitting way to cap the set with all of his various hitboxes, like sticking Nemo Moo onto it.

There are aspects of the set that I’m unsure about. That most of your minions have a passive hitbox like Mario enemies feels a tad extreme, though I imagine it was done to emulate that being the case in the Klonoa games. Between his 4 minions, Nemo Moos and Down Special trap and ability to pocket, KoS somewhat gives off the impression of being able to snowball like a MYM17-18 set if he’s given enough time to set-up - having a flying minion with a passive hitbox that you can place offstage does seem a tad strong depending on the situation. KoS’s Standards and Smashes seem to be balanced around having these minions and not being super rewarding - I do like that design choice.

In placing a large focus on MYM’ian shenanigans and balancing much of the moveset to fit around the minions and traps, a lot of the melee had the impression of being more simple than your usual fare. I appreciated the shorter moves as a break to the longer attacks, but I did get the impression of the melee feeling less refined and satisfying than say, Nephenee. F-Smash felt like a notable move where you had to focus on talking about the projectile and time bomb nature, so you understandably weren’t able to slot in melee applications. Still, one needs to account for the fact that the King of Sorrow is a Jamcon entry! A very good entry from you as per your serious fare, one with a very strong start and imaginative and smartly-executed ideas. You should be proud of this one, especially when he’s the King of FA’s Jamcon Tier List.

On an end note, while you didn’t write up KoS’s backstory to avoid spoilers, I was quite fond of your use of in-game GIFs between each move section. This felt like a fun storytelling method that doesn’t get used much in sets (though I very much remember Khold doing it with Yoshikage Kira), it’s definitely worth exploring.

 

[FrozenRoy]

Cool! A Diamond! (Kula Diamond Arctic Tern )

Look I know I should focus on the Jamcon sets first, but this set was drawing me in, I've been curious since it was posted and haven't looked at much from Tern (Melt joint aside). Kula's one of the characters I'd considered to make from SNK fighters and also fits into the FA archetype. Between this and Alex we're getting some interesting explorations of fighting game mechanics from more new people, aren't we? (Oh and, of course, Idar)

Using Kula's blocking animation as a reason for her shield to have some cool, Yoshi-esque applications is a good idea. You know it's actually kinda funny to have Kula here with her anti-fire association, given Terry's attacks often have a pretty fiery theme to them. Bringing over hyper hopping from the King of Fighters series is also interesting and I like putting it on Kula, a character who isn't rushdown, to instead make it more of a sudden tool to bust out that she has to be aware of when it is a set and quite long distance. It does make me want to see how this mechanic would do on, say, a very aggressive KoF character who can take advantage of it against shields though.

Diamond Breath is VERY fast in ending lag, only 8 frames! That does get nudged by the 22 frames of duration, but the way the lingering works against opponents who jump in feels quite strong. To be honest with the combination of speed, range, decent damage and safety it feels maybe a touch too strong overall as a neutral tool, I might make it either start a few frames later or end a few frames later (I'd probably do the latter myself). I do like how you get quite a lot from rather basic variations of this breath attack, it shows off how small changes can make wider differences.

"The knockback’s angle sets up perfectly for tech chases, which Kula has multiple means of catching out: from held Diamond Breath, to BSpec (yes, she has one) and ending on her DSpec."

Gee, Spongebob, if I had a nickel for every fighting game set I commented on in one day that had a Back Special...

Only 4 frames of ending lag on the reflector variant of Side Special, leaving aside any balance for a moment this means that Kula goes through the entire move (11 + 4 + 5 = 20) in roughly the time it takes an entire Mario Jab 1 to finish, which with the animation sounds like it'll just be...weird? Sure, the active frames make it harder to time than your average reflector, but having such a quick Jab option that can also be a fairly potent reflector seems strong. I'd make it more punishable, at the least when you whiff (you could allow her to recover at very fast speeds in order to follow-up on it more).

In general, this set just seems to have a problem with not having a good grasp of ending lag, and needs increases to it across the board which is weird since the starting lag seems to generally be more in line. To use an example, Down Smash says it has "relatively high endlag of 21 frames.", but in reality 21 frames is quite low for a Smash Attack. For reference, Lucina's Forward Tilt which is definitely not a slow move has 22 frames of ending lag, a Lucina Forward Smash has 38 frames, and a Meta Knight Down Smash has 28 while being one of the least laggy Smash Attacks in the game. To give an exact number, I'd probably increase the ending lag of the Down Smash to around 26 frames if you want it to be Especially Fast, given it is meant to be a weak-but-fast move. Ryu's Down Smash has 35 frames of ending lag for an idea. Kula's "slightly long end lag of 12 frames." Forward Smash is less than half the lag of something like Little Mac F-Smash or Mr. Game & Watch, two examples off the top of my head of fast ending lag. That's less ending lag than most of Mario's normals. Heck, Sheik's Forward Tilt is 16 frames of ending lag! This, unfortunately, kinda kills the set for me right now because it feels pretty abjectly broken and also it is probably not fun to fight against someone with this absurd level of safety. It's true that Terry does have some super safe moves (Down Tilt, Jab) with very low ending lag, but those also often have very little reward outside of Special Cancels and also make up a very small portion of his set with most having more normal lag. And even then, like, Kula's Forward Smash has about the same ending lag as a Terry Forward Tilt, I suppose you COULD say those moves are comparable but it feels off for me. I can't, like, say what every ending lag should be aside from most should be longer, but I'd recommend just checking Ultimateframedata and looking at moves with a similar "feel" in your head and going from there.

Another example, sorry if I am belaboring the point but it just struck out to me, is on the Back Special's Sit option. I like the idea behind it, but 5 frames of endlag is borked. It suggests it is unsafe on shield due to "low shieldstun" but if, say, she hits with the end of the attack then only 8 characters in the entire game have an out of shield option of Frame 4 or earlier and 14 with Frame 5 or earlier, meaning even with 0 shieldstun it is going to be completely safe and is probably even plus without any cancels or anything. Even if you hit with it early and it has minor shield stun, Frame 5 is going to be safe ending lag, let alone factoring in an opponent having to react here since we'll just assume they always react right off the initial Back Special.

Bizarrely the starting lag basically seems fine on every move, though. I'll also note it isn't necessarily every move that has ending lag issues. Down Tilt and Neutral Aerial for example seem fine. But it is very prevelant.

To be honest, I kind of wish Freeze Execution was stronger, especially because IIRC it's kind of her Big Flashy Super? I definitely wouldn't mind seeing the knockback # amped up and more damage to outside foes, right now it feels a bit weak compared to the other Supers especially given the more complex input. God I love Up Smash's sprite animation btw, so cool. I do want to note that, in a general sense, most attacks in Smash Brothers aren't plus on block like in a fighting game to be safe on block raw, although this isn't as much of an issue for the cancellable moves because cancels ARE a way to make it plus on block, and instead it is usually more about shield push and the like. This isn't to say you can't do it, just that it isn't like something common to most moves.

Outside of the numerous numeric issues here, though, Kula Diamond has some truly cool stuff! All of Kula's Specials weave into her cancels appealingly, with Neutral Special usually landing as a "default" option with attacks like Forward Tilt (okay, not a true Special, but it and Dash Attack being cancellable commands normally means they work here!) or the held NSpec as close range options, and then you get stuff like combining Up Tilt's groundbounce to make 50/50 mixups with Forward Special or work into Up Special instead (which seems like the Ken Kill Confirm of her set). Attacks like the Falling Snowman can vary from combos or setup to being not useful on the move, which I think avoids the dreaded need to make every single Special cancel viable on every move. After all that's just not how it works normally and Tern is aware of that, good stuff. I like the use of hyper hops for high flying combos to start such as Neutral Aerial, using a simple landing FAir hitbox like a Falco FAir with them and I think that the gimmick of changing the landing hitbox based on when in the multihit you land on is neat and worth exploring in future sets even. I do think she might have benefitted from a more traditional Back Aerial for hyper hop cross-ups, but maybe that was too offensive-based for your vision of the set? Grab game is pretty standard but does play into her kit well, solid enough.

Also man the Final Smash GIF is so cool, I love King of Fighters graphics sometimes lol. Also that Up Win Screen, so cute...

If we leave aside the numbers, I do like Kula's general base and I think you largely get across how she's a toolsy, Jack-Of-All-Trades type with a bent towards the poking style and who has a slow, frail side (low weight, poor recovery distance) in exchange for powerful cancels and Super Specials. Her bad anti-air and mixup game seem well represented, but I will say that even if the numbers are corrected, the way that the set discusses her feels too safe on shield for her to be described as "safe on shield": It feels like at LEAST half of her moveset is either safe on shield or neutral. In other words, they're unpunishable. And having a ton of unpunishable moves against shield is usually indicative of a good time vs. shields, not a bad one! I'd probably make some of her moves more vulnerable, especially ones that are more general tools, if you wanted to add more risk to her and emulate that "poor vs. blocking" feel. She does feel like she has a pretty tight overall playstyle aside from that and good game feel.

So, overall? Kula is a set I would be pretty pleased with due to her fun setup / cancel combo options, hyper hop utility, a lot of cool options for moves and the idea of how they weave together, which is currently brought crashing down to Earth due to some extremely bad ending lag numbers. Even leaving aside the balance briefly, Kula being so unpunishable both on and off shield due to the numbers being so low means that she's basically a hyper-offensive, very good vs. shields character who probably has a lot of mixups, which is exactly the opposite of your intentions! Once fixed and the set works like intended, I'll definitely enjoy it. Until then...