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

UserShadow7989

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
305
Onion Knight by FrozenRoy FrozenRoy

Onion Knight is a pleasant surprise to see after all this time, iirc you shared with me a number of WIPs a while back that included them (though I might be mistaken since it's been a while). A combo-centric character, Onion Knight has the fun open-ended combo game of Sheik without the same immense level of frustration in securing a KO, though it's still enough work to keep them from being overpowered. Their simple mechanic widens their options for combo chains without loading them with tons of faster-than-they-should-be moves, and while a good deal of their kit is simple, there's a few chunky moves here that add plenty of depth.

Case in point, I really like how the set’s options shift depending on which crystals are on cooldown and what your last attack was, effectively creating more varied combo lines that result in less spam and more careful thought, fitting the character well (you can’t be stingy and overly conservative with your stuff, but you still gotta flex your gray matter). This also allows hypothetical new players some leeway with the mechanic in the case of Down Special and Dash Attack, since they’ll change to the opposite type of attack from the ones used.

Though that does bring me to a specific issue with Down Special. It's one of two options depending on whether your last move was MELEE or MAGIC, but what if it's your first input, or you last used a "DUAL" or "NULL" attack? I also noticed a few typos- “Points his sword name and calls out its name” typo in the Fire portion of NSpec, “but somehow high starting lag” in Thunder portion of the same move is probably meant to say “somewhat”, and “if the he can aggress a foe inside!” has an extra ‘the’ at the end of Blizzard’s first paragraph. The first Dash Attack also mentions itself as having long and short end lag in its first paragraph, likely having meant to reference the long start lag in the former case. If I had to nitpick, I also feel like the Shuriken don't have as strong a presence in the set as the crystals as presented, but their contribution of combo glue and the stated uses in the input itself does mean that you'd be repeating yourself a lot in how they can help with x, y, and z moves, so I can't blame you there.

That round of minor complaints done, Onion Knight's a simple enough set, but I love how it feels from start to finish with lots of neat tricks even in the simpler inputs to give you a very broad set of options in any given situation. The Aerials might be a touch too simple, but they get their job done and don't feel like an outright negative, and I actually really like their Grab Game. It's respectable entry into a very strong contest, and I hope to fit it onto my vote list.
 
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ForwardArrow

Smash Ace
Joined
Aug 17, 2011
Messages
502
I made these comments in chat so they're a lot less formal/in-depth than I usually make in the thread. I still think they say enough of how I feel I'll port them over anyway.

Adramelech
Adramalech is a set I liked more than I expected to, as I was a bit offput by a mechanic messing with the match timer like that. I still don't know how to feel about it, I feel like there's got to be a less obtrusive way to give her an "oncoming apocalypse" feel, and the set's definitely really really extreme in a lot of areas. But like, at the same time, I kinda like how insanely hard it pushes the opponent into pressuring Adra lest things snowball out of control horribly with Necrosis/Gravity/literally just the match timer ticking down and making her into a monster. She's a bait and punish character that leans into the bait aspect so hard she kinda has to go light on the "punish" side, I think the fact she's got some issues dealing with disadvantage and snuffing out enemy attacks beyond just having big range is intentional... but I do sorta wish there was a bit more incentive in the set to bait the foe into doing something stupid. Something to armor through an attack or a movement dodge that's like, heavily limited but at least possible to pull off on a couple moves would do wonders for this playstyle, staying light on the punish but making it an option at all.

I also think, given you can just knock a foe offstage and activate it and the effect gets so oppressive once its applying a 2-3 frame start lag debuff, that Gravity could probably afford to have even more start lag. This is the kind of move that can easily justify 80+ frames just because its an undodgeable debuff to the opponent's gameplan that lasts quite a while, probably only something she should get after throwing the foe way away from her. (edited)

Anyway I've nitpicked the set a lot but the flavor is so ludicrously cool that I kind of don't care that its not super deep and maybe more obtrusive than it should be in implementation, I did come away enjoying her.


Jacky Bryant
Jacky Bryant... unfortunately was a set that didn't end up clicking with me as much as I'd hoped. Its a set that's quite respectable, solidly porting over Virtua Fighter in a subdued but calculated sort of way, setting up the punch-punch-kick combo system to give Jacky some interesting ways to extend combo strings, and I do kinda enjoy the little things of how his stance shifting works to give his mixup game depth and how NSpecial shows that a faster Falcon Punch-style move actually has some interesting potential. But I found most of the set extremely dry in how it interpreted Virtua Fighter without anything to really hook me once we got into the real meat of the set. I think the set leans into "put the foe in prone and punish their getup" harder than I'd like when Jacky doesn't really have... anything exciting or unique-feeling to do to a foe out of prone, to be honest. And I think while the decision to make Jacky have aerial struggles but also be floaty was a perfectly fine one to make, but between how wonky Up Special is and how just... genuinely awful the aerials are, especially Nair and Dair, I think the set leaned too far into that weakness and makes him feel very, very underpowered. Its not like his combos are all that devastating when the hit damage is frequently like, 3%-6% on moves that are lagger than moves that deal twice that from the Smash cast, even if his combo strings are longer.

So yeah I didn't like Jacky, but I don't really know if I'm being fair to it. Its just not a set that appeals to me at all but its clearly doing a respectable job of what its trying to do. Don't take my word for it on this set, I suspect almost everyone else will enjoy it more than I did.
 
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BKupa666

Barnacled Boss
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Aug 12, 2008
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7,788
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Toxic Tower
BERKELEY AND CARTWRIGHT:
A welcome return to the Fortune's Favor! universe by U UserShadow7989 , Berkeley and Cartwright push the duo character archetype in fresh, purposefully flawed directions. On a more standard duo, having the partner character locked into a series of predetermined, buffered inputs sounds maddening to try to control. That said, it really gives you excellent leeway to push the disparity between the pair, with Berkeley's status as this robotic übermensch and Cartwright having just a quartet of inputs at her disposal. You've got the potential for some fun cat-and-mouse style gameplay, as Berkeley's ability to throw up shield in between inputs can lead foes to pressure his defenses differently, based on what follow-up response they think he'll throw out next (something the player can of course condition and exploit). With Berkeley's 30% threshold for stopping his queue and returning to Cartwright, I could even see cases where your stock lightweights are incentivized to badger him offstage with the weakest possible hits, such that he's stuck in his inputs past the point of no return. It's all quite compelling stuff, before we've even gotten to the attacks!

As far as Specials go, I like how most options give solo Cartwright at least some means to try hanging on and dealing damage before she's blown away, while supplementing the pair's gameplay while paired and de-synced. I'm partial to the whole "strong move with a long cooldown" genre also on display with the next set I'm commenting, with the pair's electric barrier, and their trio of Side Special options grants nice versatility at a range — Berkeley getting to store the sticky hand's items gives me some PTSD from the Villager match-up, whereas the helix is a nice way to rope Berkeley back in from his end lag. The Down Special bomb's placement behind the duo when they're united is a great way to steer enemy movement, already potentially more predictable when they're apt to aim for Cartwright as the weak spot. Mechanically, I'm a little confused as to how the pair controls when they're de-synced and the player initiates Up Special (how is Berkeley's aerial movement determined with the move queued?) but like that he's got another automated way for the player to guide where his attacks come out. It makes him that much more of a potential threat in the right hands, especially given brutal potential from aerials like F-Air and B-Air's pair of hits.

Beyond that, the melee interacts nicely with Berkeley's input storage, with player influence as to whether, say, they're going to buffer one or more F-Tilt hits, or spam U-Tilt for its juggling utility at the cost of becoming a sitting duck if ever interrupted. Smashes are another highlight in exemplifying Berkeley's power, with F-Smash's workout rope-esque animation being a favorite (on top of its applicability in covering Cartwright) and D-Smash's items seeming fun to toy with, based on her faster throw speed and their more powerful impact on their breaking hit. Cartwright getting to run around during grab-game feels like it could be just as valuable for defensive, rather than offensive purposes at times, perhaps letting her more safely navigate enemy traps or minions while Berkeley is holding a victim down. In summary, a rollicking good time and definitely a set I'll keep in mind in exploring future multi-character sets of my own!

SAM & MAX:
Right off the bat, Max presents one of the better approaches to AI in a duo character, in such a way that allows for interesting gameplay and characterization in one fell swoop. An aggressive fellow like him would feel "off" just passively sitting around in de-synced fashion, but while he automatically approaches opponents and dodges, it's up to the player as to what specific attacks they want to throw out at any given point. Even better, Sam and Max's individual moves hardly fit into neat boxes (Down Special notwithstanding), where one is the designated combo character, damage racker, powerhouse or what have you. Max boasts his KO potential moves with stuff like F-Smash and U-Air, but Sam is no slouch himself, with D-Smash and sweetspot B-Air among his more high-risk, high-reward options. On a similar note, Sam's Noir state does get less focus throughout the set as far as gameplay applicability, but I see it as a great happy medium, giving Sam a power equalizer to stand any chance after Max dies without being so good that players are incentivized to access the state by purposefully killing off Max in out-of-character fashion.

Otherwise, throughout the set, Sam and Max take the cake as far as organic ways for two characters to unite and de-sync over the course of regular gameplay. Side Special is a hilarious highlight, with Max's ability to cancel his ball state into an aerial (with N-Air for better aerial hangtime as a particular highlight). Then, you've got more subtle, yet still awesome possible setups from Max moving around during grab-game (B-Throw and U-Throw, the latter of which seems handy for putting Max on platforms on some stages), and pausing in place after Sam uses dash attack. Because of those means for controlling where the characters are in proximity to each other — important, when Max automatically approaches, left to his own devices — Fizzball is the definite standout within Down Special, with a truly memorable payoff with the flamethrower cancel. Rounding out Sam and Max's antics, colliding their U-Smash rockets, based on Max's unique "trap" functionality by his lonesome, sounds like it'd be a really fun way to flex on foes in the rare cases you're granted sufficient prep time. In any case, these guys are easily my favorite among your sets so far, and high up there among the works I've read this contest so far. Bravo Arctic Tern Arctic Tern !
 

FrozenRoy

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
1,260
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
Switch FC
SW-1325-2408-7513
While reading is very important, there's plenty of people who want to do some set writing as well! After bubbyboytoo bubbyboytoo introduced his own Movetober idea in chat, I decided to make a quick list of an adjacent Movetober idea: Writing one move per day with a theme on each day. This is something optional people can participate in just to type up some ideas, or if they're bored, or whatever and thus is not a competition like the contest itself or even the level of Jamcons. Feel free to join in each day at your leisure! Moves can be shared here or on the Discord, really. Or, put simply: Daily theme, make a single move for it if you want (although I suppose if you wanted to make multiple moves for one theme, you could), for-fun thing people can participate in during October, PLEASE STILL READ THOUGH THE VOTE GURU DEMANDS IT.

If you've seen or heard of Inktober just imagine that but moves.

The Movetober list I made is as follows:

October 1st - N/A (since we started a day late lol)
October 2nd - Write an ice-themed move.
October 3rd - Write a stall than fall aerial.
October 4th - Write a Smash Attack that kills over at over 180% uncharged.
October 5th - Write a aerial that spikes, except for Down Aerial.
October 6th - Write a tilt that kills at 100%.
October 7th - Make a space or time themed move.
October 8th - Write a move for a random enemy character (IE Hammer Bro, Baseball Boys, Wheelie, Fire Bar, Valkyrie Walkure etc)
October 9th - Write a move for the "main character" of wherever they come from.
October 10th - Write an attack that is one paragraph and under 1,000 words long.
October 11th - Write a time bomb throw.
October 12th - Write a food-based move.
October 13th - Write a move that eats the opponent (IE Wario Chomp, Kirby/King Dedede Inhale, etc)
October 14th - Make a move for a lightweight female protagonist.
October 15th - Make a move for a heavyweight male antagonist.
October 16th - Write a charge move. (Be it active, such as Samus Charge Shot or DK's Giant Punch, or passive like R.O.B.'s Laser or Wario Waft)
October 17th - Write a fire-themed move.
October 18th - Write an Up Special that doesn't serve as a "proper" recovery. (Yoshi Up Special style is allowed.)
October 19th - Write a move for character from or for a "favorite". (Favorite characters, from one of your favorite shows / books, got one of your favorite MYM sets in the past, etc)
October 20th - Write a projectile Down Smash or Up Smash.
October 21st - Free Space! Write any move you want.
October 22nd - Write a trap move.
October 23rd - Write a move that interacts with a minion, but doesn't summon it within that move.
October 24th - Write a Forward Smash.
October 25th - Make a move for a character you think could realistically be a Smash newcomer.
October 26th - Write a Special with at least 40 frames of starting lag.
October 27th - Write a move that either terraforms, or utilizes a boulder / ground chunk. (Steve-style block placement counts)
October 28th - Write an electric-themed move.
October 29th - Instead of writing a move, write a mechanic!
October 30th - Make a move that would fit any of Make Your Move 25's Jamcon themes, be it via what character it is or just the move itself.
October 31st - Create a move for a Horror character.
 

Slavic

Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars
Joined
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Messages
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taco bell, probablyn't
Day 02 of Movetober

NEUTRAL SPECIAL | ICY WIND


Froslass holds both her hands in front of her, conjuring a swirling vortex of, well, icy wind before her. This wind acts as a command grab not dissimilar to Robin's Nosferatu. There's a bigger hitbox for Icy Wind than Nosferatu, though a smidge more startup, though Froslass's great speed makes it a fair bit easier to land than Nosferatu against a moving target. And, of course, Icy Wind isn't tied to an ammo system like Nosferatu's Tome. Froslass maintains her momentum through the air while using the move, making it an acceptable aerial tool while recovering, edge-guarding, or even approaching. The longer startup is offset by a breezy endlag, making this move surprisingly safe on a miss and requiring opponents to either predict or quickly react to the ghost.

The comparison to Nosferatu stops pretty quickly, though, as this is decidedly not a healing move. Foes trapped by Icy Wind are buffeted by the freezing winds as Froslass holds them in place. Over time, the foe will be completely frozen, the ultimate fate for Froslass's victims. That's the opponent's cue to start mashing! This command grab is only as strong as a normal grab, but has a fun quirk to it: Froslass can mash back! In Ultimate, each input a grabbed character mashes shaves off 8 frames from the grab duration, and Froslass uniquely has the ability to tack those frames back on. This scales heavily with the foe's damage; from 0%-25%, Froslass only adds 2 frames of duration per input, 25%-50% it increases to 4, 50%-75% 6 frames, 75%-100% 8 frames (enough to neutralize the foe's mashing), and over 100% Froslass adds a whole 10 frames per input! This might sound scary, and to be fair it is, but Froslass can't permanently grab foes as this move ends automatically.

Finally, we can get to the actual effects of this attack! First, on an initial grab the opponent takes a brisk 2% damage, not much to write home about, but foes will continue to take .5% damage every 20 frames, or 1.5% a second. Okay, still very lackluster, especially as the speedy Froslass can combo foes for more damage than that with ease. It's the effects that Froslass can inflict with Icy Wind that should inspire players to land the move regularly! There's a handful of outcomes to this move, depending on how long the opponent was held for. As a note, using the shield input will have Froslass release the foe with the current attack, allowing her to get the effects she wants. Be careful while mashing back not to hit that shield!

If the foe is held for under 30 frames, there's simply a release as described in the previous paragraph. This is hardly even a consolation prize, netting 2% damage and frame neutral on a character with some strong frame data already. It's not pointless, since it can be used in motion through the air and to bypass shields, but there's not much in the way of tangible reward against a healthy, fighting opponent.

From frame 31 to frame 90 of Icy Wind, the foe will be coated in a slightly blue tint, the biting breeze numbing them to the bone. The foe is sent away if the grab ends here with slightly more force, creating some space between the two fighters, but now with a four-frame disadvantage. Between Froslass's lightning-fast speed and a few projectiles, this is a scary place to be. There is a saving grace in the form of the regrab timer, though, as a foe can bring up their shield as soon as they can act to stave off an immediate rush-in by the Pokemon. However, doing so allows Froslass to charge up her Forward Smash, a ranged move that a shielding foe will struggle to punish, especially as their shield shrinks.

This us not the real reward, however. Instead, Froslass is fishing for this effect thanks to the slowing nature of Icy Wind. Afflicted foes have their walk speed dropped by a whopping 60%, making certain characters comically slow. Run speed and air speed also see a decrease, though 'only' by 30%. On the flipside, opposing fall speed is increased by 30%. This is a dangerous combination of stat changes against someone like Froslass, who already outspeeds a good chunk of the cast. Almost all fighters will become combo food for the Ghost-type, easily juggled with moves like Up Tilt, Neutral Air, and Up Air, and trying to outrun her becomes futile. Froslass is a predatory fighter and these debuffs make chasing her ward even more appealing.

It's not entirely free, however, as the foe also sees an increase in weight, 20 units of it, while this effect is active. This contributes to Froslass' combo game, of course, but makes it much harder for her land kills. Froslass already has issues killing, so this effect becomes somewhat detrimental later in a stock. It'll be beneficial again once the foe is at high enough damage to kill with the increased weight, but there's a decent range where Froslass won't want to inflict this status, even if it makes it easier to land her killing moves. It may seem like a minor flaw on another character but Froslass is so frail that the extra time to get a foe to kill percentage can cost her a stock easily.

The Icy effect lasts for 5 seconds before wearing off, a notable amount of time where foes are subjected to Froslass's whims. This encourages foes to turn and fight her, especially as she's relatively easy to kill, but Froslass can reap rewards from this thanks to her Down Special Destiny Bond, a powerful counter. Froslass can grab foes as normal during this effect, even with Icy Wind again, and the timer will actually pause on the status. This sounds like a busted way to keep foes locked in at their worsened stats but this move can't refresh itself, and the small damage gained off it is hardly a worthwhile reward when this can't be effectively chaingrabbed. Instead, this prevents Froslass from holding the foe just long enough for the effect to wear off and then immediately reinflicting it.

From frames 91-150, Icy Wind will instead launch the foes away from Froslass when it ends, frozen in a block of ice similar to Lucas' PK Freeze, dealing 8% damage. It's not quite as powerful as the opponent goes flying, killing from the ledge around 130%, but is a notable kill move for the Pokemon none-the-less. Remember that Froslass can move quickly in the air while throwing Icy Wind out, so she can even intercept a recovering opponent and try to launch them offscreen for a stylish kill. As a quick note, Froslass's momentum in the air, both horizontal and vertical, are halted when this grabs someone, preventing her from dragging foes down to their doom just by holding them. Playing so aggressively offstage is also an inherently risky move for the glass cannon Froslass, as a good read or strong reversal can just as easily kill her (again, because she's a ghost).

At lower percentages, this isn't a particularly appealing option for Froslass. The frozen foe takes significantly less damage, and Froslass isn't a powerhouse to begin with. The initial freeze makes for a decent spacer but Froslass has more accessible tools for that, and doesn't have any notable moves or mechanics to setup by keeping the foe at a distance. Certain matchups, like Little Mac, might net Froslass an early kill by tossing the frozen foe offstage while relatively healthy, but in most cases Froslass wants this option as her kill setup. Players will know what level Froslass' Icy Wind is at by counting the frames, or more reasonably by how deeply blue the foe has turned.

From frames 151-180, requiring Froslass to hold the foe for 2.5 - 3 seconds, not unreasonable, she will get her strongest effect off this move. Froslass squeezes her hands together and the wind gripping the foe crystalizes before collapsing inwards, dealing 15% damage while knocking the foe away. This knockback is much weaker than the previous effect, not killing until over 170%, but does give good space between Froslass and the opponent. Importantly, this neither freezes foes nor puts them into the Icy status, but the main reward can be seen between the two fighters; an ice sculpture, smooth and glittering, in the foe's exact shape and size.

This ice sculpture is a solid construction and the decorative centerpiece of Froslass's lairs. An ice sculpture will stay out until destroyed, even surviving beyond Froslass's current stock, but can be destroyed in three hits. Some multi-hit attacks count as a single move, some as separate, going on a case-by-case basis, but each attack the foe hits the statue with will crack and deform it more before crumbling into a cloud of diamond dust. This makes Froslass's statues effective at blocking projectiles outside of ones that pierce through multiple opponents, and help to discourage camping against Froslass (which is probably a mistake anyways).

On the flipside, Froslass herself can camp behind ice sculptures, throwing out moves like Side Special or Forward Smash from relative safety. Naturally, Froslass can't just summon these sculptures whenever she wants, so she can't spend an entire match doing this. At some point she'll have to get up close and personal to make or replace a sculpture. Notably, there's no technical limit to how many sculptures Froslass can have on the stage at once. This is also a matchup-dependent tactic; Ganondorf's sculpture is going to be inherently better for defense than Olimar or Kirby's.

An ice sculpture can be picked up by any fighter as a heavy item, like a Crate, and thrown for some great damage and knockback. This scales with the original weight of the subject, Jigglypuff killing much later and dealing less damage than Bowser's sculpture, which does scale reasonably well with matchups. Froslass needs to be careful, then, as a foe throwing her own sculpture back can kill her pretty easily. She might take advantage of that fact for Down Special, though.

Froslass can use her Neutral Special in front of an ice sculpture to perform a unique grab on it, lifting it with spectral telekinesis and keeping it floating in front of her until it's either destroyed, she takes knockback, or she uses this move yet again. Froslass can attack while this is happening, and this gives Froslass a temporary icy shield from the front that mitigates a good chunk of the risk she takes while approaching. Long disjointed attacks, explosions, and other large hitbox moves can easily hit her as well as the sculpture, though, so it's not an ironclad strategy, but it is quite effective none-the-less.

Taking knockback will cause the ice sculpture to plummet down, any foes unfortunate enough to be trapped taking the damage they would have if it was thrown at them. Using the move again will, well, throw the sculpture forward as if Froslass had thrown it! Because this doesn't affect Froslass's mobility, and provides protection, this becomes her scariest kill option, able to quickly close the distance on the opponent with a shield before launching said shield as a projectile with good kill power.

One final use of ice sculptures relies on Up Special, Cursed Body, which allows Froslass to actually possess the ice sculptures she's created. She gains the moveset and stats of the character who created the sculpture, though not the Specials. She has complete superarmor in this state, but the health on the sculpture is not refreshed, taking only three hits to break still. Froslass takes normal damage from moves in this way, and when the sculpture is broken she takes halved knockback but increased damage. At 1.5 times the strength of the finishing move, this can backfire against powerful foes who can power through her advance. Using Up Special again will have Froslass launch out of the statue into the air, going straight into Cursed Body.
 

GolisoPower

Smash Master
Joined
Sep 17, 2017
Messages
4,315
You know what? I'mma throw my hat into the ring for this thing:

WELCOME TO GOLISOPOWER'S MOVETOBER MUSEUM!

Day 1: Ice Attack: Vaporization Freezing Technique, Dio Brando Side Special
Day 2: Stall-and-fall Aerial: Guillotine Crow Kick, Yoshimitsu Down Aerial
Day 3: Smash Attack Killing At Over 180% Uncharged: Lacquer Mist, Cube Down Smash
Day 4:
Non-Down-Air Aerial Attack That Spikes: Spiking Blow, Janemba Up Aerial

Day 5: Tilt That Kills At 100%: Enforcement Chop, Potemkin Forward Tilt
Day 6: Space/Time-themed Move: Banish, Limbo Neutral Special
Day 7: Move For A Random Enemy: Shakedown, Şarpe Veninos Thug Down Throw
Day 8: Move For A Main Character: Brave Rush, GingerBrave Side Special

Day 9: 1,000-Word-Or-Less Move: Big Shout, Pogo Neutral Special
Day 10:
Time Bomb Throw: Vampiric Tumor, Flesh Witch Shelley Down Throw
Day 11: Food Move: Gyudon Feast, Noel Shirogane Down Special
Day 12:
Move that devours the foe: Candy Beam Flash, Majin Buu Neutral Special

Day 13: Move For Lightweight Female Protagonist: Gust Burst/Deep Mountain Clip, Tari Up Special
Day 14: Move For Heavyweight Male Antagonist: Mercy Strike, Thrunch Side Smash
Day 15:
Charge Move:
Drill, Ryuji Yamazaki Super Special
Day 16: Fire Attack: Haleakala, Volcano Witch Pele Down Smash
Day 17:
Non-Recovery Up Special: Wall of Light, Zamasu Up Special
Day 18: Move For Favorite Character: Nova Smash, Zagreus Down Smash
Day 19:
Projectile Up/Down Smash: Rakta Ballistica, Harrow Down Smash

Day 20: FREE SPACE: Fangs of the Wolf, Leman Russ Jab
Day 21: Trap Move: Old Mining Days, Big-D & Family Down Special
Day 22:
Move That Influences But Doesn't Summon A Minion: Something Awful, Slenderman Neutral Special
Day 23: Forward Smash: Aloha Slap, Masaru Takahara Forward Smash
Day 24: Character Can Realistically Make It In: Knightly Attack, Dirk the Daring F-tilt
Day 25: Frame 40+ Special: Harbinger of the Storm, Davy Jones Down Special
Day 26:
Terraforming/Boulder/Ground Chunk Move: Mount Fuji, Katsushika Hokusai Neutral Special
Day 27:
Electric Attack: Thunder Shock Surprise, Master Roshi U-tilt
Day 28: Character Mechanic: The One Ring, Sauron
Day 29:
Character That Fits MYM25's JamCon Themes: Shirokuro-no-Batsu, Eiki Shiki, Yamaxanadu F-tilt
Day 30:
Horror Character: Alien Egg, Xenomorph Queen Neutral Special
 
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n88

Smash Lord
Joined
Oct 10, 2008
Messages
1,527
Wheelie by bubbyboytoo bubbyboytoo

Finally, the last set that’s been on my “should have read this a long time ago” list for a while. Wheelie is a really fun, light read. This set does a great job keeping attacks feeling distinct despite Wheelie’s limitations, and it’s especially sharply done in the ground game, where attacks always feel like they have a distinct purpose despite introducing so many different flavors of “Wheelie slams into em”. A big crazy NSpec like this on a character with so little going on is really impressive to see, too, and this is a solid implementation of the mechanic. Rollout and Egg Roll are moves that I always wish were cool and this feels like a really satisfying version of that type of attack, elevated to a centerpiece.

Past the main ground moves, the aerials feel like they start to stray into introducing more unique-per-attack mechanics and have a subtly different vibe than the grounded normals. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, but I think a really low-key interesting thing the set is doing is not letting any of the aerials halt Wheelie’s momentum - it makes going airborne with a Dashing Wheelie feel really risky and hard to control despite a decrease in speed vs the ground-bound version. That positions the aerials as a space that could have some cool high-risk high-reward plays that pay off jumping during Dash to pursue enemies that try to hop over Wheelie. The set doesn’t play with that dynamic too much, though.

The grab game is really fun and pays off the rider premise from the mechanics in a cool way: strong note to end the main set on. Pummeling costing him cargo carry distance is a cool trade-off, the throw animations feel pretty fun, and the wrinkles of how it interacts with his base mechanic and the rest of his kit are very well thought-out. Great stuff.

Stray thoughts:
  • “Wheelie himself originally started out as just a blank tire with an eye in the center, which while certainly charming would not a good moveset make.” - it’s really come so far.
  • Respect the commitment to the big, bonkers NSpec for maximum copyability.
  • Do Wheelie’s fasteners move fast enough to stay out ahead of him if he tosses one and then Dashes forward? Or does he have to hang back a bit in order to follow one?
    • Ah, dash attack gets at this a bit.
  • The third paragraph of DSmash repeats the last few sentences of the move and I really thought I was doing the “keep rereading the same paragraph” thing even worse than usual for a sec.
  • The Special landing in FAir/DAir is really cool. I’m not sure it’s super discoverable.
  • “Chain it from and into absolutely anything you’d like, it’s all the same in the end.” - finally, the nihilistic combo game I’ve been craving.
 

Slavic

Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Messages
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Day 3 of Movetober


BORT



Height - Lucina
Weight - 93 (Joker)
Ground Jump - Robin (38th)
Air Jump - Bowser (51st)
Walk Speed - Samus (44th)
Run Speed - Yoshi (19th)
Air Speed - Zelda (40th)
Fall Speed - Sephiroth (12th)

Bort, appearing in the manga and anime Land of the Lustrous, is one of the several beings formed by living gemstones following the extinction of mankind. The immortal gems, descended from the bones of humanity, are under constant siege by the Lunarians, a group of silent assailants who covet the gems for their beauty and utility. The Lunarians are relentless, launching attack after attack from their cloud to bring the gems to the moon to be used as jewelry or weapons. As such, nearly every gem trains under Sensei Kongo in the art of combat, defending themselves and their home from the astral invaders.

Chief among the gems, though leagues below their sensei, are the three illustrious diamonds: Diamond, Yellow Diamond, and Bort. Besides having an unintuitive naming convention, the three diamonds have a hardness level of 10, the highest possible and the metric for general strength in Land of the Lustrous. Unlike Diamond or Yellow Diamond, which are gemstone-grade diamonds, Bort is industrial diamond, a rough and unattractive form used for its strength and abrasive nature. This is transferred to Land of the Lustrous very directly with Bort.

Bort is the strongest and most capable gem at combat, able to stave off waves of Lunarians entirely by themselves. While their hardness level is a big part of what makes Bort strong, their fighting style is a major piece as well. Bort doesn’t just fight with their sword, as all the gems do, but also their massive, trailing locks of hair. Bort regularly uses their own hair as many cutting blades, whipping it through foes or spinning around rapidly like a buzzsaw. Combined with incredible dexterity, Bort is an awe-inspiring force amongst the gems of Land of the Lustrous, and often their peers won’t even bother drawing a blade while Bort’s around.

Bort is also abrasive, excessively so. Partnered with the brilliant Diamond, Bort scolds and reprimands their younger sibling constantly. Other gems get a worse treatment, with weaker ones like Phosphophyllite or Cinnabar considered a waste of time and energy to them. Bort prefers to fight alone to keep weaker gems from getting in their way and is more than willing to throw weaker gems through the air to remove them from sight. Obviously this would be one of my favorites from the series.

In Smash Bros., Bort plays as a Sephiroth-esque swordfighter, utilizing massive, sweeping attacks with both their blade and their hair. Compared to Sephiroth on the surface, Bort seems far and away better; much better weight, better movement speed almost universally, and a stronger grounded jump. Bort doesn’t pack the same amount of power as Sephiroth, however, and naturally lacks the One-Winged Angel mechanic to boot. Bort has the ability to wall cling and wall jump, for what it’s worth, though not nearly as strong for a fighter than an entire extra jump.

Most of Bort’s moves have poorer frame data and instead they rely on pinning foes down with their great mobility, trapping them in a spot where it’s hard to avoid their massive attack range. Bort’s sword attacks do have a lower range than Sephiroth’s Masamune, but Bort can actually outrange Sephiroth with their hair attacks. This comes at a unique cost; hair in Land of the Lustrous is as much a part of the body as arms or legs, and Bort’s hair attacks are not disjointed. Blessedly, Bort’s hair while naturally trailing behind, such as when running, jumping, or performing other attacks, does not count as a hurtbox.

Bort has one trick up their sleeve, thanks to their diamond make-up. Armor, fitting for a hardness 10 gem, but a bit finicky. This armor, which we’ll just call Hardness 10, is noticeably better than Bowser’s Tough Guy armor. That said, Hardness 10 is also circumstantial and only present when 1) Bort is in the startup lag or active frames of an attack, and 2) when Bort is attacked from the front. To make real used of Hardness 10, Bort has to stay aggressive and in the foe’s face, encouraging them to throw more moves out than they normally would. Bort’s still vulnerable to getting attacked by attacks out of that threshold, or to grabs or rolls.
DOWN AERIAL - DIAMOND CUTTER


In a showcase of acrobatic prowess, Bort flips in the air as they grab their sword’s hilt, pausing a moment as they turn completely upside-down. This move has a pretty middling startup before Bort kicks off the very air itself, hair streaming behind like a comet as they soar straight downwards. The speed on this descent is fast, though not as speedy as many in the game, and will continue until Bort hits the ground, leaves the blast zone, or has traveled 5 grids. Bort keeps their blade sheathed this entire time, leaving them strangely vulnerable from below with no hitboxes. Of course, since Bort’s now facing downward they gain Hardness 10 while diving, but only from below, having a massive hurtbox that includes their hair.

There’s two hitboxes to this move, one as soon as Bort starts diving and the other at the end of their descent. The former is a hair-based hitbox, hence the extension on the hurtbox, and extends a whole Bort’s length above them in the air. The hair billows out to the sides, though not nearly as flared as Up Special, allowing Bort to snag foes pretty easily as they fly past them. Their hair isn’t a devastating hitbox by any means, but instead snares foes with rapid hits as the abrasive material buffets against them. Foes are dragged inward with each hit of .8% damage, though getting hit at the tail end of the hair is easy to DI out of. Getting hit by the base of Bort’s hairbox makes escape much harder. Assuming the foe takes all hits from this move, they can wind up taking 12% damage as they’re dragged downward, a total of 15 hits, but this requires foes to be completely healthy and DI’ing into the move.

This hitbox can rack damage in the right situation, sure, but is best for dragging the foe offstage. The wider range on the hair actually allows Bort to dive past the ledge while snagging a foe off who had hoped to guard against them. With only a 5 grid descent, it’s unlikely for Bort to self-destruct when using this higher than the ledge, making this a valid recovery tactic. Note that this move is long and can be punished pretty easily if done wrong, as Bort still needs to perform the second hit of this move. In particular, this move punishes a buffered input heavily, especially something like an accidental airdodge. If this move ends after dragging a foe down with Bort and Bort wasn’t hit out of the move, Neutral Air and Forward Air are both juuust fast enough to actually capitalize on this. Alternatively, go to Up Special to return to the ledge and recover.

The second hitbox only comes out at the end of the 5 rid descent, with Bort pulling their sword out and performing a downward sweep with it. Visually, this looks most like Sephiroth’s Up Air, just downwards, obviously, but comes out notably quicker and with a surprisingly short ending lag! Bort also stops their momentum as they pull their blade, partially why this move is so hard to self-destruct with. This sweep is longer than it is wide, hitting over two grids below Bort in a grid-and-a-half wide range.

This move deals 12% damage on hit, actually damaging uniformly along the blade, and doesn’t deal downward knockback as might be expected. Instead, the sweeping slash carries foes up and in front of Bort into the air. With the high damage this can still be a devastating move, but does require a bit more creativity for kills. Raw and unaided, this move won’t start killing until up and past 180%. If Bort is offstage, facing the blast zone, and lands this move somehow, this can kill quite early, but that’s not a particularly reliable setup. The upwards launching motion can hit foes into a stage spike if they fail to tech, letting Bort take foes out that way. That said, this move is rough as a gimping tool thanks to the limited protection from below, lack of hitboxes, and precise distance required.

This move can be used as a landing tool, but don’t actually land with it. Bort’s landing animation and lag are dangerously punishable. Instead, Bort should time this move so they’re 1-2 grids over the stage when it ends, as the momentum pause from the sword swipe will prevent them from going into this landing lag. This synergizes great with the normally short ending lag on this attack, giving Bort a few options depending on how the foe responds to the move.

Getting hit by the swipe launches foes into the air in front of Bort where they land, allowing them to go into essentially any grounded or shorthopped option. It’s an effective if unorthodox combo starter that does require some notable setup to achieve. A foe rolling away from the move to protect themselves gives plenty of landing space for Bort, who can immediately throw out a long-ranged move like Forward Smash or approach the foe with something like Side Special or Dash Attack.

A foe can shield to avoid the attack, but this move has decent shieldstun and great shieldpush, and with the lowest possible spacing from the stage Bort can land and immediately run in to grab the foe as a punish. It’s a versatile but weird landing tool that isn’t as casual to throw out as most stall-and-falls.


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Click here for a link to my Movetober 2022 Link-Up space, where I'll be hosting all my prompts in one place!​
 

Daehypeels

Smash Rookie
Joined
Sep 10, 2022
Messages
13

Far too long in the making, my Secret Santa set for Junyaa who I don't know what his Smashboards username is so I can't ping him and he's long since left MYM anyway so who even cares is finally, finally DONE. Wheeeeeeeee
Hey, nice moveset! Hope you don't mind some comments in point form.


-The flavor of your writing is really engaging, love the tone of it – also like the alt text idea, although it's a little unfortunate I can't just read it in the doc.

-Blast Door is a really neat mechanic imo, always super fond of shield moves, and it's exciting to see how you'll pull it off as I read along – love that it has a logical downside of pushing her back midair, so it's helpful in some situations but not great if it gets slammed by Ganon F-Smash or fully-charged Charge Shot, for example

-For crouching, none of the downsides are unique to her and this just sounds like a direct upgrade compared to any other crouch in the game, yet the tone treats it like it’s more of a tradeoff… it’s all fine and well, but then you specify she needs to stand up to do anything else – any character in the game can do anything immediately out of a crouch (especially if you use the C-Stick), so do you mean she can’t, or something else? I think it’d be a really cool tradeoff if she can only use D-Tilt, D-Smash or Down Special out of a crouch, and needs to take a few extra frames to stand back up and regain access to her other moves, but as it stands the moveset skims past anything like that. A slight missed opportunity there.

-Neutral B’s cool, not too much to say about it, I like what it does and what it does works well – it’s nice to have something simple yet effective like that.

-I’m not super fond of Side B being a much more free way to block with the shield while midair - as I said earlier, when reading that any other shield move will push her back if she gets hit midair, I greatly enjoyed all the potential nuance that can come from that downside, and it means she doesn't just have a “nope” button when recovering… and yet that’s what Side B is, completely removing that downside. I understand the weaknesses onstage and it’s not 100% free offstage (it can be baited and likely end up putting her in the prime position to get stage-spiked or just regular spiked), but it feels a little contradictory that she has such a cool downside on any other shield move, yet also casually has the ability to just ignore that downside entirely. I think something really cool you can do is only have the base version reduce the pushback a bit (instead creating another dynamic where Abby can choose between nothing if she doesn’t want to commit, an attack with more offense but less defense, or a slightly committal defensive option that protects her the most), and keep the full pushback immunity on the Thermal Power version since that’s the big powered-up version and a counter to boot. The alt text covers this a little, so kudos there, but it still feels like this was primarily designed with her being on the ground in mind, rather than recovery purposes.

-Up B is really, really cool – love the offensive uses of both the initial blast as well as the slide, love the defensive uses of tilting the shield around, and generally adore the idea of her using the shield like a surfboard against the stage. I feel like something that would have been neat to note is the idea of ignoring the ledge and just landing on the stage with this, as against unwary opponents you'd be able to snuff out most panic attacks from below or in front then immediately squish them, with this still having plenty of counterplay (such as a counter, dodging towards the ledge, or just jumping to smack her from above), but as-is, super cool move.

-Down B is nice! A way to generate SP by itself is an interesting way for a slower character to force approaches, but what’s especially cool is freezing the meter once Thermal Power is on – I haven't seen many concepts of super modes like this where people consider all the time wasted while an opponent’s being launched away or aren’t interactable because they’re dead or sitting on the respawn platform to burn more time… could even create a neat dynamic if this move has a ton of endlag where you can pop this to not waste meter while the opponent’s sitting on the respawn platform, but you still have to quickly react to when they actually drop off of it or else they might be able to sneak a free hit in. Yeah, your alt notes are right in that this absolutely could have been Shield Special and freed up Down Special for another idea… but as-is, this idea by itself isn't bad at all.

-This applies to all of her moves, including the Specials, but I don't get much of a sense of speed from any of these moves. Sometimes there's some helpful details (like your description of Neutral Special noting it as a quick reliable tool, or U-Tilt having noticeable endlag), but it'd be much appreciated if there was more of a description of these things – I have absolutely no idea how fast F-Tilt is, for example.

-F-Tilt is also pretty confusing, since your description states it’s not overlapping with her but it’s still not on the same Z-axis value as everyone.. wouldn’t that make it miss? Thermal Power’s ability to bury people also sounds really broken since it SOUNDS like a fast move (again, don’t even know if it’s fast or just relatively faster than F-Tilt) and you don't say anything about how long it buries them for… I’m just picturing a fast version of K. Rool D-Tilt with that move’s absurd reward, so removing its only weakness might not be okay.

-In general quite a few moves have weird or confusing animation descriptions, F-Tilt, U-Tilt, D-Tilt, Dash Attack, and F-Air sort of give me a mental image, but I can't tell if that's just me or if some of them are a little strange.

-D-Tilt sounds really fun to use as either a quick panic option or as a strange, unorthodox retreating option to protect your back. Very fun read.

-Dash Attack being as slow as Dedede’s really makes it miserable in any situation other than acting like a hard read or if the opponent massively screws up. If the shield works from the very beginning of the move and it’s similar to K. Rool’s Dash Attack in its ability to armor moves then there’s some cool counter-like options, but stuff like the suggested Jab mixup would pretty much never work against anyone competent (take something like Samus Jab into grab, which only works because it ignores shields, and even then it’s a mixup since the opponent can dodge it), and the flames would have to flinch the opponent A LOT (like PK Fire/Holy Water levels of flinching) for this to be good in that situation as well… Thermal Power D.Attack is very cool though, no complaints there

-D-Smash acting like a stronger, close-range version of F-Smash is fun, especially with the second hit added by Thermal Power… it might be a bit overly strong depending on how fast F-Smash is, given the lack of a speed description other than it being way faster than F-Smash, but it’s cool regardless

-I really liked the bait-and-switch with N-Air’s description, only describing the front hit at first, convincing me it's a plain and simple move, only to throw in the back hit which acts like a completely different move – I love the idea of a N-Air that essentially acts like two different aerials in one, depending on which side you go for.

-B-Air is a simple but well-developed idea that was appreciated… I think it’s a little weird that your main method of shielding yourself midair can only happen with your back facing them, meaning that in a vast majority of recovery situations B-Air’s not gonna help you. Maybe a way to change her direction mid-air could be sneaked in somewhere? I’m not entirely sure how that’d work though.

-Neat throws! D-Throw in particular is pretty clever.

-Anything I didn’t mention is nice, other than what I wrote above, there’s not much to complain about here



-Overall, had a good time with this one, this character’s quite neat! I feel like there’s a lot more you could do with a character like this creatively in some places (some of the Specials, a couple of moves here and there, etc.), but at the same time you surprised me in the opposite direction numerous times with how much personality and unique flair you threw into a bunch of these moves, even before getting into the actual move discussions themselves this was a joy to go through. And while what I said above stands, the lack of truly good speed descriptions on some moves, and some strange ways of explaining animations being a bit confusing did end up making me feel like this could have spent some more time in the oven, I feel like you make up for it with those thoughtful and highly engaging move descriptions... they could stand to be a little more thoughtful every now and then, but what's there is lovely and very satisfactory.


Unfortunately I don't think I'll have too high praise for this one compared to some of the monsters around here, but that's fine, this one's pretty great in my eyes. As the first moveset I've properly read around here, you've already set a pretty nice bar for me, honestly.
 
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n88

Smash Lord
Joined
Oct 10, 2008
Messages
1,527
Witchcrafter Madame Verre by Arctic Tern Arctic Tern

The description of her mechanic is pretty confusing and reads like there’s something missing. Early on you say “The buff increase is additive rather than multiplicative”, but you haven’t really introduced the concept of the buff increasing at this point. I don’t think her mechanic is too tough to grok once you get the gist of it. Mostly. I thought I walked away from the mechanics section understanding it, but then FTilt and UTilt really mixed me up further by implying it was cool to burn the big buff on weak moves once you’ve built it up (???) and I’ve reread the mechanic enough times to know I’m licked.

Based on what I’m sure I understand, I’d make the escalating nature of it more explicit sooner. I’m also not convinced this set should use the stale move queue at all. What it’s tracking for Verre’s buff state seems separate from, and more complex than, what’s stale. There’s an obvious thematic tie between the two ideas, but the wires are crossed in a confusing way and the set implies that she can do stuff like unstale attacks she’s spammed by just using DSpecial once. The DSpecial reset on her buff is cool, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think it should flush her stale move queue though, that subverts the whole Polish mechanic by letting her freely duck the punishment for spamming.

Setting aside my issues with the implementation that I may or may not have because I don’t fully understand the implementation, this is definitely the kind of mechanic that I immediately dig. Verre actually reminds me a lot of Light Yagami (a favorite of mine), in terms of how she encourages this kind of very thinky short-term planning where you have to go into engagements with a strategy, but you’re not doing long game steamroll set-up stuff, just trying to have an idea of your next few moves. The way her Specials play off Polish is really fun and gives her a unique vibe in terms of having a lot of MYMy projectile/construct play, but in this very different sort of context.

I feel like you tackle a lot of concepts that are also naturally really appealing to me, and if I had a nickel for every time I was reading a Tern set and started sweating that I got scooped, I’d have… at least two-three nickels and one of ‘em would be from this set. Was definitely intrigued to skim the thing and see a take on a souped-up freshness bonus. Two-three nickels might also be the number of nickels I have IRL. Who the heck is walking around with a bunch of nickels? Anyway my point is that there’s a lot I really do vibe with here, but my confusion around the way this thing works is preventing me from really endorsing this one heartily.

Stray thoughts:
  • There’s some kill percent discrepancy in FSpec.
  • FSpec is a pretty juicy-feeling move in the context of a character that’s supposed to be low-damage, but I’m no balance guru. Maybe hold out for a second opinion and consider taking the base power down a notch and having it get more benefit than usual from Polish and/or increasing the boost it gets from reflection.
  • I do love the Rube Goldberg beam mirroring - seemed a little impractical after FSpec/USpec, but DTilt and NAir definitely help a lot.
  • The paragraph that explains how the power of the DSpec counter/reflector scales took me a couple reads to grok, but I’m not confident that there’s a hard readability issue there like I am the mechanic.
    • “Reflect a projectile so hard it teleports” is sick though, absolutely love that.
  • This set has ⅔ smashes that qualify for today’s Movetober.
  • “aerial combos tend to be stronger than her purely grounded combos, due in part to her armored double jump allowing her to beat out potential attempts to attack her out of it” - if the opponent is attacking you, what you’re doing might not be a combo in the strictest sense.
  • “This is as good a time as any to mention that Verre’s barriers can only reflect a beam once,” - I mean, it could have come up in the specials, assuming that encompasses her USpec walls, but better late than never.
  • UAir is a really cool move.
  • 19 frames is a very long time for a grab to be active, that’s over double how long tethers tend to be out. Not that that’s a problem, I dig a funky grab, I just would have expected that to be played up a bit more than saying it’s out a fairly long time.
  • Up Throw is fun. The item-shattering hitbox lasting half a second feels a little unnatural, but whatever. Magic. It’s used to good mechanical effect.
 

UserShadow7989

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
305
Roadhog by tunz tunz

A belated welcome to Make Your Move to you! Roadhog is a good start for what's hopefully a long career in MYM, translating his kit to smash nicely and showing some touches of what I usually suggest as additions to newcomers in mentioning how attacks transition into each other as well as an overall game plan. There's a couple of missing details- no damage or knockback listed for Back Aerial, and Up Tilt mentions the damage for Roadhog's arm and chain being 8% but then calling them sourspots that do 6% in the next sentence- but it covers the general basics of 'damage, knockback, and start up/end lag'.

I do feel there could be more, though- there were mentions of Roadhog being able to use x move after y here and there and the set made sure to mention there's a focus on his Side Special, but adding details in how moves tie into or play around Side Special as a centerpiece for his kit would be neat. Noting when a move puts foes right in line with his default throw angle or can lead into it if they fail a tech/throw up a shield at the wrong time, for example, or how it can punish the foe for dodging in anticipation of Side Special.

Down Special I was a little concerned about the balance of at first, but it seems fine thinking on it- it's a substantial heal, but it has a very long cooldown and Roadhog lacks the mobility to camp out the timer and reapply it. Besides that, there's not a lot of balance concerns I see in the set from a read, so that's a good sign.

Roadhog is a good first set, and I'm eager to see how you grow from here. Nice work!
 

FrozenRoy

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
1,260
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
Switch FC
SW-1325-2408-7513
"I tire of the unfinished state of the present! I was expecting you to proceed faster, but a little temporal distorting will have to do!


...Small temporal paradox here, it seems. Although I have finally arrived, it looks like it has turned into a ProfPeanut/FrozenRoy joint! How fascinating!"
 

Katapultar

Smash Lord
Joined
Nov 24, 2008
Messages
1,251
Location
Australia
This feels like the first true comeback Peanut set. Maybe it’s because of the X/10 stats, the presentation or the fact that the time mechanics and resistance to time-altering remind me of my Luxord and Young Xehanort sets, but Timekeeper feels like a good MYM12-13 set made modern. The early parts of the set show that this is primarily Peanut’s set, despite Froy’s hand in it.

- Time Blink’s knockback scaling, melee usages and exact frame data are a bit vague for my liking - these types of quick-burst moves normally have enough starting lag to be reactable, which is to say at least 15 frames of start-up. But the mechanic is cool!

- Neutral Special is a nice and “simple” move that plays off of the Entropy mechanic: your next attack either gets a damage boost, or creates a Time Rift if it misses. I like how keeping multiple Time Rifts open decreases the passive rate which Timekeeper gains Entropy, making that Neutral Special charge more relevant.

- The Piston Pillar being a construct that breaks into smaller chunks when it’s destroyed reminds me of your Lexeaus set in MYM12. Timekeeper is truly a moveset from the past! Actually, it’s funny that the both of you have made movesets for Lexaeus (and Xaldin).

- The various Possibilities are neat. I’m not entirely sold on the execution: the chosen Possibility is random, and the details on some of the Possibilities are a bit vague. Gear Pillar’s gears flying in random directions when it’s destroyed; does this hurt opponents if they destroy the pillar? Implosion’s suction feels vague too, and I wonder how long the suction effect lasts for. The unreliable nature of the constructs mean that they naturally don’t get used as much as I’d like in the set, even if they are mentioned later on. Sorry if I’m being a bit harsh here.

- I like how Side Special uses o’clock terminology to describe the directions the move can be angled. Very thematic, and easy to relate to when you wrap your head around it. The move itself is a pretty funk time-manipulating attack. Being able to hit a thread to send a projectile or construct back in time is cool, and I like how the thread telegraphs the trajectory that a projectile will travel if it gets reset. It helps that Timekeeper can make projectiles and constructs with Time Rifts, which is one reason why it would be cool if the Possibilities had more consistency and detail put into them.

- Down Special is an interesting enough recovery move. The glitched version of you is funky, and I do like that you take whatever damage it does, but being able to cancel it at literally any point in its attacks makes it feel too easy to dodge an attack against it - I’d suggest making it so you only get the cancel if you land an attack, so Timekeeper can still do those Time Rift-based combos. Up Special is a neat recovery for how it works: definitely sold on the logic that Timekeeper doesn’t need a reliable recovery.

- It seems that Froy takes the reins starting from D-tilt, explaining this moveset’s wordcount. D-tilt certainly helps to sell how fun the glitch cookie can be when you can appear and attack from a different position. F-Smash injects some characterization into Timekeeper as she chuckles during the move.

  • F-Smash is a very cool way to make use of the move’s “more knockback if more hits connected” nature (was this inspired by reading Sana?) and Side Special in general when the projectile remembers how many hits it landed. The other Smashes are very cool with Side Special too, which really gets a lot of mileage when you can reset these constructs to fun effect. I never got the impression that Time Rifts could “point” in a certain direction until I read these Smashes and the Aerials.
  • I am not completely sure if the U-Smash pillar is put to its full use, as far as a construct that you could stand on and the ways you could mess with it. I could see Timekeeper scoring really early kills with her pillars + float that lets her use one Smash in midair. U-throw kills really early, and could probably use a horizontal pillar to kill earlier.

- D-air has an artificial feel with its “tap or hold A to choose move length, bounce off constructs and press A again to do another stronger slash, but it leads to fun bouncing off of your constructs.

Overall, Timekeeper Cookie has cool enough character potential and concepts in her Time Rifts and Side Special replaying that she could be a top-tier or frontrunner set. If I had to note some things that are holding this set back, it’s how Possibilites work, the vagueness of Time Blinking and most of the Standard inputs - these moves are fine, but they do make the set feel a bit incomplete when they’re put next to Froy’s level of detail. I wonder if the moveset can be excessively chaotic at times, like with F-throw’s echo and and Up Special, but I understand that this character loves to cause chaos. Nonetheless, she is a strong set! A fitting character choice for Peanut to return to, given that MYM’y Zexion comes to mind as the pinnacle of Peanut sets go.
 

UserShadow7989

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
305
Bender by Owen23 Owen23

Welcome to Make Your Move! ...sorry I'm a few weeks late in saying so, but trying to push through the sets in order of posting has been a trial after that last stretch of contest and squeezing out one last set.

Bender is fun character pick, and I can pick out the basics of a zoner-ish playstyle here from his beer bottle projectile and long-lasting flame belch. Fitting given he's the type to run from danger if given the option. Neutral Special pushing foes to the exact end of his arm's reach and shortening as it stales is a cool concept, letting him push the opponent out of his face and giving him a fast reset tool that puts them right where he wants them, the loss of range a balance for it otherwise being so good at its job due to its speed. The Final Smash even brought back some memories of the episode in question it hails from, man I need to rewatch Futurama stuff sometime.

Going past that, there are some questions I have and suggestions to make. I assume Bender reverts out of UFO form when he lands from his Up Special? Or is it a toggle when you use Up Special? I'd recommend noting he can't change into UFO form twice in the same air trip if the latter so he can't recover infinitely. Is Pummel effectively an extra throw here? If so it's a neat idea, if a tiny bit hard hitting for a throw, but if meant to be a proper pummel, then 15% is EXTREMELY high damage even on a slow one- to give you an idea, 3% or 4% is pretty dang high on a pummel. By contrast, it feels like his Smashes could use a small buff.

In general, I'd give the set some more detail in how things work. Stuff like range, knockback, how fast a move is to come out and how long the end lag is in general (not really necessary to get into specific frames of course) can change a lot about how a move is used, and describing that and how it's used in the context of the character's playstyle (rushdown, zoner, all arounder) and their other moves (like combo strings, mix-ups) is always a good idea. It might be best to make comparisons to existing Smash characters for his stats (similar to how you did for his size), and maybe a quick note there of how he's meant to feel as you play him and give a quick summary of said playstyle there, it's a good spot for it I find.
 

ForwardArrow

Smash Ace
Joined
Aug 17, 2011
Messages
502
Mao
I'm kind of in a difficult spot with this set, for a few reasons. For one, I'll just be up front, your sets tend to like to hide little details that make the playstyle better and more interesting off in pretty subtle places. A throwaway line for a pretty important interaction here, implied but not outright stated functions and flaws of how moves work there, and like. I'll admit, I have a tenancy to miss the little things when I read. My visual tracking isn't the best, I know I skip over words sometimes, and maybe I missed some detail in here that makes Mao play much better than I think he does. I don't dislike this style, actually, I think its very cool to find an implication of a move that suddenly gets thrown at you and gets your gears turning as to the possibilities, I think its a fun way to present a set. But it makes me wonder if I'm being fair, if I didn't miss something important while reading the set or failed to consider an implication that turns out to be super important. It really doesn't help that this is a 100,000+ word project with tons of love in the visuals, flavor, detail, and writing, a lot of which I haven't gotten to yet as I admittedly am holding off on the extra sections until I get this comment out. I don't want to be down on it, this is a really obviously massive passion project and you deserve serious credit for putting so much effort into a mega project like this.

So its kind of unfortunate I'm stuck in the position where I don't like Mao. And to be honest, some of it is in pretty subjective ways, too, not things I expect most people to agree with me on. I don't really like the Hearts mechanic: I think its a downgrade on how Shulk approaches the same concept of a selectable buff/debuff by adding some pretty extreme baggage to the mechanic of "yeah you can just lose a huge chunk of your stats not just for the stock, but forever". I'm not saying that kind of drawback isn't interesting, and the fact you can put it in a foe is too, but these statistical changes and their effect on a match feels incredibly dramatic, and then the set doesn't really feel like its all that based around this mechanic once you get past Side Special? I'm not asking for hard interactions here, but the references to it in moves all feel very loose and undefined, and the actual melee attacks as well as the crazier Magichange stuff don't really feel like they're built around being used with these mechanics and just get an incidental line here and there. I think there's honestly a lot to talk about when characters get big numbers changes like this, and its in the very centerpiece of the moveset, and the set isn't really interesting in discussing the implications of Mao's Hearts more than it absolutely has to, in part because the set's built so that its really a downwards spiral you only want to get into when the match is getting closer to its end. But that downwards spiral is the interesting part, I want the set to talk about it more, but the set's lack of interest in the specifics of Mao's melee game and Magichange options under these effects makes it hard to. And honestly, when the set doesn't talk about these things, it leaves the Hearts feeling like a disruption, something to be avoided or just mess up foes in a frustrating way when they're saddled with the effects, in spite of it being a buff in practice. And to be honest, as a player and a reader I don't like having to give things up permanently if you don't lay out for me why I should do it, and Mao feels like he comes up short with that. I guess you can just point to the numerical multiplier on his stats and say "well, obviously that" but... I can't say I came away feeling like it was enough with all the burdens you saddle yourself with in the process.

The set suffers in a few other areas too, and the big one I want to talk about is Magichange. Not because the results of Magichange are bad, I quite like them. I think the monster attacks Mao gets off this move are pretty cool and would give him a pretty big depth of options to play with... but they're always just kind of going to be activating incidentally. From a character standpoint, if I remember your article on the set correctly, I get why that is. Mao's a loner who pushes away his friends but also, in the end, kind of needs them, so they belong in the set but not in a way it feels like Mao has strong control over. And I get that, but like... once again, this is my tendancies as a player and a reader coming up, I don't like that the way the summons pop up feels so incidental, losing Mao stored attacks for a potentially far less useful Raspberyl move due to a wonky clash or trade or even just spamming a move one too many times because it combos into itself like Mao's fast sword moves seem designed to use. Like, you can trigger this stuff manually, but its pretty painful or takes going for a pretty predictable and easily punishable play pattern for somewhat lengthy period. I just don't like that the stuff that felt like it gave Mao the most nuance, the options to really extend his melee game in dynamic-feeling ways, all feels like its a bit of a crapshoot when it'll actually happen, not truly random but something Mao doesn't have the kind of control over to make these mechanics feel deep as much as they do weird and wonky and occasionally self-defeating. I think Raspberyl and the Prinny in particular offer a lot of the most interesting parts of Mao's set and the fact that they're all so incidental puts the set in a bit of rough spot, IMO.

Because see... if Magichange is cool but activates in a way the player has little control over if they want to use it optimally, and the Hearts aren't really discussed all that much, Mao's kind of just left for his melee game to stand without either of these features. And, to be honest, the melee is just not that develoepd. Its not bad, but because Mao's pushed the mechanics that could elevate it off to the sidelines, it ends up feeling kind of shallow, with the spear moves being probably the most interesting with their mobility tricks but nothing really fleshed out in a way that held my attention. It probably doesn't help that a couple of the set's tricks feel alarmingly centralizing and powerful, the two big ones being Down Special and aerial Up Smash with the Raspberyl Sword. The ability to take a full on smash attack and store it with literally 1 frame of start lag, on a pretty potent smash attack that can be used in mid-air unlike most characters is a trick that's honestly kind of disgustingly powerful, and its not even the trick of his I'm most worrired about. If Mao gets hit by an attack that KOs him using Down Special, because of the properties of that move, the foe just... dies, on the spot, the moment you land Down Special later in the game. It doesn't go away between stocks, there's really nothing the opponent can do once he's got it other than wait for Mao to inevitably kill them by repeating their trick, and while I recognize there ARE ways to play around Mao getting this power(relying primarily on kill-confirms and aerial death combos is probably the best way to get around it), its strikes me as very unfair and unfun to have to worry about an option THAT powerful for the rest of the match off one small slip up.

I've ragged on this set a LOT in this comment, but I want to make one thing clear: I don't hate Mao. I'm not even sure I dislike him, he occupies a pretty nebulous spot in my mind where he's very strong in some places and very weak in others. I do think the downwards spiral taking place over stocks, while not something I'd normally be drawn to, would be interesting if the set was a little more willing to talk about just what that downward spiral looks like in practice. I think Raspberyl and the Prinny can do some seriously cool stuff and there's a lot of fun little tricks hidden in the set. It came to mind that, after Mao's grab game spends a while talking about the FFA implications of his weird mad science contraption he grabs the foe with, those could come up in 1v1's if you get a Prinny on the field, especially because the thing you want to do with a Prinny is... throw it. Letting Mao double up on those kinds of hitboxes is fun! I also like the implications of decreasing your own power enough to attempt combos you really have no right to do normally, or trying to jack up your KO potential to astronomical levels by stacking the Red Heart and the Magichanged Axe's benefits. I think Mao could probably do some pretty sick combos by playing off Raspberyl's FSmash books shenanigans or using a prinny to extend your hitboxes as you're flinging yourself around with the spear attacks. Hell there's plenty of potential with the Vato Bro too, his trap can probably set up some neat things in its own right. I like that once Mao's out of hearts you give him a REALLY good option all of a sudden in Side Special, but one that every time he uses it he's sent further and further into the abyss. Its all stuff that is legitimately fun to imagine in my head, and yet the set's not really committed to showing it off in the kind of detail I'd hope for, and it kind of ends up out of focus compared to his pretty lackluster melee kit and janky broken kill setups with Down Special and Up Aerial Smash.

I think this is another case where I'm willing to admit this is definitely a bit subjective, there's room to say "use your imagination and enjoy the implications with the heart mechanic" here. Maybe the coolness of the Magichange attacks and their characterization aspect makes up for the lack of player control over it, its not like the depth doesn't EXIST just because when it comes out is chaotic and not fully in Mao's control. I don't think either of those things are fair, but in particular in response to the former point, I just like something I can sink my teeth into mechanically. I remember at one point when Rool was making fun of Warlord's setmaking philosophy he wrote Warlord as saying "I want a set you can practically cut with a knife" and... I don't know, maybe it makes me feel stupid saying I want something similar out of Mao here. But maybe the best thing to say is just "this set really isn't for me". Because its not.

This isn't to disrespect it though. I fully intend to read the entirety of what you made for this set, all the extras and additional sets, because this is a downright monumental project. This set's over twice the required length to be a novel in terms of sheer extra content to build off Mao in a lovingly excessive way, and like. I really cannot emphasize enough that my opinion on the main man himself mostly just comes down to my votelist and not how much I appreciate the project. This kind of insane stuff is something nobody else would do, an absolute commitment to Mao as a character and Disgaea/Nippon Ichi on the whole, and any personal satisfaction you have in that is absolutely warranted.
 

UserShadow7989

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
305
The Midori Gang by Katapultar Katapultar

Well, that's an interesting character choice alright. The set is reasonably compact and straightforward despite being three characters with some of the extra inputs you'd expect from that, despite what you'd think from how long it took me to get through it. I like the personality the three bring to bear with their animations and oddball attacks, and I honestly do love how the switching mechanic works- to be honest, I'm higher on this set than I probably should be as I kept mentally saying to myself that I should've designed the Stooges more like this (if only to save folks the agony of another 40k set/to better condense them down to a few more interesting inputs).

The puddle, flame, and tank are some great constructs/concepts to work around, and means you have three specials that double as buttons to split the group up and better manipulate them. They also give some nice focal points for the girls' cooperation beyond combos via careful switching, as they each have two constructs out they can play off of or one of their own to toy with to support the others. Then there's moves like Dodai's Up Throw (to name a later part of the set that's fresher in my mind since my reading of this set got broken up a lot) that are a more short-term set-up to lead into something for the others to play off of, which is a neat touch that isn't overused to the point the set would lack simple bread and butter 'button and direction equals hitbox thataway' inputs necessary to actually fight. There's a few too many inputs that feel like they're just 'there' in terms of mechanics/application, but even that I can see being a good thing given the number of utterly crazy things they have already, and nothing feels outright redundant or worse, useless.

There's still some pertinent questions and nitpicks in my mind; to list them off quickly:

-When using Neutral Special (or Down/Side Special with the relevant girl in your control), how does the game prioritize which other girl for you to take control of while Midori (or the other girl) is left in place? A simple pecking order (Midori > Ama > Dodai?) would do.

-Dash Attack notes "Like Up Special, NAir changes with your lead"; I believe that that's meant to say Dash Attack.

-Dodai's Grounded Back Throw damage is kind of obscene, even knowing it's a dedicated damage throw with a downside on a slow character; I'd nerf it down a bit, maybe to 18%, so it's still absurdly strong for a throw but more within reason when taken in context of it ending on a slight frame disadvantage with the slowest member of the group. That does leave her Up Throw technically higher in damage, but since the bulk of its damage is so conditional, it's fine.
 

Daehypeels

Smash Rookie
Joined
Sep 10, 2022
Messages
13
Nino by FrozenRoy and Slavic.

Fair warning that I write notes as I go along, so earlier points will be made unsure of what’s to come.



Starting off:

-Nice introduction – I knew nothing about Nino, and now I know everything about her. I remember watching a video about how bull**** hard her recruitment chapter is, though, that sounds like a nightmare.

-The stats concerned me quite a bit since she sounds like a faster Ness with a high emphasis on projectile shenanigans, and I’m not one to deny I find Ness immensely obnoxious, let alone one with even more dominant air and ground movement. I’m curious how powerful she’s meant to be competitively, since you explain in-depth her Est/Delthea-style absurd potential. Also, side note, love the shielding animation.

-The weapon durability mechanic is so coooool, not only being very different from Robin’s and influencing her moveset way more with a much higher reliance on it, but also the ability to power yourself up throughout the match by using them? That leads to tons of fascinating decisions to make… I really wish you went into them more, though, I would have loved to hear what you two thought of how it’d affect gameplay. Stuff like the decisions between intentionally using low-durability spells and bearing the cooldown early VS saving those moves for when you need them, potential gameplans revolving around using one type of magic as much as possible to get to the best tier of it as quickly as possible, or even just smaller nuances like a Nino player asking themselves if they should use downtime during the match (like when the opponent was freshly launched away, or are in the middle of responding) to intentionally spam moves at nothing to burn their durability quicker… it’s such a lovely concept with all sorts of potential for depth, yet the playstyle doesn’t cover that. Perhaps it’s included down the line, but we’ll see.

-Might be a personal thing but I really don’t like that she just gets Yoshi armor for free, and even better armor later in the game? Yoshi armor is really, really dumb and giving a Ness/Mewtwo-type jumper, with range no less, the ability to presumably Frame 1 tank all sorts of things and immediately retaliate, on top of the usual things (recovering’s a breeze, can combo break like nobody else, etc.), is a little silly. I’ll have to see Up B to properly judge this, but unless you guys cover the ramifications later, I don't like this – not a huge fan of slapping on an absolutely absurd unique mechanic from a different character that’s designed with weaknesses based around that strength, but (most likely) not having any weaknesses itself. Hammerne on Shield B is cool though, neat tactical option that I can appreciate the thought of, even if it’s a little questionable balance-wise (does she really need a way to just negate a key downside like that?)



Neutral B:

-Gonna talk about Fire and Elfire separate from Forblaze, I like the ideas behind them of Arcfire-like moves that instead focus on speed and pressure/ledgetrapping respectively. For the former, I like the emphasis on “yeah you’re primarily just going for combos with this”, although I think three frames is WAY too short for the described application of dodging projectiles, especially given the fact that Nino explicitly moves backwards and would therefore just dodge into the projectile anyways, so I question the intangibility on the dodge at all, but it’s a neat little harmless thing. Elfire’s also a pleasant read, 6 frames is much more helpful than 3 but would still get snuffed by quite a few truly lingering things (and MIGHT dodge extremely fast projectiles but would still probably get hit by quite a few), but that’s besides the point. I will say, the ambiguity about whether it'll hit ledge or go past it is a little nullified by the opponent either recovering below or a bkce, or if they've already grabbed the ledge, just dropping down from it and regrabbing while you’re either still in lag or just too far away to punish them, which you don’t mention… still very compentent as an attack and definitely still threatening in offstage situations (plenty of situations where it's still a huge problem), but there might be a bit of an oversight there. Neat stuff though. I like these moves though.

-Forblaze… I’ve got some questions/concerns. First off is the shield in front of her that blocks anything under 9%, you specify that breaking the shield doesn’t actually interrupt the animation, so what happens if it’s broken? Does the attack keep going and hit her as well (which would mean that moves that last for a very short amount of time would be ignored, even strong ones)? Does it require a second hit? The description and lack of clarity there is a bit confusing. Then there’s the dodge mechanic where she becomes fully intangible from Frame 12 onwards until it comes out, which is the opposite issue I had before – the move only has 11 frames of vulnerability before it’s unstoppable and forces the opponent to eat a projectile that kills them at 75%, which is nuts, combine that with the block threshold and there’s tons of attacks in this game that she can just ignore and delete the opponent through… And when Forblaze’s initial projectile hits a shield, the multi-hits before it explodes don’t do shieldstun so you can escape, but if you shielded the initial projectile then tried to escape, wouldn’t the multi-hits still be active? Unless the multi-hits are negated entirely by shielding, escaping the explosion would still be extremely difficult because dodges aren’t immediately intangible, spotdodges alone have 2 frames of vulnerability, let alone forward and back rolls (3 and 4 respectively); if each hit happens once every 4 frames before detonation, the opponent would need really good timing to spotdodge and STILL not get hit. And that’s before getting into the explosion… you specify that the explosion lasts for 15 frames, which is exactly how long a spotdodge lasts for. Shielding the first hit of Forblaze and then trying to escape it either requires a near-frame-perfect forward roll, or a genuinely frame-perfect spotdodge or backward roll.

-Splitting Forblaze’s concerns into separate chunks so that it isn’t too big of a text wall, with the problems above, Nino gets a relatively fast projectile that not only blocks numerous attacks but also ignores the rest if she times it mildly well, presumably does immense shield damage and dodging it is beyond difficult, and destroys anything in its path. This move feels like it’s doing a lot for her without all that many downsides to keep it in check other than a partially reactable startup (which can be negated via the aforementioned defensive capabilities, putting them offstage, forcing an airdodge, or reads), yeah there’s the durability aspect but this move is bonkers



Side B:

-Similar story with Bolting… Thunder and Lightning are A-OK in my eyes, slightly goofier/more balanced Shadow Flares with solid capabilities and reasonable upsides/downsides, I kinda wish you mentioned stuff like if the opponent tries to recover low with their upwards knockback you could theoretically use that opportunity for some very cool setups like how Snake can combo into his F-Air, but overall they’re solid enough moves…

-I had to take a break before I could mentally process Bolting. Bolting is ABSURD, even before getting into the other stuff, I had to test this: it’s an auto-lock radius bigger than max-range Magic Burst which makes avoiding it nigh-impossible in many scenarios – you can’t just pop it in neutral since that has the highest chance not working, but there’s many ways to get it off. 25 frames of startup isn’t that slow when it comes to a move literally bigger than MB, and there are countless ways to put your opponent into a situation where they have to be immensely careful about it. Ganondorf’s F-Smash is Frame 27 and a tiny fraction of the size, yet people fall for it plenty enough – whether it’s just a basic low-commitment read, juggling an opponent, gimping them, ledgetrapping them, anti-zoning them, or pretty much any whiff punish scenario imaginable when it comes to neutral, this move will work. You did say that it's supposedly not good for gimping since it can give their Up B back, but you forgot that this would be amazing at snuffing out double jumps and putting the fear of god into the opponent that way, which I’d argue still makes this excellent – tons of characters can quickly be ruined by sapping their jump at a critical moment. And it goes through walls and floors so there’s zero hiding from it regardless of where they are on the screen. It even has a wonderful upside of being a shieldbreaking move, since you mention even the initiating hit is a threat. Yeah it’s reactable, but again, if people can fall for stuff like Byleth D-Air or semi-charged Shieldbreaker, people are going to eventually crack and end up shielding it when they shouldn't. Even before getting into the upsides, the sheer inability to avoid this move, and the ridiculous amount of pressure and fear it puts into the opponent that they can barely use their shield throughout the endgame of a match ‘lest Nino randomly Side B and their bubble might not he able to tank it… related to my earlier question about intentionally burning through tome durability, wouldn’t Nino players want to intentionally get to this move ASAP? This is insanely good, way better than I think you thought it was.

-I’ve got no further problem with the non-hit version of the followup, it’s really powerful offstage or at ledge, but it’s a move both players know she has to use after 7 seconds, and it’s sort of punishable if played around correctly. The bolt version that sends out lightning-fast projectiles is a little more concerning, but you do still have to earn it, and it only puts the opponents in checkmate situations if you earn it first by properly setting them up, so I’ll concede the rest of the move is fine, decently neat even (although I do question from a meta standpoint why the most glorious lightning attack this character can use is something they use to turn themselves into a Smart Bomb, rather than an interesting evolution of this kind of projectile… but that’s just my own taste, not a fair complaint). Really it’s just that initial activation that I don’t like, but I do feel like that phase of the move is egregiously powerful, even with the other parts and high cost.



Up B:

-Upsides and downsides of writing as I read along, I criticized the Yoshi double jump since I thought she would have a traditional recovery and it was a little unnecessary, but fair enough. PERSONALLY I think it’d be a lot more interesting if the tiny little squishy wizard had a unique mechanic or powerful/abundance of jumps rather than just copy+pasting what was otherwise a 100% unique mechanic from another fighter, both from a reading standpoint but also a design and flavorful one… but eh, that’s again not the fairest complaint, and what you did with the mechanic is pretty neat, since it’s in various tiers and requires management. It does make my mind race with other ideas though, even with the jump armor (like giving her an alternate way of recovering that uses Wind durability, so there’s a choice between sacrificing a load of durability for a likely quite safe and/or powerful recovery tool, or just hoping the armor and single double jump is enough so that you dob’t risk losing both recovery options quicker than you can afford).

-Regular Wind seems kinda silly, yeah it’s low-reward and costs durability (meaning you won't be able to use it as a recovery boost, thoughtful dilemma there, nice) but quick and spammable projectiles that can not just go straight forward but also upwards or even at a rare diagonal angle can be really annoying for the opponent and helpful for her, especially since you can instantly do them from a shield. Although admittedly at this point I feel like I’m falling more into my FFC judging persona rather than that of a MYM commenter… this character sounds obnoxious.

-Okay, you know Mii Swordfighter’s Gale Strike Neutral B (the one that throws out the tornado), a projectile that shoots a large tornado with immensely followup-friendly knockback, and something that is really strong at low- or even mid-/mid-high-level gameplay? Fimbulvetr is that, but it comes out in 3/4s the time, is much larger (possibly twice as large), travels faster, deals double the damage, is even more combo friendly (sends the opponent much lower), is aimable, AND can act as a Frame 15 OOS – sure, it probably has more endlag (probably), and the durability cost can be a factor, but again, FFC brain looks at that and immediately thinks “that’s absurd and probably not okay”… you didn’t mention the similarities in the doc, did you guys think of the comparison?

-I feel like the speed at which the Excalibur fires off 3 entire, different projectiles is a bit much. Given Smash is a 60FPS game, 6 frames (the amount if time it takes for the windbox projectile to spawn, the 1% projectile to follow, and the first frame of the main projectile appearing) is only 1/10th of a second, and there are a large number of moves that start on Frame 6 and, as far as the human eye is concerned, barely gives us any time to process that there were 5 initial frames thrown in. If throwing out 3 projectiles like a machine gun was your intent then there’s only so much I can do to convince myself that it wouldn’t work in execution, but the move seems to say you can angle the first two in different angles (with the third locked to the second’s). You’d have to swivel that stick REAL quick to aim them in meaningfully different directions, given the difference between them is 2 frames, unless there’s some sort of aiming mechanic to alleviate it you didn’t mention. And given how hard it is to aim them separately, and how fast the second projectile comes out, I don’t think the first windbox would be practical, since it’d be so hard to not snipe them with the second projectile. It’s certainly a cool idea but the frame data is so speedy it’s hard to picture it actually working as intended, not even mentioning stuff like attempting to punish airdodges with these.

-Excalibur also falls under the camp of Specials that sound horrendously overpowered, being a not-really-that-slow projectile (since it’s very easy to combo into, and would be decent in many situations not all that dissimilar to Bolting above) that’s essentially massive and kills people under 70% at center stage, let alone what kind of nightmarishly early % you die at if you get combed into this by the ledge or even offstage. I’d just like to take this moment to say, I think these are super cool ideas, and the power behind them is slightly justified in some areas (as you said, 35 total seconds of no Wind moves or double jump armor, and you have to burn through the durability beforehand, which I can’t just brush off as easy to do)… but at the same time, I don’t think the downsides are anywhere meaningful enough, given the sheer power these moves alone provide Nino, not even getting into how good her kit will be at synergizing with this stuff, and it’s really hard for me to re-immerse myself into the blog when everything you’re telling me is making me picture this unbelievably potent little **** doing all these things with the stats and Yoshi jumps that she has. I do respect these ideas and I’m still looking forward to the rest of the moveset, but I can’t get behind how strong these ideas are.



Down B:

-Down B is a whole lot to read, I’m pretty new to MYM counters so I’m very impressed by it. The only concerns I have are that Jaffar warping in and out of reality when struck sounds a little weird from both a meta and gameplay standpoint (like what if Nino counters the first hit of a really long-lasting multihit, such as Gigaflare, Toronto, or Limit Cross Slash, does Nino just stay there invulnerable while Jafar disappears for a while then suddenly poofs back in? What if this is a free-for-all or doubles match where attacks keep coming in for a prolonged amount of time? But this is a more minor thought)… and I do think the 5-frame window at the start spiking aerial opponents is a little too strong (if it starts on Frame 4 and the second version activates on Frame 8, that’s Frames 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8), since a 1.35X multiplier with a base on a spike is really strong, and even if it doesn’t outright kill it’d still finish off tons of characters, again forcing double jump management from the opponents with all sorts of things to worry about. Odds are very high most characters instantly die offstage if Nino goes for that counter and succeeds, which wouldn’t be THAT hard to do, especially against some characters. But I do really like the timing requirement (it would be difficult for Nino to land the sweetspot on many characters without a very hard read), and the rest of the move was a super fun read.



Standards:

-F-Smash’s speed being listed as “notable, not Nino’s slowest nor the game’s slowest” is really, really vague, that can vary anywhere between like 20 to 35ish frames as far as I’m concerned… I'd like to be corrected if the other two Smashes give me a better picture, and it’s not the biggest deal, but it doesn’t paint a clear mental image whatsoever. Otherwise, this move is super cool, I like the idea of Jaffar appearing in places and attacking in ways to make backstabs very frequent, and it feels a lot like he’s ambushing people, which fits excellently. I will say, I can accept base F-Smash being 4 grids long, and 2nd-tier reaching as far as 6 is questionable imo but not that bad… 8 tiles is absurd, especially with the limited info I have about how fast it is, I’d have to test this but isn’t that like 3/5ths of Battlefield or more? Durability matters much less, since relative to how much durability the third tier has, this basically costs less than the other two. I can’t criticise this too much since the rest of the move is cool, but it’s again reinforcing my picture of how much of an unbalanced nightmare this character would be.

-Does U-Smash scoop up nearby grounded opponents, like most multi-hit U-Smashes? U-Smash is again cool but probably a little too nutty for its own good, being like if Steve U-Smash sacrificed some speed in exchange for being bigger, even you say at tier 3 it rivals Sephiroth’s. This does bring up concerns about how possible it is for opponents to even avoid or airdodge it in certain scenarios given how huge and potentially lingering it is, but since those aren’t details you explore, I’ll give the benefit of doubt, and just take it for what it is – a fun move, and a fun read. The only thing left to complain about is how vague the tomeless version’s speed is, since that’s the difference between whether she alternates between a ridiculously scary but slow anti-air and a weak but consistently helpful one, or the latter is just mediocre at best.

-Again, think D-Smash is kinda stronk (high range and damage with the ability to choose whether you just want it to be a stronger but less safe Mewtwo’s that apparently lingers, on top of the funny projectile, or you want a traditional but slow double-hit), although with the range part being less devastating, and the comparison to an existing move being less in Nino’s favor (with Mewtwo’s D-Smash’s best attributes being that it’s shockingly safe on shield), I really don’t care nearly as much about the balance details… nice move.

-So Up Smash is 19 frames and D-Smash is the same as Mewtwo’s, which is 21… so at its absolute slowest, F-Smash would be 20 frames… which is NOT OKAY for how unreasonably far that move goes even at the second tier, let alone the third. Simon’s absolutely gigantic F-Smash, which goes a mere fraction of the distance Nino’s does, is Frame 26, very thin (requiring angling for a little bit of compensation), and the timing is precise, with only 2 frames of hitbox activity to work with. Even without adding Jaffar (which I’ll talk a little about below), regardless of the move’s cool nature, that really tips it into egregious territory for me.

-Final thing about the Smash Attacks, even though they all have the same mechanic Link’s F-Smash has, which is a very unique mechanic with plenty of extra upsides to it, I’m a little disappointed you didn’t dwell on that at all. You treat every single Jaffar addition to the moves like it’s always an extra risk taken, when the placement of him and his role within F-Smash and U-Smash is only beneficial when you’re already landing the move, and useless if you haven’t. The thing about Link’s F-Smash is that he never has to take that risk with F-Smash unless he absolutely wants to – the window to activate hit #2 is generous that you can react to whether or not hit #1 was successful, and if it wasn’t, #2 is a built-in mixup that can be immensely hard to parry, keeps the opponent nervous/unwilling to flee, and pretty much auto-punishes spotdodges if you know what you’really doing. But at the end of the day, hit #2 reaches significantly further, which means it’s always a valid choice to just spam the two hits ASAP if you need that little extra range – there’s still decisions to be made. My problem with Jaffar is that he’s only a straight upgrade in those two moves if the move lands, and completely useless otherwise… there’s no indication to me that the window to summon him isn’t generous enough to just react to whether someone got hit or not, and therefore the only decision to make is whether or not it hit them and therefore you should press A the second time. There’s no reason to summon him in neutral for those moves. D-Smash is great because with that he functions as the usual behind-hit and therefore is an actual decision that gives you reward based off of a good read/punish, which is super interesting – I’ve seen mods make two-hit D-Smashes have a similar mechanic and it tends to only make them more fun to play around with, and it's either immensely difficult or flat-out impossible to just react in time to stuff like rolls, truly making it read-based and risky. But with the other two, it doesn’t feel like a risk to go for Jaffar at all unless you’re just mindlessly mashing.



Ground Standards:

-Solidly fond of Jab! Simple idea nicely expanded upon and with plenty of depth, and I like that you can artificially modify the move’s order by using it with broken tomes, rather than the move being ruined. Kind of wish there was a way to truly change the order (stuff like always having Wind or Fire first, in exchange for Lightning maybe messing with its consistency a bit?) but that’s a whole extra can of worms that’s pretty unnecessary.

-Dash Attack’s cool (love that it’s useable without a tome, goofy useless moves like that are wonderful)

-For Forward Tilt, although I guess this applies to all Jaffar moves, are Jaffar’s hitboxes transcendent, or can they clank with other moves? And for the Ambush mechanic, does it instantly nick off a third of the startup frames (which makes me ask what happens when it detects an attack later in the move, does it just instantly start past a certain point?), or does it nick away a third of the remaining startup frames (which is less effective but ignores the initial issue)? It’s overall a fascinating move, the semi-counter aspect of it might be a bit much with it functioning as a tome-free spacing tool with backstab potential AND the ability to sort of auto-counter in a way… but at the end of the day, complaining about a move having too much content is kinda ass-backwards, so

-U-Tilt being that short surprised the hell out of me, that being said, it’s nice and concise, getting all it needs to across. Had a good time with the slight breather, as well as a creative buff to it in the form of multihits that, instead of rewarding Nino with significantly more power, but instead just makes a combo move more reliable and generous for said combos. Nice.

-D-Tilt’s cool, a dynamically-changing move that slowly loses a bit of range as the tome level goes up but becomes better for combos and even 2-framing. Although it’s a little weird that this is the move that confirms U-Smash must be really fast… so apologies for going back there, but Nino MUST have a good OOS tomeless U-Smash if she can combo it out of D-Tilt.



Air Standards:

-N-Air’s a little strange, giving her Zelda N-Air isn’t a bad idea and you explain it mostly well, but what do you mean by canceling the move on the third hit, from a shorthop specifically? Is this a unique thing that only happens when she shorthops, with no other form of rising doing that? Is this a genuine cancel (as in the move just ends, or something like Kazuya’s D-Tilt where it removes its own hitbox but massively reduces the endlag?) or did you just intentionally design it to fall out in that context (which, again, makes me wonder if it only happens with shorthops and you can’t force it in other ways). And if it’s not a cancel, then this move must have an absurd amount of hitstun for a multi-hit N-Air to intentionally fall out, end, go through the “not blazing fast” endlag, and STILL combo afterwards. I guess this is a recurring problem where, I’m not sure if it’s just a personal problem I have or not, but you randomly introduce this massively influential gimmick or ability with one sentence and then don’t delve into certain important ramifications of it at all… it’s not like you’re lacking detail or effort, because these moves are absolutely crammed with detail, thought, and aspects. It’s a weird combination where you’re immensely and immensely thoughtful in multiple areas, but it’s like that just turns off sometimes in other, pretty critical areas. Still a solid move description for the other ideas, but I’m really left hanging on some things.

-Wait, NOW you mention Mii Swordfighter’s Gale Strike on Forward Air, and not when describing the giant tornado projectile that acts the same way, fulfills the same purpose, and does literally everything it does but better? Okay… Regardless, really creative standard again, two distinct functions of an attack that can blend together, act separate, and even have an engaging and substantial downside of needing strict timing if you only want to use the first hit + needing to throw out the first hit to get the second. Stuff like this and your high quantity of discussed aspects really highlight why this is a high-priority moveset.

-Up Air’s solid, absurdly high reward if you land the sweetspot, but the sourspot ranging between a meh spacing tool at absolute best and a genuine hinderance at worst makes for a rather gimmicky but still capable move, neat. Given Nino’s absurd combo potential I have zero doubt that this move further contributes to her potentially unreasonable level of nuttiness, since a truly good Nino player would land the sweetspot out of combos like no problem at all and she’s got no shortage of setups for it, but the lack of reliability in neutral, and the durability cost possibly being more than it’s worth in a lot of cases, rounds this out for me. Thumbs up.

-I am HELLA biased towards attacks like D-Air, I love all the aspects of those kinds of moves; whether it’s the power, the weighty and satisfying startup, the practicality, the recovery aspect, the fear factor, even just stuff like the animation having her dunk on you, or the fact that it’s specifically an explosion she’s dunking onto you. Automatically a huge fan of these kinds of moves… but even without that, nice execution. I think the higher-tier tomes again fall into “this is probably a little stupider than you planned” since it goes from a simple take on R.O.B.’s to a bigger and probably stronger version of Mega Man’s that not only helps you recover but even turns into two extra horizontal projectiles upon hitting the ground. Yeah, durability’s a thing, but Nino’s strong enough, even before giving her the ability to just plop down a kill move that’s twice the size of Villager D-Air at any moment in the air, not even restricted by the ledge, AND she recovers while doing so meaning it’s not even committal… cool ideas but Nino would be such an unfair little **** to fight, I swear

-Back Air’s not bad, being a slow but potentially very rewarding and solidly-ranged move, not the biggest fan of it but I’ll admit that I don’t have many good, explainable reasons for that. I guess one thing to ask is whether Jaffar auto-disappears if Nino lands during the move? For Down Special I don’t have too much of a problem with it, but on something like B-Air, having an entire extra character spawn for a moment and do a delayed attack can be a bit rough and unnatural. Again it’s cool, just doesn’t really sit all that well with me, might be a completely personal-taste thing.



Grab Stuff:

-I think it’s neat that she has a tomeless version of her grab that involves Jaffar (amusing animation), and I like the mechanic of needing to pay attention to your last move used to pick between your grabs… but why only fire? Couldn’t you come up with something cool for the other two, like, idk (writing this just off the top of my head), maybe a wind grab with a far-reaching windbox to suck people into your grasp, or maybe a lightning grab that greatly reduces one side of the lag, whether it’s startup or endlag...? Still cool, but was a bit disappointed with only two types of grab, it was the perfect setup for multiple unique grabs.

-Also with this knowledge… that’d actually be a cool way to have Jab’s order change around in a natural way, I think, where you could have had it so that it pays attention to the most recent two types of magic Nino used and then puts Jab in that order (so for example, using a fire move and then two wind moves would make the order wind -> fire -> electric, where the number of times one type is used matters less than the general order of most recent to least recent), so if you most recently used a lightning move you’d play around your first Jab being near-instant but lacking range, or you could intentionally go for Jab after using a fire move so you can seamlessly go for the tech chase without the other two versions of Jab getting in the way… stuff like that makes my brain jog, but idk, you guys do you.

-Why is Pummel named Shock and Awe when it’s a fire move? And I’m guessing it doesn’t cost durability, since you don’t mention it at all… I’m a fan of having the pummel just be Jaffar shanking the opponent though, brings up fond memories of Black Mage in SSF2.

-I can’t entirely get behind the weird mechanic of Back Throw popping the opponent upwards by ledge, that just seems unnecessary and out of place, but I like the rest of the move, always a fan of sliding stuff in Smash, and while it again contributes to this character being overly nasty, I do like the almost Flame Choke-esq panicked scramble it puts the opponent into since you can so easily keep up the pressure.

-Forward Throw, I’m a little mixed on. I’ll always welcome charge throws, I’ve never been the same after seeing Wario be able to charge his F-Throw in PM and how cool that is, and inherently this move is unique, fun as hell, and overall quite clever. For the upsides though… Fire is surprisingly underpowered I think, sure you get 20% but it sucks at killing and you’re nuking your rather precious durability (with F-Throw being really good and my assumption that U-Throw and D-Throw will also probably be really good), I feel like it’s not worth it when you could probably just get an equally (if not more) damaging combo. Wind is where it starts teetering into suspect territory but still semi-fine imo, with the charge ability actually being quite potent – now instead of shredding your own durability to get a lackluster reward you could have gotten for much cheaper, with this you can shred your own durability to get possibly the strongest F-Throw in the game, which is self-explanatory, but also an interesting dynamic for both the opponent and Nino to paly around, truly encouraging both to pay close attention to durability even moreso than before. But then there’s Lightning, which… cool, picture Nino grabbed you at like 50 or 60% centerstage (being generous and assuming this wouldn’t work at 40% or lower), landed the stun because you imply she could even at mid%s, then did Not-Gale-Strike into sweetspot Up Air, if not something even grosser than that. Wouldn’t that just… immediately kill, regardless of where the opponent was on the stage? And you can’t say “but durability” because that’d be UNQUESTIONABLY worth it… idk, the other two abilities are cool, but giving her a Cargo Throw that lets her turn durability into a legitimately game-winning stun, on top of everything else she has, miiiiight be a lot? What I gave was a singular example I didn’t spend much time thinking about, I doubt that’s even close to what she truly could do if we analyzed it a little harder.

-LOVE D-Throw’s animation, that’s excellent in so many ways, beautiful, 11/10 stuff. Functionally… does she really need two throws that basically Flame Choke/Snake D-Throw the opponent? since you pretty explicitly treat F-Throw like something where the opponent is put in a tight situation rather than a regular launcher or a neutral reset. Although it’s hard to complain with a concept and animation that good. BUT AGAIN, you’re giving someone who’s probably Better Ness something like Snake’s D-Throw, which… hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…

-U-Throw’s really cool, top-tier animation once again and the non-tome version slots in perfectly. Decent execution as well, not much to comment.

-I guess in hindsight, F-Throw’s charged fire variant is a little more fine as just a raw, guaranteed 20%, since the other throws either don’t combo or rely on inconsistent reads/punishes, but I’d still argue that it’s probably not worth it (take stuff like K. Rool’s U-Throw or Bowser’s D-Throw, both extremely high-damage throws that don’t get used simply because the kill power, combo potential, or even mixup potential of their other throws completely outweigh them – Nino’s full-charge 20% would be a few points stronger than those examples, but I don’t think it’d balance it out, especially given how strong the other throws are).



Final Smash/Extras:

-cool final smash bro

-also cool additional content – I’ve never seen the victory poses being labeled as A, B, and C though, that’s new to me, but makes sense.



Final Thoughts:

-I’m never doing this much for a single comment again, my motivation and time cannot hold up, this took me forever… but I’d probably do it again for this moveset regardless, if I rewound time.

-This was a lot, a lot of quality but a lot of headache as well. Even if I were drastically more negative about this than I am currently, I’d still call this worthy of its high priority… at least unless the other ones fully outclass it, but we’ll see. It’s a mixed bag that I probably liked more than I disliked, but the stuff I disliked stuck out like a sore thumb and really made me hesitate going back in to re-read this moveset each day with the knowledge I’d keep seeing more problems that bothered me. Perhaps I’m just whining, though.

-Overall… superb execution of Nino and Jaffar’s personalities and mannerisms, a strong highlight of the ‘Doc for me. With the pretty thorough introduction to the two in mind, the concepts of the moves and their animations/details were a consistent joy to read through, Nino’s infectious gleeful and energetic passion put into everything she does (along with the skill to add tons of flair in various places), combined with Jaffar’s jaded and cold efficiency, pragmatism, and brutality that can’t fully hide a genuine soft heart here and there… it’s so good.

-The execution is also (usually) top-notch, with thorough, in-depth explanations for tons of moves, with loads of things I had no idea you’d pull out for what moves could do. This is my first full introduction to bigger, higher-quality movesets compared to what I’m used to, and the hype did not disappoint, I was blown away by how much there was to read and absorb, I loved how much I could take an idea and just mentally run with it, in that way I was immensely engaged with the blog and many parts of it. Perhaps it’s a novelty that will wear off as I get acclimated to this being around the norm for quality stuff around here (if not a bit subpar compared to the higher highs), but seriously, this was a great view into what the truly good stuff around her can be like.

-I kept saying it over and over again in the comments though, the balancing is a huge issue for me. I don’t think her downsides are irrelevant, because in that front, I do feel like she is held back in plenty of ways, the durability especially carrying so much weight on its shoulders when it comes to keeping her in check. But holy **** I would hate her with the passion of a thousand burning suns if I ever had to deal with this obnoxious little **** in-game. Without wasting too much time recapping what I’ve already put into this already-way-too-big comment… decently small, greatly above-average movement in every single category, psychic-tier floaty jumps giving her movement possibilities close to nobody else has access to, Yoshi armor, a durability mechanic that actively rewards her spamming out moves and turning them into way stronger ones at a slight cost of cooldowns in some places, 3 absolutely pants-****tingly broken projectile Specials and a 4th that’s still pretty broken too, absurdly large and powerful Smash Attacks with the best aspects of Link’s F-Smash without the downsides, backstab potential with even further reward, spacing tools, combo tools, loads of kill moves with loads of confirms, better Mega Man D-Air/Villager bowling ball combined, surprisingly good recovery for someone who’s Up Special doesn’t work traditionally, and a varied, potent grab leading to throws that consist of Flame Choke but in two different flavors, a solid and highly reliable killing/damage tool regardless of tome durability, and either the best killing throw in the game or what is somehow EWGF in throw form. On one hand, I know that I’m a biased bottom-tier heavyweight main, and I complain about this game a lot… but surely, SURELY you see the problem here, right? Oh, and almost forgot, a Shield B to just… ignore her critical balancing factor once a match. Just because.

-And I don’t know the full standards of movesets, like I don’t know how close to perfection we’re all trying to aim for, but as I mentioned with my various thoughts, I feel like you dropped the ball quite a few times when it came to mechanics or qualities certain moves have. It’s a bit of a clashing contrast where, as the point above mentioned, you go all-out on so many aspects of pretty much every move in her kit, and it strongly reinforces my vote that Nino’s a great moveset, yet there’s a shocking lack of detail and thought in some areas - apart from consistent stuff like backstabs, tons of the smaller gimmicks really left me wanting more, there were so many cases where you came up with something that adds so much more to the discussion, yet it just goes nowhere after such a short amount of time mentioning it’s there. The Yoshi armor in particular, something that is absolutely MASSIVE when it comes to recovering, defensive uses, gimping opponents, even stuff like OOS shenanigans, and tons more… you weirdly brush off in a couple of sentences and barely even mention it later on, let alone delve into how good it is on her.

-Also, this was a collab, wasn’t this? That highlights the upsides, since two minds coming together to mix and match ideas that you two probably wouldn’t have fully had on your own… that can result in beautiful things, and beautiful things are in this moveset. But it also raises the questionable aspects further, since it means not one but TWO probably-extremely-experienced movesetters made these really odd mistakes together. Again I don’t know what standards to hold you guys to, I don’t even fully know what standards to hold myself or others to yet, but what I do know is that those standards are going to be exponentially higher if there’s multiple people working on something at once.

-I will concede… apparently this was made under a time constraint, and a pretty strict one too? Which does EVEN FURTHER accentuate how good the upsides of this are, as well as neutralize the downsides a lot more… although there’s nothing stopping you from coming back and editing this. That changelog section is completely blank, so apparently y’all have done nothing with this.

-At the end of it all, I’ll still rate this one very highly, it was a great read regardless of my nitpicks, the highs were delightfully high. But those downsides are still very significant to me, and I’ll probably end up rating other stuff higher if these problems don’t repeat themselves elsewhere in high priority. Good work, but also not quite as good as I expected or hoped.



Welp.

Hope you enjoyed your essay rough draft.
 

Arctic Tern

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 12, 2022
Messages
124
DAME DEDTIME (AwfulBeast)
  • Level stealing is adapted fairly decently, but applying the buffs to minions is something I don’t think I’ve seen most minions sets do. The minions themselves could use a lot more elaborating on, though.
  • USpec seems pretty unreliable. The idea is good, but how is Dedtime or her opponent going to know the exact spot they were 3-10 seconds before the move was activated?
  • The special pummel is surprisingly MYMian, though there have been a few sets before you published Dedtime that have had this so it is not the first.
  • Rest of the set is kinda standard for most FFC sets. There’s still a few neat concepts in there, but not as much elaboration on them as I’d like.

Also, an announcement: I've decided to not comment most of the remaining FFC sets (and Alcremie). Not because they're bad, but because there's just so many of them that I kept putting off comments, despite the fact that I knew that they would be pretty easy to get through. As such, this is the last comment with this "bullet points" style. I have commented movesets from every one of the newcomers, so they're all accounted for, and this allows me to get to the meatier last day sets + early sets I haven't read yet quicker.

See more comments and ratings on my personal page!
 

UserShadow7989

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
305
Ursaluna by SaltySuicune SaltySuicune

Ursaluna strikes me as a marked improvement over your last couple of sets, moves being described in more detail as to their use cases and role in its overall playstyle as a big old force of nature. The animations are also something that stuck out to me, with clear descriptions that make it easy to imagine how Ursaluna plays and the effort of including images and referencing existing smash characters to convey how the character moves. It's a consistent thing I've noticed in your sets but have neglected to bring up, so I wanted to mention it here. There's also a few creative moves here that caught my eye, such as Forward Aerial being decently strong but having two notable weak points that can interrupt it (destroying the ball or hitting Ursaluna in the back) and I do like the ideas behind the Specials.

I do have some issues, though- Neutral Special's wording was a touch confusing, but I take it that the follow-up two hits deal only 5% each whether it's the shockwave or arm that hits? Three 14% hits that combo into each other would be really potent, after all. The move is described as having long end lag, but also mentions that the move is "supposed to be used to rack up damage." (which it does very well either way) "And then end the stock with a combo."- I have to guess that the hitlag the opponent takes is exaggerated some, then? Otherwise it'd be a little rough for the move to lead into a combo and might fit better as a combo ender (and the shockwaves flinching the foe would be an issue in that they're still close by when Ursaluna enters that end lag).

Headlong Rush's cooldown should probably be brought down to about 5 seconds; it's a cool move concept and works fine otherwise, but 9 seconds is a very long time to go without a recovery in Smash, and some stocks can go from 0% to done like dinner in that time frame in some cases. Though it also might need to do a little less damage, since it's actually hitting harder than Side Special without the near-Falcon Punch wind-up and self-damage, (so I do understand why you gave it as long a cooldown as you did).

The self-heal from Down Special is a spot where the numbers probably need to be nerfed some, halved at least- while half a second and no hitbox means Ursaluna won't ever use it in neutral, it can easily use it immediately after knocking a foe away, and any point near the end of a stock where the foe has been flung clear off the stage and is forced to recover gives Ursaluna enough time to take off a huge amount of its damage. Might also need a cooldown where Ursaluna won't get the same item again for X time, which also would let it fish for the Saturn and incorporate that into its gameplan.

Aside from that, my last nitpicks would be Up and Down Throw's damage percents are a little high, especially since the latter also buries the foe for a time and that means Ursaluna will get another hit off of it (I'd also note that the Down Throw's bury duration starts very low and grows quickly to be notable near KO percents so it's not taking away the explicit combo Up Throw's niche). This comment ended up very nitpicky, but I find the set more substantial than those you made before it, and was able to talk about more as a result.
 

Arctic Tern

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 12, 2022
Messages
124
JOEY OPERETTA (US)

Joey is a quite literal puppet fighter, using his stand Murderdolls to summon various puppets that serve as moveset clones with generally weaker moves. Despite being able to summon three of them at a time, Joey never feels too overwhelming at his strongest; not only are Murderdolls fragile but he can only control them when close enough. The SSpec gets good mileage out of this, from turning them into time bombs with grenades to setting up for an absurdly potent KO move with rocket launchers. I did feel that DSpec was kinda redundant with USpec in its purpose as an escape route, but USpec by itself gets decent mileage as an unconventional lead-in to Joey’s combos.

Everything else manages to work pretty seamlessly with Joey’s gimmick. He’s got the standard desync combos with moves like Forward and Up Tilt, but also a quick power move in the form of FSmash that forces foes to respect even the weakest of Murderdolls. There’s also a good bit of high execution plays mentioned in the set, such as exploiting Murderdolls’ control scheme to combo a Joey DAir into a Murderdoll USmash. FThrow was also a fun way of incorporating the fact that Murderdolls can grab as well with an extremely strong but inaccurate projectile, though I did feel that the set falls off afterwards - perhaps due to last day rushing. Lastly, there’s some fun characterization of Joey, with showy animations and imitating toku moves to reflect his status as a creepy af otaku.

While the other JoJo OC set by US will almost assuredly surpass this in quality from what I’ve heard, Joey himself is not at all a bad moveset - just a bit overshadowed.

FIRE BAR (n88)

This is now the new stupidest “character” choice this MYM, unless you were to count Shoe as a serious set and not a jokeset. At the very least it’s the stupidest choice I’ve commented on.

Fire Bar is a remake of a set n88 made in MYM 8, made solely to see if he could and because it could be made in an hour (and was). That set had the gimmick that Fire Bar couldn’t actually move, and that’s actually kept in this iteration of the set! Unlike the old version, Fire Bar does actually have unconventional movement options in the form of SSpec, which makes its fireballs solid and able to pole vault the brick, and to a lesser extent DAir which pogos it off the ground. Nevertheless, the inability to move is still a major handicap, but n88 actually makes Fire Bar sound somewhat workable as a character despite that. It has a homing projectile that deals decent damage and can be rapidly fired, a passive hitbox that forces foes to be wary about when to approach, and potentially infinite range via NSpec, although with heavy asterisks. Probably the biggest payoff in the set is the grab; while naturally hard to get due to having the same hitbox as the passive, as a reward Fire Bar gets an omnidirectional kill throw and a damage racking throw that can potentially deal insane damage.

With that said, and even with all the other mechanical bits to make this stupid concept work, I’m fairly sure Fire Bar still ends up underpowered. Its weight is significantly lighter than Jigglypuff and it falls like a rock, so it can very well die to 1 or 2 combos/strong enough hits. I do understand why this is the case, it does have a passive hitbox, but even that is fairly weak and at the ridiculous ranges it can get slows down to the extent it can be easily dodged. In addition, I feel that Fire Bar’s disadvantage tools aren’t nearly strong enough to compensate for its extreme disadvantage, mainly since they aren’t hitboxes when it is hit; obviously to prevent opponent’s combos from interrupting it, but when it’s lighter than a character that could at one point be one-shot by strong enough moves it kinda needs a really good combo breaker.

Still, the fact that I read a set where the character couldn’t move and I walked away thinking that it seemed possible to win a match as Fire Bar says a lot about its contents. Overall, I would say I liked the set, if only to see how the hell it was even possible.

See more comments and ratings on my personal page!
 

n88

Smash Lord
Joined
Oct 10, 2008
Messages
1,527
(Apologies for some short comments, but this is mostly stuff I read in airports - wasn't taking my usual level of notes and I've sort of stitched belated comments together from what notes I did take.)

Bucky Barnes by Slavic Slavic
The three-use transformation is really conceptually interesting, and I'd love to see it played with again in the future. It's a cool take on a way to evoke that 'chain of command words' thing too. I do wonder a bit... whose shoes exactly the set is putting the player in by working a stance shift like this? It pretty directly evokes an unseen puppeteer. Though then again, the utility of the superarmor and the gradualness of the flip does give it at least some sense of the shifts happening organically rather than being an on-demand thing. Maybe you just happened to need superarmor three times and now it's stance shift o'clock! It’s a concept I wouldn’t mind seeing revisited.

Transformation centerpiece aside, this is definitely A Jamcon set - doesn’t have the same level of mechanical intrigue as other Slavic sets this contest, but it’s a fun little adaptation of Bucky’s toolkit that makes cool choices about how to adapt his iconic scenes and weapons. It feels very iconically action movie in a way I dig.

Nostalgia Critic by dilliam dilliam
I managed to miss this whole Nostalgia Critic thing despite being the right age for it. A huge victory for not having the attention span to watch youtube videos. I also read this set in an airport and I’d downloaded it ahead of time rather than deal with airport wi-fi, so I actually didn’t have working gifs when I read it. I begrudgingly went back and gave the set another look-over before commenting in order to get the full experience.

There are some pretty cool aspects to how RNG is handled here: I like the NSpec interaction with drunkenness. In general the Specials have a lot of mechanical charm, though I think the stance change FSpec is a bit of an awkward input placement. I get it, but I think it'd benefit from some more lateral component to sell it being there instead of just being the least offensive Special to put on FSpec.

Mostly it's a pretty lightweight set, and loses steam at the end. It suffers a bit from being one of this contest's surprising number of stance change jamcons: always super hard to make all that work and develop it fully in a jamcon time frame.

NC is a fun-enough read and it makes sense to not get too mechanically into the weeds when the set is also a vehicle for roasting the source material like this. Still there's stuff in here that could be tied together and built on in a cool way, and that makes me curious about what a more robust version of the set’s concepts would look like. (Perhaps we’ll find out in the dreaded Nostalgia Critic 2)

Roadhog by tunz tunz
Belated welcome to MYM! I'm not sure how much feedback I should give on this one in particular since I know you've done some reading and have a whole second set already finished. This is a promising start, though, feels like a sensible-enough spin on a range-y heavy.

Staling moves faster is a cool mechanic. Is the mechanism for that putting extra copies of moves into the stale move queue, or just making the penalties for staleness harsher? The former would have the effect of also making them unstale faster, which would be an interesting twist.

The Forward Tilt description is a little vague but intriguing - you draw attention to what his animations are generally like, but not specifically what that translates to here. In general I think the descriptions of the animations would benefit from a bit more specificity to help characterize him. That's something the opening did really well in terms of laying out how he moves and suchlike, but it dropped off a bit in the attacks proper.

Stray thoughts:
  • The description on Neutral Special is pretty vague - I know that the shot types were technically introduced a bit earlier, but I was a little disoriented by the move comparing and contrasting specific aspects of the two without talking about the animation more generally.
  • UTilt is cool: satisfying to visualize, good thought put into the sweetspots/sourspots.
  • Some of his kill percents don't seem as crazy to me as the set seems to think, but I suppose he's offsetting that with a lot of range.
  • Impressive suite of extras here, always cool to see the commitment to a character.

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu by BrazilianGuy BrazilianGuy
This is the first of your sets I've read! First of any of the FFC folks’ actually. There’s a great lightness and humor here that makes the set a pretty light read. Well, that and the length: pretty tidy little number. There are a couple offbeat choices here (FTilt reflector!) but the set overall feels pretty conservative in design. There are still some stand-out attacks, though: DSpec is a fun command grab and the Smashes drawing inspiration from other iconic fighters is a neat source of inspiration.

NSpec is a fun take on stance change/transformation - I like that some attacks had explicit extra properties on being metal, but I wouldn’t mind if more attacks dug into how being armored up might affect their usage. I think a little more discussion of how the attacks relate to each other would do a lot to make it feel more fleshed out. That sort of big-picture playstyle stuff is really what MYM trades on, but you've probably picked up on that since you've been doing some reading and comments of your own.

Miruca Crotze by Katapultar Katapultar
Really dug this set as an unconventional slow lightweight projectile fighter. The delayed-effect projectile stuff that builds through the Specials and the way she can mix up her projectiles for different coverage is all great - particularly loved Squall Arm, and the Smashes have some cool pay-offs to all that.

I really don’t have a ton to say about this one? I was really vibing with it as I was reading along. It maybe goes a little harder on giving moves extra effects in a way that I didn’t feel like I really needed. But I felt like for every “the extra bell and/or whistle didn’t do much for me” attack (like BAir), there was a “this is gonzo in a way that is excellent and perfectly justified” attack (like DAir). The overall picture is compelling enough that I’m comfortable setting aside some of the smaller things that stuck out at me: very strong set, nice work on this one.

Stray thoughts:
  • USmash's effect feels a little complicated? I think that attack has a cool niche in the kit without breaking the 'normal' rules for time cards that hard.
  • Funny to me how much variance there is within the Smashes, with DSmash being a relatively simple melee tool that makes sense for her.
  • FSmash is a stand-out cool move, very satisfying
  • Man that is a beefy hitbox on Up Tilt. Kirby is a big boy, three of him is a lot.
  • I do like that between this and Light Yagami there's a common thread of the UTilt being the "look man, maybe it doesn't make sense but here it is" input.
  • The USpec time card queue management effect feels a little odd/unintuitive. Being able to do it while helpless actually makes a certain amount of thematic sense to me, and helps justify the during-endlag version a bit.

Eldlich the Golden Lord by GolisoPower GolisoPower
This is MYM’s all-time favorite character archetype, but Eldlich does quite a bit to set himself apart from the set-up-heavy HMA zoners of yore. The set has a really good eye on Eldlich’s character and interprets his whole deal in the card game in a way that makes a lot of sense. Minions and traps blur together, and his pawns are entirely disposable: dispatched to fuel effects that secure Eldlich’s control over the stage, and brought back into the fray when the time is right. Then they all get annihilated by a Chimeratech Rampage Dragon summoned with Power Bond.

The set loses me a little bit in that some of the effects attached to moves don’t feel particularly intuitive or easy to play with. I think it’s kind of a pervasive thing throughout the Standards and Aerials that the extra Goldland/Eldland effects can be a bit too wacky for my tastes at times. I would point to Up Tilt as far and away the most egregious example of this. The base version of the attack is fun! Out-there animation for a tilt. Extremely cool and flavorful. Love it. But then the buffed version introduces this effect where one of your nearby minions is primed to explode (powerfully!) when an opponent commits the crime of ‘trying to attack near it’. Eldlich creates so many moving parts for the opponent (and frankly, himself) to track that I wouldn’t especially like this effect anywhere in the set, but I especially don’t get why it’s on an Up Tilt (yes yes, I know it’s inspired by the card that the animation is based on, but it still feels weird in practice). For all the fun trap/minion blurring flavor I praised earlier, this is a needlessly cruel version of Find the Lady to foist on your opponent. I think Down Tilt (which also has a really cool animation) achieves a similar minions-as-traps flavor but in a way that feels more fair and also follows a lot more intuitively from the attack’s animation and input.

I was kind of surprised by how restrained the Throws and especially the Smashes felt in comparison. In a good way! The effects that those moves gain on powering up feel intuitive and make them better at their jobs. Up Smash in particular stuck out to me for the way it gets escalating benefits that feel very distinct and cool, and layer onto the base move in a way that lets it entirely retain its normal gameplay purpose and just make it way scarier.

Generally I appreciate the sort of baseline insanity that this moveset is bringing more than the wackiness of the Goldland/Eldland effects. There are times when the set doesn’t fully acknowledge the wackiness of what it’s doing, though. Like the Jab 1 hitbox is described as being a Battlefield platform wide and a head taller than Eldlich. That’s not a big hitbox, that’s a big monday-to-friday hitbox. That’s kind of an incredible tool to have in your melee kit but it doesn’t come up that often (or ever) that Eldlich has a noncommittal pocket elephant.

Eldlich can also conditionally lose easy access to his Down Tilt (one of his fastest standards) and his Grab (!) by using various minion tricks to anchor those to specific places on the stage, but the ramifications of that really aren’t explored, to pick on some other examples of things the set does that it doesn't really play with. At times Eldlich can feel a little eager to get past the baseline versions of the moves, making quick notes on possible follow-ups (dude’s got a lot of GTFO attacks, but I'll allow that zoners gonna zone) and then getting into the different ways the move can get upgraded. Which, y’know, I do get. I respect the excitement to dig into some good ol’ galaxy brain interactions, but I feel like more of the set’s insanity could have been derived more organically from the already-out-there choices in the baseline versions of the moves vs layering on effects.

Hopefully this doesn’t sound like a negative review. I'm not as high on him as I think some were, but I still enjoyed Eldlich. It just took me a bit to comment on him because I was still chewing on him, which is never a bad sign.

Stray thoughts:
  • I left these on the doc as I was reading - feel free to mark those resolved if you don’t want my running commentary to be part of folks’ reading experience. (As you very reasonably might not!)

Sleaze by Almand Almand
The mechanics are organized in a way that feels a bit disorienting. Not ultimately too bad to get a handle on, but a few things are kinda assumed that I didn’t grok right away (like Pockets’ nature as items), and then other things are brought up and then not relevant for a long time in a way that made for a slightly disjointed reading experience (like DSpecial having its debuffs up top in the mechanics section and then kinda breezing past the debuffs in the move description). I think establishing the common kinds of Pocket-destruction effects early is good, but some of the other particulars should have been held until they were relevant; it's a lot to absorb up top and kinda easy to forget by the time you get to the right attacks.

Mild disorientation aside, this set is really fun and solid once it starts in on the attacks. It’s one of those where I don’t necessarily have a ton of notes and nitpicks because I was kinda just nodding along as I went. Read the whole thing in one sitting, which I almost never do and really wasn’t expecting after the slightly rocky start. Sleaze just gets into a groove and keeps rolling.

The Specials are all fun, introducing some low-key nutty possibilities but with smart rails, and then the Normals build on that framework in a way that feels sharp. Mostly the peculiarities of the Pathways and the different sorts of Pocket-destruction effects carry the weight of the mechanical intrigue while the attacks themselves are just allowed to be stylistically cool attacks that leverage Sleaze’s huge, lanky frame for fun melee. With the occasional buckwild attack like the variant Down Smash. Really love the sense of style here, this is a new favorite for me.

Kinda been dreading Alex due to word count, but much more looking forward to him after reading this.

Stray thoughts:
  • Man, “this moveset is about to do something worth giving yourself these colossal negative modifiers for” is such a strong opening move.
  • “just dodge or use a reflector if you have one!” - :JustReflectIt:
  • I think Pathways should have a visual indicator for which side is the exit, given how variable that is with the direction of the initial Pathway toss.
  • “Did you know that Pockets can be broken open to access their contents, similar to a Cadbury Creme Egg?” - the exact reason I grabbed my Cadbury Hammer before sitting down to read this set.
  • There’s a Ridley Up Smash comparison in Held FTilt that gets repeated.
  • This Homer Simpson lookin’ guy that shows up for UTilt creeps me out.
  • “Almost like a child asking for an even more gargantuanly-tall being to pick him up.” - Sleaze Sr. is the real monster we should be looking out for.
  • Always cool to see a Down Smash that can deal… 300% damage and 200% recoil in one go, as I read the Pocket mechanics.
    • This attack is sick though, love it.
  • “This move may sorta sound like an Up Air, but do bear with me!” - shoulda been “bair with me”.
  • Final Smash is super fun.
  • All the fighting game animation reference lends Sleaze a really distinct flavor as an OC, this isn’t the direction I’d expect for this general character premise.
 
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Arctic Tern

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 12, 2022
Messages
124
/v/-TAN (Daehypeels)

I would have probably skimped this out if not for the fact that FA gave some surprisingly positive comments about the set in chat.

/v/-tan is a hyper aggressive unga-bunga character, with a startlingly good approach and combo game plus powerful KO tools at the expense of all of his tools being unsafe in some way. This dichotomy is further exaggerated with the ability to permanently buff his set at the very last stages of the match to make his moves even stronger but even less safe. There’s actually a good bit of nuance into how /v/-tan works, with some fun tools such as UTilt’s selective canceling to offer him a means to get some space away from the foe. The mistake of not giving him defensive options is avoided with USmash and USpec, which have a nice interaction where one counters a response to the other. Lastly, there’s some gloriously stupid KO moves like the DSmash fist and Cancerous SSpec grab, which KOs at 0% but feels balanced given that it’s meant to be all or nothing in the first place.

While I do have some issues with how the set plays, this is easily the best of the FFC sets I read (and I’ve skimmed through all of them so I’m pretty sure that none of them are as good as this). I am somewhat sorry I don’t have more to say but there isn’t really much I can say, this just appeals to the side of me that loves unga-bunga characters (I did main Bowser in Smash 4) in the best way.

BLUE

Blue actually has a pretty neat basis in the form of the Meeting Table; more specifically, how it can be used to direct the knockback of some of his moves. Moves with knockback determined by a construct are a pretty neat concept, and there’s some pretty neat combos making use of these properties that sound hilarious to pull off considering that the character is an Amogus Bean. I also like how the vents were handled, where there are multiple set around specific parts of the stage.

I do have a few complaints about Blue, however. The first comes with the Sabotages; while I’m not as concerned with the balance as FA was, I still think that altering the control stick lag is a bit too much, and I feel that they’re a bit underplayed in the set overall. Secondly, while the melee is serviceable for the most part, it’s kind of bland, and there wasn’t really a move that stuck out to me. Lastly, I do feel that some of the abilities Blue displays are a bit tacky, like removing blast zones and increasing damage by cleaning the foe up in FThrow. I know that you kinda have to be tacky for a set for a Crewmate to even work, but these stretch the bounds of what they can reasonably do. Overall, though, I did come out with a positive impression of Blue, and at the very least it means that there was technically an Amogus movement.

VALKYRIE WALKURE (Froy)

Valkyrie Walkure has a clear inspiration - in fact, it’s explicitly an Echo Fighter of the previous set for the Servant Valkyries. As Walkure is an individual rather than a group, she has a new gimmick in the form of being able to buff her stats and moves with Mobility Amplification. Said buff also gives her the ability to move in any direction with her air jumps, which fun fact was inspired by my Remilia set! While the sheer potential of this is a bit underplayed in my opinion (though admittedly somewhat self-explanatory), there are some neat tricks to it, my favorite being exploiting the jump’s homing effect after proning a foe with DTilt to follow them and remove the issue of reading where they’ll roll. Other than that, Walkure has some neat plays off of the original Valkyrie set, such as UThrow being a simple kill throw instead of a cargo throw and FSmash having the ability to alter its knockback. This is another one of those sets where I don’t actually have much to say about it, it’s just well executed all around.

TIMEKEEPER COOKIE (Peanut/Froy)

Timekeeper Cookie is a very concept heavy set, a very different beast from the preceding Walkure. The main gimmick is the ability to passively build up energy to either buff her moves or create rips in the fabric of space time that cause various random objects to pop out. Her other Specials generally also have big gimmicks, like making her projectiles travel backwards through their original path and creating a glitched version of herself that can’t be KOed, allowing for extremely risky plays and tricky combos. It all adds up to a very chaotic feel that is very much in line with Timekeeper Cookie’s character, someone who screws with time for laughs.

Most of the concepts were the work of Peanut, but Froy pops in sometime around the Standards to get what this set needed to really stand out - execution. Timekeeper Cookie’s kit is based more around playing off of her setup than anything else, mainly in the aerials, and there’s some neat tricks in there; from the simple usage of Dash Attack as a punish on foes dodging around her Possibilities to the more complex use of DAir to bounce off her constructs. The Grabs are where the set really gets crazy, in particular the FThrow that creates a whole new version of the player that shares damage percents with the original!

The main complaint I have is that some of Timekeeper Cookie’s abilities aren’t really explored: pillars are solid but there is barely any mention of how they’d affect combos, and her float is doesn’t see a lot of mention outside of her being able to use it to use her Smashes in midair. But in a set this loaded with gimmicks, I can forgive the setmakers for letting some of them slip through the cracks.

See more comments and ratings on my personal page!
 
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Slavic

Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Messages
757
Location
taco bell, probablyn't
An unorthodox joint between ProfPeanut ProfPeanut and FrozenRoy FrozenRoy , the end result for Timekeeper Cookie is nearly all positive. The set has a good foundation from Peanut that sets Cookie up as a stage manipulator with a big focus on time. In some cases that means her attacks rely heavily on her Entropic Timer, while in other cases it allows her to reset projectiles and explosives with her Time Threads. There's a good flow just in the Specials that make this cookie really feel like a temporal seamstress. A big part of why Timekeeper Cookie works is the short lifespan of Entropy, forcing her to stay fast and aggressive despite her desire to decorate the stage with Time Rifts. It's a good balancing act that keeps her from sounding too campy since she can't exactly stockpile her mechanic freely. Also, between her unique Dash and variety of projectiles she can redirect, she almost feels more like a BlazBlue character than a Smash one, not a bad thing by any means.

The bulk of Froy's work picks up from the Smashes (and possibly Down Tilt, from my understanding), and he doesn't bat an eye when it comes to complimenting Peanut's groundwork. The Smashes are really quite wonderful, the obvious highlight I think being the Time Bomb on Down Smash, and the gear and pillar are no slouches either. It gives Timekeeper Cookie some really strong attack options but only when played by someone who knows her ins and outs; just throwing out Forward Smash as a projectile Smash to hit at maximum range like you might for Mega Man doesn't give her much reward at all. Froy keeps the energy up into the Aerials, all quite good but Down Aerial being the coolest, allowing her to bounce off her own setup. It's also cool to see how utilizing the weapon at different ranges allows for varying utility when making Time Rifts, as well as the angles she can produce them.

I would have bet money that Grab Game would have allowed Timekeeper Cookie to sew a Time Thread into the foe, but I anticipated it on a Throw, not Pummel. The way it's handled in the moveset is much cooler than just a status effect throw, allowing the Cookie to choose the outcome of her subsequent throw after nabbing the foe. While rewinding actions isn't unique to this moveset by any means, I really like how it's handled as an option off a throw, as it seems like it would be the least disruptive to normal gameplay and, off her best kill throw, will only situationally be pulled out as the stage setup demands. Down and Back Throw are fun ways to utilize the Time Threads to manipulate the foe, but I don't have much to say about them.

As for some less-than-cool stuff, I think it's safe to say that the Standards, where Peanut ran out of steam when making the set initially, are the weakest input section. I don't even think the Standards are notably bad, but there's a clear disconnect in quality and detail between them and literally every other part of the moveset, so it certainly wouldn't hurt to at least go back over them with a nice coat of polish. Including some more combos or unique effects off Entropy would help bring them to the standard of the rest of the set, which would be a great boon for the set's placement for me.

The other big elephant in the room is Forward Throw. The idea of making an echo of the foe is really cool and definitely stolen from Exeggcute (my lawyers will call you), but also really scary for many reasons. The biggest issue I have with Forward Throw are that 1) the fighter the foe will end up might be different than their initial one. The move already makes a distinction between the original and the duplicate, since the echo has autoturn enabled towards Timekeeper Cookie, and the opponent is likely assuming they're playing as the non-echo fighter. Suddenly, the character they think they're controlling vanishes and they're in a new location, along with all the damage both fighters took being combined into one. I think that the player should always retain the same fighter regardless of which takes more damage, with the damage merge being enough of a boost off this throw. In exchange, perhaps the merging could have high scaling on knockback with how much damage the echo took, allowing this to become a kill move in its own right if Timekeeper Cookie goes wild on the duplicate?

Besides the issues mentioned, this is a really strong set even if it took me a few weeks to wrap my head around. Excellent work to both of you for this moveset!
 

Arctic Tern

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 12, 2022
Messages
124
BROKEN VESSEL (n88)

I definitely should have commented this earlier, but this was clearly a smaller set and I was too busy making Blastoise as an opening day set and I gravitate more to bigger sets so this got a bit left in the dust.

Anyway, Broken Vessel was a decent enough returning set for Nate, if intentionally a bit simplistic. The balloons were easily the sticking point for the Specials - not really for the math but rather the idea of making a bunch of traps to force the foe to play around them. Focus was also a neat idea, turning the Vessel’s normally quick but weak attacks into genuinely powerful moves damage wise. The rest of the set was serviceable all around, and I liked the source-accurate focus on microspacing. My main complaint is that the Vessel seems a bit underpowered; it does have a good recovery despite its lightweight, but it doesn’t have a lot of kill moves and I’m not sure how well it can combo, plus Focus is heavily self damaging at higher levels. The character could definitely have a better set, but I’m happy with the one we have now.

THE CUSTOMER (Torgo)

It’s funny that you mention the Customer being chosen since there’s no other logical choice for a World of Goo character, since someone actually did make a set for the Goos themselves way back in MYM 5. That wasn’t considered good even at the time, which kinda proves your point.

Onto the set itself, the Customer is a fairly basic construct set, and with some stuff I quite like. The way the Gooballs themselves work is pretty interesting, primarily with how they work off of real physics. I also like the hilariously stupid edgeguard setup you can make with enough time, which sounds hilarious to actually pull off. Lastly, the throws are actually something of a highlight, able to force opponents in place for a particularly threatening Goo construct or force a chain reaction into a flammable Gooball.

While the basic ideas are fine, I was left a bit lacking in terms of their actual application. There’s not really any melee moves that really exploit the Goos to their fullest potential, like something high knockback that can combo through bouncing off of a Goo wall. The melee itself was also pretty lacking outside of the Gooballs, which is admittedly a pretty standard problem in construct sets like these. Finally, I think that Jab’s weak knockback sets up for an infinite if against a Goo wall, though the way the Goos work and the fact you don’t specify what direction to DI out of means that this may not be the case; still, the fact that it may be is cause for concern.

This certainly wasn’t the greatest set possible with these mechanics, but there’s definitely potential in them. I’m sure you’ll do better if you keep this up!

QUAXLY (WCF)

Quaxly is a very simple set, intentionally so to contrast the much more complex set posted alongside it, but there’s still plenty to enjoy. The peak is the set’s characterization; Quaxly is described as “earnest and tidy”, so the set is based around cleaning himself of down feathers and then exploiting the results as it escalates beyond his or the opponent’s control. I do like how the Down mechanic was handled overall; not only does it decrease the opponent’s strength, but there’s also an incentive for the player to get the debuff to increase the strength of some of Quaxly’s moves. In general, I found the Specials to be a highlight, from using Surf as an approach tool to using Whirlpool as a powerful mobility tool. The set does kinda fall off from there, with not a lot to say, other than I am concerned over how FSmash works if it falls off a ledge since it takes the foe with it. It’s still a short but sweet experience either way, and a nice prelude to the accompanying set.

QUACKFASTER (WCF)

Quackfaster immediately introduces the set with a unique gimmick: gravity manipulation! Her NSpec is capable of placing down runes that, if stepped on, causes whatever did to move in a specific direction that Quackfaster can choose. Characters gain altered controls due to their different facing, allowing Quackfaster in particular to use her DAir as an poking tool and make her strong knockback moves powerful spikes. There’s also several restrictions in play as to not make this too strong of a gimping tool, such as being unable to make the runes point downwards and characters afflicted with this having higher thresholds for their ledge grab animations.

The set doesn’t let up after that, making for a suitably crazy set for a very unhinged character. Quackfaster’s other Specials allow her to summon library carts she can use as projectiles, summon books that become platforms to exploit gravity shenanigans, and alter the physics of herself, opponents, or her constructs. All of these get fun tools to exploit them as well, from using FSmash upside down to exploit the fact it gets stronger the more it falls, pogo-bouncing off platforms in true DuckTales fashion or using the semi-spike UTilt while on a moving cart. Her aerials and grabs don’t let up, from the UAir allowing Quackfaster a juggle and risky combo ender at once to landing a grab creating a construct that allows her to set up for off the top KOs and with suitably weird throws. All this is backed off with great organization formatted like the books Quackfaster keeps and a writing style loaded with alliteration, which feels very true to her series of origin. Having scattered knowledge of obscure Duck Lore™ myself, I also appreciated the many references to the DuckTales franchise, which generally make careful steps to not feel too out of place with the character’s theming and toolkit.

I did feel that the standards were a bit of a let down aside from UTilt, but for the most part even they feel needed niches in the set that allow Quackfaster to actually get her setup on stage. A fine display overall, and one most certainly not to be kept on the shelf.

JODIE REYNOLDS (US)

I’ve been putting off this set for a long time, mainly due to pseudo-horror stories about how long the set was. Since I’ve read every other set I need to, plus US slimming it down, I’ve finally gotten to reading it!

Jodie’s primary gimmick is the ability to set specific moves for one of her clothing pieces to use, typically deployed as a throwable item. This is exploited in basically every way you can think of and several you wouldn’t, such as a counter where the hitbox changes depending on the specific moves Jodie has stored and a move where she sends all the stored moves out at once, albeit drastically weakened. The set is designed for super high octane big brain plays, as is only fitting for a JJBA OC, and the overall goal is for Jodie to snowball her kit into a perfect counterpick to whoever she’s going up against. Yet despite that, she never feels overpowered at higher stages of setup - not only do her stats weaken the more Garments she has out, but it's possible to lose them for the stock if her higher end gambits don’t pay odd.

Beyond the Specials, Jodie’s set is loaded with bizarre tools designed to work with her bizarre gimmick, mostly for the Aerials. My favorites are probably FAir, a projectile that can be fired omnidirectionally after she lands during the move, and DAir, which can be used as an impromptu wall to restrict movement around her setup, but every move has neat applications when used by her Garments. US manages the impressive feat of making Jodie’s moves multipurpose with many of the core applications of her setup, making for a fittingly woven web of planning and occasional improvising that’s genuinely hard to keep track of at points with how many there are. While the Smashes can’t be used by her Garments, they don’t slack either: Jodie can use them to send out a projection of her super strong kill move at varying angles, give all her constructs a weak Bumper to their sides, and just send out a hailstorm of projectiles upwards. Really, the only complaint I can make is that the set ends up too complex, leaving me wanting a bit in some of the other tools, most strikingly for me thrown Garments.

Regardless of how long it took me to read it, I knew that this was US’ frontrunner, and I’m happy to say that it more than lived up to the hype.

See more comments and ratings on my personal page!
 
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BrazilianGuy

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 10, 2022
Messages
38
I have watched around 4 episodes of Breaking Bad as well as 0 (zero) episodes of Better Call Saul, everything I know about this series is from memes, that being said I still think this set is simply amazing. From what I could get of Saul being a lawier who will do anything to get the best results this set does wonders to make it so Saul can do so much, and not only that but all his moves come together and make him feel like an incredibly realized character that represents what he is so well. Not only that but all moves were so amazing to read, even tho I didn't have context on most of his attacks I could still highly enjoy them, moves like the pie up air, the entire town contact, the inflatable up smash that turns into the statue of liberty and of course, the classic kid named finger move, insanely amazing. Second Best Lawier/10

 

BrazilianGuy

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 10, 2022
Messages
38
Roadhog is a very simple set, but there is no issue with that, simple sets can be great as well. Now I think Roadies power is very well translated onto this set, and thats the main thing when it comes to him, he is the one man apocalypse and it does feel like he has the power to back it up. I liked how you interpreted Take a Breather, healing moves are definetly hard to put in smash, but I think there was a good job with it. Now I have to say it feels weird how for his Hook he can just do nothing- it feels like there's no point in doing that, maybe if it was something like Incineroar side B where you need to time it to get the best result with "nothing" being the missed version, it would still allow Roadie to keep his agression but not make that useless. I also loved how you can have golden guns, thats just great. Hog/10

 

FrozenRoy

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
1,260
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
Switch FC
SW-1325-2408-7513
Reading has actually been going well (Katapultar, Arctic Tern and ForwardArrow are 100% done with UserShadow not far behind), but the sheer volume of sets means there are people who have a good amount of time to go. As such...

Reading / Editing Period has been extended to December 17th, Voting Period to December 31st.

We'll play it by ear to see how holidays go, but we won't want to perpetually extend, so do keep that in mind.
 

n88

Smash Lord
Joined
Oct 10, 2008
Messages
1,527
Shoe by ComicWaterz ComicWaterz
I like the aglet usage. The emphasis on the sole was a surprise; it does make sense to play with separating it from the shoe, but I was surprised it was so offense-focused in its usage when the sole is like an interior, supportive part of the shoe. Anyway this is a moveset for a shoe, I have no idea what I’m talking about. The sole coming back via a Limit Break style mechanic was a worthwhile pay-off, had a good chuckle at that.

Stray thoughts:
  • I enjoyed the attack drawings, they add a lot of character
  • This is a shoe.

Berkeley and Cartwright by U UserShadow7989
I like the system for buffering inputs at the core of the set here - it’s a pretty simple spin on duo mechanics that feels clever and brings something new to this sort of character.

I was surprised that despite leading in with the mechanics for separation (and for how much we as a community tend to be focused on these pincer-attack puppet fighter-y types), I think the ‘together’ version ends up feeling like the main focus, with separation being more of a weird high-risk option with high-end technical pay-offs. I like that direction quite a bit; keeps the zanier possibilities and mental gymnastics from being critical-path stuff.

Kind of an edge case that overflowed the stray thoughts, but does Berkeley just skip inputs in his queue if he no longer has access to them because Cartwright Shield Specialed away from him? However it works, I imagine that situation being something of a stumbling block in learning to play well around separating the characters; pretty common sort of mental error to mix up where your resources are and not realize a play is no longer valid. A bit like Scrabble plays where you go from playing off an ‘A’ to playing off a ‘T’, but you’re still trying to make words with the ‘A’ in your head because you’ve lost track of the fact that the ‘A’ was on the board and not in your hand.

I do wish Forward Special were a bit simpler, in the context of being meant to work in a couple different ‘stances’ (together/separate) and perhaps on significant delay where if you do make a mistake you might not find out for a bit. Three angled variants with different jobs, one of them having a tap/hold difference, is a pretty significant amount of complexity for one move. Expanding Cartwright’s options a bit when she’s flying solo is cool, and I like all the effects and get why you wanted them all in the set. But it was something that stuck out as a little hard-to-handle and got me thinking about the control scheme a bit. I’m picking on this attack in particular because I think the rest of the set does a pretty great job in terms of building effective melee that feels easy to track and control.

The set’s a bit top-heavy, but well-designed. I found myself back-referencing the mechanics a fair bit as I went along; there were a few places where I felt like something in the set wasn’t really working for me, but generally there was a solution in the base mechanics that I’d just lost track of. I think mobility and shield options are really well-handled here in terms of being able to mix them into the queue for a degree of control without giving Cartwright an easy out on having to plan a little ahead. I did think the set could have played with the ground-air transitions a little more: the way jumps work gives Cartwright the ability to, say, queue up a Down Smash and then jump before it happens to get a Down Air instead. The grab game does play around with this sort of thing by laying out how it might affect Berkeley to have Tilts queued up if he misses his grab.

FSpec aside, my only real complexity headache is the way items work; the set pitches itself as item-friendly, but the way it uses items (in the separated state anyway) is very in line with the idea of separation as a tool for high-end technical pay-offs and sounds mildly brain-breaking to control (especially given how easy it is to pick up items by accident). I’d have to log a lot of hours with these characters before I ever felt comfortable trying to separate them in an item match.

That said, there’s a solid melee game here with fun animation design, and they sound like a treat to play together, so some of the optional-to-play wackier bits of the set having some hiccups for me isn’t a deal-breaker. Very strong overall!

Stray thoughts:
  • “Former child” is how I often introduce myself.
  • “The player can hold Up Special while separated” - I wonder if it’d handle more cleanly to move Solo!Cartwright’s Up Special to her second jump to get it out of the way so that she could command Berkeley with a default Up Special input.
  • I like the consideration the Up Special gives to using Aerials out of it, in terms of how it considers analog movements, and really love the way the move works when the two are joined.
  • If Solo!Cartwright picks up a battering item, can she get rid of it or is her grab button still dedicated to commanding Berkeley?
  • Despite some of my misgivings about the item mechanics, I really like the screw item here - cool choice to give them a signature item that’s designed to slot into their melee.
  • “there can be a total of four rocks and two wood blocks” - holdover from an earlier version?

Jacky Bryant by BridgesWithTurtles BridgesWithTurtles
The specials kit here is generally pretty simple but cool stuff - it invites Captain Falcon comparisons, which tracks on a couple levels, but has some slightly more tricksy mix-up stuff going on that creates intrigue. Up Special does feel a bit awkward to try and use as a grab, but the default-backward-recovery to give him a little bit of an edge when challenging recoveries (despite not being much of an aerialist) is a cool idea. It probably leads to slightly unintuitive recoveries where you’re deliberately facing Jacky away from the stage to jump at it backwards, but it’s interesting.

The choice to double up on standards is a cool way to translate the Virtua Fighter control scheme, and it's impressive in a set that already has extra tilts even without that. You do a good job keeping attacks distinct, too. There's overlap in places, but I didn't feel at any point like an attack was just redundant, which can be tough when writing a ton of inputs. Jacky’s gameplan also justifies having an absurd number of attacks well; the way he leans on mix-ups and shield pressure (and doesn’t really want to be in the air too much) means he’s got a reason to want loads of options on the stage.

That said, this is a subjective complaint (and take it with a grain of salt because I admittedly tend not to be hot on playing characters in the Super Technical 100 Kinds Punches archetype), but I’m not sure he’d be super fun to play. That might be a limitation of the source material - I’ve got no direct experience with Virtua Fighter, but the thing I always hear about it is that it’s very restrained in comparison to basically all other fighters (and I can see from the gifs that the lion’s share of the attacks here are pretty directly adapted). It doesn’t feel like he really gets much pay-off out of all his comboing and mix-ups and DSpec juking-around, and the reading experience kinda reflects that. I was expecting the set to open up a little bit at the Smashes now that we had the groundwork of the tilts behind us, but they're pretty subdued excepting maybe Up Smash, and the Aerials/Throws aren't adding a ton of pizzazz either. The central conceit to the grab I do like, but the throws themselves are pretty simple utilitarian jobs and the aerials are designated niche underpowered numbers.

I wish he had a way to inflict stagger that was still situational or tricky but not entirely stage-dependent. I think if that effect were more present in the set without having to hit the foe into a wall it’d create some more openings for him to have big moments without having to compromise on focusing the technical Virtua Fighter combo stuff. It’s a solid set as-is and I like most of the adaptation choices, but I think he could have used a little more oomph somewhere in his normals to sell him as a character amidst the generally-more-dynamic Smash cast. It helps that he shouts a lot at least.

Stray thoughts:
  • Pak Sao is a thinker. The intense match-up specificity of it makes it a little hard for me to fully like, but the base concept of ‘passive situational counter you mess up by using inputs’ is super interesting and definitely got me thinking.
  • I’ve done my best to shout “YEAH!” at times when Jacky has low odds, just to make sure our bases are covered.
  • I do wonder a bit about how fluid DSpec would feel as this sort of quick dodge/cancel/mix-up thing between hits, given how you need to long-press it. Cool move though.
  • I like being able to skip the normal minimum grab time and go right into a throw - solid nod at throw mechanics in Virtua Fighter (and most other fighters) while tracking as a point of characterization.
  • I would have put the aerials before the grabgame in the set. Grab feels like the stronger note to go out on.
  • DAir is conceptually interesting - I like the dynamic of the mediocre attack with a cool effect on landing.
  • Canceling into the Final Smash is dope.

Witchcrafter Haine by U UserShadow7989
Threads acting as hitbox extensions is a fun hook to the set, and I love how that gets used in conjunction with her other Specials; she’s got a really clean-feeling Specials kit that’s easy to imagine in Smash and the Threads add a satisfying layer of depth. Some of those tools in the Specials don’t come back around all that much, especially once the melee sets in, but the threads remain very central, and a good few moves use them in fun ways to give attacks unexpected usages.

It occurred to me reading that you could get some funky effects by standing near the needle end of the thread when you use the hitbox extensions. Nothing bad, but there are a few “travel to needle” effects that could have surprising effects when used back to front like that. Standing at the needle end does also position you to better protect the needle itself. Though obviously teeing up a bunch of threads to terminate at the same point isn’t half as convenient as sending them outward. (Unless you loop them back around? I don’t think they can get all the way back to her from the description but she could use the pivot to make some weird shapes)

Fun set, enjoyed it a lot!

Stray thoughts:
  • “perhaps it could be said she's surprisingly heavy for her build” - that did catch me off guard, yes.
  • The writing style here feels on the silly side of average for you, especially early on in the Specials. I dig it!
  • Funny that both Haine and Verre have some projectile-bouncing stuff (this one a bit less so).
  • Surprised DSmash doesn’t play more with her ability to create her own platforms.
  • DAir is a really slick move, love it.
  • The one lowered leg on BAir is a neat little mechanical touch - cool way to incorporate what seems like a minor animation detail into a mechanic.
  • The throws are a lot of fun, good note to end the set on.
 
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UserShadow7989

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Tsukumo Sana by bubbyboytoo bubbyboytoo

Another set that took longer to read and comment than it needed me to, but here it is regardless! Sana was a delightful set to read, not only capturing her quirky personality well (as to be expected from a bubby set) through oddball hitboxes like FTilt's sweetspot and overall arc, but making it all work well into her playfully defensive playstyle that has her as much fighting the foe as toying with space in the process.

It's also another set that I find difficult to nitpick or contribute something useful for, being well designed and hitting a nice balance of simplicity vs complexity. All of her constructs are explained well enough and mentioned consistently where they would work nicely off of things, and there's a few tricks throughout that have hard interactions with them that are plenty to make them fascinating but not be outright disruptive to play.

I'll also take a moment to point out that I really like her Up Special in particular; usually I note how I love stuff like her Neutral and Down Special when commenting other sets- and I still do here, they're neat constructs/mode change respectively- but I wanted to point out Up Special as an unconventional recovery that really works since it might fly under the radar for others next to her other specials and her smashes.

If I had to come up with something to nitpick, I'm always iffy about stun times and Side Special (which I know I gave the rubber stamp of approval when you previewed what you had of Sana to me a ways back) might want to be trimmed back to 3/4ths a second ('might' being operative here, I'm always paranoid and honestly the set works fine without this change for me). This is me trying to find anything negative to really say, though. Sana accounts for her constructs, her size change, and her oddball hitboxes nicely between each move, making for a fun and accurate representation of how Sana should be if included in a game. Wonderful work!


Kanade by Katapultar Katapultar

Another set from BOFURI, and hey, both of your sets for the franchise have helped sell folks on it, so I'd call them successful already. Kanade has a neat sort of rng gimmick with three of his specials each drawing from their pool of 5 spells and rotating continuously over the course of a match, with some strong benefits that are balanced by having only a scant few seconds to make the most of them in the moment you have them. Each is just specialized enough in their applications that you have to make a choice and commit to using them if you want to really get that full benefit, but there's a shared general use for each pool (NSpec for example being good neutral tools) that allows you to just throw them out in a standard example of that situation for at least some benefit, aside from the many hard and soft interactions in the set. It's a neat way of implementing the character's special ability of randomized daily spell access.

Of the assorted options, I love the ability to delay other attacks' hitboxes with Freeze Aura and appreciate its balance tweaks like dropping the shield damage/stun/push of such attacks, turning grab hitboxes affected this way into hit grabs, etc. Gravity Pull and Black Smoke are my other favorite support effects, the Time Stop counter is cool, and Shield Special letting you store certain spells for later, all add a lot to the improvisation-based core of the set.

I love each attack in a vacuum and they do make a point of playing into his different core specials, but I wonder if the sheer volume of oddball effects in his kit and attack variants might be a bit much- yes, I'm aware of the hypocrisy of that after some of my sets this contest, but there's a fair few hard interactions like Up Smash's smaller projectiles fusing back into a big one in Gravity Pull's effect on top of the web of soft interactions that may or may not be there. That said, I'm not even sure what I'd cut- there's too much fun to be had with stuff like Held Up Aerial's projectile letting you swap places with an opponent and the ability to either delay its hitbox or pull it into a new position and hold it there, and I love all of that big Forward Smash. All the same, Kanade has an absurd amount of options at any given time thanks to the multiple variants of each of his inputs, to the point it feels a little overwhelming to track it all.

On the upside, Kanade's overall game plan is simple enough, with the complexity being how you feel is best to execute it, making good use of stage control but being a bit lacking at close range due to poor OoS options, not many ways to hit directly above himself that aren't situational, and needing at least some of those many, many interactions in his set put into motion to be fighting at his best. In theory, at least; I feel the sheer variety of options might make it a bit hard to approach him in practice, and he does still have some stronger options for if foes get close to where I'm not sure the balance pans out- Down Tilt's immobilizing effect might be too strong for a decently quick attack like it is, for example, in the face of how much hurt he can put out on an opponent who is temporarily immobilized, and Back Throw's secondary hitbox should probably have a way to mash out of it.

Those hard and soft interactions also make some sense in how they're done and how they pan out, with plenty of simple synergy between using different inputs that isn't ignored in favor of the flashier bits, so that avoids some of the bigger pitfalls of this type of set. Kanade is a set I'll have to think on for how much I like it, being that it checks off so much of the list of things I like to see while also feeling like it toes the line of being overwhelming, but my overall impression is very positive. Nicely done, Kat!


Bipples by tunz tunz

Ahh, truly a masterpiece only rivaled by Dark Bluppi and Shiny Hoppip. Words do this set no justice, so I'll simply let the set speak for itself. Bravo.


Saul Goodman by BKupa666 BKupa666 and Rychu Rychu

Not sure how I managed to read through the whole set in one sitting after struggling with reading for so long, but here we are! Saul Goodman may be a bit out of place compared to the rest of MYM's offerings or Smash's canon cast, but the set does an amazing job of taking what material he has and spinning a cohesive playstyle out of it, Saul using his mediocre or situational attacks to build up funds for more profitable ventures. While I had some concerns about how players might know to use the Up Tilt and Forward Smash B-inputs to produce (longer) lasting items or Special Pummel, for the most part his crazy antics manage to be fairly intuitive and their uses in his schemes are reasonably easy to use.

Despite how intimidatingly large his Specials are, they're simple enough in practice and create a deeply enjoyable game plan that let Saul control the stage and expand his influence while fattening his wallet, producing allies, cars, or platforms and profiting off of their destruction while needing to be careful of how much wealth he hoards and the caveat that he still needs to land his Neutral Special regardless of how lucrative his own offensive or clever ploys have been- sticking the foe with charges is fairly easy for all but the most profitable of them, but getting the payout and leaving the foe holding the bag still requires Saul get in there and seal the deal himself.

The set is chock full of references that a non-fan such as myself can still appreciate, and that long-time fans no doubt would be happy to see in the set. For as crazy as it all gets in terms of animation, Saul's kit is still fairly simple in practice if not especially impressive, an important detail that allows players to think more about getting those charges and how best to spend that dough and encouraging them to engage with his mechanics to make up for it. There's combo strings, some KO options, it's a decent but underwhelming bag of tricks he can use when down on his luck and out of cash, but the lack of Specials beyond ones costing money or setting up for getting money means he'll be at a disadvantage if players get lax. The statue of limitations also means he's encouraged to be aggressive even when he's snowballing hard with helpers, fast cars, his face plastered on billboards and dangerous objects scattered about, since he'll lose his reward quick if he doesn't act now.

While there's not any one input I'd point to as amazingly creative, I find Saul Goodman is an excellent set and proof that you two make a good team.


Goddess Ilias by OldManHan OldManHan

More than a little late to say this (and a touch redundant given we've chatted plenty since you joined the discord) but welcome to MYM! This lovely offering is a great foot in the door showing off what you can do. Ilias is an extremely powerful super heavyweight, suffering from a weakness to juggles and slow frame data as typically expected of that class, but amping up the power and reach of her attacks to extreme heights and letting her plow through weaker attacks to compensate, needing only win a few exchanges to secure a stock, though limited combo potential means she does still need to work for it.

This simple yet solid core concept is far from one note, with her assorted attacks having evocative animation descriptions and all having a means to react to or work around their presence that essentially sells the experience of fighting a Final Boss, Illias' masterful control of neutral forcing opponents to fight defensively but decisively to evade and punish her mistakes over seizing the initiative themselves.

Each move has more to it than mere flash, too- aside from the showstopper sweetspot and late game (for Ilias) insta-kill effect on Jab to set the pace of the set, Down Tilt's massive horizontal coverage can press the foe into an aerial approach where Ilias can utilize her potent air game that pulls back the curtain a bit on her true nature, Dash Attack can hinder foes trying to get into the air to escape her grounded game or approach with their own standard Forward Aerial approach tool. Back Aerial has a fun touch of movement attached to it that meshes neatly with her multiple jumps, and Forward Aerial's multiple hitboxes and decent frame data make it a vital multitool- even its sourspot serves a key role as one of her few combo tools!

I do feel like a short-hopped Forward or Up Aerial might be a little too good at stuffing air approaches between their (relatively) low start up and great reach for that to count as a noted weakness, but I don't think it's an issue since each of Ilias' attacks have their own weaknesses and blindspots that allow working around them on approach, and even those two moves aren't fully safe on whiff (and notably lack armor compared to some of her other attacks with good coverage/passable frame data). It's more that she's better at dealing with grounded approaches than outright bad at dealing with air approaches, which fits when her neutral game is meant to be suitably god-like. I feel they should be kept as they are, since they're a necessary part of her balance and fill important niches in her set.

I'm not much help on the balance side of things, as that's always been my weak point- most everything feels good, having awe-inspiring power and coverage but suffering from lack of truly fast options and much of her more potent tools being reactable. Down Special's timer raised an eyebrow for me (there are stocks that don't last 15 seconds and it's not super uncommon even at high levels of play), but given the buffs and how it opens up assists that compensate for her primary weakness it feels like the reward justifies the work for it, and she has enough survivability to see it done enough to not just be an easter egg. Up Special's duration might allow for some stalling, but I adore the extreme dichotomy of its ups and downs as a perfect complement to her all-extremes design.


Felicia by ComicWaterz ComicWaterz

A neat character choice with a fun partner gimmick, Felicia's cart sounds like a blast to use in practice, I love constructs you can smack around for fun and profit. Her partners also serve as a nice reward, giving the Sheik-like Felicia some proper KO options that her baseline Smash comparison point is sorely lacking or enhancing her damage/gimp potential enough to compensate. The set has a good time with the clutzy maid and her friends (or 'friends') and cracks plenty of jokes, and while that might be a turn off to some readers I found it kind of relaxing.

Mechanically, you might want to trim some of the timers down. The wait time on Down Special for the Tea for example could be shortened to 10 seconds (as could the respawn time for the cart), as it's fairly easy for a stock to end in that time on top of needing to set the cart and then return when your partner has arrived. This extends to a few of the other timers, too- the 10 second timer on knives is fine to prevent spam as intended, but a 45 second duration on the Chilling Wind cloud and its debuff lasting 12 seconds along with the move taking a total of 8.5 seconds to perform are all numbers that are kind of crazy- 8 second duration for cloud and debuff, drop the move down to a Falcon Punch of frame data if you're really wanting to make sure it's laggy, and put a 1 cloud at a time cap (new use despawns old cloud)/despawn on defeat limit to prevent spam instead, with a 'one horse at a time' limit for the Peri Forward Smash, for just a few numbers off the top of my head.)

There's a few other things here I can mention- Up Special has a hanging sentence fragment at the end of it (I assume the point is that Felicia is able to act out of the move as an important part of her rushdown combo game?) and that it could probably use even just a weak hitbox as she rises to make it slightly safe, while also letting it function as risky combo glue to chase foes after knocking them away with an upward knockback attack.

On the subject of Peri FTilt, since the concern that the movement might not be super useful was brought up, an idea is she might have a slight arc to her travel and the ability to cancel into an aerial, keeping her (above max air speed) momentum until that aerial ends, she travels the maximum distance, or she hits a foe, making the move a high commitment air approach option that makes up for being locked into the movement and the start lag by being her fastest 'in' with an aerial move.

Flora's FTilt got me thinking, too; I quite like that it had a utility effect that let you teleport to your last thrown dagger, while leaving Felicia's own Forward Tilt intact so she had a proper attack for the input. This would obviously be a bit of re-jiggering, but what if that was the default for standards, aerials, and -maybe- her grab (and the throws she used from said grab would be the associated version), I.E. tap for Felicia and hold for her Partner's? Would open up her options wonderfully while letting her keep her own tools so there's no potential downsides to recruiting the Partners you work so hard for.

Aside from that, the Throws felt a little bland mechanically (fluff-wise the set stays interesting from start to finish) and could use a little expanding on, perhaps just elaborating some of your best options out of them- the set does a good job of making mention of this combo or that early on, but it sort of drops off near the end and I'd have liked a little more reference to what move leads well into what given her rushdown nature.

This comment might've sounded negative, but honestly this is a set that got me thinking and what's there is some cool (no pun intended) stuff so I came up with a lot to suggest. Like with my last comment, I'm a touch late to say this, but welcome to MYM! I hope to see a lot more sets like these from you and your pals!



Adramelech by OldManHan OldManHan

Adramelech pays some obvious homage to Ilias in her moves and fits into the same overarching category of overwhelming power, though in her case it's a matter of evoking dread and desperation in her opponents. While not quite carrying the initial 'wow' factor of Ilias' powerful blows, Adramelech is no slouch to start and slowly escalates as the match comes ticking closer to its end, eventually matching the Goddess in power and carrying speed and the ability to ruin her opponent that Ilias can't hope to match, effectively forcing foes to play aggressively.

I wasn't sure how to feel about the timer manipulation at first, something very experimental and not something I've seen done in a long time (and Adramelech is significantly better about it than what few old examples come to mind). Ultimately, I find it's a cool central gimmick that makes every fight against her feel intense while still being effectively 'fair', and the predictable nature of it means any particularly snobbish hypothetical tournaments need just make a short detour to adjust the timer to double its normal amount before letting the match play out.

This ultimately means a lot of my feelings about Adramelech are similar to those for Ilias, but I think she edges out the Goddess as my favorite of the two for having that experimental twist of a mechanic. I would still say there's things that could be done, toying with the throws a little more to detail what specifically she can do out of a given throw, or describing a touch more how certain moves may play off of each other (potential 50/50s if not actual combos), but the set is hardly lacking in that aspect. My only regret is I don't have as much to say about the set, when it's also a super solid outing. Nice work!


Jo'on and Shion Yorigami by OldManHan OldManHan

It's fun to see your take on a more speedy combo-centric character after your two one-hit wonder powerhouses, and the set does an excellent job at mentioning your starters, enders, and extenders while making sure each is different enough from each other to not be redundant (and including a list of combo chains and shield pressure options at the end of the set was very nice!). What's also fun is seeing the explanation of old vs new moves, how the design process fo the pair changed between versions while also getting a sense of the role each new move takes in the set. Down Aerial in particular was a delight from among her standards and aerials, and her unique dash is fun to imagine.

The Smashes break away a bit from her playstyle, but I feel that that's fine- the fact her main KO moves are hard to land is entirely reasonable given her difficulty securing a KO is an intended balance for being a combo monster, and they add a flair of added character with how wasteful Jo'on is. Speaking of flair, her Specials certainly bring plenty to the table- while I'm curious what Shion's debuffs were, I do like her current use as a projectile that can turn into a movement option and a free long-range teleport if used properly, as well as boosting Jo'on's throws (though the damage numbers feel a bit imposing there, but that might just be my imagination).

Side Special is simple on paper and fantastic in practice, being a straightforward good burst mobility tool that applies heavy shield pressure and can start combos off right. It got a lot of mention over the course of the set, so it was a bit amusing that it turned out to be a normal but very solid tool compared to some of the craziness sets get up to, in a very refreshing way. Up Special is a unique one that's interesting in the opposite way, good for retreats out of disadvantage and middling off-stage. Down Special's command grab leading into one of two very good attacks with their own follow-ups is a nice way to round out the set, though I can definitely recommend dropping the damage numbers some.

I didn't have as much to say here as for Ilias, but Jo'on and Shion speak for themselves as a solid combo character with some very neat tricks.


Black Dahlia by Unknown Fate

...no longer seems to exist? I can't complain, with how much I'm struggling to finish reading and commenting the whole contest, but hopefully that was intentional and the set isn't lost to time by mistake.


King Koopa by T TortoiseNotTurtle

Well, can't say I ever expected someone to tackle this character. I had only very fleeting familiarity with the Super Show, so I didn't know there was such a gap in personality between King Koopa and Bowser, but the cartoon antics in this set are something to see- from tossing down the classic banana in his Dash Attack as a tripping sort-of-but-not-really sweetspot that can lead to a free Smash to wielding a plunger for his Down Throw, the idea is he leverages reasonable low start-up on his attacks and stage control to make up for the weaknesses of what otherwise is a statistically standard super heavyweight, and it makes for an odd if interesting character concept. There's even a quick summary of how he plays in advantage and a few example match-ups at the end, which is appreciated.

In terms of execution, once you're past the references and impressively cartoony nature of the character, the set is a little vague in places about the exact coverage or range of moves and movement (how high is D-Smash's jump, how big/spread out/far away are the pigeons in U-Smash in relation to King Koopa, stuff like that) and the assorted tilts, aerials, and smashes are functional, doing what they need to do, but don't have a ton going on in them. There's still touches like the aforementioned Dash Attack's trip effect and Neutral Aerial being a proper damage racking option/good defensive aerial move, but I'd love stuff like an awkward sweetspot here or there to take advantage of how much he has going on to corral opponents, and maybe an early sourspot on one or two moves that won't give him anything but will reset to neutral as a bit of safety to strengthen his melee game (catching opponents out and shoving them away as a thematic and flavor-opposite to Bowser's Tough Guy armor plowing through attacks with grit and brute force).

It's the Specials that really stand out as a positive in the set, fulfilling the playstyle summary promised at the start of a character with impressive stage control and the ability to snowball in advantage to make up for the heavyweight-typical disadvantage. Down Special is a high-commitment mode change that nevertheless gives King Koopa a solid defense between its armor and passive falling/bouncing hitbox, with the explosive mechakoopas he can deploy threatening a decent bit of space at a time. Neutral Special gives him a much-needed answer to ranged attacks, not only serving as one itself but letting him punish overly predictable zoning attempts.

Side Special is your pick of three minions from a wheel (I feel you could probably select them by angling the control stick diagonally up/forward/diagonally down but that's a personal taste matter) who can be removed from the match for some time with a strong enough attack, but provide some passive threats between Tryclyde's fireball projectile, Mouser's kamikaze-style explosive AoE, and Koopa Troopa' persistent chase. I think you could afford to cut the cooldown on them to 15 seconds if KOed and 10 seconds between normal uses and maybe limit King Koopa to one at a time instead for balance purposes (mostly thinking of a hypothetical King Koopa 8-man match with them quickly outputting all three minions and then setting four mechakooopas), but the minions themselves feel balanced.

Fluff-wise, his cartoon nature does justify the bumbling animations, though it feels a bit odd that characters would try to run from this guy out of B-Throw- maybe a better animation would be him 'gently' ushering them along with one hand before shoving them with his leg stuck out to trip them? Mostly I just imagine Ganondorf or Ridley in this context and it's weird. I otherwise consider the visuals and love toward the source material one of the more admirable traits of this set, with this being the sole nitpick I have about them.

This set is a fine self-introduction to MYM, the FFC having made quite the splash in their first outing here on Smashboards- it's good to have you!


La Croix by OldManHan OldManHan

And right back in the game, we have another Han set! La Croix is an interesting one, with a forced transformation after a set amount of damage that's more frail and technical, using her powerful initial set to try and get as big a lead on her opponent as possible with form two cleaning up after in an ideal situation, or form two scrambling to deal with the opponent after a bad initial showing.

La Croix doesn't feel quite as fleshed-out as your three initial submissions (which makes sense since you said she was an older set), but still has her share of interesting touches and a neat central mechanic. Ilias and Adramelech both had a nice amount of detail into each move's usage in their gameplans and how they tied into other moves while summing it up efficiently in about a quarter of the words it'd take my verbose shmuck self to take, while La Croix feels a little too abridged in that area- though that may be an attempt to keep things simple for what is actually almost an 8-in-1 character due to how her second form works, and there's a few neat tricks on display like with Zenovia's directional aerials being usable in tandem with each other, Fernandez borrowing Link's shield mechanic, and Roza leaving a small trail that can do small bits of damage to the foe and up her speed slightly (and her Down Tilt was interesting).

Still, I appreciate forethought like form 1 Dash Attack working as a way to finish an injured foe should La Croix be KOed herself before she can seal the deal on her prior stock. I was a little worried about Down Air in form 1 being compared to Steve's anvil, but the fact she might be going down with the ship if she tries to use it as a finisher (since the knockback angle changes if she jumps off) helps- though that also feels like she might need a once-per air trip limit to avoid stalling depending on the start-up/time before she can jump off.

I'm more uncomfortable with the possibility of the control reversing status applied via form 1 Jab, given it's both an annoying bit of muscle memory for players and the random chance means you can't even expect it and start to react accordingly. The poison might be a bit mean for sheer damage output, but the fact it could easily not see its full payout over a single stock before she finishes a foe or they KO her means it's not as big a stand-out issue for me, with the other effects feeling perfectly fine.

Aside from that, the individual moves are mostly inoffensive. Roza FAir getting nerfed after the first time it hits successfully bugs me a bit- maybe make it debuffed while staled and give La Croix's NSpec the added benefit of removing staling from the affected monster's moves, if you keep this idea? Might be a reference to her zombies needing constant upkeep to prevent rot if that's an issue that comes up. Her zombie sailor is a cool concept, a mook whose patrol area is determined by where she's moved, but you might want to limit her to one at a time and make it despawn when the water trail it's on vanishes if it's carried over. Despite having the most complaints, I find her portion of the kit the most interesting.

The AI/"Far" Monsters are interesting as sort of balancing points in that some have good moves but don't prioritize them, or don't really mesh with their paired monster. I'm sort of a fan of these, even if you choose to fully flesh them out instead it might be neat to have that sort of anti-synergy present as a means to compensate for the two-monsters-at-once aspect. Aside from Aria's Embrace grab release timer being way too long, they seem reasonably balanced by that.

While the set definitely shows its age, La Croix is a genuinely interesting idea, and I'm excited to see the remake when it's finished!


Shoe by ComicWaterz ComicWaterz

I know it's a joke set, but there's a bit of effort here with the images and all, so quick actual comment: the concept of a joke character that's mostly underpowered but has a few decently strong moves tied to a 1-off resource it gets back after some time is neat, and I have to give you credit for the novelty of picking a shoe of all things and making up the animations and visual references for said animations to get a final product.


Mima by OldManHan OldManHan

Lots of Han sets here to start off this chunk of reading, eh? Making the meter a requirement for dodges, rolls, and shields got a kneejerk reaction from me; it feels downright punishing, even with them having exceptionally strong positive qualities attached in exchange. Individually the cost is balanced, but the fact that all of her standardized defensive options are tied to this cost and lost without the resources to pay for them means she is in immediate and immense danger if she enters disadvantage, and this also makes using her Specials something I'd be reluctant to do.

However, the fact she does get meter back at the rate of 1 segment per second after a pause in using the meter effectively means that seizing the advantage will let her recoup her loses quickly. Still, a broken meter taking 20 seconds to repair is waaaaay too long even as punishment for a big mistake- maybe make it take 5 seconds, with the meter then having to recharge from 0 with the delay before it recharges counting down from the moment it repairs?

The moves themselves are more striking individually than in your prior submissions, even if not as awe-inspiring in their power as Ilias and Adramelech's attacks in animation, though Mima's mischievous nature shines just the same. She presents a feeling of power and control, a constant pressure that lets her rule the stage, though not with the same feeling of effortlessness as they do (which is funny given her frame data is a little more kind to her in exchange for not having literally world-breaking powers).

There's more consistently fun and interesting qualities to each attack, like Forward Aerial's lingering hitbox and the assorted uses for meter sprinkled throughout wrapped up with some fun Specials, while still having that flashy gameplan and feel of someone who's strong and knows it all too well. The key is rather than her power all being upfront, it's in the little follow-ups or secondary qualities that make her more of a technical fighter and capable of doing things you wouldn't expect her to do when you least expect it, then subverting expectations again when she finds another route.

While I use them as an easy positive comparison point, Mima is experimental in a different way from them- rather than an overall statistical advantage or a unique interaction with the match timer, Mima's base concept is simpler, her mechanic being a resource to force her to think with her arsenal over one that exaggerates her strengths, while her individual moves are more off the wall in their effects (not to say the other sets lack that, but their tricks tend to be more direct in the form of big bigger and badder), and feels even more solid in execution. It's hard to say how I'd rank them, but Mima is a solid set on her own merits and another welcome submission to the contest for sure.

(Also random kudos here to Shad because that Mima art is clean)


Celica A. Mercury by ComicWaterz ComicWaterz

Seeing characters from other fighting games adapted to Smash is always interesting, from what mechanics are carried over to how certain things translate or what moves might be invented or modified to fill in potential gaps. Celica has a pair of potent Quartercircles (command input moves) that are unlocked by fulfilling three conditions, which includes using up your two-per-stock uses of her potent Down Special. It's an intriguing idea.

Under the hood, Celica falls under the heavyweight archetype- big, strong, hard to KO, but she has a few good approach and ranged options as well as a solid air game that alleviate the weaknesses of that archetype, especially Side Special. Poor vertical recovery and a lacking grab and grab game are her chief issues, something I think could be compounded if her attacks had difficulty with shields to give her something she more distinctly struggles with.

Her Smashes, Specials, and Quartercircles stand out in the set as the most interesting parts mechanically (there's a decent few animations that are very interesting in terms of visuals and personality, helped by you providing images), going over their niches in her set and highlighting how good they feel to use or when best to use them. I feel a little bit more of that in her other moves would be the biggest suggestion I could give, noting moves that serve as shield pressure or a response to air or grounded approaches, etc- Celica's not much for combos, but it could pay to mention when she has a good potential follow-up out of a move to threaten opponents with.

Both of her Quartercircles are excellent rewards when they become available, doing some serious damage and having a lot of flash to them, though still not being an instant win button so much as something opponents have to play carefully around while trying to deal with the tanky Celica. I feel that given they're locked behind conditions as one of Celica's unique qualities, they could receive some small buffs like a little less start lag to make them more threatening without removing their weakness of being punishable on whiff. Something to make their use more prevalent while she has them while still giving players something to think about in regards to when they use up her Down Specials.

I wasn't aware of Celica's existence before this set, my interest in Blazblue having waned with time, but she's certainly a character I'd like to learn more about someday now that I am.


Rugal Bernstein by That Guyy That Guyy

Speaking of fighting game characters! Rugal brings the feel of power from his boss fight to Smash, and I adore the idea of letting him access his God Rugal form and its associated final boss-tier baloney if he fights well enough and saves up his meter. The 20 second duration at first raised an eyebrow for me, but it's entirely justified given he has to charge up 3 gauges and spend some of that duration with each of his big special moves, as well as the fact that it'll be late enough in the match that surviving even with his buffs earns each second you're around to use it.

I love the flashier special moves and command input options, but I will note some of his normals are basic in their description/get glossed over, and could use a little more description in places about their usage in relation to the rest of the kit. The set references the origin of several of the moves, so it can be assumed that some of their original purpose is carried over, but mentioning them here for those uninitiated with the character and to cover how Smash's platform fighter nature might change things would be a good idea.

While I'm nitpicking, the reflector's multiplier might need a small nerf; 2x is pretty dang potent, even if the counter is tied to meter, so I feel you could knock the two multipliers down by .4 or so (1.6 normal/2.1 God Rugal) to keep it very powerful without feeling too crazy.


Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu by BrazilianGuy BrazilianGuy

...I like that name more than I should, but I'm also not writing it over and over. Tetsu times four's main selling point is his Neutral Special buff, his Quirk, which gives him a slew of durability benefits and allows him to be more aggressive for the duration (which is listed as double the time spent charging it at first but later stated to be equal to the charge time? I feel the former is better).

I think the set could benefit from leaning into that buff more with small synergistic touches in how the normals are designed; some random ideas off the top of my head:

* Jab 1 that's exactly 4 frames of start-up to have the armor be exactly equal to the wind-up, and maybe even giving the follow-up hits similar start lag just to let him power through attacks with the combo if the opponent doesn't time their offensive carefully.

* Let the player hold the Dash Attack input to delay the attack, so he does the shoulder charge on release with armor kicking in the moment he starts, letting him bait dodges or shield drops and punch through what's meant to be a quick poke.

* A move that has armor based on knockback, so the added weight of the buff lets it keep functioning a little later into the stock.

* A strong throw whose animation is long, meaning you're losing your buff duration to use it in exchange for it being easier to grab the foe to start and the big pay-off of this throw in particular if you choose it over the others.

* A weak but very fast combo throw, letting you conserve your buff but still get a respectable combo starter out of grab.

It'd add a little more depth to the normal inputs across the set. One other thought for that could be to play a little more with different types of armor, like those inputs having armor that applies only to areas he'd turn to metal as part of the attack by default and NSpec gives him more protection to the normally vulnerable spots.

On the positive side, SSpec is a fun move for its pseudo-command dash state, Tetsu 4 the Tetsuing running over to deliver a powerful hit and letting him work around the Falcon Punch-esque start lag by winding up out of the foe's reach or in anticipation of their landing/recovery. FTilt is a short move, but it caught my eye for the reflector quality (might need a small nerf to the damage multiplier) and the animation sounding hilarious in tandem with each other, just a nice character moment for the set, same with Up Tilt having a sort of volleyball-like animation of constantly bouncing the foe back into the air with repeat uses. The smashes at the end give the set a high note ending for the characterization, with the Forward and Up Smashes serving as fighting game references due to the character's love of them putting a smile on my face.


Goro Majima by That Guyy That Guyy

A suitably stylish as hell set with highly animated, well, animations, Goro Majima sells his Mad Dog moniker through his unique respawn gimmick (though you might want to stipulate the costume one only happens with/for a foe on-stage so he doesn't plummet to his doom off stage by rng), flashy Heat Actions, and being an ambitious 4 in 1 set with each 'Style' having its own inputs, visual flair, playstyle, and a central mechanic that's either as simple as powering through hits with Slugger or extending hitboxes with Breaker.

I loved Mad Dog Down Special, with it standing out in a set where the Specials and Heat Attacks felt like the main attraction. The Heat Attacks speaking of are a fun mechanic that gives the Mad Dog bite, as where his attacks are highly kinetic and might tempt the foe to go in swinging to put a stop to his fun, his Heat Attacks serve as a means to completely shift the momentum back in his favor. While the Style-specific Heat Attacks are functionally a few number changes and a fresh coat of paint to the same moves, they go the extra mile in terms of giving Majima his personality in the set. Slugger's being missing is a shame, but someone already brought that up in the Amino comments, so eh.

The Style-specific gimmicks are a cool touch, though I do have nitpicks here. Mad Dog's buff to speed and attack (I assume damage and not knockback since a 25% knockback buff could get crazy and undercut Slugger's role as a KO-generating machine) might be a touch strong and needs to mention the duration of the buff, and Slugger not flinching from foes' attacks needs some clarification- I assume knockback still is applied and it's supposed to mean that attacks that don't push him a notable distance back won't cause him to flinch, rather than him outright never taking hitstun.

Individual inputs outside of Specials/Heat Attacks suffer some- they all cover the basic info and mention their uses, or their shortcomings, but feel like they could be fleshed out if only a little more to make a more satisfying whole- bringing up weaknesses certain styles may have due to moves not covering a certain angle (literal or metaphorical) would help. Building off of the gimmick of each set would help- Mad Dog's buff from multiple hits could turn some combo strings true, and noting which are a reliable means to get that mechanic (Mad Dog Down Special itself could easily get him going if he uses it right!) for example. Breaker does a good job of fleshing moves out by way of adding the hold functionality to several of them, as a positive in this area.

I came away from the set with a positive impression, and a renewed appreciation for the character I'm mostly aware of through osmosis and the fact that one of the Capcom games has Goro mention that Phoenix Wright had to defend him in court once (with him thanking Wright again for his 'brilliant' advice like "don't punch the judge"- instantly made me a fan). Nice work.


Anna by Daehypeels Daehypeels

And now that the always-hectic weekend is behind me, it's back to commenting! I had a good time reading Anna yesterday, the first thing sticking out to me among many things is how much I appreciated the set's user friendliness- both for the hypothetical player with the specials having to be held to confirm purchases and avoid loss of precious resources over misinputs, and for the very real reader who is given the full explanation of the thought process behind each move and the role it serves in the set. With precious resources being gathered and spent with care being a part of the playstyle, that little extra leeway is extremely useful for those learning to balance fighting with Anna and managing her tools at the same time, and even high level players would likely appreciate the user friendly experience- something people (hi) tend to overlook as we work on our crazy complex high execution sets these days.

Getting to the point, Anna's main draw is how her money mechanic is in fact central to two aspects of her kit that she can control, replacing her equipment, and adjusting her bag and stats. The theme is similar, with Anna able to invest high for high return with some minor risks (silver weapons' lacking durability/lack of combo potential early and her bag's negative effect on her mobility) that drastically changes how she feels to handle without actually complicating her swordie set in terms of what you need to know by replacing whole moves or adding excess moving parts to the process that normally is a risk with stance or weapon change characters.

That's not to say her inputs aren't individually interesting, either- Up Aerial comes to mind as using its lopsided frame data to make it a very unique tool in her kit, which is normally on the faster side for her sword moves, and her bow moves have their trade-offs in exchange for giving her a few valid ranged options. Even her Side Special which is the most disconnected from her main two money-based tricks feels at home, being one last option for if you really want to go big or go home by spending your hard-earned cash for big returns- effectively a nice little microcosm of the feel of manipulating her resources all across the rest of her set.

The to-do list at the end covers basically any suggestion I could give, so mostly I'm just here to praise some of the high points of the set and its concept. The adjustments listed there sound good to me. For throws, I feel like you could probably help by using a cheat of mine, with two throws being fast enough that DI-ing expecting one will mess you up with the other (FThrow/BThrow? DI the wrong way and you get comboed/KOed more easily), DThrow works nicely as a reward for your money hoarding with a full bag, and UThrow could be a more reliable but lower pay-off combo option leading into her aerials consistently (where FThrow is better if the opponent DIs wrong and leads into her grounded options), as a way to distinguish them. You could also make the two combo throws have the DI option so opponents are left guessing at early in the stock, or give the KO throw an extra hitbox after the toss proper that'll stop connecting true from the throw at mid-percents but can be accidentally DI'd into if they were expecting the combo throw.


The Farmer by That Guyy That Guyy

A Farming Simulator set is a new one for me, but I can't object. MYM has dabbled with special vehicle-riding fighters before, but frankly, your idea of giving The Farmer Tough Guy armor works a lot better than some examples of that hot mess in the past, and the mechanic of passively upgarding your ride as you gather a resource and how that resource is accumulated works out to give the character a distinct feel beyond the part of being a guy in a tractor.

The assorted attachments produced by moves and the vehicle being operated by a farmer makes for some fun animations, but the mechanics are what drew my eye. Since you're producing your resource behind yourself as you move forward on the ground, that resource is measured in volume (I.E. more space covered = more crops = more money), and you need to move back over it with Neutral Special, you've created a character whose goal is to keep pushing aggressively to chase the foe up and down the stage, first to sow, then to reap.

To that end, I'd recommend having some moves focus on crossing up or dealing knockback that pops foes up and over behind the tractor, letting you do your back and forth as needed or escape being in the corner in tough fights that aren't going your way. The crops growing on the ground also gives you a little comeback potential, rewarding you when you regain ground after the opponent has pushed you back. Other moves should be spacers that shunt the foe back so you can keep pressing forward, intercepting cross-ups of their own by putting them back in front of you, and so on. The input animations are creative and at times hilarious- Up Aerial comes to mind- but don't quite feed into this core gameplay as much as I'd love.

The fact you got a full set for Farming Simulator is pretty dang cool, and the idea just got my creative juices going. Reading this was a nice pick-me-up after a rough day yesterday!


Creeper by ComicWaterz ComicWaterz

This iconic walking bomb's set has a simple but fun centerpiece to its gameplan: it can go kaboom, and it can set up explosive gunpowder all around the stage to make sure you do too. Aside from the primary way to set gunpowder everywhere, a few of its own moves do the trick, or even move patches of it around and spread it to ensure the opponent is navigating a minefield that can go off at any moment and giving something of a twist to some of its moves in the set. It can even set fire to these patches via Shield Special, letting you start more of a slow burn chain reaction over immediately blasting the stage to smithereens.

Given its singular goal in game and simple behaviors, as well as its unfavorable body type, you did a valiant job of trying to milk this monster for as much potential as you could. The set has some difficulty beyond its core concept of lacking KO options and needing to use its big explosion to finish the job, as well as that's utilized (and balanced out with start lag and painful self-damage if it whiffs), so my main thought is trying to find things the set can do with those moves aside from their production and manipulation of gunpowder while still playing to its game plan.

There is the lack of ranged options beyond gunpowder set-up that makes foes more prone to trying to space it out (as if trying to get a creeper away from your house in Minecraft) is a nice touch, so I'd keep that aspect. Giving the Creeper a strong quick poke that makes opponents wary of approaching as befitting of the creature comes to mind. Maybe a potent reset to neutral tool that pushes foes far away while giving creeper a significant frame lead out of it- too far to blow them up, but if you've got your gunpowder where you want it, they might not have a means of escape.

Beyond those, and this is odd to say for the character, but some short combo strings involving the moves that produce gunpower would work- every exchange Creeper wins doesn't do a ton on its own, but means he gets more and more of that precious gunpowder set all over while opponents are no closer to doing it in.

Again, I gotta give kudos for making a set for a creature known for one highly self-destructive means of attack. I am really loving the character picks y'all made.


Mephilies the Dark by That Guyy That Guyy

Now here's a fun pick; knowing what went on behind the scenes for Sonic 06's development, I've found myself willing to give that game more of a break, as flawed as it is. Mephilies seemed like one of the strongest parts of it and what it could've been. Right off he starts with three simple mechanics, two of which are unique to him; while I do worry about him being able to low-profile certain characters, I do think everyone has at least a couple ways to hit him while crouched down that low, so not an issue there. I was almost going to recommend Shade letting him briefly disable the fighting game characters' auto-turn in 1v1 to let him get around that issue, but Side Special already accounted for it, perfectly enough.

Mephilies is an interesting case, a hardcore zoner, but his mechanic In Your Shadow does extra damage to opponents you nail in the back or from directly above/below, almost encouraging him to risk directly engaging in order to cross the opponent up, and his low weight and slower attacks mean he has a suitably painful disadvantage state that Smash zoners often frustratingly lack. You're encouraged to be a little more daring overall, and not as frustrating as other uber zoners would be, so I feel that that's a good balance. I can see the thought here in the standards and other inputs, not just in his long-ranged attacks, but with moves like Up Tilt being a potent anti-air that's disjointed and placed ahead of him, thus not protecting directly above himself, and Dash Attack doing well for that cross-up to possibly get In Your Shadow off.

I think what stole the show for me, though, are the imperfect clones. I love the feeling of having lots of little disposable mooks/constructs in games, and that in part inspired something similar for me with Bubble Witch Marin a ways back- though these clones are a bit more substantial than her little bubbles, with a control scheme that's simple, but a real winner. They serve not just as a great defensive tool (albeit one that may be too potent for how much damage it can let him avoid) but a payoff for zoning the foe out long enough to get a good crowd going, providing either a solid combo extender as they fall one by one, or a finishing blow proper as they ram into the opponent en masse.

I think Mephilies might by my favorite of your sets that I've read so far; I do wish the clones came up in the rest of the set some more, but the combos section at the end of the set and details under individual inputs do give a nice idea of how he plays and gels with the stated goal, making for a solid entry!


Calamitas by That Guyy That Guyy

Here's another fun pick! Calamitas' backstory is honestly pretty interesting, and as limited as my interest in Terraria and its mod scene are, it was enough to hook me on reading the set when I was having a bit of trouble getting into reading today. The set makes good use of the various drops from her boss fight to fill out her kit in full, and the concept of bullet hell in a fighting game is always a fun one, even if there's no doubt plenty of reason to eyeball the balance of such sets.

Though truthfully, I feel there's an immediate buff that could be made; Abyssal Flames tacking on an extra 6% on hit with a small percentile chance, with the damage being a non-stacking DoT that only 'refreshes' its duration if it procs again is pretty minor without anything else to it. I feel you could afford to make it a sure thing in its current form- the 3 second duration cap keeps Calamitas from tagging foes and running away, and the low damage means it won't get overwhelming even if she can keep it on the foe for an extended period in spite of that cap with how fast Smash Ultimate is, but it'd still be an appreciable amount if she keeps up the assault.

Her other mechanic, Revengence Mode, is more interesting. What specifically caught my eye was the addition of her brothers Cataclysm and Catastrophe, who limit the opponent's movement by hanging out (one above them, one on the side opposite to Calamitas of them) and moving closer or farther as Calamitas herself does. Being able to just destroy them and the long delay between each of their shots keeps the mechanic from being too oppressive while still contributing to the bullet hell style the set is going for.

It's a shame the set doesn't make much mention of them past the mechanic section; they'd be a real treat to manipulate as you fight via your own movement, such as a cross-up logically seeing the opponent hit by one brother as it passes them at the same time. It does feel like the set could afford to note some favorable positions for exploiting the brothers and other passive hitboxes and projectiles, like if input A could cut off the easy escape route around input B.


Geno by ComicWaterz ComicWaterz and UnknownFate UnknownFate

Always did like Geno, though my party in the game always wound up being Mario Bowser and Peach after a certain point. I've kept a soft spot for SMRPG:LotSS in my heart since it played a role in introducing me to turn-based rpgs, a favorite genre of mine (Pokemon technically being the first for me, but this and later The Legend of Dragoon sealed the deal).

Getting to the actual set itself, this iteration of Geno tries to tackle a few of the things that make him a surprisingly complicated subject in a neat way- timed hits rather than being a mechanic for extra boom is a way to cancel some of the end lag on two of his specials, which is a neat way of implementing a reference to them without trying to make a 1 for 1 copy of the original timed hits mechanic from the game work in Smash where frame-tight execution is standard and moving targets would further complicate things. A few of his weapons from the game proper are utilized for individual inputs, to the set's benefit, and the mix of ranged and melee options make him something of an effective switch-hitter who can dish out damage a plenty from either range without being too campy.

His more abstract moves- his self buff and his big special attacks that hit chunks of the screen in LotSS- are tied to a mechanic that costs a hard-earned resource (referencing the charging meter for when he's performing certain special moves in-game), getting around just having an oddly huge hitbox or potent effect on a button or being able to buff himself freely (which would be an odd pace-breaker unless you're really trying to capture a certain feel that Geno likely isn't going for) or being nerfed into a shadow of what we see in the game.

That said, some of his big reward options are a stretch flavor-wise, done to accommodate there being seven of the titular seven stars. I can't comment on the balance of them given how hard it is to charge one or more stars is vague, and Geno himself is a bit frail, so I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt there. I'm not usually a fan of moves that summon other characters like in Down Smash and one of the Down Special super moves as a personal nitpick, but hey, some compromise is needed.

I think a little more could've been done to bridge together the assorted aspects Geno has in his set; the projectile and melee game don't really feed into themselves or each other in a fascinating way, and aside from some big flashy attacks that are cool to conceive, the Down Special and the red stars that build up for it don't tie into the rest of the kit much, either. There's a collection of individually cool ideas and inputs here but I'm stumped in how to bring it together.


Dame Dedtime by A AwfulBeast

It's been a while since I've seen much Yo Kai Watch related, so this was a pleasant surprise. Skipping the jokes about Dedtime's ugly mug, I like the concept of the Neutral and Side Specials, debuffing foes until either a touch of damage is done to her or the mook is defeated respectively. The debuff itself is a little potent, though it does mean opponents' can start a combo on her more easily, and it's appropriately short-lived enough that I'm not sure if there's a balance issue.

The Side Special minions themselves are simple enough, each having their own movement pattern (or lack thereof in the case of the third minion) and attack. There's not a lot the set does to play off of them directly in terms of synergy or call-backs; I think giving Dame Dedtime some moves that are effective spacers that normally just reset to neutral without minions (with some start up issues to keep her poor disadvantage state flaw) would be neat, shunting foes into harm's way with her mooks. Maybe translate one of her bigger attacks into a multi-hitter so they're pinned down in place for a bit to let her minions do their work on top of landing the current effects?

It might be a bit mean, but you could even give the minions some damage-based armor (weak stuff, the intent being that Dame Dedtime's debuff makes it harder to get rid of the annoying jerks and makes them a little more threatening to deal with besides). As a side note, perhaps let players pick the first minion they get in rotation by angling the input (up for minion 1, forward for 2, down for 3)?

The throws section is a little anemic as is, so that might be a good place to implement some of this stuff- spacing throws or a damage throw that keeps the foe in place for a bit as the damage is gradually applied? Maybe a throw that has adjustable set knockback to pop foes one of three distances (forward or back throw with diagonally angling the input increasing or decreasing the distance)? Heck, make a throw start tech chases- possibly mixing the idea with the damage throw, with Dame Dedtime able to end the throw a little early with another input to throw off the opponent's tech timing, which also would have some synergy with the minions since they'd passively cover some space to limit the opponent's options for teching in/away/etc.


Zacian by That Guyy That Guyy

Zacian may not be my favorite legendary, but it's certainly a fun choice for a set! To start, I was worried Zacian's mechanic, high speed, Neutral Special, and Down Special would encourage hypothetical players to camp, but the lack of projectiles beyond Neutral Special and NSpec itself being unfit for KOs or even spacing means it's not an issue, so I appreciate the design choices there carefully circumventing that potential problem- pretty clever.

I do have an issue with the exact numbers- 1.5x knockback is a huge buff to KO power, especially since Zacian also has the ability to buff itself with Down Special and there's a chance of having both (on top of no duration being listed for the latter and Zacian getting a lag reduction on its attacks from the latter to boot).

I'd keep the damage buff of Down Special (with a timer), with the knockback buff being tied to the central mechanic. At early percents, the former is great for racking quick damage if the opponent tries to get a little too cheeky at a range and gives Zacian too much breathing room, and getting the mechanic buff won't disrupt your plays too early (Zacian's high speed helps it re-engage even mid-way into the stock). Having the knockback buff turn on after 3 seconds of not attacking also works since the most likely time for that to happen is when the foe is recovering from getting punted off-stage- letting your next hit almost certainly seal the deal as a flashy finisher.

On the subject of the mechanic, non-sword attacks could be excluded from the mechanic to give Zacian a means to fight without disrupting the timer until its buff is active/using the buff up accidentally, with some moves adjusted accordingly (add a headbutt to the start of its existing jab string, for example). Zacian could have a little more focus on the wolf half of the sword wolf equation, playing into some hit and run tactics where it abruptly leaps in to perform its attacks and then back, as a means to tie its mechanic and options together in a way that feels unique.

As a nitpick, I should note that the standard max charge time in Ultimate is 1 second, with the ability to delay releasing the attack an additional 3 seconds. The Smashes requiring 3 (or 4 for FSmash) seconds of charge to reach full power means most people won't be able to utilize the full power version. Also typically is 1.4x the base damage at full power, with Megaman's FSmash as one of the exceptions, but that's neither here nor there.


Monika by That Guyy That Guyy

Monika's playstyle is an interesting one, a slow burn that focuses on zoning the foe out and slowly accumulating meter to enter her stronger mode where her control over the game is more effective, reflecting DDLC's story structure and her role in it- her defensive zoning tools become an oppressive offense and while she's not sending people careening over the blast zone with ease from the buff, she can bully them off stage and utterly stonewall their attempts to get back to solid ground, scoring the majority of her KOs by edgeguards and ledgetraps via Side Special's debuff and her excellent aerial options.

To touch on the animations for a moment, aside from liking that Up Tilt is a combo starter with that animation ("Okay, everyone!"), the use of the other three characters as props works for me here due to Monika's exact nature and personality where other sets rub me the wrong way for it.

I do feel the My Reality buff might be a bit strong, given once it's on, it's on- in particular, not dying via the bottom blast zone is pretty potent as an ability, even if there's some drawbacks like the opponent knowing when/where she'll reappear back on the stage. But that aside, there doesn't seem to be a ton I can knock here- the set is pretty solid and feels true to the character's personality.



Regigigas by Daehypeels Daehypeels and Worlder Ash

Ah, one of my favorite legendaries in theory and not so much in execution- glad to see a nicely thought-out set for the fellow (possibly two if Peridot has anything to say about it- this contest has been a real treat for character choices!). His notorious ability serves as a mechanic here, and it's an interesting way to implement it, being bad but not unusably so like his game counterpart for 2 minutes and then suddenly getting significantly better for the rest of the match.

I'm curious about the thought process that came to this, with the mention of other methods of having it be a stock-based timer or having it cycle as neat alternatives that were passed on (per stock would be my preference), but this ultimately does seem like it'd work well enough outside of some specific edge cases (matches with bizarrely short or long timers), and even in those Regigigas isn't unplayable at its worst or unstoppable at its best.

Moving past that, the set aims to make a traditional super heavyweight in feel, albeit exaggerated in its strengths and flaws, but also having options that help out with those flaws and the weaknesses the archetype entails- and I think it succeeds on that front, having a good variety of options that give it an out to juggles or painful combo chains, slow moves that aren't so slow as to be unusable and give it some neutral to speak of, and Neutral Special in particular helps a ton by letting it immediately put an opponent with a fresh stock in a bad way.

This is another case where I don't have a ton to suggest; the set has a few moves that are deliberately niche, but no more so than canon Smash sets and never outright useless, more a deliberate balancing measure. The change log here is much shorter than for Anna, but also similarly covers what few suggestions I would give.



Albert Wesker by That Guyy That Guyy

(Apologies if the next few comments are terse in tone, I'm sleepy and rushing to get my thoughts down before I forget.)

A rushdown character who packs a mean punch, Wesker sounds like a blast to play as, especially with the flash step/teleporting mechanic. The set has a strong start with its mechanic and Specials; limiting the former to two uses per combo chain is a good call to keep it from getting too crazy, though the mix-up potential might be a bit crazy if there's not just the right amount of delay on the teleport, which I'm assuming is the idea. The latter are simple enough in concept, but capture the right feel and work nicely in the context of the whole set.

Aside from a small nitpick with the Up Special (mentions it goes farther than Zelda and Palutena's, but then mentions it's a touch shorter than Palutena's in exchange for being faster- the latter sounds right to me) the throws could use a little more, as could the aerials. Exploring some of Wesker's combo chains would help in both cases- for example his throws could be geared mainly toward combos and (if you tweak the mechanic to let him teleport after a throw) mix-ups, with one leading into an aerial chain, another into a reliable grounded chain, and a third not having anything true out of it but allowing for a potentially rewarding read (or being more immediately valuable in pay out but requiring he burn a teleport to get it). For his Aerials, describing their uses in neutral or ways they can play into his rushdown would do nicely.


Raihan by That Guyy That Guyy

Now that's a neat choice; something of an underrated Gym Leader, Raihan comes in with his Ace to do the bulk of the fighting but utilizing the rest of his team for support in a neat twist on the double battle representation, and even brings in his weather effect focus as a mechanic- all the while, Duraludon has a flair for the dramatic or flashy in some of its moves, emphasizing that this is Raihan's in specific and setting it apart from a set for a Duraludon specifically.

I like the ideas here, but would love if the two big draws had a bit of a tweak or twist to them- the weather effects are potent when they show up, but the low chance of them happening on specific moves does make it a little hard to use in-depth. A small nerf to the effects and a reliable 'if x or y move is used, switch to z weather for a short time' over a percentile chance would appeal to me, but that's personal taste. Letting Duraludon swap weather as part of its attacks more consistently would make for some interesting snap decisions on which move to use when in situations where there's multiple options or mix-ups or 50/50s to consider.

For the assists, they do some cool stuff just by effectively being disjoints from Duraludon, and preventing it from moving or performing another attack until they're done is probably a right call- but I couldn't help but wonder if there'd be some cool potential if Duraludon could move, just not attack, while they're in play. It's not particularly nimble, so this and the circular area weather effect centered on it would create some interesting plays where you get into position to immediately threaten the foe or ensure they're ensnared by the rain, sun, or sand surrounding it.

(Small side nitpick: Up Special is erroneously mentioned as "Up Smash" in its own description.)



Apollyon by That Guyy That Guyy

Apollyon ports over some mechanics from For Honor in the set's aim to convey its brutality and game feel and Apollyon's personality- a highly aggressive fighter who will run roughshod over sheep that try to turtle up or who spam attacks in a panic. Parry lets her go on the offensive more immediately off of a succcessful defense than other characters, and her lifesteal status letting her live longer and get more procs of her Revenge buff by sheer bloody-minded aggression (done smart). The set even has a few ways to make foes suffer for letting her get their backs to a wall.

The Revenge buff feels balanced to me- at first I was worried about the duration's length, but with how it only kicks in after so much damage has been piled onto her, it feels fine- and it does mean that exceptionally sloppy play will see one kick in before the last has finished, effectively robbing her of some duration if the player's doing excessively poorly. My big concern would be the possibility of NSpec stun locking foes when walls are involved- FThrow's stun state also raising concerns for me. I like the concept, but I would put the former on the regrab timer and make the latter's regrab timer active from the stun state's start but not counting down until the stun from it ends.

I would've liked to see more detail in how the moves work with each other, whether combo strings or just situations where there's synergy between; a good example that's in the set already is how Up Smash notes how it can play off of Down Special- seeing more of that would be great. The Aerials are also a bit one-note and unremarkable, aside from a very good Down Aerial. Maybe building off of the blueprint DAir provides, her aerials could have a focus on synergy with her ground game, with a maybe a move that serves as a risky but effective way to stuff recoveries to finish off opposing stocks?

In a general sense, I could recommend a secondary focus on attacks that are highly effective at punishing sloppy defensive play- attacks that take good-sized chunks out of the opponent's shield with extra damage or are very safe for her due to shield push or stun, and maybe a few mix-ups that can catch opponents out of an ill-timed dodge.


Fire Bar by n88 n88

Fire Bar's core hook is it's a character that can't move by walking, running, or jumping, and its low weight and middling recovery on top cements it in that joke character spot, with its other elements doing their darnedest to compensate. While I feel the inherent weakness of not having traditional movement, even crappy traditional movement, isn't one that can really be overcome, I feel all that Fire Bar has would make it a plausible joke character in a platformer that some people would main purely for the challenge and could maybe steal some wins in extreme circumstances despite that weakness (just don't pick it on a moving stage, for obvious reasons).

Part of why that is comes with the most interesting part of the set- its positives, which revolve around (heh) the passive hitbox that is its namesake. Its flames are a fascinating mechanic that could carry a set on their own- a passive defense that can be manipulated, buffed in range at the cost of speed, spent as a resource for projectiles, changed to two or (briefly) three by dividing up the flames, used for mobility (with the ability to split them into two bars exchanging vertical mobility for additional horizontal mobility), catch foes' projectiles to add them to the chain like it was another fireball, and even has some galaxy brain strats in letting one flame lose its hitbox briefly to better manipulate it by the foe as a “gotcha”.

Setting aside the main issue (which is the set's primary concept so I can't rag on that too much), one issue I have with functionality is the grab being done via the passive hitbox, which heavily limits its use (even if there is a Very good reason for it given it can in fact phase the foe through the stage once it starts passively rotating again). I feel like the grab could be re-tooled a touch to make it more usable in a traditional sense, even if it means nerfing it in a different manner- for example, the flames in the bars retract inward and merge into a singular large flame, which shoots forward and then retracts back to the center, the flames distributing themselves back out and leaving the foe rotating at the edge of the bar (or the one closest to their direction if two bars are present) on hit.

The frame data would be better the fewer the flames you have, but a longer bar makes for longer reach (1 flame further out than the bar's current length?) and a bigger 'grab' flame with more potential for dropping them through the stage due to the longer bar. This could also be used to manipulate the flames some- on miss, the grab flame at the edge of the range splits back up into the flames and whatnot and position(s), but mirrored, and it resumes their rotation before they are fully returned and thus can do some fun stuff with the gap between.

Honestly, everything about Fire Bar's fire bar is something I'd love to see revisited on a character that isn't stuck with the unenviable restriction of their movement being limited to Side and Up specials (and Down/Up Aerial to a lesser extent), with some adjustments to balance for not being restricted like that of course. (To the point I checked out of curiosity and, no, nobody made super crown art for the fire bar that I could find. You disappoint me, internet.) In a less tight contest, I'd flat out RV it purely based on the strength of that concept, but this is a ridiculously stuffed competition this time around, so instead I just want to say for the record that I loved this set a lot more than I probably should have.


Alcremie by Owen23 Owen23

A sweet pick for the subject of your second submission, and about as far from Bender as possible (aside from that one episode he wanted to be a chef). Alcreamy's specials didn't immediately get the wheels in my brain turning like Bender's did, but they have some personality to them that I can appreciate. That said, my advice mostly boils down to the same- expanding on the moves that are there and mentioning what they can be used for, how they pair with/contrast the other moves in the set, etc.

In Alcremie's case, you did mention the goal with them is to make a character that's frail but hits hard, and having some fun with that and the fruit could make for something a little more substantial- given the Pokedex entry, perhaps there's a mechanic that sees inputs get stronger the better Alcermie is doing? Really emphasizing that glass cannon playstyle where when they're winning, they're REALLY winning, and if they're losing, they're in big trouble, but have the chance of making a very swing-y comeback. For the fruit, maybe those stick around as throwing items (healing items?) after spawn, starting weak but getting better the more of an edge Alcremie has, making them a double-edged sword that can let it crawl back from a bad spot despite being frail but also giving opponents an out if they can snag them first.

That's all just some very off the top of my head spitballing, though. There's a lot of ways you can spin things- don't be afraid to go crazy, just work off of it from there and if it needs to be toned down later, make adjustments.


Stephanie by Daehypeels Daehypeels

I do so love showboaters and snowballing advantage states, so Stephanie was a pleasant read for me with her characterization and central Hype mechanic. Do good, you hit harder, do bad, you hit less hard. This simple core is accompanied by some quirky standard inputs with lots of nuance to how they'd probably be used and similar extremes in their design philosophy (usually having a couple of very strong points in their favor but being severely lacking elsewhere to keep them specialized), more grounded (heh) aerials that give her some properly reliable tools, Smashes with some neat tricks, and Specials that really contribute to her constantly escalating snowball, emphasize her disadvantages (in the case of her Recovery lacking a hitbox and losing distance with lower Hype), or provide her a few emergency buffs for a rainy day when she's struggling. The set does a really nice job of exploring these concepts and explaining how they'd function in practice, something I enjoyed with Anna.

Aside from the Throws, one tweak I'd add to give Stephanie a bit of depth: let Hype affect her knockback. Not to the same extent as damage, mind, but maybe half as much (so 0.85x at empty, 1.15x at max?). The reason I suggest this is that it adds an extra dimension by changing up some of her moves' usage at low or high Hype, which can be used to flesh out inputs that are a bit specialized or (in the case of aerials) simple for consistency and by necessity (I like them just fine, mind- however crazy you go with a set, you need buttons that work just as buttons). If you want more fine control, the multiplier could be applied to one of knockback scaling or base knockback only instead of knockback in its entirety, letting you be more picky with how this affects each given move.

NAir, for example, normally hits foes just far enough that she won't get a follow-up off of it, while also doing low damage- its purpose instead being a key get-off-me tool. With this adjustment, it won't hit foes as far at low Hype, letting Stephanie not only break free of a juggle, but potentially combo off of it in her most dire of situations to start a comeback. This also means that she not only has a slightly easier time KOing if she's able to keep on the ball, but at Low Hype, her seemingly less useful inputs become her ticket to getting the crowd back on the edge of their seats, giving her the chance to claw back from a bad position with some highly technical play.

That's all hypothetical, though; Stephanie has a lot of the same qualities I liked about how Anna and Regigigas were executed (less in any similarity of playstyles or gimmick, more in the sense of being a well-thought out set that walks you through the design decisions and gives due consideration to what would make it most interesting), and I'm not sure if that would disrupt some of the carefully crafted balance the set enjoys. It's a solid set either way, and was a pleasure to read. Nicely done!


/v/-tan by Daehypeels Daehypeels

Well that was a trip and a half, and a none-too-unpleasant one at that. V is a very well-crafted set, with its main gimmick and a small sub-mechanic being well-applied, but the main attraction being how perfectly the set captures the feel of playing as a salty rage-aholic, from its mechanics to its animations to its strengths and weaknesses. The variety to his attacks and how they all interlink is wonderful, from the UTilt/USmash mixup and Down Aerial's role in the insanity to his Neutral Special's qualities, to the many different movement options with their own strengths and weaknesses.

He's a high-rish high-reward fighter through and through, with the crown mechanic emphasizing that once it comes down to the wire and his anger mechanic serving as a safety net should the match fall too far out of his favor. What actually elevates the set though is the in-depth consideration given to each move mechanically- everything is thought out in service of this playstyle and carefully constructed to feel powerful and aggressive in fluff and crunch alike. Even his key weaknesses appear in a few different ways- while high end lag and poor reach are prevalent in the set, his moves all have their own flaws that make them a commitment to use besides that (such as movement effects and split-second decisions he has to make with their own weaknesses), keeping even his drawbacks interesting.

That's not to discredit the crown, either- the high end buffs and changes made once he dons it are potent, but nothing is utterly game breaking even as the effects get ridiculous to imagine due to mitigating factors, and all of it plays into the same gameplan as before but even more extreme. The bells and whistles added never muddle the playstyle or become incoherent. The set's not got some major central mind-bending trick or utterly bizarre playstyle that's not been seen before, rather it takes what's tried and true and makes it feel fresh and new with a good deal of polish.

Again, I find myself struggling to come up with suggestions for changes that aren't already on the set's to-do list; you've proven over and over to have a strong grasp of Smash's mechanics and finer details, as well as a willingness to get a touch crazy, and pretty much any of the complaints I could bring up are already addressed and planned to be tweaked- and even with that in mind, the set's pretty dang solid.

Regarding that to-do list, assuming you don't replace it entirely as planned, you could change dash attack by increasing the start lag while making the end lag unusually (for the character) short- emphasizes its use as an approach tool and not a defensive one. It’s still a commitment because of travel time, telegraphing and a predictable endpoint for the movement, so spamming it is a terrible idea, but it can chase foes after a hit or who are disengaging, and it continues to be part of his “screw projectiles” tool kit.

For Down Smash, could give the hitbox a little more width, or even let the player keep pressing A to spawn further and further out flames/fists after the second set (with more delay between each as he puts more force into the punches)? For Throws, maybe you could put a risky follow-up on one or two as a small gimmick, where it doesn't combo true and is painful if he whiffs but does a lot more than you'd normally get off of a throw if he reads right (and opponents immediately using a defensive reaction expecting the follow-up are left open if he doesn't use it). These are just ideas off the top of my head, though, so take them with a grain of salt.


Atari by @BrazillianGuy

Another neat choice, a composite character of several classic games of its era to make for a home arcade-y experience. I'd like to know more about how the moves interact with each other or otherwise see use in advantage/disadvantage, risks and rewards, etc. Having more stuff interact directly- like the mushroom and centipede- would open up some fun. NSpec summoning the Pong or Breakout Paddle, for example, could leave them in place as things that will affect Atari's other projectiles for fun and profit, or even serve as weak barriers/platforms for Atari and opponents in and of themselves. If the paddles could even be (weak but lingering) reflectors, that'd just be amazing.

On the topic of NSpec, its projectile being able to break platforms and bounce off of the blastzones aside from the bottom one, and no stated duration or limit other than a maximum 8 rebounds off of the stage boundaries makes me picture an Atari player spamming NSpec to cover the screen. I feel the base concept is cool, though- instead of letting it break platforms or rebound off of boundaries, let the player pressing B again cause the opposite paddle (if horizontal version is used) or a ceiling brick/bottom paddle (if the vertical version is used) to appear in its path.

Make it tap vs held to make it horizontal vs vertical, so that moving the control stick during the input will adjust the paddle/brick to affect the projectile's initial path. It'll be more controlled and thus easier to keep relevant to the fight at hand for long stretches instead of risking it going off into space and not coming back near the fighters, but you're also committed to that one projectile so you have to baby it a little until its duration runs out (maybe 3 or so player-made redirects or an arbitrarily high distance traveled before it despawns and you can make another?).

The other moves are neat or at worst inoffensive, more just making me want more, or for things to be a little crazier- imagine if Side Special was a two-input move, the first placing a missile (or a slow moving missile projectile) and the second firing a fast laser from Atari's position to the missile's to detonate it, for example. This feels like a concept where you could afford to go crazy.
 
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FrozenRoy

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Gary In The House (Apothecary Gary Torgo the Bear Torgo the Bear )

Trying to comment on this set for Jamcon voting (which is apparently still open), it does seem rather...unfinished, what with the stats section having a bunch of blank spots for stats, and the completely mirrored grab game. This obviously hurts the set when it comes to quality. The spores' effect on minions reminds me of Taranza's minion abilities, seems like a decent way to do it. I think Taranza's had some more overall cohesion to it in how Taranza played / some fun counterplay with how it worked, but I wouldn't complain here.

The debuff on the spores seems worrying if I understand it, each level of the spore is a 0.3x reduction up to 0.9x? Because 0.9x movement speed reduction is a lot, obviously. Or is it meant to reduce them BY 0.3x, so it's 0.7x x 0.7x x 0.7x? I suppose each stack only lasts three seconds so it'd be hard to get / Gary can't stall so it isn't a balance nightmare, but I'd consider weakening the effect but increasing the duration. The Pikmin/Ice Climber-esque use of frog minions in Neutral Special feels rather unique, and seems like the core thing that would be interesting to expand on. I like the idea of them having a lot of potential stage or desync use but in turn being extra hurtboxes for Gary. Down Special, by my reading, literally just being "place your frog here" feels...downright bizarre. Surely the crops could have some other effect, maybe even just a buff to his frogs + shroomed minions like a food item if kept around for a while?

"Gary’s up special has him pull out a ladder and climb into the sky" lol

"If a collar connects with an opponent, it locks around their neck and amplifies the effect of any Spores on them! The collar lasts for eight seconds, and all stacks of Spores attached to a character will have their timer frozen until the collar falls off. There’s also a 50% chance the collar will break if the wearer takes heavy knockback."

This is worrying with how much the debuff is, if he can put this on someone who has one or just time it so they chain then this is almost a hard lockdown.

As for the attacks, hm. I'd probably most like to see some extra thought into how they might work into Frogs, especially one standing by crops (combo extension?), I think some of the spore moves buffing frogs / spored minions or doing stuff to them could be interesting, and in general taking the most advantage of the idea of a Pikmin/IC-style set that can steal enemy minions AND use them in the Pikmin/IC way. The set obviously runs out of time on the Jamcon around Up Smash and moves begin to become two sentence affairs, so I don't have much extra to say.

In MIRUCA (Miruca Crotze Katapultar Katapultar )

Your retrospective post mentioned Miruca's Time Cards as trying to bring a "turn-based" feel to the set (along with the set itself saying this!), it's a very basic mechanic to understand but one that feels like it inherently creates plenty of depth as Miruca considers both what Time Card she has up (and thus what attack is best to activate it), how she wants to pester opponents with projectiles, and even how the opponent might approach striking her with how that moves up the Time Card as well. I enjoy the texture it adds to the set as a central mechanic.

The first Neutral Special Time Card bit is somewhat confusing to me, so do the nails just re-appear to be shot downwards or does it fly off the top blast zone and then fall down when the Time Card goes off? The latter feels more logical, and would probably be my preferred. Just felt slightly unclear. The idea of sequentially raining down nails via Time Cards on the foe is a strong one, especially in how it can play with the Time Cards of later attacks - the threat of pinning an opponent down (fitting for a nail) opens them up! It's pretty slick stuff and ultimately easy to understand. Up Special's "reverse Warlock punch" kill projectile (and kind of heavyweight Greninja USpec in feel) attack gives Miruca a power projectile option with some interesting upside-downsides with the movement tech it has. I dig it. I do think the last effect feels rather tacked on, I wonder if it'd work better on a Shield Special? It isn't too big of a deal either way. I'd also consider if it should be slightly laggier to start (Frame 30?), but that also feels unlikely to truly be a big deal. Mostly thinking with how big of movement she gets, the long ending lag might be harder to punish than anticipated...then agaaaain, it IS easy to SD outside of being on the ground.

I loooove that Down Special, in particular I like how it uses the Time Card's usual "attack or be attacked" to create a bit of a hyper-offensive move by giving it extra uses when attacking with a slick cancel, and extra downsides when attacked because it fails to go off. Giving it a movement tech option with manual detonation adds utility to the attack, with Miruca developing an intriguing subtheme of attack-movement to go with her Time Card setplay and projectiles. I'm not sure that the guiding effect on the Down Special is necessary and I think it might even be slightly unwieldly, although having a hitbox on the tip seems like a good idea to me. Personally, I'd just leave it at increasing the power of the delayed hitbox (and maybe amping it up to kill slightly earlier). Cool af move, though. Angling also seems to be another subtheme judging from NSpec/USpec/SSpec.

Bizarrely, Miruca's Side Special reminds me a lot of Doppelori. I wonder if it's because the kind of angle-able missile launcher alone reminds me of it, or because of how it feels like it might work as a bit of an approach-breaker. The way that all of her Specials work together into a cohesive coverage whole is certainly my jam, Side Special / Down Special are somewhat similar but with enough differences they certainly do not feel redundant. I also find the way that Miruca's attacks work against reflectors rather unique and appealing, not stopping the foe's reflection but essentially boosting her Time Cards, although I wonder if there's an actual character reason it's like this?

Something worth remembering for the standards: Basically no attack in Smash is actually + on shield. This doesn't particularly matter for Down Tilt (which feels like an attack that WOULD ala Shield Breaker, given the intention to strike shields when at ledge after a successful sweetspot), but realistically Dash Attack is probably -1 or something (which makes it impossible to punish still). Though it doesn't mean you couldn't just make Dash Attack + for more offensive potential. The standards are overall some solid pieces contributing to Miruca's overall game, with Forward Tilt being the standout to me as a simple attack that slides right into Miruca's "non-combo lightweight" vibe, and the way it kinda all fits together in a Samus-esque way fits inside of my head.

"As this move’s name implies, the bunker’s magic creates a weakness on the opponent - even if they shield - represented by a purple crosshair that lingers for 5 seconds." yo we gettin' BlazBlue Azrael up in here

I like the way Forward Smash segments off the buffs into different knockback levels, allowing them to be tailored quite well to each attack without feeling overly specific. It also could be fun in 2v2s with allies who can buff Miruca's knockback! Definitely a fun l'il move here. Up Smash's customizable knockback giving me some Walkure vibes, funny how that works when I hadn't read Miruca yet! Up Smash killing at an "early" percent for Miruca feels a bit odd given the KO %s of some of her other tools and that it comes out at Frame 5, I do think Frame 5 starting lag w/ 30 FAF on a move that has a reasonable kill move and makes a lingering trap when Miruca has so many other trappish options. It'll probably be edited away by the time I post this comment. I like the way the trap's hitstun / knockback changes with placement, giving Miruca some real thought in how she approaches WHEN to use the trap, but I will say I found the actual trap's hitbox a bit difficult to understand. Down Smash feels like a really funky power move in Miruca's arsenal, and given how her bunker looks visually I was really hoping she'd have some high power move!, and it feels like giving her this kind of psuedo-defensive option fits her style with attacks like Down Tilt, Up Special, and what have you. It also just seems like such a hefty callout to work into her Time Card laden playstyle that I dig it.

Forward Aerial, as written, seems a bit contradictory to me. In the sense that, for example, I'm not sure how it would be too slow to be unsafe on shield as a long lasting multihit, but also be fast enough (presumably when landed) to combo into Up Tilt when landed. It seems to me like if this has any kinda autocancel window like the suggested combo at the 10% damage hitbox that it will 100% be safe on shield as long as you don't land, like, as close as possible against the foe. The attack in general feels maybe a bit gimmicky to me for an otherwise more clean set, although the explosive landing hitbox is kinda fun. Up Aerial's height requirement to not be canceled feels too high IMO, basically forcing Miruca to only instantly use it out of maximum double jumps, I'd lower it so that she has at least some leeway in when she gets to use it. Maybe 4 grids instead of 5.

"In addition to foes, Miruca can pin the nail to the ground to gain her follow-up options without hitting a foe, albeit less effective." How does that work with the first follow-up?

In general the aerials felt pretty gimmicky to me, some neat ideas (like DAir Corrin pin) but I question if less-is-more at some points here. It gives Miruca a rather funky aerial game, for whatever it is worth. NAir was my favorite out of them. Down Aerial was a fun idea, but it did somewhat feel odd in execution. I'm not sure I like it connecting to the foe with a pin after a Time Card launches, visually.

"It will consistently start techs onstage, but the throw animation is long enough that this will rarely happen against competent foes." I assume this means the foe will presumably hit the tech?

I like the idea of using time cards as a more relentless offense via poison damage on F-Throw at the cost of being less controllable. I also enjoy how Up Throw adds a new Time Card nail that nonetheless gives some different utility, Jab and Neutral Special already had overlap so changing it up was helpful. Back Throw feels like a kinda twist on a throw I'd make. Down Throw is a very cool take on a proning throw! The mindgame-y nature of it plays well into Miruca's setplay delayed hitboxes, and I like how it has a "power" option that just avoids all of that.

Overall, Miruca is a pretty slick set that feels comparable to Crewmate in quality for me. Miruca has some more striking concepts to her with some nice execution moves (Forward Smash, Down Smash, Forward Tilt, Down Tilt, Jab, etc), while Crewmate felt more overall consistent and still had strong ideas of its own. I might swap these two around a few times by the end, but they're both sets in the 9 star zone that gives them a solid shot at SV by the end of my reads. Certainly happy with the result of one of my Honorable Mentions for most wanted Kat sets! It's always a treat to see Atelier sets from you, I wonder if anyone else would be willing to do them?, so I hope we might get more in the future.
 
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FrozenRoy

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Apr 26, 2007
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Better Vote Saul (Saul Goodman BKupa666 BKupa666 and Rychu Rychu )

It's a bit genuinely fascinating to see a move like Down Special, very similar to ye olde Warlord's Inspector Lunge and Manfred Von Karma, but modernized to more current contest standards. The moveset does feel like a Lot to take in at the start, in part due to the large Charge lists that talk about moves and situations we have no context for in how to amp them up. I feel like the moveset might be paced as a better read if these were instead folded into later moves, but such is life.

Saul Goodman is absolutely a set that will have a lot of fans. The biggest selling point, in my opinion, is absolutely the characterization which feels quite on point. This bleeds through not only with the set's litany of references, but most importantly in some of the best character-writing in a moveset I've seen in a while, a sharp and witty dialogue that makes the 28k words much more digestible and fly by. This set could have easily felt like a Powers Kirby style checklist and been much less fun for it, but it avoids that deftly. It also definitely has a LOT of ideas, some of which are pretty fun. I'm particularly fond of all the Business Contacts, with Francesca and Lenny being the standouts, the ways that Saul has a lot of ways to interact with his money meter mechanic that feel unique to him (I could see some other lawyer sets using similar ideas tweaked for their character in the future), the chaotic gameplay to fulfill Saul's feel, Forward Smash (probably my favorite attack in the set, especially with how it works with Lenny/Kuby), all that jazz. This set absolutely has appeal to it.

I gotta admit though, it didn't quite resonate with me the way I know it will with other people. I do understand the kind of "controlled chaos" being fit here with Saul, but it does make a chaotic and messy, complex set that felt like it had a bit of an uninteresting game when NOT using his mechanics. Obviously the mechanics are so woven in that they're going to be a factor most of the time, but compared to some higher end movesets from both of you (Mysterio, Law, Walter White, etc) I was hard pressed to find as much of a larger gameplan outside of the mechanics. I also do think the set feels a bit super complex, not only is it very dense in what you need to keep track of on a character mechanic level, but Saul also has a lot of input complexity. His Neutral Special alone is a tap/hold with two very long, VERY different effects, which includes a 9-part Monado Wheel, each of which contains contacts that can massively change how he plays and depend on external factors. Then you add onto that the fact that, say, Francesca adds on an A + B counter, or giving held B ANOTHER use of controlling minion placement with a multitude of contacts. But then on top of that, there's multiple attacks where hitting B or holding B creates a new effect on top of that, which given tapped B and held B are so important to Saul you really better hope you don't misinput! And of course Saul, presumably, has the input complexity at the high level to go with this level of inputs. When you consider Saul also has to deal with snipers potentially killing him, very specific debuffs which can affect him at specific scenarios, 15 Charges and so on. He even has self-created platforms and ladders on Up Special. It's a Lot and sometimes even feels rather "magical" for Saul Goodman, with multiple foreground attacks and popping up platforms and all the props.

I'd also say on the level of the set's mechanics, it feels like it is too easy to make money and that there's too many Charges. The latter is less about the first point of making money and more that with how many ways Saul feels like he can incidentally make money I question how feasible it is for Saul to stay under the limit as it were, the moveset suggests that he should be able to pick between holding back his cash flow or going for broke but almost every melee move he has gives him a way to make money and in the end it feels a bit too difficult to avoid it. Now you could just avoid using Neutral Special to not cash out, but then on the flipside it also means that what you're charging the foe with is going to be constantly changing, so long term planning feels like it flies out the window perhaps too easily. As for money, it feels like a lot of Charges aren't too hard to hit with and that some have some nice payouts, so I don't know if it is as difficult to get to Premium Contacts as the moveset implies. Plus Lenny/Kuby are pretty dang powerful on their own, and his cash flow feels like enough he should be able to have them up in near-perpetuity if he desired. Also, Town of Coushetta is proooobably stronger than the moveset thinks: Given the Zero Laser width, long range and duration, plus it pushing foes to the edge and just a touch of set knockback, I am pretty sure this is a OHKO on anyone recovering. It isn't like you can air dodge through such a long attack, it pushes you very far away before launching (and can even push down due to being aimable), and he even has attacks like a psuedo-Villie FAir to get people off stage. I suspect that getting money while knocking the foe offstage and finishing them off with a barrage of letters is the bread and butter Saul Goodman strategy. His car sets up for it fairly easily but requires money so I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't used as much since you'd rather just save it for the letters. I would have liked to see more of a "hook" for how Saul Goodman plays in neutral and advantage/disadvantage over some of these extra Charges myself, because it doesn't feel like he has much of a grip when it comes to how he really fights the foe the way some other sets do.

Overall, Saul Goodman is an excellently characterized set that pushes the envelope on holla holla get dolla mechanics, some really cool Summons and is endlessly creative, but I felt like he ended up somewhat crushed under the weight of his own ambitions (Walter White relates), that he's a bit wonky to control and has some balance issues, and just doesn't quite have the full meat and potatoes to the degree of some higher end sets. It's a very frontloaded set, in a lot of ways. I still enjoyed it, although its current RV status is precarious in a contest I'm told is rather tough. I'm very glad it exists, and his advertising campaign was very potent given it got all the FFC folks involved! Good work, you two.
 

UserShadow7989

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
305
Oh hey, new post.

Crewmate by Arctic Tern Arctic Tern

An incredibly tightly knit set, emphasizing the teamwork needed by the Crew to survive the game and making excellent use of a central minion/multiple-application attacks. On top of the melee being woven together in a manner that's underpowered but still functional, it ties perfectly into the use of your Ally and Vents, those weaknesses covered by the ability to attack from a place of relative safety or in tandem with a semi-competent but frail teammate you can exert control over to varying degrees.

There's a handful of fun, cool concepts here, executed with high polish; in a contest where a lot of the sets I'd put at the top are fairly complex beasts with a few different mechanics in play, Crewmate picked a strong pair of central tricks and expertly put everything together with them in mind. It's the combination of strong concept and rock solid execution I've come to expect from your sets.

I do have a few nitpicks, but nothing that notably impacts the set's quality so much as 'this is all I could come up with for criticism'. Ordering a Crewmate to use an Aerial could probably done with Jump button used in place of A, rather than a toggle with the Jump button- saves the player an input. "Tapped or Held A" is mentioned in FThrow, which I think is meant to refer to the directional input. I'm guessing that you/your Ally stops on reaching off-screen in the case of walk-off stages? The time the player-controlled Crewmate can spend in a Vent before popping out could afford to be shortened as well.

If I -had- to provide a more substantial nitpick, Side Special feels a little underutilized, but there's not a whole lot else you could do with a straight buff to be fair- it's an interesting bit of risk/reward and soft stage control with similar payoffs to the buff the Ally gets when you've been hit, and that's all it needs to be. Maybe foes attacking in the area while your Ally is on cooldown reduces the timer slightly? I think this is a case where trying to add too much more to the formula would just dilute the positives of the set as-is, so it may well be better off as it is. I'll admit I didn't expect someone could pull off a set of this quality for the Crewmate.


Blue by GolisoPower GolisoPower

It took me some time to figure out how I felt about this set, and why exactly I felt the way I did about. While there are some odd effects added to some inputs- Up Tilt powering up Dash Attack with repeat uses (could use a visual effect of some sort to indicate this, like the folder getting fatter and increasingly excessive amounts of paper flying out on hit) and a throw letting your next hit do extra damage by cleaning them, to give some examples, the issue runs deeper. To sum up, Blue is a set with a lot of neat, out-there concepts that sadly don't quite mesh or function as intended on a conceptual level.

One of the bigger culprits are among the Sabotage options. As annoying as darkening the screen or messing with controls can be, the one of note is the Door Sabotage- it mentions the possibility of using the wrap-around to enable odd combos or quick escapes, and while the latter is an option with dropping down through the bottom blastzone to end up on the top, for the most part this is a strict negative on the offense as anything you could do by putting the foe over the now defunct blastzone would pale to just getting the KO from doing so without the effect. Another option no less crazy (possibly more so) would be to lock the screen in place for the duration, with the wrap around effect being placed at the current edges of the screen, which would also better enable the crazy combos desired if already in close quarters (though large free for alls would still make that weird).

Vents can also be an issue- the description explicitly notes using them to escape combos or extend your own, but if it's usable in that tight a window, then it'd be dead simple to play keep away on all but small stages by abusing them once you have a stock lead, possibly combining that with Door Sabotage as a last ditch resort if someone somehow gets past that in order to become effectively unkillable. This one is more fixable, as you could give Venting a cooldown that starts at a few seconds and lengthens with higher damage/rapid repeat uses.

There's a few other issues that come to mind- UAir doesn't state a limit on how many times you can use it to gain altitude in the same air trip, and even just maintaining altitude would allow stalling. Side Special's RNG with the hitbox placement in that large area could be a frustrating experience for both use and counterplay. With the issues involving the core mechanics aside, the melee game is fine, but loses some of that zest that it was meant to have.

That's a lot of negativity, but that's not to say there aren't things to like. The Meeting Table is a fun construct of a type I'd like to see more of, especially in tandem with the moves that specifically hit foes towards it, acting as a mobility and combo tool in one. DAir is a very fun take on the stall-then-fall archetype. The ideas are things modern MYM hasn't been keen to tackle, and there's an obvious amount of thought put into them, but they end up in a situation where it doesn't pan out as-is. A lot of these could work very well- the Vents and Meeting Table in specific are ideas I love- it's just something that needs a redesign.
 
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