Make Your Move 26: Top 50 Is In! MYM27 starts on January 31st

[ForwardArrow]

Irene Landry
Okay, so before I go into my problems with this set, I want to make a couple things clear. First of all, it does frequently manage to be legitimately pretty funny. The sheer premise of this "ludicrous even by Better Call Saul" standards character getting in Smash is very funny on its own, and how insane the set goes trying to represent her milquetoast hobbies and social life in an actual moveset alongside a complex money system really does manage to get a good few laughs out of me. I've got things to say about the grab game, but honestly, the fairly literal punchline of the first throw got me good. I recognize that this is a very hard character to get right in Smash, she's an extremely low potential gimmick choice who never does anything even tangentially violent. Given that, I hope you understand that no matter how harsh the rest of this comment gets, its not anything personal.

But I'm going to be honest, this is one of my least favorite sets I've read in a long time. The issues are numerous and compounding, and you get hit with them pretty much immediately with Neutral Special, as the set decides its just going to cram her entire character arc into one massive move-mechanic. I'm not convinced this couldn't work, but its a lot to keep track of, and usually when I see that kind of complexity I'm hoping the rewards are worth it. But this set does an incredibly poor job of selling the changes to Irene's moveset that come from spending money, changing each underwhelming feeling move into a... slightly less underwhelming one, you really don't feel like you're getting access to a real payoff at any point. Stuff gets generally "better", but I never really felt reading the set like "this is the reward you should be aiming for" or "this is why all the silly money management is worth it". Sets work better when you have something eye catching, and Irene has so many weird complexities that feel like they're just there to be weird and complex. It doesn't help these mechanics don't really feel like they're fun to manage, bingo is very RNG heavy and for all the different bizarre outcomes it can have the only way Irene can build up her mechanic is to sit around and wait it out.

If it were just an underwhelming payoff for a ton of setup, I'd be less bothered by it, but the set really makes a number of other poor decisions too. For starters, when its not telling a joke successfully, the writing is really rough. The set doesn't really have much of anything to actually say about its melee but still manages to meander quite a while, and like. If you don't feel like there's much to say about a move, its best to just not say much about it rather than trying to pad the word count. Its also not good at explaining what it does have to explain, NSpecial/DSpecial's mechanics are hard to follow and I outright think Up Smash missed talking about an important detail of how it interacts with your money. Maybe its just my lack of familiarity with the subject, but I could never actually figure out what poses Irene was doing for any of her yoga oriented moves, the set's descriptions of them really failing to explain the actual motion she's making.

The grab game also, I think, is you taking your "every part of the buffalo" approach too far, by using a meeting Irene Landry was technically in the scene of but she has no interaction with as the premise of her grab and throws. Like, yes, she was in the scene technically, it was for an event that relates to her mechanic. But I feel like you've gone down the wrong path when one character is trying to sabotage another character in the grab game while both the grabber and the grabbee are completely uninvolved in the actual events going on, basically having a separate character's arc play out while Irene and the foe get to watch and sometimes get victimized. Honestly, I think this set would've worked better in general not trying to cram in every tiny detail of Irene's existence into the set too, instead making some repeat uses of things that are more closely associated with her and focusing on talking about the effectiveness of the changes to her moveset her money upgrades would get her.

I think, ultimately, this set was just the result of overcomplicating a set in an attempt to create something more impressive than you'd expect for a low potential character, but it fails to actually pay off anything and instead just winds up confusing and frustrating to read. I get that it was a hard character and you were on a time limit, and I don't want to grill you over it too much, but I do feel this set is a vastly exaggerated version of why Quackfaster might've fallen short of your expectations for her too. I'm not someone who dislikes complexity, but you need to justify complexity with the ability to do something cool enough to justify the investment, which Irene never does and I feel sometimes I've seen you struggle with in general. Hopefully you'll be able to take some tips when US gets that article on melee out, and keep this set in mind as an example of what not to do in the future.

Ikkyu
Ikkyu is probably your next most ambitious JamCon after Giganotosaurus, and honestly I do think its a pretty solid one. The historical geniuses that Ikkyu summons to fight alongside him are honestly a very successful example of weapon switch being used in exactly the way I'd want. Beyond just being distinct enough in their uses that they all have strengths and weaknesses the other can't cover, there are clear reasons to swap them around to get the most out of them. Stephen Wilcox makes setups, Beethoven enhances one of Ikkyu's more powerful tools until it evolves into a full on instant KO while not providing actual support, and Mata Hari/Gennai cover different ranges. Plus, Paper Tiger adds another layer to switching mechanics, as you can really mess with the foe into thinking you've got one Genius out when you have another. Its cool stuff, and helped along by the fact that honestly, each Genius feels individually well-designed and tend to have some of the most interesting attacks in the set.

I'm honestly a big fan of the whole core, Paper Tiger is honestly a great mindgame move too, certainly flawed in how it covers your individual moves but the incredibly powerful mixup it gives feeling worth it. Not to mention it has some unique tricks in the air so its not just about what your opponent can and can't see, it has some practical, non-mindgames utility too. It gives the set something to talk about when it comes time to focus on the melee, too, which is appreciated as Ikkyu's melee is admittedly... not great, IMO.

I think its by nature of the kind of playstyle you wanted this character to have, but his lack of combos and underwhelming individual hits mix together into a character who's non-Genius moves often feel like they don't have much of anything to do. Their most interesting applications always tend to be with Paper Tiger, and while I like Paper Tiger, I think making the set's entire melee depth come from playing off "well the opponent can't see what your doing" isn't the most fun or interesting thing to play against. Its not like there's no melee flow, but it really feels like its just going through the motions in a pretty basic way, and it never really feels like the energy the set had in the genius attacks ever came back. I also find the final Genius attack disappointing, for such a cool premise the effects wind up disappoitningly same-y, and I feel you could've really gone wild with that move in a way that just ultimately didn't happen.

For what its worth, I think the cool core and middling execution still pan out into a set I'd overall say I like. Some of the paper tiger implications in the melee were at least decently interesting, and while the specials are doing a lot of the heavy lifting, they are great specials. I mostly think the set just needed more than Paper Tiger to carry the melee, whether it be another thing to directly play off that flows into it more frequently, or just stronger individual moves. As it stands, the set's decent but clearly felt like it could be more.

Dozle Zabi
I'm not gonna lie, my excitement was pretty through the roof to finally get a new solo Smady outing after all this time. KOS-MOS and Cranky Kong were both excellent sets, don't get me wrong, but its not quite the same as getting non-joints. And at first, the set is decidedly not very flashy despite what you might expect, having some pretty simple specials that at, while I found effective and cool and their simplicity, don't seem like they're carrying the set that strongly as a core or giving a huge incentive to utilize Zeon's Rage. That said, Overheat is an excellent move, giving the ability to ruthlessly spam your Zeon's Rage buffed Specials at the cost of blowing yourself up and causing a ton of self-damage and stun to yourself at the end. This makes those Zeon's Rage boosted moves so much scarier if you're willing to go with the associated risk, and it even has an extra benefit too. If you time your self-destruct right, you can catch the foe in the blast, avoiding the stun side of the consequences, evening out the damage, and possibly getting a kill. Its a risky manuever, one you have to play very tactically to use properly.

And play tactically Dozle does. His moves feel a bit unconventional by superheavy standards in that there's an element of subtle positioning behind the massive attacks, as alongside the typical heavyweight fear tactics he has going for him, he has moves to let him eek out little microspacing and positioning advantages. When the big explosive power of Overheat is ticking down overhead, winning these tiny battles earlier can let him win the war once his more destructive moves come into play. Its not like his big destructive moves that aren't Overheat aren't fun too, all the Smashes are pretty fun in practice with FSmash showing just how good it can be on a character not named Ganondorf, with the deal sweetened even further with its fun angled versions. USmash/DSmash are both a big, destructive hit, and also throw out some extra traps and projectiles for that little bit of incremental advantage Dozle wants on top of just being big scary hitboxes on their own. I do think DSmash's strikes me as pretty hard to actually use, but eh, its not a big deal. I also want to give a shout out to that final time bomb throw of the set, it feels like a lot of thought went into what adding a time bomb to his set would mean and how this specific one would work.

It certainly is a straightforward set, while it has plenty of depth due to the little tactical nuances a lot of his moves are equipped with(I frequently think of FTilt when I talk about this, or Side Special's defensive properties), it doesn't ever feel especially ambitious. I'm fine with that, its a really rock solid superheavy set that shows how comfortable you are with the genre and feels distinctive from any of the other ones I've seen. While not as focused on giving individual characterization to Dozle as the other Gundam set in Mika, it feels like it very much knows what the series is about and brings the kind of tactical flare the series has to a Smash game. I think if there's one thing that did stick out to me as a flaw, it wasn't the actual moves themselves so much as the writing being a bit rough in places. The set sometimes uses the wrong term(or at least one I find confusingly easy to mix up for a different thing) and that can occasionally make it easy to get lost while reading, though with a couple context clues its usually easy enough to figure out what you're talking about. Rock solid set, honestly, you haven't lost a single step these past 3 contests, which is really impressive.

Sevagoth
Even if I'm not fond of how its balanced, I will say the way Sevagoth's Shadow works upon his death is a pretty notable highlight of the set for me. Having this powerful mini-moveset to play with that, if you score enough damage, straight up gets you your stock back feels like a really cool high end reward to give players for playing well. Its a lot more advanced than when I played with this kind of mechanic in Karthus, anyway. I think my problem with it comes down to the fact you kind of just get Death Well for playing the game, due to damage dealt to Sevagoth one to one converting to charge for his meter, plus he can get even more with his Specials/Grabs. Given the reward is getting an extra 50 stamina/15 seconds of time to play with on death that can potentially undo your own death if you play well enough with it, it feels like the reward is far too high for the amount of investment put in. I feel like if you want him to get a bonus this powerful, he should have to be playing quite well to get it. While his KO percents are high Sevagoth is a pretty competent fighter between his range and power boosting/heavily damaging debuffs, so he really didn't need something like this on top of that.

In general I think my issue with how Sevagoth plays comes down to a couple things, beyond just him being too powerful. Numbers tweaks could certainly make this set feel more reasonable, but so much of the set feels really passive. The debuffs are designed to be pretty easy to apply to the point of practically being a passive in Gloom's case, and combined with how easy it is to get the Shadow up and running, it feels like all the core stuff in Sevagoth's gameplan happens automatically and doesn't leave a lot of room for player expression. This isn't helped by the fact that when the set gets into the nitty gritty melee, the set feels like its emphasizing some strange connections that either barely work or would require the move to act in a way that'd probably make it wildly broken(or at least not like the description says it works elsewhere). The set feels a bit rushed, like there isn't as much time spent thinking on how things actually work together as there probably should be, which is admittedly a natural thing to have happen when you write 34 inputs for a JamCon. This set ends up weirdly on the opposite end of my problems with Irene Landry in that it feels like all payoff and no setup, and you really can't have one without the other.

Koitsu
This set is not even remotely subtle about wanting to be another stab at Hikaru's concepts after that set didn't seem to come out as well as you'd hoped. Trying to remix concepts from and improve a 20k monster of a set in the JamCon time period is a very hard thing to do, and the shocking thing for me is I think Koitsu completely succeeds in its goal. For starters, this set handles the snowball quite a bit better than Hikaru did. You don't lose literally all your upgrades if the foe hits you once, with 3 upgrades striking a good balance between "hard penalty" and "straight up ridiculous", and in exchange, Koitsu's upgrades feel less able to stack up hitstun on the foe with much fewer hitboxes thrown out that deal flinching. I always felt a bit uncomfortable with Hikaru's ability to really lock foes down a bit once she got rolling, and Koitsu can't do that. Instead he just does so much damage the foe will just get deleted in seconds, which is honestly fair considering how easily he can lose that advantage. I also just figure I'll say, I think the Up Special in this set is much cooler than Hikaru's, it gives him an interesting tool to play around with that's good but flawed rather than just "here's a free flight recovery".

Not to say Koitsu isn't distinguished from Hikaru enough to be his own set. For one, his ridiculous animations lead to copies of himself pouring out over the stage, and those copies that he summons via an upgrade to his NSpecial can actually perform his standards. You have quite a bit of fun with this in the standards, imagining how "Koitsu Missile" will work with these both just as a single threat and then later when the army really builds up is kind of a treat, and gives the set stronger standards. The grab game and Smashes also play into this stuff well, DSmash being a bell setup, FSmash being an upgrade setup/kill move that probably gets better with all those Koitsu Missile guys running around, and USmash/Grab and a couple of the throws flat out utilizing Koitsu's upgrades to enhance their power, so Koitsu has a little more to do when he's far into his snowball beyond just spam NSpecial. It felt pretty rare in this set that an input didn't feel like it had a decently interesting place on top of being much stronger mechanically than its already mechanically interesting predecessor.

To give my complaints, I feel like there IS one area Koitsu is a bit worse than Hikaru, and that's the fact the set seems to care a bit less about how you're getting your snowball going. Whereas there was a clear effort to talk about how you'd get specific upgrades in that set, which I thought was a neat part of it, here its more of an afterthought, and it makes me feel like maybe Koitsu doesn't have what he'd want in terms of tools to actually get off the ground. Then again, his melee seems reasonably competent, so he might just be fine even if the set doesn't go into specifics for why. I also felt the aerials were a pretty weak section, not outright bad but lacking a hook that the other input sections do, and I'll admit while grab's payoffs were fine I sort of think its not as cool as they could've potentially been? I don't have immediate ideas, but its something you could ever consider if you want to go edit this set post-JamCon.

Lastly, while your animations are as stellar as always, I feel like you've gotten a lot of criticism for your writing dragging a bit in previous contests. While I was struggling to get through Koitsu due to being burnt out on a lot of sets that were kind of hard to read(and just the sheer volume of them in the JamCon), it was NOT Koitsu's fault, I can promise that much. The set's really funny and has lines that read like they came out of a Nate or Slavic set, and despite the one joke to the contrary the set's word count feels entirely earned and not like its overstaying its welcome. I'm not quite as fond of it as Dozle or Mika(we'll get to him), but this is the kind of set that I think could easily win most JamCons, and I'd even go so far as to say its your best JamCon yet. Surprised you didn't seem to excited about it making it because IMO it paid off well.

 

[AwfulBeast]

Spoiler: Lana, the White Sorceress

Oh, now this is a much bigger entry than your previous works! Love the banter between Lana and the author: you barely see that kind of thing in other movesets, and it brings a lot of personality to the table. The writing is genuinely funny and entertaining throughout, and doesn’t feel intrusive as far as the reading experience goes. Those pictures are unique and amazing too. That’s the kind of above and beyond thing that you didn’t have to do, but it’s incredible that you did. I can tell you put a lot of passion into this moveset.

• Neutral Special is a nice and simple wall move, but I’m glad to see balance implementations like letting foes roll around it at the ledge and not let you rebound foes infinitely. I don’t think having the wall block foes in midair would be too much of a problem. I do wonder if a 10 second cooldown after the wall is destroyed is a bit much - perhaps the cooldown should begin from the moment the wall spawns. Encourages foes to do something about Lana’s walls sooner than later so she can’t just casually replace them if enough time passes.
• Side Special is a fun little unique move.
• It sounds like Down Special’s attack and wall-manipulating options are separate attacks despite being on the same input. Is this a tap vs hold the B button for a different attack deal? The wall manipulation’s properties feel undefined in some areas, like not explaining how much damage and knockback the wall collision deals. I’m guessing foes can shatter the moving wall before it pushes them along, but it does feel potentially powerful for edgeguarding if they can’t.
• How long does the Up Special platform stay out for?

• Lana’s Jab is surprisingly very cool! I really like the idea of an advancing Jab that sends you back to where you started it on the final hit! But then the set introduces different Jab follow-ups if you press B out of various hits of Lana’s Jab.
• As flashy and cool-sounding as all of Lana’s Jab combos are, I think they have a lot of missed opportunities. The combos all sound very powerful, especially when some of them deal high shield damage, and barring cases like SDI it sounds like landing Jab at all is guaranteed to have any combo you want out of any of the hits connect. I think it would be a lot cooler if it was a Kazuya Jab case, where the hits on more potent combos aren’t guaranteed to connect (various hits don’t deal enough hitstun to lock foes into the next hit) but they are very powerful if they do. I also don’t get a sense for which combo should be used in which situation, like whether they have different launching applications or different mix-ups. It would be cool if Jab had built-in mix-ups with its different combos, like if Jab 1 just launched your opponent and each of the different combos were used to catch out different responses (jump, dodge, shield, do nothing, etc.).
• It feels like you could have done a lot with the cube being a construct you can stand on, like talking about using your moves from a higher elevation.
• F-Smash is a simple but nice and effective move for using a wall to deal extra damage. D-Smash is interesting for being able to go into an aerial attack instead of using the powerful attack itself.

• 3 seconds feels too long for Neutral Air’s optional drag-down extension. 1 second or 1.5 seconds would be more reasonable.
• Nice, D-air having hard interactions with your platform and cube. B-air feels neat enough too, because it acknowledges U-Smash’s set-up potential.
• B-throw interacting with your walls is the kind of throw interaction I’d want from them.

• The write-up regarding ways to use your walls at the end of the playstyle section is pretty nice. Different from how many of us who detail stuff like this in the moves themselves.
• Awesome, match-ups! These used to be common around MYM6, but we barely see them in movesets anymore. Massive props to you for including these. I’m sure US will be very happy to see one of his movesets represented here.

All and all, Lana is a simple but pretty clean wall and platform user. I mentioned Jab having much more potential, but as far as other aspects go, it would be fun if Lana could play off of her walls and platform more in her melee. Not necessarily hard interactions like her Forward Smash, so much as stuff like the wall-bouncing as you mentioned in her wall write-up. I could see Lana using one of her up-hitting moves to pop foes up on the platform and leave them in prone. You could also say that U-Smash is a good punish against opponents who jump over your wall. Also might be unnecessary, but Lana having lightning attacks makes me wonder if there is potential for her to electrify her walls and platforms with some electric-based attacks? The set could also tie in moves together more, like talking about D-Smash’s cancel (that seems to be an afterthought). Stuff to give the moves extra spice, if you know what I mean.

Nonetheless, a very unique and entertaining read! Great to hear that you’re striving to improve your setmaking, and that Lana is a step towards that. You should be proud of what you’ve got here anyway.

Spoiler: The Human

• What do the different colours of each Pacifist bonus mean? Do you get one or all of them when you use a Shield Special while you’re Pacifist?
• Does Side Special always have a counter hitbox while you hold it? That feels very powerful when counters are normally supposed to be timed well to land.
• What happens if you have Pacifist reflector bonus when you use Side Special? Does your reflector get a bigger multiplier?
• Genocide Down Special is kinda interesting as a way to extend its duration, at the cost of self-damage.
• Exactly how much meter different actions give is not elaborated upon (outside a few of the Specials).

Nice and short, this set is fairly low on detail, which does make its ideas and moves less engaging than they could be. It does peter out a little later on, with shorter descriptions or saying “same as above.” I assume this set was meant to be a quick entry, though.

"AwfulBeast, Lana Set Creator"-Thanks for the Reply! Some of the stuff you mentioned I didn't even think of, but sound so obvious in hindsight (Such as Jab maybe being a response to whatever defensive option the opponent uses to counter, More Indirect wall set-ups like the ping pong, and especially the higher elevation the cube grants here). If I do go back to this moveset and polish it up more I'll be sure to keep your suggestions in mind. But like you said, I'm proud of the kit I've crafted already. It was my first real moveset in a very long while, and I'm glad I was able to provide!

 

[GolisoPower]

The Catty Lady Who Calls Saul
Irene Landry by WeirdChillFever

...you know, if I was expecting another Methverse set, it'd have been either Gustavo Fring or Hank Schrader. But this old lady, while not unwelcome, was so completely left field that I kind of welcome it. Much like the other Methverse younglings from previous MYM contests, she uses money as a valuable resource, though from a flavor standpoint, it can bite back at her due to her friends leaving her behind (Speaking of that has to be the most heartwrenching mechanic I've seen out of MYM so far, goddamn).

Speaking of money, Neutral Special has a nice workaround for the usual "lose it all due to stock loss" limitation by writing a will and becoming Saul's client for some amazing upgrades to his moves which we'll get to later. It also helps that Irene can pay for the upgrades that were normally given to her for free to keep her friends around, which is both refreshing and kind of makes it a goal to keep Irene happy from a sentimental standpoint, especially since Side Special involves having them join you in the fight for a command grab on par with Steve's Minecart, or as the set also compares to, Kapp'n's Assist Trophy. Honestly wasn't expecting Up Special to work like that both functionally and flavor-wise, but Wii Fit Trainer shows that yoga's a force to be reckoned with in a fight so it's cool. Last but certainly not least, it ain't an old person character without including Bingo, and that's where Down Special comes in, temporarily giving her an upgrade for free regardless of the money you have on hand and avoiding being ostracized by her friends.

Honestly, the way you apply some of the more flavorful things about her from the show that I parsed as a person who's watched very little Breaking Bad/seen a few clips from Better Call Saul is a pretty nifty idea, especially when she's playing with her cats like in U-air with the balloon or having fun with her friends while it lasts (if you choose to keep her at a reasonable monetary level) with moves like Side Smash using the pool noodles. She's pretty much the only innocent character out of a trio where the only characters are either a ruthless science teacher-turned-meth dealer or a silver-tongued lawyer who ain't afraid to get his hands dirty if it means winning a case. To think she was the spark leading to the events of Breaking Bad, the butterfly effect is a hell of a thing, huh? Anyways, it was a pretty decent read for a nice old lady like her. Nice work, my man!

 

[UserShadow7989]

Ne-Gok-Sa by majora_787

The first Jamcon submission of the contest is a fairly fun crack at a minion-using fighter, with a few twists that set it apart from its contemporaries. It's a very simple set on the face of it, but it impressed me the more I sat on it for how wonderfully interlaced everything is in terms of its gimmicks and intended playstyle for such a short set.

Tilts call in the main minions of his set and gives them orders that adjusts their AI on a case by case basis in addition to being basic attacks; while normally I would try to separate the two (such as tapped vs held inputs for doing the attack without or with the order being sent, respectively), this bit of awkwardness ties into the set's focus on the minions, encouraging him to take more of a commanding role with his forces over just rushing in and slugging it out himself, and into the focus he has on aerial combat when taking matters into his own hands. Ne-Gok-Sa's strongest minions being the least affected by and most independent of his summons doubly helps, rewarding him for getting them out and letting him be more directly aggressive once he's fully in control of the match, while also causing some disarray when he's backed into a corner and forced to focus on fending off a foe with said Tilts (Jab being effective at its job, but not a perfect one-button solution to disadvantage by any means).

That does not undermine his vicious predator nature, however- his quirky aerial movement encourages do or die jump ins as he uses his aerials as his main neutral tools, which themselves can alter his trajectory or tweak his positioning in the air to make him very hard to keep out on the offensive, but still requiring there be thought to his attacks. Smashes similarly give him grounded options that are disconnected from ordering his troops, but by their nature they're a little risky to use in neutral, emphasizing both his brutal aggressive nature (his key attacks being strong but risky or using his ability to rocket into melee with a jump) and ability to think and plan (both having their own drawbacks that he wants his tilts or minions to cover). Then the throw section brings the minions back into focus with some nice payoff for having them on hand, as a way to wrap up the set in style.

Mind Shackle is a cool idea and tying its activation and effect to the same inputs you command your minions with is an inspired bit of synergy. I'd love to hear about how each input's change in minion AI plays into the effect it has on the opponent, like the best point in time to cash in on your Mind Shackle effect. Speaking of minions, mentioning how best to play off of them might be a good point- using a ranged attack as cover to jump in more safely, throwing out a Smash to punish opponents for attacking a minion while you're nearby, etc.

Others have already commented on this, but adding details like the general reach/shape of hitboxes and range of projectiles is advisable given how much chaos minions can cause with good coverage and how it can lead into defining a move's role in the playstyle. Noting a move combos into others, or benefits more from having a given minion nearby (quick pokes setting up for their own attacks to act as combo glue or enders). The actual use of Tilts as attacks is kind of glossed over for their interactions once past the animation, when you could possibly work them into the order given or Mind Shackle effect (apply the effect AFTER the hitbox ends so you can hit them and THEN have the effect kick in?) like a spacer pushing foes toward minions or an attack hitting them into the air to make them into target practice for a ranged attack, with a non-shackled foe having a small window to respond that requires they read Ne-Gok-Sa/his minion's next move. Down Tilt could start a tech chase, with nearby minions serving to threaten space and limit the opponent's options to escape his own attack, while the Mind Shackle effect cuts out the guessing game entirely.

A quick generic list of things you can consider with a given move to give it a niche: Comboes (starting/extending/ending), spacing, tech chase starting/role in a tech chase (techs in, techs in place, techs away), 50/50s (fast and slow move with similar coverage, two moves with mutually exclusive coverage, or beats shield and loses to dodge with beats dodge and loses to shield), fast pokes, tools to escape juggles, how good they are out of shield in the case of short-hopped aerials/up tilt/up smash/jab/up special, and risk vs reward (guaranteed follow-up or not-guaranteed but more potent follow-up). Lag, armor, reach, knockback (base and growth), sour/sweet spots, are a few levers you can mix and match to produce these and to give a character a kit that feels like you're playing as them.


Some nitpicks: one important thing to do with a minion set is note what they're doing while you have the opponent grabbed. Can they keep taking potshots on the opponent as you hold them to build up damage? Up Throw’s 3% fail chance feels like a mean Easter egg and might best be cut? Forward Throw feels like the regrab timer would interfere with the hound follow up, though if you specify it's an exception to the regrab timer, an animation quirk disguising a hard-coded alteration to the throw, and/or the end lag and the foe’s hit lag are artificially inflated, it could work.

Regarding Up Smash: priority, with only specific exceptions, is tied to damage and if the move is a grounded or aerial move (Aerials kind of phase through other hitboxes, other attacks within 9% damage of each other clank and those with a bigger gap have the higher damage go through, projectiles generally are destroyed). I forget how Specials tie into this (I.E. if it's based on where they're used or they always act as grounded), but that's the gist. Most good anti-air moves have some combination of the character gaining some armor on the top of their hitbox, crouching low during the wind-up, long disjoint, and just being disproportionately fast- the latter two being why Mario's Up Tilt is a really good one.


I really, really liked Ne-Gok-Sa; while we've been quick to point out it doesn't go in depth on the moment to moment exchanges of blows, the set has a very, very strong grasp of the big picture playstyle and game feel that made it a joy to read. For a set made as fast as it was, that's a heck of an accomplishment, and a dang good first showing in a Jamcon!

 

[majora_787]

It's finally time for me to unpack my 50th moveset. I feel like I've been learning a lot from working on things so far. The gulf between this and anything before this contest is pretty huge.

 

[n88]

Nui Harime by T TortoiseNotTurtle
The choice to go for the float + air dash is interesting. Unorthodox mobility options are always fun, but I'm not sure I get the intent here (if anything she feels like the kind of character that would be really good at dodging?). I don't think it lends her recovery as much versatility as the set claims - she feels a bit predictable if anything, since she's gotta beeline in on her short timer and has pretty limited ways she can use her air dash + it doesn't come with any intangibility. Maybe she's a bit better off than I think if her SSpec can be used for recovery, but it's not really clear how much movement she gets from that.

Generally the set doesn't always find a purpose for inputs, and the descriptions that are there can be a little murky. I get that her throws are meant to be weak but that doesn't necessarily need to mean that they're purposeless or redundant. You could have a kill throw with mediocre power or a throw that provides combos only if you read the foe's reaction, or a damage throw that only situationally gets its damage (maybe relying on the clones or what have you). As-is the throws all feel very same-y in practice. And the damage numbers are actually Pretty Good, so she's basically just got four damage throws as I read it? DThrow's description saying it "doesn't launch far enough to launch close enough to combo" is also a little unclear but I think the throw-ee ends up too far away to combo.

"Lay out the data and keep the descriptions concise" is a perfectly valid way to lay out a moveset but I think even with that approach, the set would benefit from just giving moves an extra sentence or two to outline how they fit into the whole. No need to wax poetic, but just speaking to the intent of the design here and there helps readers keep track of what you're up to. It's also good for giving commenters a chance to offer suggestions or point out places the set might not be achieving what you want. Like as a f'rinstance, Up Special is a move that talks about its application and writes itself off as an OoS option, but I'd argue that a frame 10 move isn't quite a non-starter out of shield, especially grading on the curve of what she's got to work with.

I think generally that's the kind of thing people are really hoping for more of when you've been getting the "under-detailed" feedback (my apologies for piling onto that, hope it doesn't get ya down). With frame data and damage you've got the big central technical bits you need. There are moves here, like Up Smash, that would really benefit from being more specific about their range, though; that felt like kind of a missing piece in the set. Not nearly as necessary for melee stuff like swords or umbrellas or whatever: as long as you've got some kind of visual reference for that and you set up about what the range is, people can usually work that out. For something like Up Smash that's bringing in a new key visual thing without a reference, being more specific about the area of effect is usually better. (Up Smash is a pretty sick-sounding attack though)

Nui also makes some presentation mistakes, I think; the input organization can make things tough to follow. Like she has functional taunts (banger idea for Nui, love that) but they're introduced in a section about miscellaneous flavor stuff before the set proper and their functional purpose is to control clones that aren't introduced until much later in the set. I think the taunts could have been more co-located with NSpec so that they're fresher in mind for the reader.

I didn't feel like the set ended up completely selling me, but there are cool ideas in here; afore-mentioned Up Smash is a pretty fun-sounding animation. The Death Ball and the way it works with clones is also fun and I particularly like the set's interpretation of the Banshi-slicing. I watched this show recently because of all you jamokes making movesets for it and definitely also thought that was a big anti-shield move when I saw it.

 

[ForwardArrow]

Ne-Gok-Sa
I distinctly remember how absurdly fast this set was written when you made it, but for what its worth, Ne-Gok-Sa does have a pretty coherent goal. Use minions to poke holes in the opponent's defensive game to weave in with aerials and then kill with Smashes, using his Mind Shackle to make it much easier to actually breach that gap. The approach is about as simple as can be, and makes the odd decision to dedicate standards to minion commands, one that I think is definitely wonky if Ne-Gok-Sa just wants to commit to fighting an opponent in close range on the ground without directing his minions all over the place. I could certainly see that get a bit annoying, especially considering how lackluster his standards are for direct combat, but I suppose that's what short hop aerials are for and at the very least when the set's spamming out a ton of minions for the foe's to deal with and his in-game unit has lackluster attack power, it makes sense to give him a flaw like this.

I think my bigger issue with the approach is it does feel a bit one-dimensional. The minions are really more about quantity than quality in terms of how Ne-Gok-Sa uses them so his battle plan really comes down to spamming as many out as possible, giving them a few instructions to optimize their performance, and hoping for the best, with his melee being as limited as it is preventing opportunities for depth even beyond just "the set doesn't really elaborate on it all that much". Mind Shackle is probably the coolest thing in the set, due to it being a mind control style move I can finally get behind by messing with the opponent but not in the overwhelming way mind control does. Do I think this set gets full mileage out of it? Not particularly, I think you could really go out of your way to make some interesting scenarios out of the individual mind shackle effects in subsequent moves that this set doesn't really do. It kind of goes for just the basic gameplan of "swarm the foe and hope that leaves an opening for Ne-Gok-Sa's stronger attacks" and doesn't do as much beyond that as I'd hope, though I do like the idea of using a large group of minions to gang up on foes in the throws.

I think for a one day set made for a JamCon, this is pretty solid, but I feel it doesn't have the player expression of a set like Bowstring or Emidius even just looking at your work, so I can't say I think its as strong as those sets. But for what its worth, the set at least knows what it wants to be and keeps a fairly consistent focus through the whole set, and given some people like it better than Bowstring despite the faster design period I think its evidence of your increasing comfort with MYM.

Goldenglow
I didn't expect the Bubby/Froy joint, but I suppose in hindsight it makes a lot of sense, especially for this character. I do think it gets off on a bit of the wrong foot mechanically with Goldenglow's mechanic, though. I'll be honest, I wasn't the biggest fan of Chicken Tenders punishing opponents for hitting them, and Goldenglow having a similar mechanic just rewarding you for taking a hit is something I find a bit off-putting. I don't mind it AS much as a passive defense on her attacks like a weird pseudo super armor, but it probably shouldn't linger as much as it does. Its not a deal breaker as it requires attacks to not be particularly disjointed for it to work, at least, just I didn't feel it was the right note to start the set on.

And its good its not a deal breaker, because honestly? The set's pretty strong after that, I'd go so far as to say noticeably underrated compared to flashier but more flawed JamCon options here. While the drones are a pretty simple construct, the set gets some good mileage out of them as range/combo extenders. The interactions with them are certainly pretty direct, but they're usually cool and go one layer deeper than you might think, Down Special and Up Smash coming across as particular highlights, but you can honestly get quite a bit of mileage out of even something like Bair if you handle the delays right. Its of course pretty flawed, Goldenglow's drones are pretty frail and her set is rather ineffectual without them, plus she needs to set them up, but it doesn't feel like the set lingers too long on the setup phase and is more interested in how you actively utilize the drones with Down Special or alongside her actual melee. Its definitely not an old school campy MYM set.

I figured I'd also just say, I like that Up Throw doesn't just automatically benefit from all the constructs you have on stage, has a secondary benefit beyond just the stacking damage, and also isn't SO obtuse to line up it'll never happen in an actual match, it feels like just the right range of how I like my setup rewards interacting on a throw. Maybe a weird move to shout out, but I think ti also goes to show this set has an impressive amount of consistency, pulling out cool or at least relevant moves even by the final section. I also did feel that the non-interaction melee here was at least solid at working off the interaction heavier stuff at the set's core, so it doesn't feel like the tools that don't have a drone interaction aren't interesting. DSmash in particular strikes me as a solid little move that doesn't hard interact off anything, but feels like it fills an interesting niche in her set as a flawed(huge end lag, low KO potential, needs some spacing potential) but very potent(huge damage, fast starting lag) combo ender.

All in all, I do think Goldenglow's a good set, one that shows a solid synergy between the styles of its creators and makes excellent use of a very simple construct. In spite of my qualms with the mechanic I feel its a bit underrated, and I hope it finds a few other fans as time goes on.

Joe Swanson
I gotta say, FFC joining MYM has been a bit mind-bending for me, because its now a regular occurrence to wake up and find out someone made a 10,000 word moveset for a character nobody in their right mind would usually attempt. And honestly, its not all that bad either. I have my gripes with the set, which I will get to, but this is a set that feels pretty suited to the physicality and abilities of a strong but wheelchair bound man in an interesting way. He pays for it with his range and struggles to get in with his approaches, but Joe has some actually quite strong combo and kill tools once he does approach the foe, as well as a couple options for intangibility and getting around foe's attacks to make him surprisingly tricky when he does get in. Its an interesting sort of flawed melee that I think makes partially up for the fact the set's actual centerpiece, the police baton, not being a particularly strong hook in practice due to the lack of opportunity cost it feels like it has to use.

Though yes, as someone who cares a lot about the core "idea" of a moveset, I think Joe Swanson doesn't ever really present one that quite works for me. NSpecial, as I mentioned, feels a bit too automatic of a buff/power projectile to utilize, SSpecial is mostly just a big attack the set isn't too excited to make setups for, and USpecial is clearly not designed to carry the set. DSpecial is probably the closest thing to a core mechanic of a buff that changes as Joe takes more damage, and I think that could've been interesting, but the final version of it being so strictly better than the previous versions minus a slightly shorter timer is disappointing. I think it'd be more interesting if Joe changed the way he played around it a bit at each percentage range and the final range was the best one, but not in like, every way except the time limit on it. Its also woefully overpowered, the damage and knockback boosts as applied would give Joe a boost in KO potential that's probably far more than you think it is right now, I could see some of his moves killing at like 30% or even 0% with the effect applied when you're doubling damage AND knockback(increasing a move's damage does upgrade its knockback even before the knockback multiplier kicks in, FYI). A lot of the set's strongest moves, Nair/DTilt, come later on and aren't really given enough focus to carry it.

I'd say the set's a bit lacking on the conceptual front and makes a few balance mistakes, but that's the main thing I really have against it. I do think its a bit weird to have two moves from an episode you consider the character's lowest point, but at the same time, it is a Family Guy character. Those moves are a lot more respectful to Joe Swanson than their inspirations in the show itself, so I think you did at least manage to carry the feeling of "early seasons Joe Swanson" throughout. I guess? Man I don't watch Family Guy and don't ever intend to. But this set genuinely seems to care about the guy and honestly, I do find it interesting to see a set willing to get a little introspective about a character who I'd normally choose never to think about. It was a pretty interesting read in spite of not conceptually catching my eye, and I think if you come up with a cooler idea to base the core of your moveset around next time, you could go places.

Also, there is absolutely no justification in the world for Joe Swanson having a Nui Harime alt costume, however, it is so funny I cannot be mad.

Mikazuki Augus
You know I know jointsets increase the speed at which sets can be developed for a JamCon, but this is a near 20k set that was made in the same JamCon as Goldenglow, which is kind of insane. The more insane part here though is the quality. I'll admit, I am being hard pandered to by this set, it might be the most extreme balance heavy I've seen this side of Shin Godzilla, and I'd say its arguably more ludicrous than even my own Primordial Darkness in that regard. And it works? Okay, I should probably get into some specifics.

This is a character 1.3x the size of Ridley's standing model, which is hilariously large and the kind of size where any character that big is going to run into problems with combos. The set knows this, and gives him a somewhat limited combo escape tool... that doubles as an ability to go crazy aggressive in the air. He can sacrifice health and embrace his bloodlust to amp up this aggression even further with more air and further reaching air dashes, letting this in theory incredibly clunky character actually combo pretty well, especially once his NSpecial's passive hitbox is brought in. Its got that sweet Nate flair of what feels like a very unique brand of complexity in HOW the tail malfunctions after a grab or whiff, giving a number of ways for both foes and Mika to play around it. This combination of mechanics between the escalating self-damage/damage taken requirements to get the full power out of Barbatos' weapon, his massive size, and exceptional combination of AV dashes and mobility to make up for those flaws creates a set that's got some obscene destructive potential, but can just as easily wind up self-destructing if played wrong.

I actually sort of like that the set's not going completely crazy for most of the moves. I saw Kat describe the non-Specials/Smashes of the set as more "good but not great" and while they're not super standout moves compared to some of the really sick stuff like Side Special or the Smashes, they sort of need a little bit of a hand of restraint. This set's aggressive tools between Angel Skewer and AV Dashes are completely absurd. He really doesn't need a dozen potential huge and easy to tap into payoffs when those mechanics are already so potent, so making a lot of his scariest tools like Nair/Bair reliant on reads is a good idea, as well as putting in a number of restrained "he just kind of needs this" moves like Up Tilt in. I also like that the set acknowledges that foes are not going to be above Mika a lot, so Uair is allowed to be a little crazy on account of this, and boy if you DO get them above Mika are they in a world for hurt. Its not too hard for him to access that sweetspot you know.

What probably helps this fact is the set's reservations in these inputs gives it even more room to go completely and utterly insane in the Smashes. Look, I know its cliche for me to say I like crazy balance stuff, but the way Mika's Smashes turn into an absolute nightmare with his limiter off is truly something to behold. They're not just obscenely strong, their reach is absurd, they have tons of customizable uses in Mika's playstyle beyond just their raw power, and honestly only get better as they go with Down Smash having two separate super cool forms and Up Smash's wild customizability and interactions with NSpecial just being an absolute treat to read. This single section is genuinely a better input section than any non-Specials section in any MYM25 moveset, IMO, and I feel carries the fact that the middle of the set might not seem quite as hype as I like to make this set out to be easily.

And honestly, the whole package really is something else, committing to such an insane idea, balancing it pretty smartly, and absolutely nailing the conclusion with one of the best input sections in any moveset ever. Like seriously I had a stupid grin on my face the whole time I was reading those. If I had to make some suggestions, I'll be honest, I do think this set does go a bit overboard in a few areas and could afford to be dialed back, but fortunately you put in enough switches to dial that I think its balance flaws are fixable. To point out a couple things, which I'm not 100% sure are editted ATM or not:

• I feel like Angel Skewer's range is too long when you max it out, 2 BFPs is probably too much with all the other features the move offers.
• I think describing AV Dash's knockback/hitstun cancel as "generous" is a bit concerning and I'd probably dial it back to sound like its easier to work around. Mika's got so many things going for him and this thing is on such a low cooldown, the least the set can do is make him be suitably punishable.
• Honestly, as much as I love the Smashes, I think the balance on them maaaaybe tilts a little too hard in Mika's favor no matter how hard they are to activate. This is the least important adjustment of these 3 and I'd respect if you don't, but I'd probably up a kill percent here, add a couple frames there just to give the opponent a little more room to punish these stage sweeping monstrosities.

But yeah, uh, given all the hype I've given this set, I think saying Mikazuki Augus and Barbatos easily wins my JamCon nomation is a given. The amount of power you two have when jointing sets is terrifying, seriously.

 

[Arctic Tern]

ASGORE (Peridot)

Asgore’s got some interesting stuff in his boss fight, and this set uses perhaps the most interesting of them as the basis for the DSpec: changing his trident’s color to orange and blue. While I like the idea, and the idea of using multihits to lead into orange hits is neat, it doesn’t really work into the set as much as I’d like. Primarily, this is because the DSpec is treated as a “stance” of sorts, which both isn’t really how it works in the fight and means that the potential mixups suggested don’t really work. Asgore will have to stop before switching to orange, which always happens two DSpecs after blue, so there’s both a break in which the foe can interrupt/evade him and no real way to mix up the foe. In addition, I’m fairly sure the damage numbers are a bit off, with most of his throws being double digit damage, though truthfully I don’t really know if Asgore is meant to have a really strong grab.

That isn’t to say there aren’t other things I liked! The SSpec is a neat way of interpreting the attack and gives Asgore stage control, which I feel should be in the set due to all the bullets in his fight, and the NSpec is at least conceptually interesting in the way the projectiles form. So overall, while I’m not sure the set works as intended right now, there’s still a few neat ideas that could potentially be explored by a more experienced setmaker.

AKIRA YUKI (Turtles)

While the character choice may not be as exciting as others on paper, Akira makes the most of Virtua Fighter’s feel and mechanics in order to create a surprisingly in-depth set. He has less moves than Jacky from last contest, a deliberate choice to mirror his comparatively less wide moveset, but also means that there’s less room for redundancy in terms of inputs since he still has a lot of them. NSpec immediately sticks out as a very interesting move, with being a built in combo that deals ridiculous, unavoidable damage for a simple three hit held back by the incredibly strict timing required to get the other hits. Tetsuzankou also stands out as a surprisingly in-depth move for what is seemingly a simple strong shoulder charge, with how punishable it is on whiff and the fact it only really becomes a kill move if it hits a foe already in hitstun - which is a theme amongst Akira’s set. Finally, DSpec is a very interesting counter, one that has an absurdly strict timing window but if landed gets Akira a free combo into anything he wants.

Akira manages to replicate the overall feel of his gameplay in Virtua Fighter very well, both in terms of the series’ mechanics and his own playstyle. He’s an in your face, ground-focused combo character with a ridiculously flexible combo game, but one who relies on comboing into his kill moves to actually KO with them. Aside from casual combos, Akira also has plenty of trickier combos, such as confirming into Tetsuzankou from a guard break if input ASAP and more than one move with really strict but strong sweetspots. His aerial game isn’t as bad as you may expect, just situational, having several built-in mixups and being able to lead into his ground game or meaty hits. Despite how powerful his combos get, Akira still feels balanced, since his recovery is terrible and he struggles to get close. The only place I felt that Akira really fell off was the Smashes, and even them none of them are really that bad - the throws are basic, but there’s not really much you can do with them and they serve their purpose, and his grab priority is a neat way of extending his close range pressure game.

Akira may seem simple at first glance, but baked within is a very complex character with the power to end a stock of just a few good combos, if his player can master the strict timing required. A very good demonstration of the potential 3D fighters have in Smash.

REINHARDT (tunz)

Reinhardt marks a noted improvement from your previous effort in Roadhog. In addition to overall more detail, it feels a lot more conscious of what it wants to be, a big strong superheavy with some neat approaching options. I do like a lot of Reinhardt’s approaching options, including his barrier that blocks projectiles and an unshieldable, slow projectile. His passive armor also aids in that, and there’s actually a decent bit of explanation into how it helps his game; my favorite is his frame 11 jab that he can actually get away with in close range due to the armor.

Nevertheless, this still isn’t a perfect set, with my most pressing complaint being the kill percents. I know that Reinhardt is supposed to be killing early, but I think killing at around 110% on a jab is a bit ridiculous. The idea of a jab finisher is fine, it’s just the percentage that’s a bit off. In addition, his FThrow may kill a bit too fast at around 120%, but Reinhardt is meant to have a pretty strong grab game and it can easily be adjusted. Aside from that, there’s not a lot of elaboration on the tools that did interest me; the nature of Fire Strike heavily encourages roll-ins, but there’s no info on how he can counter that. But aside from those, I still say that there’s improvement here, and I very much want to see you make more sets.

OMEGA (Majora)

Omega’s always been one of my favorite superbosses in the Final Fantasy franchise, and one I’ve considered on occasion (although as a composite take). This iteration of it, although not the one I would have done, still has some decent ideas. The Level Checkers are easily the most interesting, being constructs that automatically attack foes with a series of random attacks and can potentially duplicate Omega’s own moves. This occurs once Omega survives to 200%, which seems decently possible due to the reductions to knockback it takes, and is a really neat way of getting advantage out of being comboed. Lastly, while its second jump isn’t really a jump, the aerials get a decent amount of mileage out of them, like NAir dragging opponents toward Omega or Forward and Back Air being able to be used in succession to make up for its inability to use them out of its second jump.

Despite all the ideas in play, I do have a major issue with the Mustard Bomb. The charged version has it home in on the opponent, but the size and the number of them that can be onscreen at a time are never mentioned (speed is, but only in the ending notes - they move slow), and they have infinite duration. With how ambiguous Mustard Bomb is, it’s quite possible for Omega to just spam charged SSpec over and over and win through sheer quantity; I recognize this was almost certainly not the intent, but since you don’t explicitly state only one Mustard Bomb can be onstage at a time the possibility is there. This also renders the fully charged USmash fairly redundant, since it also spawns a homing projectile. In addition, the grab damage percents felt a bit too high, and I’m not sure Adaptive Armor is as big of a buff as you meant it to be seeing as it would just make him easier to combo (though they would deal less damage).

Overall, while Omega does have some neat concepts, there’s too much ambiguity for me to like it as much as I probably would if they were more elaborated upon.

Comment block link here!

 

[BridgesWithTurtles]

Just a few comments

Spoiler: Despicable Minions (majora_787)

As a disclaimer, Ne-Gok-Sa has some of the typical trappings that make it hard for me to get into a lot of MYM minion sets, such as not entirely selling me on how practical/performable minion commands and setups would actually be during a match. Ne-Gok-Sa kind of gets around this concern by simply having most of his ground normals utilize minion integration by default regardless of where they're located on the stage, with the minions' actions themselves being moreso the attack than Ne-Gok-Sa's own. That comes with the double-edged sword of most of Ne-Gok-Sa's individual moves feeling like they'd be hard to use in an independent fashion. I don't think that breaks the set necessarily, but it kind of strikes me as limiting when a character basically has to either operate entirely without their minions or be forced to utilize them, without having a more nuanced way to control how and when they're deployed. Even something like having a tapped/held distinction on things like his tilts, I think, would open up the set a lot better.

On the flipside, there's something to be said about the implementation of minions as the "main" means of attacking and dealing damage. That being the case, we've definitely seen sets in MYM that do more interesting things with those minions. It's also interesting that the normals are where most of the minion control is frontloaded, as most sets seem to use those for the more "basic" attacks, with things like smashes bearing the gimmicks. Instead, Ne-Gok-Sa has fairly straightforward but effective smashes and aerials in exchange for his normals carrying most of the weight of his minion commandeering. It's a decently unique take on the idea. I recognize that you attempt to compensate for his "situational" normals by having the minions pick up the slack and provide protection for the player. It's a neat implementation. Also, I really like the weird jump the character has, forcing you to rely on aerials but also making those aerials all inherently risky to some extent.

A few moves that stand out. Up Smash, which I think is cool for using the assymetrical character design in a neat way. Nair is cool as a way of working around Ne-Gok-Sa's weird ground jump.

Not sure how to feel about the Down Special, as I generally dislike moves that take control away from the opponent (outside of usual hitstun scenarios and whatnot). Doesn't feel good to get hit and then you just can't play the game for seconds at a time (not that I haven't made movesets that do stuff like this myself). On the other hand, for what it's worth, I think you do a respectable job here with how the mechanic operates, at least at a base level. 3 seconds seems a little long of a timer, but I also understand that any less than that, and it'd be pretty impractical to make use of any of the intended set-ups. The "Hold" command at least letting the opponent still do things like shield is a good compromise, I think. Unfortunately, the set does very little to expand or elaborate on the potential this move provides for. But yeah, it's always tricky implementing characters with mind-control or other ways of directly manipulating opponents because of these factors, and I'm not sure I've seen a set that really does it perfectly. Up Throw just having a random chance to fail also feels questionable to me - I don't really get why it's there, but I'm guessing it's a character-specific thing?

There's also a lot of instant-summoning of minions attached to various moves that I'm not a big fan of. I guess it makes some sense for the character, but I guess it feels kind of tacky to be able to get minion benefits from those moves even if you haven't previously gone to the trouble of creating one manually.

Overall, I like this set, but I think it would benefit from going a bit deeper with its mechanics, and there are some things that kinda annoy me, but most of those things are probably subjective. I'd say I hold a similar level of approval as most others who've commented, even if my commentary comes off as slightly more negative. I also do like these kinds of sets that have a clear mechanic/gameplan but are still brisk to read. Someone tell me how to consistently write sets like that, please. (I guess self-imposing a one-day time limit might help?)

Spoiler: "Rolling Courage: The Joe Swanson Story" (BrazilianGuy)

The character choice here is a fun one. It's not common in MYM that someone makes a set for a character I'm actually familiar with, so this was a nice treat for me. I genuinely like Family Guy up to about Season 7 (it drops off hard after that), and you're totally right that Joe used to actually be pretty cool before they made him into just a vessel for low-hanging cripple jokes.

Aaaanyway, I don't know what I was expecting from this moveset exactly, but I actually ended up liking it more than I thought I would. Given the source material, I figured you might find yourself stretched thin here, especially since this is a Jamcon entry, but I'll argue that Joe is surprisingly well-rounded given with what you're working with. You use a good bit of material from what I remember of the show, and what's made up is similar enough to what the character typically does - fast and loose with "character consistency" as Family Guy is - that nothing really seems out of place. Most moves service the core playstyle fairly well. Every input has at least some semblance of service to the rest of the set, even if sometimes applications are a bit elementary. I like in-Smash sets though, so I don't knock it too hard for that.

The writing style is a plus, with funny moments abound. I haven't read many of your sets yet, but I've picked up on a good sense of humor that I enjoy. Joe's one of the funnier movesets I've read in a while. A lot of that's probably just from the thought of the character himself; like, just the idea of Joe getting KO'd and hearing Patrick Warburton let out one of his patented screams is hilarious. I was frequently smirking at all the non-sequitur tangents, which is fittingly not far off from the show's established style of comedy. The comedic aspect of the character isn't entirely wasted on fluff either - using his dead legs as invincible disjoints is both really funny and mechanically clever, and is totally in the spirit of the source material.

I like the nightstick. Good reference to a good early episode, and more importantly, I like how it works in Joe's kit. His general lack of range makes sense, so giving him optional access to a range-extending item is a good move. Having it pair with things like the Up Smash to grant Joe a makeshift projectile is pretty clever, and he benefits from having that sort of angled pressure option thanks to his mobility. I do quite like the concept of Joe as a fairly mobile and aggressive character who still struggles to get in and needs to find creative workarounds for that, uh, handicap.

...I like how Down Special plays into Joe's overall approach as well, playing nicely with his overall "good, but not exceptional" physical power. It has very similar connotations to something like Wii Fit's Deep Breathing, turning a normally straightforward and manageable character into a limited-time killing machine. Side Special is a fairly cool move too, being essentially a burst-approach command grab that does good damage and can also KO. Joe constantly fishing for kills by yeeting himself at the opponent like he's Diddy Kong is so funny to me for some reason. Up Special is really fun too, though I kinda wish it had a bit more complex application. Still though, I do love the idea of this character, of all characters, being able to go so aggressively deep off-stage. Rounding out the "specials" while I'm on the subject, I appreciate the Crippletron Final Smash. It's really a perfect pull, and while you're probably right that it's too offensive, that's always been Family Guy's hill to die on I guess.

A lot of my praise for this set really comes down to how good the characterization is - it manages to be both very in-Smash while also true to the source material (which is pretty much the most un-Smash thing ever). With all that being said, obviously, I don't think it's an objectively great set, or even a particularly good one by MYM standards. What others have said about it lacking in mechanical breadth is something I'm not going to argue with, and I agree that there's still much untapped potential here. Definitely not an easy character to tap into that potential with, but you could have pushed things further for sure. The grab game, I feel, is particularly dry and while yeah, a guy in a wheelchair isn't the easiest character to make throws for, it doesn't really excuse how barebones his grab game is. I was really expecting him to have a throw where he puts the opponent in handcuffs for some kind of debuff or something, but there isn't anything like that despite there being ample room to explore some wackier ideas.

I don't typically rank sets, but this one would be somewhere around the C+ range for me, I think, just to put it in a ballpark. It's underdeveloped, but I will say that pretty much all the foundation is already there to be improved upon, unlike most people's early sets, which tend to be significantly more anemic. From what I've read so far, I think your understanding of the game is pretty solid, so I think you can easily make something a lot better than Joe going forward.

I guess what I'm saying is that my biggest gripe with the set is that there aren't any references to the character-establishing fight scene where Joe beats up The Grinch to save Christmas for those orphans. If it had that then it'd be a 10/10 for sure.

Spoiler: Elegant Gothic Lolita (Arctic Tern)

Margaret Moonlight starts off strong with a very fun and adaptable Neutral Special with tons of application, which makes for great by-the-by player creativty and interactions. Making perfect use of the dual scythes/guns as a concept, it establishes the core conceit of the character and moveset quite excellently. Side Special then plays off of this very nicely, giving her both defensive and offensive options to make her Neutral Special both more safe and more deadly. The way timing mixups play with the variable knockback on the bullet shot is very slick. Likewise, the ways in which the Up and Down Specials also lend movement options to Margaret when in her Neutral Special stance are appreciably elegant.

I really enjoy how thoughtfully you balance the character around her strengths and weaknesses. Everything is very purposeful - the set knows what it's good and bad at, and it commits entirely to all that entails, which is something any good MYM set will seek to accomplish of course. Love the Uair and its ability to sync with the NSpec stance to cover multiple angles. Heck, there's even a good sense of stage consideration with this move that is worth applauding.

Apologies if I don't have too much to say. I always struggle to go very in-depth about sets that I can't find many notable flaws to address. I'm quite favorable to this set. Margaret ticks most of my personal boxes, from the readability to the incredibly smart reaping of relatively tame input concepts. This seems to be right in line with the style you've been developing, and you can count me as a fan. A very positive approval from me.

 

[Katapultar]

We interrupt your Jamcon reading to bring you a dose of a schoolgirl moveset.

 

[n88]

Ne-Gok-Sa by majora_787
Very hype character choice for me and approximately 0 other people. Marro are definitely The thing to translate from Heroscape and Ne-Gok-Sa is an icon.

Having a low ceiling on his total number of minions makes sense. I do think some of the particulars of how his cap works are a little confusing. "Five total" is easy enough but I'm a little confused about how to know what kind of squaddie Water Cloning will create at any given time. Maybe just me. I also think it should be displayed on the HUD somewhere for players but that's a lil QoL detail that I can forgive overlooking in a jamcon.

I wonder if the Drudge could have 'sunk and re-emerged' for their puddle-jumping animation instead of teleporting. A bit sketchy on Smash stages where they're jumping platform to platform, but it's fine, don't think about it. That's definitely what the ability is meant to be about anyway, and I like incorporating it here to give the Drudge something.

Mind Shackle is bold - mind control always kind of a tricky subject, shutting off the opponent's ability to interact with the game y'know, tough. I think limiting it in certain ways and forcing Ne-Gok-Sa to commit to one of a few options is an interesting move, and making opponents subject to the same commands as the rest of his hive does have its merits. I wonder if this could have been reworked just slightly into a fancy command grab; I think viewed through that lens it's not so weird, but it maybe has just a bit too much mind-screw stuff that lingers a bit too long to really feel good. I do think this attack could have leaned into Mind Shackle's in-game feel as "the insane nuke that never actually goes off" a bit more? It's already kinda trending in that direction with the high start-up but I'd probably make it like... more powerful, make it resolve more quickly for the opponent's sake, make it slower (idk how slow it is I guess since 'High' is vague, but I'm gonna be bold and say it should be even slower than that).

I'd heard whispers of the minion command tilts. I appreciate that they still have some basic function as crappy attacks, but I do think it's a little awkward for him that he has to command all his mooks with his basic lil attacks. I guess he at least has the luxury of certain ones ignoring orders that'd be detrimental to their gameplans. I think this could be smoothed out a lot by just letting his attacks be kinda crappy (on brand for Mr 3 Attack) and then having the commands as optional follow-ups? Or something? It'd still gate his minion commands behind his melee and retain some of that feel you're after, but it'd let him function a bit more without disrupting his set-ups.

All the bits and bobs here create inputs with a lot of... mechanical width rather than depth? Girthy inputs. If I'm using DTilt I have to think about its own hitbox, the minion it might create, the minions it'll command (to stop doing things), and the possibility of it commanding the foe. But the tension between those things is high enough that it feels like there are a lot of bad times to use DTilt and now I'm kind of scared to. It's got a wide reach and it's touching a lot of my other mechanics and I can't just use it in a vacuum as a DTilt.

I do like the passive minion generation in the normals in order to ensure they're around for specific attacks, and the usage of them for those attacks. I think it's very evocative and on-brand for him to be encouraged to rotate out minions quickly and just keep spawning these absolute chumps in. (I do wonder if that works against the Marro Warriors a bit though, I imagine they'd be hard to keep around when he's pressured to keep making more and his oldies get expired - maybe they should be deprioritized to get despawned by the cap.) It's moreso where the Tilts interact with all his guys at once that I think the set drifts into unintuitive territory. He does at least have his Aerials and Smashes for more normal bread and butter stuff, but I'm not sure how tuned those are to his minion shenanigans.

I also like the array of different Marro units and trying to rep the whole faction, but I do feel like Ne-Gok-Sa could have been stronger if he were more focused on a smaller number of mooks. He's a fun read though, and impressive as a from-the-hip shot at implementing a really crazy minion fighter.

I'm also an Up Throw defender. They should be able to Just Explode, it's part of the Stinger experience. Too bad Stinger Denial didn't sneak in here somewhere.

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Reinhardt

It’s good to see you again in MYM26. I remember you had this set up for preview at the end of last contest, though it did get forgotten about as everyone was busy reading sets (I was guilty of not fully-previewing this set either).

• I wonder if Stalwart should only be active while Reinhardt is idle or during the start-up/active frames of his attack? Gives him protection in neutral and during his recovery, but it means that those weaker attacks can still hit him and combo during his end lag and hitstun. Even if he’s a huge character, I’m not too sure about the idea of invalidating very weak attacks altogether.
• Neutral Special feels it would be a good way to cover Reinhardt’s approach with how slow it moves and how little his end lag is (might be too little? Maybe between 20-30 frames?). Its nature as an unblockable projectile feels nice and balanced with how much start-up it has, how slow it is and Reinhardt being a super heavyweight.
• Up Special giving you a unique ledge attack when you ledge snap is a neat concept! This has barely been explored in MYM.
• Much as it was built up to be a signature move in his set, I don’t think the Down Special barrier offers much when you fighters already have a shield and Reinhardt has his Stalwart mechanic. Perhaps it could work like Joker’s Rebel’s Guard where Reindhart performs a quick follow-up so it works like a counter? (like a movement attack to help approach) Or hold B to perform a heavy follow-up that can punish laggier attacks that were intended to break through your Stalwart mechanic.

• Jab 2’s bury has untapped potential: you can say “Reinhardt could stop the combo here and go into a different attack to make use of the bury.” You could do fun things like knockback storage (where using a weak attack against a buried opponent won’t knock them out of it, but causes them to take that knockback instead of the usual “jump” when they escape). That might be a bit advanced, though.
• Perhaps you could mention that F-tilt can set-up for ranged options like Neutral Special or Side Special.
• D-tilt sounds more like a taunt than an attack. It sounds a bit weird that the hammer has a hitbox when it sounds like Reinhardt is just casually placing it down in front of him.

It’s good that each input section has noted applications, like the Smashes being good against shields (and obviously being strong KO moves). I do think the “good against shields” bit would be sold better if Reinhardt had moves that were noted to be unsafe against shields, but none of his Standard moves detail this. It probably doesn’t help that Neutral Special has anti-shield properties while Side Special is a command grab. Perhaps it would be better if the Smashes placed an emphasis on catching out different types of approaches and reactions, which the aforementioned Specials would be good at baiting out. The set would be stronger if it talked about how Reinhardt’s options worked together, as most of his attacks kind of exist in a vacuum, but his Up Throw and Down Throw do bring up older moves that Reinhardt could use as follow-ups. That’s a lot to learn, of course, but hoping you’ll still stick around and see what you throw out next.

 

[GolisoPower]

Weird That He's Called "Grimace" Because I Didn't Do That Even Once.
Grimace by dilliam

I haven't eaten at McDonald's since I was a little kid but I can't deny the impact it's had on the real estate food industry and how many ol' Mickey-D's has influenced and served, and Grimace sounds like the Dill pick from the entire line-up of McDonald's mascots.

And he's certainly quite the quality glow-up from Nostalgia Critic, who despite the character was a pretty good set from the last contest. Might be because it was Nostalgia Critic, all things considered, but hey. Starting with the gimmicks, the one where you increase your advantages by eating lots of food is fun and plays into his character, bolstering defense and buffing some moves based on how deep into the American Dream he's eaten himself into. And speaking of eating, I like the idea that his projectile pool changes every minute for a different set of projectiles that all have their own uses. That is some creativity I can get behind, my man.

And while there's quite a bit to unpack across both menus, they're still just the right size to be manageable and are locked behind the time rotation so that you can plan ahead properly, with Neutral Special allowing you to throw your food as a projectile, which I've brought up before. First of all, the McGriddle sounds extremely creative from a culinary standpoint, gonna have to give McDonald's credit where it's due. Second of all, it took me a while to process my confusion because the infamously large Big Mac provided less weight than the McDouble, but a combination of eating the Big Mac Sauce with Up Special and the effects made me think, "alright, that makes sense, balance restored." Third of all, you certainly put a lot of thought into which menu items do what, and...they seem to fit what they are, really. Fourth of all, good on you for properly representing the power of McDonald's Sprite, I'd have been concerned that Ronald McDonald would waterboard you with the stuff if you didn't. And lastly...I did not know McDonald's served hash browns or hotcakes before reading the set, ya learn something new every day, I guess. As a side note, it makes you wonder if half of his alts would use the chicken variants of the lunch menu items as flavoring ('ey!).

Moving on from NSpec, we've got DSpec with McDonald's most undeniable claim to fame: its fries. This special creates a massive pile of fries to make even Nikocado Avocado recoil in fear as either a quick-and-easy weight buff to consume, as an attack steroid for both range and damage. Then we have SSpec, a leaping Back Slash-style attack that douses the foe in a food item many thought could never exist in McDonald's, the shake. It does amazing damage and even spikes off-stage making this for some particularly hype kills in a competitive match, suicidal as they are, but then there's the fact that he covers the foe in the shake's contents. Both that and the fries brought up from before on top of the sauce from the Big Mac, are intrinsically tied to his Up Special, a leaping attack that takes advantage of a foe's condiment debuffs/fries to direct his attack for either ease of approaching or quick recovery. I think it's especially pretty good with the Big Mac Sauce and/or Shake splashed on them, mainly because you get to have your cake and eat it too...though I guess it's "have your hotcakes and eat it too," but even then that might not apply if the Breakfast menu isn't active-agh, I'm getting sidetracked.

ANYWAYS, the attacks are easy to breeze through, which I think is one of your strong points: each move says what it does and elaborates on context enough to feel just fine and nothing else. I do like how you use K. Rool and Patrick as major references for Grimace's moves (you even use that meme at one point), and although I'd have loved to have seen more usages of stuff from his history (like maybe have him sprout an extra pair of arms like he used to have at one point, don't tongues/taste buds heal fast?) it still manages to make use of what he has in the modern day in a way that's fairly decent. As far as balance goes, it takes a lot of building up but Down Smash at maximum weight could practically two-shot a man at the sweet spot that kind of power is scary as hell...not that you should change that, being locked behind having to eat your way to the top is a pretty good balance to me. And lastly, I love how specific menu items directly change some of his attacks, like the McDonald's Sprite with F-air.

Overall, it's a pretty breezy and decently-knit-together set that makes good use of his gimmicks and seems overall faithful to the character. McDonald's lawyers be damned I'm just gonna say, I'm Lovin' It.

 

[tunz]

Imma be honest, I have no clue how to do these big fancy-lookin posts so I'll just link it here. Here's Doomfist! Honestly think it's quite a big improvement over my previous work, but obviously still not perfect and I'm very keen on feedback!

 

[TortoiseNotTurtle]

Ok I think I'm doing this right.

Coming in hot for MYM 26 is a Spectator who's heart's desire is to be emotionally stirred.

Are you ready?

FIGHT!

Art by Otokamu on Danbooru

Kamen Rider Ziin​

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Kamen Rider Ziin

We had a setmaker who used to make Kamen Rider movesets, but it’s cool to see someone else attempt them. This character’s powerset sounds very cool.

• I appreciate that you don’t fully spoil his show - you just use this character and set as a hook to get others into it so they can experience the interesting twists all the same.
• Not used to seeing a moveset put non-gameplay-related taunts and extras before the attacks themselves. It’s an interesting way to make readers look at them so you can sell the character’s characterization more.
• Stat write-up mentions wanting to make Ziin feel like he has both high and low gravity. Why not give him a higher fastfalling rate like Link and Joker? It would be really fitting with his gravity-manipulating powers.
• U-throw specifically leaving foes prone on platforms above you is a unique idea.
• This set feels a lot more detailed than Nui was, though to be fair she was a Jamcon set.

• Side Special is a very interesting move! I could see it working well from U-throw, but it feels like the type of move that could have added a lot more spice to the non-Special moves if they referenced its existence. The move should probably have some limitations to prevent stalling: only 1 platform at a time, and a trait to prevent Ziin from casually using his platform to recover (like going into helpless if he makes one in midair). I also think the platform should be modified so you can’t stall on one that’s placed high in the air with a lot of time to it, as the fully-charged ones do last for 16 seconds. Perhaps midair platforms disappear if a fighter stands on them for long enough? Balancing platforms can be tricky stuff, though.
• Props to referencing F-Smash’s ability to reflect projectiles on the Down Special. Could be fun if you could manipulate Side Special platforms.
• “The real star of this movie is how it interacts with platforms and well, gravity.” This is a funny typo.
• Up Special letting you stand upside-down on platforms is neat and the kind of thing I’d want to see from a character with this type of powerset. Doesn’t sound like you can stand on your Side Special platforms, though. Also sounds like you can use your grounded moves while upside-down through a tech mentioned in the playstyle section. The fact that Ziin’s platforms move and have hitboxes sounds like they would be really powerful in tandem with your upside-down grounded game.

Like other sets from FFC members this contest, I think that Ziin would have benefitted from Specials being listed first so his non-Specials could reference his potent ideas like the moving platform and turning upside-down trick. Ziin has a lot of potential here, but the applications of those concepts aren’t quite explored on his moveset, and Side Special could do with some balancing tweaks.

 

[GolisoPower]

A Certain Level of Wabi-Zabi
MS-06F Zaku II Dozle Zabi Custom by @Smash Daddy

Okay, then, add Gundam to the list of "franchises MYM got me into". For your first solo effort since MYM23, this is honestly a really fun romp! I did have some second-hand familiarity with the Gundam franchise much the same way as Yu-Gi-Oh!, but this set is making me want to watch the original anime, like, goddamn. Anyways, Dozle Zabi is a really fun super-heavyweight set that takes advantage of a central part of his character for a temporary install state that he can spend, almost identically to Cloud's Limit Break and Joker's Arsene mechanics. But unlike the latter two, Dozle can prolong his furious state by being aggressive like a mad berserker. It certainly helps that he can only spend his rage on Specials so you can set up your attacks pretty well.

Speaking of, first, we have Neutral Special, a projectile-throwing axe attack with the power to turn people into firewood from a long distance. While the projectile's not exactly strong it more than makes up for having a ridiculously-powerful close-range swing that certainly plays into building up his Rage. Speaking of Rage, with it maxed out, Neutral Special trades the ability to make firewood with the ability to make charcoal using a stronger projectile that drags foes along its flight path and caps off with an explosion. Sounds like Cloud's got competition here, and he's thoroughly beaten in the woodcutting department! Playing into his approach game is his Side Special, which can help him tank various hits before launching forwards in a quarterback-style shoulder charge. He'd probably be disqualified for unauthorized equipment with that shoulder pad, but either way. Certainly helps that you get free rage for blocking incoming attacks without being in significant danger. The Ridley player in me is practically screaming in joy over his rage Side Special, grinding a foe along the ground is always a badass attack to do. Though on the other hand, Dozleciding is also a fun prospect with the mid-air version of Side Special, but smashing somebody into the earth like you're playing as some sort of Mecha-Broly is just as fun. Interesting how Up Special takes from Link's Up Special, though on the other hand, it sets itself apart by being a lot faster than its spinning-top compatriots, making it admittedly kind of scary. And that's not even getting into its rage upgrade, where it can now reflect projectiles, is much faster, and gets armor if used in the air. This is honestly one of the scariest upgrades you could give to a superheavyweight's USpec, but also the coolest. And then we get another Joker parallel with Down Special, which reduces incoming damage in a manner different from Side Special, but doubling the Rage you can receive...but with sufficient Rage, you can effectively suicide-bomb yourself in an attempt to kill your foe in a Rest-esque close-up attack. Those altogether seems to put Dozle in a heavily unstable emotional environment, as bouncing between having all the rage and having no rage like that is going to do something to his brain, but it does make for a perfectly-aggressive playstyle.

As for the normals, most of them use the standard-issue Heat Hawk axe, but there are points where Dozle will instead use the machine gun. Speaking of, I'm surprised that I haven't seen drum mags be weaponized in any context. I dunno why, it seems like something that could happen regardless of whether you're on the ground or in the air. Speaking of, I mentioned in the Discord but I applaud that you put a Mega Man-style "move while shooting" attack on F-tilt on top of a normal Jab. Could make the control scheme a bit clunky in some parts but honestly it seems to work here. I also really love how you use the GIFs to show different parts of Gundam's history to showcase the Zaku's capabilities that aren't exclusive to the Zabi Custom, in a way it's honestly a "baby's first entrypoint" into Gundam without actually watching the show in a way. This is feeling like a strong contender and is kinda hyping me up for the other Gundam set this contest, which I hear equals this set in its own way. Nice work, my man!

BAH GAWD, IT'S JOE SWANSON WITH THE WHEELCHAIR!
Joe Swanson by BrazilianGuy

Family Guy. A name here in MYM that holds a level of dark power, evil, and fear that can only be perfectly replicated by Nostalgia Critic. And for once...the destructive force known as Peter Griffin has not descended upon us to reap us of our souls and force us into the ways of sin. Anyways, this set was a pretty short and quick read and I will admit, this is a pretty decent effort for this JamCon. Though I really wish I had more to say here about this set that hasn't been said already, I will say the Down Special having different buffs scaling on your damage percentage is pretty fun (although there's a weird sentence from before a change you made to Joe (the increase to his damage and knockback is now 1.0 times)), and the fact you're willing to put some respect on Joe's name, in turn, gets some respect from me, too. That's saying a lot considering Family Guy seems to have a penchant for treating this man like a punching bag. Either way, a good effort, my man.

 

[Kholdstare]

I've gone ahead and commented all the JamCon sets on my new Rankings doc. All the old comments on the first page of the thread also got ranked on my tier list based on some science but mostly vibes. Anyway, here's my JamCon Nomination:

Spoiler: JamCon Nomination

In terms of order, it's something like:

Mikazuki Augus / Gundam Barbatos Lupus Rex by n88 and FrozenRoy = Dozle Zabi / MS-06F Zaku II Dozle Zabi Custom by Smash Daddy
Kagetsumugi by OldManHan = Koitsu by UserShadow7989
Nui Harime by Arctic Tern = Ikkyu by Slavic
Goldenglow by bubbyboytoo and FrozenRoy
Ne-Gok-Sa by majora_787
Grimace by dilliam = Sevagoth by GolisoPower
Irene Landry by WeirdChillFever
Joe Swanson by BrazilianGuy
Nui Harime by TortoiseNotTurtle
Barbara by Daehypeels

Thank you to everyone who participated, either movesetting, reading, and/or commenting!

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Omega

Omega has some interesting concepts for a super heavyweight, specifically his level checkers doling out passive effects that could help his disadvantage state since he is a wide target. I could see Ferrofluid being a bit messy, and probably better if you had a degree of control over it instead of being super RNG-reliant, but I do like that the magnetism effect is delayed so Omega and his opponents have time to plan around the effect. Chain of Memory is a neat little tool that I could see being used for anti-combos, but one second of stun near the end of the tether’s life might be a bit much - maybe half as long? I also think there should be a grace period where opponents can’t be hit again by the tether, perhaps one second. Adaptive Armor is also a fun little heavyweight mechanic that doesn’t feel too strong.

• I am not sure what the benefit is to having F-Smash be performed again behind Omega if you charge it, instead of getting a damage increase.
• U-Smash is pretty interesting, giving you a homing missile if you charge it but having a cooldown after using it.
• Was not expecting Omega’s steam-based animations to interact with his D-Smash puddles. That’s quite cool, but the hitbox you get from this isn’t elaborated upon or explains what type of knockback it does.
• Intriguing to change up Omega’s F-air and B-air during his midair jump and Up Special, only allowing use of F-air and B-air during his first jump or while he’s not using midair jump or Up Special.
• N-air is actually very cool from Omega’s flight state, as you can pull opponents in and then move away from them to play around with yours and their positioning.
• U-air is strange, but it does make a degree of sense with Omega’s flight mode.
• How far does Omega’s grab projectile go? And how much lag does it have? If it has good reach, I could see the projectile being a nice mix-up with your Neutral Special if opponents shield against that. Actually, the playstyle section mentions that it has short range (though the projectile sounds like it has long reach).

Like Tern, I definitely believe Omega has some fun and unique ideas, but you would really need to sell these ideas and go into further detail about why a move does what and how they play off of each other. For instance, Jab’s spike at the ledge could lead into D-air. F-air and B-air only being usable from first jump means that Omega could use them to snag opponents above him, perhaps one on a platform or who is taking knockback or being hit by a projectile (your U-Smash’s homing missile?). Maybe talk about how Omega has to rely on U-Smash to get vertical KOs since his U-air isn’t really a proper overhead move. There is also a lot of potential to talk about Chain of Memory (how its hitstun could lock foes into Omega’s bigger attacks like Delta Attack) or Update, which aren’t touched upon in the main set.

You did say this was a quick set though, so it’s fair that it is not all that detailed. I’m still glad this set exists anyway, as it’s fun, short read, and I always love seeing a crazy idea or two regardless of how they’re executed. Good job getting out your 50th moveset, Majora!

Spoiler: Asgore

Down Special cycling between a state where you get a universal buff or debuff for attacking standing or moving opponents is very unique, and you go into a good amount of detail on it in a way that’s a considerable improvement from your previous sets. Not a concept that’s easy to execute in a compelling way (I could see it being a good base for an attack, like something that deals no damage to opponents who are standing still but otherwise comes out fast and strong), but it is still very fun to see.

I also like Neutral Special for being a revolving projectile(s) you can release and send them in various directions depending on your timing. It is also kind of funny that the Standards make a jab at Asgore using his trident incorrectly before his Dash Attack says that he does it right - I don’t know if that’s meant to be a form of characterization where Asgore isn’t as strong or experienced of a fighter as he looks.

Wouldn’t Asgore’s entire grab game be affected by the color mechanic and not just his Back Throw? I assume it would depend on whether you grab an enemy while they’re standing or moving. Can’t blame you for thinking that grabs are boring to write if you don’t have that much experience, but trust me, they get more fun to write the more you learn. The set does lose a lot of momentum on the Aerials and Throws, which admittedly could do with having a simple application or two outlined (can one of the aerials work from your Up Special?). Nonetheless, this set had a decent start to it.

 

[FrozenRoy]

​

Oddish is now a FrozenRoy/Nate joint set and can be found in the link above!

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Daisy

I believe this is your first moveset with us? The detail here is a nice and solid start, with a basic understanding of what the set wants from its moves like the Neutral Special and an outline of Daisy’s playstyle. The strengths and weaknesses write-up in particular reminds me of the way information about Smash fighters is detailed on the Smash wiki, which I assume was the template for this moveset. While we generally prefer Specials to be listed first in movesets so the non-Specials have a base to play off of them, this set does manage to reference some non-Specials in the Special moves.

• A little trick that could make Side Special a spicier read: if you hit an buried opponent with a weak enough attack, you’ll trigger “knockback storage” where the foe takes that attack’s knockback when they escape instead of being popped up. This could be used for some fun stuff with Daisy’s weaker attacks, like maybe she does a Jab to deal low knockback and uses it to set up into her Forward Smash.
• Attacks make for more enticing reads when an attack’s function is noted in how it works with the set’s overall gameplan or with other moves. For instance, could Daisy use the horizontal knockback from her aerial Side Special for something? It’s nice that Daisy’s Side Special is noted to work well with her shield pressure and regular attacks that are safe on block, and how Up Special can be comboed into.
• Down Special does feel redundant when all it does is apply the flower effect, which a number of Daisy’s attacks already do. This, and the trap’s apparent lack of hitstun make it feel unsatisfying. Using traps also feels like it goes against Daisy’s more aggressive melee re-work, and I just don’t see how it works for her playstyle. Might have been better to give her a melee attack, perhaps something that acts as a dodge before the hitbox comes out - some form of counterplay against opponents who out-range her attacks. Maybe even a slow kick with some super armour at the start?

 

[Arctic Tern]

SOTOKA RAKITA (Kat)

Sotoka manages to get far more mileage out of a wannabe ninja who likes origami than anyone reasonably should. Her main gimmick is her ability to make origami to buff some of her moves at a slow pace that gets faster if she does so out of a combo. The payoffs from this are appropriately huge, such as a super powerful bomb that Sotoka can knock foes into and a FSmash that instakills with max origami, but is balanced by the fact that she has much less guaranteed combos than other fighters and the ones that are aren’t safe to make origami from. While not explicitly mentioned, it should also be noted that Sotoka has trouble killing without expending paper, relying on tricky timing or proper positioning to do so.

I actually like the mix-up heavy combo playstyle Sotoka has a lot! She can pressure the foe into hitting a counter that’s baked into her origami making, teleport after a foe after hitting them with NAir, or trick the foe into air dodging via FTilt’s Sakurai angle. The shurikens are also neat in their applications, from standard spammable projectiles that pressure shields hard to multi-hit moves that trap for combos to full on items (though the input for the latter isn’t actually specified - I assume held B then down?). Lastly, I found the throws to be a surprising highlight, from UThrow’s incredibly in-depth delayed projectile to DThrow’s invisibility letting Sotoka get some crazy reads off. In short, a very fun take on the resource genre making the most of Sotoka’s energetic character.

DOOMFIST (tunz)

Doomfist has some decently neat ideas going for him that make him a good example of a heavyweight combo character. His USpec does set knockback, the NSpec varies in strength depending on charge, and he has the ability to summon walls with USmash to bounce foes off of. I do think that they’re a bit too powerful in their current state: they last for 10 seconds, have no HP listed, and are completely solid, more or less forcing high recoveries if Doomfist uses the move next to the ledge. On a second note, he has the standard heavyweight power moves like FSmash and DAir, plus an interesting tradeoff of his USpec being an incredible combo starter at the cost of being unable to use it as an escape tool if things go wrong. Aside from those, I don’t really have much to say that I already said about Reinhardt, but I would say that if the walls were reworked I would like them about the same.

KAMEN RIDER ZIIN (Tortoise)

While I’m not that familiar with Kamen Rider, I do have some interest in the series, and looking at the set Ziin definitely has one of the most MYM powersets of the cast. A good amount of that is realized in the set, too, with Ziin able to use his gravity powers to potentially use grounded attacks in midair and perform slide smashes Brawl style. His playstyle is fairly realized, being a zoner with a surprising amount of advanced techniques with the tradeoff of relatively few actual projectiles and a poor disadvantage state: it even shows awareness of how much the character suffers in Final Destination. Aside from issues with platform stalling and general lack of detail, the main gripe is that Ziin doesn’t make nearly as much use of his great ideas as I’d like; there’s all sorts of cool strategies I can imagine that aren’t described in the set, in large part since the Specials are placed last. A bit of a shame, really, since with a bit of work this could easily be one of the most memorable sets of the contest - but as it stands now, is definitely my favorite set of yours thus far.

Comment block link here!

 

[Katapultar]

"Nice to meet you. I'm Iz. As you can see, I'm a crafter. My specialty lies more in the smithing department. I do synthesis and stuff like that too."​

 

[BrazilianGuy]

Spoiler: Goldenglow

Yet again, a set on a character I legit know nothing about, but it was quite nice tho to learn about Susie and the thing I liked the most on her set was the characterization, she has a lot of moves that show she isn't quite a pro with her powers yet, kind of a Pichu vibe but on her own cute way. The drones also sound very fun, I love characters with stage control elements, and she can do quite a ton with them if she positions herself properly, and the stun mechanic also works well with that, giving her time to set up or control the drones. Other moves I really enjoyed were the Hit Grab Up-Air, all the Smashes and her nose boop F-throw. Overall a very high quality set. A 10.000 Volts/10

Spoiler: Ikkyu

The description for Ikkyu's plan alone makes me wanna check out his source material, it genuinely sounds so insane but at the same time really fun, I also wonder what they do with other historical characters in it. But for a moveset I really enjoyed reading him, his I-Jins all had nice reasons to be brought out, especially on the Forward Smash, having the ability to choose between a command grab, a laser, a super strong multi-hit sword attack, or Beethoven the Based sounds really cool, and their additions in other moves also sounds nice. Also, Paper Tiger steals the show, making it a very versatile and tricky moveset. I also enjoy since that he is a monk he has moves (mainly his tilts) that go for precision and technique like a monk should. Tho I wasn't expecting him to just go for cane strikes, it probably fits him but still. Just ending on Beethoven the based feels kinda weird, but it's a jamcon set so is not that big of an issue, on that note I the Beethoven meter could have been explained more in-depth but it works fine and well. A Für Elise/10

Spoiler: Barbara

Hey look! A character I know! And also from a game I really really love! Is one of the few games I have on my PS4 and it's fantastic, the humor, the music, the levels, and those music levels, dayyyum. And yeah Barbara makes sense to represent the mobility you have in that game, and she sure seems to have that speed, I also like her having cartoony moves like the Fight Cloud F-Smash. I also like how I can envision the moves in my head due to how much I've played the game, but some images would be welcome. Also while in my phone (which has dark mode) it was pretty normal to read, in my laptop it has a Perry The Platypus background color, what doesn't help is that the words have an orange similar to his tail, in general, I didn't find it the best color combo. I liked the spaces where you talked about why you gave her certain moves, is real nice to get to see what's going on inside your head. I don't get why is aerials/throws, maybe make one for each? Also even tho I don't like writing throws (at all) these are, well F-Throw is funny but they can all improve. I believe Barbara will greatly improve when you add stuff to her outside of the Jamcon time limit, and I'll look forward to that, she has a lot of potentials. A Throngler/10

Spoiler: Grimace Rant

OK so I went on a long research before reading Grimace, I knew who he was due to internet but I don't recall seeing him in McDonald's ads when I was little which was odd, cause I went a lot to Macky Dees, but apparently not only is he named Shake here, but they (Ronald's gang of friends) kinda stopped being on ads around late 90s and early 2000s due to advertisement laws in Brazil that prohibited characters from eating products to prevent child obesity. So yeah I grew up with the minion boxes as mascots.

Spoiler: Grimace(The Moveset)

Onto Grimace the moveset, I had such a fun time reading this one, the tone is very light and it takes itself the right amount of serious with this silly chungus of a character. I actually really like his weight mechanic and how many of his moves play into not only how much but also what he eats, it's insane to think a purple tasting bud can get heavier than Giga Bowser, but it never sounded too op, after all, he needs to be skilled enough to keep his appetite in check. Stuff like F-Air being buffed by sprite and him prioritizing enemies covered in the sauce is a really nice, gives his food items a lot of value, and I also really liked the implementation of THE MENU. I do need to say tho, back air is cursed, I didn't need that on my McLife, also can't believe this set mentions the Nostalgia Critic... But yeah joking aside I loved the humour this set had, what especially made me chuckle was Up Air's description, something about the "Hooray for Grimace!" really got me. But yeah, I enjoyed this eggplant man more than I expected, some could even say I'm lovin' it. A McRib/10

 

[GolisoPower]

Watch Closely. You're About To Experience An "I-Jin Moment"
Ikkyu Sojun by Slavic

Okay, so, first off: do not, under any circumstances, let this pervy Buddhist into Fate, we already have Kiara Sessyoin to fill that niche. That being said, Ikkyu Sojun from Read or Die is a pretty fun set to work with.

Down Special is practically the crux of Ikkyu's entire kit, using WWI femme fatale Mata Hari, samurai inventor Gennai Hiraga, relatively-unknown inventor Stephen Wilcox, and Schroeder's inspiration Ludwig van Beethoven. They're used across three different inputs, but in Down Special, it's a unique Genius Attack that he can select much easier than F-Smash or D-Throw: Mata Hari channels Liu Kang upon being summoned alone, but then she channels her inner Motoko Kusanagi by using a machine pistol to build up damage and set up a combo for Ikkyu. Gennai creates a barrier that he can use to protect herself from incoming attacks and projectiles or to deny approaches with how big the electric box is. Wilcox plants what's basically a steam-powered Minecraft TNT that can further amp up the stage control...and the edgeguarding potential is also kinda nutso, not gonna lie. Beethoven's function generally remains the same across all three inputs, so we'll get to that later.

Side Special sounds devious from a flavor standpoint, it really sells how much of a dirty scumbag Ikkyu is, clone or not. Either way, a free set-up out of a crumple like that is scary, especially since it's on par with Ridley's Crumple and has quicker cancel frames to just have it beat out Kazuya's Side Special in terms of utility. It's honestly kind of scary the kind of things he can do with this. The rocket platform Up Special not only gives him a decent boost in recovery but also factors in his I-Jin. They all cover your tracks in different ways, but they all have different properties, with Mata Hari having a long-lasting burst from an assault rifle to cover grounded opponents with suppressing fire, Gennai using a burst of lightning to stop projectiles and get foes with good short-range attacks off you, Wilcox having a significant overcharge in the thrusters leading to capping off a strong ladder combo, and Beethoven just playing music as you're ascending. And speaking of, Neutral Special is where Beethoven really gets to shine, as by itself it's a good disruption disjoint in front of Ikkyu, but with some of Beethoven's music stuck in your head you can bolster its power further. So far, in fact, that at maximum charge you can instantly kill a foe on the spot! Good to know that there are long-term benefits to reap here.

I'm feeling kind of tired at the time I'm writing this next paragraph, so I'll keep this simple: the writing here is really easy on someone who knows next to nothing about Read Or Die, and I gotta admit, that skull cane-sword is kinda boss. His character as a manipulative mastermind seems to really shine here, and nothing really seems imbalanced here. A major highlight input out of all of this is U-tilt. which really plays him up as a bringer of the end-times, twisting the imagery of Moses into something with a much scarier meaning. Honestly, this was a really nice read, even when considering his historical inspiration and the twisted nature of his character. I read the set, now I surely won't be dying!

 

[ForwardArrow]

Iz
I'm still not going to be reading most sets right now, FYI, but Tern's super high rating for the set and its clearly impressive scope wound up grabbing my attention anyway. Another BOFURI set of similar scale to Kanade after Kat heard the criticisms of that set really got my attention, given I was a huge fan of that set and something in the same vein was always going to appeal to me. And I will say Iz definitely is a set for fans of Kanade, and if you're one of the people who wasn't as high on that set I actually think it did a decent job of addressing the complaints that set. For starters, while she certainly is complex to play, I think Up Special would probably take a while to master, but its not as intense as having to worry about a new set of Specials every 5 seconds and its certainly something that wouldn't be TOO hard to get the jist of by comparison. Amidst all the sets unorthodox effects there's always an animation that, IMO, gives just enough information to understand what you're getting, and when the set presents large swaths of options in the Up and Down Specials, I was pleasantly surprised to see every single one of them came back up in interesting and relevant ways later, feeling like an important part of the complete picture.

Where I do think the set lines up a bit more directly with Kanade is how consistently crazy it is past the Specials, almost every input is doing something unorthodox, with UTilt/Dash Attack/Jab being the most normal, and ironically Side Special being one of the tamer moves in the whole set. I don't mind any of these moves though, they feel like they serve a niche she needs in each case without being overbearing, though the highlights of standards are definitely FTilt/DTilt. The set never slows down after this, Smashes really amping up the payout of her setups to 11 as you can collect Iz' various items into the catapult/cannon to get some truly potent results, and that's before you factor in how much further you can go once you add Iz' Up Special trap/platforms to the mix. I didn't mention it earlier, but I'm honestly a huge sucker for how Up Special works in general once you get past the initial complexity: I love when a move can simultaneously function as a recovery and also a really important game piece, and I was surprised how naturally this move made it work.

The part of the set I'm least sure about is probably the aerials. I do legitimately really like Uair, Bair/Nair are well-designed power melee moves, and Dair, while admittedly feeling pretty clunky to utilize properly, is pretty exciting when it works. And it actually also has a great melee hitbox, this set has more of those than I'd expect on such a setup heavy character, I actually quite liked how FSmash/USmash worked as melee moves too. The reason I'm iffy on them is twofold. One, making the air game of a character exceptionally flawed/weak is really opening yourself up to being in the Little Mac zone, and Little Mac is one of the most disliked kits on Smash 4/Ultimate for very good reason. Now, Iz compensates for this by having a competent recovery, a backup pair of melee moves to make aerial play a bit easier in SSpec/USpec, and despite their lag Iz' aerials are still definitely better than Mac's. Plus she's got items to help out, contextually. But I do feel like giving a character this kind of horrendous disadvantage state in the air in a game where aerial play is so important certainly could lead to problems, and I'm not 100% sure I agree with the solution of "use the DSpecial buff to make the aerials invisible". But on the other hand, it does just force a necessary element of prediction to handling aerials that would normally be more automatic to dodge, in a way having a similar effect to buffing their speed without actually doing it. And I do like the way the aerials cover for each other while they're invisible, they're a good set of individual moves, I'm just not 100% sure I'm as into the design concept behind them as Tern is.

Good news though is I still like the aerials overall, and the grab game ends the set on a high note. This is a very cool and wacky set of throws that are brimming with possibilities, the set absolutely not letting off the pedal even on the last inputs. I'd also say the set's approach to its stage control feels shockingly smart: when I was sitting and thinking about how I felt about it at the end, I realized just how short the timers on all her stage control pieces are. Sure, she's got quite a few of them, but if she has more than one or two out she's had to sit there and do nothing else the whole time and will lose them in only a couple more seconds anyway, so it feels pretty reasonable. Balance by timers more than balanced by a quantity limit, and its not like the quantity she can have out is THAT absurd either. Honestly the set basically never has a move that's out of place or uninteresting, makes full use of a downright sprawling set of options to the point each of the 4 buffs and 7 traps feels individually deep(maybe there's a lot of overlap in the bomb/ice traps, but the purpose they collectively serve is great anyway). Usually when a set presents that wide a swath of options I find later on in the set "yeah that one didn't really get much attention" but that didn't feel like the case here and its really impressive. Despite my issues with the aerials, this is a set that iterates and improves on the design philosophy of what was already a set I Super Voted in MYM25 of all contests, so I think that should tell you I am a very big fan of this one. Its only held back by some non-deal breaking design decisions I'm not 100% on(pulling out new elements for the grab game in the poison puddles/barrel bombs feels weird to me logically when she never uses them elsewhere, and the aforementioned aerials complaints), but let me make it clear this is not holding the set back much. To give you an idea, I might prefer it to Tsukuyo and I'm not sure if it or Mika is my favorite this contest.

 

[BrazilianGuy]

Spoiler: Sevagoth

One thing I like right away is how you describe both how to play well as Sevagoth, and against him, that's a pretty nice detail. The synergy his side special and up special have is real nice, especially due to the naming conventions used, tho I have to ask, isn't 10 seconds a bit much? Especially since this can't be dealt with by the opponent. I liked how you treated his sidearm, from the very little I know of Warframe it sounds very nicely implemented. Speaking about how little I know of Warframe, I didn't expect my man to have a completely separate shadow self to control, but that's awesome and really fits with his reaper/death characterization, another strong aspect of the set. I also think you treat the way of activating his shadow self nicely, the work he has to put in for it is big, but the reward is just as big. However, while I do get why his shadow is heavier than he is, at least there's a good reason in the gameplay aspect, I don't get why his shadow would be heavier than the man itself, but thats mostly a nitpick. His shadow has some extremely cool concepts for moves, loved the shield bypassing F-Tilt and the unique stall and fall D-Air, but their specials were shorter than I expected, but I guess that since it's a special form its good to keep him simple, I also loved how you described some combos between Sevy and his shadow. Overall doing what's basically a 2 in 1 character for a Jamcon, it's really impressive, I also really enjoyed him. A Goth/10

Spoiler: Mikazuki Augus e Barbie

The fact this huge mace-wielding robot is called Barbie throughout most of the set is glorious and the timing could not have been better. Out of the gate, this character genuinely scares me with their mix of movement and weight/size, like a good Mika player would be able to do incredibly nasty stuff with all the options this character has, it also has a lot of ways to express yourself through your gameplay, I could see a Mika mirror match where 2 players play the same character in extremely different ways, be it by being more prone to use your Sacrifices, or by using more of the A-V mechanics. I also think his power gets represented very well, with all the options (especially with his N-Air, I wasn't expecting that) and the hitgrabs he has in so many moves, those really help to sell the idea that you are fighting against a giant robot. But genuinely I would have liked an image as a reference of how big he is in the game, the 1.3x Ridley isn't very clear, but I'd imagine he's kinda like Iron Giant? Also funny how there are 2 characters on this jamcon who get heavier than Giga Bowser, one being Barbie and the other being Grimace. Back on topic, it was great seeing all the love of this series and this character, especially on the extras those are incredibly well done, and honestly so is the whole set, awesome job. The cut-ins are also an awesome addition, very anime, I wish there were more but they are real nice. Overall a Gundayum/10

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Doomfist

Sorry this comment is a bit late when I know you were pumped for getting more feedback. I’m not familiar with Overwatch beyond MYM material, but Doomfist is the character I’m most fond of and hype for, simply because the moveset Muno made for him back in MYM20 was very successful and one of my personal biggest influences moveset-wise. Thus, I’m interested to see how you handled the character. You might be interested in seeing Muno’s Doomfist set yourself, especially because that set handled The Best Defense differently than yours did - it’s a nice and simple read too, even for the time period it was made:

MYM 20: Moveset Creation Thread, Contest Over, MYM21 Starting June 1st

The Fantasy Moveset Design Contest This is a moveset making contest, where you can make a moveset for any character you want and pit it against other creations to see what comes out on top! We do mean any character, whether they're from a video game, TV show, movie, book, comic, original...

smashboards.com

“Stats are not explained as well as they could be simply because I don’t find it enjoyable to deeply research and look at/think through stats that way.” I’m fine with this approach to stats - sometimes I just give out numbers and leave it there with no explanation. It’s funny to imagine Doomfist as being similar to R.O.B in size, only because R.O.B has a different body shape than a human.

The Best Defense’s overhealth effectively functions as a “weight increase” for Doomfist, which is decent but feels too passive to be a strong hook for his set. It is not really mentioned in the moves themselves either. I don’t want to bring up Muno’s set too much, but the way that set interpreted The Best Defense was to give Doomfist 1.5 seconds of super armour when he lands any hit that involves his right hand, creating a temporary situation where trading with him becomes dangerous and forces opponents to back off temporarily.

Neutral Special is very fast as-is: 8 frames of start-up and only 7 frames of end lag. The latter would barely leave an opening for the opponent, and would actually be safe on block to some degree even if it dealt almost no shield stun. The attack as a whole finishes faster than most moves in Smash! For reference, something like Roy’s Jab (comes out on frame 5) has 15 frames of end lag and is still pretty spammable, while tilts have an average of 15-25 frames of end lag depending on how fast and safe they’re meant to be. To be fair, frame data is very tricky to work with, and can be annoying when people bring up odd-sounding numbers like I am right now, but it is completely optional to include frame data in your set.

For the way Neutral Special works, I would suggest giving it some notable start-up and perhaps around 17 frames of end lag - the same as Meta Knight’s Forward Smash, which has some of the shortest end lag of any smash attack in the game. The way you have the punch designed means that foes either shield and take a chunk of shield damage, or they jump and you can catch out their reaction. If the punch had extra starting lag, it could be fun to give it super armour so foes can’t challenge the attack, forcing them to either defend or get out of the way (maybe this ties in with The Best Defense, like giving Doomfist damage-based armour during attacks? Different enough from Muno’s set). I like the implications of the punch being unsafe on shields anyway - perhaps you could say that Doomfist goes through extra end lag if he connects against one? The jump cancel is also a nice concept on the move, something that I could see being used to follow up the punch’s high knockback.

Something numerous people in MYM know but I’ll repeat here just in case: any action that comes out on frame 15 or later (like Doomfist’s Side Special) can be reacted to by human players. If a move comes out earlier than that, then opponents would have to -predict- whether you’re going to use that move relative to your position and how that move can be countered. For instance, Doomfist’s Neutral Special as-is (frame 8 start-up) comes out fast enough that a human player couldn’t react to it, but if they think Doomfist is going to use it they can throw up their shield to punish it. This is the basis for mix-up games, where Doomfist could go for his grab if he predicts that his opponent will put up their shield. If Doomfist uses his Neutral Special a lot, foes will learn to anticipate that and could be conditioned into shielding to counter uses of it. This is all admittedly going into some complex hypothetical psychology, so don’t worry if it takes some time to sink in. If you have any questions about this, MYM will be happy to let you know.

Question on Side Special: How far does Doomfist travel? How far can Doomfist fall if he falls in midair? How does its cancel work specifically? Sephiroth can cancel his Flare charge by shielding, for instance, but other types of cancels include being able to go into your jumps, dodges or even attacks. It would have a lot of implications gameplay-wise, as you could fake out opponents when you fall on them.

Side Special and Up Special have very low end lag like Neutral Special (but Down Special’s frame data is good!). I won’t get too hung up on frame data from here; you’re still getting a feel for it, and are trying to convey that these moves have low end lag. As a suggestion for how to improve on these moves and your melee in general, you could talk about how these moves work in neutral, and what risks or drawbacks there are to using those moves. For instance, Neutral Special is stated to be unsafe against shields, while Side Special is presumably meant to have slow start-up due to its 15 frame start-up.

I do think Doomfist’s low end lag on his first 3 Specials is a bit much: these moves are practically unpunishable aside from Neutral Special against shields, and they aren’t particularly slow either, creating a case where there’s no real risk to using them if you’re in position for them. Up Special would be more interesting if it had a chunk of end lag where foes could jump up and hit Doomfist if they shield or dodge/avoid his uppercut, for instance. This would better sell the potential of true comboing Jab into Up Special. If you’re still looking to make these Specials into combo moves, then how about this: make it so Doomfist gets his low end lag -only- if his attacks connect. It could be a loose take on his The Best Defense mechanic, as Doomfist being able to act sooner gives him more time to “defend” himself.

“As a little side-rant here, I think the way most heavies and superheavies have bad recoveries is so dumb, because they’re supposed to be hard to kill.” I approve of this.

I do like the feel you’re going for with Doomfist’s Specials, where players have to be careful which Special they use in what situation since they can only be used once per air trip. This could have also been implemented with time-based cooldowns, where each Special is a very powerful tool that gives Doomfist opportunities that none of his other moves can, but the cooldown prevents those moves from being spammed and means he has to be careful when he uses them. I don’t think the Specials quite sell the intended “pick which Special to engage or disengage” playstyle, partly because they all feel offense-orientated and don’t go into that much detail for neutral uses - or disadvantage state, like Doomfist using one of his Specials to escape being comboed.

• The moves Jab combos into Up Special and U-air at higher percents makes it sound like it launches opponents on a high angle.
• I could see Forward Tilt’s first hit being used to keep foes in place and mix-up going into a stronger hit if you don’t fire the bullets. This move has some potential applications that could be noted, like using the multi-hits and its disjoint to stuff out approaches.
• The frame data is actually good past the first 3 Specials, and the melee is an improvement over Reinhardt as it mentions combos. Nice work here!
• The fact that the frame data only feels off in the first 3 Specials makes me think that it was intentional, since you had the “once-per-air-use” balancing factor in mind. If you still want to keep the lag as-is, then implementing time-based cooldowns might actually be a good idea.
• Up Smash is a nice tool to make use of Doomfist’s Neutral Special wall-hitting bonus. It seems like you could do a lot more with the walls, like using them to sponge projectiles or interact with your Specials. I could see the walls getting in Doomfist’s way though, specifically for his Neutral and Side Specials since they move him forward.
• Doomfist’s Back Air doesn’t have damage or knockback listed. We do know it’s a powerful move, so specific damage and knockback isn’t super necessary, but still. For powerful moves like this, Forward Air, Down Air and Forward Smash, you could sell them more by describing situations that could lead to Doomfist landing them more easily, like catching out a dodge meant to avoid something like a (untrue) combo move in Doomfist’s set.
• Throws could do with a bit more application-based details: for instance, Forward Throw could be used to space (though its base knockback is unspecified) so you can charge your Neutral Special. Aside from Down Throw having (presumably) low base knockback for early percent combos but high base knockback also making it his best KO throw, I don’t have a sense for what his other throws offer for his gameplan.
• Back Throw could be fun if the foe could actually avoid Doomfist’s follow-up punch, and/or whether he had the option to go into it in the first place. Similar to Kasen Ibaraki True Form’s Back Throw.

Overall, Doomfist is a bit of an improvement and a good effort, just that his Specials need a good tune-up to make them more balanced and interesting. Sorry if this comment was a bit critical, as I know you were eager for feedback, but hopefully you were able to take something from this. Good to see that you’re into sets anyway, and interested in seeing your next set since it will be an OC - not that I mind Overwatch sets, just that I like seeing all the different franchises that setmakers are interested in.

 

[GolisoPower]

コイツはいいね！
Koitsu by U UserShadow7989

From the depths of Parodius (and Yu-Gi-Oh! even) comes Koitsu, a practical Stickman who wouldn't seem out of place in a Newgrounds animation. Coming from that series, of course, there would be many similarities to Hikaru from the last contest, not that that's a bad thing, but there are still many things that set him apart, from flavoring and animations to even some mechanical differences:

​	KOITSU​	HIKARU​
Neutral Special: Projectile attack that shoots weak shots at an easily-spammable rate that can move regardless of firing.	Paper airplanes are much weaker and harder to spam, and are much thinner.	Almond-shaped energy pellets that are stronger, and never stales.
Down Special: Roulette that starts spinning the moment you hit the foe with an attack that flinches/deals knockback. Use Down B to stop the spinning and grant a specific upgrade.	Being lighter and smaller than Hikaru, Koitsu can get more mileage out of the speed buff than the bunny girl, to aid his combo game. Upgrade 3 deals more damage and "OH!" is more forgiving. Doesn't have grab armor but works as a separate Yoshi shield instead.	Heavier and faster than Koitsu, becomes even more of a menace with the speed buff. Because she's lighter than Koitsu, Hikaru's "OH!" makes her walk more of a fine line between life and death. Barrier upgrade gives her super armor and grab armor.
Side Special: Deployable bell that changes color every time you hit it.	Yellow gives you an associated Power Up, Purple comes before Red here, Blue is marginally weaker.	Yellow doesn't give you a power-up, Red comes before Purple, Blue explosion is much stronger
Up Special: Charging flight special that can be used while firing your NSpec.	Called "Soar" here, has a dive follow-up instead. Doesn't have free flight, like Hikaru.	Called "Fly" here, detonates on contact if used in the air and enters free-flight. Seems perfect for riskier approaches.

Ultimately, I'm pretty tempted to call Koitsu a Ken-style Echo of Hikaru very much, in the same way, Valkyrie Walkure can be considered an Echo of Valkyrie. And that's okay, you had a great framework with Hikaru and made the appropriate tweaks to accommodate his character in a way that makes him stand out better! The changes here compared to his waifu counterpart make sense considering his playstyle going afterward.

Speaking of, since he's not an anime Playboy bunny girl riding a rocket, he seems to have a lot more creative freedom being a more cartoonish humanoid riding a paper airplane, with him pulling random stuff out of his paper airplane, throwing tinier versions of Koitsu out and overall just oozing an oddly Western 50's cartoon charm for a Japanese character. Almost kind of like One Piece's stuff in a way. I personally enjoy him also aping off of Konami franchises like Snake's mortar Up Smash (Minus the explosion) and even his own appearance in Yu-Gi-Oh too! I feel like I'd be using Koitsu's Dash Attack a lot mainly because I just wanna cowabunga the hell out of everyone with it. Moves like Side Smash, the Throws, and some of his upgrades also have that sort of Incredible Crash Dummies vibe, there are a lot of opportunities for comedy both in animations and during battle and that just has that certain satisfaction overall. I think you did some splendid work here, my man! Nice work!

EDIT: Just realized the Yellow Bell is identical on both.

 

[BrazilianGuy]

Spoiler: Dozle Zabi and the MS-06F Zaku II Dozle Zabi Custom

Another Gundam set, neat! At first, I really thought that the naming was a bit clunky and hard to read at times, but after seeing the justification on the extras it felt nice, and after all the theme of this jamcon does have to do with franchises so that was great. Also I really liked the comparison pic, done for his size, I'm not sure of what it is but I just felt "neat". The characterization is amazing on this one, I got that while Zabi is a unit of a man driving an absolute unit of a bot he does have strategy and brains, not being just a big dumb heavy, with that being said he does have the big heavy moves and I love how those sound, that Up and Forward smash in specific. I also love how his rage plays into it, yeah sure it powers him up, but side special, for instance becomes a command grab, that's more explosive and has a straightforward reward rather than his normal Side Special that has effects similar to kazuya's ewg, it shows that he is going more on instinct and all out while angry. Also Down Special is perfect, from what I got of the character description his rage ends up blowing up on him and resulting in disasters on the show, just like in smash. The rest of his set also just feels great. He even wields a gun. I give him an MS-06F/10

 

[tunz]

Here's a set for an OC I made a while ago. I won't explain further here, but you'll see almost immediately when you start reading what it's all about. Without further ado, I present my third MYM26 set: Ramdall.

 

[Katapultar]

Spoiler: Ramdall

• 3 seconds is way too long to be able to hold out a projectile @ Psybeam: makes it too easy to catch falling opponents, gimp them and just catch out landings. It should probably be active for just 9 or 10 frames at most, so you’re required to time the attack like any other projectile to connect it.
• Up Special would play off of Ramdall’s projectiles and zoning game very well (particularly Side Special), since you would need your opponent at a fixed distance to catch them out with the teleport attack. It would be good to know when the teleport hitbox comes out, and exactly how far Ramdall teleports. Could be worth mentioning some kind of weakness in the attack, like either it’s unsafe against shields or better yet has high end lag that makes it unsafe to whiff. Could be fun if the attack was good against shields, to counter opponents who try to shield against your projectiles from a fixed distance.

• Jab feels balanced, no worries there.
• Dash Attacks feels very powerful - it sounds very easy to land the hand hitbox, which is a frame 10 grab with burst movement that deals heavyweight-tier damage and knockback. Maybe the grab should only be at the end of the Dash Attack?

• Having each move be a Pokemon attack and reference to one certainly reinforces that Ramdall is a Pokemon, but other than Future Sight, the extras and its Final Smash cinematic I don’t get much of a sense of how the moves or playstyle portray Ramdall as a character (Final Smash makes it seem like a villain for blowing up a planet). Reinhardt and Doomfist had their characters established, but Ramdall is an OC, one whose personality I have no idea of. The lore makes him sound like a legendary Fakemon, but I don’t know whether he is supposed to be wise or arrogant personality-wise, for instance (though extras characterize him as being something of a serious, intimidating figure).
• Injecting characterization can be as simple as describing a character’s animation or facial expression when they’re attacking, like having a fighter glower when they’re charging up their F-Smash or smile cruelly when they land a grab.
• I really think Rainbow Bridge should have been Ramdall’s Neutral Special and not its Up Throw. Rainbow Bridge is stated to be its signature move, and fighters’ signature moves tend to go on one of their Special inputs, ideally their Neutral Special if possible. Rainbow Bridge’s hypothetical speed-boosting in-game effects and the idea of making a rainbow bridge would have made for a really cool concept. Like, it could have been a bridge construct that increases fighters’ movement speed while they’re standing on it, which has never really been done before in MYM.

All and all, Ramdall is a fine set, one with a simple enough playstyle where you use projectiles to create openings for some of your stronger melee attacks, but this playstyle and the overuse of Pokemon attacks felt a bit plain of a direction to take this otherwise potent character. Sorry if that sounds a bit harsh - I don’t want to be discouraging here.

 

[Arctic Tern]

IZ (Kat)

Iz is a stage control, set-up character with poor melee who leans hard into said archetype. Of course, given what is described in her intro that’s the only possible playstyle she could have, so focusing on it hard is perhaps expected. Iz has bombs and traps for days, the former of which can have their explosives stacked for higher damage and the latter come in many different forms depending on position. The traps themselves are rather interesting, including a delayed falling trap, a trap that teleports foes to a grounded trap, and a trap that’s meant to buff Iz. She also has a fairy that can buff her in various ways - making her items invisible, strengthening them, or making her immune to them - as well as help retrieve them for tricky combos with her normals. Rounding out the Specials is an SSpec that ignores shields and pushes the opponent towards Iz’s traps, as well as serving as her most reliable aerial move.

The item play that Kat is known for is very prominent just in the bombs alone, and there’s plenty more in the set. Iz’s FTilt automatically spawns a potion that can be used as a throwable item with a knockback angle that varies based on how the move was angled. FSmash and DSmash can both launch items at foes under the right circumstances, and FSmash can be used as a turret to help the normally slow Iz combo or create shield pressure. Finally, UThrow has her throw two bombs upwards, which can help lead into her incredibly strong aerials and create mixups if she has the invisible items buff. As someone with a fondness for item play myself, this very much appeals to me, and the interactions the constructs have with Iz’s traps are quite intriguing.

There’s a lot of other cool things about the set - FSmash being able to launch foes during the start lag to potentially combo into the main hit, the option to cancel USmash to hit into aerials if Iz is invincible, the poison puddle on BThrow that allows her to setup and can be frozen to keep it out longer - but the most interesting is the aerials. Taking a cue from other item focused characters, Iz isn’t that capable in the air, but here it’s taken to extremes: none of her aerials have start lag under 10 frames. To make up for it, if she can actually get them to land they’re extremely strong, like NAir paralyzing opponents for a true combo, UAir being able to drag foes through traps and into items, and FAir being a ridiculously extreme hard read aerial that has almost 40 frames of start lag but kills absurdly early and has practically no endlag. What’s more, they all have the same animation and FAF, only differentiated by the color of the crystal Iz uses for each attack… which goes away with the invisibility buff. This enables a lot of mindgames, most entertaining being using NAir’s duration to lead foes into the delayed FAir hitbox. Almost all of her aerials are the type of high risk, high reward play I love (and spam a lot), and it’s probably my favorite input of the set.

Overall, Iz is a set that ticks a lot of my buttons - impractical but strong sweetspots, low kill percents, crazy setup game - and manages to deliver on each and every one of them. It’s somewhat similar to Barbatos in that regard, but in a much different yet no less entertaining manner.

RAMDALL (tunz)

Ramdall has a fairly neat playstyle going for it, in that he’s a zoner with powerful close range tools who needs to approach in order to KO. There are also a few moves I liked, such as the Dash Attack grab hitbox (though in its current form it may be too powerful) and the USpec teleport combo. Every other move, while relatively basic, serves its function well, and it overall works to make a pretty interesting heavyweight zoner. I do believe that 3 seconds is a bit too long for Psybeam to be onstage, and I echo Kat’s notes that there’s not really a sense of Ramdall’s character and its signature move being a throw and not a Special being a bit odd. Besides those, I don’t really have that much to say about the set, but I still overall had a fun reading experience.

Comment block link here!

 

[BrazilianGuy]

Spoiler: Nui Harime 1

So I know like 3 things about Kill la Kill, I know its very good, has awesome animation, and the I guess you are my lil pogchamp lady. But learning about Nui was delightful, she gives me vibes of a chaotic lil' gremlin. I love how you made her have differing animations depending on her mood, it's not a game changer but it doesn't have to be. It's just there in service of the character and thats awesome. I also adore all the parts where you mention how little frames she has in her animations, or how she squashes and stretches, it really represents her series, atleast as far as I know. Down Special was probably my favorite of her moves, love the versatility it has, tho animation wise, her "She's just standing there MENACINGLY" stall and fall steals the show. It's also cool that you always mention what can be done with the clone. Even if I thought that she'd use them in a more chaotic way, but it's cool. Overall a really charming moveset for a charming character. She gets a Scrimblo/10

Spoiler: Nui Harime 2, Electric Boogaloo

Getting the most important thing out of the way, the gif you used for Tilts + Smash Attacks is the best image in all of the Jamcon Sets, that thing is funny. I like how you started out with the animations and extras, really shows her wacky personality, really love the concept of her breaking the forth wall as she enters the battle. Tho I think the ending could have been better, feels like you were doing your iconic competitive aspects section and then it just, ends. A conclusion would have been cool, but is a jamcon so whatevs. I also think you're getting better with the box format, it really feels like something unique to you and I know you'll keep improving on it with your newer sets. Using the taunts to alter what the clones do is a cool idea, having her be able to taunt in online matches also just fits with her wacky self. Also the clones definetly feel more chaotic with there being 7 of em. I like the concept and idea of the air dash and the float, but they could have gotten more attention. Overall Nui is a cool moveset that shows your style and how much you enjoy her and her series. She gets a Bimblo/10

Spoiler: My Jamcon Nomination

I never really do number grades or really critique a moveset, I don't think Im experienced enough to do so, I mainly just check movesets to see how they treat the character. If they have cool and interesting moves that fit them. A playstyle that takes advantage of who the character is and what makes them unique. And just overall how much fun I have while reading the set. I think this makes me rate a set a lot more on my personal enjoyment rather than an objective review. Anyways, the set I enjoyed reading the most was Irene Landry by WeirdChillFever.

 

[Daehypeels]

here's a jamcon thing, sorry for not doing very well in this regard

Spoiler: Ne-Gok-Sa

Starting off with a minion-summoning bang, huh? This was certainly cranked out real quick… although perhaps it could have used more time in the oven.

Wasn’t a huge fan of this one, but before rambling out some of the criticisms, there were some pretty nice highlights. This is some great stuff flavor-wise, all of his attacks sell just how brutal and malicious this warlord is in a fight, you took a character who’s apparently quite lethally savage in their home series, and yeah, your variety of harsh slashes and stabs, concussion-inducing weighty bashes, and even injections of Fun Juice™ were quite fun to read. Up B in particular is the move everyone sings praise about, and it’s for good reason, what a unique and savage animation description! And when it comes to straight describing how each move works fundamentally, it’s some solid, concise material throughout the blog.



It's a good base, but really, the main problem with this one is that the moveset often feels more like a solid starting point than something truly complete. A few moves (like Down B) don’t have any additional info past their bare-minimum function explanations, and certain moves that seem like they do (such as Side Tilt or Up air) tend to either be repeated or redundant – Side Tilt explains function-wise that it’s an important move for commanding your troops to attack, then the last section of the move further clarifies that it is indeed that, with not much gained. Not to disregard the fact that the move functions themselves are rather well-described (apart from one example I’ll mention later), nor the moves that have some pleasantly helpful additional info, but when the moves are almost entirely just explanations of functions rather than anything extra, it’s not the best reading material.

For some more specific stuff… Back to that otherwise wonderful Up B, the best aspect of it feels like it works against itself. For a startup that’s only described as “low”, there’s a lot going on in the animation, with the minion spawning, getting grabbed, injected, reacting to the injection, throwing it downward, THEN exploding and the actual recovery starting. A decent comparison could be something like Dedede’s Gordo Toss, where he manually pulls a Gordo out of his sleeve and whacks it with his hammer, and the full animation takes exactly as much time as it needs to… over the course of almost a full half-second/30 frames. Not to say these are the same kinds of concepts, but at least in my opinion, I feel like a much better route for that move could have been to focus on how slow that animation would realistically be (since picturing all of that happening in less than 16 frames doesn’t sound like it’d work at all) – and at that point, the move could balance itself, since you could then talk about how it’s a slower recovery that gets the job done and hits really hard, but in exchange it’s quite telegraphed and linear + isn’t that easy to land as an attack, you get the idea. Not that that’s the only avenue to take, but that could be a pretty interesting one.

Plus, not gonna lie, there were some more personal grievances I had with it regarding balance. This sounds like a super obnoxious minion summoner to fight against with the sheer number of dweebs they can throw out, but Down B in particular isn’t a great mixture of a rather vague hitbox description (“line of sight”… is it a Mewtwo Disable kind of thing? Is it a Palu Autoreticle kind of thing where it’s a cone-like line of sight? How easy is this move to land, range-wise?) and an ABSURD upside for landing it – Hold and Defend are interesting enough, but the Attack directive sounds like a hilariously free Smash Attack or Up B, not to mention other shenanigans. And in general, being able to tag an opponent (again, with a vague description of how) only to trigger a command on them that forces them into being unable to play the game properly, in a matchup that’s already based around flooding the screen with annoying minions… take this paragraph with a grain of salt, since it’s just a personal “ew gross, don’t like X” thing without a great explanation, but stuff like that is really hard to get into and want to see in Smash, which can further hamper my interest/immersion in this moveset, it just doesn’t sound fun to fight at all.



Overall didn’t like it very much, my apologies, but over the years I’ve seen far far worse, and for something cranked out in such a short period of time, it’s hard to complain about what isn’t there when the stuff you did include is decently nice, ultimately. But for future Jamcons, utilizing the full time limit to your advantage could probably make blogs like this one turn out so much better, even without reading your past movesets there’s zero doubt in my mind you’re capable of way better.

 

[GolisoPower]

The Actual Doom Slayer Of Gundam
Mikazuki Augus & Gundam Barbatos Lupus Rex by FrozenRoy & n88

In the past, I've had only second-hand knowledge of the series from Cartoon Network browser games to Death Battle, but after reading Dozle Zabi and getting into Mobile Suit Gundam proper, I've come to really appreciate this set above all else. I'm gonna keep this brief since I don't have much time to actually write this, but the general gist I'll put like this: the mace being a blocking volume and anti-projectile weapon makes sense since the damn thing looks bigger than the goddamn Gundam itself and I like that you have some defense even if it's position behind, and the A-V system is practically an Aerial Rave/Roman Cancel that I'm defo gonna try to exploit every time. Just...overall, Barbatos is the perfect ungabunga character for a budding Gundam fan and really seems to ease the reader into the world of Gundam proper. The differences between the Mace Barbatos and the Berserk Barbatos are extremely profound and I see that the two of you have taken gone a little nutso with this set, so mad props to that. Overall, by far the strongest contender for JamCon vote out of me so far.

 

[dilliam]

IRENE LANDRY
Not super high on this set, not gonna lie. I do think the writing style is at least entertaining, but there's a lot of mechanics here in place that seem to exist just to be complex as opposed to add depth to the character, especially with the bingo card. I do respect the bizarre character choice, but it really feels like quantity over quality.

GOLDENGLOW
This one was solid and enjoyable, big fan of how this set handles the camper playstyle without making it completely insufferable to play against. The static mechanic is really fun and lets her make space without it being too intrusive. The drone's and their various interactions were really fun too, lots of different interactions to be had there.

KOITSU
Huge fan of the snowballing and silly animations in this set. I didn't read Hikaru last contest but I can see that there's a clear effort to improve the forumal established there and I respect it. The bell in particular is really fun, I like the idea of having to hit a projectile to charge it for stronger buffs.

SEVAGOTH
I enjoy the concept of this set's mechanic, although it's a little poorly balanced. The idea of having a new form with a new moveset that you get after death is potentially fun, but I feel like the barrier of entry is very low. It's a little too easy to get it and I feel like that could be rectified by maybe lowering how much his gauge fills or adding some extra conditions to get it. Make the player work for it, you know?

MIKA/BARBATOS
This is easily my favorite of this jamcon. I enjoy the mix of rushbown with pure speed and big superheavy bruiser that this set provides, and the spacing with the mace is pretty cool too. Down special was a highlight with how much mileage it gets while still being really risky. The melee game gets a lot of mileage with the dash mechanic too, which helps spice up the basic melee game with a ton of possibilities to get creative.


My nomination is Mika.

 

[GolisoPower]

The Legend, Giving This Franchise A Slot At Long Last
Barbara by Daehypeels

Watch me speedrun this comment: the set has a couple incomplete inputs (Two of her throws), but Barbara is such a fun character with some dopamine-factories' worth of damage in a massive chunk of her attacks. She's got zoomies and hits like a truck on nitrous oxide and I think in a way that fits Barbara as a character. Apologies for this comment being short, I'm on the timeframe for JamCon and gotta get this out so I can get my vote out, but this is a pretty good effort on your end, Dae! Good job getting this out and thanks for giving Rayman a franchise slot!

And with that, my vote goes to Mika/Barbatos by n88 and FrozenRoy , congrats!

 

[FrozenRoy]

Mikazuki Augus by n88 and FrozenRoy - 6 (Arctic Tern, Katapultar, ForwardArrow, Kholdstare, Dilliam, GolisoPower)
Irene Landry by WeirdChillFever - 1 (BrazilianGuy)​

Hey guys, Jamcon 1 voting is over! While Mika got the most votes, a clutch last minute vote for Irene Landry kept it from being a complete sweep, and it did seem like there were a lot of popular sets that just couldn't break through. It was great to see how many entries we got this time, a Jamcon record, and hopefully me and n88 can whip up a theme that makes the next one popular too! See you all next time!

 

[BKupa666]

"There was a dark hilarity in his face, and perhaps in his heart, too, you would think — and you would be right. It was the face of a hatefully happy man, a face that radiated a horrible handsome warmth, a face to make water glasses shatter in the hands of tired truck-stop waitresses, to make small children crash their trikes into board fences and then run wailing to their mommies with stake-shaped splinters sticking out of their knees. It was a face guaranteed to make barroom arguments over batting averages turn bloody."

THE AGELESS STRANGER
MARTEN BROADCLOAK
RICHARD FANNIN
THE WALKIN' DUDE
WALTER O'DIM



RANDALL FLAGG​