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Make Your Move 28: Jamcon 1 START!

Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 12, 2022
Messages
153
WELCOME TO MYM 28!


​
Make Your Move (or MYM) is what happens when a Smash fan takes a look at a probability theorem and thinks “This means that my random OC is in Brawl in some alternate universe.”

In more accurate terms, this is a contest dedicated to making movesets for anyone you want to. Said movesets can be for quite literally anyone - your most wanted? A favorite anime character? A real life person? A bar of chocolate? All perfectly valid choices here (and yes we do have a moveset for a bar of chocolate)!

The vast majority of movesets are made for whatever the current Smash game is when the thread is posted (at the time of posting Ultimate). However, we do allow movesets for previous Smash games, and even Project M! MYM’s been going on for over 15 years, and it doesn’t show any sign of stopping.

THE BASICS
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These are the basics of MYM, the ones that you want to be at least somewhat familiar with if you want to post a set (though if you just want to read, that’s perfectly fine too).

MAKING A MOVE(set)
​
Every moveset must include the following:

  • Stats - A character’s weight, speed, jumps, etc. All the things that are under the hood and make a character behave like they do.
  • Specials (at least four - Neutral Special, Side Special, Up Special, and Down Special)
  • Smashes (Forward, Up, and Down Smash)
  • Standards (Jab, Dash Attack, Forward Tilt, Up Tilt, and Down Tilt)
  • Aerials (Neutral Air, Forward Air, Back Air, Up Air, and Down Air)
  • Grabs and Throws (The grab itself, a pummel, Forward Throw, Back Throw, Up Throw, and Down Throw)

Exceptions can be made, but generally you have to have a really good reason to.

Additionally, at least a good portion of sets have:

  • Intro - a paragraph or two (or ten, sometimes that happens) explaining who the character is to readers who aren’t familiar with them.
  • Pictures - basically every set has at least a picture of the character it's for, and most have a demonstration of an attack if it's based on something in their home series.
  • Final Smash - the character’s big super attack. Not technically required, but generally it’s seen as a bit disappointing if a set doesn’t end with a description of a Final Smash.
  • Extras - things that apply to a character that aren’t important to a character’s gameplay. Things like their taunts, victory poses, entrance animations, etc. We’re perfectly fine with you creating your own extras, and MYM has created several of their own - a full list of the ones we’ve made so far can be found here.
  • Situational Attacks - the moves a character uses when prone or grabbing the ledge. Basically never described but if you reaaaaaaally want to be a completionist then go for it.
  • Playstyle - an overview of how the character plays. Generally not done in modern sets since a good setmaker should make it self-evident in the set itself but if you want to make one you can make one!

Generally, Specials are placed first since they tend to form the “core” of the set, but moves can be placed in any order to help make the set read better. A template for making sets can be found here.

SUBMITTING SETS
​
Sets used to be posted directly to the thread itself, but now most setmakers provide links to a set made offsite. Google Docs is the most popular location on account of providing more freedom of presentation than Smashboards, but any location can do as long as it doesn’t break the rules.

COMMENTING
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Once you’ve finished reading a set, it’s considered good form to leave a comment on the thread to show that you’ve read it. More detailed comments are more informative than shorter comments, but even single line comments can mean a lot! If you didn’t like a set (or aspects of it) it’s perfectly OK to say that, but try to give constructive criticism instead of simply saying that it’s bad, especially when what is obviously “bad” to you may not be to the setmaker.

In order to vote (we’ll get to that), you must post at least 10 comments. Reading more than that is generally needed to get a proper grasp on what sets to vote for, but if you’re not feeling up to the task (and trust me, we get long sets a plenty) then this gives you a chance to read some shorter sets and still get the chance to vote.

If you want a place to archive your comments, several MYMers have a ranking system in place that grades the sets they’ve read from best to worst. You can use any “ranking” you want, from a 0-10 system to a 5-star rating to a grading system. It isn’t necessary to post these rankings publicly - it’s entirely possible for you to keep one to yourself so as to keep track of your opinions on sets - but doing so is highly appreciated.

JAMCONS
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Jamcons are “mini-contests” initially developed to encourage commenting and provide some shorter sets to read. Each participant has a week to make a set that corresponds to the theme that every given contest follows. After this period ends, readers (including ones that didn’t post a set) have two weeks to comment on every set made for the Jamcon, before picking a favorite of theirs. The set with the most votes is deemed the winner, and the person who made the winning set gets to choose the theme for the next Jamcon.

Originally, Jamcons were monthly, but due to concerns over set bloat we’re changing it this contest so that it’s bi-monthly. The first Jamcon generally starts two weeks after the contest does, but this is by no means a hard rule.

END OF CONTEST
​
Everything has its end, and so does Make Your Move. Usually we have a set closing date, but for this contest we’ve decided not to set one until a good way into the contest. It ends when we say it ends (expect this to be edited once we finally settle on one).

Once the closing date occurs, movesets cannot be posted, and the set enters a “reading period” where people take the time to read sets they may have missed. You can still edit already posted sets during this period, but posting a “skeleton” of a set then finishing it during the reading period (known here as “Dodongoing”) is strictly banned. After the reading period concludes, voting period begins, where the readers vote on sets. There are a total of 44 votes of varying strength, ordered from strongest to weakest:

  • 8 Super Votes (9 points)
  • 16 Regular Votes (5 points)
  • 20 Weak Votes (2 points)

Additionally, a certain number of these votes can be amplified with a handy plus sign:

  • 1 Super Vote Plus (11 points)
  • 3 Regular Vote Pluses (6 points)
  • 5 Weak Vote Pluses (3 points)

Setmakers are unable to vote for any set they’ve made, by the way.

To get a general gist of what a votelist looks like, see this link for MYM 27’s votelist.

THE TOP 50
​
The Top 50 is a compilation of the 50 highest voted sets in the contest. It doesn’t have to be 50 (last contest had a top 51), but most of the time it is. Once voting time ends, the leaders compile every vote made, do the math, break any potential ties, and finally post the top 50 in a closing post. If your set doesn’t place, that’s totally fine! The top placements can get very competitive, so placing at all is an achievement, and in any case simply posting a set for fun is just as valid (and probably more healthy) than posting a set to win the contest.

RESOURCES

MYM ASSOCIATED SITES
​
The vast majority of MYM discussions happen on the personal Discord server. In addition to serving as a place to discuss the contest, it also serves as a general hangout for members of the community where they can discuss anything that happens to interest them. Invitation is cost-free, so feel free to drop by at any time!

There are also a few Wordpress sites:

  • The Bunker primarily serves as an archival website, containing links to sets from past threads; it also contains various MYM-related articles, which anyone is free to write if they have an account. Notable sections of the site include “The MYMer Encyclopedia”, a list of every set made by every active setmaker, and “Every Moveset Listed by Franchise”, both of which are linked to on the main page. This page also provides tips on how to get started by veteran setmaker Junahu.
  • The Stadium primarily serves as the place where the sets for the current contest are linked, as well as where the raw data for the votelists are posted.

OTHER RESOURCES​

  • Ultimate Frame Data - A website that documents a good chunk of technical details for Ultimate, including frame by frame animations of most attacks. An excellent resource for understanding the strength and speed of actual in-game attacks.
  • Dragdown - A website aimed at the more competitive aspect of platform fighters, including Ultimate. While its documentation isn’t complete for every character, what is there can give you a good understanding of how moves are actually used in a match.
  • Smash Wiki - A fan made wiki for the Smash series. In addition to covering general trivia and factoids, it also includes various data about the more technical side of Smash as well as information on advanced techniques that can help with understanding the game.
  • Kill percent for every move in Ultimate - A spreadsheet made by Redditor u/Nachochesse documenting the percent in which every move in the game kills, as calculated on MIi Swordfighter (whose weight is in the exact middle of Smash characters).
  • Art of Smash and Art of Smash Ultimate - A series of videos by Izaw about the intricacies of Smash. The latter series is more immediately relevant to Ultimate, but all of them are useful for understanding how real characters in Smash work. They also have a large emphasis on “playstyle”, how a character’s moves flow into a cohesive gameplan - understanding this is key to making a good set.

LEADERSHIP
​
The leaders are the moderators of the community who make decisions about when to set deadlines. Several leaders have been in the community for around a decade, but we’ve got some new blood this time around.

ARCTIC TERN


​
Hey, that’s me! One of the aforementioned “new blood” and the OP of this contest, I was a long time lurker before I decided to finally post a set. I managed to make immediate waves in my first contest where I placed 4th (in a contest that had very competitive top placements), and eventually I went to leadership on account of my clear dedication to the contest. While technically a newbie, I have very extensive knowledge of MYM history and a good deal of technical knowledge on Smash. In terms of set making, I’ve dabbled in more or less all of the set genres at some point - if anything, my “association” is with sheer quantity of sets and comments.

Notable Franchises:


FROZENROY

​

One of the oldies on the leadership, FrozenRoy (Froy for short) has been in the game since MYM 12 and, while his activity has slowed down, has never truly gone away. He’s somewhat like me in that he’s dabbled in basically every playstyle at some point in his career, but he is centrally known for his fundamental-based style, often taking the time to mention how a move’s existence affects the character’s overall gameplan. In recent times, Froy’s also thrown his hat into joint sets, which are collaborative sets made with the input of at least two people.

Notable Franchises:

USERSHADOW7989


​
The oldest active leader, having gotten his start in MYM 5, UserShadow (known as Professor Hawke on our Discord) was an irregular yet consistent poster for much of his history, having had a breakout hit or two but nothing too substantial. In recent times, however, he made a massive leap forward with a surge of quality sets, with his bigger sets typically earning at least one Top 10 placement. UserShadow has dabbled in his fair share of playstyles himself, but he is most associated with the sandbox genre, with most of his most popular sets having at least some elements of the genre. He is also known for creating the Witchverse, a shared universe several of his OC sets take place in and which several MYMers have contributed to.

Notable Franchises:


N88


​
Another oldie, n88 got his start in MYM 6, but after a long while of making sets he suddenly stopped around MYM 16. In MYM 25, though, he came back with a vengeance and a top 1 placement, becoming a leader the very next contest. n88’s writing style is very distinctive, with a lot of snide commentary that makes his sets quite enjoyable to read but not enough that it detracts from the set itself. He generally prefers to focus on one or two “big” sets while making a few smaller sets; like Froy, he’s fairly fundies-based, and fittingly they’ve jointed quite a few sets.

Notable Franchises:


BUBBYBOYTOO


​
The other “new blood” on leadership, bubby began his career earlier than me in MYM 21. While he has never managed to win the contest like the old guards have, he has remained persistent in his career, which combined with still dropping good sets regularly promoted him to leader status. Bubby’s sets are on average a lot simpler than the rest of the leaders, focused more on fitting in an actual Smash game than elaborate mechanics. This has the side effect of making them good palette cleansers after a particularly long set, helped by a breezy writing style, so having shorter sets isn’t a bad thing at all!

Notable Franchises:


Talk to any of us if you have further questions or are in need of help!

RULES
​
Make Your Move follows the same rules and regulations as the rest of Smashboards. If you see someone breaking these rules, make sure to just report them on the spot and not interact with them.

Now with that out of the way… it’s time to, as the kids say, make some moves.
 
tunz

tunz

Smash Cadet
Joined
Sep 4, 2022
Messages
26
Alright! Had these three collecting dust for a good while, so what better way to kick things off than to dump the first three sets of the contest (unless someone posts while I'm writing this) right away! Let me give a brief preface as to my opinions on them, since we're quite detached already from the time when I made them and have thus managed to reflect a bit from an outside perspective.

The first is King Bob-Omb! A good few intricate moves here where Im truly proud of their interwovenness and synergy, yet I must preface that the latter half gets a bit short and may feel rushed, because frankly, it was a little bit. Edits may come.

Then we have Roland, the main antagonist from an indie gem of 2024, Another Crab's Treasure. He's simple, short and sweet. Not an amazing piece by any means but I'm more than satisfied I think.

The last is Kril, the protagonist from ACT. This one definitely suffers from feature bloat, otherwise known as quantity over quality. I knew this was going to be the case the whole way through, and I'm honestly fine with it, since I'd rather have it exist in this form than not exist at all, and if I were to shrink his moveset down it wouldn't feel like I did him and his game justice with all its mechanics. If I were to take more time and really get down and make a real hard effort to make it all good, I think I would go legitimately insane, so this is what came out. With all that being said, I'm looking forward to the feedback, so enjoy!
 
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n88

n88

Smash Lord
Joined
Oct 10, 2008
Messages
1,547
Howdy there, folks - n88 here to announce a little sidegame I’m running this contest.

The Long Con​

Much in the style of a Jamcon, this’ll be open during MYM28’s submission period and hosted right here in the MYM28 thread. Like a Jamcon, movesets submitted to The Long Con will also be submitted to MYM28. Unlike a Jamcon, our game’ll run the whole length of the contest, and submissions have the following limitations:
  • Each person may submit only 1 moveset to the Long Con.
  • Submitted movesets must be under 15k words.
    • That wordcount limit encompasses intro, extras and all: the whole kit and caboodle.
There are some finer details later down the post, but those two points are the main things you need to know.

The aims here are to provide a sort of “casual mode” for the contest, and put together a little showcase of sets by different authors. If somebody wants to know where to start reading then hey, we’ve got a reading list of movesets from all corners, and they're all pretty manageable in length.

At the end of MYM28 we’ll vote in the style of Jamcon voting - if you’ve read and commented all the entrants, you can vote on your favorite.… let’s say 1 to 3 entries, depending on how many we end up with. I'll make a follow-up post at the end of the contest to lock down the voting particulars. The entrant with the most votes receives a no-prize. Simple as that!

A few more details:
  • You can submit by just mentioning you’re doing so when you post the moveset in the thread.
  • It’s also okay if you submit a moveset to MYM28 and only later decide you want that moveset submitted to the Long Con: just post in the thread to lemme know you're submitting something.
    • If you don’t know which of your children is your favorite, there’s no pressure to choose right away! Just figure it out by the end of the contest.
  • I gotta be strict on this 1-per-person rule: if you’re submitting a joint it counts for all writers.
  • Unlike in a Jamcon where you’re meant to wait on edits until after the fact, feel free to edit Long Con submissions as you would any other MYM set. As in MYM proper, try to be clear and communicative about changes, so that folks who already read the set know what’s changed about it.
  • I’m gonna say no switching submissions. Doubt it’d be an issue anyway, but figured I should have that on the books in case some weirdo shows up and tries jerking people around. Part of what I want here is for this to be easy to follow along with.
That's it, that's all I got! Happy movesetting.
 
n88

n88

Smash Lord
Joined
Oct 10, 2008
Messages
1,547
King Bob-Omb by tunz tunz
Cool to see this guy finally hit the thread proper! I remember previewing the early inputs quite a while ago, though I don't remember too well what feedback I gave. Hopefully I don't give any contradictory advice here, but if I do let's just attribute that to my growth and newfound wisdom.

Five Bob-Ombs is pretty generous on NSpec but I think his susceptibility to their explosions lets him get away with a fair bit. I do wonder if Parabombs are a little pushed with how fast and casual that is as an option and how they don't count toward the limit - I can see these being pretty obnoxious for some characters to deal with on recovery. If you're Ike you're just dying to this move pretty casually (though that's kind of a general Ike problem). The odd balance twiddle aside I do think NSpec feels very at home on the character though: fits right in with his shtick and the general Bob-Omb imagery.

SSpec is also pretty fun - the writing gets a little mechanically dense at points in here and I felt like I had to go back over things to make sure I wasn't missing details. The move's frame data feels pretty fast for what it is but not sure it's a game-breaker, especially if KBO can be hurt by the bombs. I'm a little fuzzy on this because NSpec and SSpec contradict each other on this point: in NSpec "none of the other explosives he can summon" hurt him, but in SSpec "the opponent could knock Bombs that are especially close to you back at you multiple times with weaker hits and try to hit you with them".

Generally, through the Specials, a lot of KBO's frame data feels pretty pushed. Like looking at DSpec, the move deals 16% and KOs at 150 on a pretty big disjoint (projectile?), active on 17-24 with a FAF of 33. 8 frames of endlag on something that meaty is a bit of a war crime (if the cannon is a projectile he's freeing up while the opponent is still in hitlag) and frankly the start-up ain't bad either relative to how big that hitbox is. It's not reactable, so opponents can kinda just get hit with this at any time if they make the mistake of committing to anything around KBO. He's absolutely gonna be safe on block and probably a-okay on whiff as well. Even before you start getting into other stuff he can do with the cannon, I think just tossing it around as a bludgeon is pretty juicy with these numbers.

I'm not weighing this super heavily as a criticism of the set, mind you: just wanted to highlight the kind of thing I was talking about. The numbers being a little off doesn't bother me that much since numbers are easy to float and the set feels like it's providing them for thoroughness rather than trying to draw a lot of conclusions from them. I do think they're not necessarily making the set stronger by being a little untrustworthy, but they're also not load-bearing and I can kind of just mentally set them aside and focus on the ideas you were more interested in writing about.

I do think my number one tip for writing (or not writing) frame data, if you don't have some specific speed you're shooting for, is to think in terms of how safe you want the move to be (considering both speed and range - power also affects this but speed and range are the big uns) and go from there. Smash has good reference points for moves ranging from "you will never be punished" to "hitting this button is begging for death", so you can usually find something that delivers the right sort of frame data you need. If you don't want to delve into specific frame data I also think it's fine to just talk about speed in a broad way in terms of safety and commitment - like functionally that's a bit more vague than frames but it does me fine - we don't have to code these things, and letting me know about intended gamefeel gives me a bit more to work with than saying a move has 8 frames of endlag when I know you don't want it to play like it would if it had 8 frames of endlag.

Apologies for the ramble, I really did mean it when I said this is not a big point I'm holding against the set - I think every writer, myself very much included, botches it when they start writing frame data into movesets (and sometimes even, myself included, well after they've started). I also know you wrote the early bits of this moveset quite a while ago and well before it was finished, so maybe you've already taken lessons from this and adjusted. Some of the later moves in the set do seem to have more solid grounding. But oh well, here I am rambling to someone in the past who maybe doesn't need to hear it. Hit me up for today's winning lottery numbers, Past Tunz.

Moving on from that point, the cannon is very functionally cool and I dig the way it feeds into this vision of King Bob-Omb as a zany set-up guy. Big Powerhouse vibes in this moveset, also very Pac-Man coded. Personally I adore the touch that he can fire himself out of the cannon; characters that can deal knockback to themselves are always funny. I love the ways he can work against himself with the bombs and the cannon if you let the gigabrain moves spiral out of control.

Moving on to the normals, I think broadly I favor the simpler melee stuff stylistically over the more referential Golf and Kart attacks - I think the latter dilute his identity and skew toward making him Mario Spin-Off Man. Spin-Off Man is a direction I'd buy easily on say, Waluigi, but it feels a little odd to me on someone like this. This is not a huge gripe with the moveset because ultimately the vision is yours - but it did bother me a little bit that it felt inconsistent between input sections. The Specials are also taking ideas from spin-offs but really fluidly weaving them into the pitch that this guy's the king of the bomb factory, and most of the normals build simple melee moves that work fine with that, but some of the Standards are reaching for direct props and visual reference to the broader Mario franchise. It's kinda weird to give the feedback "hey this element doesn't super make sense to me... but if it's there, there should be more of it" but I think that's where I'm at on it; it'd work better for me if it were more prevalent through the kit and felt more like it was a core part of his identity.

Starting from DSmash I can see the rush setting in, his moves definitely start feeling a bit blunt and perfunctory there. Granted, a degree of simplicity in the normals makes sense when your core is zany, but it's hard to get too excited about moves that the set doesn't feel invested in, and the set doesn't really try to sell how these moves are fun in the framework that his Specials set up. KBO delivers some fun stuff when it's really cooking, though - Up Smash I'm a particularly big fan of and is a strong note for the meatier portion of the moveset to "end" on before things start getting a bit more clipped.

The set's wound up as a bit of an uneven read overall, but there're still fun ideas here and I think he's very worth checking out for the highlights.

Stray thoughts:
  • "in June of 1996, making him older than me by a significant margin" - look, you don't have to rub it in.
  • "Sorry if it hurts your eyes or messes with your brain." - this is far from MYM's worst assault on my brain, you're doing alright.
  • "a classic Mario Kart Glider!" - considering gliders a classic Mario Kart thing is even worse than saying people born in '96 are way older than you.
 
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Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 12, 2022
Messages
153
"'To her, all of her enemies were merely pawns on a chessboard, just stepping stones towards her nation's goals...' That's part of the novel I'm writing. I was inspired by the challenger that was just here, and somehow I got a little sad... Excuse me. You're a challenger, right? I'm the Elite Four's Ghost-type Pokemon user, Shauntal, and I shall be your opponent."
 
Slavic

Slavic

Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Messages
763
Location
taco bell, probablyn't
Shauntal by Arctic Tern Arctic Tern

1735956784208.png


Trainer sets live! Shauntal is a fun moveset that makes good use of Google Drive's new Tabs feature, a gift seemingly catered to our specific community suspiciously well. There's many ways to analyze a moveset like this, having multiple sub-movesets, but Shauntal does a great job in her set no matter which way it's sliced!

Shauntal uses the canon Pokemon Trainer set as a conceptual base, which works out really well in her favor IMO. Pokemon Trainer is one of my pockets in Smash, and Tern shows a great understanding of the tempo and intricacies of that set while striking out with unique directions. It's nice to have an intended order for the Pokemon, it turns out, rather than having them all stand out as interchangeable parts. It gives the moveset focus, and the end result has a lot of clarity because of it, despite the triplicate word count. The moveset excels at making each member of the team feel usable solo, but truly missing something without engaging with the switching mechanic. Partly this is due to simply lacking a Down Special for all three, but also the interactions between the monsters makes for a compelling read, and you can really feel the momentum of a stock as you read through.

It's maybe a little odd for Shauntal to start with her ace, but Chandelure sells the reader quickly on its place. It's the 'Squirtle' of the trio, focusing on not just racking up damage but setting up for her teammates to come. The animations work well here, despite the particularly odd anatomy of Chandelure, and I want to highlight Up Special as a particularly inspired move. A falling chandelier trap makes excellent use of the Pokemon, and fits very well with both Shauntal's more academic aesthetic and the spooky vibe ghost Pokemon have. It also means that all three of the teammates effectively have stall-and-falls, so Shauntal is a character I absolutely could not play!

Unlike Squirtle, who uses its speed for tight close-range combos off the ground in my experience, Chandelure loves its traps and projectiles, and instead uses its speed to convert those into further combo strings. This is a trickier method of damage racking, though the luminous 'mon has more traditional methods of combos as well. As fun as it is, it also suffers, and Chandelure feels like without a lot of skill she will struggle to make use of her multiple fiery-and-ghastly traps. I shouted them in the chat, but both Neutral Air Smog and Forward Throw Payback are cool moves for the Pokemon, and I think there's a lot of fun to be had with a landing Neutral Air into a Cofagrigus bait-and-switch.

Speaking of, Cofagrigus is, IMO, the strongest of the sets in Shauntal's kit. Even more bizarrely shaped than Chandelure, this kingly (queenly?) coffin ties the moveset together, literally. While present in Chandelure, I want to take a second to say that this moveset in general does a fantastic job of working in unnatural moves, such as Energy Ball or, in this case, Grass Knot, a bizarre move for it to learn that Tern has managed to work in brilliantly. Cofagrigus fills the Ivysaur role in its own way; it deals consistent damage at mid ranges, but does so with its bizarre hitboxes and status effects. She's also a bit of a grappler, and Side Special Psychic is a neat move that not only serves as a simple but effective command grab but also manipulates Chandelure's projectiles and traps. Turning Will-o-Wisp into what is essentially a Snake Nikita is a high point of the set for me, and the other interactions, especially Fire Spin, aren't far behind.

Cofagrigus also has its Mummy ability for its Neutral Special, which is a terrifying effect for foes to contend with. I do worry that Mummy is a bit strong with its damage boost, especially when she has options like Curse on top of the high damage both Cofagrigus and especially Golurk can dish out. However, I think the nature of this set is such that it can afford a little power creep. Since Shauntal is locked into the set order for her Pokemon, like the real Trainer, she can't casually switch back and land Mummy repeatedly as needed, and Cofagrigus is likely only landing one Mummy before switching out to her next Pokemon when playing optimally. Again, great understanding of how a Pokeset has to make choices, and develops those ideas further.

Finally, we arrive at Golurk, who leaves me torn compared to the other two. On one hand, some of the coolest moves in the set are found here. Shadow Punch is such a simple but fitting Special while still managing to feel tricky and cohesive with the rest of the set. It's also cool to have a punch attack that doesn't reflect projectiles, as niche as that might be. Of course, the punch from Golurk's actual hand still reflects, and leads me to wonder if there's a possibility of throwing out a transcendent Shadow Punch to move past an inbound projectile, reverse the projectile with the standard punch, and follow-up Shadow Punch with the foe's own projectile. Dynamic Punch feels as strong as it should, and High Horsepower is a very funny name for Golurk's obvious Up Special.

Golurk clearly is intended to be the Charizard of the group, excelling in power and recovery strength but in completely different ways from the dragon. I do worry, as mentioned, about how powerful Golurk's attacks can be with Mummy up on the foe, especially with the extended grab range it effectively gives Golurk. Earthquake after a pitfall, which there are multiple avenues for achieving, deals 45% damage, and if I was smarter I could figure out when it could kill at. I don't think it's an unreasonable power level for Golurk to achieve, especially with the hoops required to get there, but combined with some of the other parts of Golurk's kit I think it can be overwhelming in its threats. It has a lot of boons other heavyweights don't have, such as the ability to create stone walls out of Up Smash Stone Edge, and the ability to switch to a much faster character if need be.

As for the terraforming Golurk can perform through Up Smash, I'm once again torn. On one hand, I completely see the vision, and the ability to setup a combo where Golurk can grab a mummy wrapping and smash a foe into one of these walls, or to dash through itself, is appealing. It also makes sense to have a wall conceptually, given the ability of a few moves in the set to ignore walls. Down Smash can also create a rock, though this one a throwable / droppable item, and between the two Golurk winds up feeling like a Pokemon who can kind of do it all? I'd wait for other opinions before making any changes, because I'm on the fence and could be swayed either way, but it raises a few flags for me so I figure I'd bring it up.

This isn't my absolute favorite Tern set I've read, and I'm sure the past contest blew my favorite out of the water, but it's probably a close second or third. Despite concerns about Golurk doing a lot within his kit, it still reads as cohesive and well thought out. I might change Mummy to not increase damage or knockback, as both Cofagrigus and Golurk do have options for killing, and all three have methods of racking up damage as is, and would help curb the power issues that might haunt this set. I also feel like the rock on Down Smash feels out of place, almost like a footnote on an already great move that ties the set together, to give a combo filler to the already combo-focused character. Great work with this, and I hope we see a proper resurgence of trainer sets after this!
 
Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern

Smash Apprentice
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Messages
153
KING BOB-OMB (tunz)

King Bob-omb’s a character I’ve had my eyes on for quite a while, and while this isn’t my preferred take on him he’s a simple enough character that you could do a lot of equally valid playstyles. This version of him is probably the most MYM way, depicting him as a set-up character with a lot of pseudo-minions in the form of what else but Bob-ombs. The king has multiple ways to spawn Bob-ombs or other explosives, which he can all deposit inside of a cannon to automatically fire them. This gives him a potentially very strong tool for forcing approaches, which is something he appreciates given that, like most heavies, he’s slow but very hard hitting once he actually gets in. I do like the idea of passive attacks quite a bit and this seems like a fairly neat way to enable King Bob-omb to actually approach. The conveyor belt in his SSpec is also a cool concept and something we haven’t seen much of, and the way it intersects with his other tools is pretty neat.

Besides Specials, King Bob-omb has the requisite “move your setup around” attacks in Jab and FTilt, the latter providing an amusing visual of him literally golfing bombs at you. The DTilt bury is an obvious idea given his weight but a cool one, and I like the fact that it’s basically a better K. Rool DTilt at the cost of Bob-omb being unable to secure kills as easily. The last section I thought was worth mentioning was the grab, which is fairly strong on account of having kill moves and set-ups into his traps; this is mainly since his main method of attack in his SM64 fight is grabbing Mario, so it makes sense he’d have a strong grab game. FThrow in particular is a cool throw for letting King Bob-omb act while the opponent is carried off, though I’d like to see more elaboration on how he can take advantage of that. The other moves not mentioned or alluded to aren’t bad, but they are fairly dry and thus end up a bit forgettable - though they still have a clear purpose in the kit.

While I do like plenty of things about this set, as of this writing I do think King Bob-omb leans on the overpowered side, mainly due to just how many traps he has. He has up to 5 Bob-omb minions, a conveyor belt that serves as a construct that also spawns a bomb (though only when it first shows up), and two particularly powerful explosives, one of which is almost as large as to larger than a Smart Bomb explosive and both of which KO at the 80-90% range. It’s a lot for the opponent to navigate around, and when you consider that King Bob-omb can fire them all out of a cannon it gets a bit ridiculous. Personally, I’d limit the amount of Bob-ombs onstage to two at most and nerf the explosives a bit, either in terms of range or overall power. Additionally, giving King Bob-omb a Dash Attack based on Mario Kart is a weird choice seeing as he’s barely in it, and while I like the idea of the Giga Bomb I do think it can be transplanted onto the SSpec easily enough. I’d probably make the Dash Attack some sort of slow bodyslam, since I don’t see many slow but strong moves to take advantage of his traps and it references the tendencies for Bob-ombs to throw themselves at their enemies.

While there’s a bit of roughness around the edges, there’s still plenty to like about King Bob-omb, and with a bit of work done to it it could rank higher than it already does.

PHILOMENA CUNK (WCF)

Cunk has a rather neat idea going for her, in that she can alter the game mechanics through thinking about them really hard. This enables her to give everyone an attack boost, float, or Yoshi’s shield, as well as create KOF Stadium walls surrounding the stage. I like the idea of giving yourself and the opponent a buff, and the idea can easily see use in another set. Cunk’s NSpec is also something I’m interested in, a frame 2 kill move that instakills if it breaks shield but is super punishable on whiff. Lastly, while not taken into account for the rating of the set, it’s hilarious, with the constant plays on words tickling my sense of humor in just the right way.

As a moveset, however, Cunk falls short. Aside from the float, no mention is made of how her tools intersect with her DSpec’s game altering, despite there being plenty of ways it can. Off the top of my head, Cunk’s strong USmash becomes more important when the KOF walls make upwards knockback the most consistent kill methods, and a better shield encourages the foe to shield more, which in turn can lead to the NSpec instakill. Additionally, a lot of the moves don’t really have a purpose described, most notably DThrow, which doesn’t even have knockback or damage listed.

My most striking issue is that the superpowers Cunk has here don’t make sense with the logic of her series (at least from what little I understand). I’m perfectly OK with giving non-powered characters superpowers in a Smash set, but they have to make sense within the context of said character - Villager can catch rockets as an extrapolation of Animal Crossing hammerspace, and Regina George can kill people with nasty rumors because nasty rumors in Mean Girls basically are weapons in the film. Cunk, from what I understand, comes from a fairly normal mockumentary where most of the humor comes from wordplay and bizarre statements said with a straight face, thus meaning there’s no basis for the reality warping DSpec gives her. If her moments of wonder do cause similar wacky things to happen in canon I’d be OK with it, but there’s no indication this is the case in the set (and you have to remember that not everyone in MYM has seen the series, or even heard of it until you posted the set - case in point, me). On that note, since Cunk is a documentary host, I’m wondering why you didn’t make the set hook actually documenting things; it makes more sense with the Cunk series’ logic (again speaking as someone with no experience with it) and can be just as intriguing as the one you went with if you think of a compelling enough thing to do with that.

This was still an enjoyable set to read, don’t get me wrong, but my ratings are based on a set’s quality as a set, not my personal reading experience. Cunk wasn’t made with being a “good” set in mind, but a funny one, and as a funny set it is very good.

ROLAND (tunz)

Roland is a fairly basic superheavy set, but that doesn’t mean there’s not anything worth looking at. He’s got a strong command grab NSpec that immediately gives him grappler elements, and which he can also use as a tool to punish shields. DSpec is also fairly interesting, being a three-part move that buries on the first hit; Roland can either go for the full combo for guaranteed reward or stop at the second hit for a potential big hit. The second hit is also notable since it’s probably the first move in modern MYM to deal set knockback storage, so uniqueness points there.

As for other moves, I did like Roland’s FTilt as a mixup option and a neat way of replicating the similar mixup in his actual fight. He’s got the requisite big strong FSmash, which gets extra use out of his pitfall, and a strong DAir that makes him quite fearsome at the ledge. Roland has a good balance of utility and kill moves that keeps him fairly balanced, with a notable move being BAir and its use in edgeguarding, while not being a combo move since his attacks are too slow to combo. Finally, his Up and Down Throws are neat in that they’re meant to counter DI that counters his primary throw options. Roland is a simple but perfectly good set overall, but the simplicity ultimately causes me to rank it lower than King Bob-omb despite Roland being overall less overpowered.

Link to comment archive here!
 
Slavic

Slavic

Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars
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Philomena Cunk by WeirdChillFever WeirdChillFever

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Close to one of the last characters I would have expected a moveset for, Philomena Cunk is a baffling and witty entry whose strength lies almost entirely in WCF's writing chops and an impeccable use of voice and comedic timing. It's a bit hard to comment on the substance of this set, in part because the first person perspective and distinct cadence can make it difficult at times to know exactly what she's doing, or what its effects could be. She's a very simple set in general besides her Neutral Special (which is spread out across the entirety of the moveset) and her Moments of Wonder through Down Special. It's really funny we get a return of the iconic Among Us 'blast zones are turned off so you can combo the foe instead of killing them' here, and I think it might even be fitting on Cunk. The effects are a disparate bunch, tied together only nominally by being related to topics of Smash that Cunk's interrogating. I do think mechanically that having an ability that can prevent shields from shrinking combined with an instant shield break move is a funny combo, especially when the latter guarantees a kill, though I don't think it necessarily benefits or hurts her (maybe the bigger shield is easier to hit?). Peach floating on for everyone is another interesting choice, though Philomena doesn't have a ton to work with here. The rest of the moveset is mainly references and jokes, not unlike a character like Game & Watch, though not nearly as cohesive mechanically.

Philomena Cunk asks an important question of Smash Bros we should all reflect on: where are all the bathrooms on the stages? But almost as profound, she asks the reader 'does a moveset need to be good?' Despite being a, well, objectively bad moveset in terms of glances at notes moves, I can't help but smile my way through the entire experience. MYM is unique compared to an in-game Smash moveset because it is near exclusively experienced through written word (and fancy pictures). Usually this creates a barrier between our understanding of the character and the intended product, needing to translate them to text as a way of describing how we envision a fighter. But Cunk takes the fact she's a written piece of work and runs away with it, becoming more of an exercise in vision and style than one in mechanics, and I think that's worth something. Should she have a better set? I mean, no, frankly, though editing this set a bit for clarity probably wouldn't hurt for people who (incorrectly) disagree with me. This is about as Philomena Cunk a moveset could be, and it's beautiful for that.

Regardless of how one feels about Cunk, I believe she will go down in MYM history, be more or less left in the back of people's minds, and pop up regularly for her iconic beats and style, much like the 1989 Belgian techno-anthem 'Pump Up the Jam'.


 
Slavic

Slavic

Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars
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Denji by tBruh tBruh

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Welcome to Make Your Move! I know you prefaced the moveset with a concern about the format, splitting the set across both tabs and slides, but it makes for a real slick presentation for your first set! Image sets used to be a bigger thing, and these feels like an appropriate successor to them. Seriously, props to the formatting, this moveset looks phenomenal! Since I started with talking about the presentation, I figure I'd talk about its pros and cons here. On the plus side, this moveset is a breeze to read. It fundamentally avoids walls of text that can movesets a little difficult to read, and the damage, frame data, and notes are laid out in clear and concise way. You can feel the effort put into getting this moveset together, and there's a tasteful amount of images to help break up the text as well.

On the other hand, it's very difficult to fit a lot of detail into the moves with this format, and while most of Denji's attacks are simple enough it's not an impairment it might clamp your ability to go for more mechanically ambitious sets down the road, should you stick with us (I hope you do! This is a really promising first set!). However, even here it occasionally crops up as an issue. Back Throw's animation is a little fuzzy for me, and breaking down the steps into longer sentences would probably help there. There's also a sweetspot mentioned on Forward Aerial but no details are given about it, including any difference in damage, knockback power, or launch angle.

Finally, the big bugbear with this format is it's incredibly difficult to work playstyle into the set, which as a first set probably isn't your priority but does make up a good chunk of movesets in the MYM standard format. I don't think it's necessarily a nail in the coffin for a presentation-style set like this, but Denji and potential future sets could absolutely benefit by having a normal written piece covering playstyle after all the attacks. Information about what moves can go into other moves, how Denji responds to different defensive options or aggressive pressure, his strengths and weaknesses as a fighter, and other matchup relevant information. It's easier to get a feel for how to write these out if you choose to read some of the movesets posted here or in previous contests, and you'll develop those skills with practice and criticism.

That said, I do have a soft spot in my heart for this set, though maybe a section at the beginning covering his powers a bit more would be beneficial. I thought Chainsaw Man was just a guy with a chainsaw for a head and so I had to learn on the fly a jury-rigged version of his powerset through the moves. One thing a lot of people will probably tell you is that you should consider migrating your Specials to the start of the set. It's certainly not mandatory, and there's a lot of takes about why or why not to do this. For me, it's simply a matter that Specials can be used at almost any time, while all other attacks are, to some degree, more situational. Specials are likely going to be the most referenced moves mathematically because of this, so logically the beginning is a good place. Additionally, a lot of sets use Specials to structure their moveset, and even Denji could benefit as his Neutral Special does affect how basically all of his moveset works.

Speaking of Neutral Special, there's some genuinely cool moves in this set! Starting with his Starter, it's a really fun, quick buff that becomes less potent each time he uses it. I'm a sucker for buffing moves, and the added touch that he pauses momentum in air leads to tantalizing thoughts of how he could weave that into intricate aerial combos. Down Special in the air is another stand-out Special for me: tethers that reel the fighter into their opponent are common even in Smash, but I don't think I've ever seen one that specializes in tethering downwards. It's cool, and a playstyle highlighting ways that this is useful or detrimental to Denji would be awesome. Two other moves excite me in this set, those being Neutral Aerial, with its unique held spinning attack (really makes him feel like a living chainsaw), and Down Smash, which has a fun way of extending its range.

Denji is a moveset that shows a lot of promise, and leaves a lot of room for you to grow as a moveset creator down the line. The presentation is impressive and I'd love to see what you do with it. Thanks for submitting, and welcome to the contest and hopefully the community!
 
Rychu

Rychu

Thane of Smashville
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SHAUNTAL
BY Arctic Tern Arctic Tern
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The return of the Trainer set, one of my most beloved classic MYM staple genres. I find it refreshing that the switching mechanic is very no-nonsense and barebones. Old, old set at this point, but Team Rocket Grunt and later the Trainer JOE duology made me think that these were only worth doing if there was some ridiculous gimmick attached to switching the Pokémon out, which is why I never finished one. Just as an FYI I am commenting these 3 as I finish them, and will give a summary of my overall thoughts at the end of the comment.

Starting with Chandelure (one of my lowkey favorite Pokémon), I immediately enjoy the take on the damage racking focused part of a 3-piece, as Chandelure is more focused on tricky hit-and-run trap tactics rather than being a straight up combo fiend. It's quite clever to have all of these lingering effects in a trainer set - unless I missed something, the fact that Will-O'-Wisp sticks around and continues to be a nuisance after Chandelure has been switched out, on top of the lingering flames and status effects that, while she can't necessarily take full advantage of, I assume her teammates can. That's sort of the tricky part of these trainer sets, I think - you want each to be able to stand on its own in some cases, but you also need them to come together as a much better whole, and Chandelure seems to be setting herself up to make her teammates better. Combine her tricky status effects with neat and natural feeling stuff like Nair's obscuring smog to cover switches and traps and Fthrow's use of Payback as a sort of one-time gambit in sticky situations, and she's as good a point (wo)man(delier) as any trainer set could ask for.

Onto Cofagrigus, the stage control/trap manipulation continues in full force with Psychic, which is so far my single favorite input in the entire set and what immediately sold me on Shauntal as a whole rather than as a collection of 3 movesets. Utilizing Cofagrigus' odd existence as essentially a cursed object (which I'm now realizing is true for all 3, huh), pulling foes into the coffin with ghostly hands and turning them into mummies or decaying the very earth ( really appreciate the visual reference to brown grass btw) upon which the coffin sits with Grass Knot is all very cool, and plays into this shared theme between the two Pokémon of cursing the opponent with status effects and bad luck - incredibly fitting for a Ghost-type trainer. This is probably reading too far in, but the vibe really does belay that the foe is trapped in some haunted location vying with angry poltergeists - fitting for an author! I think the only even slight criticism I may have for Cofagrigus is that it specializes a bit too much - I know that it's essentially the "specialist" of the team, but given that it's not great at combos, struggles speed-wise and isn't that great at KOing, I worry if, despite being conceptually very interesting, it would end up being the least useful of the 3 Pokémon. Not to the extent that Brawl Ivysaur is just useless, but the fact that it relies more on gimmicks and setup from its teammates feels like it's less able to stand on its own than Chandelure. Since it's part of a team, this is barely a nit to pick, but Chandelure ended up feeling like you could solo play her if you really wanted, which is not a vibe I get from Cofagrigus.

Finally onto Golurk, another lowkey fave, we have our big guy. The beef of the set, despite there being a distinct lack of meat on any of these Pokémon. Ironically, despite being the strongest numbers-wise, I do think Golurk is the weakest, or at least the least interesting, out of the three presented here. This definitely comes partially because Golurk has a very specific role to play - it's the finisher, the one that actually ends up taking advantage of all the build-up the other two did. This ironically gives it almost the opposite problem to Cofagrigus, in that Golurk feels as though it can function mostly fine played solo since it relies the least on gimmicks, really only interacting with their set-up in a very directly beneficial way, without giving too much back in terms of things that can be used by them. Of course, this is with the exception of the very hard interaction present between Chandelure's ability and Golurk's Neutral Special as well as the item creation and light terraforming, which feel natural but, in my opinion, end up being sort of the weakest of their kind between the three. Golurk certainly isn't bad, and I wouldn't say it makes the set worse, but it's certainly the most straightforward of the three and doesn't build on the previous two in the way that I thought Cofagrigus built fairly brilliantly on Chandelure.

On a whole, Shauntal is a very good modern entry into the Pokémon Trainer subgenre of movesets, using MYM's more modern understanding of set design in a way that feels very natural. If I had any strong critiques, they've been aired out in the individual Pokémon's sections - the only thing I think I would personally want out of this more is that I wish Cofagrigus and Golurk had a hard interaction between each other in the way the other two pairs do, but that's a bit of a minor note on an otherwise good set. The ideas here aren't as exciting or showy as some of your higher caliber sets like Freidrich, but the execution of the ideas remains as strong as ever. Shauntal is gonna be getting an A rank from me.

Kril
by tunz tunz
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Kril, at first glance, seems leagues more ambitious than previous tunz works I've read, beginning the set with a myriad of mechanics that make Kril unique as a smash fighter - though, this is fairly standard tunz work when looking in, as it follows your general trend of trying to translate mechanics as directly into Smash as possible. I think it works better for Kril here than it has on your Overwatch sets, at least to me, though there does come a point where I think maybe there's too much being stuffed into Kril mechanically. Having too many ideas is better than having too few ideas, but lets break down what Kril has to work with from just his mechanics and specials:

  • A dodge that works differently from every other dodge in the game
  • A float mechanic
  • A take on witch-time and foresight which gives him a near-automatic follow-up attack
  • A powerful automatic power move against foes with the shield-break condition
  • Two seperate shield specials that do wildly different things, one of which completely changes Kril's standard moveset
  • A special follow-up to a perfect parry
  • A mechanic that builds and expends special charges
  • A monado arts-style neutral special that actually works more like Hero's Magic menu giving him 8 Neutral Specials
  • Each of those Neutral specials (which each require a certain amount of charge) has a chance to special summon a little follower, of which he can have up to three, which each grant him different power-ups and have wildly varying synergies between them
  • A down special which randomly spawns a shell which affects his previously mentioned special rolling and dodging mechanics and changes his side special so now, on top of having 8 neutral specials with dozens of potential outcomes that affect his stats, he also has NINE potential side specials
So... yeah that is A LOT mechanically to take in all at once. It is genuinely hard to wrap one's head around this - something you admit in the set yourself. I'm not one to go through this sort of mechanic stacking, but I'm sure one of our smarter members can look through this set and find some insane combination that makes Kril the most busted character ever conceived even disregarding his myriad of special mechanics out the gate. I once again would urge that, perhaps, an approach you could take in the future is looking to adapt a character into a moveset rather than try to directly translate mechanics from games into a moveset where they might not fit. Between the mechanics and all the different potential specials, you have enough to make a moveset right there!

THAT being said, Kril is absolutely insane and, even if there was a point where I kind of gave up trying to keep track of all the different mechanics and stuff throughout, I did have fun, mostly because the character and ideas are incredibly charming. That, and you have a very... stream of consciousness writing style that, while occasionally making it an absolute hell to understand what the frick is actually happening, always seems just so excited to tell me about this cool stuff this guy can do - even if I think you do spend more time writing justifications for things being what they are rather than just telling me what the thing looks like and does. I was not exactly shy about not liking your Overwatch sets from last contest, and they had largely the same issues I have with Kril, but something about the fact that there is SO much packed in here as opposed to those which felt like they were really stretching and straining against your way of setmaking makes Kril a lot more fun if less digestible. I dunno. C.

Philomena Cunk
by WeirdChillFever WeirdChillFever
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Jesus christ what the hell is happening here. What is this. What am I doing. How much longer until the bread I'm baking is done. These are all questions I asked myself as I read Philomena Cunk, a thoroughly ungood moveset and perhaps the best thing to come out of the vast reaches of the internet since someone decided to cut Dr. Robotnik saying "Snooping as usual" in a way that made it sound like he was saying something altogether different and far more uncouth. In the same way that the Belgian Techno Anthem "Pump Up The Jam" was interpolated and remixed in Young Money alumni Lloyd's 2007 classic "Get It Shawty", WCF's Philomena Cunk moveset interpolates the Cunkster's odd way of thinking into a very funny and at times nearly profound exercise in questioning what a moveset even is. There are moves in it, obviously. A set, even. Oh, that's where the word comes from, I just got that. Anyway, there are things that will cause damage to be dealt and backs to be knocked and whatnot, but I feel like even talking about that sort of thing in depth sort of misses the whole point, which is that the entirety of Pump Up The Jam appears throughout the set at least twice, maybe more, but who's counting. I'm not. This moveset is like choosing to watch a comedy movie over something about life or whatever by Jean-Luc Godard. Like yeah, the Godard film is going to be better in every single way, but was there a single moment in Breathless or Pierrot le Fou that I can recall as flawlessly as I can the moment in the Rob Schneider vehicle The Benchwarmers where a large 40 year old professional mexican baseball player named Carlos hands an umpire a piece of paper that has "I am 12" written in green crayon along with a 10 dollar bill so he can play in a little league baseball game? No, partially because it wasn't Carlos that handed the umpire the paper, it was his coach played by comedy legend Tim Meadows but I thought that was too much for one explanation, and partially because that was funny as hell. What Am I talking about? Philomena Cunk is great and she goes in her own special Cunk Corner.

DILLON
by Hyper_Ridley Hyper_Ridley
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This is one of those games I heard about but never got around to playing - all the cool kids seemed to like it, and I was not one of those kids apparently. This set has everything: a sonic rollout, a monado arts menu, cowboy hats. Awesome. I need to play this game. First I'd need to buy a 3ds because obviously I would only ever play games on official hardware, but small price to pay for what appears to be exactly my kinda thing.

Anyway, Dillon is an exceedingly simple moveset which revolves around an incredibly robust take on a sonic-esque rolling ball attack helped by a very air-focused fundamentals game - the big wrench here is the tower, which gives an otherwise very straightforward aggressive brawler just a bit more strategy. There's a part of me that thinks that this thing might possibly be antithetical to Dillon's playstyle, as having to stop to throw the tower up for what could be minimal rewards as you're comboing opponents from corner to corner - though given the nature of the game, it's understandable why you'd want some sort of tower defense mechanic here. Perhaps a fast projectile that fires from offscreen could have gotten the same point across and been a bit more in-tune with what the rest of the set is doing? Not sure, to be honest. As it stands, Dillon is a set that has all of its P's and Q's minded, all of its i's dotted and t's crossed, and all of its melee fairly comprehensively put together in a way that makes him feel very intentional. I think Dillon would be very fun to play as a moveset. Without my hands on him, as a design document by itself, he feels a tiny bit barebones, even if those bones are strong and calcium-rich. I'd say he's about on-par with most of what I read of yours last contest: which is to say, I liked him, though he's probably closer to Fang that Miraidon. C!


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Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 12, 2022
Messages
153
DILLON (Hypah)

Dillon is a set based around his rolling attack, which is seemingly a clone of Sonic’s Spin Dash but has a lot of tricks that differentiate the two. Most notably, when Dillon lands his attack, he’s popped up along with the foe for follow ups, and his side aerials have a mechanic where landing them enables him to chase after them to pinball them around the stage. In addition to this, he also has a variety of towers suiting his game’s tower defense aspects, each of which have different niches in his gameplan without one being strictly better than the other. Finally, Dillon has an install DSpec that buffs his rolling attack and makes his shield tougher - and his shield is already tough, using his armadillo hide to make a shield that doesn’t shrink and deals recoil damage, though at the expense of not being able to make certain OoS options. All of this adds up to a very kinetic character with setplay aspects, a character I’d probably make good use of were the set to be implemented in Smash.

As is fitting for a set meant to be an actual Smash set, Dillon’s other attacks don’t have much in the way of gimmicks outside of what is outlined above, but are still pretty fun. He has a DAir that hits behind him, preventing cheesy kills with his rebound gimmick but enabling strong repositioning potential, an FTilt meant to counter swordies who can outrange him held back by his low ground speed, and multiple set knockback moves to hit the opponent in range of his towers. Dillon’s smashes are especially unique in that they introduce a universal mechanic to Smash 6: Super Smashes, which are essentially EX Smashes. His actual smashes are interesting as well, such as a projectile USmash to counter zoners and a DSmash with a strict timing window for the actual big hit that gets removed by the Super Smash version. The only move I thought was a bit weird was the DThrow - while the idea of staging a classic wild west quick draw is cool, it’s also mechanically different from any other Smash and sticks out notably when compared to Dillon’s otherwise grounded kit. I still like the idea, though, giving the opponent an opportunity to score damage at the cost of enabling Dillon to get a free combo if he wins the duel, though I do wonder how it works with characters who don’t have damaging NSpecs.

Overall, Dillon’s a pretty solid look on both how the character may play in Smash and a potential gimmick for the inevitable next Smash game. It isn’t as interesting or “weird” as other MYM sets are, but it doesn’t have to be for what it sets out to do.

KRIL (tunz)

Kril is a set based around versatility, having a lot of options at his disposal. His standard moves are that of a standard swordie, but he has a lot of mechanics, from an automatic counter should he dodge an attack to a weapon switch that alters most of his moveset to various passive buffs he can acquire and stack on top of one another. I admire the effort to fit in every aspect of Another Crab’s Treasure into Kril’s set, and I do think that several of them are pretty neat. The actual moves are basic for the most part, but they do fill their function, and there’s not much you can really do with his abilities that aren’t covered by the Specials.

My main issue with the set is that there’s simply too much in the set for me to really get any sense of a playstyle. I made an article that talks about high potential characters (shameless plug), and in it I say that you generally have to simplify or leave things out for the sake of the player since otherwise the set as a whole lacks cohesion. Kril very much does not, being a sort of “do anything” character (albeit one with a consistent weakness of thin hitboxes) who has more or less everything he has in his game. Versatility has been done well in sets before, but even then they usually have some sort of central hook or mechanic that the whole thing centers around that gives them focus. This isn’t the case for Kril, who can do most of his stuff with barely any setup, meaning that it overall doesn’t feel cohesive, not helped by the fact that it’s not really described how any of this works together.

I do appreciate the effort, but I ultimately think that the overall cluttered feeling of the set hurts Kril a lot, evening out in quality with Roland despite the sets being much different in terms of complexity. This is a lot shorter than my usual comments for sets of this length, but I don’t really have much to say about it.

DENJI (tBruh)

Denji’s a character I’ve had plenty of ideas for ever since I read Chainsaw Man, and it certainly does feel like the character. He has an interesting mechanic in which he can gain a damage and speed buff plus a heal with NSpec that becomes worse the more he uses it in quick succession and increases the recharge, creating a neat dichotomy of a longer buff vs. less time spent without it once it wears off. I’m also amused by the fact that your first MYM set has a boulder Special (boulders truly are the great equalizer) and I do like it - it’s a big strong projectile that isn’t that complicated but does give Denji a nice counter-zoning option. Finally, some of the moves have some neat gimmicks, like extending NAir’s hitbox by holding the button and a DSmash that creates ranged pre-charge hitboxes that hit the opponent towards the main hit.

While I do like the ideas behind the set, there’s ultimately not much of a playstyle I can find, besides a basic “aggressive” gameplan by virtue of Denji’s good mobility and mostly melee moves. There’s generally not a lot of description of how his moves can work together to form combos or kill confirms, get him out of disadvantage or play neutral, leaving his moves as just moves. While I feel that Denji should be an aggressive character, as a Chainsaw Man fan I can safely say that he isn’t nearly as aggressive as he should be. This is someone who canonically set himself on fire to beat a foe, big unga-bunga tactics and risk-taking are something that he should absolutely be doing and I don’t see a lot of that here. If you don’t want to change the set, Denji’s powers drain his blood and risk his life the more he uses them, which is pretty easy to interpret as self-damage when he uses his attacks (which also pairs well with NSpec’s healing).

In addition to the more overarching issue, I do have some more specific balancing issues. DTilt is a move that inflicts a lot of hitstun, comes out frame 4 and has 17 frame endlag; since there’s no description of what happens when the foe is hit by DTilt again, it’s very possible that this infinites. Additionally, some of the numbers are a bit weird; Denji’s combo throw is the most damaging of his throws, which are generally weaker damage wise than other throws, and his DAir spike has a damage percent that seems a bit low for how strong spikes usually are. Most of the frame data seems reasonable at a glance and most of the numbers are appropriate, but these stand out as particularly odd to me.

Denji still shows promise, however, on account of his interesting mechanics and the numbers showing more knowledge of frame data than a lot of other newcomers. I do hope that you end up posting more sets beyond this, since I do like the presentation quite a bit and I do feel that there aren’t as many opening week sets as usual.

Link to comment archive here!
 
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BrazilianGuy

BrazilianGuy

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Brazilian's Attempt to Read Everything - The Bomb and the Interviewer
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Starting with the round boy, King Bob-Omb is a very fun character since he can be done in a variety of ways, I tried doing something with him back in the Movetober days, and I enjoyed this heavy trap zoner interpretation of him with a kit of Specials that plays around itself really well.

I've seen some comments talking about the 5 bombs being a bit much, but I think that's manageable in a fight since that's just the maximum amount he can put out, realistically due to his size and weight I think he'd probably struggle to get all of it out while still having to battle his foes. I also really love the forward tilt being a golf swing, its a genius way to have him move around his Bob-Ombs while also referencing what I think is one of his more stand-out appearances. His throws being strong is also a great nod to 64.

That's another thing I really liked, you took everything the King had to offer, no matter if it was the main games, spin-off, or RPG, and I enjoyed that. Really feels like the character is being celebrated, I sometimes forget but yeah, KBB is a pretty OG Mario Character.

I do think his Dash Attack is quite complex for the command it is on, almost feeling like more of a Special Move with how much it offers to the King, even kind of ignoring his meh speed by making him go super fast (Little Mac run is really good, especially for a heavy). And I do like the Mario Kart nod, but idk, its a fun move just feel that when paired with the Cannons and Conveyors it feels a little out of place as a Dash Attack.

All in all, I enjoy your take on the King and think he is a great way to start out MYM 28!
In other years I've been a bit more vague with my ratings, since tbh I didn't feel confident enough giving them one, but new year new me, King Bob-Omb is a nice B Tier for me.


Trully, a Cunk moment.

If I'm being honest Philomena is very hard to rank because by God, does she gets a lot of points on the funny factor, and I really care about the funny factor. The set keeps the humor up at such a quick pace and also does a phenomenal job at introducing the character, I knew 0 things about Cunk before reading this but now I'm considering watching her show. As a student of journalism, she serves as a great source of inspiration.

The way she narrates her own attacks is super fun, of course, it doesn't result in the most in-depth moveset ever, but I mean who cares? It's funny. She has a very Phoenix Wright/Game&Watch/Velma type of moveset and it really fits her. I personally found her Down Throw the funniest move, it barely even says what she does for an attack but it had me laughing a good bit, it also builds up the Belgian Techno Anthem “Pump up the Jam" bit which is great, however...

I was reading Philo on my phone initially, and whenever it got to a Belgian Techno Anthem “Pump up the Jam" part it just showed this:
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and I had no idea I had to swipe to see what the move actually did. This isn't a diss against the set, it's just a funne that happened to me, I just thought her Neutral Special played the song and nothing else.

With all of her reality-changing powers, summoning people to interview, and making foes go into the movie realm only to be damaged in a throw, Cunk has a fun but simple description set, but for what she's doing, that's fitting and I had a great time reading. I however will place her in the Cunk tier, something I've seen other people also do.
 
BridgesWithTurtles

BridgesWithTurtles

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As someone who rarely ever dabbles in Mario spinoffs, this set has made it clear to me that King Bob-Omb appears in a lot more games than I realized. It's also one of my favorite overly-specific moveset archetypes: tertiary characters from platforming games who also happen to be heavyweights. I enjoy the general idea of making KBO a pseudo-camper, given the SM64 boss fight is basically built on the idea that you can't approach him head-on.

I understand that apparently you had a higher limit on bomb spawns before I got around to reading, but honestly, even the new maximum of bomb minions at a time with Neutral Special seems like a lot. I'd probably pare it back to 2 at most since you can already spawn identical such minions from several different moves anyway. Like yeah, he'd probably never use that many at once due to how easily it could backfire, but if that's the case, why even have the option? Might be unnecessarily resource-intensive. Not a major issue, but just something I found myself thinking about.

You get a lot of cool interactions out of the cannon, I must admit. They're all the sorts of things you'd expect, but it comes together nicely and makes for a fun basis to build the set around.

Having the cannon simply disappear when deployed in midair is an interesting decision. I get why you wouldn't want to have KBO be able to enter a cannon while airborne, but I don't know if it'd actually be that unbalanced if you put a more strict timer on how long he could stay inside it before being shot. Maybe it could just fire him instantly. Or maybe just make it so it's not occupiable until it lands, that way it can still work as a downward projectile. It's not a huge detriment to the set that he can't do this, granted.

Jab is a fun little move. I always like seeing Jabs with a lot of practical utility packed in. This one does some neat stuff with jab-locks and has a nice interplay between Jab 1 and Jab 3.

I always found movesets giving tertiary Mario characters karts and sports equipment and stuff like that to be tacky, but I guess there really isn't too much to draw on for this character, and for what it's worth, I do think the moves that reference these appearances contribute pretty well to the overall vision. Dash attack is a pretty fun move as it's described. Making the move basically a fifth special is pretty bold. I also think Ftilt being a golf swing fits better on this character than it would most others, what with his focus on spherical projectiles and an association of royalty/wealthy folk with games like golf.

Really like how Fsmash logically changes when a red bomb is already in play, giving the move multiple types of use cases. Though I think the AoE on the bomb's explosion is a little too nuts, even with a minimum charge, and would probably reduce it for balance purposes. This is a smash attack that can be thrown out semi-regularly, after all, not Magic Burst. The smart bomb-sized explosion is a little much.

The throws are all a little brisk, but I think they all serve a decent purpose. I would expect KBO to be a little more of an involved grappler based on his boss fight, but considering how much of a pushover he is in that appearance, maybe it's for the best he settled on being more of a camper instead.

I appreciate how you went to good lengths to shape damage output on KBO's moves around his minions' HP thresholds. Really helps balance how chaotic he can be with his explosives, and gives some mindfulness to the madness. There's generally a good sense of mindfulness about balance throughout the set, even if I don't think it always makes the landing in every instance.

Wow, seeing both pieces of art side-by-side, I can't overstate how much I prefer Dillon's original design to the one from the third game, haha. Guess I know which alt I'm maining. Cool to see another character from this IP, btw. Always like to see speculative sets for characters people actually want/hope to get into Smash.

Very interesting handling of the Charge Attack's interaction with shields, essentially forcing a frame-neutral state but where both players are left blocking. Right out the gate, it builds up the idea of Dillon being a character that's aggressively defensive when fighting up close, and in tandem with the passive spike hitbox on his shield frames, it makes him feel like a defensive fighter whose defenses somehow feel threatening, which I think is probably a really hard concept to pull off. Ironically, even though he's less mobile than Sonic, who's also a notoriously defensive character in Smash, Dillon comes across as having a more aggro, in-your-face playstyle.

Quite enjoy how Dillon is built as a high-risk/high-reward fighter. It represents the tower defense gameplay of the series really well, which from what I remember, placed a lot of emphasis on committing to decisions in advance of gameplay. If you made bad preparations before starting a level, it usually came back to bite you pretty hard, as there wasn't much of anything you could do to accomodate in real-time.

I like Forward Throw purely for the animation. I love unique animations that inject personality/theming like that. Down Throw is actually kind of bonkers, and I'm split over whether I love the ultimate sense of risk-reward it plays with, or if I think it's too gimmicky for my tastes. I guess it's both extremes at the same time, for me.

And speaking of gimmicks, I wasn't expecting the Smash Attacks section to introduce an entire new gameplay mechanic. It's not particularly egregious to pull a reveal like this here, since even if the mechanic itself doesn't tickle one's fancy, there's no harm in thinking of it as a character-specific mechanic that works off of the already established Arma meter. That said, I don't think the super smashes really add all too much to the full picture, and the set could get along fine without them.

There's some real competent combo theorizing going on here, but I personally think that the set shines most when it's laying out its more defensive and counter-zoning aspects.

I enjoyed the effort. Dillon was a fun read, and your passion for the character comes through in the writing and obvious amount of thought put into it. Here's hoping they replace Sonic with Dillon in Smash 6, as nature intended.
 
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Hyper_Ridley

Hyper_Ridley

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Shauntal by ArticTern
I like how your idea of cutting back on the day 1 posting is to post 3 sets in one ;)

All 3 of these ghosts were in my Black team, so it's cool to see them reunited in a way. There's a great balance of explicit and implicit ways the team can set each other up, and a healthy amount of ghost-type trickery to compliment the more straightforwards aspects of their kits. All 3 had really flavorful animations and it was fun seeing some of their inputs reflect these specific individuals of their species. Each could hold their own for the dedicated mains, while still having the team synergy to explore for the future ghost elite 4 trainers.

I'm impressed with how all 3 sets managed to get across all the info and strategy notes of inputs, even discussing the teamwork aspects, without feeling long-winded. I read one a day, but each read was done in a single sitting.

Was worried for a moment when Chandelure was described as a close-up damage builder, but she thankfully still has several cool(hot?) zoning tools befitting her Special Attack. She feels like a spiritual(heh) successor to Drifblim from last contest, a friend-shaped floaty multi-limbed ghost who likes to blow stuff out a hole. She's even got a lingering tornado on a down input. It is a bit strange to have as her first in the lineup when she's Shauntal's ace, but in context it makes sense. Certainly not worth screwing up everything else in the sets just to force her to be "last" when players can choose which one to start with anyway.

Cofagrigus is a heavyweight with some armor befitting her defense stat, and her shadowy limbs give her a way to play up her special-attacking "focus" without making her into a full projectile zoner. Turning Mummy into a debuffing grab is the most feasible way to adapt it to Smash, and the interaction with Golurk is probably my favorite part of the trio. I do wish it disabled some passives like Tough Guy, Ice-Climbers' traction, or Bowser Jr's hurtboxes, but that could understandably turn into a logistical black hole. Hula-hoop Shadow Ball NAir is such a choice, and FThrow is the rare instance of a MYM cargo throw that doesn't feel tacky.

And then there's Golurk, the BIG BOY of the team. Lots of raw punching power, punching away projectiles, even punching as a projectile. USmash was a clever way of infusing some ghost-type weirdness into the moveset while still playing up the ground golem character, and the DSmash rock (mini-boulder) was a cute charge bonus. Love the grab animation, I couldn't help but imagine Ridley and Bowser being squished inside Golurk's grip. While the casual nature of 3/4 throws is fitting, DThrow's after-effect is also great; you can hit someone so hard it dislodges their shadow.

Dash Attack + USmash interaction was the one thing that was a bit too much. Getting to Kool-Aid Man your way through the wall is already awesome on its own, but the stone projectile ironically takes away from the impact in a way. Maybe instead of a missile, it dislodges a smaller rock in a slow arc that falls atop Golurk during the end lag, so the emphasis is still on the big strong dash attack, with the rock there to keep it safe.

Overall, great work! While Regina George is my favorite set you've been involved with, for a solo effort these are a 3-way tie!

Philomena Cunk by WeirdChillFever
This is one moveset where the Smashboards post is needed for the full experience.

Where Shauntal was written in a clean, concise way, Cunk goes the opposite direction and is a full-blown script for an entry of her series. Never watched it (yet) but I was laughing the whole way through! I almost wish you skipped the explanation at the start and just went straight into the madness, really make the reader question just what dafuq they are looking at. Despite the goofiness, you did a good job of describing the actual attacks themselves, there's even a reverse-uno moment of that Neutral Special being the one input to be described matter-of-factually.

As for the moveset itself, this is a pretty fun way to translate mockumentary tropes into a fighting game. The hand clasp jab combo, the jumpcut teleport, the wide-angle arm-spread DSmash...perfection. Then there's the more out-there stuff that I presume is Cunk's brand of goofy, like the extraneous voice-overs that double as time bombs, or of course the, ahem, neutral special. Not sure what I was expecting it to be, but I was NOT expecting it to be a rest-style mega hit that KOs on shield break!

My one issue is that she feels a bit on the weak side. I guess she's supposed to be about those momentary wonderful buffs, but they apply to everyone so she's still relatively behind the curve. But if my biggest criticism about a fanfic moveset is it's on-paper numbers feeling off, that must be a pretty dang good faneset!

1/14
King Bob-Omb by tunz
His Mighty Explodiness has been teased for a while, glad to see him finally show up. There's a cool combo of Bob-omb minions and tools from his spinoff appearances to turn any stage into royal turf. Love how he can even shoot himself out of the cannon, Up Special into cannon is the designated newb-killer play.

The most important critique, if only one is heeded: Where's the Mario 64 toss!? This guy's been throwing people off platforming mountaintops before Smash Bros was even a thing!

The passive is a cute idea, but I almost wish he could just straight-up summon the Bob-omb items. Sure, the match would be over in seconds, but that makes it more authentic to the typical Mario boss ;)

I distinctly remember Dash Attack being mentioned on the preview channel, now I see why. The move itself is cool, but it should probably be more like a Dash Special. Could even have this be Side-B in the air, immediately going into glider mode. (It's hilarious that gliders are now considered a "classic" mechanic despite originating in 7, yet we're effectively still in 8. New Mario Kart plz)

I am that guy in FFA who will keep trying to drop the FSmash bomb over a ledge while charging the kick to hit someone else. When I finally stop doing that, it's time to keep driving my kart over to the cannon, swerving around, and depositing Giga Bob-ombs into them.

USmash armor feels a bit much, considering he already has an intangible UTilt for anti-air, a couple spammable aerials, and the move has safety perks through Bob-omb spawning and cannon interactions. Perhaps transfer it to DSmash? Or for extra meme potential, place it on Jab3, the King's roll cannot be stopped!

There is a severe lack of Samus in the Classic Mode lineup.

Kirby getting Bob-Omb Buddies is adorable. KBO even looks like a Kirby miniboss that would grant Bomb.

So yeah, big guy go boom, much fun, great job, I await the half-A-press KBO speedrun of MYM28's story mode.
 
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Slavic

Slavic

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Dillon by Hyper_Ridley Hyper_Ridley

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My set-reading for Hypah's been on the decidedly low side, given my absence from last contest's commentary, but I think this is a great introduction to his writing style and vision! The parallels between Sonic and Dillon are deliberate within the set, and at times feel almost... envious? ...spiteful? for the Red Flash, not in a negative Warlordian way but in a 'We have Sonic at home" way. Whereas Sonic can get away with having effectively three of the same Special and just brawling attacks thanks to his wild speed, Dillon has to play the conservative tactician much like famous chair-talker Clint Eastwood. A high mobility set on a slow, chunky character like Dillon is actually pretty cool to see, and I'm always a sucker for big movement sets. Dillon's Rolling Attack (reads like it) feels great to use and land, not unlike the inferior mammal's Homing Attack, and it makes a great centerpiece for Dillon's gameplan. I also appreciate the many results Rolling Attack has, and as Kat has mentioned ending in your shield after hitting a foe's shield is a really neat concept.

In general, I think Dillon's shield is a genuinely neat mechanic, and sacrificing his shield-grab for no shield-shrink AND chip damage back at foes is rad, I love when sets play around with shields like that. The lack of an OoS grab is just the tip of the iceberg in the air-vs-ground dichotomy Dillon has, playing heavily defensive on the ground versus his free-wheeling aggression in the air. His best options against his biggest weaknesses, fighters with a lot of disjoint on attacks, being on the ground means in these matchups when he takes the backfoot Dillon needs to buckle down and really play defense for an opening. Tower... defense... Dillon also has his (four) tower(s), which give him both something to defend and something to defend him on approaches. It doesn't quite feel like a tower defense in Smash, given Dillon basically always wants to be the approacher if he can, but it doesn't really slow him down and the versatility of the different towers gives Dillon nuance to his strategy. It's a straightforward stage-control element but that works very well for Dillon's gameplan, allowing him to rack damage, threaten ledges, or even counter-snipe range-happy opponents. Anything more complicated would take away from Dillon's vibe, I think, and anything more powerful would encourage him to play more a coward.

His melee kit is competent, and his aerials have a few fun tricks to them. I do wish I was wowed a bit more by the aerials, I think, given how often Dillon will end up in the air, but that's not to say they're bad by any means. Neutral Air stands out (and weirdly another holdable NAir like Denji possesses) and between it's dragging hits and the flurry of combos Dillon can put out with FAir and BAir he feels like a proper aerial combo character. The held versions of the moves are probably the closest the aerial game has to a proper punctation, and the way they continue to play into his mobility is cool. It all feels very cohesive, which makes it feel bad to gripe about. Normally I don't mind repeated input ideas (and mirrored / near mirrored aerials I think work just fine these days when moves are as thought out as they are), but here I think FAir having this cool attack and then giving BAir a big finishing option to round out the section. Not giving him a proper meteor spike is the right choice here, it does feel like he's kind of holding back as an aerial combatant. A spiking DAir like a Mario punch I think would be a fine inclusion as long as it's not a hitbox directly under Dillon, as an example. It also does feel like Dillon's falling into a trap of having a cool mobility tool and conceptually rigid options to use out of it. Dillon would be a character who could benefit from Aerial Smashes, I think, though I'm not going to demerit a set for lacking exotic inputs.

While the aerials are designed as all comboing out of Rolling Attack and often with each other, his grounded standards are effectively tools to solve problems in Dillon's set. Attacked by a sword? Big hand. Foe's not in the air? Put them there. Special shoutout to Dash Attack because we get a few frames of cool shield recoil stuff, he really runs away with this mechanic and every time it pops up past the stats I smile a bit. His grab game feels like it should be defensive, given he's often rushing into the foe with his Rolling Attack, but without an OoS grab it feels more situational to me I think than intended. I don't even think this is a bad thing, but because of this I think Dillon could afford a strong grab game. Forward Throw is exactly what Dillon needs to convert back into his gameplan, and the other three throws are all, at baseline, interesting.

Down Throw is the obvious fascination point here, and I think there's a lot of potential to it. The risk versus reward, everything pauses concept is something I like, but I have a few issues with the input. First, and an easy change, I think 2-4 seconds of effectively pausing gameplay is excessive, and a random value between 30 and, say, 90 frames would feel a lot better to me. Second, I don't think Dillon gets enough reward off of the attack at all. While not guaranteed, Forward Throw sets up for a Rolling Attack already, and so risking a foe's Neutral Special almost never feels worth it. I'm not really sure what the fix for this is, as I want this move to stay in. The animation and idea is too cool to give up, but it feels like it's almost always a bad option for Dillon out of his throws.

I was thinking it was a shame Dillon lacked cowboy-esque projectiles, I assumed because of his source material, but his Up Smash gives us an interesting take on it. I also did not expect those engine thingies to be detachable, so that threw me for a loop when I got to the Smashes. I like the flavor of all the Smashes using this bomb-chip type attack method, it has a good feel to it, and really I don't have much to say about the specific attacks. I like them, they work, excellent job! There's also the unique inclusion of Super Smashes here, and like most readers it seems I find them inoffensive but not particularly wow-ing. It feels like how Smash might do a super meter, though, so props to that. I think the boosted Smashes using the Smash meter is a worthwhile reward, but since it's a canon meter that also goes up for other reasons it doesn't quite feel like a proper reward off Arma Boost. Feels like Down Special could use a little extra oomph to it, one extra effect, though you know I'm all about that extra shield recoil!

I also really dig the extra tabs! I love stages, items, Spirit Battles, and the like, and tabs give an excellent way to include them! All in all, I appreciated reading Dillon, and as a character I knew very little about it's neat to see a thorough breakdown of who he is and what he does. I think you accomplished what you set out to do fairly well, and there's still lots of room to innovate and grow. While it's not a mark of incredible quality necessarily, I do love reading a set I can't help but come up with suggestions for as I read, it reminds me someone's written something I can get invested in. You've got a punchy and casual writing style, and while a few animations are a bit tricky for me to parse this was a very solid set!
 
BridgesWithTurtles

BridgesWithTurtles

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The child appeared stone-faced, yet despite this, a warm softness still permeated from some unidentifiable aspect of her expression - or that was how it seemed; perhaps some of them were reading too far into things. After so much toil, trust in one's own senses - not just that of sight and sound, but also of basic trust in one's own ability to read the intentions of others - was liable to deteriorate. It was nonetheless undeniable that even after the ordeals she'd been harrowed by, the child had been resolute in maintaining an outward showing of calm that even battle-hardened warriors well beyond her age would struggle to achieve. Even the steadfast reporter, admittedly without much interest or effort, could hardly reap a smile from her. Perhaps it was to be expected that discussion of 1980s European club hits would be outside of the child's frame of reference.

Regardless. To all of them who observed, it baffled the mind enough to cause inquiries. Perhaps someone like the armadillo could get away with exuding such stoicism, but surely not an innocent youngster like the one that now graced their presence.

"Are you not shaken, child? Since you've been here with us, you've met with the bombs and cannons of kings, ghouls and spirits, and an assortment of weaponry no single crustacean should have at their disposal. Do not even chainsaws move you to flinch?"

No time was given to answer. The rhythmic pounding of leather boots approached, punctuated by an impatient grunt, as the lonesome armadillo, having seemingly overheard, stepped close to the child. "It doesn't matter," the normally silent xenarthran stated. "The kid may have that ferocious pet defending her with its very life, but she's gonna have to know how to fight if she doesn't want to be dead weight." Detaching one of the engines from his belt, he handed it to the child, who clasped the weapon without hesitation. Suddenly, all that warmth she exuded cooled away. The armadillo, for the briefest of moments, actually shuddered at the steely cold of the child's all-too-eager hand.

He pushed any meaningless thoughts aside before they could form. "Do you know how to use one of these?" he asked, leering eyes demanding an answer. The child's pet, having yet to leave her side, leered straight back in a protective manner.

For the first time as far as anyone could tell, a grin formed upon the child's face, and she replied promptly. "I thought you'd never ask."​
 
Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern

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CREAM & CHEESE (Turtles)

Cream and Cheese are, as described in the set itself, a “baby’s first puppet fighter”. While still harder to use than most other characters just by virtue of their archetype, Cream’s solo set is much safer overall than someone like Rosalina and Cheese can not only be sent away from the battlefield safely but can’t even be KOed, so Cream always has access to his attacks. The player still can’t spam attacks, however, as Cheese has a stamina mechanic that decreases the power of moves the more he attacks - and Cheese has basically all of the kill power in the set (Cream doesn’t even have smashes of her own). As such, the player still needs to use Cream and Cheese’s attacks in tandem in order to actually win a match.

The actual set generally leans on the simpler side for attacks, but the attacks don’t really need to be complicated when the puppet fighter playstyle already supplies them with depth. There’s some interesting ways that it plays on the mechanics, like Cheese having a long duration DTilt that Cream can combo into using her much quicker to end DTilt or comboing their stall-then-fall DAirs into each other. I particularly liked the fact that DSmash gets stronger instead of weaker the less stamina Cheese has, giving the duo a last-ditch defensive option in case Cheese’s stamina is too low to use anything else, and literally attacking with tears is a goofy but fitting animation for a fairly cartoony character. NSpec is the main way Cream desyncs Cheese, and the main attack feels just like it should, a quick, spammable attack that she would have no reason to not use every chance she gets if it weren’t for it being resource-intensive. Lastly is the grab game, which actually gives Cream and Cheese two different grab games; Cream’s throws are more based on setups and combos, while Cheese’s are meant for KOing and securing advantage states.

I particularly like the emphasis on management of both Cheese and his resources here. While not stated in the set, a lot of Cream’s defensive options without Cheese are flawed (her Jab and grab are on the faster side but short ranged) or literally nonexistent (NAir, USmash). On the other hand, Cheese enables combos that otherwise aren’t possible - NAir, as an example, is an incredibly spammable attack that leads into most of their other options and is an excellent positioning tool. It feels a lot like an attempt to interpret the Chao Garden into the Smash format, which was certainly intentional given the multiple references to the mode in Cheese’s attacks. I do feel that the 10% damage to remove one bar of stamina is a bit too high, seeing as there can be up to 17 bars and from what I know most of the attacks that do 10% in one hit are on the slower side; it also irks me a bit that the Chao Dash NSpec option doesn’t have its max distance stated. It’s still a nice follow up to the Sonic renaissance we had the past contest, and proof that puppet fighter sets don’t need to be super complicated.

Link to comment archive here!
 
Slavic

Slavic

Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars
Joined
Jun 5, 2013
Messages
763
Location
taco bell, probablyn't
Kril by tunz tunz

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Another Crab's Treasure is on my short list of games I'd like to get to, and this set makes a great advertisement for it! I'll preface this comment that it's likely going to sound harsh for the effort that went into it and I have a lot of criticism for our crustaceous protagonist. Despite that, I had a great time reading the set, and a big undertaking like this, even if it doesn't go over well, gives you a lot of raw practice to strengthen your setmaking moving forward.

The biggest sticking point for Kril, and it seems like other readers agree so far, is that Kril has a lot going for him. Like, probably too much? Lately, though, I've been trying to meet sets on their terms, try and connect with the writer's vision as best I can, and I can see the appeal here. Besides wanting to translate what looks like a favorite game of yours, you talk a good amount about players creating different builds while playing Kril. This idea does give a good feel for how a Souls-like action RPG works, but there's a few glaring issues with Kril's implementation, so work with me here.

First, RNG. With Shells and Stowaways both locked behind RNG mechanics, it's difficult for players to meaningfully work towards a build. Stowaways are locked behind resource consumption through the use of Adaptations if I'm reading correctly, and there's quite a lot of them for players to keep track of. The packing peanut, as an example, has a pretty trivial effect of removing blast zone damage. It's not completely useless, but in most fights I think it would be a big dud for using a resource-costing attack if a player's goal is to build their Kril up. The randomization of these elements also makes Another Crab's Treasure feel more like a rogue-like, which to my knowledge it is not in any way. Additionally, using an Adaptation has a chance of not dropping a Stowaway, which feels real bad in practice.

Second, complexity. I think the biggest issue with Kril is the sheer volume of content his mechanics provide, and would make both playing as and against Kril a nightmare to learn. It's like Hero's spells a few times over, but where those spells have situational uses and the ability to choose from four freely, all combatants just have to deal with whatever Stowaway drops. The shells as well have very nominal differences in health, and only two of the standard shells lack the ability to roll that all the others have. Obviously there's the Shell Spells to contend with, and this adds yet another layer of complexity for both players. As you state in your set a few times, there's no reasonable way for you to cover all the synergy and combinations these provide.

Thankfully, there's a solution: don't! My suggestion, if you were to make a radical change to the set or remake it, or just to put an idea in your head for future sets, is this: it's clear you have a few ideas for builds already. The triple fish build sounds genuinely really fun, but getting any one of them has a 3.75% chance of dropping from a specific resource-costing move, and only if it's in the 75% chance of a Stowaway drop. With how fast matches are in Smash, it just feels unlikely to get any three Stowaways you want. So instead, just give the player the choice between a handful of builds. I see a world where instead of dropping Stowaways, Kril can pick from four shells whenever his breaks using, for instance, his Neutral Special. Each of these Shells would have three pre-set Stowaways, its Shell Spell (obviously), and an Adaptation that Kril can use. This streamlines the process to getting to the fun part of Kril, playing with different styles, but still locks you in (I imagine using Neutral Special while you have a Shell would activate the Adaptation for that Shell build).

Additionally, I don't think Shells should take damage when Kril isn't shielding. I don't think that would be very fun for players, especially when most of the shells have a healthpool around 30 or 40. However, I do think using Hammer attacks should deplete the shell's health, though! It would be cool to choose between keeping your build going at the cost of weaker attacks or burning through it with your powerful hammer, and given some of the hammer moves are really strong (NAir seems quite good but I'm not a huge numbers person) it would help balance it. I also think Shield Special could be streamlined, and simply allow Kril to toggle between Hammer and Fork directly, rather than forcing him to eject his shell and then hit it with one of two slowish attacks. I know it's probably not how the mechanic works in Smash, but there's artistic license to be had for the sake of making a fun fighting game moveset.

I also want to talk about the set's actual writing, not something I normally bring up. First, the phrase 'we'll get to that later' or some variation pops up way too much in the first third of the set, and if you find yourself writing the same thing repeatedly it's probably a sign to reorganize something. I'm not sure how you do your set writing, but I'd recommend if possible using pen and paper to conceptualize your movesets. It's much easier to move things around, draw arrows, and figure out the cleanest ways to disperse information, and helps reduce redundancy a lot in my experience.

Second, and this was brought up by I think Kat? You do not need to justify attacks to the degree Kril has. At times it feels like you're held at gunpoint to make a lore accurate Kril set and almost apologetically making artistic changes that most readers wouldn't even realize are there otherwise. You are the arbiter of your moveset, and if you want commentary on differences it's often best to put that in a separate section or even a tab, now that we have this lovely new Google Docs functionality. There are whole paragraphs of Kril's set that have very little to do with the moveset, and not only is it needlessly wordy at times it makes understanding what the actual set is doing muddled.

There's also some visual critiques I have of the set. Thankfully, the sections of color-coded mechanics are short, but the colors are way too high contrast. There's a lot of bleeding into the background, specifically for Riposte and the Umami Charges, which is an eyesore and genuinely makes me worried about getting a migraine as I'm sensitive to that a bit. Not something you have to feel bad or apologize for, but just a heads up you'll want to use lower saturation colors on a bright background like this I think. An easy fix I'd highly recommend you make if none others.

Another issue is with the images. Images are a slippery slope because they are essential in a moveset for breaking up walls of text, and often provide a useful visual reference for readers. However, Kril is full of mid-motion images with particle effects freeze-framed in that makes understanding what is happening in the image and the move more confusing rather than less. It's a lot more work, but if you'd like all these references I'd recommend using a tool like ScreenToGif to capture YouTube footage, as animated images would help clear a lot of these up. Even with image descriptions a lot of the images leave me scratching my head, which is unfortunate. With a second take and some elbow grease, I really think Kril could be streamlined to well under its current word count, something I consider a positive.

The actual moveset itself, beyond what I've mentioned, I think is solid conceptually! We don't get a lot of build-dependent action RPG protags in MYM and I think you've experienced why, but seeing an ambitious take helps me and I hope you build an idea on how to do this idea more successfully. Just the difference between fork and hammer attacks feels like an organic way to change builds without too much complexity, and while most of the attacks aren't mind-blowing I think that works for a set designed to have a lot of dynamic elements. Down Air is a cool take on a stall-and-fall, helping to contribute to the floaty feel of an underwater character like Kril. Really, there's few individual parts I have much trouble with in his set past the mountain of mechanics, it's a solid melee set past his Specials!

I see the potential for a really cool set here, and the passion you have for the character and his source material bleeds through in bright colors like your text choice. I'm only as critical as I am because I want to see this set be better, and the effort that's already gone into him leads me to believe you'll take at least some of this to heart, even if you never get around to an intense set of edits for Kril. I really appreciate how you went all out on the Assist Trophies and especially bosses, something we don't get a ton of as an extra, and good to have for delicious MYM classic and story modes! Thanks for the set, and I hope to continue seeing ambitious sets from you in the future.
 
Daehypeels

Daehypeels

Smash Rookie
Joined
Sep 10, 2022
Messages
15
King Bob-Omb - by tunz

-Completely new to reading your sets, so I’m unfamiliar with how long you’ve been using them, but I like the opening disclaimer. To the point, gets a few questions out of the way immediately, it’s appreciated. Haven’t heard of specifying that aerials lack the shorthop nerf before… have people confused that with their “default” damage?
Mostly solid disclaimer, although I’d recommend adding whether the 1v1 damage multiplier is used or not; if you’re going to bring up one multiplier, it’s likely to remind people that the other one exists.

-Skipping ahead, looks like you use an identical template for your movesets (currently, at least). I think that’ll mostly be fine, but the “Equipment & Abilities” section is two short paragraphs, with one describing some loose abilities he’s had across the series, and the other describing some games he’s showed up in - no proper mention of equipment or lack thereof. This is a complete nitpick like the above point, but it makes your template negatively stick out like a sore thumb, and an easy way to polish it would be to change the section names if they don’t fit the moveset.

-Stats section is pleasant (was expecting him to be heavier given his size and what he’s made of, but it’s hardly a deal-breaker and might be better balance-wise), and overall liking the tone of your writing. Nice and casual~
Edit from the future: if others haven’t already mentioned it, he lacks a fallspeed, which would be nice to know for certain moves later.


Gimmick:
-Quite mixed on it. It’s a cute detail thematically, being the king of the Bob-Ombs & therefore decreeing that no Bob-Ombs shall spawn as items, and can see where you’re coming from.
It feels wrong to mostly disable an entire item, though, as there’s basically no other interaction like that in Smash (Hammer Bros and Klaptraps will happily attack Bowser and K. Rool on a whim, you can use Mr. Saturns against Ness, plus whatever examples you can think of), and it removes an iconic volatile item simply due to his existence - it’s lame for everyone, KBO players and their opponents.
Also, imagine the meme potential of an 8-player match, all KBOs, items set to high and Bob-Ombs only, wouldn’t that be hysterical? Not to mention, if you’re going to disable them as random item drops, what makes Peach’s Down B spawn such a special exception, why are her Bob-Ombs separate and not a single one will drop as a regular item? Even if you have a neat reason on paper, I feel like the downsides far outweigh it.

-A suggestion: if you want a fun change in the same vein, what if item Bob-Ombs were a different colour? Pink would be an obvious reference to SM64, but iirc they’re pacifists and would be a questionable choice to make them explode on a whim… maybe a darker/deeper shade of red, you can simply adjust the “about to explode” flashing colours to compensate? I feel this would keep the benefits of “King Bob-Omb rules over them”, while not just preserving the chaotic fun of the item, even going a step further and adding a creative reference to the originals, since not ALL Bob-Ombs are loyal to him.
Alternatively, you could have his 8 alternate palettes change their Bob-Omb colours (akin to Inklings), and have the item Bob-Omb stay a neutral 9th colour, that way you can have absolute chaos on the battlefield, but at least it’s a rainbow of chaos.

Neutral B:
-ngl Neutral B’s total frames being so low set off alarm bells in my head; my go-to example of a low-duration move is Yink’s arrows, and a Yink spamming them as fast as he can is still a few frames slower than King Bob doing this move. It’s completely different from a projectile however, instead being delayed setplay that doesn’t have a hitbox at first.
Writing as I read along (matches the way I read normally, taking a moment to put each piece available together, even if I haven’t seen the full picture yet), it’s a knee-jerk reaction but they’re part of the fun.
I have a massive soft spot for underhand tosses in general, plus it’s a cute reference to the great Paper Jam fight, but I also like how it’s both visually & functionally unique - curious to see what you explore.

-Explanation of the Bob-Ombs’ mechanics sounds good so far. Appreciated the detail of them intercepting combos reliant on chaining landing aerials together, that was a green flag~

-Allowing 5 at once is a lot, there’s a reason the rule is typically 1. Lasting for up to 6 seconds, waddling around and doing their own things, and ESPECIALLY the aforementioned non-committal toss make me worried Bob could spam them when he gets a chance (imagine him knocking you off-stage at high%s, and you have to get off ledge with 4-5 of those buggers around… they can bump into their king & each other so he can have multiple linger near the ledge, gross). Maybe 2-3 at most, if the toss was more committal then I could see an argument for 4 (since there’d be very little time to exploit all of them), but 5 with that speed is too much.
“5 should be a good limit, considering how many other objects he can summon aside from them” is ominous.

-Oh, Bob-Ombs are completely different when summoned mid-air, neat. Although, why not give him a way to do either one whenever? Maybe tap B for one variant and hold for the other, maybe press B to turn any already mid-air one… but that’s just what I’d do, you do you. One of the first things I thought of when I saw the frame data & throw angle was jumping away from the opponent to throw the waddling variants while semi-safely retreating, so this made me both rethink that strategy and question this choice.
Why don’t they count to the limit? They still have the same spam capability, but now not only do they last MUCH longer in the air (in exchange for detonating on landing), they’re basically projectiles now since they explode on contact.
Feels weird that Bob has a fail animation for trying to use Neutral B on the ground for the 6th time in a row, but it’s not just perfectly fine if he jumps for the 6th, he could do indefinite jumping ones in a row and create a cascading wall of the buggers.
It’s not too unfair onstage, but doing it past the ledge is a little gross. That being said, the mental image is hilarious.

-Feels weird to see some clever details peppered throughout the move, only for the doc to abruptly move onto Side Special the moment you run out of. They’re not obligatory, but a wrap-up paragraph (or even just a couple of sentences) to put a bow on the whole move tends to help a lot, both with giving the reader a good sendoff summary of the move & how you think it should be used, and giving you more opportunities to have fun with the details & impress the reader.
Admittedly, was hoping that peppered details were appetizers for a “main course” later on. Don’t get me wrong, the details are great on their own, but the move doesn’t feel quite complete, y’know? Take that with a grain of salt though, if this is the way you prefer writing docs, it’s hardly a moveset-ruiner.


Side B:
-Love the summon animation, something about a king summoning a relatively-simple conveyor belt as if he’s sending his greatest knights to battle tickles my neurons.

-Curious idea, giving him a conveyor belt he can place nigh-wherever.
I believe the speed’s effect on players is negligible, bordering on meaningless. Taking 5.25 seconds to cross 6 grids/tiles is very very slow, 0.75 seconds per grid is equivalent to 45 frames; take Pac-Man/Shulk, they have a roughly average run speed (1.672, 49th), and they can cross a grid in roughly 7 frames, rounded up. At most, the full conveyor belt is likely only giving most characters a single-digit amount of extra frames in travel time.
To be fair, Smash is a game where every frame counts, the slowdown miiiight make certain actions barely safe when otherwise they could’ve been punished… also the fact that there’s at least 1 bomb in the way might give opponents hesitation. But at the end of the day, when the conveyor is almost half the speed of a backwards crawl, I don’t think it’ll hinder their movement quite like you’d expect.

-Because of that, the move feels a lot better in concept than (theoretical) execution; while it may subtly affect small moments in gameplay, and the approaching-at-a-snail’s-pace KBO doing his own thing is pretty funny (not to mention other characters using it), the horribly slow speed affects the entire move. Not just the players, but any of KBO’s spawnables, and how little their movements are altered.
Judging on its intended merits, this move is a’ight, I like the mental stack of the multiple bomb varieties and the conveyor being similar to a controllable/moveable stage hazard. But that’s the power of key numbers.
Although, the slow speed DOES make the bombs interesting in a different way, as compared to the waddling versions they’re moving but only ever so slightly, so they’re a lot more reliable for shepherding the Neutral B ones. A silver lining.
Would recommend speeding it up, perhaps to one of the slower walking speeds in the game? Might be far more noticeable, but without making it too obnoxious.

-Another “take it with a grain of salt” thing, a large pet peeve of mine is when huge details about a move are saved until the very end of the description, and then hardly elaborated on before shifting to the next attack. It was bearable for Neutral Special since it wasn’t the very last paragraph (and the introductory paragraph had a lot to enjoy in it), but here it’s almost offhandedly mentioned… can appreciate the details though.
There’s at least another paragraph’s worth of potential with this move, and it’s an unfortunate note to end Side B on. Especially since I’d love to hear you discuss turning the move into a far more aggressive move that he can space with and detonate much quicker, alongside the risk/reward of
However, this won’t be brought up further.



Up Special:

-Ooh, a neat little take on a blend between Dedede’s Up B with a hint of K. Rool’s crown sweetspots. The move loses a lot of traits in comparison (distance, power, armor/intangibility, cancelability), but the better mobility, more reliable ledgegrab capabilities, and ESPECIALLY the upward hitbox rewarding clean hits make up for it. And the aesthetic addition of him tucking his legs is fun~
Taking the item box/Kirby stars idea and turning it into him pooping out a Neutral B Bob-Omb behind him is a creative choice; adds an unusual yet fascinating decision to make when going for the hail-mary ground pound while recovering, as you could B-Reverse the Up B to choose which side, with negligible changes to the distance travelled and hitboxes since you can travel backwards and his hitbox isn’t reliant on direction.

-Personal/non-critical note, once wrote a short-lived draft for a KBO moveset a long time ago, and one of the only ideas that stuck was an Up B called “Royal Rules” (based on his SM64 voiceline when you throw him off the mountain and he calls you a cheater): the joke was that it’d be like Hero’s Zoom, but with longer startup, no intangibility (maybe some armor though), and far more predictable landing zones.
Was a dumb idea, but thought it’d be funny since it’d either encourage more honourable play (letting him come back and attempt to punish the landing from the sky) or the exact opposite (more ruthless edgeguarding to exploit his long/vulnerable startup and milk as much damage as you can off of him, or perhaps get a spike).
Anyways.


Down B:

-Was about to question why the cannon specifically landed on the stage, but then you turned it into an alternate F-Smash, lovely decision.

-Both this and Side Special were pretty chunky to read. Not necessarily a problem, but I’d encourage experimenting with how you present huge chunks of important information in the future. Especially with the amount of movesets you like to put out, don’t be afraid with getting it wrong every now and then, if it means your future projects will benefit massively from it. Maybe try breaking up paragraphs more frequently, and placing different spacing between certain segments (i.e. a line breaking it up, pressing Enter twice, etc.), giving the reader more room to breathe and process it all.
I feel like this could be presented in an easily-digestible manner, but it’s up to you whether you’d like to attempt that while maintaining your writing style, or if you like the beefier segments.

-Building off the above, IMO the huge paragraph first explaining hopping into/aiming/flying out of the cannon could’ve been separated, about a third of it is discussing secondary details and tactics, which don’t neeeeeed to be in the same wall of text. The sudden explanation of which game it’s based on is almost jarring (it’s cool, but very unnecessary fluff bundled in a paragraph filled with, and adds to the sense it could’ve been cleaned up and easier/smoother to read), would’ve been better-fitting elsewhere.

-First function is appealing though, it’s clear there’s so much more to the move, but the K. Rool Blunderbuss-esq self-launch sounds like a ton of fun for multiple levels of play - goofing off in free-for-alls and casual matches, some really tricky setups in higher-level 1v1s, or even some filthy strats for 2v2s/doubles.

-hyper nitpick, the “i’ll mention he’s completely armored, but will take damage if hitboxes intersect his hurtboxes” sentence is thoroughly redundant, all you needed to say is that it’s armor with 50% damage reduction, and people know what you mean.
Otherwise, rest of the pre-KBO-jumpscare details are good… particularly fond of the straight upwards failsafe and the hop-cancel details, loving how you think some of these things through.
Quick question, can you grab KBO out of the cannon? Armor normally doesn’t work against grabs, but the cannon’s an unusual state, wonder how that’d work.

-Great details on how the two expected Specials interact with it… but wasn’t expecting the Up B to get some love, nice stuff~
Can you drop the cannon onto your spawned bombs and instantly load them all, or does the hitbox blow them up? Thinking a funny strat would be to herd a bunch of Bob-Ombs by a ledge or wall (using Side B or KBO himself to keep them in one place), then drop Down B on them and have the cannon start rapid-firing them all in a row.

Jab:

-Respect and love the idea of Jab1 being focused on Bob-Omb movement, but still having decent range and great speed for a Jab’s regular purpose. Cute animation and pleasant details as always.
The one-two punch (where you say he throws a punch as far as he can, presumably really leaning into it) transition into a roll is indeed awkward though, you probably could have thought it through further… I propose you replace the Jab2 punch with a punt, kinda like a lower-angle Mario’s Jab3? It might still look a little weird, but then you could argue Jab3 has him hold his leg out then has him exaggeratedly “step forward”, moreso tumbling forward into that roll. Maybe he leans back a bit with the punt, then Jab 3 turns that into him leaning back before flinging himself forward into the roll.


Dash Attack:

-Is it bad I think you should have swapped Side B and Dash Attack? I feel like you could very easily put the conveyor belt onto his Dash Attack instead, it seems less complicated than the Kart is and wouldn’t suffer much from it (perhaps he rolls or lunges forward, using a conveyor belt for momentum and leaving it behind, a bomb optional), and it’s not like you’re losing the cool “all 4 Specials spawn bombs” thing.
Ultimately subjective and y’all can do what you please, but this is so overblown that it doesn’t fit on Dash Attack at all for me. And relatively speaking, you had a lot of details to clarify for the conveyor belt, but it was the weakest Special in my opinion and isn’t a critical one to keep on that prestigious button.
This also feels less like a unique spin on a vehicle move, and more like “Wario Bike but you can do even more things”. I can appreciate what you added, but the base you built upon feels a little lazy.

-Admittedly my own design philosophy is holding me back from properly analyzing this move, hopefully the others have/will give you better thoughts, but personally really disliking this on principle. It’s well-written, and the changes made to the Wario Bike formula are decent, if that helps, but it goes against the point of being a Dash Attack IMO.
Most I can say objectively is that the blast radius being as big as a Smart Bomb is silly, that’s egregiously large, would highly recommend toning that down. If that bomb goes off while they’re about to recover to ledge, how are they avoiding it? Let alone onstage shenanigans with his 5 ground troops, infinite parachutes, and occasional conveyor bombs.


Forward Tilt:

-This is definitely up my alley though, even if Paisy already use the golf club for a forward ground attack, you have plenty of reason (both in general, and what you’ve nicely explained) to pick this for KBO. Quite simple, nothing complex, but it has great synergy not just with his bombs but also Jab, creating nice cohesion across his set. Feels like you talk about as much as you need to with it.
Enjoying the description of things like the bomb angle, comparing it to DI like that is clever.


Up Tilt & Down Tilt

-Putting these together because they have the same problem. F-Tilt works because it’s a solid reference in its own right and because it offers an almost entirely different function compared to the obvious official move Paisy have. These don’t work because they’re just slightly-tweaked versions of both the animations and functions of pre-existing moves; this can sometimes be fine if the move is generic enough, not every move can be a creative banger (sometimes you gotta have generic limb strikes and weapon swings), but you picked two very specific and unique moves to reuse, which makes it more painful.

-D-Tilt is just a better version of K. Rool’s which is a little lame in its own right, but I feel like U-Tilt is worse because you could’ve salvaged it. A big detail of Wario’s U-Tilt is how long it lasts, it affects how good of a combo tool and anti air it is (hitting it late means it’s improved for the latter due to less frames remaining, and standard stuff you already know), and that part was specifically nerfed in one of Ultimate’s patches… you could use the opportunity to give KBO a noticeably longer or shorter duration, which would be a huge change (shorter would actually make it better at combos since the lingering frames waste less time, and longer would make it interesting for catching landings or whatnot). Or even if it’s nearly identical to Wario’s duration, a bandaid fix could have been showing you know your stuff by mentioning how the duration comes into play. As-is, it’s flawed on multiple levels.



Forward Smash:

-Oh, in hindsight, maybe turning Jab2 into a punt would be redundant.
Sorry if this feels recursive, this feels like a halfway point between F-Tilt and Dash Attack. Balance is still silly… again, please don’t use Smart Bomb sizes, even ignoring 1v1 problems, those sizes would ruin 4-or-more-player matches, and 3-for-alls wouldn’t be much better. But this feels pretty explicitly like a better version of the PSI Kid F-Smashes, coming out faster, reflecting similarly to them, sacrificing power but gaining a manipulatable projectile with utility far outweighing the downsides.
Up B was an excellent example of how to approach this, because it was based on Dedede’s but thoroughly transformed it, not just adding features to it but also taking away plenty in exchange. Dedede’s Up B keeps its own specializations, having a closer comparison than before, but one that shined in its own right.
Maybe put the reflector on a different move, but it feels excessive here, and just makes me realize that it’s another seemingly-unique concept KBO adds to his large arsenal.

-It’s more creative and thought-out than the previous two moves, doing/referencing its own thing and merely feature-creeping the function of another move, so it’s easier to keep feeling positive towards this, and I can appreciate the extra bomb synergy (even if KBO probably has too many bombs in his kit). Fair warning though, starting to notice a pattern here.

-Since it’s both a reflector and a projectile, I’m SHOCKED you didn’t mention neither reflectors point-blank, nor what happens if it collides with something like PSI Kid F-Smash, Min Min U-Smash, or another KBO F-Smash… does the world implode?
K. Rool’s counter would also be extremely funny, since his Down B can counter an attack while simultaneously reflecting a projectile, resulting in a “combo” of both K. Rool’s hitbox as well as the reflected projectile in one go; would probably take KBO’s stock even at 0%. But that’s pretty niche and far less necessary.


Up Smash:

-The cannonless idea’s adorable, having his minions victoriously huck him upwards, love the concept and most of the mechanics work out well… the execution sounds a little iffy though, spawning classic legged Bob-Ombs that look identical to Neutral B ones but lack any interaction & abruptly pop into play a short distance away from their King. That sounds like it’d cause some clarity issues and confuse some newer players.

-Can appreciate the thought of giving him weak armor, but I don’t think this move needs it? It has a powerful and skillful sweetspot (with the sourspot not being too bad), but more importantly it’s a Frame 8 OOS that hits a solid grid to each side of him, this move’s already fantastic for punishing not just regular unsafe attacks but also moves reliant on crossing up to be safe (such as aggressive landing aerials going past you, or a few Dash Attacks). The armor feels excessive, and adds to the feature creep pile.

-fun synergy with Down B, a pleasant surprise much like Up B.


Down Smash:

-it’s a’ight
they can’t all be winners
But hey, it does fill the niche it’s supposed to, and I’ll always prefer an original-yet-bland move over a copied one.

Aerials:

-You mentioned the latter half of this moveset being quite rushed, which most of the aerials show.

-N-Air’s not far off from fine, just needs a little extra meat.
Something you could add to fill out the short description would be the launch angle, or angles plural if sweet/sourspot is different; you say hitting it while landing is good for chaining into U-Tilt (Wario’s, so a cone that’s wide but primarily above him, so it launches upward?), but then specifically the strong hit is good for low-percent tech chase scenarios.
Great opportunity to not only make it less vague, but also expand on it! Steeper angles are better for combos, shallower angles are better for edgeguarding, how it influences your juggles/advantage and how it puts them in a bad spot, perhaps an interesting distinction between the sweet/sourspot’s uses, etc. etc.

-If you wanted to add something to F-Air, the kill% on the sourspot is missing.
Being serious though, this move’s based on him being frustrated/impatient, and he raises his hands above his head before dunking downwards… what if he could catch nearby bombs in the air (such as from a Neutral B toss, especially ParaBobs which you’re throwing from a jump height & descend slowly), and hurl them downwards at a steep yet slightly forward angle? Could maybe make all bombs explode on contact with a hurtbox or surface if you do this, decent for suddenly speeding up bombs opponents expected to be slower, and you could shock recovering foes by taking a bomb clearly above the ledge and suddenly chucking them ever so slightly past it, sniping opponents just about to Up B to safety.
Up to you though.

-B-Air suffers the same fate as usual, not impressed seeing yet another move copied from a heavyweight, especially since N-Air and F-Air were basically copies again. I’ll use it as an example in the Final Stuff section, for some more general advice rather than B-Air only.

-u-air’s alright, hard to feel jazzed about it and wish it was longer, but wouldn’t blame you if you left it as-is, if you come up with something thoughtful to add it’d be appreciated, can’t complain if it’d feel obligatory and unmotivating though

-D-Air being a ground pound is the obvious choice. It’s technically another copied move since it’s quite similar to Bowser’s Down B (side note, how much shield damage does this do? Do the two hits “combo” shields for massive damage?), although I’m more focused on how he has multiple spiking ground pounds based off of pre-existing heavyweight Specials.
Maybe it’s worth discussing why you’d pick it for spiking instead of Up Special? Might be an obvious answer to you, but there’s multiple answers that might be fun to add (speed, ledgegrab capabilities, disrespect, etc.), whether they’re in or against D-Air’s favor.
Lastly, personally I would’ve had the bomb pop out forward, to distinguish it a little further from Up B and give it more reason to exist. Fair warning, saying “oh, it’s quicker to shorthop D-Air than it is to do a full Up B” is redundant because simply using Neutral B is quicker/safer than both of them, and produces the exact same Bob-Omb anyways.


Throws:

-Really appreciate the extra detail for Pummel, mentioning unstaling is the first step but you also mention how it doesn’t benefit him much given his unusual oft-used moves.
When expectations are low, the little things are quite a treat.

-Y’know what’d be evil for F-Throw? If Side B’s conveyor was faster, imagine getting a grab on somebody while facing the opposite direction the ‘belt is going. You could have the Bob-Ombs’ march slow down on it, turning this into a NASTY combo throw since KBO can act early. Alternatively, maybe the opposite is true, sending them down a cooperative ‘belt could get them offstage even if KBO grabbed them from midstage or further, in exchange for entirely losing followup potential. Odd how you mentioned the conveyor belt but didn’t mention the speed’s effect.
Actually, it’d be stupidly excessive, but imagine if the conveyor belt moved the U-Smash bombs… a fail state where some of the Bob-Ombs couldn’t reach their king in time, and the upward toss is either vastly weaker or completely ineffective. Might be a bit too silly though, and interfere with its reliability/readability.

-Reusing Mario’s B-Throw is one thing, but that’s MASSIVELY wasted potential. Reading ahead, why doesn’t he reference his iconic throw SM64, overhead yeeting the peasant off his turf? That’s self-explanatory.

-Would be hilarious if you could use U-Throw near his Down B cannon and have him slap them into that instead. Would probably look less awkward than two cannons spawning right next to each other in that scenario.
Also this move’s one of the overall strongest throws in the game, killing that early is one thing but dealing 16% on top of that is maybe too much.

-I like how mean-spirited and kinda brutal D-Throw is, the description is a little vague but it sounds like an overhead slam. It’s almost out-of-place for him to club you so maliciously with a blunt object like that; yeah his F-Tilt does it, but at least that’s still a regular golf swing as expected, and all of his other animations are fun and cartoony.
Not a complaint, to clarify, this is just fascinating.

-Overall, his throws are REALLY strong, most characters would love to have a single throw dealing more than 12%, meanwhile he has 3 of them all doing helpful things, 2 of them dealing a whopping ~16%, and F-Throw being excellent in its own right despite “merely” dealing 9%. On one hand, you’d either have to tack it onto the end of D-Throw or make a new section to talk about it, but kinda wish you discussed how great his throw game is a little further. That applies to most things, but y’know.

Hope you don’t mind me brushing past the extras, they’re nice, just lack things to say about ‘em.

Sorry I don’t bring it up much, but this was overall a pleasant read, particularly in the first half. Specials started off the doc with a bang (hue hue hue), despite some grievances they were overall rather fun & distinct tools that establish KBO’s two identities: he’s a spammy asshat who’d be delightful to play and miserable to fight, but more importantly, he’s got a wide and varied arsenal at his disposal that’s not too hard to get into, while massively rewarding both outside-the-box thinking and loads of practice with various unorthodox combos/timings. The references were another highlight, I’m not a “characters need to be OOZING with references” person, but little to none of them felt forced, you struck a great balancing act with fun nods to the source material that feel natural, organically forming a kit that wouldn’t feel out of place in the game.

On one hand, you seem to know your stuff, the thoughtful details sprinkled throughout the ‘set show you have an eye for the subtle and niche scenarios, and there’s a few truly creative surprises in multiple moves that help turn matches into KBO’s landmine-filled sandbox. On the other though, whether it was due to rush or some other factor, you often don’t follow through on that potential - some would’ve been optional bonus points you didn’t need to aim for, but some I’m surprised you didn’t mention.


It feels weird to criticize you for loading your moves with extra uses and, but as mentioned, some of them feel a bit shallow, quantity over quality. Again, Up B is a great example since it feels well thought-out and has plenty of differences at its core, but then you have moves like Dash Attack, or F-Smash, adding onto pre-existing moves without the “take” of give and take. Down Tilt also could have been a lot more creative, taking the idea of a shockwave-inducing stomp but perhaps playing with it a little more (maybe it startles all Neutral B bombs onstage or within a long distance and makes them hop up, swapping their directions without bumping into anything, or perhaps stunning them in place for a moment like a pause of sorts?), but because K. Rool’s buries, you took the disappointing route of also making KBO’s bury… because. Maybe repeating myself, but would recommend re-inspecting those moves not to scrap them entirely and work from scratch, instead checking to see what you could tweak and polish for something more refined.

Continuing about the copied moves - another way to compensate, if you don’t want to change them, would be to lean into how they’re copied but now on a completely different character. So he has slightly different Wario B-Air, how do his stats change how he’d use it? How does his playstyle affect the player’s attitude/mentality towards it (would they be more averse or fond of using it, would they deem it one of his better or worse moves perhaps)? How do the infinite pile of bombs onstage play into and around this move? Stuff like that. As-is though, the wide variety of “oh it’s just X’s Y” moves in this kit are by far the biggest gripe.


This could use a lot more time in the oven, but the core recipe isn’t bad, and the chef definitely has the potential to make the right corrections. You’re learning and getting better with each set, and your future blogs excite me.

figuring out how to write comments, will experiment with different methods for other movesets
If you don't mind, I'll skip Roland and Kril FOR NOW, planning to check out Shauntal and prioritize others who I haven't given comments to, before return to the other two.
 
Arctic Tern

Arctic Tern

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 12, 2022
Messages
153
JAMCON 28-1​

It’s been a good while, so it’s time for me to officially start the first Jamcon! A brief rundown:

  • Jamcons are contests in which setmakers compete to make a set within the span of one week. Every set must conform to a specific theme, though the “qualifications” for qualifying are quite loose.
    • Sets made for a Jamcon must be made during the Jamcon - finishing sets that already have work on them is not allowed. This specifically refers to the actual “moves” portion; extras and intros don’t count.
    • Sets made purely as jokes (or “jokesets”) do not qualify, though sets with jokey tones that are ultimately serious do.
    • Multiple sets for the same Jamcon is allowed, as is getting the help of another setmaker.
    • It must be specified that the set is made for the Jamcon, either in the opening post, the set itself, or by DMing the organizer.
    • A set can be freely edited during the submission period, but after it ends major edits are banned until the contest ends. Minor edits, such as number crunching and adding pictures, are allowed, though.
  • After the setmaking period ends, voting period begins. This lasts for 2 weeks, during which people read the sets posted for the Jamcon. Whichever set gets the most votes is deemed the winner, and the maker(s) of the set gets to host and choose the theme for the next Jamcon.
    • In order for a vote to count, you must read and comment on every set in the Jamcon.
    • A vote counts for one point, but a setmaker who competed in the Jamcon gets an automatic half point for voting themselves.
    • Ties are possible, though as of this writing they have never happened. The person running the Jamcon decides what happens if this is to occur.
    • Setmakers cannot vote for their own set.

The theme for this Jamcon is…

SEVEN DEADLY SINS​

A famous piece of Christian theology, the seven deadly sins are a group of some of the most major vices man can commit. Grouped in order of increasing severity, the traditional sins are:

  • Lust - intense desire, usually of a sexual nature but can be for anything.
  • Gluttony - overindulgence to the point of wastefulness. Most associated with food but can apply to any resource.
  • Greed - desire to obtain more than one strictly needs, especially money.
  • Sloth - habitual laziness, or a general lack of interest.
  • Wrath - uncontrolled feelings of anger.
  • Envy - a desire to have what someone else does.
  • Pride - believing that one is superior to all others. Often considered the worst sin, as it leads to all others.

Your set today must be for a character who can be linked in some way to the listed sins.

Examples:

  • Bad Girl is a quite lustful woman - mainly for blood, but the more “traditional” lust is present as well.
  • Kirby, whose primary power is eating things, can easily be linked to gluttony.
  • Wario’s defining character trait is his greed: almost all of his games are about his desire to make a profit, and even the ones that aren’t tend to have collecting coins as a major gameplay element.
  • Snorlax is known as the “Sleeping Pokemon” and is known for its tendency to take long naps that are nearly impossible to wake it up from - very slothful!
  • Goro Akechi is a man who devoted his entire life to getting revenge on his father (a common occurrence to those who suffer from wrath) and has an incredibly aggressive fighting style.
  • Luigi can be linked to envy, being dressed in green (the traditional color of envy) and constantly being stuck in Mario’s shadow. Note that he is generally portrayed as not actually envious, but the link can still be made - it just has to exist in any form for the character to qualify for the Jamcon.
  • The Scout has a vastly overinflated ego and overconfidence in his actual capabilities.

The time is 2:00 PM EDT Friday today to 2:00 PM EDT Friday the week after this is posted. With plenty of characters that can fit the theme, it’s time for us to get a bit sinful this week.
 
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