A bit of a break from commenting due to starting a new term of schooling – God forbid I make another one.
The Sniper is the first in my catch-up movesets. In all, for a person only on their second or third moveset, it’s a really great effort and a huge improvement for you.
Some off-topic and nitpicking follows: this moveset reminds me a hell of a lot of my old Raiden moveset from Make Your Move 5, which placed second. It had extremely similar mechanics with its sniper rifle, along with a similar slew of sword attacks. It’s not so much in terms of function, as sheer appearance, what with the organisation also mirroring that moveset with thumbnail-sized images above some moves that are Sniper’s equipment; exactly like Raiden. Not to mention that “striking in place with knife” move, I think it’s the neutral standard – exactly like Yamazaki’s. Along with K. Rool’s colouring scheme you have going, this moveset is major déjà vu. This is all relatively positive, mind you; I just felt I needed to address it. Horribly off-topic to mention in what will become rating-linked, but you’re a fan of Spoony, right? Who is deadliest? Spadefox?
Nitpicking: abandoning the hat mechanic is silly, like I found with Raiden, making equipment only useable once a stock is pretty silly. You’re cutting off a good few moves when you use a random input like one of the aerials, which aren’t even close to the highlight of the set anyway. Why give a negative in this area, when it’s already pretty much a negative? I’ll make another horrible comparison here, to Jason, who abandoned his knife at various points, castrating his potential. It’s not a good practice. It’s also a little unclear with the throws, whether you need the hat just to initiate it, just with the pummel, or to use moves concerning the hat... pretty big error if you seriously want to cut up Sniper’s grab game like that.
Anyway, back to where it counts – the moveset el natural. I do like how the sniper rifle works, perhaps as it’s exactly how I would envision it, as a laser-sighted cracker cannon. Lining up headshots is also perfectly set up by your having to position yourself; a clever bunch of inputs here, which would do better as a larger part of the moveset. You see, one cannot multiply prosperity by dividing it, a mistake you make constantly here. It’s fine, you’re new – in future, try not to rely so heavily on props like the Jarate, forward tilt and bow and arrow. It may seem like the perfect idea to reference all of this great source material, but it seems more like you throw it in there purely for fan service. It needs to flow into this greater concept you have going with the sniper rifle. This is ‘The Sniper,’ not ‘Spartan Warrior’ – it’s inferred that he relies on his sniper rifle, not switching between four different weapons on the go.
I’ll sum up some areas of the moveset in short. Loved the colour-coding, the writing style is pretty good for your age, but pronouns shouldn’t become the centre of it – keep focus on what you’re writing about, as you have a slight tendency of wondering off-point. Perhaps nitpicking [again], but there were some instances where you decidedly started dawdling with queer language like “this attack comes out quickly, pretty subtle” – I personally disliked this. Your use of images in a non-intrusive fashion is, as said, extremely similar to how I did it, as are a lot of things in this moveset, so you get plus points for that.
In particular, though, your playstyle and match-ups are far beyond your experience. They’re right on the mark, and I can easily see you breaching the top of the contest if you continue to make movesets. Forgive me if this comment dawdles – it “cleaned out the cobwebs,” mostly because I was stuck on your set. Maybe due to how similar it is to my own work, I just didn’t find Sniper all that memorable, with nothing tangible to grab onto. It’s simply very hard to deduce how good a moveset like this is. Whatever the rating may be, though, keep in mind that there are lots of good things to take away from this moveset and please try again, as soon as you want to. I’m fascinated to see what else you have in-store.
Octillery is rather excellent for several reasons: it’s a Pokémon moveset non-reliant on the syndrome, your creation of it was determined by dice roll and the main mechanic is both deliciously in-character and well-implemented into Smash. I feel it’s a cut above Forretress, not feeling rushed like that moveset did while retaining some of that imaginative expression of yours.
I love how you use the suction cups as a way to make Octillery into somewhat of a turret – shooting of gunk, when attaching to walls, keeping the opponent trapped down on the floor. Unfortunately this kind of play doesn’t really come into realisation much in flat-stage Smash Bros, but it’s an interesting concept nonetheless. You still make great use of the tar in sticking the opponent down to achieve the riskier moves, oddly mostly aerial. I do get the connection here – you cover the floor in gunk to force them to approach from the air, and then hit them with the KO move, but it does seem a little forced. An opponent knowledgeable of Octillery would stay to the air with a low percentage, then just stick to the floor at high percentages, as he is kind of lacking at killing otherwise.
Not to downplay the great playstyle at work here – tie down with gunk, **** – pretty much. Crawling all over your opponent’s face not only presents a great insight into the octopus-inspired character with some great moments put forward in your prose, it always comes together with the flow of the moveset to be viable in splitting up the moveset. As Octillery’s main objective is with the projectiles, making use of his suction cups in this squid-like fashion is very clever – the opponent
really doesn’t want to get close to him. With a projectile-based character, this has its obvious advantages. I must say as well, interactions here are all rather splendid, with a mildly-challenging Octopus / squid concept and really puts movesets like Kingdra to shame.
As that’s really all there is to this great little moveset, I’ll move on quickly to the nitpicking – there isn’t much to be made, other than backing what has already been said. The tripping mechanic needs to be buffed some, you need to further explain the climbing walls mechanic and a few of your phrases are a little mystifying. It certainly keeps the prose from becoming boring, but the various quips involving Brawl characters’ moves and describing based on some obscure piece of another character can be unintentionally obfuscating. Aside from that, the organisation is solid [simple; barebones, it’s perfectly adequate for Octillery] and the writing style, on the whole, is very solid.
I know a moveset has beaten me when I have
this little to criticise. Bravo, Joe, bravo.
Ah,
B. B. Hood, from Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I’m sure that’s where she’s from.
Okay, so it’s obvious from the very start that you’re returning after a long time off – you put way too much detail into all of your moves. I’m humbled by the amount of effort just slathered all on B. B. Hood by a loving creator, yet I must protest that you go way overboard a lot of the time here. Cut it all down to the basic understandings of the set. On the same light, the organisation is Ridley size – it’s too big. You have a few giant images along with this massive generic white font that is really uninviting with how big the moveset already is. These are just general nitpicks, but will keep people from reading your moveset because of how
huge it seems to be.
Actually, there are a few more. Don’t state something is “one of the worst / best in the game,” it’s a bit of a cliché. On top of what I’ve already said, keep your writing to a bare minimum – remember that this is an interpretative to a controlled art, but we have no place for massive detailing of everything. If you want to be descriptive about each move, cut it down so it’s bitesize for the reader. Unfortunately, yeah, I had to nitpick a lot of stuff here, but hopefully it will only help you get back on the horse after being away from MYM for so long.
The moveset itself is fairly decent, I suppose – it reminds me of movesets from a little while ago that similarly centred on traps and weapons a lot, where each move, like with B. B. Hood, pulls out another one in tandem with a “versatility” moniker. This is what I would call a ‘theme,’ were B. B. Hood’s personality is expressed through her obsession of using heavy machine weaponry. It would be a lot better, though, if you made this clearer and talked up more of the character you else wise you lavishly have dapped days’ worth of work into.
Actual complaints I have are that you do take a little too much inspiration from existing movesets with moves like the side special and neutral air, respectfully copying moves from Snake and Meta Knight. This kind of thing is really best avoided entirely, as it makes the set look weaker – it’s far better to just have a more generic command input, than looking so directly to a source material far from the character’s well.
I may seem harsh in my criticisms, but I do respect this is your first moveset in a while. However, I was given a bit of a headache coming to comprehend B. B. Hood’s playstyle due to all the weapons and ‘versatility,’ as there’s simply far too much to analyse. I can see plenty of good things shimmering amongst a lot of attempts at breaking through your old-world views of MYM – you are able to convey a sense of space with B. B. Hood’s Uzi, she has a wide array of weaponry that reflects the character
to a degree – I particularly enjoyed the final smash’s resemblance to the Marvel vs. Capcom 2 ultra.
In the end, though, I feel the set’s biggest downfall is that it never really comes together at any point to form a coherent flow of basic concepts. It’s very messy, but almost charming in being old-fashioned. Just keep in mind what was good and move on from here.
Onto
Salamence – I’m happy that you guys were able to revive the thread somewhat with the moveset, in the least. The shame is that the prevailing jokey writing style spills over what could have been a great joint, creating a boggy experience comparable to splicing up a Make Your Move 4 moveset and filling the voids with Empoleon’s worst interactions.
And yes, that was particularly harsh – this is the first comment I’ve written in over a week, however close together these comments may seem to a reader. Salamence has some redeeming qualities, though – the writing style has some salvageable good too. I loved the bit with MT and the Power Rangers at the start, there’s some genuine laughs from this end on lots of these references. As a side note, I also quite enjoyed the organisation’s simplicity; obviously a little close to the sun on the obsequiousness of what the Pokémon is besides a generic cool wind-y. In all, it goes further in making Salamence seem like Magikarp-level of fail, only being way overhyped instead – this would have been something I could welcome as a larger factor, because he’s seriously lacking personality.
On the bad side of the writing, I honestly found it very irritating, so much so that, like Scarmiglione, I was forced into a lull of commenting after already falling behind, earning my hatred and chagrin double fold. I feel embarrassed to be talking about this same old thing again and delaying talking about the actual moveset, but jeez, after Octillery, this moveset is just covered in fodder-full moves posturing simply to fill inputs, with so many stupid flicking quips that I just said, “Screw it,” and started skimming a little. There’s something about the way the moveset is spaced, I think, coupling with the way it’s written and the combination makes it come off as amateurish.
That’s obviously a pretty small objection by itself, but the moveset is also pretty poor. Every input is a Pokémon move translated directly through a generic wind-based attack... and this is already as bad a concept as Vaati. You have an amazing amount of completely pointless bites, twinges, body movements and magic abuse, in the form of fire breath to really obfuscate any of the potential the Pokémon had. The interactions are lame and shallow – you create a tornado, which is then clearly written chronologically first by you guys, as you fester together a couple of really odd moves like Gale Force, almost solely to move it around. Likewise, I hated Outrage’s stupidly changing moves that otherwise are sloppy and dartboard-chosen at best, along with the generic use of steel wings just to boost the hitbox size of some of his moves.
What really irritates me about this moveset is how openly arrogant Joe is in stating that these interactions are even worth mentioning, as they end up meaning such smallness in what is a pretty plain playstyle. You have two moves with almost the same exact purpose; both slightly altering certain moves, having to be charged first and having timed effects, making Salamence a heavy set-up character. It’s very heavy-handed flow, which never comes together to form a cognitive character. Again, acceptable by itself, but it’s handled badly with careless writing and no imagination at all.
Maybe I just expected more after Octillery and Axel Gear by the respective joint MYMers here, JOE! and Hyper_Ridley, but I felt this one was very weak. The playstyle section reads like a post-mortem, simply listing out uses of near every move when applicable, but never stating the key “what’s” about Salamence as an individual. There’s nothing here not already covered just as horribly in Vaati, another rushed moveset, but it’s Salamence, so it’s not quite a mutilation. After that, we have the match-ups, again very heavy-handed in listing out Salamence’s game as if he’s a foreign object, never touching upon how a player would interact with the character.
I think that’s where you guys mainly went wrong here – you rushed the moveset, resulting in it being a very old-fashioned effort that doesn’t portray the character as anything beyond a two-dimensional space filler for a Pokémon nobody ever cared about. As with Regal Bryant, I’m glad you guys did fill that space – God forbid, no one else ever would, but it’s still bad quality. If Jason Voorhees is funny bad, Solar Man is offensive bad... then Salamence is just bad. Should’ve been a joke set.
After that disaster of a comment, Smash Daddy fumbles on to
Arcanine, part of a failed Pokémon joint moveset – a common part of MYM. Hey, I’m not complaining – it’s better than nothing and your first moveset this contest, ignoring the lacking Decoy Octopus.
So immediately I just look at this moveset and see it has lame organisation, with italic headers, an orange-red colour scheme and Gambit-style bolded moves over their description. I don’t quite understand why you chose such a boring format, given that you don’t have to prescribe to the overlaying Pokémon joint anymore, so I expected something more Arcanine-like. Similarly, the moveset reads a tad slowly, with zero images or humour or break-up at any point. None of this is particularly bad, I’m simply projecting my confusion onto this comment so that someone can say they agree; it’s odd.
I can’t help but imagine Ponyta or Rapidash when reading lots of these “drive-by” moves concerning Arcanine being lit up or otherwise influencing his run. While the Pokémon does seem like he’d be pretty fast and I’m sure his Pokédex entry illustrates that in some way, he doesn’t seem like a character whose main attribute is his speed. As a great dog, I’d expect some kind of largely-defensive, “standing your ground” playstyle centring on building up your fiery protective shields, or at least to have this mentioned. That you have a slew of moves entirely dedicated to surrounding the stage in pyres is a start, but you never tell us exactly why Arcanine is a race hound as opposed to what he looks like: a war hound.
Generally, this problem carries over to the moveset, unfortunately. Lots of the time, the inputs end up being placeholder-like in creativity, being nothing more than filler padded with fire attacks from Pokémon – aside from the connotations surrounding the interesting neutral special, as irrelevant as it may be, this set really has as many moves as Decoy Octopus. There are good concepts: buffs like Sunny Day and Extremespeed are interesting, if overpowered. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that the moveset is otherworldly powerful when buffed and easily abused what with his hurtbox being replaced with that first move.
The playstyle section is perhaps one of your better ones, pulling together a very fragile sort of flow that is far from the worst in the contest. This may actually be one of my shortest comments thus far, but, as you’ve said, Arcanine is part of a 6-in-1, meaning he has some obviously lacking qualities about him, making for some tedious commenting. I mean, I could copy and paste what I said at the end of Salamence, but I still think this slight-handed approach comes off better than that moveset, despite being technically worse.
Certainly, this moveset has some out-of-place interesting concepts; it’s just so rushed and unloved for, seemingly left to die in some writing purgatory because of Phatcat. In the least, this one actually constitutes as a moveset, despite the terrible grabs and there’s a lot of promise – in your next moveset, I expect some kind of expansion on ideas like in the neutral special, at which point you have a real winner on your hands.
. The Colonel has some cool ideas with the eggs, chicken, and drumsticks. The whole process of putting an egg down, hatching it into a chicken, and then cooking the chicken into a drumstick is creative. 
