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Make Your Move 8: -TOP 50 POSTED-

Katapultar

Smash Lord
Joined
Nov 24, 2008
Messages
1,251
Location
Australia
[size=+3]Scarmiglione [/size]
I've been looking forward to Scarmiglione ever since you mentioned him (I've always thought that MYM needed more FF sets). I was also going to post Jason Voorhees, but this is yours.

Scarmiglione definitely has a cool idea with his concept of damaging himself to attain a new form despite losing a stock in doing so. At first I thought he was very underpowered, even in his 2nd form, but then I went back and saw that his attacks do double damage.

Skullnat


I can definitely say that there's nothing about Scarmiglione that I don't like. He's an extremely likeable set in my ideals thanks to his cool conepts surrounding him. Like pretty much everyone else that's posted a set so far, Scarmiglione is a great step-up. I very much like him. Easily the bestest of your sets (which is a big change in your first set reception).
 

darth meanie

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jun 6, 2008
Messages
452
- Scarmiglione

I tend to groan when I see a moveset that revolves around self-mutilation as a strategy. Even if you become stronger at a higher damage percentage, almost all of the time you have more to gain attacking at that percentage and letting your damage go up naturally than you do hitting yourself to get there.

Of course, it's different when you have no recovery and are trying to get to 125% damage to activate your true form. So I congratulate you, first and foremost, on making a self-damaging character viable.

And it works together pretty dang well actually. The combination of self-damaging and self-healing, and the ability to become faster and more aggressive in his second form is delicious. It's the same basic moveset, but you tweak it so subtly that you can completely change the playstyle and strategy without actually replacing a single move.

It still struggled in presentation though, the text and color-scheme was more off-putting than engaging, and while there were several points where your writing broke through, it seemed rather stuffy. You tend to repeat the same sentence structure over and over; instead try to be a tad less detatched.

As for other complaints, the special mechanic was vaguely worded so I wasn't quite sure when exactly he left his true form, and I'm still not sure now! Also, a lot of moves had what felt like tacked on mechanics, especially plague and sickness. The way that his second form plays, while completely different than the first form, felt like an alteration of the first form on my first readthrough, and I couldn't catch how he actually had a good few number of ways to get into melee damage.

Overall though, this is a really good set. It's a delicious spin on the usual reincarnation and summon mechanics, reminding me slightly of Harbinger. As usual, you have excellent match-ups to boot (and a Rider Match-Up, that's bonus points for sure!) I'd easily count it as your best set so far. Good job UserShadow.
 

MasterWarlord

Smash Champion
Joined
Aug 24, 2008
Messages
2,902
Location
Not wasting countless hours on a 10 man community
Scarmiglione

I can agree with pretty much everything positive DM said about the set (Though I believe self damage sets have been done decently before, this one still takes the cake), though I actually enjoyed the plague/sickness status effects that commented the poison gas outside the somewhat random move limitations on plague. Either way, though, you’ve got some great stuff going on here with all of the poison being both a source of damaging your first form and the enemy while healing your second form and the zombies. While the zombies themselves don’t seem particularly relevant, when you can heal/damage yourself off of them with dair their purpose becomes more involved, alongside the usual stacking zombie grab. Most of the earth moves which Scarmiglione needs to be an earth elemental rather then a necromancer work as decent defensive options or have some other good purpose, such as bair allowing Scarmiglione’s second form to go more offensive. There’s the occasional odd one out like nair, but it’s somewhat necessary to have a decent quantity of earth moves if you want to be in-character here, it seems.

Your writing style seems to of improved a good bit along with the match-ups, though I wish you’d of gone into a bit more detail in the playstyle summary on how to play Scarmiglione’s second form. I also believe that the second form would be able to play more defensively then the first if anything (Though I can still very much seeing it go offensive with the grab-game), what with all the healing, and that it’d be very much in Scarmiglione’s interest to do so in that he can keep his second form in-tact. I have nothing against this, but how you insist the second form is so offensive and glaze over it as much as you do is a bit off putting. That’s my only true issue with the set though, as this is a pretty easy pick for me as a favorite set of yours. Very nice set indeed.

Musical Headers Nitpick: You use up all the good musical headers early on to be left with “meh” ones for the important headers, even resorting to having to reuse one. You don’t need musical headers for things like background, feel free to cut out an unimportant header from having music if you don’t have enough/enough good choices.
 

Smady

Smash Master
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
3,306
Location
K Rool Avenue
Round two!

You know, I began reading Joy with a cynical outlook – I figured this would be the typical Junahu tour de force, spilling in organisational beauty but failing to produce on the playstyle. I was very wrong – it is perhaps one of your best playstyles and that is due to your usual picking-method flowchart that allows for dozens of combinations of moves in tandem, in punishing referenda for the foe. I remember you criticising the idea of similar moves being ‘mind games,’ in that E3 moveset and you never resort to that level of badness.

There are some significant problems, however, with how this is all structured. For one, the most important and enjoyable part of the moveset is in the move interactions, somewhere near the bottom of the main article. As you’ve previously notated down all playstyle quirks move-to-move, it seems even more glaringly obvious a mistake – these are game changers, no doubt about it and are perhaps better at describing her playstyle than the section itself defines it.

It’s also a little odd that each type of move holds similar boundaries, with throws being the status effect one. In terms of one-on-one, it would strike me as difficult for Joy to be able to get the opponent with her absolutely pathetic grab and be given enough time to actually throw them. Like with your many other ecosystem / flowchart playstyles, Joy is almost a trap character with heavy set-up and no way to properly defend herself, so she is, at first sight, garbage tier at high-level play.

What’s most impressive, though, is that in your two-on-two playstyle, not that it’s remarkably different, but that Joy actually excels in that area as opposed to one-on-one. It’s quite an accomplishment and I fret to recall when I’ve last seen that, or ever done well, or even intentional. Such focus throughout the moveset is very unlike you – we’ve come a long way from Cutesy “could be better if it weren’t so scattered” Beau.

My only big complaints on the writing side are that this moveset barely relates to the source material; Nurse Joy has never used many of the items you’ve used. Neither has Pokémon ever shown syringes, guard specs nor x defences in the anime, for obvious reasons. Therefore, it does feel like a bit of a betrayal on the whimsical, oft ill-decided cartoon. Generic Nurse moveset get, in a nutshell – you cast off the individual moves being boring, at the sacrifice of the bigger picture. Though, it has to be said Joy has little-to-no potential, besides the painfully missing Chansey. Eh, this set could’ve been different, bro.

Finally, awesome work as usual on the extras, I’ve come to expect you as the extra guy after the greatness of Alucard, though I may be alone in that respect - keep them coming, Jun.

And, well, I’m just as behind as yesterday now on movesets… yippee. I’ll try to do a comment on Josh and Scar tomorrow, but it should prove to be a fruitful day if not, not like I expect *gasp* a fifth moveset by then, anyways. From what I’ve read of both, this contest has had the best opening quadruplets ever, with every member delivering some of their very best ever. Wow, MYM8… not disappointing? Headline if I ever wrote one.


Okay, so I decided to give Joshua a one-over, as I felt kind of bored at 1:40am or so.

The musical headers certainly bring me back to TWEWY, so thanks for that. In all, Joshua certainly pulls a lot from the game of origin in the dropping of cars [originally in his special move, or whatever it’s called] and borrows the ‘energy ball’ concept from the protagonist. I would have liked to see more of the car dropping stuff as opposed to the generic energy balls – even less fitting than on Apemasta’s first TWEWY moveset and goes against the psychic abilities of Josh to move things with his mind.

I also have a big problem with how weak the aerial game is here. You gave the character a brilliant jumping mechanic that allows him to float without being able to fly, but these well-hyped aerial moves are, frankly, terribly bland. A shield, some energy attacks and a tacked-on down air is hardly what I’d expect from Josh; it seems you used up a lot of the potential here in smashes, oddly enough. In the game, I distinctly remember Josh only using the car-dropping move in mid-air, during his super attack; he never struck me as a ground fighter at all.

There are lots of errors in writing here, unfortunately – many times, you neglect to mention important factors concerning effects of a move, such as Joshua’s movement, knockback and any move interactions. That’s where he fails most: there are practically no combinations of moves that works, which you set up for perfectly with the neutral special. You never once mention how the ‘targeting’ actually affects a projectile, which was the whole point.

For [I think] just your second image moveset, it isn’t half bad. I remember a really bad one by you; I won’t procrastinate on it as I only recall it being awful. There are some minor problems here, still – the amount of moves actually pictured is disappointingly low considering it’s all an image. You still have your fair share of simple grammar or punctuation mistakes, sadly.

So, Joshua comes off as being not exciting and quite a boring outing, as he practically has no playstyle whatsoever. It seems rushed due to this, and with but minor move interactions – by God, you had barrels of potential after the specials – it fails to captivate in terms of Josh’s personality, or moveset. On that note, it is certainly true that this set really takes for granted that smug and obnoxious character and never really gets back on board with the persona, besides the cell phone and car dropping. You have taglines for the musical headers, but Josh is practically a mime.

This may not be your best moveset, Twilt, but it does show some promise – mainly in individual moves, though and you have a long ways to go.

 

Junahu

Smash Ace
Joined
Nov 15, 2005
Messages
899
Location
Shropshire Slasher
Joshua:
As always with TWEWY, it brings out the nicest looking sets not made by me (9_9 I'm not at all egotistical). And I've yet to see a set of this game that was out of character, so I'm glad you're keeping up this "illustrious" tradition. You have a neat little string of attacks, neither too bland, nor too clustered, and I personally like how similar all the aerials are. There, I said it. I LIKE Joshua's Aerials. I'm sure MW will never let me live it down, but I like monogamous aerials.

As with everyone else who commented, I can't see these moves being used together towards any particular end. But that's probably because you aren't especially forthcoming on which attacks benefit from his Neutral Special. Joshua would be a whole other beast if his up-tilt could be locked on, stopping the foe from casually jumping over his makeshift blockades. And imagine his Dash attack locking on to the foe, teleporting him behind his adversary on command. Alright, on that ground that would be stupid, but if the foe was in the air at the time (say, from trying to jump over something)...
And the potential of locking on the grab is pretty obvious

So yeah, basically the problem with this set, from what I can see, is that it doesn't take enough advantage of its own strengths, and it certainly doesn't make them clear enough to the reader




Scarmiglione:
I was caught offguard with how intensely enjoyable Scarmiglione was to read. The idea is solid, and there aren't any noticeable cracks in its execution either.

Like many great movesets, Scarmiglione weaves a number of different mechanics and themes across one another, never championing any one over the others. Racking your own damage, maintaining your summons, spreading gas throughout the stage using wind. You not only give them equal attention throughout the moveset, but you tie them together in a manner as to make them irrevocably inseperable.

But, reading the attacks themselves was laborous, and a lot of the time it was the moveset's concept alone that was spurring me to continue reading. There's a lot of superfluous detail that gets in the way, and your choice of wording at certain points is a similar stumbling point

My biggest complaint is how intensely compressed everything feels in the moveset, with many attacks taking on odd jobs just so Scarmiglione could competantly carry his own special mechanics.


¬_¬ And I was indeed surprised to read that Scarmiglione's aerials were the closest things he has to KO moves, a genuine affront to a ground elemental fiend if ever I heard one.




Katapultar said:
It would be like, really cool if you could catch pokeball pokemon with the Side Special and use them as your own (that would totally make sense, right?). On the other hand, catching a human inside a pokeball seems reeealllly akward, but it's ok. Using a bandage as a tether is funny.
Incidentally, and TOTALLY unrelated to the above quote, have you ever read my Team Rocket moveset, Katapultar?
But still, that is something I should edit into Nurse Joy, to keep her cohabitable with my other movesets.


SmashDaddy said:
There are some significant problems, however, with how this is all structured. For one, the most important and enjoyable part of the moveset is in the move interactions, somewhere near the bottom of the main article. As you’ve previously notated down all playstyle quirks move-to-move, it seems even more glaringly obvious a mistake – these are game changers, no doubt about it and are perhaps better at describing her playstyle than the section itself defines it.
While this is the first time I've explicitly labelled the interactions in their own section, this isn't the first time I've introduced game-changing aspects of a moveset at the last possible moment. Still, I'll have to put a lot more thought into it before I try this kind of thing again


Thanks a lot for the comments :)
 

darth meanie

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jun 6, 2008
Messages
452
- Jason Voorhees

Jason is an interesting offering from you. To start with the good, I love the concept behind using the machete to change the enemy's moveset into something that you're built to counter. It not only reeks of the horror genre, but you actually put it together in a not half bad way.

Now, on to the bad part. Which is pretty much everything else, I'm afraid. The Neutral Special should be a Special Mechanic, the fact that pressing the input just activates it later makes it pretty much a useless input. The Up Special is also hideously broken. It's not only easily abusable, but with his great number of suicide aerials (which don't seem to be particularly in character for a slasher villain) he can just completely obliterate enemies. It's also a pretty bad case of magic syndrome, and it feels like you're just putting a reincarnation system because they're the 'hip' thing nowadays.

You've also got a good few number of moves that feel rather tacked on. He's got an aspect to him around bending and dropping down platforms, but you never explain the rationale behind this. You say something about reducing the number of places to hide, but Jason is way too slow to approach. Worse, his Down Smash is better when it's on a platform so he can stab an opponent from above through it! Not to mention that he claps for his Up Tilt just seems ridiculous.

The Dash Attack had a tacked on side effect, as did the jab and DThrow, and the suicide aerials were all basically identical and made his air game pretty boring. The FSmash, USmash, Fair, Dair, and BThrow are all as generic as you can possibly get.

Besides that, there are a good number of grammar errors scattered throughout, and the text is fuzzy and hard to read. It looked to me like you might have had the quality set too low, or you compressed it too much.

In the end, Jason is a very flawed moveset that, while it has some interesting ideas, doesn't end up going anywhere with them. The concept behind the machete use was a good one, don't get me wrong, but the set in its entirity utterly failed in the execution of it.

Also, those match-ups are frighteningly bad. I mean sickening. Don't do match-ups if you can do good match-ups.
 

Smady

Smash Master
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
3,306
Location
K Rool Avenue
The beauty of the internet; I have audio commentary in seven parts on Jason: uno, dos, tress, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete. Or visit my YouTube profile here to see all the parts.

I'll also be editing in written comments into this post soon, if there are no new posts. If there are, I'll probably just post up the comments for Scar and Jason anew.
 

Junahu

Smash Ace
Joined
Nov 15, 2005
Messages
899
Location
Shropshire Slasher
Jason:
wow, JPG image set? I know your browser has serious problems with alpha transparant PNG's, but surely you can see non-transparant ones just fine. JPGs are a generally bad choice for preserving clarity.
But, to be as bizarrely honest as I can be, the organisation here is an absolutely perfect fit for this retro slasher villain. I don't know if this was a purposeful gambit on your part, but the gratuitous mismash of pictures, black background with red text, and fuzzy fonts, makes me think of the early 90s, back when this was the best the internet was capable of. It really brings me back on a nostalgia trip and, as I've just said, it's the perfect fit for a Jason moveset.

The concept, while clever, does have flaws. If I was in a position where I had Jason's Machete, I would drop it on the ground and use it to bait Jason into approaching. If he perfectly counters it, there's no reason I should use it, and no reason for me to give it back.
Of course, that sort of logical thinking is not something Jason's victims were especially capable of, so again it suits Jason, in a wierd way.

Crippling the foe is something that would have been better off as a sub-mechanic, attached to all of his attacks rather than a scant one or two. As it is, it comes off as, "tacked on", as there is little logical sense in some of his attacks crippling, but not others.
Also, as DM said in his own comment, the Neutral Special is hard to justify. While it is an ingenius idea to use this enough to have Jason's mask come off just as the foe thinks he landed a killing blow, surely there was another way to implement this, without having it take up a Special (one that has no apparant effect when used).

The final Smash made me laugh. It's like Jason's in a contest to have a worse Final Smash than Doppelori does (¬_¬ And Jason wins in that department)

edit: There doesn't seem to be a move where Jason swings the foe around in a sleeping bag. (sadface)
extra edit: if the codec is talking about movies, Mei Ling would be the better choice
third edit: the likelyhood of Jason getting KO'd without letting go of the smashball, is almost 0. Jason would literally have to kill himself, in order to activate the Final Smash


Smady Comment edit:
Smady trying to divide 80 by 5... XD
MULTI WAVE SWORD PLANT!! (I assume Jason actually stabs the ground in front of him, which would allow him to use this at the edge of the stage to spike recovering foes)
Jason + Nurse Joy? What a creepy/useless combination
"whaaaaaaat!? wh--whaaaaaat?! You can see them having sex in the background of the stage?"
(INSERT FOE'S NAME)
Smady trying to do Snake's voice and then just reading out Otacon's lines in his normal voice... XD
"they're all pretty much 100/1"
¬_¬ other than Arche, Joy, Team Rocket, HIoPB!WdIdtDT? and tSFPMtREaOhOT, (5/21 movesets, two of which are jokingingly massive exaggerations on the theme) I don't see any of my sets requiring excessive setup.
 

Monkey D. AWESOME

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Feb 28, 2010
Messages
143
Location
Coming to terms with having two people in my mind
JASON

Oh, God.... Jason.... I agree with Snake. I hate most horror movies, so I had a huge character bias for this moveset. But, I sucked it up and read it. And you know what? I think this may deserve a vote.

For a mindless killing machine, Jason actually has some mindgame potential. He WANTS his foes to use his machete. He WANTS his foe to KO him. He WANTS to make his foe come after him. And Jason is perfectly in character here. But other than that, he is BROKEN AS HELL. He's basically unkillable, for Christ's sake! Even Luffy would have a hard time against this guy!
Or maybe not.
But, this is still one of your best sets, Katapultar. Keep up the good work!

EDIT: I really like the standard attack. It reminds me a lot of most of the manga I read. :p
 

KingK.Rool

Smash Lord
Joined
Nov 26, 2005
Messages
1,810
"A good way to PEE him off? Yeah, Pennywise is peeing on... urgh."
So you started making a joke, than thought up the mental image and regretted it?

"I - I know this is meant to be not realistic, but... geeez."​

Can I just mention how much I'm loving these audio reviews? They're just full of these little gems, and make everybody seem so much more human. And coincidentally, Warlord, I love how, with your last line, you managed to mention me, make a bad pun, and jab at my lack of activity/movesetting. Good stuff. (y)

See, I'm gonna be the odd one out and say that I really like Jason. Or, well, maybe that's not entirely true - my feelings are mixed. On the one hand, that's probably one of the best organizations I've ever seen. Junahu hit the nail on the head: it's that very retro, claustrophobic, B-movie mishmash that works so well for the character. A fusion of character and concept, clearly.

But that's putting aside the moveset itself, which is obviously the most important aspect. I don't think you captured the way in which absolutely nothing can stop Jason. You have that DSpec in which he's mysteriously struck by a mysterious thunderbolt, and you have all the machete attacks that are going to be skewering him, but in general, he seems far too easy to KO.

I love that Jason brings the fight up close by literally giving the opponent the key to killing him, and bullying them into using it. Once he starts marching toward you, you're going to have a tough time avoiding him, since he can drag you down if you try to go over him and charging straight into him is a fool's move - that works as it should, I'll concede.

See, that's a playstyle. Every attack does not fit into it, but it's a playstyle, and it's interesting, and even if it isn't fully developed, it warrants respect. Playing Jason is that sense of power and invincibility, if you know what I mean.

As a final note, I kinda like that ridiculous stage. Friday the 13th - the series - is all about exploitation and excess. Blood and guts and sex and so forth. There's a kind of camp to both the stage and the way you present it, a very Brechtian aspect smart presentation and no I am not pretentious at all. (wary)


I feel bad for commenting in such a haphahazard way, but I will catch up with all the rest shortly.
 

MasterWarlord

Smash Champion
Joined
Aug 24, 2008
Messages
2,902
Location
Not wasting countless hours on a 10 man community
KOMODO BROS


The Komodo Bros., Komodo Joe and Komodo Moe, are a pair of Komodo Dragons mutated by N. Brio into humanoid expert samurais. They’re the second boss fight in Crash Bandicoot 2. Joe’s the taller skinny one while Moe’s the heavyweight male antagonist.

Boss Fight

So. . .They’re clearly a tag team character, right? Well, yes and no. Unlike the standard tag team, the bros don’t occupy the same character slot – they’re each individually selectable and are viable on their own, with flowing playstyles of their own and all that. However; the bros only truly recognize their potential in doubles. Wait, viable solo characters getting boosts in doubles? How overpowered is that? Quite honestly, it is, but it’s nothing compared to something like dual Dedede and obviously requires a good bit more skill. This is no metagame changer for doubles.

Link to the Playlist of Music for the Moveset

SCIMITARS


Both the Komodo Brothers dual wield scimitars for a grand total of four between them. Some of their attacks cause them to throw their scimitars, and most attacks of the bros have a minimum amount of scimitars required to use them. The scimitars lay about on the stage where they were thrown, and all you have to do to get them back is touch them, there being no lag in doing so. If they go over the edge, they –will not- respawn, though thankfully foes can’t do anything to the scimitars lying on the ground.

Nothing you haven’t heard before, right? This goes as far back as the original Crash Bandicoot tag team moveset that started this way back in MYM 4. Remember Tiny’s trident? No? Bah. Anyway, this doesn’t deserve it’s own mechanic section, you say?

The main thing that makes this one stick out is that the scimitars of the Bros. are interchangeable. You can throw your scimitar at your brother, and assuming he doesn’t have two already he’ll catch it and use it himself.


KOMODO MOE


Komodo Moe is one of the most obscure of the (original) Crash Bandicoot characters. He was absent from Crash Team Racing while his brother appeared as a boss, and Joe also got some cameos in the non Naughty Dog Crash games while Moe fell all the more into obscurity.

It’s not helping matters that the enclosed instruction booklet for Crash 2, the only real info we’ve been given on Moe’s personality, insists that Moe is just brawn while Joe is all the brains. Fans tend to label him as unintelligent as Tiny Tiger or Koala Kong, what have you.

However; actually looking at the boss fight, it looks more the other way around then anything. Moe does nearly everything, Joe’s the one who messes up and causes their downfall, for crap’s sake. Do I believe the all knowing enclosed instruction booklet got it wrong? Nay, particularly when Joe’s dialogue in Crash Team Racing proves he’s perfectly intelligent. However; ignoring the 2 sentences or so glazing over the bros, there’s no reason to not believe they’re equals.


STATS


Traction: 10
Size: 9
Weight: 9
Falling Speed: 7
Aerial Movement: 6
Jumps: 3.5
Movement: 3

SPECIALS


NEUTRAL SPECIAL – THROWING SCIMITAR


After .22 seconds of lag, Moe hurls one of his scimitars in whatever direction you aim it in the distance of Final Destination at the speed of Captain Falcon’s dash, dealing 9% and knockback that kills at 200% on contact. This is decent for camping. . .Pretending the scimitar mechanic doesn’t exist. Taking it into account, you’ll mainly want to throw the scimitar upwards so it automatically comes back down and you catch it or to throw it at your brother.

UP SPECIAL - BLADE PROPELLORS


At the start of the move, Moe extends out his arms starts spinning around rapidly like you’d expect any Brawl character to do as a generic nair, but he keeps it up for a good 0.35 seconds until he’s spinning very quickly, slowing his falling speed by roughly 60% as he does so. The scimitars are hitboxes that deal 20 hits of 1% during this time, but they do slight knockback rather then flinching so it more serves as GTFO then anything.

After spinning around, Moe puts his arms above his head. His scimitars continue to spin around rapidly from the momentum of him swinging around, propelling him upwards into the air. The scimitars are still a hitbox that deal 20 hits of 1% every half second, and they take Moe up 8 Ganondorfs over a single second at which point the recovery ends (Moe doesn’t go into helpless). . .But they don’t stop spinning at that point, certainly not. They spin faster and faster, so fast that Moe can’t hold on to them and they go up 16 more Ganondorfs before they finally slow down and fall back down. If they go off the top blast zone (Very likely), they’ll come back down after 7.5 seconds. This means that after you recover you have to go back off-stage to pick your scimitars back up.

Considering this is such a good vertical recovery, you’ll generally want to DI back towards the stage to get close to it before using the recovery so you don’t have to venture out far off-stage to get your scimitars back when they fall back down. . .Unless you –want- the foe to think you’re vulnerable to lure them off-stage to gimp you only to gimp them yourself.

With 1 scimitar, the recovery only takes you half the distance, while with no scimitars this move becomes a laggier version of Marth’s Up B with jointed priority.


DOWN SPECIAL – BEAR HUG


Komodo Moe turns to face the screen and goes into the background as fast as an average spot dodge, invulnerable, still able to move and jump about as normal though with slightly slower ground movement. Upon release or after 2.5 seconds are up, Moe does a bear hug forwards over .15 seconds to form a grab hitbox as wide as he is. Furthermore, Moe is capable of grabbing 2 foes at once with this (He takes turns throwing the two foes if the throw only targets one person). Unfortunately, this move has terribly terrible ending lag assuming you whiff the grab. . .

However; while Moe is in the background, if anybody else overlaps with him in the background he’ll grab them, guaranteed. If you can predict your foe’s dodges this can be useful, though the main way to go about doing this successfully is to force the foe to dodge another hitbox by doing something like throwing up your scimitar then getting ready to bear hug them as it’s about to land on them. Of course, you’ll be reeling the grabs in like a madman if Joe can properly pressure the foe into your meaty arms.


SIDE SPECIAL – BLADE WALL


Moe impales a scimitar into the ground in front of him over .28 seconds. If he hits a foe with this move, he impales them with the scimitar with a grab hitbox then flings them off the scimitar, dealing ¾ a Battlefield’s worth of set knockback and 10% as well as .28 seconds of hitstun. They’re too far away to follow up, but you now have time to use the move with nobody around.

If you don’t hit anyone, Moe impales his scimitar into the ground, leaving it there until he presses Side B to pick it up again, functioning as a wall. . .No, he can’t camp behind it (His only projectile is Neutral B), nor does he have any sort of infinite jab/chain grab he can use against walls.

So how –DOES- a wall benefit Moe? It’s not even entirely solid! Foes can roll through it! Erhem, I believe you meant to say that foes can attempt to roll past it right into a Down Special Grab. . .It’s either that or they go over it, in which case they become vulnerable to Moe’s excellent anti-air attacks.


GRAB-GAME


GRAB – LURCH


Moe lurches forward for a grab with above average starting lag, though it’s still not something that can be particularly relied on. You’ll mainly want to be setting up guaranteed grabs with Down Special, though the fact that this isn’t punishable (Zero end lag) means it’s certainly a noteworthy alternative. Notably, you –can- grab Joe with your regular grab. . .

PUMMEL – HEADBUTT


Moe headbutts the foe laggily, dealing only 1%, but adds a slight bit of time to the grab timer. Half the time that this laggy pummel takes to execute. This can help to stall slightly if you’re waiting for your scimitars to come back down from the heavens.

FORWARD THROW – SPINNER THRUST


Moe thrusts his arms forward over .22 seconds, causing the victim to take 8% and spin around rapidly half the distance a Battlefield Platform over .7 seconds. The victim has superarmor/anti-grab armor during this time. Nothing else notable here. . .Except for the part where the victim ricochets off walls, regaining all their speed, and other spinning foes count as a “wall” to ricochet off of to boot (They can’t spin more then 10 seconds max though, so no infinites on Shadow Moses. . .). The spinning foes are hitboxes that deal 10 hits of 1% and flinching to anybody they touch. Foes will continue to spin if they go off-stage, but are able to stop their spinning faster if they’re at low percents. At 0% they escape out of it 3X as fast as normal, but at 135% there’s no change.

Spinning victims reflect projectiles thrown at them during this time. . .But still take the damage. Yes, you can throw your scimitars at the foe and they’ll reflect them back to you so you can throw the scimitars at them again!

This is the reason you’re allowed to grab Joe. . .If you use this on him, he won’t take any damage (He’s used to it), be able to control his movement left and right without losing any momentum. In addition, Joe will catch any projectile thrown at him (Not taking any damage) and has control over where he wants to throw it (He throws it back to the source by default). This allows Joe to be a spinning wall for Moe to camp through.


BACK THROW – BACK BREAKER


Moe lifts the foe above his head and lets out a mighty roar as he looks as if he’s trying to snap them in half. While he ultimately fails, he manages to break the foe’s back in the process as a cracking noise is heard, dealing 12% and preventing them from being able to turn around for 10 seconds. . .This means their only way to go backwards is to roll (Down Special bait) or to jump and use aerial DI to go back, which means if you’re behind them their approach is terribly predictable and easy for you to counter. Is the foe turtling up waiting for this to wear off or just naturally defensive? Pressure them off-stage and use your gimping game. Once you do, they don’t exactly have much choice but to go backwards due to having to recover in that situation – easy pickings for you to send down into the abyss.

UP THROW – JUGGLE


Moe throws the foe up into the air into his other hand dealing 7%, and at the same time throws the scimitar in his other hand into the hand that had the foe in it. The scimitar hits the foe on the way up as they fall back down, dealing another 8%. The stun from the scimitar is long enough to prevent the foe from doing anything to prevent them from being regrabbed, but above 30% the scimitar deals enough knockback to knock foes far enough away from Moe to not get regrabbed. The knockback that the scimitar does is vertical and kills at 200% (The scimitar gets knocked back down to Moe), making the throw still useful as a set-up to get the foe in the air.

If Moe has grabbed two foes, he’ll use the second foe instead of his scimitar in the juggling. Things behave quite similarly here and the chain-grab still works below 30%, though above 30% it’s still a form of chain grab – the foe that takes the scimitar’s place will get knocked back down to Moe for an easy regrab.

If Moe has a foe –and- Joe grabbed, then Moe -doesn’t- toss Joe into the foe so that they collide, the foe just taking 7%. However, the foe is left in the air with Joe at point blank. . .


DOWN THROW – PINNED TO THE FLOOR


Moe impales his scimitar through the foe from above for 11%, going through them and impaling into the ground. The scimitar leaves the foe pinned in their knocked down state, having superarmor/anti-grab armor until they escape from their position like a grab with 1.5X the difficulty. The foe can still perform rising attacks while in this state (Though they won’t actually rise from them), so they’re not entirely helpless. The Bros. won’t pick up scimitars that are being used to pin down a foe. This is generally used to get one foe out of the way so you can take out the other one more easily in doubles, but if you can predict which way they roll from this you can get in another grab via Down Special in singles.

STANDARDS


NEUTRAL ATTACK - STOMP


Moe turns to the screen and stomps at the ground, taking turns with which foot he stomps down with. Each press of A causes Moe to stomp down again with another .15 seconds of lag, and each stomp deals 5% and flinching. The range/priority of this is poor, but it works well on a foe that’s knocked down. The lower half of Moe’s body has superarmor to boot, so this can “out-prioritze” some rising attacks, albeit some faster ones will still damage Moe before he can interrupt them. Moe’s best way to damage rack on knocked down foes.

DASHING ATTACK – ROUNDHOUSE SWING


Moe does a shorthop forwards before his fallspeed quickly brings him back down to the ground, his underside a hitbox that deals 12% and knocks you to the ground as well as leaving you in your knocked down state. This move is fairly quick to start, and though it has .4 seconds of ending lag this move deals half a second of hitstun to whoever you hit.

If you shorthop towards a schimimtar you’ve impaled in the ground with Side Special, Moe will grab onto it and use his momentum from the dash to swing around it to the other side of it, his body a hitbox that deals 9% and knockback that kills at 190% towards the side of the scimitar Moe was originally on. Moe swings through the background to get to the other side of the blade, so this will hit anybody rolling past the scimitar. It takes roughly .15 seconds for Moe to swing to the other side. If you hold A, Moe will continue to swing around back to the side he was originally on, though he can’t keep swinging at that point due to having no more momentum. If you continue to hold A anyway, Moe will uproot the scimitar from the ground at the end, free to use it again.

If you fear whiffing a Down Special to retreat to the other side of the scimitar, this is the attack to look to, and it consistently keeps the scimitar between you and the foe. This also is a nice way to safely pick up the scimitar against a foe constantly breathing down your neck.


FORWARD TILT – LOW KICK


Moe does a low kick forward, not raising his leg particularly high at all. This is an exceptionally fast move coming in at .1 seconds, but the range/priority are terrible. If it connects, it deals 5% and causes the foe to trip – but they actually fall over towards Moe into their knocked down position, tripping just being part of the animation. This leads to set-ups similar to the dthrow with you predicting how the foe gets up from this position.

If you kick somebody when they’re down, then you’ll deal the usual 5% but the kick will do awkward set knockback that makes them go as far as they’d normally roll in that direction – in fact it makes them actually roll, but not get up. It’s a test of reflexes to see whether they roll first or you kick them, mainly. Yeah, Moe is too slow to get ahead of them after he kicked them to use Down Special for a grab, but if you kick them to the edge of the stage then you know which way they’re going to roll and it’s very easy to catch them with Down Special.

If you use this a lot, the foe will tend to stay away from the edge so you can’t make their get-up options as predictable. . .If you make a wall with Side Special, though, then you have another nice position you can kick the foe at that makes the foe’s options from getting up much more predictable.


UP TILT – CROSS SLASH


Moe slashes both of his scimitars above him in an X formation over a mere .2 seconds, dealing 14% and vertical knockback that kills at 210%. The hitbox above Moe is impressively large (Assuming you have both scimitars), leaving the move with no real blind spot. . .But the hitbox is –entirely- above Moe. No hitbox as he scoops up his scimitars, so this is just for anti-air, but it serves its’ purpose well.

DOWN TILT – TAIL SWEEP


Moe sweeps his tail along the ground in front of him over .25 seconds, causing foes to take 7% and get knocked over onto their backs and slide backwards on the platform away (They’ll never go off the edge) based off their damage. At 0%, they’ll barely go a Stage Builder Block, at 100% it maxes out at 3 Battlefield Platforms. If you’re close enough to the edge to get them right up against it with this move, this can make them very easy to counter when they get up. Unlike ftilt, at a high enough percent you can force the foe into this position no matter where they are, and yes they –do- slide slowly enough for you to chase after them to the edge.

While this is laggier then ftilt, it’s very low to the ground, long reaching, and high priority. The fact that it’s low to the ground means it can go under disjointed weapons instead of being out-prioritzed by them, and the high priority covers jointed attacks fine. You’re going to be using this defensively a decent bit when you have no scimitars to deal with disjointed attacks. . .


SMASHES


FORWARD SMASH – SAMURAI CLASH


Moe does a slash forward with a scimitar over .33 seconds, dealing 23-33% and knockback that kills at 155-90%. If Moe has no scimitars or presses B during the starting lag, he slashes forward with one of his claws rather then one of his scimitars, it having half as much damage/knockback. This has half a second of end lag if whiffed.

If Moe clashes with a disjointed attack with his scimitar or a jointed attack with his claw, Moe will start rapidly slashing at the foe with his scimitar(s)/claws as the foe retaliates, them getting into a heated battle together. While it’s just for show, Moe strafes over into the background while they clash like this, so the foe is still in danger in a 2v2 setting while Moe is perfectly safe (Albeit the foe gets superarmor/anti-grab armor). Moe and the foe keep fighting like this for 2 seconds before a winner is determined.

The winner of the clash is determined by who has less damage (Button mashing can influence it very slightly), though Moe has a 15% handicap in his favor if he clashed with a scimitar. The loser takes 32-47% and a full second of hitstun (65% of the damage/hitstun with claws), and considering you choose when these clashes start you’ll come out on top if you’re competent.

While Moe strafes around the foe to get into the background by default, you can still continue to make him strafe as you please by holding left/right, however; the foe can strafe about as well. Whoever has less damage has control over the strafing, though they’ll be strafing about very slowly if the damage lead is small.


UP SMASH – BELLY LAUNCHER


Moe turns to face the screen and leans way back, but steps towards the screen a bit so that his belly is what’s in the playing field. After .2 seconds of startup lag, Moe thrusts his belly upwards, dealing no damage but set upward knockback that knocks the foe upwards anywhere from half Final Destination’s length to sending them up into the “magnifying glass” at full charge. As Moe thrusts up his belly, if he’s hit with a jointed attack from above he’ll be unharmed and the foe will be knocked upwards with the force of their own attack in addition to the force of Moe’s usmash. If used as an aerial counter this can potentially score KOs. Don’t worry about projectiles – Moe’s belly automatically reflects them if they come from above.

But this is also a nice way to get the foe/Joe into the air, much less considering Joe can just use an attack on your belly to launch himself up high rather then you having to charge the move up for him.

Why would you want the foe in the air? Why wouldn’t you? You can camp upwards at the foe with Neutral Special and your scimitars will actually come back to you, or if you’re more conservative you could just use your delicious anti-air Utilt.


DOWN SMASH – IMPALE


Moe turns to face the screen and impales the ground on either side of him with both of his scimitars (If he only has one scimitar one hitbox is simply removed) in a mere .1 seconds, dealing a meaty 26-36% and impaling the foe with a grab hitbox, pinning them to the ground like in dthrow. However; during the (TERRIBLE) ending lag Moe is lifting up his scimitars from the ground, so this simply serves as a means of covering up his ending lag. Of course, with the fact there’s two hitboxes you can disable both of the foes and yourself while Joe picks up lots of free damage. The grab hitboxes of the scimitars are wide enough that if there’s a knocked down foe at your feet, if they roll in either direction they’ll get impaled. Predicting the foe’s reaction to dthrow/ftilt/dtilt is sounding more appealing all the time, yes?

During the terrible ending lag, Moe’s two scimitars are solid walls. Aside from generically blocking projectiles, this can be used to make two solid walls for somebody who’s spinning around to rapidly ricochet off of to build up momentum. You see, if somebody spinning ricochets off a wall quickly enough, they’ll increased their speed by 1.2X. If they get caught during the whole duration of this “End lag” they’ll be going 3.2X as fast as normal and travel two thirds of Final Destination. Moe gains invulnerability to attacks that deal 1% during this attack to prevent the spinning hitbox of the spinning person from interrupting the move. You can’t chain this forever due to the foe having a VERY slight lag advantage as they come out of this, and what with how fast they’ll be spinning it’ll be all they need.

Aside from giving Joe a lot more freedom in his movement and getting Joe a lot of free hits on any foes trapped between your scimitars with you, this is mainly used for gimping in solo matches. The fact the foe is spinning more quickly away from you means you won’t get in any extra projectiles to throw at them, but they’ll go farther and take longer to get out of it, making it a nice potential gimp killer at higher percents.

Putting up two Side Special Blade Walls can also work like this, though one of the walls will get knocked over by the foe if they start ricocheting off as fast as they possibly can with dsmash. This also leaves you with no weapons to defend yourself with. Then again, this way not both you and Joe have to be trapped in lag, so it’s preferred when using this on Joe. On enemies, stick with the dsmash.


AERIALS


NEUTRAL AERIAL – GUT BLOCKER


This is a two part aerial like a neutral combo. On the first press of A, Moe turns to face the screen and puffs out his belly, it becoming semi-solid (It can be passed through by dodging). If any jointed attack hits Moe, the foe bounces away in the opposite direction their attack would’ve knocked Moe with the same power, and Moe is unharmed from the attack. Moe can hold his belly out as long as he wants and he can break it out pretty quickly (.1 seconds), but Moe has a fairly fast fall speed and this has terrible landing lag. . .

But what about disjointed attacks? The second part of the nair has Moe do a X shaped slash with both of his scimitars that covers his whole body in a hitbox that deals 10% and knockback that kills at 200%, only taking .15 seconds to do once you’re in the stance from the first part of the nair. Unfortunately, if you don’t hit the foe you’ll end up slashing yourself in the gut. . .No you can’t use this to refresh your recovery, and you won’t take any knockback from it, just damage and stun. This notably out-prioritzes other disjointed attacks. Projectiles? Don’t even worry about them, those just get deflected in a random direction.

The highlight of the move is the first part, which you’ll be using for gimping, putting your big meaty fat in the way of the enemy’s recovery. However; they’ll probably just bat you away with a disjointed attack of some kind, hence why the second part of the move exists. If they predict even that, they’ll just wait for you to stab yourself. . .But in an off-stage situation, they don’t exactly have a lot of time to wait, now do they? Generally the foe vastly prefers to be slashed rather then being bounced off your blubber, as it doesn’t knock them directly away from the edge and refreshes their recovery in the process. This is a nice way to lure in disjointed attacks to clash with in fsmash. . .

The foe wants to just dodge through your belly? If they predict you’re going to use nair, you can use Down Special instead to give them a nasty surprise. Doesn’t help that the brief starting lag of the two moves have similar animations.

Obviously, in doubles this is a very nice option to help Joe recover. . .


FORWARD AERIAL – SWEEP


Moe sweeps his arms forwards, essentially making the move an aerial jointed version of Mario’s cape with better range, turning around the foe. While this is a help to Moe’s gimping game in general, it’s true use comes into play in combination with Moe’s bthrow. Now you don’t have to bother to get behind the enemy and stay there, you can just constantly sweep them around to face the other way.

BACK AERIAL – DISARM


Moe turns around to do an aerial grab behind himself with .35 seconds of starting lag with superarmor during it, but has .65 seconds of ending lag if he whiffs the move. If he grabs them, he generically throws them away for 8% and knockback that kills at 180%. . .If they have any sort of weapon/prop, though, he disarms it from them and throws it off the top KO boundary as powerfully as he throws his scimitars in his Up Special. The foe will have to catch their weapon when it comes back down in order to use the moves involving it again. . .The weapon Moe takes is the most recent one they used if they have multiple ones, the one used for the largest amount of attacks if they haven’t used any. The foe doesn’t actually lose the inputs – they still do the motions of the attack, but their arm swinging or what-not is now the (low jointed priority) hitbox of the attack, and the moves are treated as if they have 2 levels of move decay. This means foes who rely on one weapon aren’t entirely defenseless and you can’t rob them of their recoveries.

While this may look like random creativity to the untrained eye, this serves a very important purpose. . .If you used it off-stage, the foe has to go back off the stage to get their weapon back, or else it’ll fall into the abyss and never respawn, making this a great lure to get the foe off-stage to lead into your gimping. If they don’t go back, then that’s their loss, as now they’re left with less options (If any) to combat Moe’s nair/usmash. If Moe has no scimitars, this is also his main defense against disjointed priority.

If the foe has magicy non-weapon/prop based disjointed attacks, Moe punches them in the gut and rips out some magicy energy and throws it upwards, disabling their most recently used magicy attacks of that element until they pick back up the magicy energy. Moe uses the force of the foe’s magic syndrome against them.


UP AERIAL – CHOMP


Moe takes advantage of his reptilian teeth to chomp 3 times upwards, each hit dealing a mere 4% and weak set upward knockback. Fortunately there’s no lag to start the move up, though it has a somewhat long duration of a half a second. This significantly slows Moe’s descent – he can stall in the air roughly as long as a Fox spamming Down B can.

So where does Moe want to stall in the air? When he’s trying to bait the foe off-stage to gimp him when in actuality his intent is to gimp them, or to just stall slightly if his scimitars are about to come back down so he can recover again. Perhaps a combination of the two?


DOWN AERIAL – PLUNGING BLADE


Moe throws one of his scimitars directly downwards rather then spinning it around when he throws it with Neutral Special over .28 seconds. It skewers anything it comes in contact with via a grab hitbox, dragging foes down with it and dealing 14%. The foe can’t do anything but escape from the grab while airborne, though on the ground they’re treated as if they were hit by Moe’s dthrow (They gain the superarmor/anti-grab armor before hitting the ground), capable of using rising attacks.

Of course, a rather obvious use for this is to use it to gimp a foe off-stage. Considering the blade goes down nearly as fast as Sonic runs, they’ll struggle to get free, much less in time to recover. The downside is that hit or miss you lose one of your scimitars for good. . .


SOLO PLAYSTYLE


Moe racks damage mainly through his tech chasing foes knocked to the ground – he has many moves to do this with. Dash, Ftilt, Dtilt, Dthrow, Dair. . .The former two even let Moe rack up some damage with his jab before the fun begins, or gives him time to place a Side Special blade wall to make the foe’s reaction predictable if he hasn’t already. Down Smash scores the most immediate damage out of this and accounts for 2 different possible reactions from the foe, not requiring them to be next to a ledge, but leaves you the most vulnerable if you don’t read the foe correctly and doesn’t allow you to continue. If you follow up with Down Special, you can simply dthrow the foe again and start the process over. As the damage goes up, you generally won’t need Side Special at all as dtilt will nearly always send the foe sliding far enough to get to an edge to make them more predictable.

Moe may want to add in a bthrow somewhere to make the foe more easily fall prey to more grabs. . .In particular, if they have to approach backwards through a Side Special wall their options are so limited that it’s hard to –not- counter their aerial approach and Moe is always fully capable of countering rolling. While utilt is the best anti-air, Usmash can lead into more anti-air shenanigans with utilt/Neutral B angled upwards. . .If you spam it enough to bait the foe into going out of their way to use a disjointed attack, you can use an upward angled fsmash to clash with them. Using Dash Attack to consistently stay behind your wall can make it absolutely torturous to approach you, as well as using fair to prevent them from turning to face you.

Is the foe cowering away from you or is their damage high enough to think about a KO? Continue this phase of your game, but try to use dtilt/ftilt to push the foe towards the edge while they’re knocked down. From here, go for a grab with Down Special, then use Fthrow (With help from Dsmash to truly get them going) when as close to the edge as possible to send them as far off-stage as you can. This is the best way to –force- the foe off-stage to lead into your gimping game.

And what a glories gimping game it is. . .Primarily due to that juicy nair/Down Special. If they have disjointed hitboxes which prove troublesome for the gut blocker of death, you can try forcing them off-stage earlier in the match just to use bair on them (Which can also serve to get them off-stage again without forcing them) so they can’t use it, or you can attempt to pressure the foe off when they have a broken back from bthrow and can’t turn to face you to use said disjointed attacks (Hopefully it’s not their bair. . .), and turn them around with fair if necessary. Hell, you can just forget the bthrow and skip straight to the fair potentially, as foes can’t turn around in the air without using a mid-air jump.

Outside the occasional KO move, damage racking for Moe primarily serves as a way to to get foes further off-stage with fthrow. But why go through that effort? Gimp based characters are supposed to be able to kill at 0%! Indeed they are, and Moe is capable of getting the foe off-stage without his fthrow by baiting them there. The most obvious option for this is bair, which not only lures them off-stage later on but makes them easier to kill once they get there.

Another way you can foes off-stage is by taking advantage of your recovery. While you can choose to play conservatively by using your dtilt/pummel/bthrow defensively to stall for your scimitars to come back down from the top blast zone, you can stay off-stage by spamming uair, waiting for your scimitars to come back. Many foes will consider this an opportunity to gimp you what with how you’ve lost several moves, or at least want to get you away so you don’t get your scimitars back. Either way, it lures them off-stage, which is exactly what you want. Use the superarmor on your bair to muscle through their disjointed assault and lure them back out again, or if they’re stupid enough to use a jointed attack just nair as always. If you dislike having to defend yourself without your scimitars while waiting them to come back down, you can impale one of your scimitars in the stage with Side Special so you have something to hide behind while waiting for the other to come back down. While this decreases your recovery, it still allows you to potentially have some form of one if necessary by uprooting the scimitar impaled in the stage.

If you lose your scimitars or successfully kill the foe and are left at a significant damage disadvantage, you can try to aim to hit with the Down Special off-stage rather then the nair to go for a suicide KO. If you still have a scimitar, you can attempt to use your dair, seeing you’re going to die soon anyway. If the foe comes to expect this, then you can just play normally and attempt to hit them with nair. Because Moe totally needed more mindgames. . .Moe wants to terrify the foe to be too scared to do anything out of fear of getting it countered. On-stage so that Moe can go on the offensive to get them off-stage, and off-stage simply because the foe has so little time to decide and are likely to make hasty stupid decisions.


KOMODO JOE


Joe is considerably more well known and popular then his brother, not the least of which is due to his more numerous appearances and him having an actually known personality. Joe is a “cold blooded assassin” - it only makes sense that he separates from his brother at times. . .How is he supposed to be remotely stealthy with a big oaf like his brother around?

STATS


Aerial Movement: 10
Traction: 9.5
Movement: 7.5
Jumps: 7
Size: 6
Weight: 4.5
Falling Speed: 2

SPECIALS


NEUTRAL SPECIAL – THROWING SCIMITAR


Yes, Joe shares this move with his brother. . .It’d be rather pointless if Joe could catch Moe’s scimitar but couldn’t throw it back to him, now wouldn’t it?

A notable interaction with Moe is with his dair – on the dair, if he stays below the foe Moe is attempting to dair, then if Moe misses the foe Joe can just catch the scimitar and throw it back up to him, removing the risk of the otherwise broken move.

Joe can help Moe recover, by getting above Joe and throwing his scimitars to the stage with Neutral B, then catch the scimitars that spin around too quickly for Moe to keep ahold of.


UP SPECIAL – STEEL WHIRLWIND


After .12 seconds, Joe spins around rapidly with his blades as they obscure him from view completely to rise up a depressingly unimpressive distance, a mere Marth height upwards, dealing 7 hits of 1% as he quickly rises up over .3 seconds. Don’t be deceived by this unimpressive recovery move, though, as Joe’s horizontal recovery is still excellent simply due to his stupidly low falling speed and stupidly high aerial movement.

And that’s not all that buffs up Joe’s recovery, as Joe is essentially ungimpable when he uses this move with both scimitars, them entirely covering up his hurtbox (With no scimitars it’s a generic jumping tail whip that deals a single hit of 4%) and this doesn’t put Joe into helpless. More importantly, when Joe comes out from the steel whirlwind at the end of the move with both scimitars, he’s completely invisible and will remain so until he hits the ground. Any scimitars Joe aren’t holding become/stay invisible.


DOWN SPECIAL - ASSASINATE


Komodo Joe turns to face the screen and goes into the background near instantly (0.4 seconds), invulnerable, still able to move and jump about as normal though with slightly slower ground movement. Upon release or after a seconds is up, Joe quickly stabs forwards, dealing a very “meh” 7% and below average set knockback. Unlike his brother’s variation of the move, the ending lag on this isn’t nearly as punishable if the move is whiffed, only .3 seconds.

As you might expect after having read Moe’s Down Special, if a foe overlaps with Joe in the background he backstabs them, guaranteed. This deals 25%, and a seconds of hitstun. The problem is that Joe doesn’t casually backstab the foe for this stun – he impales his scimitar through the foe and leaves it in them, it taking the duration of the stun for the scimitar to fall through the impaled victim. Getting hit by any attack makes the scimitar get knocked out of the victim early and frees them from their stun. If Joe doesn’t want to sacrifice a scimitar for this, if he presses B again quickly after he impales the victim he’ll rip the schimiar out immediately, dealing an extra 5% in the process.

Unfortunately all of Joe’s KO moves require two scimitars to KO at reasonable percentages, so you’ll mainly be scoring KOs by this through gimping. However; even this isn’t a done deal, as the foe can still use aerial DI to move around while stunned. Even if they do go down, you’re losing a scimitar out of the deal and crippling yourself on the next stock, much like Moe’s dair. While this is more awkward to land then said dair, you only lose your scimitar if your successfully kill the foe due to them so kindly bringing the scimitar back to the stage, meaning Joe doesn’t have to hesitate so much to use this move.

Before we carry on, Grabs don’t knock the scimitar out of the foe, only throws do that. After Moe grabs the foe, if he dthrows (Dair works too) them the scimitar still won’t be knocked out of them and it’ll take them twice as long to escape from being pinned. The foe’s ally can’t save them from this stun, and if timed correctly when the second is about to be over it can extend it. . .

Yes, yes, one last interaction. Moe’s uthrow leaving the foe and Joe together at point blank? Their natural inclination is generally to just dodge and retreat to avoid one of Joe’s faster attacks, and this is just absolutely delicious for Joe.

Oh, I lied. There’s another interaction. Bahahahhaahha. Remember Moe’s clashing fsmash and how he could strafe around? . . .Yeah. Now it’s not just a war to see who gets into the background to hide from the other teammate, as if the foe succeeds and gets into the background Joe is free to assassinate them – it’ll go through their superarmor and what-not and end the clash, leaving them stunned as normal. Of course, if they’re not in the background, then Joe is free to damage rack them while they’re helpless to resist.

Nevermind how Moe’s ftilt can actually FORCE foes to roll so Joe can assassinate the-*Shot*


SIDE SPECIAL – BACKSTAB


Joe does a dramatic stab forward, but it’s not stupidly exaggerated or drawn out, still being practical with the animation being relatively fast at .3 seconds. If you hit the foe from the front, you deal 3% and flinch them. If you hit them from behind, though, you deal 22% and reasonable hitstun (.29 seconds, how convenient). Very nice damage racking tool.

If the only interaction between the bros was Moe’s bthrow and this move, Joe would still greatly appreciate his teammate. . .The foe unable to turn around for 10 seconds? Their only way to approach is to roll to be fodder for Assassinate or jump up and be a victim to Joe’s aerial game? Jesus Christ.

Moe’s fthrow can also be (less) helpful – if you backstab a foe that’s rapidly spinning around, you’ve got a 50/50 chance of a backstab, essentially.


AERIALS


NEUTRAL AERIAL – BOOSTER KICK


Joe curls up into a ball for .22 seconds of starting lag before kicking in whatever direction you input, downwards by default. If Joe’s kick comes into contact with a foe, he kicks off of them, dealing. . .7% and weak set knockback. However; this propels Joe 5 Ganondorfs in the opposite direction he kicked from. This lets you get high up in the air so that you have lots of use your invisibility from Up Special before you hit the ground. . .While Moe already makes a great enough platform to use nair off of to get high up, using nair on Moe while he’s using Usmash/Nair won’t damage Moe at all and will propel Joe twice the usual distance.

This move doesn’t deal any hitstun. This allows you to casually jump on Moe without interrupting him when he’s doing something else in doubles. In singles, Joe can follow a foe off-stage forever in his attempt to gimp them and then just casually use nair to spring off of them to get back to the stage, not renewing their recovery in the process.


UP AERIAL – CHOMP


Joe takes advantage of his reptilian teeth to chomp 3 times upwards, each hit dealing a mere 4% and weak set upward knockback. Fortunately there’s no lag to start the move up, though it has a somewhat long duration of a half a second. This significantly slows Joe’s descent to be even slower then it already is – he can stall roughly twice as long as a Fox spamming Down B in the air. This lets you stay in the air all the stupidly longer once you’re up there to have more time to mess with your invisibility.

DOWN AERIAL – CURVING BLADE


Joe throws one of his scimitars downwards over a mere .1 seconds, but in a strange horizontal half arch-like arch. The scimitar tries to go in a complete circle to go back up to Joe even, but ultimately is forced to obey the laws of gravity and just goes straight downwards. It’s hitbox is the same as the hitbox in Joe’s Neutral Special, so what’s the point? Well, when the blade tries to curve it’s arc to go back up to Joe, if it hits another blade from Neutral Special going downwards it’ll reflect it back up to Joe. Considering how this is a bit faster then Neutral Special, you can fake a foe out into dodging a non existent hitbox. A delicious dodge that you will capitalize on for everything it’s freaking worth.

But assuming Joe is camping down at the foe on the ground, how is he going to get down to them fast enough to use Down Special? Good observation. . .But Joe has the best of both worlds in terms of fall speed, as if you make him fast fall he’ll shoot downwards as faster then even Fox Fox, more then fast enough to assassinate the foe for their foolish dodge. Don’t worry about this input making you fast fall early – pressing up cancels fast fall for Joe.

If Joe holds down the input during the starting lag for as long as the start-up lag of Neutral Special (.22 seconds), then he’ll throw the scimitar at a much slower speed, it going down slowly enough that Joe will be down at that point naturally assuming he just falls regularly, allowing him to catch the blade again. This allows Joe to continually camp down at the foe from above if they try to approach him from below, or even to hit them on the ground if Joe isn’t too high in the air. Joe can still reflect his Neutral Special scimitar angled downwards when the curving blade attempts to (but fails) to come back up to its’ original position, giving him all the more aerial camping tools.


FORWARD AERIAL – FAKE SLASH


Joe does a slash forward with a single scimitar/claw over 0.05 seconds, dealing 2% and miniscule set knockback with .25 seconds of end lag. However, this aerial can be charged, and what with Joe’s massive aerial DI he can retreat while charging then quickly come back in for the charged up slash, potentially increasing the power to 16% after a second of charging.

Still, it’s ultimately not that impressive a move, easily dodged. . .But that’s just the thing. You WANT them to dodge. While charging this attack you can instantly cancel out of it at any time by pressing shield. Dodge, they get backstabbed. Do nothing, they get hit. Attack, you release your charge early and out-prioritze them with disjointed priority.

The fact this move is so insanely fast by default is what means you’re always in control when you’re facing the foe at point blank in the air, such as when Moe sets you up in such a position via his uthrow. Don’t let them start up their own offense, poke them to interrupt their (however brief) starting lag. Make them panic and dodge. . .


BACK AERIAL – TAIL SPIN


Joe spins around to face the opposite direction he was initially over .15 seconds, his tail being a hitbox that deals 7% and turns the foe around like Mario’s cape, dealing no hitstun so it doesn’t refresh their recovery. If Joe wants to face the way he was originally facing, he can hold A when the attack would normally end to keep spinning for another .05 seconds to get back to his original position.

This is a blatantly obvious way to turn the foe around so you can backstab them. . .But the fact that you’re behind the foe in the air means that the foe can’t just casually turn around. . .The only way to turn in the air without a move like this or Marth’s bair is to use up a jump, and that just puts them all the higher in the air for your aerial shenanigans, and that’s assuming they still have their second jump left. The fact they can’t shield is also a plus.


STANDARDS


NEUTRAL ATTACK – JUGGLE


Joe turns to face the screen, then starts juggling his scimitars very quickly so that they’re essentially a whirlwind of blades that’s impossible to get through without being hit if he has two, but has a decent window to get out with only one. This starts up instantly, but it takes .25 seconds for Joe’s juggling to get up to speed. Contact with the hitbox of this move deals 7% and knockback that kills at 200%.

If you catch a foe in the middle of this, you can essentially trap them in a disjointed hitbox they have to dodge out of. . .But you don’t have time to capitalize on the dodge, right? You’d think that, but pressing shield lets you cancel out of this move instantly as Joe just stops juggling and lets the blades fall to the ground. Jump through one of the blades to pick it up as you to jump to the foe, then backstab. Of course, you have to be pretty d
amn fast about this and predict the dodge in advance, but it’s well worth it.

DASHING ATTACK – SKID


Joe skids to a stop, sliding forward half a Battlefield platform over .22 seconds. His body is a decent priority hitbox that deals 5% and .11 seconds of hitstun. With the last of his momentum, Joe turns around during the end lag to face the opposite direction he was inititally. . .This move essentially allows you to go through a foe that’s facing you, stunning them in the process, while turning around so you’re facing their back ready for a backstab. This serves a similar purpose to a backward roll, but you can do this while facing forwards and it has a hitbox rather then invincibility frames, allowing you to keep up the pressure. The less time they have to breathe, the more panicked their dodges become.

FORWARD TILT – STAB


Backstab’s burdensome slight starting lag is put to use here, as this move has the exact same animation, meaning foes will just turn around to face you during it, expecting to punish your slight ending lag. . .But this stab just deals 8% and knockback that KOs at 230% regardless of which way the foe is facing. If you spam backstab, you can get you in some free hits with ftilt. If the foe has reason to face away from you (Such as being named Dedede/Game & Watch and having a godly bair), then spamming this move can make them a lot more comfortable to show their back to you.

UP TILT – CROSS SLASH


Joe slashes both of his scimitars above him in an X formation over a mere .15 seconds, dealing 10% and vertical knockback that kills at 225%. The hitbox above Moe is impressively large (Assuming you have both scimitars), leaving the move with no real blind spot. . .But the hitbox is –entirely- above Moe. No hitbox as he scoops up his scimitars, so this is just for anti-air, but it serves its’ purpose well.

DOWN TILT – FLIP


Joe brings his scimitar low to the ground, then thrusts it upward over .2 seconds to deal 9% and flip any foes lying on the ground like a pancake over his head before they fall back down on the opposite side of Joe. As they fly through the air they aren’t in hitstun, but are constantly spinning around. If you jump up into the air you can potentially land a backstab, or better yet an Assassination if the foe fears the backstab. Of course, they can attempt to fight back during this brief period, but when they’re constantly spinning around it’s hard to aim any moves properly. The most they can hope to do is just use an attack that hits all around such as the stereotypical nair, which makes them rather predictable. If used on a foe not knocked down, this move simply does vertical knockback that kills at 210%.

SMASHES


DOWN SMASH – SMOKE BOMB


Joe reaches into his cloak as he charges, then throws down a smoke bomb upon release. The smoke created from the bomb covers roughly a box shape that’s as tall as Marth and as wide as two thirds of a Battlefield Platform, lasting 10-35 seconds based off charge. The actual throwing of the bomb is lagless and has a weak hitbox that deals 2% and miniscule set knockback, so you can feel free to charge it without fear of being open.

The purpose of the smoke is the same as any good smoke bomb – to obscure the battlefield. Anything covered by the smoke cannot be seen. . .Not the most useful move on it’s own, but in tandem with Up Special it can become deadly. Using Up Special inside the smoke allows you to leave while still staying invisible, and the foe will have no idea that you left the smoke. In addition, when camping high up in the air with dair and Neutral Special, you can land in the smoke then just go back up again. Granted, you won’t get very high with no foe to use nair on, but when there’s that awkward pause and then you suddenly come out of nowhere, it’s very easy to make the foe panic into a delicious dodge.


FORWARD SMASH – LIGHTSPEED SLASH


Joe braces himself on the ground like an Olympic runner getting ready for some sort of event and puts the handle of one of his scimitars in his mouth as he charges, then upon release sprints forward at a blinding pace, going across the entire length of the platform at the rate of one Battlefield length per 0.1 seconds. If there’s a walk off edge, Joe stops when he gets to the “magnifying glass”. This deals a very nice 18-30%, though it doesn’t actually deal knockback, simply stunning the foe for .5-2.5 seconds. Joe is extremely tired after having pulled this off, having 2.5 seconds of end lag, so the stun only covers the lag, and only at full charge at that. While this is –very- easy to hit with throwing it out at random uncharged, the foe has an entire 2 second advantage of hitstun, meaning they’ll more likely then not more then make up the damage.

So how do you go about fully charging the move and still have the surprise value of the move? Using it in a cloud of smoke, of course. Still, using this strictly with the dsmash can get rather predictable and can leave you to whiff the move to eat a fully charged fsmash. . .But what if the foe thinks you’re actually up in the air and not on the ground in your smoke charging fsmash? A particularly nice way to bait the foe into thinking you have no intention to leave the air is to use the slower version of dair and are waiting to use Neutral Special to have it reflected back up to yourself, then make a break for the smoke. There’s that, then there’s just staying in the air a lot when invisible.

Oh, but this gets even better in 2v2 when fighting alongside your brother! Moe can take advantage any foes you stun while you’re stunned yourself, and if he’s close enough he can just go poke Joe to free him from his end lag. With how far Joe transverses, it’s very easy to hit both foes to boot. Granted, you –can- hit Moe with this attack, but Moe can stay in the background for extended periods of time with Down Special while normal characters can only stay there for less then half a second. Besides, if they do indeed dodge like madmen to try to avoid the incoming Joe, Moe will just grab them. Not exactly a lot of options for anybody who dare oppose the Komodo Brothers. Joe can continue to hold the charge on fsmash when already maxxed on it, so he can wait for the opportune moment.


UP SMASH – SPINNER LAUNCHER


Joe does an overheard cleave with his scimitar in a similar fashion to Dedede’s usmash. This deals 14-24% and vertical knockback that kills at 200-160%.

As the foe gets launched by this move, they spin around in mid-air after the hit-stun is over. They’re still able to move and attack, but when they’re constantly flipping around it’s very hard to hit anything. If they want to get back down to the ground, they’ll have to contend with the infamous Komodo anti-air utilt. . .If they want to come out of this before they hit the ground, they can air-dodge to instantly come out of it or use 3 attacks in mid-air, each one slowing the rate they spin around until the last one stops it entirely. If they dodge, it’s obviously fodder for Assassinate, otherwise with them constantly turning they’re fodder for a Backstab. When they finally do hit the ground, they’re fodder for your dtilt.

With your brother at your side, juggling the foe becomes all the easier with two bros to spam their utilts and usmashes to keep foes up in the air, as well as occasionally using Neutral B angled upward at them for more damage. When the foe finally does hit the bloody ground and get knocked down, it’s still not over, as not only are they fodder for Joe’s dtilt but also for Moe’s entire tech chasing game.


GRAB-GAME


GRAB – CHOKE HOLD


Joe essentially has Snake’s grab, through and through, making it fairly average. You don’t see Snake use his grab that often? That’s because his other moves (His ftilt and utilt are having an orgy) are so much more broken that there’s no reason to.

PUMMEL – STRANGLE


Again, very similar to Snake’s pummel. A cracking/popping noise is heard as Joe squeezes the foe’s neck, dealing 3% per pop at the rate of Snake’s pummel. Like Snake, Joe looks more like he’s cuddling Kirby then strangling him. . .

FORWARD THROW – STALK


Joe wraps the tip of his tail around the foe and squeezes them once for 4%. . .And that’s it. That’s the throw. However; Joe keeps his tail wrapped around the foe. If Joe is heavier then his foe, then the foe can’t move more then the width of Joe’s tail (1.25 Kirbies) away from him, visa versa if the foe is heavier. If Joe/his foe are hit by an attack that deals less then 2 Battlefield Platforms of knockback, they won’t fly farther then the width of Joe’s tail away from the attacker. If it does more then 2 platforms of knockback, they get separated. Being at such close quarters combat naturally involves a lot of dodges due to there being nowhere to run, which needless to say Joe is a fan of. Inputting grab when Joe has the tip of his tail wrapped around someone will have him simply untie it.

While tying yourself to Moe is counter productive on the stage, it makes it easy for you to constantly stay right next to him off-stage. Furthermore, Joe’s bair changes when tied to somebody with fthrow, seeing he can’t swing his tail. . .He simply swings his entire body around the victim. He doesn’t swing through the background, simply through the X and Y planes. Joe’s body does 10% and knockback that kills at 180% as he’s swinging upward, but spikes when he’s swinging downward. . .Because the foe totally needs to have to get around Joe when they’re trying to get through Moe’s gut blocker. If the foe is on the ground though, Joe will instead swing through the background so he doesn’t splat onto the ground.

If you keep spamming bair with your tail tied around the victim, this allows you to stay in the air forever and thus stay invisible forever. In particular, if you tie yourself to the target, go invisible, then start spamming bair, when the target comes out there’ll be no indication that you’re swinging around them. The foe will still think you’re in the smoke when in actuality you’re right on top of them, ready to land a big hit, while if only Moe comes out of the smoke the foe will go on a wild goose chase looking for you in the smoke.


BACK THROW – RELEASE


Joe releases the foe from the grab in an animation that makes it look like the foe escaped the grab. However; Joe instantly does a deadly slash that deals 18% and knockback that kills at 165%. Very nice, however the foe is no longer grabbed and can dodge it. . .But what if the foe –actually- escaped the grab and dodges in anticipation of this move? Why, they assassinated, of course. If the foe has an attack quick enough to contend with Joe’s slash, it won’t matter, as the blade out-prioritizes pretty much everything and even if it’s faster Joe has superarmor/anti-grab armor during the slash. It also breaks shields so that’s also not an option.

A particularly nice way to throw the foe off is to spam pummel and use the bthrow at the last possible second to make them think they got out of the grab and not dodge only to be hit by your blade. See? The generic Pummel has –some- strategic use.


UP THROW – TAIL SLING


Joe wraps his tail around the foe, then throws them up into the air for 7% and knockback that kills at 225%. Due to his tail being wrapped around the foe, Joe gets dragged along with them. Joe proceeds to sling himself off the foe with his tail, separating himself from the foe at which point they gain control. You can choose which direction you sling yourself in (Upwards is the default) – to the sides of the foe for an fair set-up or above them to use nair downwards at the foe, or even behind them for a backstab. Either way, you’ll be right up close and personal with the foe, likely to cause the foe to either dodge (Down Special bait) or get hit by the nair/fair. Aside from making the foe have dodge spasms, this is a nice way to get higher up into the air and camp down at the foe while invisible.

DOWN THROW – DEATHROLL


Before letting go of the foe, Joe throws a scimitar up which you can aim in any upward angle, dealing 10% and a full second of hitstun to anything it hits, though it takes a while to land back on the ground, especially if you throw it straight up. Joe proceeds to crash on top of the foe to deal 4%, then starts rolling around with them on the ground until they escape the grab (With a renewed grab timer). The foe can roll against you and will have control if they have more damage, though if the amount of damage is small then you’ll be rolling slowly.

As you and the foe roll left and right, the person who’s on top changes. Ironically, you actually want to be on bottom, as the person on top acts as a meat shield for the guy on the bottom from the scimitar Joe threw. You can hold down to simply roll in place to try to focus on getting on bottom.

If your damage is higher then the foe’s, then throw the scimitar away from the edge where the foe will attempt to roll to force them to roll where you want to (Towards the edge) to get away from it. If you’re close enough to the edge this can get you off it, seeing if you’re both rolling in the same direction briefly it’s hard to counteract the momentum.

If Joe gets the foe off-stage in this deathroll, he can press any button to automatically use his nair on the foe. . .Just make sure you’re on top when you input it, or else you’ll just kick off them downwards. If the foe had a scimitar impaled in them, Joe will automatically pull it out of them as he performs the nair. Of course, you get a extra second to roll wherever you want with the foe if you assassinated them with Down Special, which you will also automatically pull out upon pressing any button while rolling with the foe in the air.

This throw can also be useful in a 2v1 scenario – throw the scimitar at the foe who isn’t grabbed to stun them while you deathroll off-stage with the main victim. Aside from that, though, a scimitar thrown with Moe’s dair will be treated as if it was thrown with this move if it hits a foe in a deathroll (But will still do the full 14%), meaning Moe can impale the foe on-top quite easily so Joe can take them off-stage. Moe’s ftilt can also help out largely in the struggle as it makes you roll forward together a set distance regardless of your percentages. Moe’s ftilt can also be angled slightly, and if angled downward it will cause you to roll in place enough that whoever’s on top switches to the other person.


SOLO PLAYSTYLE


Joe wants to constantly be on top of the foe pressuring them, preferably behind them. Constantly staying in close quarters combat keeping the flurry of attacks coming to force the foe to do lots of dodging to get in an assanaition. If you’re having trouble getting up close and staying behind the foe, look no further then – your uthrow, bthrow, and dashing attack. Fthrow works particularly nicely at low percentages in that the foe can’t get away from you at all if you’re at a low percentage. While backstabs may not be as potent as assassinations, they’re your main tool to actually give the foe something to be worried enough about to dodge. In addition, if you use ftilt liberally the foe will be too scared to try to punish your when you’re actually attempting to backstab them, meaning you don’t have to be as careful with backstabbing as assassinating.

If you can land a usmash, you’ve got worlds of potential in terms of follow-ups. As they’re spinning in the air they’re an easy target for a backstab, and if you predict a dodge you can get an assassination. If they just DI to the ground, you can dtilt them and they’re back to square one but with even less time to react to you, or just utilt before they get down to send them back up and deal some good damage in the process. Juggling with Neutral A is also a nice option and nearly guarantees a dodge if you catch them inside the circle shaped hitbox, as otherwise they’ll just constantly take damage bouncing around inside of it.

Things get more complicated if the foe is able to actually competently resist you in the air while spinning with their own aerials, but it’s not like your only option is to backstab them, which is the main thing they’ll probably be worried about. Why not pressure them off-stage with fair? Even if they use enough aerials to stop spinning by that point, they’re in the air and there’s no ground to fast-fall down onto, so you can use bair to turn them around and feel free to backstab/assassinate them when you predict they’ll predict your backstab. Another prime place to pressure the foe towards is a dsmash cloud of smoke if you have one, as they’ll be rather hesistant to go in otherwise. Inside there you can use fthrow on them, Up Special, then spam bair to stay in the air spinning around them to be right on top of them without them knowing it. If they come to suspect it, you can just wait for them to exit the cloud, use Up Special, then go backstab the foe when they’re busy flailing away at nothing, expecting to hit you.

If the foe is so offensive that you can’t keep up with them or you need to go on the defensive for whatever reason, you can use nair on them (Works especially well if you get your springboard higher into the air with uthrow) to get high up into the sky, then use your Up Special to get higher still and turn invisible. From there you can camp down at the foe with them having no way to hit you outside attacks that hit you wherever you are, and even then Joe is far from stationary in this position with his massive aerial DI. Try some shenanigans with your dair/Neutral B angled downwards to try to fake the foe out into thinking they’re going to be hit to bait them into a dodge, spamming uair as you wait for the opportune moment. This also helps you to know where you are so you can more properly come down on the foe. If you’ve whiffed your chance to do so, you can always attempt a just barely aerial backstab or something. . .

Doesn’t sound like that great? That’s where Joe’s dsmash and fsmash come into play. While the foe thinks that Joe is up in the air camping hoping to entice a dodge, he’s actually gone down into his cloud and is charging up fsmash. Unless the foe wants panic and dodge about mindlessly to become vulnerable to Joe assassinating them if he’s actually still in the air, hoping to avoid the fsmash when it comes (If they somehow predict it) despite Joe being able to hold the charge. . .If they don’t predict it and don’t want to go into the air, you can get fully charged fsmashes for free. If the foe is intelligent, they’ll stay up in the air out of the range of the fsmash. . .Which is your que to either get on the ground and start pressuring them or start fairing them off-stage/towards your cloud of smoke, or to just make the downward camping phase of your game waiting for a dodge easier as they have less time to react due to being closer to you.

Joe mainly kills via gimping. While Joe is very much capable of pressuring the foe off-stage with fair (Particularly when there’s no limit to how far he can chase them due to nair), the main thing that guarantees the foe’s death is getting off an Assassination on the foe off-stage. Joe can keep aiming for this as he racks up damage, as his off-stage game is certainly an easy way to do it. What about actually using the damage you’ve accumulated, though? Roll with the foe off-stage via Dthrow. If you have enough of a lead in damage, dthrow can essentially guarantee you a kill and doesn’t waste any scimitars. You can get the kill all the earlier on if you can land an assassination and follow it up with a dthrow, assuming you get the second blade to also impale the foe.

Joe is a pressure character who attempts to psyche the foe out. . .While a dodge can interrupt a regular fast character’s pressure, it only accelerates Joe’s pressure all the more. He can fake foes into dodging to punish them for it or fake them into not dodging, or preferably a mix. They never quite know what the hell he’s doing, and there’s no really correct way to play against, especially –defend- against, a good Joe player as you’ll never know what’s coming next, especially with all of the invisibility shenanigans. . .


DOUBLES PLAYSTYLE


So let’s see, the brothers are both capable of knocking the foe to the ground and can hit them while they’re down for all hell, Moe especially. Joe can lead this phase of the game into the anti-air game with dtilt, not that they’re not both capable of launching the foe into the air anyway and have beastly anti-air, especially when Joe can go into the air himself (Particularly easy if Moe makes himself a trampoline with usmash) to contend with the aerial foes head on while Moe functions as the juggler on the ground. If Joe uses his usmash as the launcher, then it just leads back into their ground game against downed foes when they land. . .

Both brothers kill by gimping, and when they’re combined together they’re essentially an impenetrable wall. Moe uses the gut blocker while Joe waits in the background behind Moe ready to assassinate anybody who tries to dodge past. With how much the brothers naturally complement each other, two seasoned solo Komodo Bros. can randomly be paired up and do pretty well.

Aside from the brothers simply sharing similar goals and excelling in similar areas, the main thing the brothers have going for them in doubles is their ability to temporairily knock one of the enemies out of the match then gang bang the other. Moe’s dthrow/dair are the most obvious examples, and the time the foe is out can be lengthened even further if Moe follows up an Assassination by Joe with dair. A possible strategy is to just attempt to constantly keep both of the foes disabled so you’re always fighting them 2 on 1, re-disabling one when they’re freed from the blade pinning them down. The bros. will be focusing on their game that targets downed foes if they choose this route. A good opener into this style is Joe’s fsmash inside a cloud of smoke from dsmash, as it can stun both foes at once while Moe hides away in the background, punishing any attempt from the foes to dodge it by stunning them anyway via dthrow or making them easier targets for the bros.’ anti air/off-stage game with bthrow and getting Joe tons of chances for free damage in general.

If the foes predict Joe’s fsmash and take to the air or Moe chooses to use a bthrow, then Joe can abandon trying to fsmash. Joe doesn’t need to worry about whiffing the move, Moe can just casually poke him to interrupt the ending lag. From there. . .The foes have just automatically set themselves up for the anti-air game of the brothers. How considerate! Aside from the standard air-games of the brothers, they can do an awkward sort of camping using their Neutral Specials angled towards each other. This works much better in the air then on the ground due to the foe’s inability to shield and how Moe can constantly keep sending the foe back up with utilt/usmash. When the foe gets out of this they’ll more likely then not get punished from Joe, much less if he uses how high he is in the air to go invisible.

If you’re on the route where you’re constantly keeping one of the foes pinned to the floor with a scimitar, then prime moves to use on the remaining foe are moves that lock one of the brothers in combat with the foe, namely Moe’s fsmash and Joe’s dthrow, with the other brother around to make the victim’s life hell. In particular, Joe’s dthrow can lead to the off-stage game very nicely where the brothers can set up their Gut Blocker/Assassination wall of doom to give the foe little to no chance of survival. Furthermore, if the other foe gets free they won’t be able to help out their friend due to the Komodo Wall being between them and their ally. This is a prime way the brothers score KOs, and recovering after they kill someone is far from a problem with Joe can just use nair on Moe’s gut blocker. Moe has no problem waiting long enough for his scimitars to come back down with how much the foes get disabled against the Bros., but he’s perfectly capable of just spamming uair to wait until he gets his scimitars back. Any attempt to gimp him will most probably just get them gimped by the Komodo Wall of death.


MATCH-UPS


KOMODO JOE VS. KOMODO MOE – 42.5/57.5, MOE’S FAVOR


No, the brothers –cannot- catch the scimitars of unallied Komodo Brothers. As for how their Down Specials work against each other, whoever was in the background first hits the other brother as they attempt to come into the background to use their Down Special.

Moe struggles to juggle Joe when Joe just turns invisible and Moe has no idea where he is, but is as vulnerable to his ground-game against downed foes as anybody else. Moe will struggle to get the damage without it and his weight is a more a burden with Joe’s KO style, but he dominates the ground in general if he pulls off a bthrow to prevent Joe from facing him to get in a backstab, and Joe can’t stay in the air forever – all Moe has to do is wait until the battle comes to the ground and he has his chance to shine. (Though Joe can still turn around with his bair in the air).

Still, the damage racking phase isn’t that important when the brothers have no trouble whatsoever getting each other off-stage for gimp kills. Moe’s main goal will be to get in a bair to disarm Joe to make him easy fodder for his gimping game. Until then he’ll struggle with it outside getting a guaranteed gimp with fthrow. Moe –does- do a lot better with guaranteed gimps as he doesn’t have to take Joe to the bottom of the blast zone in one go due to Joe’s vertical recovery being rather poor, while Joe will struggle getting guaranteed gimps with his dthrow when Moe’s recovery is so much better. Granted, if Joe can force Moe back off-stage during this time he’s a sitting duck, which is more capable for him then most characters with how good he is at pressuring.

Unfortunately for Moe his bair only takes away one of Joe’s two scimitars, but even this can be very useful as it prevents Joe from doing that much downward aerial camping and brings the fight to the ground where Moe likes it, making Moe have a significant advantage on-stage in general. Without taking away both of Joe’s scimitars Joe generally dominates off-stage, but if Joe has no scimitars left. . .He’s done. All of his game is ruined. This is very hard to make happen, but how Moe rules the stage when Joe is missing a scimitar, the sheer threat of it, and Moe’s potential for a guaranteed kill with fthrow give him the match-up.


KOMODO JOE VS. SCARMIGLIONE – 75/25, JOE’S FAVOR


Joe is perfectly capable of gimping Scarmiglione before he’s capable of accumulating 125% to reincarnate into his second form, especially with his easily thrown around weight and bad recovery. The fact he’s so slow means he can’t get that much closer to the center of the stage where he’s safe when he does manage to get past you, and it simply in general makes him more vulnerable to your pressuring skills. While your downward aerial camping is out of the question as it gives him time to damage himself, there’s really no need to do anything so complicated. Seeing Scarmiglione is surprisingly light, Joe can just use fthrow on him and drag him off-stage and go down farther then he can recover, then casually nair him to get back to the stage. Just make sure you don’t try to make this –too- quick, as otherwise you’ll become predictable and you won’t pressure him as much as you would otherwise.

Scarmiglione’s zombies can be useful to interrupt Joe’s fthrow and grab-game in general (It makes bthrow particularly unviable), but Joe can use fsmash while in a dsmash cloud of smoke to kill them all and hit Scarmiglione in one fell swoop. . .Which will distract Joe long enough to give Scarmiglione some time to damage himself, and the fact Joe is kind enough to Scarmiglione with a fully charged fsmash that does no knockback benefits Scarmiglione greatly. Of course, it’ll be hard to make Joe do this, but it’s Scarmiglione’s best hope for getting his second form. Just try to constantly keep zombies up and annoy Joe with them in any way possible, as well as buying time with your grab if at all possible, bthrow if you’re close to Joe. While Scarmilgione’s second form –does- do well against Joe, it struggles to be offensive enough to finish off Joe in one stock. Seeing it’s so hard to get to this form, Scarmiglione will want to play defensively and use all the zombies he created earlier to heal himself via dair, and in general simply play a very campy defensive game. So long as you stay well aware from the edge, you’ve got a shot, as unfortunately your recovery is still pretty bad.


KOMODO MOE VS. ARBOK – 40/60, ARBOK’S FAVOR


Arbok has many background hitting moves which can hit Moe when he’s in his Down Special stance. If Arbok uses his dashing attack to specifically go into the background rather then simply hitting at the background, though, he’ll get grabbed.

Both characters enjoy when each other dodge, but considering Arbok is so much better at pressuring he’ll naturally trigger more dodges he can punish. Considering Arbok’s background hitting attacks don’t have nearly as much reward as landing a grab for Moe. While Arbok’s recovery is surprisingly very good taking him up 5 Ganondorfs with few downsides, Arbok has no disjointed moves to speak of outside his ftilt which he obviously can’t use in the air. Arbok’s fair, however, is a grab hitbox which can cause significant problems. Moe’s best hope is to probably use a Down Special as Arbok uses the fair and just go for a suicide kill (So you’ll need 3 in a row. . .), but Arbok can just fake out the fair and punish Moe with nair/dair while he’s still in the background. Arbok’s a very tough customer to gimp.

Of course, that’s not the only option for Moe as he can still get a 100% guaranteed gimp with fthrow if he has enough damage, though Arbok’s fthrow can KO much sooner if Arbok can rack up some poison on Moe and pressure him while it’s on. . .Thankfully most of Arbok’s attacks that poison are projectiles, so planting down a Blade Wall should help a good bit, especially when taking into account that Arbok’s strategy of just using dashing attacks to get through walls doesn’t work any better on Moe then just rolling past and approaching downward from the air is very awkward for Arbok. The ball is still definitely in Arbok’s court though, much less with ftilt’s potential to temporarily disable Moe’s Side Special taken into account.


KOMODO BROS VS. MARIO BROS, NURSE JOY – 57.5/42.5, KOMODO BROS’ FAVOR


The Mario Bros. prevent a very simple problem for the Komodo Bros. right off the bat in that they make it so there are -3- enemy targets. Keeping all 3 of them pinned to the floor just isn’t possible (Even if you somehow pulled it off you’d only have one scimitar left so one of the brothers would be unarmed. . .), and you’ll generally have at least two foes constantly on top of you at all times. . .Or rather you would, if Mario and Luigi were remotely competent when separated like the Komodo Bros. The Komodo Bros. will want to disable one of the Mario Bros., then kill the other one while their recovery potential is limited and they’re highly vulnerable to gimping/easy to pressure off-stage.

Nurse Joy? What’s she gonna do? The Komodo Bros. can kill the Mario bros. just fine without damage racking, so Joy’s healing isn’t particularly useful. The most she can attempt to do is buff up the brothers with her grab-game, and while the Mario Bros. can be pretty scary if she can stack on a bunch of X Attacks/Defends on both of them, that’s just simply not going to happen as she’s just making the Mario brother she’s buffing a sitting duck to be disabled by the Komodo Bros. The only thing preventing that is the other Mario brother. . .Seeing they’re obviously not going to the background during this time, Joe can’t disable them, only Moe, so the Mario Brother not being buffed will want to keep Moe the hell away from the Mario Brother getting buffed. . .Assuming they don’t just get disabled themselves, which is highly likely.

Even then, though, if Joy can pull off some buffs she can save them to a Down Special clipboard and re-apply them to the Mario Bros. when necessary, and once she has the brothers buffed it’s a lot easier to further buff them. If Joy can continue to survive on, she can keep re-buffing the Mario Brothers up as necessary, but she’ll inevitably become the target of the Komodo Bros when she gets a lot of positive buffs saved on the clipboard. She has to avoid getting enough that she becomes a target and actually help the Mario Bros. in combat, mainly simply by poking them out of their end lag and helping them recover when the other brother can’t. Unfortunately Joy fighting on her own is out of the question, really, as her KO mechanic is rather impractical for the setting and the only buff in the entirety of the Komodo Bros’ movesets that can be contributed to the clipboard is Moe’s bthrow. The Komodo Bros. generally have the advantage, but a win on the other side is far from impossible.


FINAL SMASH – BIG BAD FOX


The Komodo Brother who activated the Final Smash runs into the background. If his brother isn’t on a team with him, he’ll spawn out of nothing and join him for the final smash. In team brawls with the Komodo Bros., both bros will simply run into the background, the second brother zone jumping over next to the one who used the Smash Ball.

Once they’re in the background, the floor of the platform they were on will retract, revealing that the stage was in actuality a hiding place for the Komodo Bros’ mechanical base from their Crash Bash boss fight! Totally in-character. . .A prime example as to why Crash Bash was the first game not developed by Naughty Dog. . .If anybody falls into the big gaping hole in the stage, they’re stuck inside the stage for 1 second until the mechanical fortress starts coming up out of the stage, dealing 20% and vertical knockback that kills at 120%.



The fortress is as wide as the entirety of Battlefield’s main platform and as tall as Giga Bowser. If the platform the Final Smash was used on isn’t wide enough to support the fortress, extensions to the platform will come out from the side.

The Final Smash has no time limit and will keep going on forever until foes take down the fortress. To take down the fortress, you have to take out the 3 cannons at the bottom, each of which have 25 stamina. By default you control the center cannon, able to aim it with the control stick and able to press A to fire spiked cannonballs the size of Wario which travel at Ganon’s dash speed and deal 20% with knockback that kills at 100%. Pressing B brings up a cursor which you can move left and right to select a cannon you want to control. Why bother switching? Because there’s 2 seconds of lag before the cannon can fire another spiked ball. While the spiked balls fall too quickly to send them into the air, you can fire them over each other. Why bother? The cannonballs bounce off walls (Set up some blade walls beforehand if you’re Moe)/other spiked balls. You generally want to cover up the hurtboxes of your cannons with the spiked balls by making them constantly going back and forth in front of the fortress.

The Komodo Brother who didn’t activate the Final Smash also has as much control over the Final Smash as you do (Though if he spawned out of hammerspace just for the Final Smash he won’t do anything), though thankfully you can’t both control the same cannon. This can ease up the micromanagement for you.

After the cannons go down, the first level of the fortress sinks down into the ground, and several laser shooter thingies come out of the second level of the fortress. . .



This controls just like the first phase of the final smash, except you now have 4 sources of fire to use. The projectiles fired are now greenish energy projectiles the same size as the cannonballs, but these travel at Wario’s dashing speed and disobey gravity, allowing you to hit foes in the air. Unfortunately they only deal 10% and knockback that kills at 200% and the sources of these projectiles only have 15 stamina each, but you only have to wait 1 second between firing.

After taking out these, the fortress sinks down to it’s final level as two gigantic turrets sprout up from the sides of the fortress. . .



Only two sources of fire here, though they do have 30 stamina each. The projectiles they fire are missiles that travel at Sonic’s dash speed and deal 25% and knockback that kills at 80% on contact, though you have to wait 3 seconds between firing. Assuming you’re facing someone competent, you won’t hit the foe with just one turret, but the missiles travel fast enough that you can punish the foe’s dodge with the missile from the other turret.

Destroy the turrets and the Komodo Bros. are left with nothing to fire, coming out of their fortress and into the brawl (the other bro vanishing if necessary) as the stage retracts back to normal.

Broken Final Smash? It is until you take into account the fact that the glass compartment where Joe and Moe are hiding can be broken with 40 damage, ending the Final Smash early, and that the first stage of the fortress can’t shoot projectiles high enough to defend that area. However; you can jump out of the fortress early to defend it if necessary with your grab input. If your brother is one that spawned from hammer space, you’ll send him into combat as a level 9 AI that lasts until he is killed once or the Final Smash ends. While the Komodo Bros. are immune to the fortress, the fortress is not immune to them, so if you want to advance to the later stages of the fortress yourself you can attack the cannons.
 

Katapultar

Smash Lord
Joined
Nov 24, 2008
Messages
1,251
Location
Australia
Thanks for the comments guys. Im not quoting cus Im too lazy to.

@dm: Guess that I didn't really give Jason a proper concept. But I've been thinking about giving him a kind of playstyle that revolves around constantly making the foe uncomfortable and in fear from him. In the end it was probably a bit of a rush case - just a very little. I do see where your complaints come from: I was completely aware of the tacked-on effects from the beginning. Also I don't like MUs, it was kind of just for fun. Also Jason has no magic syndrome (I think), if you mean the lightning.

@Jun: I was actually aware of the fuzziness when it was displayed on SWF, and actually thought it was fitting. But unfortunately for me, there's nothing else I really have in terms of image programs, so I might pry away from image sets and just type the good old fashioned way. Jason doesn't have the attack where he grabs the foe in a sleeping bag because nobody brings sleeping bags to brawl. Lol Jason's final smash is epic fail.

Also I did read Team Rocket when I was new to MYM. Really liked it, and was also surprised that somebody did a set for them.

@ Luffy: Glad you liked Jason, Luffy! Or maybe not because nobody should LIKE Jason, but glad you like the set anyway. Also you should make a moveset for a Girrafe.

@ MW: Sorry, I can't watch Youtube videos on my computer.

@ rool: Thanks for the comment. Made me feel pretty nice about the set. True that Jason's meant to be unstoppable and powerful. I tried to keep him true to his character (usually I try to make a playstyle that fits the character - in other words draw some form of inspiration from the character), although I don't really like the though of Jason being totally invincible compared to the other fighters - who are also powerful people too. In my thoughts, if you put Jason into canon Smash Bros, he wouldn't be that much stronger than the others, or even at all. I mean, Ike, DK, DDD, Wario and Bowser are to name a few characters who also have Super Strength. Jason would pretty much be evenly matched along with most of the Smash fighters. He would get totally crushed by SC's Nightmare though.

---

I had the comments coming. Knew that Jason wouldn't live up to quality standards. I agree that the hockey mask would work well as a mechanic, though I kind of tacked it on as a tribute to the series.

[size=+3]Komodo Bros [/size]
Continuing on with your quest of un-smash coolness, Komodo Bros prove to be a very interesting set. You slight questioning of the instruction booklet was lol. I read the set and liked it (the Final Smash brings back a few memories).

Might comment more a bit later, but it's a cool set.
 

n88

Smash Lord
Joined
Oct 10, 2008
Messages
1,528
that is cool! :D but how do i might it work on ssbb?
Just for clarification, the movesets in this thread are purely hypothetical; they are not meant for actual implementation in Brawl via PSA or other hacking methods. In fact, a good deal of the sets created for Make Your Move would be nigh unprogrammable. These movesets are created solely for the entartainment of those involved in MYM. Feel free to read the OP for further information and some handy links.
 

darth meanie

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jun 6, 2008
Messages
452
- Kommodo Bros

Really guys? No comments on MW's first two sets in MYM8? I am disappoint fellas.

The concept works smoothly well, in a twist on two character movesets that hasn't been seen before. Why complicate things with difficult dual mechanics when you can just make them two separate characters that are even better together?

I'm also impressed by how you were able to take the same basic concept of abusing rollsto attack foes very differently between two characters, making them both distinct to play as while at the same time synergistic.

I found that in both movesets the throws felt forced. Moe's Bthrow feels like a tacked on effect, and even if it fits in playstyle, keeping the foe from turning around feels very forced. Same as the spinning throw, and Joe's tail affecting throws.

The roll abuse is delicious, turning an effective way to avoid attacks into a way to ensure your moves hit. Their matched down specials work very well together, and Moe's tech chasing strategies and Joe's way to use it to follow foes' rolls perfects a mechanic that already existed in Brawl.

The other mechanic though, the disjoined / jointed priority abuse in Moe feels off, especially with moves like the Nair. Bouncing jointed moves away with his gut? Slashing himself if he doesn't hit a disjointed hitbox? Eww.

These things are the only weakness of the set though. While some moves feel too much like forced creativity, the playstyle is not only interesting, the way that their playstyles fold together and match is just plain delicious.

Overall, I preferred Joe over Moe, as he seemed to have more actual creativity and less forced pieces of it, although that was still a problem for both movesets. It was a fun read though, and as it's a moveset of yours that isn't completely spitting in Brawl's face, it'll probably be well recieved.

Unless of course we have to vote for them separately, in which case good-bye Top 50!
 

Smady

Smash Master
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
3,306
Location
K Rool Avenue
Talk about a blast from the past, I remember when you first talked about Scarmiglione, US: everyone was claiming other Final Fantasy IV characters that never turned out, hah.

It’s a bit of a nuisance that my first quarrel starts with the image you use in showing us, the reader, Scarm’s second, ‘true’ form - you use fan art; terrible, terrible fan art that makes him look like a bipedal super villain. As we both know, he is not, he is built like an ape and you really should have used the far superior sprite work. I know, I’ve gone on a while about this, but there are further problems with being out-of-character – it is awkward for, in this form, Scarm to perform moves suitable for his first form, when he is built like a behemoth [Warlord said this, but it’s very true].

It is also rather awkward for this character to be using earth moves, seemingly just for the sake of it – of the four elemental themes, Scarm has basically the littlest to do with his own, besides the idea that un-dead are earthly as they rise from the ground. His natural abilities are all poisoning, deathly-themed moves in FFIV, if I remember correctly, so it’s a bit odd seeing him with so many magic syndrome-y moves with props like rocks or pieces of ice. It’s also odd that you, despite what you say in the playstyle, make out the second form to be offensive, when it’s entirely healing-based – works with the playstyle you give the moveset, but it’s how you say it is in the game. If you aren’t confused by that last part... Scarm should become a monster when he transforms. I feel this is linked in with the absence of the proper second form, replaced by the lame fan art.

Those are all of my complaints: the moveset benefits from a very sound transforming mechanic that is key to the playstyle – I loved the Kel’Thuzad-style un-dead whom are absorbable and manipulated throughout, the double-sided poison fog and all the wind / ground moves that interacted here. When you’re on-base – using poison or undead types you’re hitting close to how I feel the set should be and it works in a simple way that hasn’t really been tried before with a healing character. You’ve really brought a new dimension to the whole ‘formed’ archetype and it’s very interesting.

While the playstyle doesn’t fix Scarmiglione, it’s still very good – I love the healing parts, as mentioned, but the parts involving the Skullnants: destroying, summoning or otherwise interacting with them is always handled well. With previous percentage-modifiers like Von Kaiser, Hades or even Pennywise, there was always a problem with influencing your percentage without either going too far or being too obvious to the opponent, but the poison fog is definitely a new, working approach to that. Generally, forms of characters are less used due to these sorts of balancing issues and this is a fantastic way of making them viable again.

And with that, I feel I’ve repeated myself a dozen times, so I’ll go ahead and finish. Scarmiglione is an excellent moveset and probably one of my favourites of yours – it does have an improved, if still somewhat waffling writing style and a better than usual UserShadow playstyle. It’s far from perfect, though – you would benefit greatly from losing the magic syndrome-y stuff from all of your sets.


Now, Jason. I already made a [probably too long] video review on YouTube about this moveset that’s over an hour long, so I’ll keep it short.

JASON! JAAASOOON! [/referencenoonewillget]

Jason is a flat out horrible moveset – it’s on-par with many other newcomer movesets in being terribly underpowered. There’s the awful straight-line arc for the machete that makes it utterly predictable, the horrendous final smash that kills him, the utterly useless grabbing game – due to the slow movement of Jason, which is dire and there’re just zero redeeming qualities. All-in-all, this set demonstrates exactly how to underpower a character in the absence of clear-cut logic, as anyone who plays against Jason could potentially be running circles around him within moments.

In terms of what’s tangible, manipulating the stage like in the u-tilt is ridiculous for this character and totally out-of-place. The reincarnation rip-off is also nastily bad, due to being shoehorned in, like the neutral special. All of Jason’s aerials are suicides, while the down aerial is Ganon’s; oh dear. Due to the increbile uselessness of the machete when thrown, Jason could easily lose the barely-working side of this moveset – don’t get me wrong and think that’s good, as the other side is downright broken, so much of the playstyle is worthless.

On that note, the organisation, writing and extras are hilariously bad as well. He has a taunt that somehow breaks the game, a non-PC stage, a codec that breaks the fourth wall and beyond those rather unimportant things, the match-ups are all rubbish.

It’s almost to the point of I wanting to label this as an art project, in making a bad moveset – it’s a lot like Pennywise in that way, but I’m not sure if you have a high enough grade of humour to contemplate it. The bad organisation, playstyle and writing is reminiscent of a ‘90s moveset indeed, but that’s not good. KRool and Junahu are genuinely polishing a turd with this set’s commentary and that’s partly why I’m being a bit aggressive with this comment, as lets not even joke about the quality of Jason, it’s well under-par, even for you, Kat.

However, it isn’t your worst and I’m glad you made it. I had a lot of fun commentating on it in the video I made and reading it the first time, particularly that hilari-awkward up tilt, so don’t lose hope just yet. You’re a fan of Pennywise and this is, in many ways, a spiritual successor to that set – so it’s certainly worth a mention in the future MYMing crematorium of sets.


I'm sorry that I couldn't get around to Komodo Bros: I will, hopefully tomorrow.
 

MasterWarlord

Smash Champion
Joined
Aug 24, 2008
Messages
2,902
Location
Not wasting countless hours on a 10 man community
- Kommodo Bros

Really guys? No comments on MW's first two sets in MYM8? I am disappoint fellas.

The concept works smoothly well, in a twist on two character movesets that hasn't been seen before. Why complicate things with difficult dual mechanics when you can just make them two separate characters that are even better together?

I'm also impressed by how you were able to take the same basic concept of abusing rollsto attack foes very differently between two characters, making them both distinct to play as while at the same time synergistic.

The roll abuse is delicious, turning an effective way to avoid attacks into a way to ensure your moves hit. Their matched down specials work very well together, and Moe's tech chasing strategies and Joe's way to use it to follow foes' rolls perfects a mechanic that already existed in Brawl.
:bee:

I found that in both movesets the throws felt forced. Moe's Bthrow feels like a tacked on effect, and even if it fits in playstyle, keeping the foe from turning around feels very forced. Same as the spinning throw, and Joe's tail affecting throws.
Moe's bthrow comes back from Sloth's, where nobody complained about it, and considering how Sloth was at the 2 MYMs ago (Start of MYM 8, Start of MYM 6. . .) I could steal something from myself by now, much less when it's 10X more relevant here then there. Joe's fthrow? Okay. The rest? Not a chance. Moe's fthrow in particular is essential to his playstyle and is one of the few things he actually -does- in the actual boss battle. Watch the vid. -Not- having that would be a bloody crime.

The other mechanic though, the disjoined / jointed priority abuse in Moe feels off, especially with moves like the Nair. Bouncing jointed moves away with his gut? Slashing himself if he doesn't hit a disjointed hitbox? Eww.
He hits himself if he doesn't hit -something-. It's simply notable in that it out-prioritzes other disjointed attacks which his gut is vulnerable to. Belly trampolines -do- exist in the Crash universe, if you were wondering.

These things are the only weakness of the set though. While some moves feel too much like forced creativity, the playstyle is not only interesting, the way that their playstyles fold together and match is just plain delicious.

Overall, I preferred Joe over Moe, as he seemed to have more actual creativity and less forced pieces of it, although that was still a problem for both movesets. It was a fun read though, and as it's a moveset of yours that isn't completely spitting in Brawl's face, it'll probably be well recieved.
I can admit to some things feeling forced, though I did go out of my way to ensure they were playstyle relevant. When you have 2 movesets to fill up for characters who ultimately don't do a lot, it's pretty inevitable. Yeah, I probably like Joe better too, if only for the potential with the invisibility and the fact it's more organic. Thanks for commenting rather then mindlessly spamming my page.

KOMODO BROS

God, this is gonna be hell for me to read.
It's kind of too long.
But I guess that can't be helped when you make a moveset like this. And don't get me wrong; I LIKE what I've read so far, but don't expect a review for a while. Sorry.
It's 2 movesets, what do you expect? Was it really necessary to use up a post to say that you'll have something relevant to post later on. . .? As pointless as work-spaces. Your other recent spam really isn't helping your case. . .Glad you're reading them and all, but think before you post please.

JASON VORHEES

Text comment for the hearing impaired. . .Jason has some sweet concepts. Giving your foe a weapon that transfers some of your moves to them that you're built to counter is ingenious. The problem is that there's just not enough motive for the foe to use the weapon, as the attacks are in general all terrible laggy moves and Jason's only thing he has to encourage them to use his weapon is his jab. In addition, Jason doesn't seem built that specifically to counter his weapon based attacks with his only attack that seems it contributes to that theme that much being ftilt while you waste the rest of the inputs on things like random irrelevant OOC stage manipulation in utilt and uair.

Granted, I failed to mention how Jason can still be killed when using Up Special and not Reincarnate, and combined with Neutral Special (Good move but should've been a mechanic) it makes a very cool theme of taking damage and flows into making the foe attack with the weapon based attacks he's (suppossed to be) built to counter. . .But Jason won't be sticking around long at all, seeing he can be killed at 0% due to having no form of recovery beyond a tether in uair. The aerials in general feel like a waste with how bad they are, much less when he has Ganon's dair to obsolete the other four aerials. In general Jason feels too insanely slow all around. Great Concept, Terrible Execution.

. . .Were you trying to make the Final Smash bad? If the source material of the Final Smash is -so- insanely bad that you can rant about it for most of the description, why did you use it? And it bloody kills him? Because he wasn't underpowered enough (Even you seem to know he's underpowered when you give him 3 MUs where he gets obliterated). . .I recall you saying you hated this character in general, so why'd you make the moveset for him?
 

Neherazade

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Apr 5, 2009
Messages
359
Location
Gensokyo.
Komodo Bros: tl;dr

JK. working on homework ATM, then formatting joint set, then complaining that I was ninja'd by three sets, then posting set, then commenting. Not necessarily all today. *sigh* AP exams really f' over your schedule.
 

MarthTrinity

Smash Lord
Joined
Aug 9, 2007
Messages
1,954
Location
The Cosmos Beneath Rosalina's Skirt
Scarmiglione

Alrighty, first off, forgive me as I've never played Final Fantasy IV so I have noooooo idea how true to character this is. So with that said, I can't really judge the fan art you've used or any of the attacks Smady deemed "OoC" properly. That being said, he seems like an earth element guy from your description so I can only assume you worked with that in mind for some of the moves that weren't directly from the game, yes?

Anyway, I was just kinda rambling there. From the read I gave it...this dude seems to be rubbish tier. He's got no recovery to speak of, terrible air movement and high fall speed. Good game Meta Knight/every gimping MYM set ever. But enough about balance (have at you!)...the only reason I actually complained about it first here is that I see it as quite hard for this guy to get up to the 125% he needs to transform. The mechanic is cool and all (reminds me of Computer Virus' changing mechanic) but it seems almost impossible for the poor guy to use it; hell, if he can't make it back to the stage he can't even transform. I question if all of his tricks, traps and self damaging moves could really help the process that much.

But blah, I'm being negative for no reason. It's a fun set for sure and a vast improvement over Ocelot (whom you seem to consider your best from last contest). It has a great concept behind it and is enjoyable (if not a tad bit wordy although I'm not one to complain about that >.>; ). Overall, great job...although I'd really love to see a Nurse Joy matchup added in if you get the chance.

Jason

I really don't have much to add that hasn't been already mentioned (quite often in fact). I'm admittedly not a fan of the set so I'll just point out some of the parts that particularly stood out as weird.

The up tilt as previously mentioned is awkward. I know (or at least believe) it's from Freddy vs. Jason where Jason crushes someone who's on a bed by folding it in half...but it comes across as an awkward move that gives me the hilarious mental image of Jason dancing whilst clapping. The shockwave bit seems a bit tacked on as well as if you thought, "Oh crap, people on higher platforms would absolutely destroy Jason." I had the same thought process with Negative Man admittedly, hence his side tilt. As Warlord said, you want Jason to force the foe to use his machete against him...but you never really say how it counters (or at least I missed it) and it seems to imply that the move just beats out the other move if Jason uses it.

As the others said, the Neutral Special could've been a mechanic as well as the opponent's getting "crippled." I would've loved to see Jason have to do some damage to them, the more he did the slower they'd get (maybe they'd limp) and the laggier their attacks would get or something. Instead it seems a tad tacked on in a few moves (ftilt for instance).

Still, you're working with a horror villain who doesn't do much more than slash and kill so I won't really go on about basic moves; you did what you could. I will admit that I got the joke in the Final Smash immediately and had a good laugh at it and you certainly went all out with the extras. I do have to echo Warlord's question though (and only because I really do enjoy Friday the 13th)...why would you make the set if you don't like the movies?

Komodo Bros

Even though I know they're two different entries, they're similar enough that I'll take a looksie at them both at once...which is, fairly obviously, how you wanted them to be read. First off, I notice that Moe's Neutral Special is incredibly, incredibly vague. He throws his sword. Awesome. He can throw it upwards so it comes back down...and then you hint at a connection with Joe but don't touch on it. Down Special seems kind of odd (like it could've been his normal grab) but I would've liked to seem some Ryuk-esque interaction like that. Like Ryuk's throw where he went into the background and held them in place? That could've been awesome especially with the whole 2v2 theme you have going on.

...okay. What's up with the bair? I remember the concept from Gluttony (and stole it for Lil' Miss Marshmallow who never saw the light of day ;_; ) and...it's just fine that he disarms opponents of their weapons...but of their magic too? The entire way that last bit is worded I imagine there should be a (WARY) at the end, it just seems incredibly tacked on. The uair stalling also seems a bit strange really.

And that's all the complaints I have with Moe. Yaaaaaaaaaay. Onto Joe.

Joe, Joe, Joe. Joe has a lot of weird little things about him. The fact that his Up Special randomly makes him invisible is one and the fact that his Side Special is basically Spy's signature move strikes me as a tad odd.

And, actually, let me take a moment to whine here (sry). The throws, like DM said, are rather awkward. Why would having your back broken keep you from turning (aside from the obvious...ya know? Being paralyzed bit)? If anything it'd seem like it'd make you unable to crouch (which could've been used somewhere I'm sure). Joe's tail based grabs where he "chains" himself to the opponent seem out of place as well.

AND NOW I'M GOING TO BE POSITVE SO DON'T TEAR APART MY COMMNENT LIKE I HATED IT OR SOMETHING.

The concept here is great, simply great. Two viable characters who work best in tandem with one another. Team Matches seem to be a concept that hasn't been touched on a whole lot (except for say Kamek, Nurse Joy, Strike Man (TBA)) and what you have here really twists it to a new level. You could totally just play them solo, they both have unique playstyles that support that...but the sets really shine with them as a team. They're both good sets and a great way for you to start the contest. If I had to chose one...hmm...Moe has a lot more Warlordian stereotypes (mostly because he's a heavyweight) but Joe seems to have more...strange moves. I'm leaning towards prefering Moe but both of them are good.

All caught up, yaaaaaaaaaay...*sleep*
:004:
 

Wizzerd

Smash Ace
Joined
Feb 24, 2009
Messages
929
Joshua

Easily the best aesthetics you've ever done, I can't believe you had this in you after your MYM7 sets bar possibly Shiki (who had problems of her own). The image quality is snappy, the color choice is solid, it's overall wonderful to look at.

Unfortunately, the moveset itself has some problems. I'll mainly touch on the detail since the playstyle's been gone over enough already; you have some problems with roundabout detailing like in the levitate mechanic (the detail's there, but it's a little confusing to read). I'll go off on a tangent here and point out that the levitation could very easily stall - if Joshua double jumps after taking enough vertical knockback, he can effectively stay up there forever unless he's hit by a "potential KO move", whatever that constitutes... that's a scary thought, especially in teams. Back to detail, there are some ambiguous moves like neutral special - I'd assume you mean projectiles curve to hit them, but since he has none...

As MW said, there's a bunch of potential to the concept, like piling up his various obstacles... the obstacles feel like they should have been rolled up into a single move though what with how they're mainly similar apart from having different dimensions. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the set is filler, albeit relevant to character filler.

Overall, Joshua seems like an MYM4 set to me. You've touched on a bit of playstyle, mostly in the specials, but a lot of moves seem to exist merely due to fitting the character (as far as I know, I haven't played TWEWY). That said, you seem to have had a good time with this what with putting in the extra time to make it an image set, which is good, I suppose.​

Scarmiglione

I kept reading this as Skarmory as I read, lol.

Anyway, Scarmiglione is very easily your best presented set so far. I've never been fond of "orgy nations" that use symbol combinations but you make a nice case for it here and it seems to be fitting to the character, but what's really special is the writing style. You've managed to preserve your brevity and general good writing while being much more amiable than the likes of Wily, Specter (before the over 9000 edits) and Ocelot, which I approve of.

The actual set is interesting (in a good way) as well as nicely self-aware. Damage / catharsis based mechanics definitely haven't been done this well before. I would have liked a little more moves like up aerial that create dynamic choices for the foe (either escape and help Scarm get into his true form or get dragged back down to earth), but this is more of a suggestion than a criticism.

My only real complaint is that the true form mostly gives Scarm catch-all buffs and new properties to moves, I think there was potential for depth in a completely new moveset in his true form like Zant (though it wouldn't need to be the focus of the set). The approach you took is good, though, this is more of a suggestion like the above.

Overall, I can't remember enjoying one of your sets so much since Specter (the edited version of course). This is probably the best set in MYM8 so far. That might not amount to much with a whopping six
seven if you count the Komodo Bros seperately
movesets, but to put it into perspective, this would have definitely made it onto my votelist in MYM7 had it been posted then.​

Jason

Unfortunately, I don't have much to add here, and I can't like Jason any more than the previous commenters. The silver lining is that the concept behind it is very interesting - countering your own moveset - but it's not pulled off very well at all. As MW pointed out, it's difficult not to counter Jason's moves what with how laggy they are, and it seems very fillerish to have moves like forward smash and forward aerial that only serve as options for Jason to counter with his own moves.

You seem to have a running problem with your sets, which is amplified in Jason - great ideas and poor execution. Jason's ideas aren't as good as Hunter J's and is executed even worse, making it a big step down from her, and I didn't like J much in the first place. I'm sorry, Kat, I can't add much; just know that this was a nearly impossible concept to work with.​

Komodo Bros

Good job here, though Scarmiglione remains my favorite set in MYM8 so far. The concept of a tag team character for doubles made up of two characters viable on their own in singles is very unique, though it casts doubt upon how they should be voted for. They're two seperate sets, essentially... That said, they're clearly designed for doubles (Though that's not to say that aren't good sets on their own).

I overall find Komodo Moe the weaker of the two, as the previous comments have said. While I agree with the fact that the back aerial is somewhat contrived, I'm a little unconvinced on Moe's gimping capabilities. I don't see why the foe can't just airdodge through Moe's neutral aerial fat, back aerial and down aerial are situational and up aerial is just a midair stall (And if Moe has as good gimping capabilities as you said, there's a Ninetales-esque quandrary on why they would go offstage at all). Forward aerial sounds like a good gimping tool, but that alone doesn't seem all THAT great of a gimping game. Moe definitely has it, I just think you might be exaggerating it.

Komodo Joe is definitely my prefered brother. The Spy-esque stealth shenanigans are definitely a fun addition, though his throw game is mildly forced. Put together, the Komodo Bros are great with their rolling shenanigans and all, definitely the highlight of the sets. Overall, solid way for you to open up your sets for the contest.​
 

Junahu

Smash Ace
Joined
Nov 15, 2005
Messages
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Shropshire Slasher
Komodo Moe & Joe:
I get this wierd feeling people are waiting for me to comment on Komodo Moe and Komodo Joe. I really don't know where to start this comment. It's been two days, and I'm still struggling to string together two sentences that describe what I think about Moe and Joe. But here's two sentences anyway;

Joe and Moe is everything 'Masterwarlord'x1000, both good and bad. There's the conceptual awareness and drive to explore ideas to their explosive conclusions that we all (except Rool) love, but there's also that complexity and assumptions you make of the reader that you've been criticised for in the past.

expanding on the latter...
Long, drawn out movesets are hideous and tedious to read. Large wads of green text are exhausting to look at for more than 5 minutes. And having to stop after every attack, because there's two or three move interactions we just have to be made aware of, made me lose my place more times than I should have. This kind of obtuse spaghetti of move interactions is exactly why I put Nurse Joy's move interactions at the end of the set. There's a deliberate nonsense in how you keep talking about Moe, in the middle of Joe's moveset. Sure, it's a nice way to show how much they work with one another, but it really diluted Joe and made it impossible to focus on the duo's individual strengths.

¬_¬ also, you should have posted them seperately
 

MasterWarlord

Smash Champion
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Komodo Moe & Joe:Joe and Moe is everything 'Masterwarlord'x1000, both good and bad. There's the conceptual awareness and drive to explore ideas to their explosive conclusions that we all (except Rool) love, but there's also that complexity and assumptions you make of the reader that you've been criticised for in the past.​


What am I assuming? That people are actually going to READ my moveset? What a preposterous assumption. No moveset assumes that.

These movesets aren't particularly complicated. They're among my more in-smash sets, if anything, which I thought you'd like, but apparantely it's all or nothing with you what with Spy vs Sandshrew. Not that that explains how you don't like Lunge or every other random terrible set anybody here could make in 15 minutes on Sandshrew's level. I really don't know why I got so infuriated over this when there's just no consistency to pleasing you when you and Rool truly do have dartboard opinions. Oh wait, that's right, because you and Rool are among the few people left in MYM who still comment. . .There's not much alternative. It's so very tempting to keep movesets hoarded away on my cpu away from your beady little eyes.

expanding on the latter...
Long, drawn out movesets are hideous and tedious to read.
Short, pathetically simple movesets with one half decent concept are complete and utter wastes of time to read.

Large wads of green text are exhausting to look at for more than 5 minutes.
I am still waiting for any complaints on the actual moveset rather then for you to judge this in an E-Card format.

And having to stop after every attack, because there's two or three move interactions we just have to be made aware of, made me lose my place more times than I should have.This kind of obtuse spaghetti of move interactions is exactly why I put Nurse Joy's move interactions at the end of the set. There's a deliberate nonsense in how you keep talking about Moe, in the middle of Joe's moveset. Sure, it's a nice way to show how much they work with one another, but it really diluted Joe and made it impossible to focus on the duo's individual strengths.
Maybe you shouldn't of tried reading Joe first? Brilliant move on your part there. On Joy I found myself constantly having to scroll up to moves to piece everything together. At least this way you're in the process of reading one of the attacks that's interacting.

¬_¬ also, you should have posted them seperately
Except for the part where making a moveset for either of these characters individually would be a crime and they're not meant to be particularly serious entries as solo sets. If you take out their interactions with each other, they wouldn't be particularly exciting.
 

Neherazade

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Apr 5, 2009
Messages
359
Location
Gensokyo.
Magikarp



Neutral Special: Splash

Side Special: Tackle

Up Special: Flail

Down Special: Splash

Neutral Attack: Splash

Dashing Attack: Splash

Ftilt: splash

Utilt: Splash

Dtilt: Splash

fsmash: Splash

usmash: Splash

Dsmash: Splash

nair: splash

fair: splash

Bair: Splash

Uair: splash

Dair: Splash

Grab: Splash

Fthrow: Splash

Bthrow: Splash

UThrow: Splash

Final Smash: Evolution
Brilliant Moveset warlord. I only have a few gripes.

i would have preferred some playstyle explanation, as well as some more details as to the damage out put of his attacks.

Also, I'm concerned you might have missed out on the potential of Magikarp's new move, Bounce, as an Up-special.

finally: we already have a magikarp set. Remember? get with the program!
 

Junahu

Smash Ace
Joined
Nov 15, 2005
Messages
899
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Shropshire Slasher
I really don't know why I got so infuriated over this when there's just no consistency to pleasing you when you and Rool truly do have dartboard opinions.
You consider them dartboard opinions because you've never really taken any of my criticism to heart. My opinions are insanely simple, and even possibly a little shallow. I don't care about ideas, there are plenty of people who can comment on that stuff, I care more about how an idea is brought across by the author. It's the ability to convince the reader of the worth of your ideas that draws me to movesets. I can't help it if a long moveset rubs me the wrong way. People, even those in a professional capacity can dislike a proposed idea for the silliest, smallest reasons. It's human nature.


Bah, it's not even like I was saying Moe and Joe are bad sets. I was just criticising the same things I always criticise. But for some reason I keep forgetting to say nice things when commenting your sets, so I guess you have every right to get pissy.

so, speaking of the movesets themselves;
I love how these two movesets take several core themes in two entirely different directions. There's a duality and synergy to them that plays off the other's strengths while bolstering their own.
While I don't neccessarily agree with the tangle of interactions I still respect how interwoven they make the two movesets. And they are good sets, it is clear you put a lot of thought into them.
 

Smady

Smash Master
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Apr 29, 2007
Messages
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Location
K Rool Avenue
Komodo Bros is, like Scarmiglione, a hell of a lot to expect from a reader: as Junahu has said, it’s typical of a Warlord moveset to challenge the recipient with walls of text. At times, this set stretched my patience with exorbitant lengths of single moves, like Moe’s down smash and neutral air, though it’s certainly not ‘filler-ish,’ so I wasn’t too frustrated.

On a similar note, I see now the benefits of both Junahu’s end-of-set interaction list, and yours of labelling them with every move. I feel the best fit would be in writing them both in their own sections and at least annotated alongside the move – always labelled as interactions, even alongside the respective moves. You joke about it in Joe’s down special, but my God, that was some painful reading. The green text indeed does not help and the writing style is dull after not too long; this kind of thing reminds me of MYM4 Kupa / MW awful organisation.

For starters, in this mammoth objective of commenting, there are a good amount of very oddly-woven moves. For example, Moe’s move which spins the opponent around, is seemingly pointless as it interacts with nothing else and has no point in the playstyle, as does his ‘back breaker’ – as others have said, this is both silly and illogical, that someone can’t turn around. The forward smash is a good example of where you feel the need to pad moves when they are meant to be scimitar or team-based moves, rather than leaving them more generic, which is an idea I dislike.

So, yeah, it’s difficult to comment on just one of these… to Moe!

Being the heavyweight gimper he is, Komodo Moe is an absolute homage to past works like King Hippo, whose super attack astonishingly-similarly resembles the neutral air here with the rebound or blocking attributes. The amount of protected frames as this character is also pretty significant: he isn’t afraid to mind game. One of the best interactions I’ve ever read is that bair and nair for forcing jointed attacks on weapon-using characters – simply brilliant.

As said previously, that whole back-breaking business is extremely odd, as is his insanely high recovery, up aerial and all his moves involving moving to the background. I can almost understand given the amount of source material, but it comes off as a little sporadic. The playstyle is extremely strong – Moe can gimp like crazy, but he has a decent compromise between stalling [opportunistic in team brawl] and gimping yet longer with some of his scimitar moves.

Next up is Joe, by far the weaker of the two. I don’t get the assassin connection at all; I’m guessing this is a CTR thing, but the invisibility, the ‘back stabber’ and actually much of the playstyle seems out-of-character. There’s a very big gap between the Ripper Roo-style craziness of Joe in the numbered Crash games and the ‘assassin’ persona built up in some stupid kart racer, it doesn’t exactly mesh together well, but, hey, you worked with what you had.

I also can’t see exactly why backstab is a viable or important move at all, maybe you or I am confused here – something about ten seconds of stun? It’s far too much like back breaker to be an asset to this set individually, anyway…

With the differences to Moe, it’s very much a Luigi clone kind of deal – he inherits many similarities, but few solidarities. KRool-style up aerials are still lame and they really don’t inspire enthusiasm as a whole, as Joe depends on Moe interactions, turning, Moe again and none too stimulating Assassin’s Creed or countering silliness that makes him seem like a sissy in the air. Maybe it’s because I read Moe first; it seems like the first brother fits many of these familiar moves.

Not to say Joe alone doesn’t shine – he does, in his interactions with Moe and clever alterations – yet I feel unsurprised that he lacks as much focus. He definitely comes off with the shorter straw – hell, you go as far as to say Moe is your favourite from the beginning. It’s far from a lazy effort and I commend you for producing two great movesets in one bundle.

To sum this hella long comment up, the Komodo Bros are an exceptional tag team as well as singles-based characters. They aren’t broken together, to your credit and you really do exhaust yourself here with possible interactions, to the point of nearly [or completely with some, it seems] exhausting the reader. I hate to re-iterate such a horrid criticism, but this is an ugly moveset and difficult to read – it has never been your strong suit, just please avoid grimy or blinding colours.

 

MarthTrinity

Smash Lord
Joined
Aug 9, 2007
Messages
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The Cosmos Beneath Rosalina's Skirt
http://chiefmendez.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/mts-sunday-recap-episode-36/

^Newest Sunday Recap, fresh off the pre-....computer. Not a whole lot else to put in this post really...I've commented all the sets so far. Strike Man's almost done; I've had Warlord preview him and agi help me out with the extras (yes he'll have extras: SSE Roll, bosses, taunts, win poses, even a few extra extras ;)) so expect him up sometime soon.
:005:
 

majora_787

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
6,122
Location
Texas
Yikes, it's MYM 8 already? When did 7 happen? :laugh:

Sigh... I've been slacking off. I'm going to try to get an entry in this time. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll even get it done before MYM 9.
 

Smady

Smash Master
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
3,306
Location
K Rool Avenue
Yikes, it's MYM 8 already? When did 7 happen? :laugh:

Sigh... I've been slacking off. I'm going to try to get an entry in this time. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll even get it done before MYM 9.
MYM7 started last year and carried on until April; dragged on, to many people. Don't worry, though - this one just started and given the same timeline, will be around all Summer. :chuckle:
 

majora_787

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
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Texas
Sweet. ^_^

Sadly, this might be my last moveset I make in a MYM contest. Remembering my awesome ones like 02 and Skullkid, I'm hoping I can make my last my greatest. :bee: I may not be done til the very end, adding things. And if you're wondering who it is, he doesn't want me to tell you because he thinks you're too zetta slow.
 

Smady

Smash Master
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
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K Rool Avenue
Sweet. ^_^

Sadly, this might be my last moveset I make in a MYM contest. Remembering my awesome ones like 02 and Skullkid, I'm hoping I can make my last my greatest. :bee: I may not be done til the very end, adding things. And if you're wondering who it is, he doesn't want me to tell you because he thinks you're too zetta slow.
Sad to hear you're planning on retiring - I do remember 02 and Skull Kid, as well as some more vague figures. If you're talking about who I think you are, you may want to check out the MYM7 top fifty. :laugh:
 

majora_787

Smash Hero
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Jun 23, 2007
Messages
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Location
Texas
Sad to hear you're planning on retiring - I do remember 02 and Skull Kid, as well as some more vague figures. If you're talking about who I think you are, you may want to check out the MYM7 top fifty. :laugh:
I'm going to go ahead and say I don't care. I plan on retiring unless I get some kind of magical inspiration, so I'm gonna go out with my favorite bad guy ever.

EDIT: I may... MAY finish up my ancient to-do list I made in MYM 5... But only if I can talk someone into giving me a few ideas. I may also re-do my first OC moveset. However, right now, I plan making my template and retiring after I finish.
 

Smady

Smash Master
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Apr 29, 2007
Messages
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K Rool Avenue
I'm going to go ahead and say I don't care. I plan on retiring unless I get some kind of magical inspiration, so I'm gonna go out with my favorite bad guy ever.
I see - I look forward to that, but, yeah, you're going to get lots of comparisons made. You could always check out that version for ideas or to see where you can get inspiration - it's a worthy set.
 

MasterWarlord

Smash Champion
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Aug 24, 2008
Messages
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Not wasting countless hours on a 10 man community
Before I reply to Smady, I'd like to reply to Wizz on saying that Moe's off-stage game is bad and he doesn't have any way to get them off-stage. . .Hello? Fthrow? Such an irrelevant throw indeed. . .Down Special in combination with nair is what makes nair good, as you can either DI back to the stage and fthrow them off again or just do a suicide KO when they try to dodge through nair.

Komodo Bros is, like Scarmiglione, a hell of a lot to expect from a reader: as Junahu has said, it’s typical of a Warlord moveset to challenge the recipient with walls of text. At times, this set stretched my patience with exorbitant lengths of single moves, like Moe’s down smash and neutral air, though it’s certainly not ‘filler-ish,’ so I wasn’t too frustrated.

On a similar note, I see now the benefits of both Junahu’s end-of-set interaction list, and yours of labelling them with every move. I feel the best fit would be in writing them both in their own sections and at least annotated alongside the move – always labelled as interactions, even alongside the respective moves. You joke about it in Joe’s down special, but my God, that was some painful reading. The green text indeed does not help and the writing style is dull after not too long; this kind of thing reminds me of MYM4 Kupa / MW awful organisation.
It seems I could get rid of a major complaint by just turning the entirety of the text to white. . .

For starters, in this mammoth objective of commenting, there are a good amount of very oddly-woven moves. For example, Moe’s move which spins the opponent around, is seemingly pointless as it interacts with nothing else and has no point in the playstyle, as does his ‘back breaker’ – as others have said, this is both silly and illogical, that someone can’t turn around. The forward smash is a good example of where you feel the need to pad moves when they are meant to be scimitar or team-based moves, rather than leaving them more generic, which is an idea I dislike.
Moe's fthrow and the moves that interact with it were some of the first made what with how that's one of the things he actually does. While spinning Joe around is indeed rather pointless, it's Moe's main way to get the foe off stage making it a rather important move.

I'm still trying to figure out why people only point out now that the bthrow is illogical but leave well enough alone on Sloth. . .

There are very few moves in any MW sets that are just intended to be generic wasted button inputs, if any. Moe's fsmash is -primarily- meant for teamplay and isn't particularly useful in solo beyond just becoming a good moev if you can limit the foe to/bait them into using a certain kind of priority.

So, yeah, it’s difficult to comment on just one of these… to Moe!

Being the heavyweight gimper he is, Komodo Moe is an absolute homage to past works like King Hippo, whose super attack astonishingly-similarly resembles the neutral air here with the rebound or blocking attributes. The amount of protected frames as this character is also pretty significant: he isn’t afraid to mind game. One of the best interactions I’ve ever read is that bair and nair for forcing jointed attacks on weapon-using characters – simply brilliant.
Glad somebody actually likes the bair. I indeed considered it one of the highlights of Moe and really liked the concept, though yes, MT, I was a bit out there about the whole magic removing thing. I was trying to blame it on the enemy.

As said previously, that whole back-breaking business is extremely odd, as is his insanely high recovery, up aerial and all his moves involving moving to the background. I can almost understand given the amount of source material, but it comes off as a little sporadic. The playstyle is extremely strong – Moe can gimp like crazy, but he has a decent compromise between stalling [opportunistic in team brawl] and gimping yet longer with some of his scimitar moves.
Moe's dash and Down Special are the only moves that actually involve the background. I struggled with the recovery a lot, and I eventually threw logic out the window and gave him a recovery that went well with his gameplay. With the whole Joe spinning in the actual battle thing I didn't think it was that stupidly large of a stretch.

Next up is Joe, by far the weaker of the two. I don’t get the assassin connection at all; I’m guessing this is a CTR thing, but the invisibility, the ‘back stabber’ and actually much of the playstyle seems out-of-character. There’s a very big gap between the Ripper Roo-style craziness of Joe in the numbered Crash games and the ‘assassin’ persona built up in some stupid kart racer, it doesn’t exactly mesh together well, but, hey, you worked with what you had.

I also can’t see exactly why backstab is a viable or important move at all, maybe you or I am confused here – something about ten seconds of stun? It’s far too much like back breaker to be an asset to this set individually, anyway…
The almighty enclosed instruction booklet is what labeled him as the "Cold Blooded Assassin" which I vastly expanded upon and emphasized. The invisibility is pretty important when combined with the dsmash, and the back stabbing thing goes with how all the moves Joe has to get into close/aerial combat. The Back Stabbing thing wouldn't be particularly interesting on it's own if not for how many opportunities Joe's moveset gives him to get in backstabs. No, there's nothing about 10 seconds of hitstun, that was referencing an interaction with Moe's bthrow.

With the differences to Moe, it’s very much a Luigi clone kind of deal – he inherits many similarities, but few solidarities. KRool-style up aerials are still lame and they really don’t inspire enthusiasm as a whole, as Joe depends on Moe interactions, turning, Moe again and none too stimulating Assassin’s Creed or countering silliness that makes him seem like a sissy in the air. Maybe it’s because I read Moe first; it seems like the first brother fits many of these familiar moves.
Moe had the utilt, Neutral B, and the similiar Down B first, though Joe invented the uair. Then again, lots of work was done on Moe before Joe was ever started, so that's hardly fair to him.

Not to say Joe alone doesn’t shine – he does, in his interactions with Moe and clever alterations – yet I feel unsurprised that he lacks as much focus. He definitely comes off with the shorter straw – hell, you go as far as to say Moe is your favourite from the beginning. It’s far from a lazy effort and I commend you for producing two great movesets in one bundle.
I can agree to Joe flowing less then Moe, though I still feel he's got some of it in him and his appeal comes from what he's trying to do being more unique then what Moe's doing. Moe is my preferred character, of course, though that's hardly surprising. I mainly went to his defense because of how butchered he was by the fanbase.

To sum this hella long comment up, the Komodo Bros are an exceptional tag team as well as singles-based characters. They aren’t broken together, to your credit and you really do exhaust yourself here with possible interactions, to the point of nearly [or completely with some, it seems] exhausting the reader. I hate to re-iterate such a horrid criticism, but this is an ugly moveset and difficult to read – it has never been your strong suit, just please avoid grimy or blinding colours.
So the main complaint is readability. It's Warlord's only multi set, hardly surprising. I'm not going to tone down my ideas and compromise my moveset and the fun that can be had actually playing these movesets by one inch in favor of giving you some pretty colors to look at on a forum.
 

UserShadow7989

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
305
[size=+3]Scarmiglione [/size]
I've been looking forward to Scarmiglione ever since you mentioned him (I've always thought that MYM needed more FF sets). I was also going to post Jason Voorhees, but this is yours.

Scarmiglione definitely has a cool idea with his concept of damaging himself to attain a new form despite losing a stock in doing so. At first I thought he was very underpowered, even in his 2nd form, but then I went back and saw that his attacks do double damage.

Skullnat


I can definitely say that there's nothing about Scarmiglione that I don't like. He's an extremely likeable set in my ideals thanks to his cool conepts surrounding him. Like pretty much everyone else that's posted a set so far, Scarmiglione is a great step-up. I very much like him. Easily the bestest of your sets (which is a big change in your first set reception).
- Scarmiglione

I tend to groan when I see a moveset that revolves around self-mutilation as a strategy. Even if you become stronger at a higher damage percentage, almost all of the time you have more to gain attacking at that percentage and letting your damage go up naturally than you do hitting yourself to get there.

Of course, it's different when you have no recovery and are trying to get to 125% damage to activate your true form. So I congratulate you, first and foremost, on making a self-damaging character viable.

And it works together pretty dang well actually. The combination of self-damaging and self-healing, and the ability to become faster and more aggressive in his second form is delicious. It's the same basic moveset, but you tweak it so subtly that you can completely change the playstyle and strategy without actually replacing a single move.
Thank you both.

It still struggled in presentation though, the text and color-scheme was more off-putting than engaging, and while there were several points where your writing broke through, it seemed rather stuffy. You tend to repeat the same sentence structure over and over; instead try to be a tad less detatched.
What color/text scheme would you recommend? For the writing style, I was trying to be more friendly and conversational, but it seems I made it even more stuffy then I normally do. I'll make sure to keep that in mind for my next sets.

As for other complaints, the special mechanic was vaguely worded so I wasn't quite sure when exactly he left his true form, and I'm still not sure now! Also, a lot of moves had what felt like tacked on mechanics, especially plague and sickness. The way that his second form plays, while completely different than the first form, felt like an alteration of the first form on my first readthrough, and I couldn't catch how he actually had a good few number of ways to get into melee damage.

Overall though, this is a really good set. It's a delicious spin on the usual reincarnation and summon mechanics, reminding me slightly of Harbinger. As usual, you have excellent match-ups to boot (and a Rider Match-Up, that's bonus points for sure!) I'd easily count it as your best set so far. Good job UserShadow.
I edited the mechanic to be clearer. You remain in the True form until KOed again. After that, you're back to square one. A lot of the tacked on effects was me juggling the different segments of Scarmiglione's strategy and making sure none of them were simply throwaway props. I'll try to cut back in the future. And the match ups were the parts I had the most fun with, especially Rider's.

Scarmiglione

I can agree with pretty much everything positive DM said about the set (Though I believe self damage sets have been done decently before, this one still takes the cake), though I actually enjoyed the plague/sickness status effects that commented the poison gas outside the somewhat random move limitations on plague. Either way, though, you’ve got some great stuff going on here with all of the poison being both a source of damaging your first form and the enemy while healing your second form and the zombies. While the zombies themselves don’t seem particularly relevant, when you can heal/damage yourself off of them with dair their purpose becomes more involved, alongside the usual stacking zombie grab. Most of the earth moves which Scarmiglione needs to be an earth elemental rather then a necromancer work as decent defensive options or have some other good purpose, such as bair allowing Scarmiglione’s second form to go more offensive. There’s the occasional odd one out like nair, but it’s somewhat necessary to have a decent quantity of earth moves if you want to be in-character here, it seems.
Thank you. I was worried about them sticking out badly, but hearing you say they mesh with the rest of the set is a relief.

Your writing style seems to of improved a good bit along with the match-ups, though I wish you’d of gone into a bit more detail in the playstyle summary on how to play Scarmiglione’s second form. I also believe that the second form would be able to play more defensively then the first if anything (Though I can still very much seeing it go offensive with the grab-game), what with all the healing, and that it’d be very much in Scarmiglione’s interest to do so in that he can keep his second form in-tact. I have nothing against this, but how you insist the second form is so offensive and glaze over it as much as you do is a bit off putting. That’s my only true issue with the set though, as this is a pretty easy pick for me as a favorite set of yours. Very nice set indeed.

Musical Headers Nitpick: You use up all the good musical headers early on to be left with “meh” ones for the important headers, even resorting to having to reuse one. You don’t need musical headers for things like background, feel free to cut out an unimportant header from having music if you don’t have enough/enough good choices.
My writing seems to be the most disagreed upon part of Scarmiglione. I'll have to keep the frank, simple writing while making it more comfortable to read. I edited the playstyle section to better expand upon his second form, and added a defensive strategy as well. I disagree about him not being offensive in his true form, however. All his healing is passive or done while attacking, so it's in his best interest to abuse his suped up damage and attack speed and let the Poison Gas take care of any damage he takes. I see your point about preserving his True Form and abusing the healing, however.

I cleaned up the headers a bit too, thanks for the advice.


Scarmiglione:
I was caught offguard with how intensely enjoyable Scarmiglione was to read. The idea is solid, and there aren't any noticeable cracks in its execution either.

Like many great movesets, Scarmiglione weaves a number of different mechanics and themes across one another, never championing any one over the others. Racking your own damage, maintaining your summons, spreading gas throughout the stage using wind. You not only give them equal attention throughout the moveset, but you tie them together in a manner as to make them irrevocably inseperable.
I'm glad I did well on that part (and I must have, if Junahu and Warlord both agree on it).

But, reading the attacks themselves was laborous, and a lot of the time it was the moveset's concept alone that was spurring me to continue reading. There's a lot of superfluous detail that gets in the way, and your choice of wording at certain points is a similar stumbling point

My biggest complaint is how intensely compressed everything feels in the moveset, with many attacks taking on odd jobs just so Scarmiglione could competantly carry his own special mechanics.


¬_¬ And I was indeed surprised to read that Scarmiglione's aerials were the closest things he has to KO moves, a genuine affront to a ground elemental fiend if ever I heard one.
Yeah, writing style definately bit me where the sun don't shine this time. Not only is it detached and cold like normal, but my attempts to 'brighten it up' made it difficult to read on top of that. I think I overdid it with all the mechanics, as I had to tack on some effects just to give each the attention they deserved.

His aerials aren't reliable KO moves, outside the Forward Aerial. The Up Aerial could be a suicide KO in second form, but that would be an absolute last resort after all the effort you go through just to get there. Forward Tilt, Down Tilt, Forward Throw, Down Throw, and Up Throw are much better for KOes. The aerials are more about taking the fight back to the ground.

Talk about a blast from the past, I remember when you first talked about Scarmiglione, US: everyone was claiming other Final Fantasy IV characters that never turned out, hah.

It’s a bit of a nuisance that my first quarrel starts with the image you use in showing us, the reader, Scarm’s second, ‘true’ form - you use fan art; terrible, terrible fan art that makes him look like a bipedal super villain. As we both know, he is not, he is built like an ape and you really should have used the far superior sprite work. I know, I’ve gone on a while about this, but there are further problems with being out-of-character – it is awkward for, in this form, Scarm to perform moves suitable for his first form, when he is built like a behemoth [Warlord said this, but it’s very true].
Personally, I find the spritework appalling. I probably could have picked a better picture to use for the second form, as now that I look at it he does look bipedal in it. I was trying to show that the second form was vastly more appealing then the first by using a fancy piece of artwork instead of a sprite like the first form. I tried to make the animations make sense in both forms, but it seems I missed a few. Can you list some in specific? The 'Scarmiglione raises his hands and then hits the ground' ones, perhaps?

It is also rather awkward for this character to be using earth moves, seemingly just for the sake of it – of the four elemental themes, Scarm has basically the littlest to do with his own, besides the idea that un-dead are earthly as they rise from the ground. His natural abilities are all poisoning, deathly-themed moves in FFIV, if I remember correctly, so it’s a bit odd seeing him with so many magic syndrome-y moves with props like rocks or pieces of ice. It’s also odd that you, despite what you say in the playstyle, make out the second form to be offensive, when it’s entirely healing-based – works with the playstyle you give the moveset, but it’s how you say it is in the game. If you aren’t confused by that last part... Scarm should become a monster when he transforms. I feel this is linked in with the absence of the proper second form, replaced by the lame fan art.
One of the complaints I received from Houndoom was having three different flamethrower moves. Had I just stuck to the poison and zombie summons, there would have been too many clone inputs and even more tacked on effects. Besides that, he IS the Fiend of Earth, as little as the battles with him in game represented that.

One thing I feel the need to ask- ice? Where in the moveset did I use ICE? Rocks I did use, but I don't see how stalagtites qualify as props.

For the healing, as I replied to in MW's comment above, it's all passive or effects tagged onto his attacks. He's got above average weight and his damage disappears like crazy. At the same time, his attacks have much less lag, and double the damage and knockback. You can spam high damage moves all you want and let the Poison Fog/occasional Drain you slip in between attacks remove any damage you take in the process. Plus, you're a stock down at BEST at this point, so you need to make up for it. I see your point about the healing making for a great defensive strategy, however.

Those are all of my complaints: the moveset benefits from a very sound transforming mechanic that is key to the playstyle – I loved the Kel’Thuzad-style un-dead whom are absorbable and manipulated throughout, the double-sided poison fog and all the wind / ground moves that interacted here. When you’re on-base – using poison or undead types you’re hitting close to how I feel the set should be and it works in a simple way that hasn’t really been tried before with a healing character. You’ve really brought a new dimension to the whole ‘formed’ archetype and it’s very interesting.

While the playstyle doesn’t fix Scarmiglione, it’s still very good – I love the healing parts, as mentioned, but the parts involving the Skullnants: destroying, summoning or otherwise interacting with them is always handled well. With previous percentage-modifiers like Von Kaiser, Hades or even Pennywise, there was always a problem with influencing your percentage without either going too far or being too obvious to the opponent, but the poison fog is definitely a new, working approach to that. Generally, forms of characters are less used due to these sorts of balancing issues and this is a fantastic way of making them viable again.

And with that, I feel I’ve repeated myself a dozen times, so I’ll go ahead and finish. Scarmiglione is an excellent moveset and probably one of my favourites of yours – it does have an improved, if still somewhat waffling writing style and a better than usual UserShadow playstyle. It’s far from perfect, though – you would benefit greatly from losing the magic syndrome-y stuff from all of your sets.
Thank you for the in depth review, I'm glad you enjoyed it and took the time to make constructive criticism for it. I think the Skullnants are my favorite of the minions I've done, and I did spend a lot of time on working the balance. I'm also happy you found the writing style slightly better this time.

...and I had no idea I had trouble with magic syndrome. Which sets?

Scarmiglione

Alrighty, first off, forgive me as I've never played Final Fantasy IV so I have noooooo idea how true to character this is. So with that said, I can't really judge the fan art you've used or any of the attacks Smady deemed "OoC" properly. That being said, he seems like an earth element guy from your description so I can only assume you worked with that in mind for some of the moves that weren't directly from the game, yes?
Yeah. Despite being the fiend of earth, Scarmiglione never uses any earth related powers (beyond the zombies, if you consider them earth based). He DID, in fact, use Lit 1 though. Which has nothing to do with earth. That always bugged me, and since I didn't want to make all the moves Poison Gas variants I worked in some generic earth element attacks.

Anyway, I was just kinda rambling there. From the read I gave it...this dude seems to be rubbish tier. He's got no recovery to speak of, terrible air movement and high fall speed. Good game Meta Knight/every gimping MYM set ever. But enough about balance (have at you!)...the only reason I actually complained about it first here is that I see it as quite hard for this guy to get up to the 125% he needs to transform. The mechanic is cool and all (reminds me of Computer Virus' changing mechanic) but it seems almost impossible for the poor guy to use it; hell, if he can't make it back to the stage he can't even transform. I question if all of his tricks, traps and self damaging moves could really help the process that much.
Admittedly I was worried about making it too easy. 4% per second from Poison Fog, 10% for every Skullnant summoned, and up to 30% for every Skullnant sacrificed. Add in the stall, the Forward Tilt/Forward Aerial GTFO moves and the Grab/Down Smash... But when you add in the fact he has to survive or he's back to square one. On the other other hand, his True form is lolwut strong and gets a crap load of self healing. Should I drop the amount to round 100%, or increase/give recoil damage on some moves?

But blah, I'm being negative for no reason. It's a fun set for sure and a vast improvement over Ocelot (whom you seem to consider your best from last contest). It has a great concept behind it and is enjoyable (if not a tad bit wordy although I'm not one to complain about that >.>; ). Overall, great job...although I'd really love to see a Nurse Joy matchup added in if you get the chance.
Yeah, I'll do a Nurse Joy matchup when I get the time. I consider Ocelot better then Houndoom because the big H has a lot of repeated/boring moves, while Ocelot's only poor moves are the Aerials. (I don't see why people keep questioning if the moves are in character, he uses every one of those in the series. The Side Special is the only questionable one since it was pulled from the Metal Gear Online multi-player FPS).

Scarmiglione

I kept reading this as Skarmory as I read, lol.

Anyway, Scarmiglione is very easily your best presented set so far. I've never been fond of "orgy nations" that use symbol combinations but you make a nice case for it here and it seems to be fitting to the character, but what's really special is the writing style. You've managed to preserve your brevity and general good writing while being much more amiable than the likes of Wily, Specter (before the over 9000 edits) and Ocelot, which I approve of.

The actual set is interesting (in a good way) as well as nicely self-aware. Damage / catharsis based mechanics definitely haven't been done this well before. I would have liked a little more moves like up aerial that create dynamic choices for the foe (either escape and help Scarm get into his true form or get dragged back down to earth), but this is more of a suggestion than a criticism.

My only real complaint is that the true form mostly gives Scarm catch-all buffs and new properties to moves, I think there was potential for depth in a completely new moveset in his true form like Zant (though it wouldn't need to be the focus of the set). The approach you took is good, though, this is more of a suggestion like the above.

Overall, I can't remember enjoying one of your sets so much since Specter (the edited version of course). This is probably the best set in MYM8 so far. That might not amount to much with a whopping six
seven if you count the Komodo Bros seperately
movesets, but to put it into perspective, this would have definitely made it onto my votelist in MYM7 had it been posted then.​
lol, Skarmory. I'm glad you approve of my organization choices, since I was worried that they'd fall flat like some of my older attempts. I'm really surprised you liked the writing style so much, considering how mixed the reaction to it has been. I agree I should've added a couple more of sadistic choices (I loved the ones I put into Ocelot).

True form I was split on at first. I wanted to keep the set compressed and simple, and making a second set entirely (or replacing a good number of the moves) might have lead to it being bloated (more then it is now) while limiting it to buffs could make it bland and weak.

Ultimately, I choose to keep the same basic set but remove/add qualities to the attacks that make them more fitting for the second form, as I love minor changes creating a big difference. A new set for the second form has plenty of merits, though. It would have really set it apart and balancing Scarmiglione would've been much easier. Thank you for the compliments and suggestions.




If I missed anyone, please let me know. Thank you all for your help, and here's hoping the topic picks up again soon.
 
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