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

[Professor Lexicovermis]

Springtime for Werner

Werner was a fun set. He takes the Clown Car gimmick, fittingly, and it feels perfectly natural. His specials are fairly interesting, with the Cat being a major highlight. I really like how you adapted it, almost making it an allied boss Werner is working to summon. The Cat interacts with Werner's myriad projectiles in some interesting ways, and it has a fitting KO Grab that has a pretty nice bit of fluff in that it makes the foe part of the chain gang of rat ghosts. Charge! is a pretty fun move as well, with its momentum mechanics giving the set a pretty hectic play style where Werner is going to be wheeling around like a madman. Up Special is straightforward enough, with the spring offering more fun stuff with his projectiles. The catapult is pretty fun too, filling the air with tons of junk and potentially launching the foe with good timing.

His Smashes and other moves are all pretty fun, with his oddball Jab and D-Tilt being strange but oddly fitting. His F-Smash and U-Smash are great adaptations of some of his more memorable attacks, with F-Smash in particular absolutely flooding the stage with projectiles with repeated use. I only recommend making it a bit more obvious that the can itself dissipates during U-Smash. There was an odd bit on B-Air that referenced D-Smash lighting things on fire, but I believe you deleted it. The standards are pretty nice additions to his general kit, with F-Tilt's projectile halving being a really fun effect that I rather like. The Aerials are rather fun as well, though F-Air's effect is really bizarre. Not necessarily bad, just strange. It's nice that they generally work with his Charge! momentum. Grab Game is pretty fun as well, playing off the fact that Werner can keep rolling while holding and throwing foes. I liked U-Throw a good deal, with the cannon flavor being really fitting to the character.

I appreciate the flavoring to his moves; the set does a good job of adapting the idea of Werner using everything at his disposal to fight. He even uses nuts and bolts shed by his tank incidentally! All in all, Werner has a very interesting "consistently wonky" feel to him, which meshes well with his homemade tank and surprising competence with tech. His moves seem awkward and tricky to use, but their more awkward intricacies are consistent, and thus learnable. Werner feels like he'd be the sort of character that needs a good deal of practice, but he's not impenetrable. It also feels like he'd lend himself to a lot of "I meant to do that" moments, also pretty fitting to his character. It's really fun that you managed to translate the inherent clunkiness of the tin can tank without making it unusably wonky. It's a very nice translation of the character, in my opinion.

Watch The Birdie!

In contrast to Werner, I don't have as much to say about Wally. Not to say he's at all a bad set, he's rather solid after all, he's just not quite as interesting to me as Werner. Wally has an interesting mechanic right off the bat in the form of his house. Granting him more defense while it's structurally sound, then allowing him to gain some maneuverability when it breaks is a rather neat way to translate that particular element of the fight. Beyond that, Wally's fairly straightforward in terms of statistics, being a very large bird. Which, to be fair, is about the extent of the character's design. Wally's got a fairly solid set of specials, with his Side Special being a personal highlight of mine. The feathers on Up Special are also pretty interesting; I especially like the Katamari effect they have going on. Down Special seems like it has a ludicrously huge hitbox, but I suppose that makes sense considering Wally's huge self.

Wally's Smashes are fairly interesting as well. The Forward Smash is a particularly neat move, consolidating his hurtbox into a smaller form while simultaneously allowing him to convert his now-inert body into a massive hitbox. Up Smash's bullets are also neat in that Wally can use them to rig practically anything with explosives, a tactic I'm certain his son came up with, as it seems a bit brainy for Wally himself. Down Smash's mounds seem a bit torn as to if they are stalagmites or not, but for the sake of clarity, I'll assume they are.

Wally's Grab Game is a bit odd, but not in a negative sense. Though I will say Forward Throw is rather too complex for a throw. I know it was a Special at some point in development, and it kind of shows to be honest. Up Throw and Down Throw are both fairly simple, which isn't a bad thing considering how complex Wally can get at times. It's interesting to have a move similar to Koopa Klaw on a grab, I'll say. I rather like Back Throw's "difference in weight" gimmick, though it doesn't touch on the possibility of the foe being heavier than Wally himself.

Wally's Aerials and Standards wrap up a solid package. Neutral Air feels a bit... fuzzy in the logic of its projectile shuffling mechanic. Though I suppose items teleporting into Wally's eggs can be handwaved as cartoon magic. I will say that, in an actual game, I feel that this would be a rather nonintuitive mechanic; I personally wouldn't think to tap B during this attack without intimate knowledge of the set and its mechanics. Forward Air and Back Air are fairly straightforward moves, being simple, reliable attacks with rather light gimmicks like Back Air's tilting mechanic. Up Air has a fun animation, using the cuckoo clock Wally wears, and Down Air continues the proud tradition of the heavyweight antagonist stall-and-fall. Wally's Jab states that it's strong for an infinite Jab, but doesn't actually list the damage on the repeating portion of it. Dash Attack's wall gimmick seems a bit... situational. Though it does interact with his setup, so I think it's fine. Forward Tilt's ability to convert any of Wally's objects to a projectile is pretty fun. Finally, Up and Down Tilt are simply reliable moves you'd expect on their respective inputs.

All in all, Wally is a respectable set, though at the time of writing I personally prefer Werner of your Cupsets so far.

Good Shot, John- Djimmi!

Well, what do you know, ANOTHER Smady project! Djimmi is one of the more memorable bosses in Cuphead, and you've done a fine job of encapsulating the spectacle and pizzazz of his fight. Right off the bat, Djimmi comes out swinging with a very meaty NSpec. This NSpec is the crux of his main gimmick: brewing a custom projectile that can quickly become a threat of nightmarish proportions. Beyond this, the sheer volume of projectiles a normal chest can fire is frankly absurd in a wonderful way. After this NSpec, SSpec is almost comically short. However, it's an interesting move in its own right, and the reflection mechanic makes it a fairly important part of his desired gameplan. USpec is extremely straightforward for this set, which isn't a bad thing for a recovery move. DSpec goes right back to the complex stuff, introducing another way to use Djimmi's hard-earned riches in the form of Cuppethead. Even without the chest mechanic, Cuppethead is an interesting pseudo-turret minion.

Djimmi's Smashes are fairly involved moves as well, and they mesh well with the chest mechanic. FSmash has a mean, MEAN projectile in the form of Djimmi's own skull; imbuing it with treasures you've borrowed from foes can make it a horrifying visage of death! DSmash is interesting in that it actually has a separate "Pocket" mechanic than the chests. It kinda serves to discourage the foe from getting too projectile happy, lest they exacerbate Djimmi's bullet hell playstyle. USmash is crazy in all the right ways, with the pyramid shuffle being exactly the kind of spectacle a character like Djimmi should have.

For his Grab Game, Djimmi starts off with a rather involved Cargo Throw variant with some Cuppethead flavoring. It's a very versatile move, and seems like a good fit for his tendency to spam projectiles. UThrow has a great animation, and it actively speeding up with Rage is interesting. BThrow is a bit strange, but not at all in a negative sense. DThrow is another nice spectacle move, and it gives Djimmi a handy custom projectile ripe for imbuement with his chest.

While the Standards and Aerials generally mark the end of new mechanics for a set, this genie isn't done yet. Sure, Jab's a straightforward move (barring an interaction with Cuppethead), but from there, the standards get interesting. FTilt's power drain is a very abstract mechanic, and it seems rather fun to play around with. DTilt shares a mechanic with FAir, and that is the creation of a gravity well. This well is a powerful construct if used wisely, and it's nice to have a few different methods of creating one. UTilt is another rather involved move, though I find it odd to describe one element of it being "basically an Easter Egg" immediately before explaining its tactical advantages. Dash Attack swirling projectiles around is a very neat concept. NAir is an interesting projectile move that reminds me of the quad cutter seen in Kirby's Marx bossfight, and it can even make a turret construct of sorts. UAir is frankly bizarre in such a way that it's rather charming. BAir has a fun, fitting animation for the character and a neat projectile repositioning mechanic. Finally, DAir interacts with Cuppethead in a satisfyingly visceral way, with it even letting Djimmi outright vaporize his minion for an explosive reward.

All in all, Djimmi is another solid set from you. I preferred him to Wally, and I'd say he's about on par with Werner.

 

[ForwardArrow]

Supreme Leader Snoke​

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers Ahead

Snoke is the villain built up to be the main antagonist of the new Star Wars trilogy. He initially appeared in the Force Awakens as a hologram that Hux and Kylo Ren spoke too, and he came across as a somewhat more reasonable and reserved leader for the First Order than Palpatine was for the Empire. Little is known about him going into the Last Jedi, and no, The Last Jedi never answers who he is or how he got to his position of power. It also changes his characterization to be a lot more explicitly villainous, mocking Kylo Ren and torturing Hux when he previously had acted like more of a mediator, indicating maybe he was angrier about Starkiller Base than we thought? Either way, he links up Rey and Kylo Ren's minds through a bizarre force technique to cause them to bond, in the interest of luring Rey to him.

Of course, this whole incident ends up making Snoke look like a buffoon as everything backfires on him spectacularly. Kylo Ren brings Rey to him and he throws her around the room to show off how powerful he is and how she can't do anything to fight him, before boasting about how he can read Kylo Ren's every action and motive perfectly. Kylo Ren then immediately kills him. We don't really get any more of Snoke than that, and apparently people think this is a really deep subversion of the "uninteresting" Emperor Palpatine archetype. Still as the character who presumably connects the Empire to the First Order, one really has to wonder how the First Order got so powerful and wealthy out of nowhere and his nonexistent character ends up causing some pretty annoying holes in the Star Wars lore. Maybe Palpatine was that rich and the Empire got so messed up they had to pass it down to that relative of Palpatine's that he refuses to acknowledge because he's too incompetent? That's what I'd like to believe at this point.

So now Snoke joins Smash Brothers, in the interest of redeeming his absolutely embarassing performance in the Last Jedi. Can he do better here?

Stats​

Snoke is physically quite feeble, in random concept art its pointed out that he prioritizes comfort because his very stance is painful. Between that and his humiliating death, it feels fitting to give him a similar set of stats to Mewtwo in size and weight, but he actually manages to be both even taller at Ganondorf's height and even lighter at barely over Jigglypuff's weight. Snoke is very floaty and slow, having decent air speed but a dash speed slower than Robin's and a very slow fall speed, making him more inclined to floating around in the air. He does at least have generally good air control, albeit slow acceleration. His force boosted jumps are a little above average, and his traction is a bit better than you might expect from a guy wearing slippers but still not very good. All in all, Snoke is as terrible statistically as he is as a villain, which is to say very.

That being said, Snoke has a trick of his sleeve that makes him far more dangerous than you might expect. Given Kylo Ren tried to turn his pain into strength, its most likely he got that plan from his master who, well, lives in constant pain. Through his mental prowess however, Snoke can gain power not just from his own pain, but from the pain of everyone around him. If someone in a radius of a battlefield platform around Snoke takes damage, or Snoke himself takes or inflicts damage, a red bar above his percentage and portrait will fill. 1% of damage fills 1% of the bar, and it depletes by 7% per second. Some of Snoke's attacks will also sacrifice some of the meter, but at certain thresholds it improves Snoke's movement stats. At 33% full, Snoke's dash speed improves to slightly better than Ganondorf's and his air speed becomes one of the best in the game, though not the absolute best. His first jump also becomes as good as Falco's as he gives himself a much stronger force boost.

At 66% the bonuses get much more impressive, as Snoke suddenly has by a small margin the best air speed in the game and a dash speed a tiny bit better than Link's(1.4 vs 1.3944). His second jump also gets a small boost and he gets a third jump on par with that of Kirby or Dedede as he pushes himself slightly more into the air, giving him some new aerial options. At 100%, the real fun begins as Snoke's dash speed skyrockets to be better than Zero Suit Samus' at 2.15 as his force powers give him some incredibly fast floating, his air speed becomes somewhat unbelievable at 1.55. For the record, Yoshi's is 1.28, and while it takes Snoke a moment to reach this full speed due to his lacking aerial acceleration he can control it very well at that point, slowing down and reversing direction with surprising ease even at top speed.

You might think reaching 100% is impossible because you'll lose it in literally a quarter of a second. That's where you're wrong, as Snoke goes into a bit of an overdrive when he hits 100% on his pain boost. For the next 5 seconds, nothing depletes the meter. Not force powers or the passive decay, but the problem is once Snoke comes down from those 5 seconds every bit of depletion to his meter over those 5 seconds will very suddenly take effect. So if he used attacks that cost him 30%, 25%, and 40%, he'd lose 95% of his meter, though any damage he did in that time will add right back to it to potentially mitigate the loss. Hell, if he ends up at 100% again, he gets another 5 second overdrive to continue spamming his rather godly status. That being said, if Snoke does not hit 100% pain meter a second time, for the next 10 seconds he'll only gain half as much from damage being inflicted.

In matches with more players, to prevent Snoke from thriving too much, the requirements increase by .1% for each player in the match beyond the second to increase his meter by 1%. The mechanic is naturally stronger in FFA settings and a lot of Snoke's set works well in them anyway, so frankly he probably needs this to not become the most powerful force in the match.

Specials​

Down Special - Praetorian Guard

​

Snoke is always flanked by his Praetorian Guard, elite and powerful soldiers who end up doing more fighting than Snoke himself due to his unglorified death. Here, Snoke can call upon them as he raises a hand before the guard appears in front of him, kneeling at Snoke's feet before turning around and getting ready for combat. The lag for Snoke to summon them is not horribly lengthy for a minion summon at 35 frames, but still uncomfortable to perform, and the guard has a full 1.3 seconds of lag before he actually gets ready for combat, making him very vulnerable to the opponent's attacks. For what its worth after an initial hit from the foe, the guard will not bother with bowing and immediately get ready for combat, and Snoke is not in lag while the guard is bowing. Snoke can have up to 2 guards out at a time.

The guard is about as heavy as Marth at 40%, and clocks in at 35 stamina. They're a bit taller than Marth and can move at Link's dash speed, but will by default try and stick around Snoke, trying to get between Snoke and the foe. They have one jump, but it goes nearly as high as Falco's first jump so its pretty good at least. Their AI is actually somewhat intelligent, though they generally have the goal of staying between Snoke and the opponent. They're not great at syncing their attacks up with Snoke's though, for what that's worth, so don't expect them to necessarily capitalize on a great opening you set up. That doesn't mean you can't play off the ones they make for you, however.

The Praetorian guards have 4 attacks, two of which they can use in the air. However, what attacks those are depends on which weapon they have, of which they'll rotate between 2, a double-bladed staff and a pointed whip. The first one you summon is always the bladed staff user and the second is always the whip user, and then it'll switch back in the same pattern. Before we move on however, its worth mentioning that damage dealt to Snoke's Praetorian Guard counts towards building up pain to increase Snoke's power, at least as long as they're in the area around Snoke that damage must be taken or received in.

The double-bladed staff user has a quicker grounded attack where the stab and then spin their staff to hit with the front and back blades. The first hit deals 4% and low knockback that combos into the second hit, dealing 6% and horizontal knockback that won't KO until around 350%. This is the bladed staff users most spammed attack and they won't use their other grounded move unless Snoke gives them an opening too or other incentive, which is good as while its a bit predictable for them to rely on one attack this one does have the perk of being a two hit move that gives Snoke a bit more breathing room to combo the foe off. Their other grounded attack is spinning the staff in a similar manner to Pit's Brawl Side Special, hitting 5 times for 2% with a final hit of 6% and knockback that KOs at 180%. They rush forward slightly as they do it and it is kind of telegraphed, but has the advantage of reflecting projectiles, at 1.3x damage and 1.6x speed, and while its kind of slow for reflecting a foe's projectiles they can use this to reflect around Snoke's projectiles if he lobs one their way.

In the air the staff user's faster attack is a quick stab in front of and behind it with the weapon, both hits dealing 7% and weak knockback to get the opponent away from them but almost never enough to KO until around 700% unless they're very close to the blast zone. This attack is pretty lame overall with surprisingly bad end lag despite the quick startup and solid but unremarkable range, making thembetter equipped for the ground than the air. If given an opening however, by Snoke holding them down in some fashion, the bladed staff user will make a slight leap further into the air before pointing one of the blades downwards and attempting to impale the foe to the ground. If it hits an aerial opponent it does 12% and a spike that will KO offstage opponents around 100%, but given it will not use this attack off stage for fear of plummeting to its doom, that's not going to happen barring exceptional circumstances. If they do knock the opponent into the ground, they will spin the staff against the floor 4 times in a row for an additional 8 hits of 1%(one for each side), with the last one dealing upwards knockback that KOs at 200%. The base knockback on this is pretty high and it can set up Snoke to demolish the opponent in the air if he's at 66% or higher pain bar.

The pointed whip user's default grounded attack is to rapidly stab the whip forwards at three different angles, diagonally downwards, at chest level, and diagonally upwards into the air. Each hit deals 2% and a tiny flinch that is so small the move can be interrupted between hits by a very fast attack, but the end of the whip deals 7% and moderate knockback away that KOs around 245%. This at least is a decent way to mess with the opponent's attack options as the area it covers is pretty huge, and it will use this to help protect Snoke from opponents, but on the whole its a pretty lackluster move especially considering the end lag is actually not that good. The whip guard can also crack the whip in front of himself in an attack that has high start lag but low end lag for the guard, dealing 10% and upwards knockback that KOs at 200%. Its more inclined to actually use this attack at random that the staff guard, and given its good range and low end lag its easier for it to get away with this than the guard's heavy attack.

The whip guard actually has two quicker attacks in the air, a stab in front being the first one that deals 6% and diagonally upwards knockback that KOs at 330%. The tip of the whip deals 14% and strictly horizontal knockback that KOs at 170%, and given this attack is not that slow this is actually pretty great, but a minion hitting a sweetspot is not realistically going to happen as their AIs are not all that competent. Again, its most likely to happen if Snoke is in the midst of comboing the opponent. He can also flail the whip for 2 hits of 4%, covering a big area and having the second hit knock foes away mostly horizontally with knockback that KOs at 300%. Its a relatively fast move so it serves as a solid nuisance to a foe and Snoke can use it to augment his powerful aerial combos when a guard is in the air with him. Though of course, Snoke has to play off the guard using it rather than the guard being smart enough to use it to extend Snoke's combos.

Neither version of the Praetorian Guard is all that powerful, but given their movepool has any diversity to it they have enough options to at least provide additional hitboxes to aid Snoke in combat. Camping behind them isn't really advisable, as plain projectiles would probably work a lot better, given the predictable nature of AIs, though Snoke at least has any projectiles of his own to use alongside them.

Neutral Special - Mind Link
An ominous white glow emanates from Snoke as you can choose to either tap or hold B. If you simply tap B, Snoke will extend the glow to encompass the nearest opponent or guard within 3/4ths of a battlefield platform of him in a very fast move, which is good as it has no damage or knockback qualities. Holding B will have the aura not remain around Snoke and fully surround the target, and we'll get to the use of this later, but for now, this aura is actually an indication of a mind link between the foe and Snoke. While the aura dims down, it will remain present at all around the mind-linked parties for the duration of 8 seconds that this effect lasts.

So what does this mind link do? Simple, it causes both parties to share their pain, meaning that when one of them takes damage the other takes one quarter of that damage, with no flinch or knockback attached. This on paper sounds strictly bad when between Snoke and a guard, but it does have the advantage that it causes Snoke to build more meter without taking as much damage himself. Obviously it sounds bad but we'll get into the other benefits later. For now know that its pretty nice on an opponent as while both parties might seem like they'd be less encouraged to damage rack each other, Snoke at least has the pushes his advantage state by increasing his pain bar by more than usual, and as bizarre as it sounds without Up Special for context, just know being at a higher percent does not strictly mean Snoke is less durable.

If Snoke syncs up with a guard, Snoke and the guard simultaneously taking damage from each other is obviously kind of a bad thing, so ther is an additional reward. The guard gets a buff to all its attacks as Snoke enhances its abilities with the force, gaining a 1.2x damage multiplier on all its attacks and a slight knockback increase on ones designed for knocking foes away or KOing rather that comboing. They gain a second jump and tend to follow Snoke around more closely, going into the air with him. On top of that, their AI is enhanced to capitalize on Snoke's combos, extending them with the attacks that are designed to do so and using them more intelligently to land KO moves. Just be careful as this can obviously still backfire like all your mind links can in some form, given you're taking some extra damage and once the buff to your Up Special goes away a stray smash attack can spell your doom even faster than it usually would thanks to this. As an aside, bladed staff guards will also use their strong grounded attack to launch Snoke's projectiles forward faster and stronger using that move like this, as opposed to just batting them away from themselves.

If you hold B, Snoke's aura will simply extend to that opponent and stay on them, but tapping B or holding B again will have him flood out the aura again, but this time onto the nearest legal target not affected by the first aura. This means you can link up multiple opponents in an FFA, or, in the context of 1v1, a foe and a guard. On paper, linking a foe and a guard sounds great, as it gives you all the benefit of additional pain bar without having to go through the potential damage to yourself. There's two problems with this however, the first being that this requires two uses of the move instead of one to set up, so its a bit less practical. The other is that at the first possible moment, after 6 seconds pass linked to the foe, Snoke faces his own critical mistake from the movie as the guard decides his true enemy is Snoke, not the opponent. They will lash out at Snoke with their stronger grounded move, amplified to deal 1.3x damage and knockback in this particular instance, and then remain allied to the foe until death. Once you dodge this their subsequent attacks are not amplified by the power of betrayal.

This all sounds bad until you consider a couple things. One, a guard betraying you does not count towards your minion cap, allowing you to summon a new one to replace it and have out more bodies to increase the pain bar through the course of the battle. This is a pretty sweet deal, but consider that you don't usually have friendly fire active on your guards, and now you suddenly do, giving you basically a free 35% on your meter at almost no cost if you wipe the floor with it almost immediately after it betrays you. Just keep in mind it gets the same enhanced AI syncing with you gives it so it can help the foe combo or finish you, but guards are not all that hard to dispose of after a betrayal. You even get some free percent on the opponent for your troubles.

All in all, each of the mind link options has its benefits, and all of them contribute nicely to Snoke's battle strategy. Just remember not to be an idiot like Snoke in the movie and get yourself killed through a betrayal or damage you didn't need to take.

Up Special - Force Leap
Snoke points both his hands downwards as he releases a mostly transparent blast of energy downwards, dealing 8% and a very weak spike in the opposite direction of Snoke's recovery, only able to push foes off the bottom blast zone at 275%. The main appeal of this move is that of course, it launches Snoke up a bit further than Fire Fox, and he can angle it 45 degrees to either side, with the hitbox launching the foe in the opposite direction. If you bring a foe offstage with you, this lets you simultaneously recover and gimp push them to the hardest point for them to recover provided you land the hitbox, which is formidable... but the start lag is annoyingly high, so landing pulling that off will not always happen. The blast is also not very big, so its a bit harder to actually utilize.

If Snoke has a high enough pain bar, however, this move gets an additional utility. By sacrificing 30% on said bar from holding B, the burst gains a noticeable size increase similarly to Game and Watch's bucket, cancels Snoke's momentum outright. For a large lightweight like Snoke, this is a highly important boon, and between this and his great jumps it makes his durability more conditional than outright awful. Snoke then repositions right after the momentum cancel, and unlike the other version doesn't even go into helpless. There's even a notable range and power boost, letting it KO about 40% sooner and dealing 10% on top of obviously having a bigger hitbox. With all that said, Snoke does have to give up a pretty sizeable chunk of his power source to use this, one that's already constantly depleting, and using this a second time in the air costs a whopping 50% of your meter and will only activate the first version of the move, sending you into helpless afterwards.

One thing of note is that because of Snoke's reliance on pain bar to power this move up, combos into kills are not as good against him as landing a stray smash attack. Landing that stray, punishing smash attack becomes all that more rewarding against Snoke, as his pain bar will not be automatically pushed higher beforehand. This isn't to say comboing him to death doesn't work, because frankly, there's a lot of times when it will work quite well especially on characters with extremely strong combos like Bayonetta, but its still something to keep in mind.

Side Special - Stone Levitation
Using the force, Snoke lifts a stone about half the size of Kirby out of the ground, at which point you can angle it with the control stick for a moment before its launched in an arc depending on how it was angled. Its trajectory is affected by gravity and even at the longest range angle(45 degree launch angle, it falls to the ground faster if you tilt it at a lower angle and obviously doesn't go as far pointed upwards) it'll only go 1.75 battlefield platforms. This stone deals a pretty formidable 8% and mostly vertical knockback that KOs at 240%, pretty good for a projectile, but the start lag is pretty terrible. Fortunately, the end lag is actually very low and at a high angle, Snoke can actually abuse this as something of a delayed hitbox due to its rather slow travel speed, though this also makes it pretty predictable as an actual projectile, so camping behind minions might not be impossible but it sure isn't as good as you'd hope. Your staff guards can reflect this rock around and do boost its power somewhat, which is a pretty solid boon overall, and mind linked ones can also boost it forward, renewing its flight path while increasing its speed to make for a more threatening camping tool.

There are actually two ways to boost this move by sacrificing your pain bar, the first is if you tap B after Snoke has already lifted the rock out of the ground. This will surround the rock in an ominous red aura, as Snoke transfers some of his ability to grow from pain into the projectile. While, obviously, the projectile can't feel pain, it can grow stronger if its within 1.5 battlefield platforms of someone taking damage. This will cause it to accelerate in the direction it is currently going and increase in power by 15% of its damage and 25% of its speed for every 8% dealt. This increase is additive so it does not get exponentially stronger with nearby damage, and its by 15% of its base value(which can change via reflection or a mechanic we'll get to in a minute), not by 15% as in adding 15% to increase it to dealing 23% off one nearby 8% hit, as that would obviously be ridiculous. The acceleration does mean it will likely go flying away from wherever the damage was being taken, launching sky high into the air or immediately crashing down into the opponent if angled up depending on whether or not gravity has taken its toll yet. Speaking of gravity, if its travelling at an upwards angle the acceleration will allow it to overpower gravity for a while longer, giving the projectile a considerable increase in range.

Utilizing this is, admittedly, pretty awkward, its most easily usable while a rock is travelling upwards at a mostly vertical angle as when it comes back down it will hit pretty hard should you land some quick damage nearby. If its launched forwards, you're generally going to want one of your guards to reflect it back to you while its accelerating, or do a lot of damage while its flying down towards the foe, either to a nearby betrayed minion or the foe.

You can hold B to charge this move for up to 30 frames, sacrificing another 20% to increase the size of the chunk of earth to Kirby's width-1.2x Bowser's width based on charge. This increases the damage to 10%-15% and increases the knockback to KO at 200%-140%. While still as thin as before, the increased size will allow the ground chunk to function like a platform, albeit a drop through one. This is on top of the fact that the actual firing is a bit delayed in this version, so Snoke can jump on for a ride, something his guards are actually rather inclined to do. The foe can ride it too if they get on top. This doesn't create an indent in the stage as it just fills in whatever Snoke ripped out.

Obviously you can use the pain boosting version of this on the ground chunk variant too, which has a lot of implications, such as boosting Snoke insanely far up into the air or sending him rocketting off to the edge of the stage after a foe riding a powerful projectile if he crushes the hopes of one of his betraying guards. It is all pretty wonky as actually getting damage in the brief delay before the ground chunk fires or while its in mid flight is definitely a challenge. In order to turn this into the absolute monster projectile you want it to be, you're going to need to abuse some of its interactions or the variety of angles it can be fired at, though what helps is Snoke has a couple ways in his set to inflict massive "burst" damage too under the right circumstances, immediately accelerating a nearby projectile right into its destination with a powerful impact.

In the air Snoke obviously has nothing to lift, so he instead performs a slightly different technique, moving one of his hands in a circular motion and causing foes and guards within a short range of him to be spun around with a Mario cape effect. As Mario's cape is a useful gimping tool and this is actually slightly longer range than it and has additional implications on minions, this is a pretty high utility move, but it does suffer from being a bit laggier than the Plumber's cape. It also will spin a projectile around and fire it back out in the direction Snoke is facing, albeit with actually somewhat decreased power and speed, down to 0.8x and 0.7x its usual. This is not strictly a bad thing, as if used on a foe's projectile you can abuse the lowered power and movement speed for combos, and it can make one of your ground chunks even slower to keep it around longer. If its one of the ones that grows in power with pain, then it will lose all acceleration it got from that until 1% is dealt to any nearby party, at which point it will regain all of its lost speed and power in an instant. This reflection version of the move is also what you get when you're riding one of Snoke's ground chunks.

Possibly the best use for this Side Special however, is that a guard's betrayal happens at a set time, and if Snoke spins them around during that move you can hit the foe with their betrayal boosted power attack instead, causing their plan to backfire in devastating fashion. This is as predictable for the foe as the opponent though, so they usually won't let you do this, but its quite an enjoyable way to reverse the results of Snoke's arrogance in the movie.

Smashes​

Forward Smash - Force Push
Snoke throws both his arms forward as a pulse of the force occurs in front of him, launching foes forward with a disproportionately low 12%-16% but knockback that KOs at 120%-90%. This has great range for a forward smash, but high start and end lag, so the move just begs to get horribly punished unfortunately, which given Snoke's Up Special and weight is an even bigger problem for him than it already would be. The good news is that shielding is not a viable way to punish this, because the shield push on this move is huge, but dodges and rolls or just hitting Snoke during the start lag are perfectly acceptable alternatives. Of course, dodging is not as good of an option when you consider Snoke can have other hitboxes to hit the opponent right afterwards, like a guard's attacks or a stone.

Speaking of guards and stones/ground chunks, this move launches all of them forwards, sending them both forward at an angle 30 degrees upwards, with the rocks and ground chunks remaining as powerful as usual while guards flung deal the same damage and knockback as a basic rock. While guards will mostly just ineffectually flail in the air, not quite trained for this, if the guard is mind linked it will cause a slightly bigger effect in one way or another. If the guard has betrayed Snoke, they also take the damage of this attack rather than being unaffected due to friendly fire being off, as shown by the guard being visibly in more pain during this attack as Snoke is actually aiming to damage them, and any collisions they have with a foe will deal the guard the damage as well. So if you hit a foe into a guard that's betrayed you, they'll take 8% from it plus part of the initial damage the foe took from the Forward Smash because of mind link.

If the guard is mind linked to you, it will be smart enough to sync up with this attack. Staff guards will stab out their weapon in front of them, dealing 13%-18% and mostly horizontal knockback that KOs at 160%-115% if they get hit by the blade, though their body still deals the usual damage and knocback. The whip guard will instead crack its whip forward as it flies, so its only a more powerful hitbox for part of its flight, with said hitbox dealing 11%-15% and knockback that KOs at 180%-130%. This does cover a big area with the whip strike, and there's a bit of a sweetspot to this attack, in that the bladed tip as its reaching near the bottom of the swing will deal a massively boosted 20%-28% and knockback that KOs at 85%-55%. This is a bit precise to hit with, but hilariously strong for something so long range.

You can tap B during this move to boost it at the cost of your pain bar, taking away 15% from it to increase the range of this move to a rather ridiculous one, going even further than Dedede's Forward Tilt. This boosts the damage of all hitboxes in this move by 1.2x and the knockback by 1.1x, meaning it multiplies the power of your flying rock hitboxes by 1.2x if they get hit by it. It even bolsters the shield push further, letting you slide foes quite far off ledges with it to begin a gimping game if they shield this move close to an edge. The rocks are also sent forth with considerably increased momentum so they will take longer to start moving downwards, increasing their range, and due to the increased knockback on foes also applying to the guards as they're sent flying as hitboxes by this they also get better range, which in turn makes mind link guard attacks with this move really scary. This doesn't remove the move's punishability, but for a relatively low cost it can make it even better at everything it already does.

Up Smash - Great Force Lightning
Snoke raises one hand to the sky as lightning sparks at his feet before a blast of lightning erupts from his hand, travelling up nearly as far as Palutena's Up Smash. The lightning crackling on the ground will deal a large amount of hitstun before launching the foe upwards weakly for 7%, not punishable on hit even with Snoke's annoying end lag but also lacking combo potential because of it. Right on Snoke's hand the bolt deals 10%-14% and insane hitstun that will allow him to combo even off this relatively high end lag move, as well as a minimal amount of upward and forward knockback. If you're rising up into the air on a ground chunk, this can bump the opponent so they get smacked by the ground chunk's sides as it flies upwards, a solid combo that, if the ground chunk is pain boosted, can get Snoke quite high up into the air to continue following up even on the more imposing knockback of said ground chunk.

The middle of the bolt deals 14%-20% and upwards knockback that KOs at 170%-130%. It lacks the extremely powerful hitstun of Snoke's hand but is more intended to serve as a launcher instead, and one with huge range at that. Speaking of riding a ground chunk, between the huge range of this move and going higher into the air with that this move can actually KO at deceptively low percents. The end of the bolt deals 16%-22% and upward knockback that KOs at 135%-90%, making it even nuttier for this purpose, and if your own damage is raised because of mind links its worth mentioning the rage boost Snoke will have can pile onto his already intimidating KO potential with this move, and Snoke can slightly more safely boost his own damage than some self-damaging characters due to the lack of hitstun or knockback transfer through mind link. This is more of an incidental thing, please don't go out of your way to pile damage on your own body with this, but it can occasionally be helpful.

This move seems pretty great and honestly, you'd actually be right as the start lag is actually a tiny bit below average for a Smash. Its one of Snoke's best moves even, especially as we're going to get into that it has some interactions, but it has one key problem. The end lag on this move is hideous if you whiff it, while its decreased if you hit an opponent or a betraying guard its still quite punishable even then if you just hit a guard with it. But if you whiff entirely, god have mercy on your soul as you will almost certainly be murdered for missing it, making this a pretty high risk high reward move.

If you hit a guard, rock, or opponent with this move, the electricity will course through that object, expanding whatever part of the hitbox hit it to cover the entirety of it and extending out a small distance beyond that. This basically lets you turn traitors into an extension of individual parts of the hitbox you'd want extended, letting you make the combo hitbox or the end sweetspot quite a bit bigger than they'd usually be. Given the rather large size of a fully charged ground chunk, turning either of those hitboxes into part of it is a pretty nice deal.

Tapping B during the start lag will expend 30% of Snoke's pain bar to and cause the bolt to electrify opponent, leaving their body crackling with electricity dealing them 1% every 2 seconds for the next 8 seconds. At the end of those 8 seconds, it will cause the target to take 5% + 0.3x the total damage done to them by electric hitboxes in those 8 seconds and hitstun that varies from a mini-flinch with no additional hits to much longer than normal hitstun if they take 15% or more from this aftershock. The aftershock also spreads out a bit from their body, about a Pokeball width-3 Pokeball widths depending on the damage dealt by the aftershock. If a traitorous guard dies while electrified, it will release its aftershock on death, or produce one twice as large and damaging if it was killed by an electric attack. It even causes electric attacks to deal an additional 1% per hit. While this effect is powerful, the price of entry is remotely high at 30%, so keep that in mind, but you'll potentially reap an incredible amount of damage in return if you use the results right.

Down Smash - Force Gravity
Snoke lowers his hands to the ground as the ground in front of him seems to bend and crack slightly, as everyone standing on it or slightly above it is slammed into the ground for 10%-14% and light upwards knockback at the end. This does also cover as far as very slightly behind Snoke, and is actually fairly fast for a Smash, making it more of a combo move than a KO move. Snoke's a bit light on safer attacks at the moment so this one is much appreciated, though the vertical range is absolutely tiny and the forward range is actually not all that great, so characters with longer ranged melee or good air game can work around it quite nicely. Its worth noting that the way this hitbox works will never cause it to poke shields, in a rather odd and unfortunate property that makes shielding this move a valid option, though the shield stun is high enough you can get in another weak hit potentially from what few moves in your set are even faster than this.

If you catch a rock or ground chunk in this move, it will smash it, creating a small blast that has similar properties to Charizard's Rock Smash... except as the foe is held in place due to gravity for a brief few frames, they're more likely to get hit by all of it. If its just a regular rock, it only deals 1/3rd-1/2 the damage of Charizard's Brawl move based on charge, but adding that onto 10%-14% means it'll end up dealing between 23%-35% thanks to the initial multihit. The final hit still deals small knockback so this doesn't suddenly boost it into a monster KO move, but if you were wondering what move you'd want to use for burst damage, its this one.

For the record, larger ground chunks also get broken apart by this move, and the results are pretty impressive. A minimum size ground chunk will deal 0.5x-0.75x the damage of Charizard's Rock Smash based on charge, while a maximum sized one deals 1-1.4x the damage of Charizard's Down Smash. This is on top of the 10%-14%, and the fun doesn't stop there, as if you have a traitorous guard involved they and the foe will be smashed into each other by this for 5%-7% damage to each, and given they're mind linked they'll take a fair bit more damage from the both of them being involved on top of that. If a foe, a guard, and a max sized ground chunk are caught in this move, this will deal (10% + 43% + 5% x 1.25 because the damage from the guard is also reflected onto the opponent) = 72%. Uncharged, and fully charged deals an absolutely disgusting 1.4x that for a total of 100%. The final knockback will never KO until high percents and is not going to combo, but it will max out your pain meter completely and turn any pain boosted flying rock into a horrific meteor of death for the remainder of its lifespan. This setup is, frankly, almost comically impractical to pull off, so if you do you deserve the fact that you can almost certainly convert it into a stock win even if its not technically an instant kill.

The pain boosted version of this move activated by pressing B during the start lag just applies a suction effect on the move, much weaker than Dedede's inhale but still enough to improve the range issues the move has on opponents above and in front of it. The suction applies much more strongly on any flying rocks you have around, making it more practical to use the "Rock Smash" hitbox of this move, though they still need to be relatively close to pull it off. This does cost 25% on your pain meter to use, so its pretty costly for the small boost it has, though that small boost can mean a lot if you grab a flying rock with it.

Standards​

Jab - Force Lightning
Raising a single hand in front of himself and pointing his fingers forwards, lightning extends from Snoke's fingertips, inflicting a single electric hit of 2%. This is followed by a slightly longer range jolt that deals 3% and then a continuous electric flow that extends a solid distance in front of Snoke, dealing rapid hits of 1%. The first 2 hits combo into the subsequent ones nicely until high percents and at very low percents can combo into other moves.The rapid jab ends with Snoke firing a small bolt of lightning that deals 4% and knockback that pops the opponent a short distance forward, setting up for Forward Smash though not comboing into it.

Obviously the rapid lightning hits are pretty great with the 1% boosted electric damage from Up Smash, which is nice but the real power of this move comes from if you manage to hold it down for a while. You see, the damage of this move will actually ramp up during the rapid jab portion of it, increasing as Snoke is continuously hitting a target with it. It will actually keep its power for 2 seconds after use, so if you quickly transition from obliterating a traitorous guard with it to the foe you can keep the power buildup. It can build up as high as 4% per hit after a solid 2.4 seconds of use, which means it will do a positively absurd amount of damage per second. Some specific set ups to help you with it might be if the opponent is aligned slightly off from a falling rock so they're less inclined to force their way out of the hitbox fast enough, or if a guard is producing the occasional hitbox to try and keep them in. Mind linked guards are inclined to actually make an effort to do this, paying for the percentage you pay when they get hurt, but regular guards aren't too smart about this.

If you tap B you'll get a slight boost to 6% on the final hit, which will immediately be the end of the move, at the cost of 10% of your pain bar. This is acceptable as the hitstun does increase noticeably, meaning you can actually combo into Forward Smash for a nice kill confirm at high percents. This also means the powering up of the held Jab, rather than simply lasting for 2 seconds afterwards, will just stick around until you use the move again, letting you "save" a stronger Jab for future use. This is admittedly not a very powerful effect and somewhat situational, but the cost is rather cheap to reflect that.

Forward Tilt - Force Ball Lightning
Snoke has lightning form into a ball-like shape above his hand before releasing it forwards, in a move that hits a large distance forward for a forward tilt, and deals 8% and mild diagonal knockback that KOs at 330% or so on contact. This move has fast startup and slightly notable end lag, making it a decent move for poking at opponents with its long range but lacking much in the way of real power or combo potential. Despite its nice range this move is pretty bad against shields, given the end lag and lackluster shield damage as well as somewhat sizeable hitbox.

If you press B during this move, the ball lightning will quickly explode into two lightning bolts going backwards and forwards after the initial attack, each dealing 5% and a flinch. This makes this move quite nice at catching dodges and rolls, and the cost is pretty cheap at 10% of your pain bar. Snoke does not want to stay in neutral for long as the pain bar decays fast there, so having access to a move with good range and the ability to punish rolls will certainly help. Just make sure you don't just get it shielded.

Up Tilt - Force Crush
Snoke holds his hand out a bit above his head as a slight, transparent circle appears above him, before he squeezes his grip to crush everything in that circle, inflicting 13% and upwards knockback that KOs at 165% in by far Snoke's strongest tilt. This move is pretty great as an anti air as it combines surprising speed with good power, its just the problem is the move is a bit precise in terms of hitbox. This means that while it does its just well when you line it up, it leaves you with only your Up Smash for other options if you don't, and we all know how punishable that move is. Only smaller characters can get completely in the blindspot between the hitbox and Snoke, but large ones can still move around it pretty nicely.

If used on a rock this won't fully destroy it like Down Smash as it doesn't smash it against the ground, but rather cause small particles of debris to be shed off it, dealing a 4 rapid hits of 2% in a sizeable area around the rock. This also stalls the rock in the air for a moment before it continues forward, which can make it easier to reflect if its traveling very fast towards one of your minions. This basically gives an alternative use for this move as it sets up combos much more nicely in this variant and has huge range, but you obviously need something pretty situational to get this alternative hitbox.

If you press B before this move, there will be a total of 3 circles above Snoke, each inside of each other, with a tiny middle one and a huge outer one. The outer one is now a sourspot that deals 5% and terrible knockback that leaves this move actually punishable on hit until 40%, but at least makes whiffing it slightly less painful. The next smallest circle has the same power as usual, but the middle one, only barely bigger than the Knee of Justice sweetspot, deals 21% and knockback that KOs at 90%. As specific as that is, its a pretty monstrously strong reward, and there are two ways to land it. One is abusing your aerial prowess to zone your opponent a bit so when you drop to the ground you can land this, which is tricky but will occasionally work out in your favor.. The other is just when you're flying by on a ground chunk you can just use this move at the opportune time, and that'll be even more powerful since you were already in the air during it. As landing the sweetspot is a bit specific and the sourspot mostly just reduces the foe's ability to punish this, it is the cheapest move in your set to upgrade, costing only 7% on your pain bar.

Down Tilt - Bending of the Earth
Snoke curls his hand inwards as there is a brief shaking of the ground before it sticks up in small spikes along the floor, dealing 4% and a flinch, and not really being quite fast enough to justify dealing such weak damage and knockback. It does, at the very least, come with Snoke's usual good range and pushes the foe in towards you, so the knockback sets up decently well for a few things. And while Down Smash is incapable of poking shields like you'd want, here we have a move that will actually do the job, and with how absurdly low to the ground the hitbox is absolutely magnificent at poking shields. Even a lightly damaged shield can be poked through with this, so while Snoke's actual shield breaking may be fairly situational this does give him a scary tool for getting around it in neutral.

Tapping B is a very simple upgrade to this move, as the spikes will jut out much higher into the air for 10% and moderate upwards knockback that's good for setting up Snoke's air game but a bit too strong for combos past low percents, KOing around 200%. While the regular version can be used to force the foe out of shield it doesn't really do much else, this version packs any actual power and serves as a decent setup for Snoke. It also leaves a very, very weak spike trap on the ground as the terrain is now left a bit pointy for the next 5 seconds, dealing 1% per second and no flinch to people standing over it aside from Snoke or allied guards. This is obviously very small damage at the end of the day, but it puts foes in neutral at a very slight disadvantage to Snoke, possibly pushing them that little bit closer to taking risks. This costs 10% of your pain bar.

Dash Attack - Force Pulse
Snoke plants his foot in the ground and spreads his arms out to both sides, immediately stopping his momentum as he uses the force to stabilize himself while releasing a wave of repulsing energy that deals 9% and decent launching diagonal knockback that will KO around 240%. This is a pretty punishable dash attack and not a very strong one, making this a pretty lackluster option out of a dash, but it does completely halt your momentum in a way some dash attacks are not very good at, so it has its upsides.

If you press B during this move, the pulse will actually be strong enough to reflect incoming attacks, serving as a pseudo-counter as it negates the incoming attack and deals 0.3x its damage and knockback to the opponent added to the power of the pulse. This is Snoke's best defensive option outside of simply abusing his range on paper, but it only is usable out of a dash and costs a whopping 30% of your pain meter so to say its situational is putting it lightly. Still it can be a nice surprise to opponents expecting you to use a punishable Forward Smash or Up Smash out of a dash, which by the way the one benefit of the regular dash attack being that it IS somewhat safer than those moves due to note being that level of laggy.

Aerials​

Neutral Aerial - Vortex Force
Snoke opens his hands below him as the force begins to whirl the air around him, dealing rapid hits of 1% that add up to 8% before a final hit that deals 3% and diagonally upward knocback that KOs at 210%. As Snoke's air speed increases, this move becomes much stronger for stage control as he can use it to drag foes around during the early hits. As a cost for how good the move is for repositioning the start lag is slightly high, but the end lag isn't bad at all and at low percents you can continue your aerial combos afterward.

If you land on the ground during this move, it will autocancel, which is actually not half bad as due to the decent hitstun of the individual hits it does leave you at a frame advantage to the foe once this happens. Not a large one and there's no guarunteed combos, but its a decent transition from your air game to the ground if you want that, and can do so from greater distances above the ground as Snoke's pain bar increases.

If you press B during this move it will add a simple suction effect onto it at the cost of 15% of your pain bar, which makes this move even nicer and gives it an additional property. If one of your rocks comes flying by, it will spin around Snoke for the duration of the hitbox, dealing its same damage and knockback as while it was flying. The number of times it will spin around him depends on its speed, a high speed rock going around 2 or 3 times over the duration instead of one, making it capable of catching air dodges. Aside from that it gives you some more control over where the projectile will continue its path, which is fairly useful. Note that Snoke will never be fast enough to catch up to and land on a ground chunk after spinning it around with this move so you can't use this for any kind of weird infinite stalling, and the end lag is a bit too high to make going right into a Down Smash anything feasible.

Forward Aerial - Force Break
Snoke fires several small jolts of lightning from his hand, each exploding at different points in front of him. The first hit deals 2% a good distance in front of Snoke, the second 4% right in front of him, the third 3% at a medium distance, the fourth does another 3% at the same distance as the first one, and the last one deals 5% back in slightly from the fourth. These are not inherently going to combo into each other, and if Snoke just throws this out without taking time to smartly control his aerial momentum, he'll land only one or two hits. However with good aerial movement he can land all 5, which gets easier as Snoke's aerial movement improves. Its also worth noting that the last hit is actually really strong in terms of KO potential, killing at around 105% off-stage. Given the attack's long duration and wonky hitbox positioning, this won't be easy to land, but the payoff is pretty sizeable.

Obviously this attack is not all that easily punishable given the large amount of hitboxes it produces for not a terrible amount of lag on each end, but the duration is a bit of a killer as it takes a bit for each of these hitboxes to appear. If you're not properly aiming this at the opponent, you absolutely will be punished for using it. In addition, most opponents aren't stupid and will adapt their aerial movement to yours. At high levels of pain bar you'll basically have an advantage in aerial movement over every single opponent you come across, so you should still usually land most or all of the hits, and you can use this to force the opponent to position around it no matter what your speed, which comes in handy when you have a rock or ground chunk flying through the air.

Pressing B during this attack gives it an interesting property of boosting the damage of each hit by 1.5% for each previous hit in you landed of this move. This potentially adds 18% to the full damage this move does, which is pretty monstrous especially when it can already start out dealing 17% for a total of 35%. It also adds a 1% base damage to all hits except the last one, which gets an additional 3%, so the actual total on this version is a whopping 42%. But of course, you have to land every hit to get that reward, and missing even 1 of the hits will shave at the bare minimum 9% off the net reward of this move. You have to commit to using pain bar beforehand too for potentially no reward if the opponent weaves around it properly, but the offstage KO percent drops even lower to around 65% if you land the full power final hit, a pretty sizeable reward.

Back Aerial - Force Lightning Shot
Snoke points the palm of his hand behind him in a move that can actually be angled, and fires out a bolt of lightning that extends out a long distance behind him. This has great range and deals 5%-10% and minimal to decent horizontal knockback that KOs at 220%. The key thing is this move gets stronger the further from Snoke it gets, in a similar fashion to Up Smash. The 5% right up close is actually very slightly punishable on hit until 55%, at which point it becomes a decent combo enabler. The rest of the hitbox that's not up close is mostly just mediocre, knocking the foe away too far to combo well but too weakly to KO easily. That being said, this move is not all that terribly slow and once Snoke's pain bar is at or nearing the max, his horrific aerial movement will make him plenty capable of abusing this move despite its relative mediocrity simply due to its range and nothing else.

If this move hits a solid surface, like the ground or one of your rocks, it will bounce off at the opposite angle it was fired at it. If its just fired straight into the side of the rock or stage this actually slightly increases the power of the move instead as the lightingt just flows back into itself, dealing 8%-13%, making the sourspot actually have enough knockback to always be safe on hit though it stops comboing early and letting the sweetspot KO at 170%, and obviously much earlier off stage. Note that if it bounces off something, the range of the move extends somewhat, and the power keeps increasing beyond the initial end point, adding a part of the hitbox that deals 11%-13% at the end with the peak of the sweetspot KOing at 190%. If you get some kind of double bounce off the ground and a rock, the hitbox gets extended even further with an additional bit at the end that now deals 14%-17%, and the knockback will drop down to KOing as low as 140%. Obviously that particular setup is rare, but its certainly quite powerful.

Pressing B plus a direction will add as much length as one bounce to the hitbox(which is a modest amount but considering its added onto a melee hitbox, it does make the hitbox range pretty huge) in the direction you point the control stick after where the lightning would initially end. This "automatic bounce" can create some interestingly shaped hitboxes that are also quite powerful, but it costs a whopping 25% of your pain bar to use. That being said, if it travels off in a direction and reflects back into itself with this extended part of the hitbox, it deals 13%-17% and knockback that KOs as early as 135%, and considering you can rebound the endpoint off the stage, you can score some pretty nasty early kills. The absolute peak of this move's power however comes if you use the extended part into a double rebound off the stage and a rock, with one rebound already pushing it to the same kind of power as a double rebound in the original but if you score the legendary triple rebound, which is actually possible to pull off now without some absurd double rock setup, dealing 18%-24% and knockback that KOs as early as 90%! Also note that if the lightning strikes a solid before the automatic rebound would happen, which is at the end of the usual hitbox, the automatic rebound will happen at the end of whatever rebounds it goes through, and will follow the exact direction you pointed it in. So if you already set yourself up for a double rebound, you can then point the triple automatic rebound back in any direction you want, which is monstrous considering that damage and KO percent. This is a pretty skill testing ability, but one that can score some really tricky and impressive KOs if you pull it off, and the bizarre pre-requisite spacing is something that becomes much easier to accomplish with a higher or maxed pain bar.

As an aside, if you have maxed pain bar, since you have free reign to spam your pain boosted moves, this is arguably the best one to spam, because of all the unique hitbox shapes it can make and you no longer really have to pay up front for it. Especially near the stage and/or a ground chunk, feel free to go nuts with this move.

Up Aerial - Force Lightning Sweep
Snoke swipes his hand over his head, crackling with force lightning as it does so, dealing 7% and upwards knockback that KOs at 260%. This is a lightning hitbox which is obviously good in conjunction with the effect of Up Smash, and I bring that up because this move is fast and it does one thing insanely well, and that's juggle. As Snoke's aerial prowess improves his jumps become pretty incredible, and incredible jumps lead to a really strong juggling game that can rapidly build a lot of damage on the opponent. Feel free to supplement this with flying rocks at the same time to make it even more annoying to deal with, and try to use it to build up the aftershock of Up Smash if you don't want to go for the more ambitious but difficult Jab setup. The range is not great so if your pain bar is lower the juggling potential is not as good as you'd hope, but if you have a decent amount going this might be a very simple move, but it will absolutely get the job done when you just want to build some quick damage on an aerial foe, which just so happens to have the side benefit of being electric damage.

Pressing B during this move doesn't change its simple functionality, it just makes it better at it, as at the cost of 10% of your pain bar the range is very slightly extended as the lightning on Snoke's hand becomes more violent. The damage is increased to 13%, a sizeable boost, though the knockback only goes up a tiny bit. If you're aiming for vertical KOs, Up Smash and Up Tilt already do a fine job of that, so just enjoy the sizeable damage boost at a low cost where you can get it.

Down Aerial - Force Blast
Snoke pulls his hand back and fires a blast of the force downwards, as wide as Kirby and dealing 8% and mostly horizontal knockback as it travels through the air. On account of the way it travels and the knockback angle, using this to aerially camp foes is awkward, but at higher pain bar levels you may as well go for it if you're too much of a coward to actually try and kill the opponent good and proper. This move has moderate start lag, but the end lag is actually low enough you can combo it into Back Aerial pretty well if you go for a properly angled extension of it.

On contact with the ground, the force blast will explode, dealing 10% and creating a hitbox slightly bigger than Wario that deals radial knockback that KOs at 190%. This also activates if it comes into contact with a rock or ground chunk, and is the much more powerful hitbox of this move, but also a bit more situational obviously. Also this move can be reflected by a bladed staff FSmash, being launched back up into the air for some occasional utility. Your aerial Side Special can spin it right back down again if you feel so inclined, though Forward Smash will not affect it in any way.

If you press B during this move, at the cost of 30% of your meter, you'll instead get 2 force blasts packed together, the second one only dealing 6% but guarunteed to hit if the first one does, so this move will total up to 14%. It also significantly improves the horizontal knockback of this move, allowing it to KO at 220% now. If it hits the ground, it will create two explosions in quick succession, which is highly useful as the second explosion will most likely catch spot dodges of the first one. Both deal the same amount of damage as before.

Grab Game​

Grab - Force Pull
Snoke reaches out in a grabbing motion, but his hand does not serve as the actual grab hitbox here. Rather, the force will pull nearby opponents towards him with nearly the range of a tether grab, and with noticeably less lag too. This is a great grab, but the power of Snoke's throws is admittedly rather conditional, and on top of that there is a blind spot directly in front of Snoke that foes can abuse against him. This also means, for what its worth, Snoke has a pretty terrible out of shield game, which makes it that much harder to play Snoke safely. Snoke's minions will not attack foes who are grabbed, awaiting orders on what to do with them.

If you are not standing, but instead pivot or dash grabbing, the blind spot will be absent to give Snoke an easier time grabbing with these particular options.

Pummel - Force Shock
Snoke electrocutes his opponent for 2% in a below average speed pummel. This is definently below the bar for what you want out of a pummel, but if an electrification effect is applied to the opponent, the damage rate actually becomes one of the better ones for a pummel. Also given Snoke can be rather spammy with Nair, Bair, and Uair, this is a nice way to refresh the staling on those moves.

Forward Throw - Break the Body, Break the Mind
Snoke slams his opponent into the ground for 3%, before dragging their body along the ground for rapid hits of 1% that add up to 6%, launching them with a final hit that deals 2% and slightly diagonally upward knockback that KOs at 260%. This is a decent spacing move as it drags the foe along the ground a solid 0.6 battlefield platforms before even dealing the knockback, making sure Snoke will be at least somewhat safe when he uses it. As the other throws require a bit more to pull off properly, Snoke will probably find himself using this move a fair bit of the time, especially considering the long range positioning sets up Forward Smash and Forward Tilt pretty well.

Tapping B can actually be done multiple times during this move, at the cost of 10% of your pain bar each, you can increase the distance Snoke grinds the foe against the floor for by 0.3 battlefield platforms. This caps at 1.8 battlefield platforms or 4 uses of this, each adding an additional 3% to the grinding the foe against the floor portion of the move. The ability to select is key, as there are plenty of situations where Snoke wants the opponent at a specific far distance away from him. For example, if that's the end point of a projectile's arc, of if you want to use it to sweetspot the whip version of the Forward Smash minion launch. Of course the ending knockback provides a bit of an additional variable so its not as precise as you might hope, but it certainly helps.

This has a notable interaction if Snoke's left the ground spikey from Down Tilt, as that's obviously going to hurt to get dragged through. The opponent takes hits of 3% instead of 1% while going through it, taking 12% if they travel the full length of the spikes, and if they take the end of their knockback on the spikes its increased to KOing at 170% while dealing 5%. Setting up specifically for this move isn't something Snoke is going to bother to do a lot of the time, he has more devastating potential setups, but given he will probably grab and use this throw a fair amount its still a notable additional upside to using Down Tilt's upgraded form a lot. You may want to try and specifically use enough pain boosts to land them specifically on the spikes to get the KOing knockback, which is a bit nicer when you push the foe closer to the blast zone while using it... or try to specifically not get that boosted knockback part so its closer to the exact spacing you want. Depends on the situation.

The other notable interaction is with the ledge, as Snoke will slam them against it once they reach it and launch them with 8% and knockback that KOs at 220%. The angle of this is entirely horizontal, rather than having the straight upwards angle of the grounded version. If you use this on a grabbed foe on a ground chunk, you can actually combo them into the ground chunk automatically with this, provided you have the right angle and are at a low enough percent. The percentages this combos at get higher as the ground chunk is going faster, making an additional incentive to have a pain boosted ground chunk. Even if you don't get the combo directly, you still use this to set up basically any aerial option you have depending on the angling and velocity of the ground chunk, though the Dair is pretty niche and its rarely a guarunteed follow up, just an advantage state.

Note that if you use this on a traitorous guard, them bumping into the foe will knock them into the air and deal 6%, a mediocre but effective strategy.

Back Throw - Execute
If there are no minions around for Snoke to have assist in this throw, Snoke will simply drop the foe behind him and electrocute them, dealing 6% and moderate backwards knockback that KOs at 215%, a fairly mediocre kill throw. This can be boosted primarily by the presence of minions. To start with, if you have a single blade staff user they will impale the opponent to the ground to add 4% to this move. If you have a whip user they will grab the opponent in their whip and toss them to add 2% to the move as well as allow it to KO 30% earlier. In order for the minions to join in they need to be within a half battlefield platform of Snoke, and there will be some slight lag as they come over to perform their assistance during which the opponent can break free.

If you have two minions, you can get some more potential variation out of this. If you have two bladed staff users, they will go on opposite sides of the opponent and skewer them from both ends in a slightly gruesome animation, dealing 10% before Snoke shocks them for an additional 6%. The knockback becomes strictly upwards here and is only increased to KO at 205%, though this does put the foe in a unique position of "above and behind you", which is where you can abuse all the weird tricks Back Aerial offers you. Two whip users will coil both whips around the opponent and coordinate to slam the foe down behind them right as Snoke shocks them, dealing 13% and KOing at 150%. The best result is if you have a whip user and a staff user, as the whip user will swing the foe into the staff user's blade, impaling them on it and dealing 16% and knockback behind you that KOs at 140% as Snoke simultaneously shocks them.

By pressing B during this move, you can use up 15% of your pain meter to boost the strength of Snoke's initial electric blast by 4%, or power up one of the minions for the duration of the throw, causing them to deal an additional 4% with their attack. This doesn't increase the knockback as much as you'd hope on any variant but it will go up at all, and you can use it once for Snoke and once again for each minion involved. So if you're willing to blow 45% of your pain meter and have 2 nearby minions, you can get a pretty incredible amount of damage off one throw.

If you've caught yourself a traitorous guard, this throw actually does something pretty unique. Snoke will squeeze his fist tightly as their helmet starts to shake, before it violently crushes in on itself. This animation takes as long as a Warlock Punch to complete, but will instantly kill the guard in a surprisingly bloodless but still brutal act. Given how painful that death probably was, the foe feeling it through the mind link will hit them for 10% and longer than normal hitstun, on top of rewarding a traitor as they deserve. As Kylo Ren is a playable character and not a random guard, Snoke cannot enact his dream revenge on him here, however, so he'll just have to act it out instead. As an aside, this qualifies as dealing a whopping 40% to the minion if you couldn't guess from the amount dealt to the foe, so aside from the long ranged hitstun going through this is worth it for a huge amount of pain bar if nothing else.

Up Throw - Force Launch
Snoke grips the opponent using the force and launches them up into the air above him, dealing them 8% and weak upwards knockback that KOs at 300%. This setups up Uair juggles if nothing else, combos into Up Tilt at specific percents, and combos into the Up Tilt sweetspot version at insanely specific percents that vary depending on character, rarely every doing so at a specific killing percent but in matchups where it does so, that's worth remembering. On a traitorous guard there is no special effect here, this just discards them without having to worry about any of the potential lag associated with other throws.

After tossing them out, you can press B any number of times at the cost of 20% each to fire a wave of tiny force lightning projectiles out at the opponent. Each of them is the size of a Pokeball, and Snoke fires 3 per wave, the first wave of 3 splitting off diagonally to the left, to the right, and straight upwards at 45 degree angles from each other. The next wave does at only 22.5 degree angles apart, the wave after that goes back to 45, and the pattern continues as many times as Snoke fires them off. Each of these deal 3% but gives the opponent some projectile clutter to worry about on their way back down, helped by these projectiles being a tad bit slow. This makes the move setup Snoke's air game even more nicely, but keep in mind each wave Snoke has to fire gives him a bit more lag. Yes if you hit 100% you can fire as many waves as you want with this but there obviously comes a point of diminishing returns where the foe just gets out of the mess of projectiles and hits you if you decide to fire off 10 waves or something.

Down Throw - Force Drain
Snoke places a hand over the opponent's mouth and begins siphoning out their life energy. This keeps the opponent in the hold for the remainder of their grab escape difficulty, dealing them continuous hits of 1% at an initially slow pace, while healing Snoke of the same amount of damage done. This deals damage only at a similar rate of the pummel and when he discards the foe at the end of grab difficulty he simply leaves them a short distance in front of him in frame neutral, with only 3% on their damage percent, making it a pretty terrible alternative to the pummel at lower percents as the most you'll get out of it is a tiny bit of bonus healing, with this throw dealing like 5% in total and healing 2% at 0% and still only healing in the 5%-6% range by 60%.

The thing is, the life drain accelerates the longer Snoke has a grip on the opponent, so at around 100% he'll instead heal a solid 11%-12%, and at 160% he'll heal a whopping 20% as the drain gets stronger. On top of that, you can pain boost this move multiple times like Forward Throw, accelerating the damage and healing at a much faster rate, effectively letting you heal like the opponent had 25% more for each use. Each pain boost costs 15% to use, but getting access to healing is worth it as it amplifies Snoke's durability to absolutely shocking levels for such a featherweight character in combination with his Up Special. Snoke has several ways to KO the opponent early, but if you pull off the awesome Down Smash combo this can give you a rather unique reward of massive healing to pad your next stock.

There is a catch here as this move is very, very strong when you actually get the opponent to the percents to use it(which are mostly 100%+, using it before then its mostly just okay at best and doesn't give a good advantage state). If Snoke drains more than 30% healing out of the foe over the course of a stock, they will become grey and slightly withered, no longer having much life force to give Snoke. This slightly decreases their movespeed and decreases their weight by 20% of their weight units, making them pitifully easy to KO especially at the extreme percents you'll probably pull this off. That being said, when Snoke tries to extract healing from them, all he'll get is a tiny drop of life energy before he drops them to the ground in untechable prone, dealing the foe 12% from the strain and healing Snoke of 3%.

As Guards are treated as being at 40% for the sake of Snoke's grab game, not especially relevant outside of this move, a traitorous guard won't really give you as much healing as you'd hope for. If you somehow get a guard to the point it would wither, it will instead straight up turn to dust and die on the spot.

Spoiler: Snoke the Joke[The Original Jokeset Skeleton]

Supreme Leader Snoke​

Snoke is a character mostly famous at this point for dying, and frankly, its a shame as he's a solid contender for the ugliest design in Star Wars, and I mean that in an endearing way.

Stats​

Snoke is physically quite feeble, in random concept art its pointed out that he prioritizes comfort because his very stance is painful. Between that and his humiliating death, it feels fitting to give him a similar set of stats to Mewtwo in size and weight, but he actually manages to be both even taller at Ganondorf's height and even lighter at barely over Jigglypuff's weight. Snoke is very floaty and slow, having decent air speed but a dash speed slower than Robin's and a very slow fall speed, making him more inclined to floating around in the air. He does at least have generally good air control, albeit slow acceleration. His force boosted jumps are a little above average, and his traction is a bit better than you might expect from a guy wearing slippers but still not very good. All in all, Snoke is as terrible statistically as he is as a villain, which is to say very.

Snoke does have a trick up his sleeve, and that's his pain bar, as the man is in constant pain so he's probably learned how to utilize it somehow. He has a pain meter below his stock that increases as he and the opponent take damage, going from 0% to 500%, increasing by 1% for point of damage Snoke and the opponent take. If it reaches 500%, Snoke will be able to use an attack with all its lag cut out, which is, as you'll see, potentially devastating. There's just one problem, when the pain bar hits 300%, Snoke will immediately have an aneurysm and die.

Specials​

Down Special - Slippers

​

As the sole source of comfort in his life, Snoke's slippers are very important to him, but occasionally he does need to change things up. By using this move, Snoke will change which slippers he's wearing, cycling between three different ones. The first pair of slippers Snoke will cycle to is slippers styled after Porgs. According to Disney, Porg merchandise will make you happy, but it doesn't make Snoke happy, instead making his stats more bird-like. This means he gains one extra small jump and has his weight reduced to 15 units, meaning he will die from being sneezed on.

The last set of slippers he can equip after the default and Porg slippers are Jar-Jar Binks slippers, horrible slippers with Jar-Jar's hideous face on them. They emit a constant aura of Jar-Jar radiation around them, dealing 5% per second in a Bowser sized area around Snoke's feet, which is a powerful effect. However, Snoke is not immune, taking 2% per second himself, and if he wears these for more than 15 seconds in a given stock, he dies of radiation poisoning. You should probably stick with the regular slippers.

Neutral Special - Snoke the Love Guru
Snoke links the minds of the nearest two opponents, in a move that frankly has absolutely no use in 1v1. Oh well, Junahu always said FFA was important. Once their minds are linked, they will take half the damage of attacks dealt to the other party for the next 10 seconds. This will probably result in the parties teaming up on Snoke for afflicting them with this, unless its Kylo Ren, who Snoke definently, certainly has under control and would never betray him ever for any reason.

As a side effect because the movie did seem to at least halfway promote this terrible romance, the mind link Snoke creates will sometimes cause the two characters to fall in love. This mostly just makes the mind link effect permanent, but if they taunt with 10 frames of each other, they'll do some kind of cheesy romantic animation that exists mostly to make Warlord, Smady, and me vomit. Whether or not this happens will depend on if the two characters are deemed compatible on the Supreme Leader Snoke Shipping Chart, which no, I'm not typing up, because I'm not a monster.

Up Special - Force Leap
Snoke summons Hux below him and then jumps off his head, sending him plummeting into the abyss, while boosting 2 Ganondorf heights into the air.

Side Special - The ground chunk move in a lot of force sets for some reason
Snoke throws a ground chunk, which deals 15% and knockback that KOs at 100%. The top of the ground chunk is a platform, you figure out what to do with that.

Smashes​

Forward Smash - Starkiller Base
Snoke throws the entire Starkiller Base at the opponent, dealing 999% and OHKO knockback. This move has like 6 Warlock Punches of start lag so its balanced.

Up Smash - Feeble Punch
Snoke punches upwards for 3% because of his scrawny, pathetic limbs, taking 5% in recoil. He can boost the strength of his arm with the force with charge, which means the damage increases to 30% at full charge, but causes him to take 50% in recoil instead as he completely destroys his arm. The self-damage helps the pain bar.

Down Smash - Hody Jones
Hody Jones appears and he and Snoke dance in a circlee, dealing 14%-18% and moderate knockback.

Standards​

Jab - Bathrobe
Snoke throws a copy of his bathrobe at the opponent, dealing 3% and forcing them to wear the same tacky bathrobe as him. This isn't a very effective projectile but it does make the opponent look stupid.

Forward Tilt - The First Order
Snoke throws Hux like a projectile, dealing 10% and moderate knockback. Hux travels rather slowly as he flails his arms in terror. 5% of the time, Snoke will throw Phasma instead, who will not react to it on account of having no personality. She travels much faster due to not flapping her arms and deals 13% and good knockback. Their body remains on the ground for 1 second and you can throw a bathrobe at it to make them look ridiculous to insult these idiots more.

Up Tilt - Palpatine's Money
Snoke takes out a pile of money that he probably got from Palpatine and throws it every where to demonstrate the First Order's funds. Deals many hits of 1%.

Down Tilt - Snoke Kick
Snoke immitates Captain Falcon's Down Special using force powers, in the process breaking every bone in his body. This horribly cripples his movement speed and deals him 70%, but does serve as a functional copy of Captain Falcon's Down Special aside from that.

Dash Attack- Feebleness
Snoke's fragile body doubles over in pain, dealing no damage or anything of the sort but giving you horrible lag. Use this to make the opponent feel sorry for you, allowing you to make allies in an FFA about as well as Frank Underwood can.

Aerials​

Neutral Aerial - Ryan Johnson Subversion Zone
Ryan Johnson appears to subvert the rules of Smash by creating a zone in which nobody can actually make hitboxes, a functional copy of Strangelove's Nair. As that move was deemed overpowered, I will give it a downside. 5% of the time, Ryan Johnson subverts Snoke instead, deleting him from the match and causing the Snoke player to instantly lose.

Forward Aerial - Take Off That Ridiculous Mask
Snoke tells the opponent to take off that ridiculous mask, causing nearby masked opponents to take off their masks. This deals damage to them based on how much their mask means to them, ranging from 4%-40%, but no knockback. Can only be used on masked opponents once per stock.

Back Aerial - Starkiller Base Again
Snoke throws another Stakiller Base in a clone of the forward smash, because The First Order has so much money they can afford to do that. Also this is clearly an important move in Snoke's playstyle so why not do it again?

Up Aerial - Flipkick
Snoke does a flipkick that deals 10%, but also breaks his legs and deals Snoke 30% so he can't walk anymore.

Down Aerial - Return of Hody Jones
Hody Jones appears below Snoke and does a stall then fall Dair, dealing 20% and strong downwards knockback to all opponets below him.

Grab Game​

Grab - Force Restrain
Snoke grabs the opponent using the force.

Pummel - Kylo Ren
Snoke holds the opponent here while Kylo Ren appears behind him. Snoke rants about how he can see into Kylo Ren's soul and how he will strike down his true enemy, and after 10 seconds of this which can accumulate over multiple grabs, Kylo Ren slices Snoke in half, killing him instantly. This revolutionizes the pummel KO by allowing the player to pummel KO themselves.

Forward Throw - Steroids
Snoke takes out Hody Jones' steroids and force feeds them to the foe, buffing all their attacks by 1.3x their usual damage and knockback for 10 seconds. Then for the next 10 seconds afterwards the foe becomes extremely weak and withered, dealing only half their usual damage and knockback and having their movement speed cut by 2/3rds. The force feeding deals 10%.

Back Throw - Steroids Again
Snoke gives himself the steroids instead, hulking out and gaining the same buff as the foe would for the next 10 seconds. However, after that, his body is too weak to handle the effects of the drugs, so instead of just being slowed down he straight up dies.

Up Throw - Into Dead Snoke
Snoke explodes into a blast of red smoke, knocking opponents away and dealing 12% and decent upwards knockback. This creates a smokescreen that obscures everything in a battlefield platform width and Ganondorf height area. The smokescreen vanishes after 5 seconds, during which you cannot do anything, and afterwards it is revealed that Snoke died using this move as the red smoke was his blood. He loses a stock at this point.

Down Throw - Old Age
Continuing the theme of this grab game, Snoke spontaneously dies of old age and loses a stock. It was bound to happen eventually.

 

[Smady]

Submissions for MYM20 are over!

​

However, major edits will keep going for all sets posted until next week, ending on the 18th. Voting shall commence the next week. To qualify to vote in MYM20 you need to make 10 comments so if you have no sets to edit, please go and comment! (We have a severe lack of commentary this time around.) Good job everyone who contributed to the last day. The updated set list can be found here.

Between MYM20 and MYM21, you can still post sets, they won't however be counted towards MYM20! It'd be best to hold off on them until MYM21. The date MYM21 starts will be announced sometime in the next week.

 

[Bionichute]

Bubble Slime
Goopy has a lot of actually interesting ideas to it, the unique cancelling and the duplicates being the absolute highlights of the set. It's really interesting, with the duplicate being able to be interacted and beat up, and the cancelling being used in some really interesting ways. The stuff involving the gravestone, while still fun, isn't as intuitive as it probably should be, but that shouldn't get me that down on the set, right? Well, Goopy has a major flaw. The writing.

This has kind of been a recurring problem with a lot of Smady sets, but its never really been as bad as it has been here. The amount of odd writing choices and lack of editing makes a lot of the set come off as incredibly obtuse and confused, with certain wordings been used several times in moves without any clarification, and some just utterly bizarre parts. None of this technically has anything to do with the set by itself, but I DO think that writing matters in regards to set-making. The writing here actively made me not enjoy a set I probably would've liked. I can't mark the set as bad, but I feel like I'm going to be the one here who likes it the least.

And as a note on the set itself, I feel Goopy might be TOO powerful in a few places? Some of his attacks have pretty high numbers, and while the cancelling is interesting, its applications are pretty terrifying all considered.

Not a Bird
I don't have a whole lot to say about Peacock, mostly because its just very... simple. It's almost a direct translation of her Skullgirls set, which is fine, but makes it very uninteresting, especially with how creative you COULD get with some of those animations. I can't exactly call it bad though, since it is mostly balanced and has nothing really that absurd in it... but ultimately, it being forgettable is still a large problem.

I feel like there should be some more to the attacks than "What pushes Lenny around the best", but thats the only internal consistency that we really get. The bag grab is really neat, but, again, there's not much done with it. Not even a cargo carry throw, which would have made a lot of sense. Also, with a character like this, and with some of these animations being... weird, some more visual representation would have been nice. Gifs would have made this stand out a lot more. Overall, bland but not bad, with a bit more effort you could've made it a lot better.

ITS PIKACHU
Hee-mo is a bit of an odd set, all considered. There's some heavy, self-imposed limitations on it that FA had to potentially overcome... and according to him, he didn't. I still enjoyed this set at least, there's some good flavor and some actual connectivity throughout the moves, even if it mostly just ends up being combos. It is anything. But really the fun of the set comes in its gross animations and designs, and how far FA is willing to push this incredibly limited design.

I actually feel this set could be a lot better without the limitation, because the blood stacks are interesting and have some fun flavor to them. His blood starts boiling because he hates every other character there so much, its pretty funny. But yeah, this set's faults are almost entirely because of the imposed challenge it had, but that doesn't make it unenjoyable.

The Okayest Game You Can Name
Hockeyman is very... mediocre. There isn't necessarily anything that wrong with it, but its also incredibly easy to make far better. The main problem obviously comes from a lot of attacks being very lackluster, and not really playing into Hockey's main gimmick of the ice skates. In fact, a lot of it plays more into the puck attack, which itself doesn't seem to have much interaction with the ice gimmick. The other major problem is that there's basically only one move that can seem to reliably create ice, which is the DSmash.

I feel like a major way of fixing the set, as it is right now, is to switch the DSmash with the DSpec. DSpec isn't very special in any way, while the DSmash is nothing like a Smash and is far more integral to Hockey dude's overall gameplay. But if you want an even bigger change, then I would recommend changing it completely, and instead just always have Hockey Man create ice as he walks. Have it just be part of the animation, but with a special that makes it stay around longer.

I mainly feel like the actually interesting mechanic is just never expounded upon, which definitely knocks it down a bit. Also, the formatting for the specials is just kinda weird? I feel they could have been condensed into less paragraphs.

Toast Stories
Haunter's pretty a'ight? It's really simple, but it has a consistent playstyle and at least a few interesting ideas. For one, making Haunter purely melee based and without projectiles is interesting, and makes use of the ghost's weird model as well. I'd usually think of Haunter as a projectile spammer, but this still works, since its fleshed out well enough. It is a bit of a problem that the moves sort of start feeling a bit weak near the end, a few more interesting things could have boosted them, and there is sort of an attempt in the Grab Game.

My main concern is the Drowsy/Nightmare effects, and how they seem a bit... too strong. The effects aren't that powerful on their own, but when you actually get into how Haunter's set gets boosted from opponents being affected, it kind of starts feeling iffy. Some moves feel maybe a bit too powerful, or just deal too much damage, like the NAir. And while I like the idea of the VFX becoming hitboxes thanks to the Nightmare effect, some more expounding of it could have made it better. Overall, it's okay.

Actually It's About 3:15
McCree is a very wonky feeling set. It has some very bizarre choices in it, but is overall just kind of bland. NSpec is a big offender in this, because its supposed to be used primarily as a KO move, but is far too weak for that to ever really work. The set specifies that it basically only works on opponents with high percentages, but if that's the case why don't you just finish them off with an attack that doesn't leave you open? Apparently its possible for opponents to dodge the shots from it too.

FTilt is also just strangely worded, implying that 12% and knockback that KOs at 170% on a projectile isn't supposed to be good? This being a nonsensical sweetspot during the middle of the shot also doesn't make much sense. Most of the other attacks are just bland, with there not really being any consistency between moves. The throws and aerials are hit by this hard, and all of them are just... really boring. So, I didn't really like it that much.

 

[Smady]

Welcome to the User Rankings!​

These are a "scoreboard" of activity inside the Make Your Move thread. You get points for movesets, comments on sets and posts, among other things to encourage activity in the thread!

S = Moveset (worth 30 points)
C = Comment (worth 8 points)
P = Post (worth 1 point)
J = Joke Set (worth 4 points)
I = Incomplete Set (worth (for now) 4 points)

I've not done these in some years as Roy has been kind enough to take over and done a great job. For the end of MYM20, I decided to try a more experimental rankings and focus on changing things up. Yes, I finally ditched the banners, RIP Photobucket.

Smash Daddy
PSCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCSSCCCSPCPSCPCCCCCCSSP
479

Munomario
SSCCCPCCCCPSSPCCSPSSPPSPPJSSS
414

Frozen Roy
SCPPPPSPCCCCCSSPCCPCCCPPPSSSS
322

Professor Lexicovermis
PPPSPPPPPSSCCCCCCSPCSCSPSPP
286

Bionichute
SSSSSPPSCCSSCCCCC
276

MasterWarlord
SSSSSSS
210

ForwardArrow
PCCCCCSCCCCCCS
149

Kat
CCCSSSP
115

Altais
PSCPPSS
101

UserShadow
SSS
90

Crystanium
SPSPP
63

IvanQuote
SS
60

Dr. Slavic
CCCCCPP
42

DGAMER
SPP
32

GolisoPower
SP
31

a smart guy
SP
31

Tintenpilz
S
30

ProfPeanut
S
30

Jamie
C
8

WeirdChillFever
P
1​

As you may have noticed this time I have replaced the usual tally beside the points with letters instead, these represent different forms of activity and give different point values, largely the same as in the past but slightly changed to accentuate comments.

Now to discuss why I did all these changes this time inside the spoiler tags below.

Spoiler

1. The change from solely displaying points and movesets. If you want to see who made what sets, there's already the set list on the stadium to see that, linked in a post I made a little earlier. Instead I wanted to focus on what kinds of activities all the members participated in and give a sense of their behaviour. These symbols are ordered from start to the end of the contest.

Plus it's simply interesting to see what everyone did over the course of this six month long contest, whether they did strings of comments, purely sets, only posts. Besides simply rewarding people for being more active, I wanted to have that aspect too. There's also something a lot more intriguing to me about seeing activity in a pure form represented by a repetitive symbol rather than just points.

2. I upped the comment value from 6 to 8 because commentary is in dire need of attention. Commentary in MYM20 is very poor.

3. Incomplete sets entirely apply to the end of contest sets and I will update these to full sets once they get the full set of inputs. I feel bad to do this, I just want to make sure they have all the inputs first, sorry!

4. I have no idea if I made any errors and I willingly left out posts such as Ivan's "ignore this." I did count basically all other posts. Some of these posts were worth a lot more than a single point.

5. Most special case sets to not count were the remakes by Altais as they still are the same character/moveset for the most part, I rewarded him an extra S anyway.

6. I do think there is some value in all forms of activity ranging from posts in the thread, such as the ones Muno made about all kinds of topics or posting articles, to comments to sets. A healthier thread would be one where everyone has a bit of everything, and in general a whole lot more activity.

7. I've considered some crazy reward based on URs/comments next contest, or perhaps even in this one. Tell me if you guys are interested in that idea. I'm thinking basically just making me do a set of your choice if you do a bunch of comments, lets say 15+ comments.

 

[UserShadow7989]

UserShadow7989's Comments Post!​

Given how sporadic my commenting will likely be, I'm planning on keeping them in one post and editing in new ones as necessary to keep from spamming the thread one comment at a time.

Spoiler: Doomfist

Read the set here!​

I have to say, I've always felt 20's first set started the contest off on the right foot. Doomfist has a simple but effective core mechanic that rewards careful punishes and excellent reads with the freedom to cut loose immediately after, and further rewards intelligent play by renewing the window of safety when the conditions are met again. Doomfist's inputs hit the right balance of being useful without the mechanic active, if limited by varied drawbacks, while also shining brilliantly when he has the Best Defense up, feeling overwhelmingly powerful without breaking game balance.

The inputs themselves also feed into each other as well as the mechanic. Aside from the combos noted, in general Doomfist is excellent at forcing opponents into position for further beat down once he gets going. Forward Smash's early hit followed by Side Special was the first thing that came to mind, and Doomfist is a rare fighter who enjoys an airborne opponent being immediately behind himself and has plenty of ways to ensure that happens.

At most I feel it might lean a little too hard on the side of making most of the set punishible one way or another as a means to make Best Defense immediately relevant for all the moves, but that's a nitpick. In some ways, it feels like what the old Combo Heavyweight trend of yore had hoped to produce (or to use a more self-absorbed example, like a better executed version of what I was going for with Hockey Man). Overall I find the set an enjoyable read.

 

[FrozenRoy]

Anaxaccident (Anaxa @Professor Lexcovermis)

We've got a real space oddity to start off these comments. I don't think I've actually fully read and ranked any of your sets, Lex, but I certainly chose a good one here! I was fairly excited to read this set, given it has been a while coming, as well.

Anaxa's base concept is fairly solid, not super new but we haven't had a ton of dedicated portal sets around, the most recent one I can think of is Shadow Teddie which was also a pretty good set. Anaxa tackles the genre in a straightforward but pleasant manner, Fatal Attraction is pretty fun and is exactly my kind of move (as anyone who's read both of my Night's End Sorcerer sets would realize), the big flashy move that uses all of your stuff on the field to a big effect, and is some level of innovation on the portal stuff, and the big reward is fairly fine. The shooting stars are quite a fun part of the set, not only as a constantly-accelerating effect but also because I like the way that using it with one portal lets you "save" the comet with just one galaxy and thus giving it alternative uses with one galaxy rather than just weaker ones. The comets serve as a kind of mirror to the shooting stars, but retain their own niche thanks to their increasing power, and I like them being able to be pulled around by Fatal Attraction, the set is kind of unclear on if the Shooting Stars also can though.

The standards are for the most part rather well put together. The Down Tilt is probably my favorite of these, as the omnidirectional star cluster and gaining more power in a black hole is neat, and I also enjoyed the Dash Attack a good deal, it isn't super complex teleportation but combined with multiple speed and trajectory projectiles it offers up a variety of useful and reasonable options. I like Jab's little self-frame-trap style. Up Tilt used to only have a weak sweetspot, but the sweetspot is now very in line with stuff like Captain Falcon's knee and Zelda's Forward Aerial and Back Aerial: Which is pretty interesting on Anaxa, as it gives this splashy melee attack to work towards in addition to the solid portals stuff, nice improvement.

All of the Smashes felt pretty solid to me, and rather fun. Forward Smash and Up Smash serve good functions in the set: In particular, Up Smash giving Anaxa a non-linear projectile feels important for making it so the galaxies are not overly predictable, Forward Smash's long distance for getting power, the indefinite distance and the one limit make it rather interesting and rewards active and smart galaxy placement. And I enjoyed the Down Smash a fair deal too, hurtbox shifting is neat and the simple-yet-explosive galaxy interaction might not have been cosmic, but I thought it was good and is kind of like Fatal Attraction in being a style of interaction I tend to enjoy.

The Forward Aerial and Up Aerial felt like the funnest to me, I like the Forward Aerial setting up combo potential for Anaxa, but the Back Aerial was also fairly good I think, I like the movement mixup options when you consider Dash Attack as well. Neutral Aerial and Down Aerial were a bit more "meh" to me, but not bad: Just pretty average. I prefer the NAir to the DAir. The grab game is probably the weakest part of the set. Up Throw is actually pretty fun I feel, and I would just like to say it has one of my favorite animations in a set full of fun animations, Back Throw is fun but I feel like it and Forward Throw kind of occupy the same "design space" and that Back Throw is more fun, and F-Throw is kind of UP. Down Throw is a neat idea but I would suggest it allow the galaxy to count as a "platform", which means with proper positioning you can flump them out of galaxies and the like, the current interaction feels too close to B-Throw and F-Throw.

As a word of note, the writing style in this set was a real treat, very deeply entrenched into the set and it makes the whole thing easier to imagine in Smash as well, with good quotes, it helps the entire OC's feel. And overall, this set I would say is pretty good, from what I know it is pretty likely to be your best outing, so good show on that, and maybe we'll see more Aspect RatiOCs in the future?

 

[Altais]

Altais Finally got around to reading your new versions of Copen and Dante. Sadly I think Jamie is having PC issues, but if he can I implore him to take a second look at Dante as it's well deserving of that.

First off, the new Copen. This is an impressive rework from the original set! You took to heart all the criticism about the way the mirrored inputs on the ftilt and nair needed to be different, you made an entirely new down smash that is really cool, you even improved the general writing and presentation to the point it's very slick. At this point the moves are detailed enough I honestly wanted the images earlier on, maybe at the start of the move, because they were getting buried under the text. Very good, necessary text to see your intentions in each move and construct a fun rushdown playstyle. I was especially impressed by how well you described the up special and smashes. The only section of inputs I'd say is still a little lacking, and this goes for Dante too, is the grab game. They're still pretty simplistic throws.

Looking at the set as a whole now, the improvement is nothing short of impressive. There's only a couple moves I thought were a bit weird, like the dash attack dealing 1%. I also thought the tagging in general was a little underwhelming as an effect. I guess it's just a small change in each move, but I'd find it more fun if tagging was a universal effect like making his many projectiles home, and then you could talk about how this might effect each move. The Bullits also feel a bit of an on/off switch where he doesn't really get a "punchy" effect when he has them active. If anything, moves buffed by Bullits should be a lot more powerful, pronounced and considered by the Copen player.

The smashes are definitely my favourite set work by you. It's great to see you talking about conditioning, using his dashes to force the foe into having "no choice" (a 50/50) and here you do make good use of the homing tags on fsmash. The up smash's tag effect might've been a little better if it didn't just home, maybe home in a slightly different way? For example a drill spear could have a slow turn as it goes to home in and then act as a lingering hitbox for a moment, becoming a trap, just the kind of thing to keep in mind IMO. The down smash is an amazing aesthetic but seems like a good opportunity for you to emphasize some form of either camping or rushdown to take advantage of the extra damage, like if the foe shields they ignore all this damage because it goes into their shield so you have to chase them down. Nonetheless the smashes are definitley the highlight and I actually like this set now! If you improved on the grab game and tighted up stuff like the dash attack this could be a very good moveset.

Secondly we have the new Dante. The main thing you did was improve the Devil Trigger so that it buffs certain moves. I do feel like you didn't go far enough here as it'd be very justified to increase Dante's stats during the Devil Trigger in a similar way to Shulk's Monado Arts or how Cloud gets slightly altered stats in Limit Break. That way you could then say something like "this dash attack acts differently because Dante has a faster dash attack" or "his dash/pivot grab is different because of his dashing speed" as one example. Still, just giving off straight buffs and differences on all these moves for Devil Trigger is by far the biggest improvement.

Just like Copen, Dante has a far cleaner, slicker presentation and is very reader friendly. The other immediate change besides the Devil Trigger change is that you removed all moves borrowed from other characters and to be honest this set is practically perfect for Dante as far as what moves go where now. I don't know if you strictly took advice from comments, but this set is simply very smart when it comes to what abilities it chooses to use on each move now. I do really like where Devil Trigger is used it's on directly buffed versions of attacks, with buffs to stats too this would all feel again fairly perfect for the character. There is one small error on the ftilt where it says the attack button can be held, obviously referencing when it was a jab. Despite being pretty simple the aerials have some of the coolest moves for simply making a lot of sense and being executed well, very important on a character like Dante who should feel natural to fight in the air.

There are some great input changes here, moving Dance Macabre from fsmash to fthrow is a great idea as that kind of overly flashy showboating animation belongs on a throw far more than a KO move Dante will use all the time. His new fsmash is also suitably flashy but very useful at the same time. The new down smash is also a huge improvement ditching the Gilgamesh weapon for a more fitting spinning animation. I also like some other small changes like making the down aerial a simple stall and fall style move, which feels a lot more sensible. I can see that Jamie directly suggested many of these ideas and you implemented them very well. My one big complaint that remains besides some further tinkering to Devil Trigger is that the grab game is a bit simplistic. Just going into some depths over potential combos, no matter how difficult they would be to perform, follow-ups or simply spacing to grab opportunistically for a throw set up would be a decent improvement. Overall though like Copen this was a pretty meticulous and impressive upgrade.

Excellent points. Sorry for the late reply; exams have been slamming me in the face.

"At this point the moves are detailed enough I honestly wanted the images earlier on, maybe at the start of the move, because they were getting buried under the text."​

Truth be told, I did consider this before hand. That said, I might do this for future movesets.

"The only section of inputs I'd say is still a little lacking, and this goes for Dante too, is the grab game. They're still pretty simplistic throws."​

Yikes, I was worried about that. I thought about giving Copen's throws just enough hitstun to allow him to follow up with a Bullit Dash, or in the case of his up-throw, an up-special followed by an aerial attack. But I was worried that would be overpowered. However, after hearing your input, I might reconsider.

"There's only a couple moves I thought were a bit weird, like the dash attack dealing 1%."​

Hmm, interesting point. Since the Grounded Bullit Dash covers less distance than the regular Bullit Dash, I'll consider adding some kind of difference. In addition to a slight damage increase, I might give the move more knockback so the enemy isn't as close to Copen.

"I also thought the tagging in general was a little underwhelming as an effect. I guess it's just a small change in each move, but I'd find it more fun if tagging was a universal effect like making his many projectiles home, and then you could talk about how this might effect each move. The Bullits also feel a bit of an on/off switch where he doesn't really get a "punchy" effect when he has them active. If anything, moves buffed by Bullits should be a lot more powerful, pronounced and considered by the Copen player."​

Again, interesting points. In Gunvolt 2, Copen can upgrade his gun so that it deals more damage in the air. That said, I thought about giving Copen's tagged n-air more damage than it currently has, but was worried that would be overpowered.

Also, Hailstorm Blade and the aerial attacks were originally meant to kill at 80%, but I was worried that would be overpowered as well. Twin Tail Bunker also originally had a shield-breaking effect. As for his grabs, those also had decent kill power--if the enemy was tagged.

"The up smash's tag effect might've been a little better if it didn't just home, maybe home in a slightly different way? For example a drill spear could have a slow turn as it goes to home in and then act as a lingering hitbox for a moment, becoming a trap, just the kind of thing to keep in mind IMO. "
​

I did think of this before--and looking back, I wish I had made the move that way. In Gunvolt, the spears actually slow down whenever they hit Gunvolt's flash field. So I might incorporate that aspect.

"The down smash is an amazing aesthetic but seems like a good opportunity for you to emphasize some form of either camping or rushdown to take advantage of the extra damage, like if the foe shields they ignore all this damage because it goes into their shield so you have to chase them down. "​

Excellent; I was worried this move wouldn't be good. However, I might alter the move so that in the tagged version, the swarm still lingers after Copen's smash animation, giving Copen enough time to follow up with another attack.

"I do feel like you didn't go far enough here as it'd be very justified to increase Dante's stats during the Devil Trigger in a similar way to Shulk's Monado Arts or how Cloud gets slightly altered stats in Limit Break."​

Hmm, interesting point. Now that I remember, Cloud does gain a slight speed boost whenever his Limit Gauge is full. That said, I might give Dante a slight buff in his speed and jumping height--but not to the point to where it's awkward like the Bunny Hood. I might also give Kick 13 a slightly faster startup during Devil Trigger.

"I don't know if you strictly took advice from comments, but this set is simply very smart when it comes to what abilities it chooses to use on each move now."​

I did take some advice from comments, but at the same time added some of mine own diversity. For instance, changing his f-smash to Drive and his up-air to Beast Uppercut were mine ideas. The vortex effect on Crazy Dance was also mine idea. Personally, I always encourage other novelists to question mine criticism before taking it to heart. That said, I pretty much do the same thing.

"My one big complaint that remains besides some further tinkering to Devil Trigger is that the grab game is a bit simplistic."​

Again, was worried about that. That said, I'll see if I can give his down, back, and up throws some deadly follow-ups--if Devil Trigger is activated.

Cheers for the input; I was honestly worried these wouldn't come out good. [Shrugs] But I guess this once again proves mine theory that artists whom are their own worst critics are prone to excel.

 

[Swaggy-G]

... Am I the only one that thinks most of the movesets posted here are way, way, WAY too complicated? I understand going into details with everyone of your moves, including damage, hitboxes, and stuff like that. I also understand giving your character a unique gimmick. But if you need a freaking essay to describe a measly side tilt, you’re probably doing something wrong. You can have a character with a fun and unique playstyle without giving more complexity than an entire smash character to every single one of their moves. It sometimes feels like the people that post here have in depth knowledge of Smash’s mechanics, but have never actually played the game and know what an actual smash character looks like.

 

[Bionichute]

... Am I the only one that thinks most of the movesets posted here are way, way, WAY too complicated? I understand going into details with everyone of your moves, including damage, hitboxes, and stuff like that. I also understand giving your character a unique gimmick. But if you need a freaking essay to describe a measly side tilt, you’re probably doing something wrong. You can have a character with a fun and unique playstyle without giving more complexity than an entire smash character to every single one of their moves. It sometimes feels like the people that post here have in depth knowledge of Smash’s mechanics, but have never actually played the game and know what an actual smash character looks like.

This set might be more to your liking then. Or this. Or this. They certainly are short... but the quality is questionable.

More details actually lets us improve the quality of our movesets. Even recent attempts at shorter sets by even some of our more talented writers have invariably lead to sets of a more mediocre quality, rather than anything truly great.

Smash sets themselves aren't actually as simple as you might think. Take characters like Shulk, Bayonetta, and Cloud, who all have fairly complex movesets (Though certainly not as complex as ours, but you get my point). Most Smash sets aren't just attack animations and a damage percent, there's complex hitboxes to go with them. Adding in the details of how those hitboxes work, and how the attacks behave beyond that, leads to far more fulfilling reading experiences.

Besides, this entire thing is mostly just a writing group. Some of us take it more seriously than others, yes, but its still a thing we do for fun, rather than for any realism. Yes, most sets here would be too complex for a game like Smash Bros., but overall we aren't really aiming for that, just for what we think makes something a good read.

 

[ForwardArrow]

If you don't like complexity or providing actual detail, that's fine. You don't have too, but its something we do here and we're not going to change it just because one guy who has never posted anything to the community wants it. If you don't like it, just post your own stuff and operate on your own standards, there's nothing really wrong with that, or just don't post here at all.

 

[FrozenRoy]

... Am I the only one that thinks most of the movesets posted here are way, way, WAY too complicated? I understand going into details with everyone of your moves, including damage, hitboxes, and stuff like that. I also understand giving your character a unique gimmick. But if you need a freaking essay to describe a measly side tilt, you’re probably doing something wrong. You can have a character with a fun and unique playstyle without giving more complexity than an entire smash character to every single one of their moves. It sometimes feels like the people that post here have in depth knowledge of Smash’s mechanics, but have never actually played the game and know what an actual smash character looks like.

Something to consider is that sets in Smash Brothers are actually pretty complex. Imagine, if you will, describing something like Cloud's Limit Break without any visual aid: The adjustments to his stats, of course every move that has Limit Break effects has to describe it, and you have to add in Finishing Touch so there's more words, and on top of that there is describing the method of how Cloud does it, so in the end something like Limit Break ends up actually taking a good amount of writing to type up by itself.

Now consider all the things Smash characters do! There is spacing, for example, on everyone from Ike and Marth to Mario and Diddy, and how a character does that is something they have to explain. Then there's kill moves, what about combos, how do they do things off stage? Now combine that with describing stuff like a Bayonetta Bullet Artes, or how a Diddy banana peel affects a match, and so on and so forth. Or all of Marth's sweetspot/sourspot differences and how they have different uses!

Basically, what I am saying is that it actually takes a good deal of words to describe Smash characters, let alone the fact that we generally do make things more complex in some ways, even something as simple as a status effect is going to add a good deal of words.

If you want some examples of simpler sets from this contest, try: Doomfist, Haunter, Mr. L, Iris (A set intentionally under 5k words) and Copen.

 

[Swaggy-G]

Thanks for your responses. I did not mean to imply that I hate complex movesets, nor that moves should only be described using a few sentences. Notice that I actually said describing hitboxes are okay in my original post. What I was against was more about people that give a complex and unique gimmick to every single one of their moves. I don't mind global gimmicks, or even move specific gimmicks as long as they're fairly simple and unituitive, but let's just say that a lot of movesets posted here just go way past that. Anyways, you've made your points clear and I wasn't really intending to "change" anything in the first place, so I'll drop the subject.

On another note, can you post your movesets here anytime you want, or do you have to to sign up and wait for some sort of contest period?

 

[ForwardArrow]

The contest period is over, and we'd rather you wait for the next contest if anything. It'll be a bit over a month, most likely. There's no sign up or anything, and if it wouldn't be good to wait that long for one reason or another, feel free to just drop it here and say its for MYM21, nobody's judging.

As an aside, mind giving a specific example? Its easier to understand what you're complaining about when you give specifics, I recognize that you're willing to and may want to drop the subject but pointing out flaws in specific sets rather than just generalizing is the point we stop finding your complaints meaningless and more to be constructive criticism.

 

[Slavic]

​

Spoiler: Finally, a good Pokemon Set

HITMONLEE
"What's the plan, Hitmonlee?"​

Hitmonlee, number 106 in the Pokedex, is the Fighting-type Punching Pokemon, a monster who dates back to the original games. Utilizing incredibly potent but perilous moves such as Jump Kick and High Jump Kick, alongside great coverage moves like the Elemental Punches and Blaze Kick, Hitmonlee proves itself as the almighty offensive evolution to the baby Tyrogue, compared to the boxing alternative Hitmonchan or the balanced Hitmontop. Part of what makes Hitmonlee so lethal with its kicks is the nature of his legs; the weird design is indicative of natural flesh-pistons with incredible stretchability, allowing Hitmonlee to hit his foes with pinpoint accuracy. On top of that, Hitmonlee's feet harden as they are used, making each kick more painful than the last.

STATS​

Despite being another kicking-style character, Hitmonlee does not play the quick offense that Little Mac has. Instead, Hitmonlee trades speed for his weight, which allows him to take hits a lot better than Little Mac can. Hitmonlee’s stats themselves aren’t terribly excellent, but his high gravity can put him back on the ground where he is most comfortable. Though Lee has average speed, he has an arsenal of approach moves that can close the distance to opponents. Hitmonlee has a build similar to Captain Falcon, though his stats are distributed much more different than the Captain.

Weight - 7 (Hitmonlee is identified by his high Defense. In Smash Bros., this manifests as being harder to knock around.)
Height - 5
Jump Height - 4
Double Jump Height - 4
Air Speed - 3
Fall Speed - 7
Walk Speed - 6
Dash Speed - 7
Traction - 6

MECHANIC - IRON FOOT​

Hitmonlee’s signature ability, Iron Foot powers up the Kicking Pokemon’s foot-based moves. As Hitmonlee’s moveset is almost entirely kicks, Iron Foot makes itself present as a mechanic for the fighter. In Smash Bros., Iron Foot serves as a buff for Hitmonlee that is charged through time. As Hitmonlee uses his standards (tilts and jab), his gloves begin to change. The more he strikes opponents, the higher Iron Foot is charged. The charge is indicated by the state of Hitmonlee’s gloves, and they grow more metallic as he lands hits. When fully active, after Hitmonlee has done 50% damage with his Standards, Hitmonlee’s gloves are silver and glimmer, appearing as if affected by a Metal Box. In this state, Hitmonlee’s non-standard kicking moves (Specials, aerials, smashes, etc.) do 1.5 times more damage and knockback, and many of Hitmonlee’s Specials are altered. When Hitmonlee stops hitting opponents with his standards, Iron Foot will retain its charge for five seconds before it begins to cool down, reverting the gloves to normal. From a full charge, it takes about five seconds for the charge to fully dissipate.

MOVES
SPECIALS
Neutral Special - Fire Kick / Thunder Thunder Kick (~7-13%)​

Hitmonlee braces himself and pulls his arm back, charging a kick. As he prepares the kick, it takes a red glow and lights on fire! This attack takes about a second and a half to reach full charge, after which it will automatically activate, should it not have been released earlier. Hitmonlee then throws his flaming glove straight forward in front of him. striking opponents for a decent amount of damage and knockback, without taking Iron Foot into consideration. At full charge, Fire Kick deals around 13% damage and can KO opponents around 150%, although it has a chunk of ending lag should he miss an opponent.

However, should Iron Foot be fully in effect, Hitmonlee’s move changes into Thunder Kick! When Hitmonchan uses Thunder Kick, he pulls his foot back in the same manner as Fire Kick. However, bolts of electricity fly into the glove instead of it catching fire. Additionally, there is no charge for this move, though the startup animation causes a moment of lag. Once his foot is electrically charged, he launches it forward at a higher speed than Fire Kick. Damage-wise, Thunder Kick, with the Iron Foot boost, is equal to a fully charged Fire Kick. However, when the opponent is struck, instead of being launched they are stunned as if struck by ZSS’s Paralyzer. This allows Hitmonlee to either escape, follow up with another attack, or launch into a flurry of standards.

Side Special - Mach Kick / Bullet Kick (~4-9%)

Hitmonlee lunges his foot forward in a kick a moment later and flies forward at high speeds without warning. Hitmonlee travels two Battlefield Platforms forward, or until he comes in contact with an opponent or surface. Hitmonlee moves at the speed of Fox Illusion while performing his Mach Kick. Opponents struck by the kick take about 5% damage and are knocked back a bit, KOing at 190%.

With a full Iron Foot, however, Mach Kick turns into Bullet Kick! When using Bullet Kick, Hitmonlee lunges forward in the same manner as Mach Kick, down to distance traveled and how fast the attack happens. However, when Hitmonlee strikes an opponent, he performs an uppercut instead of simply jabbing forward. Bullet Kick deals around twice as much damage as Mach Kick, and has improved killing potential, able to KO at 130%. However, after using Bullet Kick, Hitmonlee has a chunk of ending lag, which can punish him should he overuse it. This move is an important killing move for Hitmonlee, and is also essential for closing the space between him and the opponent. This also serves as a good horizontal recovery move.

Up Special - Sky Uppercut / Meteor Mash (~8-16%)

From the ground, Hitmonlee jabs forward with his foot quickly dealing a small amount of damage. From the jab stance, Lee performs a flying uppercut, pulling the opponent up with him and dealing even more damage. In addition to damaging opponents, Sky Uppercut does a good deal of vertical knockback, and can KO at 150%. When used in midair, Hitmonlee lifts his foot up in the air and spirals upwards at a slight angle for about one and a half Battlefield platforms. Hitmonlee’s kick sweetspots at the peak of the move, which allows Lee to KO opponents at as low as 120%. Hitmonlee then enters his Special Fall. A good finishing move, but not an excellent recovery for Hitmonlee.

With Iron Foot fully active, Sky Uppercut becomes the mighty Meteor Mash! On the ground, Hitmonlee throws out an incredibly powerful jab, dealing good damage to opponents, before Hitmonlee launches them upward with an uppercut. Hitmonchan doesn’t jump into the air with Meteor Mash, and by the end of the attack the opponent takes roughly 16% damage. Opponents are KO’d from this at about 120%. In midair, Hitmonlee leaps upwards at the same height and angle as an aerial Sky Uppercut, but without a hitbox and without spinning. At the top of the jump, Hitmonlee curls up and does a flip in midair before he launches downward, foot first, at high speed at an angle. Opponents struck by Meteor Mash are meteor smashed and take a good chunk of damage, and upon landing, any opponents struck are launched outwards, capable of KOing at 90%. However, this move cannot be canceled, and can lead to self-destructs, and there’s a chunk of ending lag as Hitmonlee picks himself up.

Down Special - Drain Kick (15%)​

Hitmonlee takes a step back and begins charging a kick, visually similar to a Falcon Kick, as a green orb manifests around his foot. After a bit of startup lag, Hitmonlee then jabs forward, dealing a good chunk of damage to opponents, a constant 15%. After making contact with an opponent, Hitmonlee heals 10% of his damage, sapped from the opponent. While this move does good damage and is an excellent utility move, it does no knockback as opponents are held in place while Hitmonlee heals, and Hitmonlee simply releases the opponent afterwards. This move’s damage is affected by Iron Foot, but will only ever heal 10%, and Drain Kick never changes into a different move.

STANDARD MOVES​

Hitmonlee’s standards have no startup or ending lag and are all able to be rapidly executed, one after another, which allows Hitmonlee to rack up big combos and charge up Iron Foot's boost. Because of this, Hitmonlee’s standards are rather weak and have no knockback, designed instead to rapidly pummel foes and build up Iron Foot.

Jab - Comet Kick (2%)​

Hitmonlee reaches forward impossibly fast and jabs in front of himself. In addition to damage, the opponents flinch enough to get locked into the jab. When pressed repeatedly, Hitmonlee alternates his Foots as he jabs at the opponent. Hitmonlee’s jabs slowly push opponents backwards, out of the combo. After four hits, the jab weakens to 1% damage, and after eight hits, the flinching effect disappears, allowing opponents to fight back.

Forward Tilt - Hook (2%)​

Hitmonlee throws a blindingly fast hook at the opponent. Opponents struck by the hook take a bit of damage and are pulled back inward towards Hitmonlee, instead of being knocked away. This allows Hitmonlee to continue his assault of standards or follow up with one of his Specials or Smashes. This move, and all of Hitmonlee’s standards, follow the same stale usage formula as the jab.

Up Tilt - Uppercut (4%)​

Hitmonlee’s Foot becomes a blur as he launches a lightning-quick uppercut. This is Hitmonlee’s strongest jab, damage-wise. Opponents struck by this are knocked upwards slightly as they take damage, which can result in a broken combo for Hitmonlee should he overuse it.

Down Tilt - Gut Kick (2%)​

Hitmonlee bends his arm and launches a blistering Kick to the opponent’s gut. This is Hitmonlee’s slowest standard (marginally) but deals the most hitstun to opponents, which makes the move ideal for following up with a Special or Smash move. Opponents are also knocked back slightly by this move, which can break Hitmonlee’s combos.

Dash - Quick Guard (2%)​

Hitmonlee dashes forward and pulls his Foots up in front of his face. Hitmonlee leans forward as he skids to a stop, damaging opponents he rams into and pushing them away. This move, though short range and weak, shields Hitmonlee from damage as he attacks, making this move good for approaching opponents, especially projectile spamming ones. This move also can lead into a flurry of standards, making it a good move for starting combos.

Ledge Attack - Saving Kick (6%)​

Hitmonlee grabs the ledge with one Foot. Hitmonlee lifts himself up and Kickes with his free Foot, striking out with a haymaker. Hitmonlee then lands on his feet, brushing himself ready for battle.

Ledge Attack (100%+) - Low Kick (2%)​

Hitmonlee lifts himself up slowly off the ledge, and throws a kick in front of himself. This is one of the very few non-Kicking moves in Hitmonlee’s moveset. If Hitmonlee hits an opponent with this, they are tripped, giving Lee the opportunity to recover and return to the fight.

SMASH MOVES
Forward Smash - Special Kick (~11-17%)​

Hitmonlee holds his Foots at his side as he charges this move, visually similar to one of Captain Falcon’s taunts. After the move is released, Hitmonlee launches a left hook, dealing around 9% damage at full charge and pulling opponents closer to the Kicking Pokemon. Hitmonlee then throws out a powerful jab with his right hand straight ahead of himself, dealing the same amount of damage as the hook but launching opponents, KOing around 115%.

Up Smash - Rocket Kick (~12-19%)​

Hitmonlee turns to face the camera and pulls his left Foot over his face and his right Foot by his side, charging the attack. Once released, Hitmonlee’s glove ignites, as if powered by a rocket, and launches his Kick upwards at high speed, dealing damage and throwing opponents upwards. During this move, opponents who touch the bottom of Hitmonlee’s glove are burned and take weak damage, around 2%. This move can KO at around 100% damage, and is one of Hitmonlee’s best moves for KOs.

Down Smash - Sucker Kick (~13-21%)​

Hitmonlee enters a stance identical to his Forward Smash during the charge phase of this attack. Once released, however, Hitmonlee steps forward and pivots on his front foot, striking out with a single, powerful jab in the area that was behind him at the start of the move. This does good damage, though lower knockback than the other smashes, KOing at 130%, and is very good for playing mind games with opponents, punishing them for a misplaced dodge.

AERIAL MOVES
Neutral Aerial - Feint (~7%)​

Hitmonlee moves forward in the air suddenly and performs an uppercut close to his body. While not exceptionally powerful, and there is little knockback to opponents, this move allows Hitmonlee to hit a dodging opponent with his Kick, and will deal double damage to said opponent. This move is useful for Hitmonlee countering aerial combatants.

Forward Aerial - Pursuit (~11%)​

Hitmonlee suddenly lunges forward through the air, moving forward half a Battlefield Platform. He then jabs forward with his Foot, dealing alright damage and some knockback, which can KO opponents starting at 165%.

Up Aerial - Rapid Spin (~9%)​

Hitmonlee holds his Foots to his sides and begins rotating. He becomes a blur, looking like a top, as he spins around, well, rapidly. Opponents struck by Hitmonlee’s Foots in this state take damage and are knocked at a diagonal away from Hitmonlee. This move is capable of KOing at 185%, and the spin lasts for half a second.

Back Aerial - Fake Out (~11%)​

Hitmonlee lunges forward, as if performing his Forward Aerial, but at the last minute rotates around, throwing a hook in a reversal of the Forward Aerial. This move can KO opponents at 165%+.

Down Aerial - Rock Smash (~13%)​

Hitmonlee leans back as he puts his two Foots together above his head. Hitmonlee then brings both Foots down hard, slamming opponents and meteor smashing them. This move is important for getting opponents onto the ground, where Hitmonlee can fight better.

GRABS
Grab - Vacuum Wave (0%)​

Hitmonlee braces himself and holds one of his Foots in front of him. He then quickly rotates his arm in incredibly quick circles, which turns it into a comical whirl. This creates a windbox that reaches forward half a Battlefield Platform, a windbox which pulls opponents towards Hitmonlee, allowing him to hold onto opponents with his Foots.

Pummel - Bop It! (~3%)​

Hitmonlee takes one Foot off the opponent and pulls it back past his head. He then throws his Foot forward, Kicking the opponent in the face with his glove.

Forward Throw - Mega Kick (~12%)​

Hitmonlee lets the opponent go and places a Foot on their shoulder, stabilizing them. With his other Foot, Hitmonlee pulls back and prepares a Kick, striking forward with a powerful hit, launching opponents backwards and KOing at 125%.

Up Throw - Knockout Uppercut (~9%)​

Hitmonlee lets the opponent go but keeps his Foot on his shoulder, holding the opponent still. Hitmonlee pulls his other Foot back by his side and strikes out with an uppercut that launches the opponent upwards. This throw starts to KO opponents at 135%.

Back Throw - Clothesline (~15%)​

Hitmonlee holds the opponent with one Foot and pulls his arm back as if readying a Kick. However, Hitmonlee instead sticks his foot out and trips the opponent, and while falling brings his arm to interrupt their fall, dealing damage and causing them to fall to the ground prone. This throw has good damage, but not

Down Throw - Spike (~10%)​

Hitmonlee quickly jabs the opponent in the gut, knocking them into the air. Immediately, Hitmonlee leaps up in the air slightly, bringing both his Foots above his head. He then swings them downward and spikes the opponent into the ground, causing them to bounce back and launch at a diagonal outwards. This throw can KO at 140% damage and higher.

FINAL SMASH
FOCUS KICK

​

When Hitmonlee breaks the Smash Ball, he lunges forward about half a Battlefield Platform with his Foot outstretched. Should he strike an opponent, he will rapidly Kick them several times, dealing up to 25% damage with just jabs. Hitmonlee pauses for a moment and the opponent is stunned from the onslaught. Hitmonlee then pulls his Foot back and charges up the strongest Kick in his arsenal, the Focus Kick! Hitmonlee launches forward and strikes the opponent, launching them at incredibly high speed, almost guaranteeing a KO on the opponent. Should Hitmonlee not hit anyone in the beginning of this, the Final Smash does nothing.

PLAYSTYLE​

Hitmonlee’s entire game revolves around keeping the opponent within Hitmonlee’s grasp, allowing him to combo them with his rapid fire Standards in order to build up his Iron Foot bonus. Once he has his metal gloves, Hitmonlee turns to his Specials, Smashes, and Throws to knock opponents out of the stage. Since Hitmonlee needs to deal a lot of damage to KO opponents, he can turn to moves like Thunder Kick which can paralyze opponents, lining up opponents for more Standards that recharge the Iron Foot buff. Opponents in the air can be trouble for Hitmonlee, so his aerials revolve around messing with his airborne foes until he can knock them to the ground. Projectiles also provide a challenge to the Kicky Pokemon, so his dash attack and Mach Kick make up for it, allowing him to close the gap to close in with his close range Kickes. Those fighting Hitmonlee want to capitalize on his glaring range weakness, fighting from a mid or long range that Hitmonlee can’t compete with, especially projectile users. Lighter characters also make a good check for Hitmonlee, interestingly, as they are easy to knock out of Hitmonlee’s combos, stopping the build up for Iron Foot. All in all, Hitmonlee is a character who is downright dangerous up close, and, if given a Leece, will do a lot of damage as his Iron Foot powers him up.

Spoiler: Judy Hopps

Judy Hopps from Bion is a set I dipped my toe in, thought the water wasn't great, and then died for a few months. However, I've cannonballed right into it now and honestly, I like this set a lot more than I gave it credit for. I still am of the stance that a lot of the visuals could be a bit weird and uncharacteristic, but getting down to the actual rabbit meat I quite enjoy a lot of what was done with the mechanics and stage set-up, as visually tacky it might seem.

Perhaps it's blasphemous to compare this set to Doomfist, and maybe its because this is the first set I've read in, like, half a year, but I think Judy has a somewhat comparable playstyle to our opening set, a constant attempt to be up in the face of the foe including a semi-wall in the form of a parking enforcement vehicle to combo off foes. While Doomfist can deal free damage on immobile targets by plunging them in a wall, Judy can do the same thing by hitting them with a stun dart.

A good amount of effort was put into the standards and aerials, a nice focus to see on any set, especially when aerials tend to just feel like floundering around in the air fishing for hits. They do play into Judy's moveset well, really enforcing the combo-concept of the character. The handcuffs are another aspect of the set that's easy to dismiss as goofy or silly, but honestly boiling past aesthetics you rarely see so short a tether and the things Judy can do with that tether are rather cool.

Of course, there's some fear when the standards and aerials come before the smashes in the set, and I think that Judy falls to that pitfall as well. The vertical smashes are far from bad, and are pretty useful, if a little bland, but the forward smash feels incredibly redundant. Rather than a strong damage output or high knockback, it serves as a substitute for the dart gun, and while I like the idea of a more reliable but lower reach version of the move, I don't think it belongs on a smash move.

The grab game is where the criticisms go from subjective to objective, as almost hilariously the grab game somehow manages to avoid having any interactions with the great setup moves Judy has, some of which (the dart, the handcuffs) seem so perfect to interact with throws. The grab game feels incredibly rushed out and is honestly the biggest weakness of this set, though this is a criticism that can be applied to a lot of sets.

All in all, Judy is a set with really interesting fundamentals, and a good amount of meat off the standard moves to play off all of Judy's special setup moves. While I think the proppiness of these sets works better on last contest's Nick Wilde, I would say that just in terms of gameplay Judy is a huge mark above, and aside from the drop in quality later in the set, is a very enjoyable piece.

Score: 3 / 5
(I've dropped my three-pronged approach because I'm lazy, w/e you can sue me.)

Spoiler: Medea

It's perhaps no surprise that I have a borderline fetish for magical buffs and debuffs in sets, and so Froy's Medea instantly gets me hooked thanks to Rule Breaker. The premise is great, and throughout the move's description the effects become fine-tuned to not entirely shut down or flatout break other sets, both MYM and in-game, some nice thought you don't always see on a MYM piece.

Throughout the specials, Froy sets the precedent for the set as one all about potent choices and trade-offs, which is yet another aspect I love to see in sets. Does Medea risk taking extra damage by bonding with the foe? Should she keep only a few magical circles out, all in her control, or should she sever her ties with them to absolutely litter the stage like a minefield? To fly or not to fly? I love all the choices in this set, and it pulls them off better than a lot of other sets that try similar things and come off as a flowchart. Instead, most of Medea's choices can be boiled down to individual yes or no questions, thanks to the Rule Breaker being such an important pivot move in the set.

As mentioned in Judy above, seeing a section come before the smashes is usually exciting, especially when that section is the grab game as is the case for Medea. Again, more choices are presented; a stupidly short range grab or a telekinetic and very punishable grab? And after grabbing the foe, the player is treated to one of my favorite sets of throws across all sets! The trade-offs on all the throws are so brilliant, allowing Medea to play the same way no matter what she does while forcing any opponent to react and predict accordingly, making the throws incredibly powerful. This can only work with the negatives that each throw provides, whether healing or buffing the foe, debuffing Medea, or the risk of explosion. Some very creative and entertaining effects that really do reward Medea for getting in close to the foe.

Unlike Judy, we do quickly jump into the smashes with Medea, and again, unlike Judy, the smashes are both real effective on their own while flowing elegantly with the rest of the set, logically connecting different pieces of the set. New mechanics are brought in organically with the Magical Chain, which again gives Medea a solid set of choices regarding Rule Breaker, because essentially becoming a self-destructive magic battery is such a cool concept. Wicked Gale also provides something else for her to play around with. Unfortunately, I think that Magic Chain gets quite a bit cluttered with three rather expansive effects, and also Ice Chain which feels very lackluster compared to the other effects, and perhaps spreading the effects on other inputs would help with this.

The standards are where this set is probably the weakest, though the moves are still unique and interesting on their own, it feels like the moves here could interact with the Magic Circles, though for the sake of my reading time I think the break in effects is pleasant from a reading standpoint. Still, compared to earlier parts of the piece it feels a little barren in this spot, and some extra effects across the moves could help spice it up.

The aerials have the most varying length and quality of all the sections, ranging from a one paragraph move to the behemoth of the Rebound Laser. The Rebound Laser is actually a fun alternative to the forward smash, rather than just an aerial version of the same move, and has a great focus on combining Medea's playstyle into a strong aerial game. The aerials do lose their magical quality as they move through the set, but never dive into truly bad moves.

Honestly, this is a moveset that caters to my exact tastes, I love the extreme risk and reward and manipulation of the foe's playstyle, both by placing effects on them and on Medea herself, and the raw power this set emanates is, I think, well balanced with the dire costs of Medea's moves. Honestly one of my favorite sets I've read personally. I just so desperately wish that the standards and aerials carried just a little bit more to push it over the edge for me.

4.5 / 5

Spoiler: Captain Metal

'Tis clear much effort went towards ye writing of this here set, but unfortunately pirate speech be among my least favorite speech patterns t' read with me own two landlubbing eyes. I can appreciate the humor and flavor of the style, except it is really distracting from the set when used in the actual moves, making it a bit difficult to unpack what's actually going on in the set.

Honestly, the language barrier is a hurdle to jump for little reward. There's not a ton in the specials to make them, well, special, aside from Swash and Buckle who, admittedly, have a cool concept of two separate summons capable of supporting each other directly. Outside of that, Cap'n Metal be left with two generic specials and a really weird transformation that feels pretty character breaking, a randomly timed robotic transformation that has only a handful of (somewhat weird) changes to the character and obligatory non-special move changes.

The smashes are far and away the highlight of this set, actually making meaningful interactions with Metal's minions in a tried-and-true Bionichute minion massacring way. And this is the last there truly is to talk about with this set in detail, which is disappointed given how much I could write about Judy and Medea. Everything past the smashes consist of simple moves which have different variations or whole moves based on whether ye got a Leg up on the fight or you have several crab legs up on the fight. It's not the worst set, by any means, but honestly isn't worth deciphering to read. The most interesting things this set does have already been done and better by Bion.

2 / 5

Spoiler: Bomb King

The Bomb King, thankfully not written in Olde English, starts off with a rather bold concept; the Jab 'Special' of the central bomb to the core of the king's gameplay. I actually do like this approach, even if it screws with move order, and is a great way to squeeze the potential out of a moveset. As far as set up characters go, the Bomb King is both intuitive and fun to think about. Rather than slowly building constructs or having to dedicate an amount of time putting his sticky bombs around the stage, he is free to run around the stage and engage the enemy while tossing bombs all over, creating a very hectic and believable battle. The Bomb King taking damage from his own bombs seems like a hefty downside, but because the King is Thicc, this works better for him than other characters.

Boy howdy, does the Bomb King get a ton of mileage out of one weapon type or what? Generic sword movesets have no excuse. I love the extreme focus of this set, and all the Special Bombs really give the Bomb King a feeling of control over the stage, not just through setting up explosives but thanks to his quick approach move with King Bomb, allowing for decisive area denial during all phases of the move. As the set goes on, the initially kind-of lame Detonate move really shines in its brilliance, with perfectly order tiers on what explodes and when, basically whenever the Bomb King wants. Because of this, it not only feels like the Bomb King needs to set the stage up but also to be in control of the match to have the full use of his bombs. The fact that there are bombs in his royal arsenal that can only be detonated by the Bomb King himself helps this impressively captured feeling of royalty.

This sort of mechanic permeates almost every input, and unlike a lot of other attempts to blanket change every move in the set, Detonate actually feels fun, spontaneous, and practical to use, rather than changing moves in intuitive or boring ways. The moves still maintain their own unique identities, but are tightly bound thanks to the great Detonate move. It's just too bad that the throws drop off in quality so much after a huge grab explanation. No set is perfect, and this one doesn't absolutely leak brilliance, but anyone who can make a viable and entertaining set based almost entirely on throwing bombs has some great skill.

3.5 / 5

Spoiler: Anaxa, the Aspect of Space

There's a very... nihilistic charm to the writing of this set that Lex writes very well. Before going into the actual mechanics and interactions, I do want to bring up that the writing manages to convey both intensity and a cold, uncaring attitude incredibly well, something that greatly benefits to the reading of any set (as long as it isn't in pirate speak). It might not be the most important thing, but the effort someone puts into their writing really does bleed through, and here is no exception.

Any set that opens with a black hole is pretty metal, and this one is a nice variant on, for instance, Kirby's inhale, but with a far more... explosive result. This on its own is fine, but Anaxa gets access to not one but two galaxies all to herself. How unfair! Naturally, the galaxies can be pulled into Anaxa's black holes for a dynamite reaction, which is a nice bit of interaction, though we as an audience aren't properly introduced to the galaxies' inputs before their interactions are mentioned.

With the shooting stars, not only do we get more interactions with the black hole from Fatal Attraction, but in what is more interesting, I think, we get to see the galaxies used as pocket dimensions in a real fun way. Using them as a wormhole to redirect a projectile is fun and all, but the ability to prime a galaxy and hold on to one of these cosmic bullets is even greater, and an idea I love to see explored. Unfortunately the comet from Cometose (which I know realize is an intentional typo) doesn't add much more than the shooting stars do, creating a bit of a redundancy in the set.

Voidwalking is a real fun recovery move with an idea I've toyed around with a bit, and I absolutely love the concept of setting anchor points for recovery rather than just a vertical motion or teleport. Additionally, the fake out attack from the galaxy takes this one step further, and my only fear with this move is that the range on the teleport, which is unspecified, makes it too powerful of a recovery.

The standards mostly exist to cement the mechanics of the galaxies themselves in place, something long overdue for a set which benefits from them so much. I rather like the dash attack in specific out of all of these, utilizing the tools to really have a fun mixup, because the use of teleportation in this set is one of the strongest aspects.

The smashes and aerials are sufficient, but I feel strongly more could be done with them, and while much more ambitious, I could see parallels with how Medea handles her magic and how Anaxa handles her astronomy. Anaxa has the tools to set up some really cool effects, she just needs those connections to click to really make this set one which is both enjoyable and impressive. The grab game doesn't fall particularly flat, thankfully, which allows the set to end on a positive note.

Despite lacking some of the interest and ambition of other sets, this is one which bleeds personality in a wonderful way, and even if a bit on the simpler side is a delight to read. A little more effort into extending some of the mechanics and interactions, and this set would push up a great deal. All in all, a good read!

3 / 5

Spoiler: Cronus

I really didn't know what to expect with Cronus outside of him being generally enjoyed and Bion wanting me to read him, but honestly there's a lot to like about this set! First and foremost, the primary mechanic, Pause, is a really straightforward and honestly fun way of handling Time Travel / Control. Typically, there's a lot of addendum and mechanics woven into how a character can freeze or change time, what they can freeze, if they can affect other characters, and it tends to get bogged down in the details. Cronus, however, just grabs time control with both hands and goes all in.

The use of time control to set the stage up rather than rack up combos as one would expect is a unique take and I was honestly relieved to see the gameplay shift into a focus on what happens when time isn't frozen, rather than shoving all the gameplay into the four seconds where time is. Especially in the Smashes, but also present throughout the whole set, there are plenty of intuitive uses of Pause alongside the normal effects of projectile moves. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the melee-move effects seem a little bland in terms of their use with Pause, mostly focusing energy trails which works if not impresses. I do commend for going through this set and making every move feel interactive with Pause, however.

As for the villainous aspect of Cronus, he reminds me quite a bit of Gamagori, being this big hitter who seems to rely on interactions with the foe to build up some very strong ability. And the solution to this is the same; spawn in some minions who aren't loyal to Cronus, though in this case Cronus wants to wail on them, not the other way around. Cronus even has his own way to align his minions with himself a la the Game Illness. I'm a big fan of this kind of interaction within the set, given my history of using it, and I definitely appreciate seeing it here.

Outside of the obvious interactions with the minions early on, they don't do much in the set. I actually think this is boon in this instance; Captain Metal, for instance, got bogged down among other things by too many scattered ideas. The Ride Players / Bugster Viruses fill a very specific role in the moveset, and don't get in the way of the other moves, which is good restraint. Unlike the earlier sets I've commented, we see a pretty good grab game this time around, though like how I mentioned before I don't think Cronus takes full potential of Pause in this section.

The biggest issue with this set aside from a few areas that don't feel fully realized are the logistics. On his own, I think Cronus is pretty well balanced. But interactions with many other movesets, especially a mirror match against himself, would make the match very irritating. I do think Cronus is probably more fun in a match as a boss, and it's always fun to see boss modes thrown onto characters. Everything said, Cronus is a very enjoyable set and the strongest of Bion's I've read so far.

4 / 5

Spoiler: Omega Metroid

If nothing else, der Rabe shows consistency when set making, with a very strong preference towards Metroid characters and following the same movesetting style. It's certainly a stylistically unique modus operandi. To start off with, Omega Metroid opens a ton of different character mechanics, a lot of which seem more interested in characterization than balance, such as creating quakes on landing and dropping rocks from ceilings. The damage negation from behind seems incredibly powerful on its own, even taking increased damage from the front, and I don't think it's properly balanced.

As mentioned at the beginning of this thread months ago, reorganizing your set to put specials before anything else has a profound impact on the set. Not only will it be easier to draw readers in and understand the playstyle, but writing the specials first tends to lead to more interesting movesets being written. Unfortunately, there isn't a ton to analyze in Omega Metroid. It works as a very in-Smash set, though even for Smash Omega Ridley has some issues, especially the damage mitigation which seems to be the primary (read: only) core feature. If remade in the future, the idea of a carapace could make for an interesting set; hardening to take less damage, moulting to gain speed, etc. There just isn't enough here to really warrant a high ranking unfortunately, and I hope to see der Rabe continue in the future.

1 / 5

Spoiler: Guldo

Going from Cronus earlier onto yet another time-freezing character, MW's Guldo takes a wholly different approach to that concept, not even bringing it up until the very end of the Specials. Similar to Cronus, this is great for helping Guldo's set up game, but not necessary to do so as Guldo really channels the Warlordian terraforming one would expect. There's a distinction between the Time Freeze and the Paralysis, but honestly the two are so similar in function it feels very organic in concept. The distinction is also something Cronus lacked, and the fact you can facilitate an entire stage to freeze before Guldo or just a single entity really helps the set feel fine tuned for any scenario.

The fact that Guldo basically controls rocks, time, and can shoot lasers out of his eyes throughout the entirety of the set, and yet each move can be crafted with such behemoth size and complexity really demonstrates the movesetting prowess, even if, like many MW sets, this is a daunting read to approach. Any who are deterred, however, should really give this, like other sets, an actual read instead of a quick skim and obligate high ranking, because Guldo is a great demonstration of how to make a wide number of meaningful and fluid interactions out of only a few tools, something I've critiqued a couple of times already in this post.

Normally I do summarize and analyze each move, or section of moves, and their interactions throughout the set but it really isn't feasible for a set like this. Of course, I'm never in a great spot to find criticisms in MW sets, but also simply describing how the moves work in summary would take up lots of space. The up smash is a simple concept for a smash move that not only uses the same idea as the dspec, and a move of just lifting a barrage into the air, a pretty common animation for an up smash in MYM, and yet there is so much information juiced in every paragraph, interactions with Guldo's other moves, the specifics of hitboxes, etc. Unlike a lot of long paragraphs seen in movesets, very little of this information is superfluous, all adding to the overall positive experience of Guldo. Combined with amusing imagery and voice lines, this is a great set to read, and I only don't have much to say because it's too far out of my league to properly criticize.

4.5 / 5

Spoiler: Sonic Mania Eggman

Another set from Lex, who I'm glad to see found a home in MYM in my absence, and this one isn't quite as good as Anaxa, which... makes sense, because this one came earlier. No one said my reading order was perfect. Starting off with the specials, there are some goods and some bads. I actually like putting a robot summon on every input, a very distant comment I did on a Robotnik set criticized it for not using enough robots I believe, and so naturally flooding his set with robot summons appeals to me. Of the summons, I would say Heavy Magician is my favorite, having heavy reliance on how Eggman has been playing up to that point, and that kind of variety in a move based on move order is enjoyable.

Unfortunately, these summons don't have much character or interest to them, though I like that moves later in the set have natural interactions with his robots, especially with the Orbinaut. The best way to utilize a summon set is by filling the moveset with more interactive moves than the actual summons, the notable exception being if the summons can interact with each other, as the case is with Heavy Magician and Splats. It's certainly a unique choice to put so many important inputs on the aerials rather than other moves, and I do like the decision, but there should be good given reasons why these can't be done on ground as well, and another issue I have is that many of Eggman's moves are locked behind summons, meaning he must summon before performing a simpler attack.

It's a pretty solid attempt at a minion set, but there's just a lack of character among both the minions and Eggman that leaves a bland taste. Additionally, the standards are incredibly lackluster, and any of Eggman's offensive aerials are locked behind having to summon more robots to use a standard move. Some reorganization could benefit this set, and expanding Eggman to have his own set, as he doesn't do much on his own at all and I mean that in a bad way. Of course, I come from the future and know that your sets improve with time, so no need to fret too much.

2 / 5

 

[Smady]

MYM20 SUBMISSION PERIOD IS OVER!

This doesn't mean you have to stop posting movesets, but they will count towards MYM21, not MYM20. (Edits are still allowed but only fine tuning balance or typos, reasonably small edits.)

In the mean time, we are going to have a week of commenting until the 25th of March: to qualify to vote for your favourite movesets, you need 10 comments over the course of MYM20. Don't worry you'll have another week up until the end of March, ending on April 1st, where you can comment as well as vote! So you have two weeks in full to read, comment and vote. Here's my current tally, apologies if there are any mistakes, this is based off my User Rankings and I added comments since that point.

Spoiler

Comment Tally

Smash Daddy: 58
Bionichute: 25
ForwardArrow: 15
Dr. Slavic: 14
FrozenRoy: 13
Professor Lex: 12
Munomario: 10
Katapultar: 3
UserShadow: 1
Altais: 1
Jamie: 1

On the 5th, we're going to start the voting period and we'll post more info! Until then, go out, read and comment all those movesets!

As a side note, congratulations to everyone on managing to get out a quite impressive 67 movesets in MYM20, despite a slow start! In particular I'd like to give a shoutout to everyone involved in the Cuphead movement and who participated to the crazy final couple weeks of finishing sets and posting comments. (We even have a little extra Cuphead DLC in the works!) That was great and I hope all the fun continues on to MYM21!

 

[Davidreamcatcha]

This set might be more to your liking then. Or this. Or this. They certainly are short... but the quality is questionable.

 

[ForwardArrow]

Jaina
Honestly while I have liked most your post-Doomfist work I was hoping you would actually make another set that was really up my alley, and honestly? Jaina is that set, on the basis that the core flame arrows are actually incredibly cool. They're designed in such a way that camping with them, rather than using them as a combo tool, is not encouraged, and while I'm not usually a fan of ignoring defensive options I think having her max power arrows go through shields works a lot better than the terrible anti-dodge stuff of the past when its basically just an extension on what shield poking already is anyway. More importantly than all that, the ability to collect them for a multi-shot is great stuff, especially when you can go deep on investing in that multi-shot by damaging yourself to boost every arrow in the volley up to a more powerful orange or the brutal, shield piercing red. Its a great core, and the kind of thing I was worried you wouldn't carry on with at all but while the interactions are simple, there are some fairly solid ones on the throws and the Up Smash is actually a very cool move in general.

Talking just about the arrows sells the set a bit short, as the set has a well-designed melee game that is made with clear risks attached to almost every move, and combined with the sparse but present self-damage it gets her character across quite well, in addition to making a playstyle that greatly rewards skill with knowing when to actually use her potentially extremely powerful options. Up Special's invulnerability on the front but flaws and self-damage elsewhere are a great example of that, as there are several moves later on that recognize the power of this option and are made nicely around its existence. Hard Interactions that aren't the arrow ones which, honestly never really get all that complicated, are non-existent, and I still think the set has an incredible amount of depth despite this.

If I had to make a complaint about the set, it would honestly be that the writing in places is a bit bizarre. There's a solid half-paragraph or so in the Forward Smash that basically says "people who are stupid will spam this move because it feels good but actually it sucks", which sounds like straight up bad design until you manage to walk it back and talk about the actual situations the move is useful in. Said move is not even bad, but the way its presented could absolutely give someone the wrong idea about it. I can tell you really wanted to make sure the characterization come across directly when your sets are sometimes accused of being really dry in that regard, but outright stating "this is characterization" in such a blunt and potentially dumb-sounding way is a bit much and you might want to walk it back. Also while most of the moves honestly do flow into some good, solid offensive pressure that is made unique through her well designed core melee moves and arrows, there are a few here and there that just feel a bit too boring and unconnected(looking at you Down Throw). Still, its a very good set and hard for me to criticize barring the strange writing in places, I actually think if its on the same level as Doomfist for me.

Captain Ginyu
This is your favorite among your sets this contest, not Ribby and Croaks, and honestly I completely get why. The characterization is frankly incredible as Ginyu, without his subordinates around, basically makes his own wannabe Ginyu Force and disposes of them when "its just not the same" in an extremely humorous fashion. There's tons of personality to these poor Frieza Force soldiers who are either in over their head or just wanted a normal job but got pressured into Ginyu Force auditions, little stuff like the scouter-based AI changes is delightfully entertaining and actually played off in the set decently enough. The Body Swap takes some inspiration from FighterZ but is given all sorts of new applications with these new bodies to swap around into... or swap the opponent into. The prospect of, with careful body swapping, basically putting the opponent into the body of Guldo with none of the upsides, is a really amusing one and certainly not easy so it doesn't feel horribly imbalanced.

Not that the fun stops there, as Ginyu's melee plays very well around the minions and honestly has plenty of nuance even when not interacting with them. Little stuff like the specifics of how you get full power out of Down Aerial or all the tricks you can pull off with the Dragonball superspeed Nair, its good fun, and occasionally even gives Ginyu reason to body swap with his minions instead of the foe for reasons other than just getting the foe into a garbage body, with the occasional move also being upgraded like UTilt. The grab game is generally a good time, but the real stars of the show outside the Specials are Forward Smash and Down Throw. Both these moves add some truly awesome options to Ginyu's gameplan, Forward Smash in its extremely explosive and powerful properties limited by the awkwardness of being possible to DI out of as well as its numerous smaller interactions it has to actually make it possible to land that extremely brutal full hit. Down Throw, meanwhile, is well balanced by the mechanic of it growing over time and opens up tons of incredibly cool options in Ginyu's gameplan, like slapping it on a minion and then abusing that in conjunction with Ginyu's projectiles and all his throws.

As great as Ginyu is, and honestly he has grown on me a bit, there are some elements of his set I'm a little unsure about that make it not my favorite Warlord set this contest. I honestly was a little disappointed by the two Smashes that weren't the Forward Smash, as while they're really well characterized(as Ginyu generally is), I found they felt a fair bit less interesting than I really feel formation attacks with the minions could be. That might be harsh as they're not outright bad, but considering how much mileage you get out of his levitation, posing with the lag shave mechanic, and that awesome FSmash, I don't think its unfair to wish for a little more out of those moves. In a less trivial complaint, I kind of worry about the concept of body swapping in general due to how weird the actual play patterns around it might get, as someone who doesn't practice Ginyu at least a little gets brutally punished for ever getting his body as this is a rather complex set, albeit one that can be played casually. I mean frankly if you put a better Ginyu player in the body of your pseudo-Guldo and still somehow get demolished, that's funny and you deserve that, but given the factor of the opponent's skill on one specific character plays into it I really wonder how possible it is to ever properly balance body swap given its so much more punishing depending on who your RL opponent is. Also, sometimes its just going to be brutally unfun for people who hate playing as Ginyu, especially if they're in said pseudo-Guldo body, and it really does not seem all that hard for him to land the body swap beam so its a pretty big deal how player's respond to it. Its a daring concept and would frequently make for some truly awesome moments you could never see without it, don't get me wrong, and its important to Ginyu as a character, but its also one I find it inherently hard to 100% support. Regardless, this is about the best I could ever see body swap being handled and when the rest of the set is so good, I'm inclined to say it might've even grown on me a bit and I hold it in higher regard than Recoome at this point. Which is saying a lot, Recoome is an excellent set.

Brineybeard
Let me get this out of the way immediately, I don't actually like Brineybeard. I feel a little bad that I do, as its not like the set isn't putting forth a fair amount of effort and honestly, it shows a lot about your development as a set designer that even in a weak set like this you actually put forth some pretty competent melee, with the combination of abilities you can pull off for mobility between the Nair/Dash Attack/parry-able Jab pellet being pretty fun to think about and the FTilt/UTilt playing into the core playstyle well despite being rather simple. The interaction heavy side of the set also has its highlights, with the very cool shark and tether throw being favorites of mine.

The problem is, I'm not actually a big fan of a number of the set's core moves. The dogfish collars strike me as quite frustrating to play against for one, the way barrels are controlled feels pretty wonky especially with the explosive ones, and I'm a bit baffled by the peglegs. Can Brineybeard even detach those in canon? Even if he can the uses here in Up Special and Down Aerial honestly feel more arbitrary than actually interesting, and I know walking on peg legs is slow but its just weird to me he's faster with what, looking at his model, are absolutely embarrassingly tiny legs without them. The squid ink also has some fairly arbitrary logic to me, as I'm not sure why something like the dog collars or impaled peg legs would need the ink to stay embedded, and if they're just attached by the ink then why are they inflicting damage to the opponent in the first place?

The set's biggest mistake if you ask me is the Up Smash and Down Smash, the former being absolutely ridiculous in how strong it is. Listen, I'm as much of a fan as the next guy of situational things that hit for above 40%, its flashy and awesome. Brineybeard's Up Smash hits for 36% or even up to 90% with far less work required than I'd like, given the move comes out relatively fast and can potentially be spawned over an enemy swarmed with minions literally anywhere on the stage thanks to the X marking throw. Despite how broken this Up Smash is, Down Smash has a follow up that of all things basically takes it away from you as an option and instead just has it fall on an arbitrary patch of the stage, massively nerfing what is by far Brineybeard's best move. Sure, its an optional follow up, but its strange to watch a set gimp its own Up Smash like that on a move that's not even a special, and the way you fix it is through... a throw. A throw you will always use over the Down Smash X because said move is absurdly powerful. It also contributes to Brineybeard's Smashes coming across as an incredibly awkward package, a broken Up Smash, a shark that honestly feels like it should be a special both due to being a bit impractical and extremely central, and a Down Smash that has a follow up which nerfs the hell out of your Up Smash. There are a lot of other random moves that just come across as needlessly wonky too, like the Fair which has a battlefield platform of range and the power to KO at 115% from presumably centerstage on an aerial with the only downside being end lag, and the Uair which for some reason has Donkey Kong's Fair as a follow up, which is not a natural follow up for a Uair at all.

I recognize most of these things are nitpicky, and I do often like sets that are basically just "flooding the stage with hitboxes" like this set is trying to be, but Brineybeard does it in a manner that feels a lot shallower than your far more prominent Cuphead set Ribby and Croaks or say, Pigma. And ultimately the awkwardness mostly seems to just pile on this somewhat underwhelming hitbox flood playstyle, and at times accidentally makes the set rather lockdown-ish in nature(looking at the dogfish collars and the ability to constantly spam over the foe's position with extremely powerful cannonballs). In the least, the rest of your entries are more than good enough to make up for this admittedly weak one.

Pigma
You see the thing with "semi-clones" is that there really is a lot you can do with just taking an existing Smash character's specials and putting new, character-refitted spins on them, and Pigma pushes that to about the logical extreme. The specials certainly take some direct inspiration from Fox and Falco's, but Pigma deviates extremely far from those sets, using the same technology but not wanting to be associated too directly with those enemies he hates so passionately. The set's writing style and characterization go a long way with this too as you can really feel the sheer animosity Pigma has for Star Fox, and given how much I enjoy these spite-based personalities its hard not to enjoy the one present in Pigma, from how his specials treat the original space animal specials to his willingness to outright use the power of the Aparoids voluntarily for his set.

The actual set is a fun projectile manipulator, not trying to manipulate it on nearly as many moves as Djimmi does but certainly having a fair share of fun with it. The core focus is the slowing and empowering effect produced by the Aparoid Rings, a very cool mechanic the entire set focuses around and the set gets full mileage out of. Aside from just liking its effect on projectiles, Pigma's ability to absorb the rings to modify his moves is a treat that carries a lot of what would usually be input sections people struggle with, as the aerials end up surprisingly strong due to this mechanic. The Down Smash is similarly great, though not as much of a core focus, and between that and the twisted space animal specials it forms a set that is consistently high quality. If I had to nitpick, I'd say Forward Smash is a bit too central for a smash attack, as it frankly feels more important than any of his specials with how often its effect is utilized, though at least the Neutral Special can be used to spread more rings around after the initial use. Also by comparison to the other two Smashes which get a massive amount of mileage, Up Smash is left feeling weirdly underutilized later on, when it does feel like it'd be fun to play with all the rockets it makes.

As an aside, directly comparing it to Djimmi since I feel like taking a side in which set is better, I can't help but prefer Djimmi's approach as while Pigma takes time to just kind of stick with what concepts its already introduced, Djimmi just piles more on with every move. This does however mean that of the two Pigma is more restrained and still has a ton to like with its incredibly exciting Smashes and Starfox parodying, I just think its interesting to note the style differences between the two sets.

 

[Smady]

Interesting joint of Muno and US on Root Pack. This set is very simple, makes sense given the character is three (essentially) tutorial characters and by far the easiest bosses in Cuphead. The playstyle is about as straightforward as it gets. The carrot leads the other two along and makes the best use he can of very straightforward bullet hell. The status effects neatly layers on top of that reminding me of Peanut's Papyrus set. In that Papyrus set up road blocks that work in a similar way to the worms in this preventing foes from doing a full hop, which is a nice elegant way of limiting a foe's mobility without getting too crazy, or simply annoying for the foe.

The set has some fun general animations and a good idea of what the veggies can do given they're such an awkward one-note in Cuphead. I liked that the smashes were efficiently making use of their shape to roll around or stomp, which is pretty much the extent of what they could even do. It's a little odd that later on, the carrot pulls a turnip out of nowhere (homicide for vegetables?) and tosses it on an aerial but I guess it adds a little flair to the aerials. I'd say the aerials were easily the weakest section so it stood out a bit among those moves. The best were likely the smashes, I enjoyed the forward and down smash in particular as well as their minor interactions.

I do think this set is on the UP side, as the carrot hasn't got the greatest recovery and has to work his allies to the bone (root?) to get the most out of his set. The veggies being in a poor position limits the carrot to relying on his slow command grab and is in general, while not nearly as bad as SoPo or Solimar, definitely is hurt by a lack of functional moves. I don't mind the balance being a little UP given these are super easy bosses and it makes sense, but I'd have preferred at least giving the carrot a few filler moves just to have functional hitboxes on moves where the Moe and Weepy can be out of position. I'd also like for there to be some more KO options. The set does however have a lot of smart decisions especially in the standards, smashes and specials that give it a strong, consistent base and make the set very solid. It's surprisingly creative for such a simple set.

Anaxa is a huge improvement for you from Eggman Mania, Lex, and I'm very encouraged by your development to get this far in such a short time. This set is really brimming with characterisation, both in terms of the quotes, but far more importantly in all the moves. There's a lot of very neat interactions and cool ideas that are surprisingly fresh, usually this sort of playstyle would feel redundant. I was happy to see that redundancy is kept relatively under control as I was worried all the tilts would end up being a way to create a galaxy and nothing else. I do think there's some redundancy in this set, though this is in the interactions with the galaxies, but it's well put together overall.

The set is basically a portal set, the galaxies act as portals for the projectiles and at times for Anaxa herself. I feel like the logic of this could've afford to be a bit more consistent, in general this is hurt some by the amount of attacks that simply exist for use onto a portal. The projectiles are the best part as they tend to have logical and fun applications in the portal, for example the up smash or the forward smash. I was surprised too how many ideas you had for these projectiles. I was more against moves like dair that felt like they held back the melee. In general Anaxa probably focuses a bit too much on interactions than functionality in that way, I'd have liked a broader focus. I also just didn't like a couple moves, the fair and bair just have weird logic. I like the idea of a space eldritch style monster being incorporated but it gets into weird territory when Anaxa is pushed around by it for her own attack or it manifests in odd ways. If it was a passive part of the mechanic, or hell a good smash like Bayonetta's making it come out of a portal, that'd be fine though.

Overall this is definitely your strongest set I have read and has a solid amount of fun moves in it, with only a couples moves (fair, bair) I didn't like. The aerials could probably do with more functionality/melee focus and the grab game was actually not bad at all considering you dislike that section. I also liked the amount of character in this set, it has a good amount of charm to it. Good work Lex.

Snoke is definitely not the set I expected, what I expected is far more of a comedic take on the character. Snoke’s “Mind Link” powers are obviously the best part and most of his other limited powers merely are complimentary. The other big background mechanic is largely borrowed/interpreted from Kylo Ren. It’s an intriguing take on Kylo Ren’s mechanic and largely a big success. It’s kind of funny frankly because whereas Kylo Ren focuses so much on the melee, Snoke is the complete opposite and focuses on the psychic aspect of a force user. Instead of going for purely the comedic, this is a logical and playground-ish take on the power set, in some ways this helps the comedy on an ironic level. I was expecting a punch line that never came… subverted?

Besides the Mind Link and the pain meter, the set introduces a few other core mechanics. Primarily the other big concept is the boulder special. This gives Snoke a big rock to toss around, break into bits and do the typical boulder interactions you’d expect. It’s funny how much of a cliché this has become in Star Wars movesets. I think the terraforming element is done the best of any of the Star Wars movesets just for doing some of the more obvious playground elements a bit more complexly than Roy’s sets, which tended to focus more on the melee aspect. The electricity introduced in the up smash is a decent idea and I do like the actual effect that comes after the foe’s suffered through all the electricity, but feel as if this is the least well done of any of these gimmicks.

If I was going to air any problems I had with the set it’s definitely the tone. Snoke is desperate for any characterisation and while the Mind Link and betrayal is there, it’s only left up for a handful of moves to really do that. I felt as if the fthrow and dragging the opponent through the spikes was one very nice touch. Flinging around the traitorous minion was cool, although should’ve probably been made into more of a mechanic or used as a big, central gimmick of one move. The effects are definitely very cool in the latter half of the set but the melee is not up to your usual standards as Snoke focuses very heavily on the psychic element. One of my favourite parts of these kinds of character is seeing when they’re forced to do any form of melee, there’s just something very underwhelming about a character who does a force push or essentially magic on so many aerials and standards. I can’t say this wouldn’t be an entertaining set to play because of all the playground effects.

Sort of goes without saying this set is well balanced, it has been a long time since your sets had significant balance issues. The meter mechanic is well done as far as numbers go, and you definitely did not skimp out on giving plenty of failsafe mechanisms so the set avoids being imbalanced. The set overall resembles the mechanics and in a weird way, a similar power set to Honest given the minion abuse. That’s no surprise when Kylo Ren is Snoke’s Syura in many ways. I’d say the set is a bit too respectful of what it’s mocking when you see what Honest accomplished for characterization. As a trade-off though, this set’s playstyle may be deeper and improves the balance. The melee requires some attention to make it one of your best. Still, I’d say this is definitely one of the better sets this contest, if not one of the absolute best. Good job FA.

 

[Professor Lexicovermis]

Well, here we are, at the end of MYM20. My, quite a ride, eh? 67 sets is nothing to sneeze at! And we had quite a prolific movement in the form of Cuphead. Having a hand in this movement was truly an honor, and I'm happy to have participated. For the sake of convenience, please enjoy this linkup to all the Cuphead sets that saw completion!

Spoiler: Inkwell Isle 1

Spoiler: Inkwell Isle 2

(Yes, there are two Grim Matchsticks. One of them may or may not be Beppi in costume. Clowns, man.)

Spoiler: Inkwell Isle 3/Inkwell Hell

 

[FrozenRoy]

Updated Rankings: https://smashboards.com/threads/lucas-is-in-the-brawl-general-discussion.108741/page-5#post-2976419

Supreme Leader 420 (Supreme Leader Snoke ForwardArrow )

First off, guys, like the Snoke set itself: The Last Jedi spoilers to follow

I'm glad that my jokes about us being Snoke/Kylo Ren and about how it'd be cool if Snoke got a set the same contest as Kylo Ren would be fun ended up inspiring a rather lengthy ForwardArrow set, with bonus joke set on top of that! Having not seen The Last Jedi but knowing the plot, I kind of like Snoke less as a subversion of Palpatine and more to FINALLY see the Rule of Two in proper action and fitting the general theme of Snoke/Kylo Ren/Hux (being people in the same positions and referential to them but all with terrible flaws, kind of like cheap imitations). Also, fun fact: The mind link concept is lifted right out of the KOTOR series, so that's pretty fun.

The pain mechanic is not mindblowing, but it IS pretty neat, and very obviously links together Kylo Ren and Snoke in a way I find really cool, having this connection is fun from an in game perspective and offers nice continuity. The overdrive is neat to not only make it not just a flat curving boost, but to give Snoke a bit of a cyclical feel to it, all very neat. Using Mewtwo as a stats basis seems right as well.

The Praetorian Guard gives us the first Star Wars minion set since, what, Lord Cronal? The Guards themselves are basic by themselves, of course, but with a total of 8 moves they have solid variety and their primary usage isn't really for their abilities, which is kind of fun. Mind Link is naturally one of the cores of the set, I sense Medea inspiration here! (On that note, a Snoke/Medea MU would be fun...), and its use with the minions is pretty neat, the return of betrayal minions (striking down their TRUE ENEMY) works well enough and I appreciate the variety in Mind Linking that Snoke has. Up Special has good use of the Bucket Cancel with an appropriate way to keep the abuse down, although my first thought for comparison was Elwind over Fire Fox heh.

The boulder is good, although the 2nd paragraph is oddly...mathy which makes it feel pretty dense somehow. The pain boosting is pretty cool, though, and the ground chunk is solid, the cape effect is perhaps somewhat worrying with how strong Mario's cape is, but I guess the range is actually similiar (somewhat weird to imagine) so whatever, I like the use it gets out of the cape so far anyway, and the Snoke death reversal is amusing. More related to Up Special, but I also like how it is better to try and finish off Snoke in one blow than multiple smaller ones, which again works with Kylo Ren as an analogue (multi-hit moves vs. Embrace Pain) and also his movie death.

Forward Smash is great fun and reminds me of Sho's Forward Smash, a big push of force sending all your junk forward with unique interactions based on what gets flung, in this case adding on Mind Link attacks to the minions which are fairly fun and help with Snoke's gameplan, plus it makes the Mind Link feel a bit more...organic. The Up Smash is honestly really cool, a pretty unique use of Force Lightning and Palutena's Up Smash style moves, with the many multiple hitboxes with purposes on it, the lightning expanding outwards (does this work on friendly guards, though? Right now I think it does and that feels rather awkward), and the aftershock effect on the pain version is cool (then again, I DO love my time bombs!) and feels like something I might wanna swipe in the future...

The Down Smash is pretty neat, I enjoy the blending of a simple and necessary melee move (well, for all intents and purposes melee) with the rock breaking effect, which in turn connects itself to Force powers and while it DOES have a ludicrous damage combination, it feels preeeetty hard to pull off, although there is some minor worry about it nonetheless, not a big issue but a minor worry. Jab is classic Star Wars, Palpatine torturing Luke or like my old Dooku set, and holds up pretty solidly: The pain effect feels clever when you consider the damage boost helps mitigate the payment. Forward Tilt is okay. Up Tilt is a pretty cool effect, the pain effect is nice but I also like the effect on rocks as a very slight "delay", a little bit of talking of how to use this to catch dodges/bait opponents may have been appropriate here. Down Tilt feels...off to me, though, the animation doesn't feel very Force-like and could have just been spikes of kinetic energy or Force Power or some ****, it feels more like a bona fide terraformer than Snoke, I guess is the issue. The effect is okay but one of the weaker ones so far. Dash Attack's animation is actually really cool and I like the pain effect, with it being an okay base move, it fits well into Snoke's game plan and helps make sure he is not TOO lacking in defensive options for example.

Something to mention about Neutral Aerial, probably: It means if you time it right, you can start up the move before you would land to land laglessly, something some cancel moves do IIRC, and pretty useful for Snoke. The circling effect is nice and aside from that it is a solid glue style move. Small typo in Forward Aerial: The total damage in the base version is 22% (3% + 5% + 4% + 4% + 6% = 22%). The way the hitboxes are described are somewhat confusing and make it difficult to understand: The hitbox itself is interesting and offers us more direct interaction with the pain mechanic and a fun pain ability, but I do worry about the move to a degree, long lasting hitbox with hit damage ability if it is ever found to be consistant and so on. I might chop off a little of the move's base damage, say shave 1% off of each hit and add it to the Pain version to not only emphasis the Pain version's power more but bring the base down to a more stable 16%, but then again maybe that is a bit too weak if it is hard? Maybe bring it down to 18%, add 5% to the pain version anyway and make it so the pain version gets a whole 2% buff. I dunno, ideas anyway.

Back Aerial is crazy cool, with the move's ability to keep the opponent away counterbalanced by the poor close range hitbox, the bouncing might seem simple but combined with Snoke's more straight forward terraforming makes it a bit trickier and skillsy to get the bounces you want, and the ability to add your own self-bounce which can combine WITH stage bounces gives this move some pretty cool properties, it is a move that jumped out to me a good deal in this set. Up Tilt is nothing flashy but works right into Snoke's established game with aerial mobility, Up Smash and so on and ends up being a good move to keep it all together. Down Aerial is similiarly simple but effective in its use, air to ground being obviously important on someone who aims to improve their aerials stats and has solid uses, I can see it as a landing mixup with your auto-cancelling Neutral Aerial for example (might be a good idea to mention that, even).

Small recommendation: I would make note that the small hole in the grab does not exist in non-standing grabs or, say, specifically pivot or dash grabs. This would allow Snoke an option to grab someone in those spots anyway while keeping the out of shield stuff and flavor. Is that Forward Throw name a reference to what I think it is? Forward Throw is pretty solid, the Down Tilt interaction is standard but fine, and the Pain ability is fairly neat, it has good flavor too. The throw should really note what happens if they hit the side of a platform/ledge though, especially given the ground chunk increases the odds of this happening if he should grab someone while on top of it. The traitor guard interaction is cute and consistant with Smash Brothers.

Back Throw is pretty neat, although I might lower the electric shock that Snoke performs to 6% damage to make it a bit less absurd with just one guard, the effect on traitorous guards is fun and gives a much needed interaction with both Mind Links and the Guards, not just the obvious one with the traitorous guard but also the fact that you will blatantly get this off only after launching away the opponent or having guards nearby, giving you more incentive to have more guards out along with the normal one, I'm fairly fond of this throw. Oh, and minor math error, "s an aside, this qualifies as dealing a whopping 60% to the minion if you couldn't guess from the amount dealt to the foe" is inaccurate: It deals 15% extra to the foe and your minions have 35 stamina. 35 + 15 = 50. Up Throw is solid fun, nothing uber special but pretty fun and continues working into Snoke's air game. Down Throw is one of the rare "alternative pummel" style throws that actually feels good, probably because it is actually also a throw and not just randomly a second pummel, and I like how Snoke can turn his pain bar into healing via this method...but at the same time it is reliant on the opponent's percent so you can't just tank a bunch of blows and heal it off, I will say the draining the opponent's life to greyness effect felt kind of odd and tacked on as the move had plenty of importance already, but then again it might be good to keep the foe from being a percent healing tool.

Just going back to something for a bit here, I enjoyed how Snoke was characterized here. I was kind of thinking going into this set that Snoke would be a bit...well, jokey, and honestly I was kinda glad that while there was humor, it didn't permiate the set a ton and overall Snoke was a bit more straightforward, especially since he had solid characterization in his moves and playstyle I think, mostly the Specials/Smashes (Mind Link comes to mind, plus all the throws except Up Throw had a lot of personality to them with Up Throw being more general personality), and the moveset's very Force focused style made him feel very flavorfully different from the vast majority of Star Wars sets we've had. Much like FA talked about Djimmi, while I do not for the most part dislike the more pardoy/goofy/jokeset-y style of sets, I must say I prefer sets a bit more in Snoke's style to them and that it was refreshing that the moveset wasn't constantly insulting him or whatnot.

Snoke is not without his faults. If you want him to get out of 8 stars, FA, I would make the changes I mentioned on Grab/Forward Throw/Back Throw and probably the Forward Aerial change as well. The grab game helped assauge me of some disappointment in the Guards or Mind Link not being used more, but I do feel there was a slot for 1-2 more interactions with the Guards in particular: Thoughts that came to my mind were Down Aerial pushing them to the sides without interrupting moves, Neutral Aerial lifting guards into the air or Down Tilt popping guards up in the air some for more aerial control. Another thought is allowing Back Aerial to bounce off of traitorous guards in addition to the ground. This set does have some very, very strong stuff to it, so it could be a bit worrying balance-wise if it ends up too easy. But overall, Snoke was a very fun experience to read and felt like it would play quite well to me, with solid concep[ts executed well and good Force-melee to it. For a last day set, it has an impressive lack of filler as well, all around a solid effort after we were nearly left with merely Hee-mo.

Return of Aerial Pitfall (Cala Maria Professor Lexicovermis )

With Snoke's long comment done and also being kind of short on time, I wanted to read a short set, so I dove right into Cala Maria. The mechanic is similiar to Sylvanos' from Rivals of Aether, no problem there!

Side Special sees the return of the dreaded AERIAL PITFALL (REEEEEEEEEEE) with the Statue effect, but with the time to setup and the time being the same as Mewtwo's Disable makes it at least fine...a bit goofy in appearance but considering this is freaking CUPHEAD it is easily excused to have a statue freeze in midair. The Specials, though, are just...not a spectacularly inspiring set of Specials, the Blowfish are kind of neat but i was expecting a bit more, Neutral Special is neat but already feels a bit out of place (more playing around the pirates, without interactions, maybe?) and Petrifying Gaze is kinda eh if neat conceptually/flavorfully. Cala Maria's Jab is a neat concept, the move doesn't have a ton to it but I like a weapon that can slip away into a minion.

Overall, the standards are kind of...boring and don't inform me of much of a playstyle, although once again the Up Tilt fish and petrification effect provide some nice stuff. That stuff could definitely be a bit more of a primary focus and make a pretty good basis if expanded on more. Dash Attack should probably be stronger given the negative disjoint and high ending lag. Why doesn't Down Tilt hit twice, anyway? Could make it a decent spot dodge catcher or something.

Forward Smash is neat enough but the lag on the "teleport" seems perhaps excessive, as it requires prior setup to begin with. Down Smash's 2nd hit should probably do more damage, both because of the recoil and because it sounds like it should be a good deal stronger. Does Down Aerial still spike if it hits the ground? Back Aerial should probably be more potent, not much else to say about the aerials. The grab game has almost nothing to say about it, but yes, being able to suplex the Phantom Express counts for something.

As is obvious, Cala Maria was rushed, and the set suffers from it. While it is balanced fine, it has very little expansion on playstyle and does little with its concepts, with obvious filler and lackluster moves. It is no Minimalist Jay in terms of how little it gives, but its best claim to fame is mostly being inoffensive, lacking in explicit problems but also lacking in much good about it aside from some scattered concepts. At first this felt below average, but the last two sections really pushed it more to actively bad to me, I'll take having the extra set though and of course you can do better, as seen by Anaxa.

 

[Smady]

Grave is a very simple set that combines a shield mechanic where Grave gets a buff right after he shields an attack and a windbox interaction. I do wish you stated the strength of the windbox other than saying it hits lightly. The set then blends in moves such as down special, up special, forward and down smash for a read-based, punisher playstyle. The set as said is simple and almost prides itself on the fact it's straightforward, or generic. The set's strong point is that in many cases, the generic moves do serve a functional purpose and don't merely exist with no playstyle purpose, so Grave has a greatly defined playstyle. Largely the set plays around the various states Grave can be in or not in, from Know Your Opponent to the wind giving a few interactions making Grave fairly unpredictable. There were a couple times the set pushed this a little in my opinion, as I could nitpick the logic of a sheathe blocking 14% moves and how this isn't particularly useful on uair of all inputs, plus the fthrow and dthrow really are incredibly simplistic moves.

These are thankfully the anomalies in this set as it's produced cleverly, shockingly well when I know how the production went. I am disappointed a little that a couple of elements, such as the projectile and wind, aren't brought up that often. The wind doesn't describe what happens in a mirror or team/FFA match where multiple Graves are in play and that's a small oversight. For a generic monk that has a projectile and rarely uses a sword it's not a bad set at all, definitely could've gone far worse. All the palm strikes, punches, chops and so forth in the melee were handled well. Largely it manages to walk a line between forced and generic. Better than expected! Nice work here.

Finally I finished all of the Ginyu Force, and how fitting to end on Captain Ginyu. This set is a freaking event to read, it's a behemoth of a set, but it frankly was an easy read too given the amount of cool ideas at play here.

The biggest positive in the set is the concept and execution of the minions. I really enjoyed the whole team-based playstyle and the way the various sizes work into Ginyu's moves and his overall playstyle. The set has a lot of very cool interactions either having the minions attack alongside Ginyu or change when he does a body swap, giving another usage for these moves, as a better combo move, KO option or another specific usage. The best moves are the ones that make use of minions lining up one after one another or performing one of the group poses, like the up smash or the down smash.

The body swap is done in the best way you could hope for and that is an achievement in of itself. This is arguably a weaker balance than the way it's utilized in DragonBall FighterZ and that's very correct given that's Ginyu's major super in that game that uses up his entire meter. The one time I didn't like the balance here was letting Ginyu redirect his body swap beam in the side special because a centralizing powerful attack that I don't think is appropriate to manipulate. I'm perfectly fine with everything else here though, from swapping with the minion to forcing the foe into your current body, minion or no, it has no effect on damage so it's fair.

The balance of the set is careful in general to not overtune the minions and the combos. The up tilt for example goes out of its way to avoid being a clone of Mario's, and the minions are relatively weak and come after a long winded attack. The fsmash is extremely powerful but has 1.5 seconds or so of lag at the start and end so is justified. If anything is not balanced particularly well here I'd say it's the nair being able to casually teleport, and the dash attack unless I'm missing something also has a potentially huge amount of invulnerability. I wonder as well about how Ginyu would deal with a reflector on an enemy given how many of his aerials are projectiles. This is helped a good deal by his standards so it's more of an aerial weakness than a general one, he does have his dthrow for that too.

The set ends on a strong grab game. The one thing I read for some reason before was the pummel and the minion interaction, that's not an integral move or anything, but I felt like highlighting it again. This set has truly awesome characterization of Ginyu as largely a team leader, not an abusive leader, besides in the grab game where it makes sense. Ginyu isn't going to sit around and let one of his (literally in this case) stupid minions get in the way when he's fighting the foe. Knowing the series and his fights it's practically something he does already with Jeice. It's hard to deny too that Ginyu's taunt-focused, showboating playstyle is spot-on for characterisation. Just flinging the foe or his minions away is another simple but effective character moment. It strikes the right chord of not being a minion abuser but pushing them around when necessary.

So in the end, Ginyu ends up fitting enough as weird, unorthodox character. Not in a negative way, this is a character after all whose main gimmick is a body swap. His actual power set is so thin you were right to draw potential from his taunts primarily, though in a much different way than Recoome. The terraforming isn’t a huge part of the playstyle but that's fine, it's a fun enough special and the set focuses mostly on the minions. It doesn't make any big mistakes despite a huge amount of projectiles and innately weird moves where he's dancing around or taunting because it's Captain Ginyu. My opinion of this one is that it's basically as good as Recoome or Guldo, if not a little better, all exceptionally good sets. I could not have predicted it all turning out this good, excellent work all around.

Baron von Bon Bon is a real achievement for you Lex. This set is a massive step up from your previous submissions and I want to put in the right context as it has been a decent chunk of time since it came out. Besides Anaxa, this set and its minion-based playstyle is one of your most important sets for progression. It's an ambitious set from the outset and a well balanced one. I look back to Eggman Mania, is practically the unofficial remix of that set given it takes all its issues and rebuffs them entirely. It proves that your talent as a set writer. There's nothing at all in this set that would tell you it's by the guy who did Eggman Mania (though I do want to see that preview finished, it's fairly eggsellent).

First of all, I like the simplicity of the candy floss status effect and slow, this was passed around the chat to triple check the balance. It's not a huge part of the playstyle, but it works well into her minions and spacing game. I already said I took some inspiration from the up special in chat; it's very cool as an animation. The boulder is a cool rolling barrel/momentum mechanic. Those three moves set up and then make way for an absolutely great set of minions. They are all brimming with character and it's fitting how offended she gets upon their death too. If anything, this could've worked more into her moves, I'd love to see for example Baroness break her candy stick canes out of rage (she does do that in this move). I like that this is purely rage, not sympathy towards the death of minions. I very much enjoy the initial aesthetic of the move where she holds out a piece of candy, a bit like Pac-Man's fruit. Moves like this and fthrow have a fantastic sense of character and filling in what it must.

The minions are well detailed and you let them practically work as in the boss fight. This move has a surprising sense of balance giving a one minion at a time limit and useful alternate move when minions are out that still makes any sense to be used under this arbitrary limitation.

The standards are typical stuff, I did enjoy it overall. There's plenty to chew on here but it may have been able to be more cohesive with the specials. For example when the opponent is slowed, moves that check the opponent's approaches and giving the moves built-in weaknesses that a slow would universally help. These attacks may even qualify, like having a slower, lingering cane strike for foes dashing at Bon Bon. The standards don't describe the hitboxes themselves all that much. It could just be a sentence or two and it'd help these moves a good bit. What you have, the interactions, animations and fun effects, aren’t bad at all though don’t get me wrong, it could just be improved.

The smashes are some more strong stuff, I enjoyed the fsmash and usmash a lot, sensible logical picks for those attacks, while dsmash is fun playing around the minions' specific patterns. The aerials are largely similar to the standards though I kind of prefer them as they do talk about their basic functions a bit more. For example the quick uair, the important bair KO move, the pogo, these are all very useful utilities that give a better sense of how Baroness plays. And it's fun to imagine these moves, definitely helps to bring some clarity to the frantic and crazy playstyle at work. The grab game is surprisingly good, the fthrow is pretty great, especially Muffinski's piledriver. I strongly wish every minion had a unique throw like that, maybe in a future set of yours. The other three throws aren't nearly as good, but they're fine.

This was almost an in-depth move-by-move analysis, but I felt it was earned for this set to give more of my thoughts on it, as it feels like a big step forward from Eggman Mania. I definitely enjoyed the set, though it's not flawless, and there's plenty of more room to grow. The character comes off most strongly as a nutty character where the foe doesn't know what to expect next, and even Bon Bon herself isn't particularly in control of things, seen most directly in having to play around her crazy court. It's a fun and authentic take on the character that's hard to see beaten. Very cool set, Lex.

Minimalist Jay is an interesting experiment, but I'm sure it's no shock to you this is a very bad moveset. It's not really aiming to be a good moveset though. I didn't really "get it" until near the end of the set where it then clicked what's the point of this set and it's not the worst highly experimental set I've read. In fact I'd welcome more of these as purely a bit of fun, this was a casual read and it's not as if it's broken or unworkable, just a very gimmicky, very simple set. It reminds me of such ancient gimmicky sets as Rool's caterpie or the various twist sets of Junahu. It's bad but pretty inoffensive and if you want to post more, it'd be a welcome addition even if it's not something I'd vote to the top fifty.

Oh yeah, I technically own Skull Girls. I bought it at a high price a long time ago. Peacock is the first Skull Girls set I believe I have read. One thing I'd suggest first of all is to add some images because I'd like to see what George looks like without googling his design, as well as other stuff. You don't even describe him after going to such great lengths as describing the neutral special firing random baseballs, which was entertaining to visualize. The hilarious part where George rides a go-kart is alone worth reading the set.

I can't help but feel like somewhere in the specials, you could've done something with the minions, projectiles and the portals on the up special, though it would go against the original SG playstyle I suppose. The down special is pretty amazing visually but where are the images here? I'd like to see Lenny and this Dio inspired steamroller. I found it a bit confusing that the steamroller always pitfalls and doesn't describe what happens if it hits in the air. In fact, it’s all a little under detailed, there should be descriptions for the down special objects’ dimensions or the way minions are batted around that’s talked about later.

I'm not a fan of the combo system on the standards and the moves here aren't all that creative in lieu of these flashy concepts. The combos are awkward too as they arbitrarily always combo when the moves themselves seem very hard to imagine comboing into the utilt laser as one example. The combo rules of needing to use only one standard move per combo is strangely arbitrary too. This has to be a reference to Skull Girls' fighting system and while I respect that it’s not a good way to interpret the combos. The smashes are decent, though it should be a cardinal sin how you didn't somehow make use of the down special and down smash. Just imagine dropping one of those objects on the floorboard and turning Peacock into a hitbox as she's launched up! In the least, these moves do have some flair to them, just not much flow.

I'm not sure I like the grab dropping the burlap sack, and hear me out why. Just imagine how weird this would look if outside players attack Peacock or the sack and the usual rules of grabs/grabbed characters apply. The knockback resistance alone would look strange. She should just hold the sack for her grab state. The grab game seems pretty rushed. It's a shame as this set is for an apparently hyper creative character. Peacock has some major issues with flow and forces a few bad ideas, like the combos. I did like moves that emphasized her character though like the nair, the down, neutral and side special, but it's definitely got a lot of baggage. I’d love to see another go at this at a later date.

I know Muno said to read Jaina but I decided to go back and read Valerie first. This is another Fantasy Strike set that goes for a “watered down” approach and in this case it’s for the whole mechanic of shields and shield breaks. The paint-break is original to make up an entirely new form of shield break. The set focuses on shields without doing what most sets of this genre do and focus on a shield break. Valerie opts to focus on shield pressure and building up to this paint-break. It’s definitely both smarter and makes for a deeper, graceful playstyle.

The set is largely very competent at the shield pressure part of the playstyle, it’s impressive how you manage to reference the way shields work in this many ways. There’s a ton of little tricks used that concern conditioning or taking advantage of the ways shield works, as in your best sets this has all the necessary Smash 4 knowledge to make the most of such a mechanic. The style of the set hinges on this as if you removed some of these details, some of which are entirely arbitrary additions like the grab going through hitstun, the set would fall very flat. What’s more this set’s core mechanic is a necessity to Valerie and not as much of a straight port as far as I can tell compared to DeGrey, a wise choice.

The balance in this set is also good. Valerie is a lightweight glass cannon and this is not too common an archetype in MYM. You manage to give her plenty of strong KO options and far more depth than most characters like that in Smash 4. The one area I felt wasn’t so great was all the moves, such as the dthrow, fthrow and side/neutral special’s Sakurai angle knockback, that put the foe in a disadvantage state. Her auto-cancelling on bair/dair is bordering on overtuned. It’s not all that bad to give her so much pressure, but especially at low percents she’d have a really good advantage state on top of all the shield pressure. I guess it’s arguable whether that’s just the nature of such a figuratively momentum based character, but those are also simply not that fascinating of effects. For me I wanted another more direct mechanic on a move like down smash. In the end it’s a pretty good set, has a great consistency, and is another strong submission from you Muno, so I can’t complain. Good job.

 

[Bionichute]

Baby Green Gold Cat Luigi
First, I should say that I have kind of a big bias against the character for years of dumb fan stuff, but I'll judge this set on its own merits... Unfortunately, I have to agree with FA on this one, it's not very good. Though, I probably don't dislike it as much as he does. The set is basically just Luigi's (OR EITHER MARIO'S) set with some minor alterations and an added gimmick, which I'll get to in a moment. There's enough to differentiate it from Luigi... but not really enough to make it stand on its own. Most attacks have the same, or very similar animations, and most hitboxes tend to be the same as well.

The thing that sort of makes it all new is the electricity gimmick, which... exists. Electrifying enemies is alright, but its very flimsy and doesn't actually do that much. The most unique thing is that certain attacks have a slight magnetic pull on electrified enemies, but its implied to be weak, so I don't see the point that much.

I think the concept of this is flawed. As much as this plays into the joke about Mr. L's identity, it honestly would be better to do something completely original for him rather than just make him so... boring. FA had the right idea, you really should have figured out how to put Brobot somewhere in the actual moveset instead of just the Final Smash. Overall, this was just kind of a very boring read.


Cuphead Minus His Pal Mugman
This set's pretty alright. I don't have an incredible amount to say about it, but the biggest compliment is definitely to the NSpec, which has a lot of fun things to it. I actually think the randomization is a neat concept, though it obviously has flaws, but its fun to have to change up your style every so often. A lot of the animations are good, especially during the Grab Game section, which is probably where the cartoony-ness is best. FSmash is also a fun move, though obviously a bit weird since you don't expect Cuphead to punch people.

My complaints mostly come in from how the Parry system is described. How it's described leaves it a bit up in the air as to how the animations would actually look regarding all of it. The Parry system itself is fine, but the main attack itself isn't that especially detailed in how it animates. Also, I found it a bit weird how many attacks had Cuphead using his Unidentifiable Head Liquid. I mean, it works, but it just feels a bit strange.

While still not a particularly compelling read, it does have more to it than Mr. L does, which overall makes it more worthwhile. Overall, pretty good.


Not-Really-Good-But-Not-Bad-Either Rats
I don't have a lot to say about Junkrat. He's one of those mediocre sets that comes along where I don't hate it, but I don't like it either. The last time I remember feeling this indifferent about a set was Trevenant. I like a lot of the concepts in Junkrat, like the momentum based aerials, and especially his trickier specials, but the set kind of falls off a third of the way through, where attacks become less interesting.

They still have a POINT, but none of them are nearly as fun as the first six moves. They fill certain purposes in his playstyle, but I really would have liked it better if you went with some stranger things, Muno. The hair fire Smash is close, but by that point I was feeling a bit numb to the set. I can't say I disliked the set either, but it was, you know, just kinda there.


Well Jay, What Did You Think Of...
I don't really know how to talk about Minimalist Jay. Me and Lex have talked about how to do a full Jay set, and to be honest, this could easily fit into that vision. This feels less like a full set and more like... a preview for something. It doesn't cover most of its mechanics, and that's definitely an issue... but that's also what it was going for. It's just kind of a confusing set, probably the most experimental one I've seen. All I can really say is... I hope you come up with an actual Jay set, Lex. If you build upon it like we've talked about, it could turn into something great, I feel.


Getting Piggy With It
Pigma gets a lot of good out of a character with barely anything to him. While the specials start out as basically a pastiche on the standard Spacimals format, it quickly turns into this fun, unique, rule breaking set. Pigma is primarily trap based, due to him not really being that physically fit, and that comes in the form of fun weapons based on his weird Assault boss fight.

The melee game is fun too, though I felt the Dash Attack threw a few too many insults towards Dedede. It was funny once, not so much the 4th time. Though, as much as I would have enjoyed this set more, an issue I've mentioned previous comes up: The writing. Smady's writing tends to get a bit impenetrable at points, and the DSpec has a major writing issue that makes it sound like there's some kind of paradox, even though there really isn't. Some attacks also drag a bit, and quality gets a bit weaker during the Aerials and Grabs. Overall, a good set with a few quirks that prevent it from being great.


The Smady Set By Smady
Another Smady set, yay! This one is for FANG, and it is also pretty good. I put this higher than Pigma, mostly for the fact that it isn't nearly as "confused" as Pigma is, in the writing style at least. A lot of FANG's stuff is explained decently, and quickly, while still remaining very unique. In fact, that's part of my positives, just how weird the set is.

FANG has a few standard things, like a poison status effect, which you see pretty often in characters like this. However, FANG goes a bit further by doing more bizarre things like the poison goo blob on the pummel, which can interact with the other throws in fun ways, and the windbox poison smoke clouds. No joke, I had to double check what that move did when it ended up being referenced a bit later on, it's explained well but its fairly strange how it works nonetheless.

One complaint is that, aside from this aerials being fairly weak, it doesn't really get much personality off for the character. It is, by what I can tell, a direct translation of his SFV set, with added props. I can't really tell you what kind of character FANG is, other than perhaps being a bit eccentric. This is the one thing I feel it doesn't do as well as Pigma, but it's just a minor blemish.


UCHU KITAAAAAAA
A lot of characterization and some good ideas can go a really long way. Anaxa's main selling point is definitely the animations and characterization, with Lex putting an in-character quote at the end of each attack in order to give her that kinda spacey vibe. The implications throughout the set of her character are genuinely interesting and a bit creepy. There's enough here to suck you into the character, and I could definitely see her being very popular.

Of course, characterization can't hold the entire set up, which is why the set has some fun, albeit very simple, mechanics. The galaxies aren't especially mindblowing, but there's a lot of fun things to gain from them. This is supposed to be inspired by Rival of Aether, and it really does come across as a character that could fit into that game very well.

The main problems of the set are, obviously, that the mecahnics are fairly simple. The set is short, so it doesn't have a lot of time to get into more advanced things, but it works for what it is. Something I specifically didn't like was that the actual move descriptions went into strange asides at points, which distracted me a bit. I get what you were going for, just bothered me.


Emmy Award Winning Mini-Series Roots
Actually managing to get the Root Pack out at all was definitely an impressive feat, even if it required two people to do. The way its handled is definitely a fun way to do it, functioning a bit like a Hugo set, except not as terrible. The shared telepathic communication animation is, honestly, a really clever idea, and adds a lot to the set. The specials and smashes are, while short, very good and creative, getting off a decent playstyle.

However, everything after that is... a bit iffy. While I can get having Psycarrot be the only one to get attacks off in the air, since the others are grounded, there's no excuse to why only one of his standards involves the other members of the pack. You have a character like this, and you don't have a throw where all of them gang up to beat up the opponent? Really?

This isn't to say these are even bad, but they mostly fall into average and are a far cry from what I feel the set could have been. I suppose that's what happens when you need to meet a tough deadline and have to rush things, but this was a very clear detriment to what could have been a stand-out set.


So Is She A Kabula Reference Or
Hilda Berg is... meeh. Being one of Lex's earlier sets, and him showing a definite improvement shortly after, kind of negates any helpful criticisms, since he's already improved. But that still doesn't mean this set is good. It's kind of a mish-mash of ideas, none of which really end up coalescing into a coherent playstyle. There's not much substance to the set either, as its very short. A lot of the animations feel weird, and some of the attack effects aren't really well explained.

I DO really like the twister move, at least in concept. You could have easily built the entire set around the twister and the many interactions you could have gotten from it. Other than that, there's not much good to say... but not much bad, either, it's just a thoroughly bottom-tier set.


This Killed A Movement, Lex
Gonna be honest, I mostly just skimmed Mania Eggman. Partly because I know its your second FOURTH set, but mostly because I realized that it's not even really that much of a set. It's mostly just describing a bunch of enemies for a potential Story Mode level, rather than actually being a set for Eggman. The actual moves Eggman gets are underwhelming, and I'd argue this has even less playstyle to it than Jestro, though it at least isn't as horrendously imbalanced. Like with Hilda Berg, I can't really offer any insightful critiques, this time even less so since you've stated on re-doing this set in the future.

 

[Smady]

I forgot what Doc To was before I came back to read it, and I was pleasantly surprised about this set. I doubt I even saw the design it's based on before which is one of the most fun designs you've done and the set is fairly creative as far as animations go. The set's not very inspired and it's simplistic, but there's nothing massively flawed. The mechanic is appropriately simple and makes for some fun on/off type hitboxes/attacks. Jeff adds just enough depth to the specials and the way moves like up smash works that the set isn't completely devoid of playstyle. The balance of this set is probably on the low tier end of the spectrum due to his poor grab range and reliance on Jeff to have a good recovery and get over his slow moves. It makes sense given he's a super heavyweight and has this mechanic to give him a constant potential disjointed hitbox or secondary hitbox, so at worst, it's still viable in Smash 4. Mostly I appreciate this for its creative animations and strong sense of character, it might be my favourite 5k set honestly, yes even over your own Iris. You've obviously contributed the most to my whole 5k/10k idea and I'm extremely grateful for all your contributions.

I did read Cagney Carnation a long time ago when it came out and I never did comment it, at best I gave my thoughts in the chat. This set is mostly inconsistent and has some fun ideas, but can be very awkward in how it implements those ideas. The main thing that keeps it from being frankly good is that what good it does accomplish it largely ignores, when it could've settled for a simpler execution and taken advantage of its ambitious minions or something as straightforward as its counter. Cagney's playstyle is somewhat random but the best way it can be summarized is that Cagney has a lot of set up, traps, minions and props/objects but he's not a set up, trap, minion or prop/object character. This would be alright if it all added up to a unique experience or playstyle but the set is held back by aforementioned awkwardness.

For example the side special which functions as a trap but also gives Cagney extra speed. Ignoring the logic of this which is fine, what does this really do for Cagney's playstyle? It just layers on more speed generically to his movement and that's about it. What about his dash attack, or options useable out of his dash? There could even be a direct interaction based off being in or out of the vines. You could've made some connection out of the fact you could dash in or out of vines. There is one attack that comes out of being the vines but it's not referenced later, it doesn't seem particularly useful and it's largely insignificant. There's something missing in a lot of moves like that where I'm failing to see the point.

Other moves are also just awkward for the input such as forward tilt. This is not very fitting on ftilt, though it'd be alright if not for the effect it has as a hitbox. A projectile on ftilt is okay but one that never does any knockback and instead gives a weird effect? That's very awkward. Functionally speaking it means that Cagney has effectively got no ftilt and is that much weaker as a melee character. I also just generally dislike the way you interpreted his effect from Cuphead. Another tilt I felt this way about was dtilt, the animation is creative but I wouldn't say it's especially playstyle relevant. Okay so this gives him a good shield poke move... does Cagney have a relevant shield game? Maybe if the minions were designed for shield pressure. I would be absolutely fine if you went that route, it could be spun as Cagney breaking down the opponent with a sustained plethora of hitboxes. It's also kind of wacky how the up smash functions mostly to create set up, the hitbox is largely irrelevant.

You've contributed a lot to the community recently, I do appreciate your sets and want you to succeed. I simply want you to focus on a handful of specific elements in your sets and specialize them rather than painting in these broad strokes. You also just need some more general Smash 4 knowledge, like for any given input what's a low or high end for balance. Just compare your mechanics to another existing Smash 4 move instead of making them as UP as Cagney's ftilt or Cortex's Hoverboard. I think if you read a set like Grimm Matchstick by Warlord, you'd see what I mean as far as focus. In any case, I look forward to your future sets and hope this comment is helpful.

Hilda Berg is another set I waited forever to comment on. (Is it just me or is the first image broken?) This set is pretty good I feel, if very heavy on interactions, this set was similar to Bon Bon in that it benefitted a ton from previewing in the chat so the balance and interactions are on point. Hilda's basically a wind elementalist and hits all the marks you'd expect in that regard, although it could certainly be a lot better if it was more aware of its own playstyle. For example just a theme of air-to-air combat in the aerials, or some more aerial focus in general would've helped. The grab game is by far the weakest section and it's unfortunately a good measure worse than the rest of the set.

The more general way you could improve your sets is just to have some of these mechanics built into the way the set works rather than introducing them later. This is usually fine just because these weapons or attacks only pop up a couple times, but could be better. For example if instead of just arrows popping he blimps, they had friendly fire on and then she could purposefully blow them up, like Pigma's "hot potato" moves, that'd lead to more genuine depth. Then on moves like the throws you could talk about things like the way the throw hits the foe into the blimps or turns them into a hitbox while thrown, it just naturally leads into interesting possibilities. Moves like fsmash where Hilda turns into the Taurus are awesome because it stands best on its own as a move and is a great visual. Of course self damage and minions is my wheel house and you may have your own, I'd in no way recommend doing that on every set, but I hope that gives some general idea of what I mean. Anaxa did this well so I have faith you've already moved on to greater things anyway, and I commend you for all your Cuphead contributions Lex!

Ziz was certainly a nice surprise, even before the other two sets came raining down like mana from Heaven. There's something about this set's theme of vengeance and spite that's oddly poignant given it's one of your last sets, which I still hope isn't the case. This set has an interesting take on using its own percent like the Rage mechanic does to buff its moves, while having a lot of seesaw balance. While some moves may seem powerful when buffed they end up wrangling Ziz into a forced flow chart of sorts, making her more predictable at the same time as she's got all this natural pressure from her own percent to contend with. Eventually all this pressure will lead her to fall or fly, so to speak.

This set has a lot of imaginative and creative animations. In essence this is a Kat OC. The power set of Ziz is essentially an edgy magic archer who can create "dark" explosions, flap her wings and has a vast swath of projectiles. The central projectile is clearly the neutral special although each additional projectile does carve out its own niché. The fsmash has an interesting weak homing or "digging" effect to distinguish it and the ftilt is an extremely relevant windbox on her own projectiles. The use of suction in the aerials was pretty inspired too I thought, the grab game being no slouch in its inventive suicide throw and voodoo tether. The only move I disliked in concept was the bair for obvious reasons.

The up special anti-KO effect and the potential for Ziz to get really nasty gave me nostalgia for your legendary Fibrizo set. Ziz pushes the boundaries in terms of balance, but not to the point she feels broken or like a boss. This balance is largely correct for a glass cannon. Even the side special that KOs at 50%, that's pretty freaking earned if you survived to 200% at 1.5 weight. The up special effect might need some more downsides considering its strength, and maybe a stronger visual too, however on a 1.5 weight character is easier to justify. The only other thing I wasn't sure on was the pummel's ability to share grab difficulty with the foe, it probably needs to be part of the pummel landing itself, though you're right that Robin's grab does justify an effect this strong, it's so poor. The grab game in general is really enjoyable in how strong it is and justifying it by the grab's own weakness. Ziz is largely uninhibited and full of flair both in balance and conceptually, I frankly did not expect another set of yours to be so good after Ghostface. This set proves you can still put out sets to compete with the big dogs of MYM. If this is the end, what an excellent way to cap out your MYM career.

Mr. L is a divisive set and I can see why, this set is oddly specific in how it characterizes Mr. L and isn't what I expected. Personally I would have put in the Brobot mechanics into the set, okay you don't want to pollute a largely melee set and what is based more on the first boss fight, I can respect that. However you choose to instead focus on Mr. L's electricity, something he doesn't do but is largely a thing Luigi does, though not the main Luigi, specifically the M&L RPG Luigi. I get that Mr. L is nicknamed The Green Thunder, but he doesn't technically have the ability to use electricity-based powers, so it's a surprising angle to say the least. What's more odd is that Mr. L has access to magnetism which I don't think is a thing done by Luigi at any point. The magnetism is the flashiest part of Mr. L's core set too, when there is anything he does that isn't in the set from his first boss fight.

I can see where you're coming from though, this set is your idea of Mr. L, and Mr. L is not an especially well established character in Super Paper Mario. I honestly hadn't thought of Mr. L as a character in years and he's not really utilized all that well, which is why when I thought about it, I'd personally do the Brobot route, but that's not what you thought was the defining part of Mr. L. Where it got really strange is that Mr. L basically reclones his set to be highly similar to Mario/Doc. I was hoping in moves like dash attack, you'd give some flavour text to how Mr. L no longer has that hesitance about his attacks' animations. There's a sort of wacky flavour to Luigi's set that isn't really addressed here. Mr. L has some of Luigi's dorkier moves like his flutter jump from NSMB/Smash 4 at the same time as having electricity elementalism. So in general, I thought the set felt more of a general Luigi remix than Mr. L. A bit like Dark Pit in Smash 4 much of the SPM material comes in the form of the final smash, which is well done, but it's a bit late to leave all the stuff referencing Mr. L. In the least there is the Shroom Shake and the spin he does (that could've at least been down special) for direct material.

After all of that, I haven't really described the set itself all that much. Well, this set is not bad, but it largely feels like a retread of Mario, Luigi and Dr. Mario's sets. It's somewhat interesting the way you rearrange the moves and Mr. L despite sharing many of the same moves definitely would not play like those other 3, despite having many of the same moves. The main thing he has that's entirely different is the ability to magnetize foes in, and even that is a little vague. It'd be one thing if every move was like the down smash and had a new animation but slapping on magnetism to a Mario or Doc move is weird. It's basically how I'd imagine you'd mod Luigi to be more fun or cooler for you. I don't know if many people would really get this set though if it was widely available. What keeps me from liking it is that unlike a declone like Wolf, this feels like a step back from Luigi's unique set and Wolf has a lot of personality on his set. Mr. L I never got a sense this is Luigi with more confidence, Lion's courage or just the same old Luigi with more delusions of grandeur. I don't get the characterization and maybe that's because it's the kind of character you're meant to understand from playing the set yourself or in the past from a playstyle section, but it's sorely missing from the set.

Grim Matchstick (by Warlord) might be your most surprising set this contest, did not expect this character out of you. Reading it though, I can see why, you clearly had a concept you wanted to try in the multiple heads and it's awesome to see in practice. It couldn't be more direct as one of those old sets that ignored any semblance of balance and just went crazy using multiple attacks at once. What keeps this set at bay is the simple fact he's a giant hurtbox the entire time he can use multiple attacks and everything about summoning the hydras is laggy. It's honestly a little seesaw-y as I'm not sure Grim is going to hold his own against some of the combo characters in Smash 4, but he does have his own fairly powerful tools for that, like his intangible down smash and super armoured back/down aerial. In fact, Grim's minions are really up there for power, given the amount he creates and moves like nair creating so many at once as hitboxes. What's always a counter-balance that you acknowledge in moves like bair is Grim's size is very awkward and his coverage gives him many blind spots. So it's hard to place where he'd go in the tier list, I'd say it'd depend on the match up, but the balance is largely well done.

The set has a lot of imagination when it comes to using his head in extreme ways. The way he can mix up the order of his heads in the fsmash or the parade of lowering heads in usmash is particularly deep. I'm impressed how far you waded into the mechanic for a lot of the moves. The fsmash is easily my favourite move. I don't often see you make use of the pocket or projectile absorber concept and it was cool to see you touch upon it in the dthrow and fsmash, particularly the fsmash did some fun mix ups with the concept. I did find a few interactions a little redundant, like the up tilt tangling and the bair arbitrarily changing to be a stronger move. I also think this is the one set in the fair to interpret any character as being able to parry the pink projectiles in a Cuphead set. It's not too bad, just weird to introduce on a fair. This makes the fair a huge part of his mix ups as you describe in the move. If I was going to single out one section I thought was a somewhat awkward the aerials felt a little too projectile heavy and give little overall hurtbox coverage, so ironically Grim seems more vulnerable in the air than grounded, at least at close range.

Overall though, I definitely liked this set a good deal, and of the 10k sets specifically I think I like this one the most. Maybe it helps that it was never intended to be 10k in the first place. This set has a lot of fun ideas with the hydra heads and the minions are well characterized lemmings. The balance is pretty unorthodox but I'd say it works, Grimm is a wonky character who relies on a few gimmicks, and has no shortage on intangibility, super armour and projectiles. This is then balanced by his size and close range weakness/awkward hitboxes. Chalk this one up as another big success.

 

[IvanQuote]

So comments I guess:

Spoiler: Color TV Game-15

I am really amazed with this one in that you went so far with this concept. The concept in itself is so crazy that it is fun to read. I wish to rate it highly, but the limitedness of both the character and the scant amount of details in most moves limit my placement of this one.

Spoiler: Captain Metal

As he's my favorite character from the series, I'm always a sucker for anything involving Metal Sonic. In particular, I love how such an obscure version of him is being represented here. As far as sets go, I am also a huge sucker for diction tics. Between that and the good attack descriptions, this will surely rank high on my list.

Spoiler: Recoome

Recoome was a blast to read with integrating the bravado mechanics. Incorporating taunting and showboating into the moveset for practical purposes is perfect for such a silly character like Recoome. Even so, I’m slightly wary of the terraforming mechanic. I know it is only temporary, but the implications of all the craters, especially when considering that even the smallest height differences make some members of the community flip on stages (Duck Hunt, Town & City upper border, Umbra Clock Tower dip, etc) creating such large divots sounds a bit powerful.

Spoiler: Iris

Always happy to see OC characters. That can bring out the creativity in a character, not being held back by other series' limits. Iris I’m sort of mixed. On one hand as a scientifically oriented person I like the light and wavelength powers, along with the prism play. The different prism powers interacting with the moves in different ways is On the other, the word limit holds it back unfortunately. That is my main complaint though, lacking detail. Still love the concept

Spoiler: Baroness von Bon Bon

Baroness von Bon Bon was really enjoyable to read due to the writing flourishes he added. Easily one of my favorite sets. Normally I'm not a fan of minion heavy sets too much since they tend to feel bloated, but this one felt good. Not to mention, the main thing I've been looking for in Cuphead sets is the usage of crazy cartoon physics all throughout the moveset, and this did just that.

Spoiler: Snoke

The pain meter is rather interesting. In general it reminds me of a highly rated Lightsabre-less Yoda set I read when first getting into MYM, what with being restrained with more realistic force moves. Also the Mind Link aspect with vicarious guard massochism is pretty good; not my favorite version of this element but still good.

Spoiler: F.A.N.G.

FANG is complicated for me. There are so many aspects I really love for the set. I do really like the .gifs showcasing every move; having a lot of pictures like that makes the set look professional. The wonky moves that FANG can do through contorting his body is all sorts of unnatural angles also add to the set's charm. The poison aspect is also pretty interesting too...up to a point. The poison integrated to some aspects of FANG, particularly with the tricky poison hadoken angle variations is clever. Being frank, I might have been willing to give this set a Super Vote. At the risk of making another Yangus Incident, there is one aspect that completely damns the set for me: Toxic Focus. Specifically, the instant death. On its own, I don't have too much of a problem after rereading. The instant death threshold is at pretty needless percentages to the point where KO'ing sooner is all but better to execute. The toxic stacking is what turns the move from a flashy-yet wholly unnecessary way to kill enemies to more intrusive. At full charge would activate the effect at 50% for Jigglypuff and 150% for Bowser. Given that Smash has more light-mid weight characters than heavy characters (to the point where Mario is technically bordering on heavyweight), this threshold for a large majority of characters would be lower than that of Bayonetta's Final Smash, which is in a grade of attacks purposely designed to be broken. I do love most of the set, but unfortunately with this one aspect I wouldn't rate it higher than a weak vote.

Spoiler: Medea

I really loved the Medea set, and not only because of my love for Fate/0. The rule breaking special she has is absolutely ingenious especially with all of the double edged sword effects she can put in. Pretty cool overall.

Spoiler: Anaxa

On a side note, please don't look up Madame Broode on Google Images x_x. Not too familiar with RoA, but this seems like a character that would fit in. That aside, her eldritch powers, particularly her...limp animations and captains logs make this set delightfully creepy to read. The charm of that makes it really cool to read. As I've mentioned many times before, I love personality put into the diction of sets. The main complaint I can think of is that some of the moves are light on description on how the move works into the set.

Spoiler: Capn. Brineybeard

Another exemplary Cuphead set. I didn't go into it expecting too much, but the cartoonish animations are fantastic. The variety given truly capture the old cartoon essence of Cuphead. In particular I love the Pegleg attack, projectile, and recovery.

 

[Bionichute]

Spoiler: Previews

Here's a little something for you guys.

 

[FrozenRoy]

Made some small changes to Grave to address what Smady said, specifically it now gives a slight suggestion of the wind's strength and said what happens when multiple Graves try to summon wind in a game.

 

[Bionichute]

Most Likely Smash 5 Retro Newcomer
Pong kinda sucks. This is obviously meant to be sort of a joke, but there's no humor in it besides surface level stuff, kind of like with PTE Aku. The animations all come off as, to be honest, lazy, even for a character with such limiting properties. The set is weirdly OP in some ways, like in the Specials, with the infinite recovery NSpec and the weird counter. Passively reflecting every projectile is also pretty bad as well. But Pong is also incredibly UP as well, with every attack doing measly damage. It's bizarre, and not in a fun way. Definitely would be easy to program into the game, though.


Is This Really The Best Name You Could Come Up With Muno
Iris is definitely a 5k set. Sorry, but I don't have a whole lot to say about it. The actual concept of some of these moves are interesting, at least mechanics wise. Creating a prop that adds different effects to most moves based on a color is a fun idea, but the problem is that the rest of the set is so... boring. This and Hee-mo are basically sister sets, but Hee-mo actually kind of has an interesting design and good animations. Iris is just... well, to put it bluntly, a typical OC.

There's stuff here that works, and it's overall very well handled in creating an actual playstyle, but I just can't get anything out of it. On a different complaint, I feel that the Up/Side special recoveries don't actually seem like they'd work that great. An example of a use would be nice, but the set purposely limited itself. Basically, I can't call this a terrible set, just... not one for me.


Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
I actually really like a lot of what Balrog has going on, the EX meter mechanic is genuinely interesting, and mixing it with inputs is a very clever idea. It basically feels like an extension of Ryu's set in that way. The set itself is fairly good too, with a lot of interesting moves made even more mechanically interesting thanks to the meter's buffs. Both the normal version and the EX version are distinct enough, but not so different that the set drags them out.

However, the meter is also, in my own opinion, the set's biggest drawback. It might be based around the mechanics of Mac and Cloud, like you've said, Froy, but that doesn't stop me from feeling that the meter gain rate is a bit TOO small. I get keeping it like that for balance sake, but it also makes it feel kinda useless. Balrog is already strong enough, and his moves are plenty serviceable, you can probably ignore the meter outside of wanting to get in a free cancel every so often.

Like I said, I like the set, I just feel this is a bit of an issue in my eyes. There's also a few writing mistakes, like the USmash' lack of an animation descriptor, but those are fairly minor. Basically, I'd like this more if the meter just felt more... right to me.


Ken "OC" Penders
Scourge doesn't really have much to talk about. Its goal was to be a semi-clone for Sonic, and it is indeed a semi-clone for Sonic. I don't think that's really the best way of handling the character, but whatever. That's basically the set's biggest flaw, it does what it sets out to do, but that goal is also just really not that interesting. Its well detailed and such, but that's not much when a handful of moves are explicitly described as just being Sonic's.

Other, more specific, complaints I can call out are the really wonky UAir and the dumb FSmash. Easy shield breaking on a fast attack is very much not fun. I will say that the stunning aspects a lot of his moves have do fit the character fairly well. Also, almost every move is formatted in a giant green block of text, which is a bit of an eyesore. Overall, this set is just okay.

 

[Professor Lexicovermis]

The Grim Adventures of Warlord...

Grim Matchstick isn't one of the flashier bosses in Cuphead, as he relies on fairly simple, albeit effective, attacks. This set has done a fine job of translating that, with Grim trading spectacle for functionality. His specials are rather fun, with his Hydra mechanic being a very interesting way to translate his final phase. SSpec is also neat, allowing for some fun custom pathing of the fireballs. USpec and DSpec aren't too particularly complex, but they're nice and straightforward. The specials may not be the most complicated moves (outside of Hydra), but they're a fairly solid package.

The Smashes are fairly straightforward as well, with FSmash being a nasty projectile and DSmash being an armored flamethrower. The most complex Smash is USmash, and it has some very fun gameplay implications and a great animation. Grim's standards are also fun, if simple. Jab and FTilt are straightforward projectiles, with both having some nice little interactions on them. UTilt and DTilt are simply melee attacks, and there's nothing wrong with that; a big guy like Grim needs at least a few moves that are always reliable.

Grim's Grab Game is fun, with the ridiculous UThrow being fun to picture. FThrow and BThrow are also fun moves, and DThrow has a pretty interesting effect. Finally, Grim's Aerials round out a nice, solid moveset with some more reliable, straightforward attacks. The NAir animations cracked me up, imagining Grim's poor flame minions screaming in terror as they plummet onto the foe's head. It's also nice to see another boss translate the Parry mechanic, with his FAir being an interesting adaptation thereof. The BAir and DAir are both simple, strong moves, and UAir is also pretty simple.

Grim Matchstick is not a complicated set. This isn't a bad thing, though, as it's pretty true to his bossfight in the source, wherein he more relies on the sheer coverage of a small handful of attacks rather than bringing out more and more moves like Kahl and others. All in all, nice work, WL.

...and Peanut

Grim Matchstick is- wait, what? Indeed, we have another set for the draconic debtor! Much like Warlord's take, Peanut's Grim is a respectably solid set that puts function over form. Interestingly, this Grim uses a totally different take on the Hydra mechanic, mapping it to a USpec buff rather than an elaborate NSpec. To counterbalance this, this Grim has to focus on his multiple jumps and float to survive. NSpec is a very straightforward projectile, and SSpec produces two different, also straightforward projectiles. DSpec is a handy way to cover a lot of ground relatively quickly.

The standards are simple enough, being reliable attacks. I rather like the coughing flavor on Jab, feels good for the character. FTilt, UTilt, and DTilt are all perfectly serviceable moves as well. Grim's Smashes are all fun as well; I think the "cancel Smashes" on FSmash and USmash are rather interesting. DSmash is also interesting, with Grim being able to fine tune his aim a bit.

The Grab Game using his tail is a pretty fun idea that lends itself to interesting animations. I rather enjoyed the DThrow and BThrow. FThrow and UThrow aren't quite as flavorful, but are still nice throws. Finally, this Grim's Aerials are nice and solid. NAir's "fire veil" is a pretty neat mechanic, with UAir feeding it very easily. FAir, BAir, and DAir are all good and straightforward, making Grim's air game pretty decent.

Much like the other Grim, this set is not complicated. That's, again, not a bad thing, though. Sometimes it's nice to just have a set that lays out a character, lists some attacks, and paints a picture of a simple, yet effective fighter.

 

[Bionichute]

GinyuGreen
Guldo is probably one of the best sets I've read so far. It really shows Warlord's own creativity when it comes to set making, taking a character who has very little screentime and a fairly shallow ability pool, and then managing to make something out of it. Guldo has telekinetic powers and kinda-sorta time stopping powers, and he never really gets to show if he can actually do anything else in the series because he gets his head chopped off very early. Guldo in the set takes those telekinetic powers to some decent extremes, like freezing his own stone projectiles to create platforms, or pull opponents in for an aerial attack.

The set gets a lot out of Guldo's personality, a number of moves playing off his mix of cowardice and arrogance. Down Throw is an especially good example of this, and his pummel plays into it well too. Its hard to come up with anything that bad to say about it, aside from a few organizational hiccups I could name, and a few typos and such. Maybe I could talk a bit about the fatigue I experienced while reading it, but to be fair it took me three hours to read it, and I still liked it a lot.


GinyuBlue
Burter is a bit of an odd one. I actually don't like a whole lot of it...'s first two sections. The specials are all rather poorly explained, though all but the DSpec (IMO) have really interesting applications used throughout the rest of the set. The Smashes, on the other hand, are a bit more complicated. USmash, as I've made clear in the chat, is a move I think is trash, no matter how hard its defended. It adds nothing to the playstyle of the character, and is mostly just awkward. FSmash is fine, but not really that interesting. DSmash, however, is actually where I felt the set picked up.

Burter's Throws and Standards are actually all very good, and make some fun use out of the wind walking ability. The ability to use these abilities in the air actually does add more to his playstyle, and I actually really like the small amount of things involving the ki blasts. Outrunning your projectiles to do more things with them is honestly a really cool idea, but its underutilized compared to the tacky ground chunk. No, I won't let that go.

The other major flaws are that the aerials, by their nature, are very removed from the rest of the set, and as such are very much not as interesting or fun. The other, major flaw is actually really simple: There's no personality. I'm comparing this directly to Guldo, who has a ton of personality thrown in his set, which ultimately improves it. Burter desperately needs any kind of personality, which I know is hard to do thanks to his limited screentime, but anything would have been nice. Without that personality, the set doesn't have that specific hook that Guldo, and probably the other Ginyu members, have.


GinyuOrange
Looks like I was right about the other Ginyus having more personality than Burter, because Recoome is absolutely brimming with it. His boisterous personality is brimming throughout the entire set, and the level of inspiration rivals Guldo. I really like how the taunts actually work and are integral to his playstyle, and the NSpec is really good as well. I think I like Guldo slightly better overall, but mostly because his powers are more unique.

And even with this personality, Recoome falters a bit in terms of actual move variety. It is mostly punches and sch, and it really gets a bit daunting at the Throws, but that's mostly just aesthetics. They're all good moves, and function well in his playstyle, and at least most of them get some fun characterization bits for Recoome. I will admit, I was a bit worried when the terraforming came into play, especially after reading Burter, but it actually meant anything to the playstyle, and fits much better with the character.


GinyuViolet
Man, Ginyu was kind of a disappointment. I've talked about this extensively in the chat, but first, I'll cover what I like about it first, because there IS some significant positives. For one, characterization is really great, which also plays a lot into the second aspect I like, the minions. The minions are characterized pretty good as well, but their main point in the set is to act as fodder for Ginyu's own attacks. It really shows how much he doesn't really like these guys as much as the actual Ginyu Force. Most of Ginyu's other moves show off both his power, and his own serious-goofiness and egotism.

I really do want to state how much the minions are the best part of the set. The entire set could have JUST been them and Ginyu and it would have probably ranked incredibly high, but the entire set is dragged down immensely by the obligatory body swap gimmick, because a Ginyu set without one would be bad, I guess.

I hate the body swap and every mechanic surrounding it. It not only feels unbalanced, but is also, well, poorly written in the set itself. It comes off as an afterthought compared to everything else with how little detail it really gets. There's no actual details about how it works, mainly involving stuff like what happens after Ginyu gets KOed, or even elaborating on its limitations. Even with those, the main mechanics are unwieldy, with the opponent getting a worse version of Ginyu's own set in trade of... the opponent's set. He can't swap back into his own body, meaning that once this happens you're functionally not playing as Ginyu anymore.

I get the point of it all, but it just feels weird and the way its written does not help. But really, the main problem is that the body swap isn't locked behind something, like a meter. Having it on NSpec (AKA the move where a lot of people put main mechanic stuff in their sets, including actual Smash sets) also, design wise, would lead players to thinking that this is Ginyu's main way of fighting, which as Warlord has said, is not really the case. Its supposed to be an "option" but that either means you never use it, or you feel obliged to use it at some point because its in the set.

I WANTED to like Ginyu. And I like half the set, even with how much I dislike the main mechanic. I felt incredibly disappointed reading it, because all this potential was squandered entirely through a shoddy mechanic. And yes, I had less fun reading Burter, but at least Burter's mechanics aren't fundamentally broken or have massive amounts of logical flaws. Sorry, Warlord.


GinyuRed...?

 

[FrozenRoy]

Change of Plans: Voting will now begin on the 6th, and it will last for two weeks, until the 20th!​

It was originally going to be the 5th, but we flubbed posting it for a day, so now it is the 6th. Small edits will continue to be allowed until the 6th. Good luck reading and commenting, folks!

 

[Munomario777]

Since SWF has finally made a BIG change to its theming (and MYM20 is all done and dusted), I decided to go ahead and launch the next phase of MYM. So...

MYM21 is now live! Post your opening day sets guys!​

 

[Smady]

Brineybeard has some very cool moves in it like the fsmash but is let down by some bad core moves. I have not disliked a move by you as much as I dislike the up special in a long time. I hate literally everything about this move. The characterisation is very awkward as it's changing his entire character, AFAIK nothing in Cuphead points to him being a fake wannabe pirate. What's that about? The concept of peg legs is putting it lightly a strange idea to make a core part of the set and reminds me of Goronu's down special in terms of arbitrary stat changes as a transformation, only in this case there was no need to include this move. The balance of the move is very wonky to try and counter-balance that a couple of wooden peg legs falling deals 15% and a powerful spike. I assume he doesn't stall in midair to put on new peg legs so all that extra start lag makes it sound terribly useless. The last bit and part that I frankly hate is the entire ink mechanic introduced on this move.

The ink plays into the focus on lockdown. Lockdown should never be the point, it should try to serve something else, it’s not far off from stun when it’s stacked together. This reminds me of some of your ancient sets like Gruesome Twosome. The playstyle is based around sticking lots of objects to the foe that they have to hit off (like the GT bed sheets). That's just one part of his lockdown as the dogfish's collars, anchor tether, homing effect throw and everything about the ink all have lockdown elements too. The barrels and his many projectiles/disjoints together with his legitimate lockdown get him close to having undodgeable hitboxes in a hypothetical match where all his set up is in play. All he's missing is a move that hits dodging foes to put the OP in One Piece. Ultimately the playstyle boils down to landing as many of these elements at once as possible so the foe is fighting the lockdown rather than you. Though the barrels are a part of this and I dislike the lockdown aspects, the barrels themselves are done well, probably my favourite part of the set outside of the fsmash. The other thing I dislike a lot about the set however is how it’s unfocused. As one example the water from the barrels is only mentioned a couple times and doesn't really seem relevant to the playstyle. The fire/gunpowder is almost completely pointless. I guess it's nice it's there, but you probably could have thought of something to make a generic fire hitbox here or there like a spark from slashing his various props together, even if it's only there to interact with his gunpowder. There are just a lot of random concepts here that are barely addressed.

If the set focused on what it did well, like the fsmash and barrels, it would be a huge improvement. Not only is the ink annoying lockdown where you have to hit away all this trash, it's pretty tacky too. Ink is apparently a form of super glue according to this set and you can stick peg legs, a dogfish, a squid and a harpoon to a foe, potentially all at the same time, if not on the same ink blot. If you want a compromise, at least rework it so these only can happen once at a time or make these deeper interactions rather than just sticking to the foe. Not to mention, it is extremely odd that this character's core is the fact he is not actually a pirate and sticks people to objects using his squid's ink. I know that one line in up special is a joke but it doesn’t come across as one when he then immediately does what you joked about.

On the good side of things, this set has a very fun fsmash, I felt the ways the shark ate up all the set up was pretty creative and should've really been the focus. The aerials and standards were easily the best sections. The fair harpoon seems very overtuned much in the same way as that one Morgan barrel move but that's easy to fix as it was in Morgan, just make it go less far, or not hit the foe downwards, that's a very powerful gimp. The peg legs are a drag on moves like nair and dair but those moves are fine outside of that. The bthrow is worth elevation if not in this set then a new one. If you dialed back all the worst parts this set could at least be decent. As much as I dislike the peg legs, that's mostly the ink and if you changed/removed it that would be a massive improvement. Needless to say, this is a blemish on an otherwise great contest.

Cala Maria was sadly far from your best, this set is clearly extremely rushed and has little substance. The few times it’s trying, it’s simply tacking on water or petrification interactions. On a simple playstyle level the set could’ve learnt some lessons from my Ladja set where he has a couple of moves that take advantage of the foe’s stone status effect. In my set Ladja’s up aerial had a wind hitbox and base knockback that the stone effect naturally countered making it a better combo move, as it would usually hit the foe too far to hit multiple times. I’m not saying Ladja is amazing or anything, but that’s more thought than was put into the playstyle of Cala Maria. The set has some half decent animations at times; I thought some of the water interactions were alright. Thing is it started off okay and dwindled into mediocrity. The grab game is quite uninspired and a bad way to cap off the set. Oh well, you still contributed a lot this contest, so I can definitely understand why this set didn’t turn out great.

I was not prepared for the insanity that is Rumor. Words cannot do justice to how truly bizarre this set is from the core premise to the execution to the incredibly tacky out-of-character moves. I can ever see why you’d make only her head playable. Where you went too far is having her headless body randomly in the background, not nearly described in satisfying enough detail, and you basically play as two floating hands… hands that turn into feet when she dashes. Yeah this set is quite a trippy experience. Some sets I go through and I quickly forget each move, this is not that case, this set has it all, hilarious moves, generic moves and obvious filler.

So in the beginning you have some perfectly fine moves in the bullet bill and triangle/oval projectiles. These don’t really lead anywhere but it’s a fine projectile couplet to give to Rumor, it’s alright. The minion is a bit OP given the start lag sounds vaguely fast. But it’s passable. Where the set immediately gets into some sketchy territory is the weird up special where the hands reel in the head by the chain. The mechanics aren’t too bad for a physics-based recovery but it’s such a bizarre visual of the hands roping in Rumor. So much about this set is abstract like that, just completely ignoring that Rumor is a disembodied head and largely, the background body is not relevant. It comes into play in the down throw but that’s about it really. The set should’ve obviously just been for Rumor’s head by itself maybe summoning a couple hands for moves but not doing the insanely tacky things the set goes on to do using the hands.

The problem with the way this set treats Rumor is it’s largely out-of-character. Rumor is a proud queen bee, she would not dribble her head around, slap it around on a paddle, or do half the stuff present in this set. The one phase she does the “head on a chain” thing is where she just abuses this to lower herself to the bottom of the screen to safely flood the screen full of projectiles. There’s never any indication that Rumor could or would use her own head as a battering ram or weapon. In fact it seems highly out of character for to her do that, more like something Goopy would do in that position. Though frankly Goopy wouldn’t be roughed around that badly, the only characters abused this hard are King Dice’s court members that he kills like Wheezy or the rabbit. I know she isn’t technically being harmed but the set doesn’t do a good job explaining why she’s using her own head, plus all these attacks mess with her hurtbox in such ways that it’d end up annoying to play against. She is a huge hurtbox but the hands are I assume not hurtboxes so she’s constantly moving around. And she's Ganondorf-sized so all these hitboxes are ginormous.

In the end this might all be forgiven if the set had an interesting playstyle in service of all this weirdness but I don’t see much of a playstyle. She basically functions on lockdown far as I can tell because the set likes to point out how moves assist in her projectile game by covering vast swathes of the stage at once, using her massive hitboxes and constantly fluctuating hurtbox to avoid foes while being a nuisance to hit. This isn’t even anything like her boss fight. This is seriously one of the weirdest sets I have read in recent memory. I might not be so harsh on it but it also ends on an incredibly rushed grab game. It’s simply frustrating to end on that, and the weird Cargo Throw didn’t help. It was at least funny in the middle where all those strange moves occur.

Grim Matchstick? Wait didn’t I comment this already hyuck hyuck. No this is the Peanut version, and it’s definitely interesting to read this hot off the heels of the other one. I will say up front I prefer the Warlord version but this one has a few cool things about it as well. The set tapers off near the end and it’s not that consistent about its playstyle but it does a few things that I like. For one, it has a lot more coverage moves in his aerials (the nair and bair) and standards (utilt and dtilt) compared to Warlord’s version so isn’t as reliant on projectiles. The way his multiple head mechanic works is simpler than Warlord’s, and I do enjoy reading your sets, they’ve become a rare commodity in modern day. The thing is that I just prefer the way Warlord does everything else and this set has a few issues.

Top issue for me being that the up special just being a buff is fairly awkward. An up special should be a recovery and failing that, somehow aid in recovery, like Yoshi. The way the jumps works feel overpowered, 8 seconds is a long time for a float and you don’t emphasize his many jumps being that bad either, so even if he has no up special, he still has an insane stalling game. At the moment he could easily stall and fire out his projectiles unabated with those 8 seconds. I also never understood why he can grab or use smashes in midair other than just because. There’s just nothing that suggests this was a necessary addition. Besides a couple tacked on notes about dispersing fires there’s just not much playstyle in Grim, I guess he’s a big guy who spits out fireballs and minions then does his best to help them along? It’s a little shallow and largely feels like a struggle for him to survive given his reliance on the projectiles/minions compared to his big hurtbox plus an easily gimped recovery. In any case, this is still far from the worst Cuphead set and I appreciate you put in the effort.

Shallotte is one heck of a long set. This is clearly a result of her super long list of items she can take out, and for the most part the set has a great playground going on due to this move alone. All of the items are pretty well distinguished from one another, despite many of them being bombs and even in that case the portal bomb is unsurprisingly one of the best. The amount of effects here is staggering but it's never redundant. There's a plethora of ways to vary up your projectile and item game, a genre you always excelled at, later returning to the well several times to slap on extra effects. The best of these is obviously the incredible mix where Shallotte throws together these many, many items, reminding me of a certain Final Fantasy X character. Ah yes, who can forget Maester Kinoc getting mixed into unsent juice and absorbed by Seymour, it always comes to mind when I think of Mix!

The set doesn't directly interact with all of the stuff it introduced in the specials, and that's very clever. If you tried to introduce tons of interactions after all you'd already created in the specials, then the moveset would become extremely clunky because of how many items you have going on at once. I've at times fallen into similar traps of checklisting all of your minions/items/projectiles, this set instead focuses on giving Shallottee functionality over flash. I really enjoyed some of these moves that focused on further changing up the way the fishing rod worked and the aerials especially reminded me of some of your other sets like Altis that focused on recoil. Shallotte is a fun play on a mobile acrobatic characters because of her broom and fishing rod, it never gets old, but it's never too generic either, finding a nice medium where each move has a playstyle purpose. I particularly liked the fsmash, nair and fthrow. The fthrow is a good example of how I feel a unique item/construct should work on a throw given it's entirely there to be manipulated by the rest of her set and does it splendidly at that.

The set does have a couple moves I didn't think were that great. The dthrow has an awkward mechanic of giving the foe infinite items more-or-less, and while it's balanced to not hurt the foe too badly, Shallotte herself sounds like she could get destroyed by this positive status effect. I also thought a few of the effects were a bit weird, like the dust causing bombs to explode on up smash and the crazy power of the reflector when it's charged. Plus it's a bit weird she has this specific anti-knockback armour on down smash, rather than just super armour. Those are largely nitpicks though, I'm a big fan of this set too. This might be your best Atelier set and I've read them all. All three of your sets this contest represent your various subsets of movesets very well. This is your typical big, expansive set of item manipulation, Ziz was a huge playstyle-focused character and Ghostface is a referential semi-comedic character. That doesn't really do justice to your historied career of sets, but that's the simplest way I can summarize it. I hope it's not the end Kat, but if it is, know that it has been very fun and educational!

Medea is another strong set from you Roy, though I wouldn't say it's on the level of Balrog. It's very much the opposite of Rog in my opinion, as while Balrog was all about the execution Medea is about concepts. The main one here is the contracts and Rule Breaker. It's fun to see you embrace time bombs and status effect throws because in this set you show just how good you are at making up relevant/creative status effects for the sake of the playstyle. The other thing this set showcases is how good you are at describing your core concepts, showing off the contract before it even has a technical use yet. It's an inventive way to make turning friendly fire on into a positive by attaching it to this laggy self damage move, though obviously the best part is when you turn it on the foe too to deny them the positive aspects of the status effects. The fsmash was also pretty clever making use of reflection "order" rules, the same way the minion cap is abused by breaking her own contract.

I was a little disappointed that one throw is basically a mirror of the back throw but on the foe. There was definitely some way to get around that. The set is actually a nice refreshingly short and sweet presentation especially with your smooth writing style. I do think that later in the set, it basically forgets the contract's effect itself, as I figured there'd be some focus on trades, deficits and other economical numbers-based moves. The fthrow I thought could've been a stronger core move by focusing on how Medea might shift from a wall of pain to spiking style of gimping because of the foe's shifting percent. The set didn't do a great job acknowledging the specific parts of the contract. It mostly seemed to be a defensive character who has some good options to go on the aggressive and is not especially unique. It pains me to say it as I can tell you made a huge effort on them and they're not bad, but I was not a big fan of all the elemental versions of projectiles in fair or up smash. They just didn't lend much to the playstyle in my opinion, even if they were well made. All in all, I think this set is definitely a cool one and has some excellent ideas, but could've honed in on its playstyle a little better.

Random side note: this final smash is exceptionally flashy and well done, shame there's no image. If one exists it'd be great to see it in the set. I'd also like to see the intro implemented.

The final Fantasy strike character approaches, Jaina is a fitting end to the group. Its best quality is in my opinion its subtle characterization and playstyle that focuses on two modes: going all out and methodical camping, without any definitive answer on when each is the best option. Jaina is smart to emphasize the downsides of the self damage and buffs to her own moves. The quasi ammo bank of arrows is a fun and simple way to have these harder style of interactions, by far best executed on the up smash. There's a couple of decent throws for good measure too, though I wasn't quite blown away by this concept it was definitely a very well thought out mechanic.

I definitely like the mix up of projectiles in the neutral special, present here and in Grave. The set is super aware of its own strengths and the melee is tine tuned around that. It's hard to complain about such a highly stylized set that pays such huge reference to the engine as your sets always do. To be perfectly honest, I thought the playstyle didn't stand out as strongly as say, Valerie. This set does try and add a layer of characterization that isn't as present in some of your sets but I thought Valerie's was just as strong. Valerie's anti-shield playstyle was stronger also and Doomfist just overall had more fun individual moves. This set largely falls into the same boat as Grave to me, a competent if not particularly deep set that is about as good as it could be without taking on a lot of risky interpretations. It's not as interesting to me but I can see why someone might disagree.

After a long time of gambling my time on all the other Devil’s contracts Ribby and Croaks ended up being the deal of a lifetime! This set is just captivating to read and has tons of fun moves throughout the whole shebang. I really enjoyed the set’s take on the projectile focus it had going on, utilizing storage for the sake of the frog platforms and as a side focus, eating up Ribby as part of the mix. It’s both ambitious and takes huge risks, a duo set where one character can be outright absorbed into the other, using the stock counter for balance and massive self damage storage are a few of the very risky ventures in the set. There are plenty of others too, this set is absolutely not risk averse and it definitely pays off for the vision you wanted. That is, a set that largely is uninhibited by the rules and crafts its own niche as a duo set. You can see the classic Warlordian creativity in the way the set works, refined over time but shining brightly in MYM20. It’s really just a wonderfully inventive set.

The structure of the set is surprisingly not very complex and it does delve into harder interactions due to the storage further than you have in recent sets. I do get the sense you’re not a big fan of this approach anymore and yes, I can see why sometimes you might see it as a crutch for flow, but this set is a great example of when it makes sense and works. All you really need is some consistency, such as in the projectiles in this set, for it all to be intuitive and due to the nature of the projectiles, they can afford to have the necessary properties to make these interactions logically work when spat out by Croaks to work in a fun way. When you layer on top of the interactions all the potential for Ribby’s involvement, and the duo mechanic itself, you’ve got an awesomely deep playstyle.

The balance on this set also felt very cautious, complimenting its ambition. The healing is a good example, the poker chip effect given to the foe is a cool way of taking advantage of the lingering projectiles or other frog, the up special tethering to platforms, all of these are impressively considerate of their effect on the frogs’ balance. The only couple times I wasn’t sure about the balance in the entire set was the kind of weird counter at the end of jab, and the dtilt feels a bit weird as a hitbox, though you could argue it’s a lot more viable than say, Volcano Kick as an outlier. That’s again impressive given the sorts of risky concepts you’re throwing around all the time.

The cartoony animations are definitely the best parts, fusing all the random stuff they do together isn’t easy. Just putting in their slot machine is hard enough and obviously had to be a huge core part of the set, but I didn’t expect it to go quite this well. It’s so casual just trotting it out too and the set has plenty of strong assets, but in the context of how their duo stocks and so on work, it definitely gives them a needed edge in the balance department. I didn’t expect this set to go so far in giving the duo a Tubba Blubba power set that would make the average joe vomit, but I definitely approve of that direction too for all the vore mechanics. To top it all off, it all feels extremely satisfying to envision and doesn’t really demand much out of the player to get a feel for quickly, so feels intuitive too. Unless I started to delve hardcore into numbers and nitpick, there’s just very few things I can complain about here, it’s a great style and excellent set.

Before I forget, I'd like to thank you, Warlord, for all the great image work you did on the Cuphead sets. That made everything run smoothly and is much appreciated, I'm sure I speak for everyone involved. Now get to work on those Kirby images unless you want to make a new eNeMeE!

Dyspo was a nice way to cap off your contest, at least from my point of view as a reader. This is a decent super speed set that mostly relies on buffs from Light Speed. The pits are
largely incidental in the equation but add a few cool simpler dynamics to the way that Dyspo plays. I'm definitely of the mind that the Dancing Blade style up special and down throw are two of the best moves. These are pretty fun and fitting outlets for the speed as well, the up special particularly is fun in its unique follow-up traits. It's interesting to see this on an up special of all things, channelling some Smash 64 Falcon perhaps?

The set's main claim to fame is that it has competent melee. However the playstyle of this set irks me a little, as it largely focuses on the small buffs given by Light Speed. This ends up giving Dyspo many varieties of follow-ups on all of his moves. In a buff-based moveset, these kinds of universal changes have to have a central point in the playstyle beyond just “I have more moves available so I am less predictable.” But that’s largely what these buffs do for Dyspo’s playstyle, by gambling on them using up his Light Speed, he can then mix up his moves to surprise the foe. That’s not a very engaging playstyle and a whole set based around mix ups to me seems pretty shallow as while there definitely are plenty of times when you’ll be taking advantage of a specific mix up for a certain situation, in actuality these mix ups are so numerous you’ll probably just need to pick and choose what’s strongest or hardest to punish. To avoid this, the set needed to focus on making the mix ups themselves a little more interesting, perhaps even limiting them as a result to a few important moves, as is they seem like they’d be a little annoying for the foe to try and acknowledge. A set like Balrog in fact is exactly the kind of set I’m thinking of as the buffs would use up differing amounts of meter while having distinctive strengths and weaknesses. Just ticking up the lag of Light Speed is not a great balancing mechanic on something this important.

In the end that paragraph doesn’t mean I dislike the set. It has a great characterization to it with all the “Justice!” and I do like some of the flair here, like the audio indicator when all of the mix ups come online. That’s a clever way of going about that. It’s a good set, but definitely not one of your best this contest. And overall a very nice collection of sets Roy, good job!

So I end my reading on The Devil and boy, this set lives up to Satan! This set has a promising beginning and then it pretty much turns into a trainwreck the further it goes, especially the grab game. The minions and skeleton special are imaginative, I like the idea behind possession. The balance is also good here, as you aim for a very weak set of minions to counter the sheer defensive advantage you'd get using the minions in this way. Unfortunately, the down special is just broken in its current form. The foe is locked into an annoying permanent nerfed state, and it's not like the Devil doesn't have a huge meta advantage here too. This obviously needs some form of time limit or other secondary fail state because as is, the Devil player will absolutely know how to abuse putting the foe into his minions' bodies while the foe has to learn this mechanic anew to even have a chance. He also gets the freedom to choose the minion for the foe to possess. The balance is simply incredibly bad when it can potentially go on forever until the foe hits Devil. I am dumbfounded you have not edited this yet, just a 5 second time limit or something would solve so many issues.

The set's smashes just don't have much relevance to the playstyle from what I can tell, despite how they largely directly port the animations from the boss fight. The up smash in particular is odd in how it has a grab on the input that does a Kirby up throw style slam into platforms, but at the same time, doesn't get all that much out of that very flashy concept. The fsmash and usmash largely give the Devil big hitboxes and little else, though I don't mind the set even up to this point. It is pretty cool as a move and while random, it's still cool as an animation. The dsmash is distinctly less cool and is the first move that seems very rushed. The aerials are alright I suppose, although I think the dair is pretty damn tacky banning its use as long as its projectile is out. Maybe just don't make the poker chip linger that long? It's quite strange.

The set goes off the rails in the standards and grab game, helped in tone by the random interspliced memes from your other sets. I mean, it's kind of funny, but also extremely jarring and should probably be edited out. The standards are very simplistic, largely revolving around "scaring" the weakling minion away or overly defensive like the down tilt, so don't add much to the playstyle and seem quite redundant. The grab game I frankly thought was terrible because of the cauldron mechanic and multiple frame advantage or combo throws that exist just because so Devil can randomly abuse foes out of his throws. Even for you this is an odd grab mechanic... yes I have not forgotten that is a thing you did once and has now made a terrifying comeback. Devil is as poorly fit to hit around a dice construct as Cuphead, I mean I guess his very wonky smashes might create an interesting result but the set doesn't try to explain that. The idea of the Devil putting the foe in a cauldron is a greatly fun one but this set doesn't even try to make anything out of that because it's extremely rushed. At least you got this out...? In the least, you do have plenty of better sets but I might want to do this character myself because this set isn't exactly what I had imagined for the character.

And now, just for fun, I'll do some impromptu rankings.

Spoiler

Warlord sets:
R&C > Ginyu > Recoome = Guldo > Burter > Grim > Brineybeard

Roy sets:
Balrog > Medea > Haunter> Kylo Ren > McCree > Dyspo > Grave > Mr. L

FA sets:
Snoke > Hee-mo

Muno sets:
Doomfist > DeGrey = Valerie > Junkrat > Jaina > Doc To > Root Pack > Iris > Devil > Cuphead

Bionichute sets:
Cronus > Judy Hopps > Cortex > Bomb King > Cagney > Blaster-Tron > Don Armage > Aku > Captain Metal

Lex sets:
Bon Bon = Anaxa > Hilda Berg > Cala Maria > Peacock > Eggman Mania

UserShadow sets:
Bunny > Root Pack > Hockey Man

My sets (personal ranking):
Pigma > Djimmi > FANG > Werner > Kahl > Wally > Goopy

Cuphead (minus my sets):
R&C > Baroness von Bon Bon > Grim > Root Pack > Hilda Berg > Grim (Peanut) > Cagney > Brineybeard > Cala Maria > Cuphead/Devil > Rumor

And my promised post on the 5k/10k sets! Thanks to everyone who did these.

Spoiler

The 5k/10k Challenge

Earlier this contest, I made a challenge: design a set that has only under 5k or 10k words. These were two separate categories and there was a lot of interest in both, though much of this interest was only passive. In many ways, MYMers approached this challenge naturally, making a set that just barely qualified for the 10k mark. The 5k mark on the other hand was a good deal trickier. Aiming to have a set under 5k words in the modern age is a big ask but some did go beyond the call of duty and delivered their sets. As promised, here is my run down of all the sets and the ways in which they worked around this limit. This is not a fully comprehensive list, I'm fairly sure, but I will add any sets to this post I missed if they're pointed out. This is not intended to be a re-comment of these sets and I will keep this relatively brief, focusing on the word limit and structure of these sets instead.

5k:
Doc To
Hee-Mo
Iris

Muno ended up making most of these entries. There are other submissions that qualified but I didn't include those, as they largely were accidental and so accidental they weren't marked as 5k words, such as newcomer sets. There's nothing to really be gained commenting on them, while sets that were incidental but at least acknowledged it at the end deserve some attention.

Doc To is the best 5k set in my opinion. What all these sets have in common is a big central gimmick that then plays into all the moves. In Doc To's case this is a simple "minion" like Luma that plays into many of the moves mechanically. It's funny how this works and it does seem that a lot of the word count here is going over these mechanics, fluffing up an already short set... but it strangely works quite well. This might be more of a presentation thing. When you have a short very simple move, covering it with a mechanic that is already laid out in the specials or stats section lets you get over that presentation hurdle and gives you plenty of depth at the same time. This is the kind of thing I mean when I talked about limiting redundancy and getting the most out of your concepts. This is a very simple set but has complex mechanics. A great combo and the best 5k moveset.

Hee-Mo is largely the same, it and Iris can be grouped together as sets that have mechanics that change the set itself. Iris has completely different hitboxes, Hee-Mo more-or-less does this, compared to Doc-To that has entirely new parts of moves added. Hee-Mo's set largely changes on a statistical and mechanical basis while Muno was a bit more risky in his approach, which I think is frankly the right choice here if you're going to go for a 5k set. This is a very experimental approach compared to most MYM sets but can work in my opinion, and I'd welcome more sets in this style.

10k:
Hockey Man
Valerie
DeGrey
Haunter
Bunny
Anaxa
Jaina
Grim Matchstick
Mr. L
McCree
Grave

The 10k section is a lot more varied and easily accessible as a category. 10k isn't far off a normal set and barely a challenge for some MYMers. AFAIK, at least half of these weren't intended to be 10k but turned out that way. So lets be brief.

Grim was the best here I think. This set has a lot of deep mechanics in how the hydra mechanic works. Largely the only difference between this set and a normal Warlord set it some shorter moves. I think this set isn't as good as Warlord's best but it proves that you can make a perfectly decent set operating under a 10k word limit.

I'm going to group together other MYMers' sets now, starting with Muno. He was one of the most prolific word limit challenge submitters and I'm really grateful for that. His entries, Valerie, Jaina and DeGrey are all from the same series, but play very differently. They are also very, very focused on one playstyle element, this helps to keep down the word count and I think for Muno's style the word limit might've benefitted from pointing out its own structural strengths. For Muno, 10k is easy. What also really helps in general, but for Muno especially is the amount of images as visual aid to not have to laboriously go over the animation of moves.

Haunter is the one Roy submission (that I know of) that is 10k. Again like Muno, this is a fairly natural challenge for Roy. Haunter's another set that has a big mechanical focus in the form of its sleep/Dream Eater effects. But for Roy, some simpler melee and playing into a core mechanic only comes naturally. This is not a big detractor for Roy's style either and it works fine!

US's two sets Bunny and Hockey man are different cases. Bunny is a long set that is shocking in being only 10k, a bit like Warlord's Grim, this seems almost an accident but it does get a huge amount out of its core. These two sets are in my opinion the best for seeming long due to their complexity, but being a shorter, easier read than normal. Hockey Man is just a simple set for a big guy who has a hockey conceptual focus. This is one of the few sets that are very simple in 10k but don't have a big mechanic in there at the same time, instead Hockey Man is basically what would imagine would come from this challenge. In fact this set might've come out before the challenge was issued and retroactively been counted, but it's funny how these sets almost seemed to try and avoid what as obvious for the challenge.

Lastly Anaxa by Lex. Now I'm sure there are other sets and I wouldn't mind going over them all but again, however these are all the ones I know of that say they're part of the challenge in the post itself or the author said so. Anyway, onto Anaxa because this one is an interesting case like the 5k sets where the set is focused on a mechanic and interactions. This is despite the word limit, and much of the depth comes from Anaxa's portals. The word limit counts a lot of in character quotes too. The main thing with this one is despite its complex portals, they are fairly short interactions.

Here's some extra on Mr. L, McCree and Grave, three Roy sets I missed out on the first time. These are all fairly different styles to approach 10k and I doubt any one of these were intentional, especially not McCree that came out earlier. It's interesting that despite how stylized Mr. L is that it didn't end up 5k or lower, which goes to show how hard it is to qualify for 5k.

Mr. L has the convenience of having all the Luigi, Mario and Dr. Mario moves to go over as a reference. Mr. L does go into a decent amount of detail but most of that is going over playstyle. McCree is just a very simple set really. It goes to show how much of a natural fit Roy's style is to a shorter moveset.

Grave is a unique case. This is a character who is meant to be a Ryu or Mario of his own game, a simple character for beginners who epitomizes the mechanics. So Grave has a reason to be simple and straightforward, a reason to not have an incredible amount of depth without touching on the set's quality.

And that's the lot for now. If you're desperate for some further commentary and have a qualifying set, I'll add it to this post. For now I'd like to thank all participants! This was an interesting challenge and I might run it next MYM too.

 

[FrozenRoy]

Before voting began and editing period ended, I went and slightly edited Balrog: Now 65% damage dealt gets a bar, not 80%, and he now gets a 1.7x Meter Gain bonus on his Specials instead of 1.5x. I also finished his incomplete Final Smash.

On that note...

Voting Period has begun for Make Your Move 20!​

Your Vote Gurus for this contest are FrozenRoy and Smash Daddy. Please send your votelists to them before the end of the 20th! In order to qualify, you must make 10 comments, so get on it, folks! Smash Daddy has graciously been counting the comments and posting them, so you know who is qualified! Happy reading!

 

[ForwardArrow]

Additional Note on Editing​

Numerical edits, such as changing the range, lag, or damage of attacks, are still allowed during voting period. Do not add or remove entire functions of moves, however, this is entirely restricted to numerical changes.

 

[FrozenRoy]

Voting Period has been extended to the 27th!​

Y'all know the drill.

 

[ForwardArrow]

You've all waited long enough, here are the FA MYM20 Rankings [Currently Up Through Ribby and Croaks]

Spoiler

10/10- I've decided that from this point on multiple 10 star sets can exist simultaneously. The bar to get here is insanely high, but if a set manages to be truly spectacular, I will give it its due. 0 Movesets
9/10- These sets are my favorites in the contest and most complaints I have with them are minor and overshadowed by a great deal of positive. 0 Movesets
8/10- Unlike the above sets, there are usually some issues here, or the basis simply isn't strong enough to carry it to the higher tiers regardless of execution, but still a great set and a highly recommended read. 0 Movesets
7/10- Sets in this tier are good, but lacking in some aspect or another that brings them down from being great. They still manage to stand out from the crowd, however. 0 Movesets
6/10- The set in question is either somewhat forgettable or suffers from actually very major flaws, but is still overall above average and has most likely secured a spot on my votelist. 0 Movesets
5/10- I no longer like sets in this tier, but they're not necessarily bad either. Their good points are simply not good enough or their bad points drag them down too much to reach a higher tier. 0 Movesets
4/10- These sets are just bad, either failing to do anything remotely interesting or having some absolutely massive problems to counteract what good points they have. Probably still have redeeming qualities though. 0 Movesets
3/10- There's salvageable stuff in these sets, but it exists in very minute quantities. 0 Movesets
2/10- I won't say sets in this tier have no redeeming qualities, as that's not entirely true, but I'd say at this point I really hate the set, or find it too lacking in any substance for me to give it a higher score. 0 Movesets
1/10- Everyone makes mistakes, but this set is impressive because the entire moveset qualifies as one. 0 Movesets

Ribby and Croaks

10/10

Thoughts: The duo mechanic is definently a bit crazy, but its honestly appealing in its own right as a way to give the frogs a great deal of reason to play carefully around their windows of power, and what windows of power they are. The sheer depth of options, each loaded with their own risks and powerful rewards, to Ribby and Croaks' teamplay is a sight to behold, this is by far the best duo set ever made if you ask me as they make complex, interwoven use of their projectiles and gimping game. The melee that comes off this stuff is incredibly solid too and all their potential craziness is balanced out by the recharging of the other frog, the fact that if one of them dies you lose a lot of these team options, and the self-damage of the critical swallow move. While loaded with hard interactions on the front end, I don't think any of them are without purpose(even if I wasn't 100% a fan of the saliva) and the later inputs are dedicated to some very solidly written melee.

Captain Ginyu

9/10

Thoughts: Ginyu has some very interesting and personality-loaded minions that combine well with his very interesting and personality-loaded attacks. The set incorporates the body swap in a fairly appealing way, with those minions serving as additional bodies for both himself and trap to the foe in, making it far more valuable in matchups where Ginyu isn't necessarily just much weaker than the opponent. I also personally find the projectile related stuff, particular Down Throw, to be quite fun, but the characterization is the real highlight here. While I personally like the body swap I do feel there's a number of issues that inherently come up in implementing a mechanic like that.

Recoome

9/10

Thoughts: Recoome has some absolutely stellar characterization, with his showoff nature on full display here in manners that could easily backfire on him as his attacks are frequently made riskier by his desire to be flashy. This combined with the taunts to make them more effective makes for a very fun and flashy playstyle, amplified by the slopes created in the stage through Recoome's raw power. I did find the grab game to be stretching a bit in terms of trying to be relevant to the moveset beforehand, though its hardly anything bad.

F.A.N.G.

9/10

Thoughts: Fang is honestly a really solid addition to the Smady poison set roster, and probably the best one to date, with a strong, well-written melee game that is well complimented by the basic but ever present poison that can be used in numerous ways. The "instant kill" trick is both well balanced and a solid one to start off with, but it gets better as the set goes on especially in the ambitious and awesome grab game. Higher levels of Toxic Focus strike me as a bit impractical to actually achieve given the amount of lag involved in their setup, even if the grab game helps with that.

Pigma

8/10

Thoughts: A highly enjoyable projectile manipulation set with the highlight being the Aparoid Rings, which apply a pseudo-time slow effect that has definently been in other sets before, but never covered nearly as comprehensively as Pigma has. The set is very loosely a semi-clone of Fox and Falco in the specials, and the completely different direction it goes from there as an almost parody of their movesets is kind of fascinating, and you can just feel the spite Pigma has for those two in the set. This does end up leaving the Aparoid Rings on a smash instead of a special however, and there are a few wonky Aparoid interactions here and there later in the set, though most of them are solid to great.

Guldo

8/10

Thoughts: The set has some really solid earth projectile manipulation which gives Guldo a great variety of options, including using said projectiles as platforms and then manipulating the platforms to make them dangerous for foes to play on. The set also does an excellent job of showcasing Guldo's relative weakness and cowardice. Guldo's actual time stop is used in a somewhat wonky fashion and while the melee isn't bad, its not as strong as in the best Ginyus.

Balrog

8/10

Thoughts: Its absolutely remarkable how much mileage this set gets out of what is basically a relatively normal human fighting with his fists. The EX bar mechanics, combos provided, and balanced and enjoyable executed hitstun boosting bunch all make for a solid set, which even manages to have a lot of fun in the grab game of all things. Given how few EX bars Balrog gets per match, the amount of usage he'll get out of the 2 and 3 EX bar attacks is rather low for how they're balanced, and there really is only so much you can do with a guy that can just punch so its a little dry in places. That said, "a little dry" is way, way better than you'd expect out of the character, and really shows how much better a fighting game translation set can be handled nowadays.

Doomfist

8/10

Thoughts: Doomfist takes the concept of on-hit super armor and runs with it in a very impressive way, with almost every attack having its fair share of nuance on how it plays off the advantage state or helps maintain it. The set also manages to get impressive mileage out of a very simple way too, especially with the mechanic of dealing extra damage by smashing through a wall that I need to steal sometime. Doomfist feels oddly lacking in a real "massive hit" move for a big dude with a giant metal fist, and the Smashes and Dair feel somewhat unnatural on their inputs.

Kylo Ren

7/10

Thoughts: Kylo Ren's mechanics with his pain-based buff are fun, as he gains windows of power based on how well he trades damage with the opponent. Aside from just the great core inputs of Embrace Pain and the status field, Kylo Ren manages a generally strong melee game with some neat little interactions like the slagged floors that flows nicely into and out of getting the most out of this buff and out of the slow field effect. I do prefer basing things on damage percents rather than number of hits generally speaking and Kylo Ren is, as Smady put it, a little dry, but I have to give it credit both for inspiring my most notable set this contest and its great characterization, showing Kylo Ren's wild rage and instability.

Burter

7/10

Thoughts: Burter has the weakest concepts and execution of the Ginyus, but that's not to call it bad as there's a lot of fun to be had with running around on slanted ground chunks and firing powerful beams into tornadoes to redirect them about. The set does a good job getting across Burter's high mobility and power without making him unpunishable, and feels rather satisfying to play. It feels like it struggles a little bit with being as cohesive with its concepts as it could be.

Haunter

7/10

Thoughts: Haunter plays off an admittedly basic poison damage/status effect setup, but it does so rather well. Its fun how you can extend his combos with the nightmare hitboxes that trail off foes under the worst of his statuses, and it makes well balanced uses of the concept of sleeping status and dream eater by simply inflicting a drowsy status that can eventually cause sleep rather than just causing sleep. The spacing game here is a fairly important part of the set too, and where its flaws come in for me as while there's nothing horribly wrong with it, its very unmemorable.

DeGrey

7/10

Thoughts: Counter hit is not a bad idea for a mechanic at all, and DeGrey's ability to knock foes out of starting lag and condition them is handled well enough. The ghost is given a very contained role but it plays that role fine, and the set is consistent in supporting its playstyle throughout. It really felt at times it was doing the bare minimum amount to connect with the counter hit mechanic and there were maybe one too many stun effects in response to a counter hit for my liking, but at least stun is balanced out by the fact that the opponent needs to be the one to get themselves into it in the first place.

Goopy le Grande

7/10

Thoughts: The question mark cancel and the minion who benefits from being knocked around right after his death animation triggers and grows in scale are fun enough to play around with, and for what its worth Goopy does get decent mileage out of these ideas. That being said I do feel the question mark cancel often ends up not being used for much of value, often just to get different angles out of attacks or for some really niche interaction that doesn't come up that much. This sets interactions are rarely bad outright, but they often contribute so little to the overall picture they end up hurting the reading experience more than they do improving the set's actual depth as they were intended to. It never trips and falls on its face outright though, which is pretty impressive for this character.

Kamen Rider Cronus

6/10

Thoughts: Cronus is the only set to actually bother to adapt Time Stop into the modern age in detail, and makes the very smart decision to make it activate based on hits dealt to opponents rather than just on a timer. Aside from the standard bullet hell it provides, the melee game actually gets involved at all for once, letting Cronus fit in with a modern style of set design while having the fun parts of those old sets. The grab game is sadly really lackluster and the minions could've been used better than they were, which drags it down somewhat.

Junkrat

6/10

Thoughts: My memory on this set is a bit foggy at this point, but I remember it played a decently chaotic and fun game based around explosives that you're willing to even hit yourself with sometimes. I feel the set doesn't go very far with what can be done with explosives, but its fine for what it is.

McCree

6/10

Thoughts: McCree makes Marth's tipper into a mechanic based around mid-range instead of max distance and adds in combat roll and flashbangs for spacing/lag modification and a rather well balanced stun mechanic, respectively. Its unexciting, but competent enough at getting the spacing McCree wants that it'd probably be fun to play for people who like that kind of playstyle. Its rather unexciting though.

Bomb King

6/10

Thoughts: Honestly has some pretty strong concepts with the variety of bomb uses, but suffers from weird numbers and a great deal of awkwardness in accidentally triggering bombs you don't want to. I still like what it presents and it honestly has some of the stronger melee in Bionichute's sets when it bothers to commit to it, with some neat options for exploding or not exploding bombs in your melee attacks. The set has a pretty fun pummel, shame about the rest of the grab game.

Iris

6/10

Thoughts: Iris is a bit more of a testing grounds for ideas than a set that fully realizes them, with the material like having attacks change based on a source placed on stage and having attacks produce a certain effect based on waves emanated from that point. Its a unique approach to light-based powers and certainly has its share of decent moves. I just wish there was more effort put into developing the concepts presented, there's a cool passive mechanic around the smashes but the smashes themselves are surprisingly boring.

Judy Hopps

5/10

Thoughts: This set actually did get some considerable help thanks to the edits, with the Specials being much better balanced and providing some interesting options with the rather joke-y car. Sadly I feel the actual combo fodder in the set is not very well-designed, with some moves like the Fair being rather clunky for that purpose. At the very least the base is certainly there now.

Hockey Man

Thoughts: The concept behind the ice rink is admittedly not the most creative, but its executed decently enough and there's any fun to be had with just throwing around some hockey pucks on it and abusing the slippery nature of the stage. I actually quite liked the idea of a cargo throw heavily dependant of your momentum going into it, that was a small thing not fully taken advantage of but I'd like to see more of that in the future. The balance on the stun mechanic is worrying and while the melee s okay in parts, its ultimately not interesting enough to carry a set that really needed strong melee to work.

Doc To

5/10

Thoughts: Doc To has fun characterization with his abuse of Jeff, but I can't help but feel its a bit conceptually weak for a 5k set, where concepts need to shine over detail to sell me. Doc To mostly just manipulates a Luma-like thing in to performing attacks or just bumping into opponents, and with how basic the approach is its hard to really get invested in. Its nothing terrible, just a concept that's been done before and would really need a non-5k set to be particularly interesting.

Cuphead

5/10

Thoughts: I'm not opposed to the core concept of a passively firing non-flinching projectile, but as is activating it feels a bit too free and easy for how much damage you get without even having to go into lag. The set stretches really far to get animations out of Cuphead, and while its respectable some of them definently end up rather awkward for it. I don't feel the set plays off all the types of projectiles it produces nearly as well as it could, and there are a lot of times where a move accounting for passive firing projectiles during its animation to produce variants would be a lot less awkward and potentially a lot more interesting.

Omega Metroid

3/10

Thoughts: I actually think "large character with weak points" is fun and I've done it myself in the past, but its a hard concept to sell in practice. The balancing act is hard to maintain without it ending up either broken or underpowered, and Omega Metroid definitely leans overpowered in a lot of its numbers. The writing is pretty comical in places due to some bizarre English, but at least easy to understand.

Cap'n Metal

3/10

Thoughts: A set that introduces the very cool concept of taking apart your minions and attaching them to yourself for the benefit of a weapon switch. I'm not even sure that's necessarily a terrible idea, but the amount of moves it applies to and how the minion part attacks are often much worse designed ends up really killing the set's chances to be good. Reading an entire set of pirate speak is also not very fun when the actual content is boring.

Dr. Neo Cortex

3/10

Thoughts: The set implements both Cortex's hoverboard and jetpack simultaneously for some reason and uses both very poorly compared to the potential they have to serve as interesting movement options. For some reason N. Tropy's staff is used in the set, which comes across as extremely disrespectful to Tropy. Its also another example of poorly utilized minions that have honestly given the whole genre a bit of a bad reputation, using them in a very shallow and boring way.

Blastertron

2/10

Thoughts: Blastertron might not be based around stuns, but he's pretty close to that with his heavy reliance on crippling the foe's movement, and has a few absolutely bizarre interactions that don't make a ton of logical sense while sometimes being disturbingly powerful. The set also offers very little positive.

Sonic Mania Eggman

2/10

Thoughts: There are some okay, basic minion interactions in this set that show some basic knowledge of how to make a more traditional MYM set. The balance is pretty awful however, as Eggman just floods the stage with minions and gives the opponent absolutely nowhere to hide, with poor input placement on top of that.

PTE Aku

2/10

Thoughts: PTE Aku fixes the balance problems of its terrible source material, while introducing a bunch of new ones. The new grab game that was added feels very uninspired and is the only part of the set that's not just a balance patch that doesn't even really succeed at making a balanced or interesting set.

Pong AKA Color TV Game 15

1/10

Thoughts: This set attempts the extremely ambitious task of making the game of Pong into a playable character, and likely due to inexperience ends up failing to do so. The balance is terrible, the playstyle is incoherent, and it makes heavy use of glitches in a game that is hardly famous for having glitches.

 

[FrozenRoy]

GWA HA HA HA​

"Hand it over. That thing, your dark soul. For my lady's painting..."

"You turn from the truth because your heart is weak. You will never defeat me!"

"A lie about a lie will turn inside out..."

"That's right...I'll sacrifice God! My pride...and my soul! I decide my future!"

"It is not a sin to fight for the right cause. There are those who words alone will not reach."

Hey, it’s everyone’s idol! Don't let the cute fool you! He’s a brave warrior who may be small, but his spear packs a huge wallop!

"I have my orders from Supreme Leader Snoke himself. This is where we snuff out the Resistance."

"I'm at fault for being a child too long. My eyes have been closed. But my heart has been opened."

"The heart and soul are meaningless to me. I believe only in beauty."

"Mark my words, Ashen One...you remain, among the accursed..."

 

[Katapultar]

Food for thought.

​

"Curse you Cyluth! Wait, I already did that... but still! Anyone who rejects the advances of the most beautiful and talented witch in the world AND gets them expelled deserves to be utterly humiliated beyond recovery!"

"I'm stronger than Lizard and a perfect counter to him in every way! I have the greatest history professor's brain and a PhD in pain!"

"That stupid rich witch thinks I'm using her late grandmother's fortune to foil her ex-lover, but I'm actually pocketing it all for myself. Such money is better spent on the creation of the ultimate cigar."

​

"Look, I said I was sorry about the whole turning-you-into-a-lizard thing. I'll find a way to change you back, but only because you'll spill my secret if I don't and posing as you 24/7 is kind of creepy. Also, I'm sick of eating all the cookies in your pantry that you can't eat now that you're a lizard."

"Listen girly, I know that lizard over there looks normal, but he's actually a really arrogant and powerful mage. He must have discovered how to wield hexes and turned himself into a lizard to mock us all. Also, I have a grudge against him if it wasn't obvious from my spiteful tone. People normally go to jail for killing other people, but not for killing lizards, so if I take this opportunity to murder him I'll get away scott-free!

"So, you want me to hunt down a magical lizard and some girl who can use hexes? They sound like rare animals to me! Just say the word and I'll tear em' apart and leaves their corpses caked with blood and maggots in a sight not for little children. Also, do you have any steroids?"

"So this is the secret you were hiding? I didn't think that Djinns could take human form; you'll make a unique test subject for the Magic Science Quarantine Division."

"You think you can catch a Gavin magician? I can do whatever I want, steal whatever I want and kill whoever I want, all to pay back the society that dared to steal our secrets - and my birthright as a stage magician."

"Silly girl. I only revived you with my blood because death can't condemn for the foul blight you cast upon Lord Schwarzen. But I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself - restore God to his former glory, or face a punishment most horrible!"

​

"I am making a statement about the inherent evil of every living being and the pretence, a facade to get along that gets torn down as soon as a guilt-free opportunity presents itself."

"Foolish woman! You fail to utilise the dragon maid to her full potential, but such is to be expected from a pleb starved of riches. Sell her to me, and I shall provide you with a legion of professional maids to fawn over. They have no place in my maid collection, for their commonplace professions taint it with redundancy. But refuse the offer, and the Iwasaki Corporation shall come down on you with its full might!"

 

[ForwardArrow]

"Supreme Leader, I bring excellent news! Kylo Ren's vandalism of your moveset has successfully been contained, and now, with its full glory on display, you are sure to win Make Your Move 20!"

"Excellent work Hux. And I see my set has been finely polished, this is the happiest I've been since I found that stash with all of Palpatine's money!"

"I am humbled by your compliments, Supreme Leader Snoke."

"Thanks to your efforts, I will send your moveset into production. You've done well."

"For the glory of the First Order, I will win Make Your Move 21! And then Phasma shall win Make Your Move 22! The First Order will rule over Make Your Move forever!"

"Now, let's not get too ahead of ourselves. Do you have the reports on your opposition going forward?"

"Yes Supreme Leader. I have brought you the data."

[Non OC Previews, feel free to guess these]

"So this first one is a gelatinous alien who has now taken the form of its worst enemy?"

"Yes Supreme Leader. It seems to utilize corrosive substances."

"Well you seem to be well enough equipped to deal with that. A mere xenomorph should be no match for your military prowess."

"And this one... isn't this the man associated with that tabletop obsessed lunatic?"

"Yes Supreme Leader, however, he's taken on a new form, taking the hatred directed at him and directing it back outwards. He is likely a fearsome adversary, but too consumed in his own wrath to be competent."

"I expect you to plan around him properly, Hux."

"We certainly will, the competence of the First Order is unrivaled!"

"This one fights using trading cards? Well I'm sure he will be no challenge to you at all."

"Of course not, Supreme Leader, I would never on my life fall to a man who uses children's trading cards to solve his problems. Though he is considered a fierce warrior and a champion of his people, and the good side of his chaotic world."

"That means nothing if they fight like school children on a playground."

"You've stated that this one is the highest priority threat, and its a vain bee queen obsessed with her beauty? Hux, I'd think at the least the hateful armor would threaten you more."

"...I'm afraid of bees, sir."

"There is no need to fear them, draw power from the pain of their stings. Or just use the new Starkiller Base once we get it operational."

"Yes, Supreme Leader, I will definitely use Starkiller Base."

"So this last one... he comes from a world of gods? That sounds troubling."

"He's a naive god acting outside his role, attempting to purge mortals. Strong though he may be, he hardly matches our planning skills, and with our resources we can easily match his firepower."

"I would be careful of this one. Behind his youth there's a dangerous look in his eyes."

[OC Previews]

"I haven't seen an alien and a human bond like this before. How curious. Perhaps when you defeat him, we can make use of this kind of symbiote ourselves."

"How wise of you Supreme Leader! He relies on poisonous handheld weaponry and his ability to devour all forms of matter, but we have energy weapons, so he should be easy to subdue."

"Indeed, but don't let him consume too much of our resources. That could make things get out of hand."

"This last one is... a girl who fights with knives and caltrops? Really, you considered this enough to treat as an actual threat?"

"Its mostly just rumors, but supposedly disaster follows in her wake. It may be best if I don't fight her directly, if that's the case."

"I don't think paranoia is enough to warrant the use of Starkiller Base. Prove your value to me Hux, and eliminate your superstitions and this so-called threat."

"That seems to be all, I trust in your ability to win this war, Hux. However, I must ask, what's become of the Ginyu Force? You told me they were soon to be eliminated."

"Of course, Supreme Leader. I set Phasma to do the job four hours ago."

"You sent PHASMA!?"

"S-Supreme Leader if it helps, Phasma is an extremely brave warrior. She would never tell the Ginyus our location if she were to be defeate-"

"THE NAME'S RECOOME!"

"IT RHYMES WITH DOOM!"

"AND YOU'RE GONNA BE HURTING ALL! TOO! SOOOOOOOON!"