I am assuming the Belmonts will be Shulk-tier for exactly that reason. I'm less concerned about getting the axe and holy water PSed, since axe will rarely used vs grounded opponents and the water lasts long and multi-hit. The cross at grounded height will be PSed a lot. I am more worried that his *whip* will be PSed regularly.
Sure, but we can definitely work around this problem. Perfect shielding a projectile doesn't really give good frame advantage as many people who played the demo said. This could change but if it does not, Simon as a campier character than most others can bait perfect shields(Perfect shields are almost useless if you attack at a range like Simon's whip, even with the frame advantage used to try to punish.)With his cross, whip and holy water apply constant pressure on the opponent, they have to stay calm to block it, or start to panic and start rolling and holding down shield accidentally when they intended to parry it, or run into Simon's face to apply pressure on Simon. About the Shulk situation, Shulk has just bad frame data and the only thing he has to offer consistently in ssb4 IS range that are considerably slow compared to others. So to compare the Belmonts to Shulk in ssb4(Also everyone got a speed buff in ssbu) could be a bit unfair, as they have very good specials that easily combo into their ranged aerials and normals which makes their neutral game great. Even during the Nintendo direct presentation of Simon's moves said that he had slow movements. But in reality, they are quite fast for their range especially that up air and upsmash, at least faster and longer than Shulk's. Also with a returning cross that is above simon can force opponents to PS, roll(Which can lead into abusing the new roll gets worse every time you use it mechanic) or a retreating jump or an overhead engage that can be punished(Also you can grab opponents right a few frames right after PS, so that can be taken into consideration as well. Adapting to a play style is also something a lot of players keep on missing out on, learning an opponent can greatly help you during a match(Finding their play style and habits and abusing them.), like if they suck at PSing consistently, punish that with returning crosses and constant pressure with aerials, if their good at it unfortunately, set traps with short hop crosses(or picross as I like to call it) and constant holy water to try to mitigate the effectiveness of PS.And when they think PS is useless and switch to a defensive or campy approach, switch back to an offensive approach to punish their defensive approach. I think we should play Simon with some player knowledge and that he is a campy/setup character and could be played more effectively be played in a slightly similar fashion to snake in ssbb.
Personally, even though I am a dumb 15 year old kid who knows nothing, I see a lot of potential in Simon and Richter because of their projectile game, especially the cross. If it functions the same way as Castlevania (Yes, I have played Dracula x and super castlevania 4 b4 even though im 15.), the cross will be constantly moving hit box that goes across the entire stage with consistent knockback if it hits. I can see many setups and uses for this move alone. For example, if lets say he throws the cross away from the stage at the height of being in between platforms, it restricts the opponents from engaging him by rushing, which forces them to either jump over it to engage, block it or dodge it, or throw a projectile that has higher priority over the cross(Which we have not seen any). This is important as Simon is a camp/setup character with some solid combos. What I can think of after seeing the footage, is that if he can get out of the end lag of his overall moves fast enough, he can setup some cool stuff up like throwing an opponent into the cross which knocks them above and towards Simon, then shorthop holy water them to make them stay in the air, following it up with an uptilt, at higher percents, upsmash, axe throw, bair, fair, or even grab if holy water functions the same way as pk fire for ness, hitting them with constant hit boxes while coming to the ground, which can lead to true grab combos we don't know about yet. and these are just combos that can happen from the cross alone. other combo starters may be first hit of down tilt into cross to the above mentioned combo or upsmash directly after getting hit by the cross at higher percents.(Simon has plenty of frames to recover after the down tilt before the upsmash.)(Also upsmash range is broken). Besides combo game, I had this idea of using holy water as a way to return to the stage(When he throws it is sent at a 30 to 45 degree angle below him from his waist, which prevents opponents to attack Simon with aerials or close-up moves at least once before activating and could also probably eat projectiles while its active)This is very scary and could give him enough utility to be competitively viable even without the range on his normal and neutrals. But he has those because he is a Belmont and range is one of their iconic properties. Of course all this is just speculation.
TL;DR Also I forgot to mention this before, but I think we should not look at his projectiles as projectiles, but as assists like in DBFZ
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