Yggdroid by U UserShadow7989
I really ought to play these games - been curious and I have the remasters of 1-3 just collecting virtual dust in my steam backlog. Shameful.
Anywho, Yggdroid here is a pretty fun little puppet fighter type thing, has some amped-up sillier Rosaluma vibes. Kinda heady angle for a jamcon, and I do think there are some slight hitches in how the ideas are presented - the way information is broken out between DSpec and the Smashes can feel a little awkward and I found myself jumping back and forth a few times. Arguably there's a certain thematic logic to spreading the information out! But there were certain things that I found tough to follow. And I'm still a little murky on say... where your legs go when you use DSpec in the air and if there are ways to increase the distance between you and your legs.
The gist of the mechanics isn't too bad at all though - like I said, sillier Rosaluma and DSpec is pretty understandable as a sillier Luma Shot. It's a very UScore affair - directly recalls Jodie in the way it spreads hitboxes around and makes pretty smart choices about how to keep things functional. The Specials are doing a lot of heavy lifting, complexity-wise, to squeeze in some big ideas while letting the normals be pretty simple. The set's verging on having doubled-up Specials, really, since the tapped versions and held versions of those moves often aren't really related beyond some superficial animation details. I kinda wonder if the set should just be billed that way and the inputs should be broken up. Then again, SSpec is both the most complex one and the one where it's making the best case that it's really all one input.
There are also very good universal limits on all the big crazy disjoint stuff - you always have a good eye on the system limiters so that's no surprise. I do think the set doesn't always take as much advantage of the limiters as it could? Like in practice every body part when detached has... two-three attacks depending on whether Yggdroid is grounded or in the air? The options for actually exploiting all this feel pretty limited and I'm not sure the set fully unpacks what a whopping inconvenience it is for your arms to fly away and deny you melee options every time you decide to go for an FSmash. (But, y'know, jamcon, yadda yadda)
Of course, the set is deliberately cultivating a silly janky vibe and trying to weave it into something functional. What I'm criticizing is intentional and thematic and the set is aware of a lot of the downside even if there are areas where I think it's a little glossed over. So I guess I'm mostly in a.... "hmmmmm" place on whether the set enables something cool enough and functional enough to be worth the slight weirdness of it all.
It's a cool, funny, and well-animated set (another strength of yours) so that always helps. That might sound superficial, but I really do think that just giving players something visually compelling to hook into is key... well always, but especially for this type of character. Like maybe it's a little hard to wrap your head around but there's definitely a Type of player who sees the hands stay detached after tossing out an FSmash and then they just never play another character again. They're gonna be out here developing the tech.
- Finally a moveset that answers the question "what if Buggy the Clown was a Murakomo unit?"
- It even has the feet running around on the ground underneath them?
- FSmash mentions a reflector multiplier that I think Reflector didn't have.
- Big fan of the big silly fly-off-the-screen DSmash.
- I imagine Jab 2 could get pretty nasty in the right circ*mstances, since you could potentially use a detached Part to trap the opponent between a couple hitboxes. Can't go on infinitely and sounds hard so probably not a big deal.
- I don't usually sweat this kind of thing but since it comes up a few times - "greaves" is the right spelling for the leg armor.
- "semi-spike knockback that'll more often than not bounce foes off of the ground" - semi-spike means a horizontal (or near-horizontal) hit and not an almost-directly-downward angle. I think I used to use it the other way too.
- The quick radial KB NAir plus USpec probably allows for some easy bake gimping strategies. Not a big deal to gloss over though. I've deviated away from using radial knockback on this kind of attack too much mostly to avoid that kind of thing - it's a great word-saver technique but I'm not convinced it's actually a great design pattern.
- DAir a really neat attack - took me a second pass to grok the animation fully, but one of those things that'd definitely look fluid in game. Not sure it totally makes sense as a wall of pain with the lack of frontal coverage but has a lot going for it in terms of fun properties.
Alucard by Arctic Tern
Man, that World Without Logos track is great, love that. Al isn't a jamcon set of course, but I figured I'd check it out since Seras was meant to be something of a companion piece.
I'm doing this set a disservice by taking so long to comment it (I mean since I read it, not since the start of the contest but I suppose that too), apologies for that - I didn't take great notes because I read it on a train thinking I was gonna knock out a bunch of jamcon reads and also get to this one in short order (whoops), so I'm not quite as fresh on the set as I prefer to be when commenting, had to flip back through a few things as I write this.
SSpec did stick out to me a bit balance wise - having a high-damage fast command grab is a playstyle-defining thing for Bowser and making this one even scarier than Bowser's is a lot. Armoring something like that on top of giving it the Ganondorf-esque charge forward makes it a pretty big screw-you to almost any option an opponent has. The frame data/distance on it feel a little odd - it sounds slower than what you want animation-wise - Ganondorf's SSpec is more like... 4ish grids in 15 frames, as a point of reference for how slow 3 grids in 44 frames would look. Having the high commitment slow movement on top of all the endlag could maybe be something of a balancer but I'm not sure it's intentional since it doesn't really come up much? The move tries to play up the reduced kill power as the thing holding it back from Bowser's but that seems like kinda peanuts. The lack of ability to maneuver in the air (or bounce up to a high platform) feels like a bigger nerf if anything.
I do think "horrifying command grab" is a fun thing to have in the set, and I like the vampire bite being a big deal. I wouldn't recommend a flat debuff so much as just putting some of its better qualities behind a gate in some fashion (charge, cooldown, only works on Tuesdays, whatever). Could maybe even get sillier with some of it depending on what you did, so long as he couldn't get the nutty stuff on a whim.
Overall this was pretty solid - kinda on par with your jamcon stuff I think, I like it more than Seras but less than Drifblim. I didn't ever feel a strong hook into the set, but it's well put-together and it has some individual fun inputs like DSmash. The basic recipe of "oops everything scary" is a pretty fun direction and the set does well by this guy as a spooky character that can light you up fast - lots of Bowser DNA here even once you look past SSpec.
Looking back on it I do feel like I maybe like a lot of the individual attacks more than I like the full set - this is always one of those things that's tough to quantify but I do wonder if some of that is just in the presentation. Always kind of a sticky wicket because I'm trying to evaluate the actual content and not the way it's being sold to me but on the flipside I do think like... you've got your fundamentals down really solidly and always have from the jump. Where you could really elevate your stuff is by improving digestibility and how you pitch it. I do think you've made strides forward this contest on that front and I'm finding a lot more intrigue in the average Tern set than I did in MYM26, but you do still trend a little dry in presentation at times.
Just some food for thought though. I'm still a positive on Alucard at the end of the day even if it's not a favorite.
Seras Victoria by Arctic Tern
This one I had a slightly harder time getting into. Nothing too rough, just didn't strongly vibe with it. I can appreciate a lot of the little similarities and differences from Alucard, even some of the understated ones like the similar imagery between Seras USmash and Alucard DSmash. Revenge is also an interesting move to riff on. Kinda surprised I can't think of more examples of MYM playing with that concept off the top of my head, it's kinda ripe for shenanigans (but maybe we do that a lot and I'm just blanking).
Definitely a kit from the same school of design as Alucard and has a lot of his positive qualities (cool animations, Smashes are all very fun), but just generally feels a bit less successful at them. No shame in that for a jamcon though, natch - still fun as a quick lil entry. Apologies but like Alucard, I am gonna pick on one move here; NSpec I think is pretty busted in a way that doesn't feel very interesting. I'm surprised the move isn't a little more Alucard-esque in terms of pushing her to cancel into it or similar. As a frame 16 option she can just toss out, it's got a pretty gonzo combo of range and power. Idk, I'd consider having to charge it normally and being able to bypass that with Blood Rage or something. Just giving her a Failnaught that works at the speed of Link's bow feels wild.
Arum by BrazilianGuy
Arum is a pretty fun lil gal - like Alucard I did read this one a while ago and take bad notes, so apologies for that. The core of the set is very solid, I think most of the design on elements like the Sin meter and her arrows other Specials comes together really well for what you're going for - the one thing that did kinda stick out to me here is just how central the buffs she gets from the fan feel.
Particularly the 5F startlag discount across the board feels pretty huge. I think that kind of thing is always really tough to balance - a lot of her moves are by default I think a bit too slow to really let her work as rushdown. Her tilts are like... putting up Ike-esque (or worse) speed numbers without the fan buff and she's really relying on the fan to have quick grounded options. Then, on the other hand, you've got stuff like the scythe FAir that's pretty fast already for a big disjoint aerial and is borderline a war crime with the fan buff.
I do think having the fan buff as a central thing is a cool space to play in. Ordinarily I'd say it pushes her to sort of retreat a bit and beef up, maybe zone a little, then rush back in. There's an interesting flow to that. I do think attaching the buff to this big crazy gimping move though kind of pushes even harder the idea that she should be tossing it out after sending the opponent off-stage and beefing up while setting up ledgetrap scenarios. Interesting confluence of effects.
- USpec shield break is a very fun little detail - one of those niche things that you forget until it happens.
- Without having played the game I do really like the way the weapons are used throughout the kit - feels very Byleth-y, and there's a consistency to each weapon. Has a very clean feel.
- I'm not sure if the Smash buffs fit in suuuuper well with the rushdowny stuff she wants to do and I'm not sure they stack up against the fan buffs but I do always like the option to make a big dumb attack even bigger and dumber.
- All the Ducroak animations are fun.
The President by Slavic
Weird that I'm reading multiple "spread your resources around and cost yourself options" movesets this jamcon, but here we are. This moveset makes smart choices about when to be similar to Olimar and when to depart, I think - there's a very clear basis in Olimar's kit and the President maintains the connection but builds something very different and wacky. Haven't played Pikmin but the set is very funny and evocative not just on the writing level but in the mechanics. It's very MYMy and goofy and tells you exactly who the President is. The long-term accumulation of Poko is also interesting to me - I've flirted with that sort of long-term resource thing before but don't typically go for it, it always feels a little tougher to balance a mechanic around the idea that it's a "one way" match-long thing that can grow far beyond what you need in a stock.
Granted, that possibility doesn't seem super likely here. His Poko-gathering feels very limited for how many inputs are entirely gated behind it, and the fact that he's starting from a position of needing to give up his Pikmin (and therefore Even More of his kit) in order to collect Poko feels... dang rough. I think even a little passive Poko generation would help him out a lot. His Smashes being tied to his ship is also something that feels a little dicey. There is merit to having the source of his Smash attacks be tied to his Pikmin while they're out. It's nice that he can't be boxed out of being able to defend them. But on the other hand it's outsourcing even more of his kit on a character who, by himself, only has access to Standards and one Aerial. I think some of his restrictions are a little on the harsh side considering his payouts typically aren't crazy. The set won me over a bit as it went on but idk, I think he'd benefit from a little easing of tension.
I do kinda wonder if all the Smashes could be bundled up in a Special somehow (the various hard interactions do feel very Special) and he could just have something a little more pragmatic to himself... though then again he probably misses his Aerials when Pikmin are deployed to dig up treasure more than he misses his Smashes, that's probably the closest the moveset flies to the
sun.
Always happy to see a Slavic set, very fun read.
I think nomination this round to Yggdroid, good stuff everyone.
