So I could keep reading more and more sets, but I’d rather take a break from reading to do some commenting. I doubt I’d remember the sets I’ve already read well enough to comment them after reading all the other sets anyway, and I don’t particularly feel like commenting 15 sets at once, so here goes on what I have read.
COUNT CANNOLI
I can’t say I’ve ever so much as touched Master of Disguise or ever heard of the character, so I naturally have a slight bias at the start of the set. . .But it’s a freaking K. Rool set. I can’t go without reading one (Besides Galaxy Man), so if anything you have more of a bias in your favor simply due to your name being stamped on it. Regardless, these sort of canceled each other out, so let’s move on.
I absolutely love the idea of stealing attacks with the neutral special. It’d make every match with Cannoli quite interesting to see play out, even if it would make the count hellish to play against. I love how you give him so many moves to get behind the enemy, and making the neutral special grab better with the foe’s back turned was quite a clever and very fitting concept. In addition to stealing moves from the enemy, he can potentially use them as ammo with his fsmash, fair, and dthrow (Excuse me if there’s more), wrapping this up all the better.
I absolutely love Cannoli, and in addition to the main show of stealing moves he also has absolutely insane mindgame potential with wickedly cool moves, namely the dtilt, side special, dair, and usmash. There’s very little to complain about. . .
But the moveset is somewhat rushed. While the detail for the most part suffices, it’s not quite up to the standards of Miracle Matter or Jumpluff despite Cannoli’s brilliant moves deserving more detail then the former two. That’s still not the main issue though, it still gets the job done fine, far better then Father Time and earlier. What’s the problem? There’s a couple obvious rushed moves (Uair says hi), sure, but more importantly Cannoli is quite overpowered. A particularly obvious example is his up special, which is absolutely godly recovery (5 seconds makes Pit’s look bad) and hard to edgeguard while still letting Cannoli use his aerials and steal moves.
That’s not that massive of a complaint though, as I didn’t find it quite as overpowered outside the up special as some of the other people in the chat (Get out of there and comment this beauty properly, you lazy *****! You know who you are). My main problem with this is how the cornerstone of his playstyle, the move stealing, is absolutely random. This would make luck play quite a large factor. . .I’ve joined HR on the anti random effects movement. While this normally isn’t enough to break a set, this isn’t just a few simple things like extra random move effects to make things more interesting, this is something that could get competitive players quite pissed at the luck they can’t turn off. Perhaps you could’ve had him steal the last move they used or something? Or perhaps to make it harder on Cannoli to steal specifically what he wants but not make it luck based, say, the 5th last move they used? I dunno. Just something to not make it luck based.
A significantly smaller complaint is that Cannoli’s alter ego, the Silver Zephyr, feels rather pointless. I think the moveset could’ve done just as well without him in there, and I find it quite awkward how he has to transform for some of his move interactions. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just mash the two forms of the moves together? While this couldn’t be done for all cases, there are other inputs you could overwrite with these effects, such as the uair. Then again, this might be fitting for Cannoli. I wouldn’t know, I haven’t touched the character. You be the judge.
So while there are plenty of complaints here, this is still without a doubt a very fine set none the less. While there’s a good bit more bad then some of your other sets, there’s also far more good. I’d rank him as your second best after Miracle Matter, who I’ll eventually get around to reviewing after I read the other ten thousand sets I have left to go, including your precious Cutesy.
NATURE
I agree with K. Rool in that it was indeed a breath of fresh air to see a newcomer come in actually informed for once and have actually done some lurking, but I didn’t expect you to come up with such a great first entry that beats out those of newcomers who have already been here a couple months. Very nice first effort!
I find it somewhat strange that the character is male yet is supposed to be Mother Nature, but it’s your character. . .So yeah. Moving on. I like the seasons mechanic considerably and how Nature is better suited to doing certain things depending on the season. He can damage rack quite well during a certain season, but if he doesn’t get the damage done before the season’s up he’s kinda screwed. Quite an interesting playstyle with the mechanic, even if the moves don’t really interact in particular, and the final smash tied it up better then most mechanics.
I’m blind to organization, but I agree with Junahu/K. Rool (I forget which said it) that the organization would make far more sense if you color coded the attacks based off which season buffed them up and could make this a real beauty.
Unlike Junahu, I feel the moveset could’ve benefited from some more creativity on the individual attacks and possibly used a slight increase in detail (Though nothing too large). Too many of the moves just felt bland to me, although I can’t be asking too much of you on your first set, now can I (Then again, there is Donna. . .)? I hope you stick around, you’d make a fine addition to the community.
COMPUTER VIRUS
So let’s see. . .Where to start? I don’t particularly remember all the parts of the set amazingly well considering I read Magician and Slime a couple months ago and Great Dragon was also a good few weeks back, so all I had to read here was Puppet and Evil Knight. While this gave me little left to read, it makes it rather tough to piece it all together for me. Guess I sort of ruined the experience for myself. . .Let’s see what I can remember from those three I read earlier in the commentary, eh? Although I did re-read Slime and a bit of Magician. In any case, this certainly goes better then many other 3+ joint sets due to having a switch mechanic that actually binds them together in a fitting way rather then an obligatory one (Even if it would make maining the virus torture).
Slime and Puppet have some of the most wickedly cool moves in the entire set, although I assume that’s mainly because you had so few button inputs to work with that you could squeeze all their potential on those few moves. Still, either way, great job, particularly on Slime. Considering how well Slime turned out, I wouldn’t mind seeing him get a full set. Puppet, while creative, isn’t quite as good as Slime and I like K. Rool found the string box mechanic rather confusing as there was no string box in his picture and you made no attempt to explain it.
Magician. . .Probably the most creative of the main trio, although he has far more potential then the other two due to being able to explain everything away with magic. He’s only freaking called MAGICian. Still, you tapped into his potential without getting awkward and I applaud you for it, even if several of the move ideas –did- come from yours truly. . .You made him flow as a damage racker just fine, albeit that is indeed a rather generic playstyle, basically identical to Megaman.EXE, but far more creative, thankfully. My biggest real beef with the Magician though is that I think he’s overpowered. . .You should probably buff up those kill percents. A char so good at damage racking shouldn’t be able to kill until 200%, IMO, although you did at least make it hard to do (Though not quite as hard as you claim).
Evil Knight. . .A shame you got stuck with the worst of the three in terms of moveset potential, MT. . .Wait? You decided to make him a suit of armor and give him dark magics? Epic. Great way to get some more material out of this otherwise quite bland character. I agree with K. Rool in that the mechanic isn’t particularly special, but is fitting because of the other characters he’s attached to and the switching methods. I like the mindgame potential you gave the guy in particular, even if it was only for a few moves it was pretty d*mn well executed, such as in the dash. My biggest complaint for the knight is that some of the moves actually get worse/do nothing under the effect of darkness. . .This would frustrate casuals and people learning the knight to no end. You’re taking damage to get more powerful. . .You do a move for bonus effects. . .And it does nothing?!? Bthrow is a particularly bad culprit here, even if it would logically make sense.
Great Dragon. . .You could’ve just called him dragon, y’know. What kind of false advertising is that? Kidding, kidding. The dragon is somewhat more bland then the knight. Kibble doesn’t seem particularly fond of heavy characters. . .To be honest, the dragon is really rather unmemorable and I can’t come up with much to comment on, which is probably a pretty bad sign, albeit he has very little potential, even less then the knight considering MT took some creative liberties with him. That said, I do like how you made Dragon able to power up his power/speed, although I found the throws a bit too blatantly overpowered, even for how slow the dragon was. 25%. . .? Really?
The set was without a doubt a bit rushed to come out, as evidenced by the rather bland final smash that doesn’t really fit the virus as a whole and would’ve made more sense for just Slime, as well as the organization. The color scheme doesn’t really fit any of the characters besides Magician or the virus as a whole. . .Great Dragon’s beta organization was far superior, as K. Rool stated.
Despite being very slightly rushed (Go on a few pages for the true incarnation of rushing), this is still probably my favorite multi set ever, particularly because of how closely bound the characters are instead of just a generic down B. This laughs in the face of the Halberd Crew, albeit nothing can beat my old halberd conversations.
RAIDEN
I apologize for bashing this set so much in the chat. . .But considering that everlasting SM chapter revolved around the guy, I take it I’m not entirely bad news for you, right? I honestly didn’t expect much, but I was absolutely blown away at your absurdly large improvement over Yamazaki back in MYM 4. This dwarfs even Lionheart’s transformation. . .Holy good crap. This set’s amazing.
. . .But I don’t think it’s as amazing as some of the others (K. Rool, Junahu) seem to think it is. The moves are pretty random and wacky and don’t particularly work together into that cohesive of a playstyle for me, and your playstyle explanation wasn’t particularly good. Unlike K. Rool, I found your writing style rather awkward and hard to understand at times, and you also have somewhat of a case of DFM syndrome. The set was rather hard to read through, although it’s far from the hardest considering the absolutely stellar organization and the masses of pictures throughout the moveset.
At first I found Raiden to be god tier with those fast tilts in combination with his ridiculous power, but the powerful moves were exceptionally laggy, and while he does indeed have some fast moves they’re rather limited in number. Still, I think those kill percents are too dangerously bordering on broken and would’ve liked to of seen them toned down.
The most enjoyable part of reading this set is the mass MGS2 fan service throughout the set, particularly with the throws. The fthrow and bthrow are absolutely hilarious even if rather uninteresting, and the dthrow is both at the same time and actually well implemented into Raiden’s playstyle. The non lethal final smash is also one of the absolute best final smashes I’ve ever seen, if not the best. Absolutely brilliant.
As for the mechanic of the set, I found it interesting, but rather unnecessary considering how many moves had no non lethal versions (Aerials) and how many of the non lethal moves’ main purposes were just to make the timer for the sleep tick down faster. It was a good concept, but executed poorly.
While I don’t see this set as an absolute god among men like some others, I still love it without a doubt, despite the occasional flaw. I didn’t think you had it in you. . .I wish I’d actually taken the preview offer you gave me instead of just blowing it off. Very good work.
BOWSER JR/SHADOW MARIO
I largely questioned if you could just somehow “decide” to join the playstyle movement with one set, particularly when you said Sebastian was the last of your old style sets, but I was pleasantly surprised that you’ve managed to take a significant step towards it. The playstyle sections are easily the best you’ve written yet, although there’s a good bit of stuff in them that would apply to pretty much any character in MYM nowadays. Playstyles generally assume the character is being played at the peak of their game, so there’s little reason to tell people to try them out and get used to them and such. That would also help in reducing the length of those massive sections.
Ignoring the descriptions of the playstyles, Jr/Shadow Mario actually flow together quite well none the less, although admittedly it’s considerably easier to do with the theme of traps and it’s been done a lot. I still like it anyways, though. Anyway, enough with the playstyle already. The individual moves are plenty unique on their own and they all have their usual quirks, although I feel Jr. is a good bit better then Shadow Mario in both uniqueness and playstyle. The plentiful move interactions are also welcome. Good job.
The extras are actually worth reading, being extremely high quality, namely the stage and SSE Role. While SSE Roles have pretty much entirely died out, it’s refreshing to see a good one after them having been dead for so long, and it makes all too much sense for a character who should’ve been actually in the SSE to have a SSE Role. It was quite an entertaining read, the only thing being particularly questionable being your awkward boss choice, but at least you, y’know, actually have one.
The stage is pretty much a direct translation of how it was in Sunshine, and I was very impressed how you managed to include every part of it and all the elements of it (Besides the torture that was propelling that evil boat) while still keeping it at a relatively readable length and at counterpick status. Very well done.
A couple more general complaints that have been with your sets for a considerable time that I wouldn’t of mind seeing Jr freed of are the random move effects and the overly creative situationals. The situationals aren’t that much of a problem, but when you have less creative regular moves wouldn’t it make more sense to put them there? As for the random move effects, they’re not nearly as bad as usual seeing they can all be pretty much used for the same thing, though the coins in Jr’s fsmash would more likely heal the enemy when fired, which could be somewhat frustrating. Not a big issue, but I find it annoying when some of your attacks rely on luck to be interesting, such as Jr’s ? block aerial (The fair I believe).
Sorry for pretty much critizing you for half the commentary and just praising the extras, but I really do love this set and it is indeed quite impressive that you actually made a full moveset for a Zelda/Shiek combo. This is without a doubt THE BKupa set to vote for.
