I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
I've been thinking about Pokken recently, and among other things, I've decided to make more theory-crafted movesets, like the ones I like to make for Fighterz. Here's three I whipped up in the last few hours:
Has 630 HP.
Has a new status effect called Paralyze. Paralyze slows down the opponent. Paralyzed opponents also have a chance to fail due to paralysis when they try to attack. Every move in a row the opponent doesn't fail increases the chance of failure. The reverse is true if you keep failing, it becomes less likely the more times in a row it happens.
Zap Cannon does high damage and Paralyzes, but it has a small hitbox.
Rock Blast shoots multiple rocks forward.
Smack Down hits opponents out of the air.
Defense Curl buffs Defense and increases the power of Rollout.
Rollout can be held to keep rolling, and it's stronger the longer Golem rolls for. Charge buffs Defense, increases the power of Zap Cannon, and adds electric effects and Paralyze to Rock Blast and Smack Down.
Explosion KOs Alolan Golem immediately but does immense damage. The Alolan Golem player wins if Explosion KOs the opponent.
Kangaskhan has 600 HP.
Return is stronger the more full the Synergy Burst gauge is.
Frustration is stronger the lower Kangaskhan's health is.
Comet Punch hits multiple times rapidly.
Mega Punch has Super Armor.
Headbutt stuns the opponent.
Facade gets stronger if Kangaskhan has a debuff.
Chip Away ignores the opponent's defense buff.
Mega Kangaskhan is its Synergy Burst, which brings out the baby to attack alongside its mother, changing a lot of moves. The Synergy Burst move is extremely adorable and heartwarming.
Spinda's HP is 510.
It has its own unique status called Confusion, which messes with the opponent's controls. Confused opponents also have a chance to hit themselves when they try to attack. Every move in a row the opponent doesn't hit themselves increases the chance to hit yourself. The reverse is true if you keep hitting yourself, it becomes less likely the more times in a row it happens.
Spinda has Own Tempo and Tangled Feet as abilities, which means that if it's Confused, it suffers no drawbacks and becomes quicker at dodging attacks.
Teeter Dance sends out a wave of confusion.
Dizzy Punch confuses the opponent if it hits.
Psych Up copies the opponents buffs, debuffs, and status conditions.
Psycho Shift moves debuffs and status conditions to the opponent.
Flail hits harder the lower HP Spinda has.
Thrash is a violent rampage, at the end of which Spinda becomes Confused.
Spinda's Synergy Burst Move is surreal and trippy, it messes with the opponent's sense of balance so hard that the opposing Pokemon can do nothing but lie down on the floor nauseous with vertigo as the world spins around them.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jan 18th 2020 at 8:23:15 AM
That Spinda has unfun frustration as its gimmick. No, never.
You have this issue of prioritizing staying true to the text over making enjoyable things. You may enjoy stuff being true to the text, but most people enjoy gameplay.
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
Spinda is made for troll players who want to frustrate and piss their opponents off. I have successfully crystallized the very being of toxic trolling in competitive games into a fighting game character and you want me to discard this, my magnum opus? For shame. My goal was to make the most annoying and hateable character in fighting games, and I succeeded.
But seriously, what's your suggestion for making Spinda tolerable? I still really like the basic concept, where it revolves around both it and the opponent having a specific status condition that is positive for it but negative for the opponent, and it has a lot of moves that inflict that status on itself and the opponent as well as moves for transferring that status between itself and the opponent.
Brenner's Wolves Fight Again
If you want to stay true to the text, give Spinda half the HP, damage output, and movement speed as other fighters.
Where there's life, there's hope.
The last thing any fighting game needs is any more RNG.
If you want a Spinda that's got a lot of the weird confusing thematic elements without adding in luck based statuses that are uncompetitive, I'd suggest taking a look at some of the crazy stuff Tekken's Yoshimitsu, Drunken Master stance Lei Wulong, and Soul Calibur's Valdo can do, since every Pokken character borrows liberally from the Tekken and Soul Calibur roster's movesets.
Brenner's Wolves Fight Again
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That didn't stop Smash from having Hero.
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
Or Croagunk.
Who is immensely frustrating to fight and has no consistent tournament results do to being an inherently inconsistent character by design.
You can have a degree of random elements, but unless those are balanced in an incredibly smart way (only Guilty Gear's Faust has ever managed this as far as I know) you're just looking at a recipe for frustration for everyone. Croagunk has a lot of RNG moves and he's considered one of the worst characters in the roster, odd upsets from extra good RNG not withstanding.
Edited by Hashil on Jan 18th 2020 at 10:28:05 AM
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
Okay, what if I just get rid of the random self-harm/paralyze for Spinda and Alolan Golem? Now, it's just that Alolan Golem's electric moves slow down the opponent and Spinda's Confusion just mixes up the opponent's directional controls.
Speed Down's already a standard debuff several moves inflict, so that's fine.
Control mixing is too, I guess, since I've seen it in a few other fighting games, but personally I don't care for its implementation. Mostly it just makes the player with scrambled controls turtle until it wears off.
And Hero isn't that good a fighter because of not only the RNG, but the fact that they will need a second to stop and process what that RNG has given them every time (which, even optimised, will still have a delay).
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I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
So, what about Alolan Golem and Kangaskhan?
I hate everything about Explosion and moves like it, but Chandelure's Overheat is basically that but better, so if he has a terrible close range game I guess that's fine. It's otherwise really bland sounding? Barring a few exceptions nearly every character has some strong central movement option or mechanic that gives them an identity and I'm not sure what this guy's is supposed to be.
Kangaskahn sounds cool. We don't have a puppet fighter yet and Baby Kang acting as one in burst could work similar to how Gengar is basically a new character during.
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
I guess my idea for Alolan Golem was to use either Defense Curl or Charge to boost defense and follow-up with either Rollout to get in or use its Charged projectiles to keep at a distance. Rollout would be its main movement option. Obviously, these movesets are just a starting point, they need fleshing out.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jan 19th 2020 at 4:05:53 AM
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
Okay, I came up with a fairly complete moveset that I think is actually fantastic and I would love to see as a playable character in Pokken. Vespiquen, as a resource-management puppet fighter.
- Vespiquen has 540 HP.
- Vespiquen fights primarily using a swarm of Combee. She starts the battle with 15 Combee and can have up to 20 at a time. She has a little meter telling her how many Combee she has at a time. No matter what they're doing, each Combee faints in one hit, unless the opponent has lowered Attack, in which case they take two hits.
- Attack Order sends Combee out to attack the opponent. The Combee have 3 different moves they can use to attack.
- Gust sends out small tornadoes as projectiles.
- Struggle Bug is a counter move that lowers the opponent's Attack. The attack taken to trigger this move does not injure the Combee.
- Bug Buzz is Attack Order's strongest move. Multiple Combee using Bug Buzz combine their attacks to make the sound wave bigger, stronger, and more oppressive.
- Defend Order sets up Combee in front of Vespiquen to form a impassible barrier in front of her that blocks projectiles. Each use of Defend Order assigns another Combee to the wall, attaching to the others like a honeycomb. The Vespiquen player chooses where the Combee attach to each other, but they can only attach along at least two walls. The coverage provided by the barrier is based on the number and arrangement of the Combee.
- Heal Order assigns Combee to heal Vespiquen. The more Combee she assigns with Heal Order, the more HP she heals. If Vespiquen is hit by an attack while being healed by Combee, she and the Combee both take the attack.
- Infestation is a distance command grab with up to three Combee latching onto the opponent. Those Combee stay latched on and attack them for a little while after use.
- Vespiquen has some moves she can use without Combee.
- Sweet Scent summons more Combee to add to the swarm.
- Gust creates small tornadoes as projectiles. Vespiquen's Gust is larger and stronger than Combee's Gust.
- Struggle Bug is a counter move that lowers the opponent's Attack. Vespiquen's Struggle Bug has a wider range than Combee's and does a bit more damage.
- Bug Buzz. Vespiquen's Bug Buzz has a wider range and does more damage than Combee's, and it can still combine with Combee's Bug Buzz.
- Power Gem. Vespiquen shoots a laser out of the red gem on her forehead.
- Vespiquen has a flying stance that allows her to hover and airdash.
- Vespiquen's Synergy Burst summons infinite Combee. Her Burst Attack has hundreds of Combee form a gigantic beehive around the battlefield, and Vespiquen with all of her Combee flap their wings, creating a massive Bug Buzz cacophony that echoes throughout the hive, trapping the opponent in a tornado of sound and fury that ends with Vespiquen shooting the opponent with Power Gem.
Her intros and outros can involve her being cute and motherly towards her Combee, feeding them honey and grooming them, in stark contrast to her ruthless and merciless attitude in-battle.
Just imagine how Vespiquen would look in Pokken's artstyle, with both her and Combee having proper bee fuzz on their bodies, and maybe Vespiquen's abdomen could even have the texture of a beehive on the inside.
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jan 19th 2020 at 7:04:28 AM
Ever Evolving, Ever Adapting
Dragon of the month: Timaeus The United Dragon
If they ever do make another Pokken Tournament game. Then I hope that Charizard returns as it had a really cool & awesome moveset in the game and it allowed you to hit the other fighters fast & hard.
Crazy Crossover Creator - A Man with Many Hypoth
I would love to see Greninja appear since he was left out of the first game, maybe some more unevolved Pokemon too like Kubfu, Corphish, Jigglypuff or Clefairy. I definitely would expect a Toxtricity to appear, but I'd also want to see a regional variant appear like Galarian Darmanitan. I think G-Darmanitan's ability Gorilla Tactics would lend itself to a fighting game moveset if modified so that the attack boost simply just applies to the first attack you use that lands a hit.
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Ever Evolving, Ever Adapting
All the Galar starters feel like they could be great fits for Pokken. Intellion snipining opponents from afar withfast projectiles, while also being able to glide in the air....Cinderace using a mixture of kicks and pyro balls...Rillaboom tripping up people with his vines while also just being a powerhouse in its own right.
If we're talking about regional variants, I feel Like Obstagoon is a real good contender as a fighter. using a mixture of stat debuffs and counters to hit the enemyhard. But this is also a good oprotunity for assists....the like of alolan Exeggutor or Runerigus using their unique characteristcs to change the tide.
Edited by CountofBleck on Jan 25th 2021 at 2:51:11 PM
Ever Evolving, Ever Adapting
Pokken will no longer be apart of the Pokrmon Championship Series circuit after 2022
Whether this means theres another one being prepped in the fire or the series just sputtered out remains to be seen, but its a sad time.
Edited by CountofBleck on May 26th 2022 at 5:32:41 AM
IHE
I didn't even know we even had a Pokken thread until now.
I figured there would be a sequel to Pokken now. I don't recall the game selling poorly or having any lousy reception for the game?
Ever Evolving, Ever Adapting
As a bit of a last hurrah for now, here is the Grand Finals from the Worlds this weekend, the last time Pokken DX will be on this big stage. Shadow Cat, a legendary player from even the wii u era of pokken, vs mewtater, a consistent top cut finalist. For those unaware, the meta had drastically changed a few years ago as official rules went from a best 2 of 3 with one character, to a 3/5 game with each side selecting 3 fighters. Was some intense fights, made me remember why i loved this game so much.
Looks like this will require a online membership to play. Unless that direct has some updates for this title, too, I'm pretty confident its online activities are going to nosedive once the online service starts with how shit its netcode is.