Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• # __Harbinger__ ## Theme This takes the folklore theme and runs with it in an insanely creative way, making someone who controls cryptids rather than a cryptid itself. It admittedly took me a wee bit for this to grow on me, but I really dig it ultimately, phenomenal creativity being shown here guys. **SCORE: 5/5** ## Moves & Mechanics This character is *so close to greatness*, but falls just barely short in several small ways that add up. Harbinger is a pupper and summon character rolled up into one, with one main puppet which is always around in Mothman, and various summons that can be summoned either temporarily (Minotaur, Chupacabra, Baba Yaga), and one conditional one that sems to last forever (Dracula). All of Harbinger's Specials and Supers involve either Mothman or the summons in some manner, and for his Normals, he has the Mother of All Disjoints in his whip blade thing, not entirely sure what it's meant to be but its metal as hell. All of this is AMAZING, mind, but the kit suffers from a death by a thousand cuts in the little itty bitty things. For one, most of Mothman and the summons' attacks are projectile parriable. Say bye to your screenwide oki. Please fix this, make Mothman's attacks parriable like melee attacks and the summons entirely unparriable, he needs it. The other is that, despite Harbinger's normals having very high knockback (as you'd expect from a giant whip), it is very easy to just... leave Mothman behind in your combo. You have to actively try to keep Mothman relevant in neutral for him to even be a factor in combos, and I feel like giving Mothman a slow, loose following behavior while idling would make all the difference he needs to feel like a constant presence in the arena. Oh and also, it feels really weird how Baba Yaga is the only summon that can be hit. These two points well and truly hold this character back -- otherwise, they are one of my clear favorites. Like I said, it's SO CLOSE to being perfect. **SCORE: 4/5** ## Visuals The visual aspect of this character is phenomenal. The spritework is beautiful, detailed, yet to the point and not indulgent in its own detail. The icons are very clear as to what they do, and the summons are equal parts charming and threatening. I love how goofy Baba Yaga looks, I can see what you guys meant by him being the most fun thing to work on. I really have no complaints at all, shit's great. **SCORE: 5/5** ## Aesthetic The vibes this character gives off are phenomenal. That whole "keeper of untold secrets" vibe with Mothman and the other cryptids at your beck and call, your unnaturally hued lantern with the big fuck off normals, it all comes together into a complete package of peak. **SCORE: 5/5** ## Gameplay **Fix the parriability, summon hittability, and Mothman's idle behavior, and my life is yours.** Jokes aside, they hold up really well against vanilla despite all the small flaws, and they are an INCREDIBLY novel character. There may be summoners and pupper characters, sure, but NOTHING like this. They are a joy to play, and I am looking forward to the kinks getting ironed out so I can become a true Harbinger truther. **SCORE: 5/5** # TOTAL SCORE: 24/25
• This character is definitely interesting, and novel, for one, the gameplay attempts to be more, mothman and the other summons pull off a very good summon character, though some of the aspects are questionable, like the insane movement. Pros: All the summons require future planning The theming is extremely unique Sweetspots add some extra flavor to the combo game for the character the use of different colors on the icons to represent the different summons is nice Cons: The block advantage feels a little too low The air movement doesn't fit the character's playstyle Dracula feels a little too weak Barely no high-low mixup This character is good and feels good to use, you can really snowball the match and win through the pure pressure, but the lack of significant block advantage hurts the character, but overall nice experience. Great job!
• Suffers from many deficiencies but in testing when you get things placed just right, it does work. If the idea of the character is that you can only continue combos with your pawns set up right at least one of these fucking goofballs needs to have free action anything. Mothman is so key to extensions and yet he's as slow as a snail. He physically cannot chase. This character suffers against really every DI. Dracula and the damn house have similar issues they can't do much of anything except Dracula has the obligatory obnoxious homing projectile that honestly does not seem like a fun time to deal with. Frankly, buff Dracula's frame data and make all of his projectiles destroyable with attacks. That'd be more accurate and more useful. Part of me wishes that the house was it's own character but in motion I do see why there wouldn't be much faith in that idea. The house is cool. Chupacabra and the minotaur feel like the most inspired choices and they fit the best aesthetically. Every other summon feels a bit out there aesthetically and in terms of source material. That's not a great problem to have when this character sometimes makes the screen very hard to read. Why is Dracula a damn twink. Also I did see that he only has a hurtbox on his head that's a good touch. But he's damn tiny. He really should be bigger. He's basically the same size as Belmont, that's goofy. The summoner themselves having fun disjoint moves is cool and smart given that they are littering the space around both players with obstacles. Needs more moves though. Anyhow, my two cents, take that idea of making mothman follow Drac fireballs (best idea). Make that effectively his free action. Then make an install super where chupra and mino are free actions. Boom, now the character has progression via meter based movement of their summons. And uh, do something with the house. Make it proper setplay maybe? Idk it's a damn house it should sit down and threaten space.