#she has a huge hitbox so this is as close as you can get without bumping into her

[smolblorbo]

Found out how to get close enough to take photos next to the Sovereign of Elegant, life is good! 😘💕

[beatcroc]

ok so for once i’m gonna ramble about skullgirls in the tag where people might actually care so here we go

one of the first things that’s rightfully praised about skullgirls is how much personality there is in its character animations, but even the old concept sheets are worth a hell of a lot of commentary and carry a pretty impressive amount of insight to those that went unused [and largely overlooked], so i’m gonna have some fun and see how much extrapolation i can do for a few of them.  [all images taken from the official skullgirls and/or alex ahad’s tumblr]

first up: feng! feng had a relatively high amount of concepts done so she was fun to look at

feng’s movments are, in a word, fluid, and focus on carrying  several distinct strikes through one burst of momentum. 

  once she begins a motion, she’s always ready to follow up with another or two without needing to to give herself a new start point, but in the same token she can also land and balance at any moment during these movements. any successive points she launches herself from continues from/adds to the momentum of the previous, but it seems she never lets the inertia hit a point she can't instantly recover from or change the angle of the momentum with ease.  

a side thing that's pretty neat about feng is she almost always has those darn birds balanced somewhere on her, which means more often than not she has two horizontal and relatively stationary points throughout her movements and idles. there's not anything particularly telling about this, but it does lend itself to a lot of neat poses :b i guess it would imply she’s been preforming with them for quite awhile though...

as an acrobat, feng’s focus is on grace much moreso than power.  she's not a fighter by profession, but she certainly knows how to put her skills to use in combat [and will readily do so!] i wouldn't guess she's used to fighting a specific kind of opponent to have adapted to, or really even had much deliberate fight training, but some of her concepts seem to have a bit of traditional martial arts moments thrown in, so her fighting prowess may be self-taught, perhaps to accentuate movements in her performance. i'm not knowledgeable enough to know which style, exactly, but it's very reminiscent of air [rotational movements, ease of directional momentum shift] and firebending[dynamic kicks and stance changes] movements in atla.

now i don’t actually know anything about fighter meta or how to build a solid character, but were she in the game, she’d definitely be one of those characters that does shit for damage, but can combo to hell and back. she’s maneuverable and you’re toast if she gets to you, but she might also be easier to punish and have few options when it comes to ranged attacks.

next up, black dhalia

dhalia is really interesting because her sketches seem to to focus on snapping from one extreme to another

a mysteriously concealed stance to a swift sudden burst, dhalia’s posture is solid but poised; she’s always ready to spring to action and strike in any direction at a moment’s notice, and when she does she has TON of flair in it. black dhalia knows she’s good at what she does, and she knows she looks damn good doing it.

she also seems to have a knack for following up an initial action/hit with something bizarre out of nowhere that requires no further exertion from her than to hold whatever pose she just struck. she doesn’t usually put too much into any one hit; to get the job done she leans more into her ability to produce something damaging from pretty much any angle or stance. not one to be easily cornered or duped.

as an seasoned assassin, i imagine she's used to taking down targets with a great deal of variety in their strengths and weaknesses.[the medici certainly have many enemies and grudges, so those on their hitlist likely fall all over the place in terms of uh... competence]. she’s ready for anything. if given advantage, she waits to assess an opponent;concealed so as to not betray her plans to the target, and then delivers a precise, decisive blow. if ambushed or outnumbered, she looks to keep opponents at bay with her variety of gun...weaponry. dhalia seems most lethal at close range, but she has the tools and stamina to win a ranged game too.

In practice it looks like she'd thrive on unpredictability, plenty of moves that come out from the same pose super quickly, with slightly above-average power. not the fastest in movement or cooldown, but plenty of versatility to compensate.

on the third hand, we have annie, who is is…amusingly straightforward in all her attacks. 

annie’s pretty much the polar opposite of feng. she uses huge sweeps, fully exerting herself into singular concentrated strikes that are all about getting as much power as possible behind one motion. there is no stopping this girl’s momentum.

like dhalia, annie has a solid stance--but hers is for sturdiness, not surprise; for bracing and anchoring moves that have a lot of kick to them.

it’s hard to say exactly how much involvement sagan would have in her full spectrum moves, but in these examples whenever she uses him, it’s always a... fairly detached thing? like, when annie attacks, it’s either with the cleaver, or with sagan, and there’s not much overlap or synergy between the types of moves.  not that there’s any reason there should be; she utilizes both perfectly well on their own. the cleaver is also interesting because while she can, and often does wield it one-handed, it’s still got enough weight behind it to merit two-handed swings, though she seems to do dual-handed more if there’s some kind of effect along  the swing, like in Crescent Cut and North Sword.                                     

as a self-made skullgirl killer, annie’s targets have probably mostly been very durable and very powerful, but not incredibly mobile. to counter them, she looks to end battles as quickly as possible with defense-shattering strikes or blasts, while using her own mobility to stay out of harm’s way. float like a butterfly, hit like a truck i guess. 

despite also being an actor, annie has practically no deliberate visual flair to her movements [luckily for her, her sparkliness is part of the attack’s functionality so it doesn’t matter much if she’s actually trying to look cool and flashy, it happens regardless :b]. she has a lot of fights under her belt and takes this whole thing pretty seriously.

In practice I can see her being an agile hard-hitter, but slower to start and end moves than average, with relatively low combo potential. pretty balanced with options in terms of ranged/close combat

lastly, umbrella. she lacks a distinct fighting style so i have less to say about that, but honestly the sheer wildness of her concepts merits bringing her up.

her “stance” and lack of cohesion in attacks are at least indicative of one thing though: it’s clear she’s pretty much just a normal carefree little kid who hasn’t yet gotten any real fighting experience or training.

but even if she doesn't know much about combat, she does know about hungern, and how to utilize its, uh... odd capabilities [even if it’s... not always a very dignified use of them.]

like, i feel like these aren’t things a kid would immediately think a weird umbrella would be capable of doing, let alone pick up on how to do them. she’s had to have done some experimentation with it over the years to find out this kind of stuff. had someone taught her, i’m sure she would know a more skillful way to make hungern do its thing than literally just flopping down on top of it [but hey maybe it’s just fun :b] we know krieg is a renoir heirloom, so it might not be a stretch to say hungern was too, and if so it’s safe to say umbrella’s probably had it as long as she can remember, and she seems to have it with her basically at all times. she does seem to enjoy having and using it, though i’d guess she doesn’t  get much opportunity to really ‘unleash’ hungern like this, being sheltered and all.

anyway all that said, i think really the only thing preventing umbrella from being a true force to be reckoned with in-universe is some disciplne. not in the sense that sh’s a bad kid [though she certainly isn’t...exemplar either]; she’s got the willingness to learn and a good bit of know-how, she just need some structure behind it and practice applying what she knows to real situations.

in terms of gameplay...man. i dunno. lotta weird moves, looks like a lot of huge hitboxes that would make her a pain to get to without risk to yourself, though aside from that she’d be average in all ways i guess.

i’m still trying to wrap my head around venus and illeum’s sheets, among others... but there may be a few other posts like this coming ‘cause i love doing this shit; if you wanna see me do a particular [both used or unused!] hmu, i’d be down ;y

[supersonicsteaktacular]

Chapter 4 is finished! This one took about 3 hours, this is going to be a long game.

Ayumi and Yoshiki finally reunite! This game is definitely one for the Ayushiki shippers. In the first game all Ayumi would talk about was Satoshi, but in this one Yoshiki always seems to be on her mind, aww!

Ayumi reacts predictably when she sees Yoshiki (who’s introduction in this chapter is probably one of the best i’ve seen) and has a little relief cry. If there was a situation for a hug, it would’ve been there, but i guess that’s too much to ask huh? (Just give me the Ayushiki cuddles I BEG YOU!)

Yoshiki has some understandably choice words for Ayumi, but then she berates him for throwing the Everafter stones away. Like what? Weren’t you just regreting ever coming here for the past few hours?

“Oh by the way Kishinuma, you was totally right to try and stop me coming here, turns out i was being lead into a trap. BUT YOU WAS STILL WRONG TO STOP ME! FUCK YOU!”

And then she pulls out the “Misuto was nicer to me than you were” line

FUCKING EXCUSE ME?!?

Have all of Misuto’s lines been mistranslated up until that point? Was he actually whispering the sweetest nothings to Ayumi each time she picked up the phone??

Thank fuck for the NHS because i’m pretty sure that line gave me an aneurism. Misuto has been calling you a fuckhead shit-eating crybaby failure at every oppertunity he got, but Yoshiki is apparently MUCH WORSE for not letting Ayumi indulge in her self-destructive ideas and calling her a dumbass when she gets herself into a situation that she can’t handle! If only Yoshiki could be as nice as Misuto and swear at Ayumi every now and then! /s

Luckily K̶i̶z̶a̶m̶i̶ The Anatomical Model makes an appearance to get the plot moving again. Good to see he’s still shambling about.

So now that the dynamic duo is back together, it’s time to start getting shit done (i’m pretty sure Ayumi and Yoshiki were the only ones to actually do stuff in the first game?)

The idea of finding objects with jewels in them was pretty cool. I liked the idea of the jewels representing some aspect of humanity. I’m sure i’ve seen similar concepts in other games but i can’t place my finger on it, hmm.

Also on the other end, Naomi going to the Mochida household was really cute. She looked so happy with Yuka on her lap! Also ANOTHER girl has a crush on Satoshi? Jesus christ this guy is an absolute babe magnet! How has he not made the headlines? “MOST DESIRABLE MAN IN TOKYO STILL A BACHALOR”

Finally i’d like to talk about the Yoshikazu replacements. Was kinda disappointed with the designs as they’re just Pyramid Head without the symbolism. Honestly Blood Drive has taken huge inspiration from Silent Hill, so much so i wouldn’t blame someone for thinking it was Silent Hill knock-off.

That survival segment at the end was redonkulous. There was like six of the pyramid heads chasing me around, and the hitboxes on their axes are huge!

Overall a pretty solid chapter though. The soundtrack was excelent, but i still feel Blood Drive hasn’t quite gotten close to the same level as the god-tier Blood Covered ost. Hopefully some of the future tracks can bring it up a notch.