Moveset Design Document: Marisa Kirisame

Overview

Like Marisa says, danmaku is all about power. She's a fairly straighforward character, just do as much damage as you can with her magic. She’s a zoner with strong projectiles, some disjointed hitboxes, and the speed to get away when things get sour. While her projectiles make it hard for a close range fighter to get near and land some hits, Marisa has trouble when that happens. Her melee attacks trade unfavorably, and she can be launched easily. A glass cannon through and through. We wouldn’t have Marisa any other way, right?

Power: A
Speed: B
Jump: A
Defense: D

Walk Speed: Medium

Run Speed: Fast (Marisa mounts her broom when she runs)

Jump Height: High

Falling Speed: Medium

Knockback Resistance: Low

Attack Damage: High

Attack Speed: Medium

Pros:

• Strong projectile attacks
  
• Very good movement speed
  
• Good aerial game

Cons:

• Low knockback resistance, meaning it’s possible to get a kill on her at low percentages.
  
• Bad melee game, especially on the ground.

Moveset

Normal Attacks

Neutral Combo: A punch, followed by a kick, then a butt slam.

Dash Attack: Rushes at the foe whilst mounted on her broom, doing a sort of wheelie motion, except without any wheels.

Tilt Attacks:

• Forward: A short range magic blast from her hand.
  
• Down: Spinning leg sweep.
  
• Up: Marisa traces a line of light above her.
  

Aerial Attacks:

• Neutral: Kick slightly aimed downwards.
  
• Forward: Short ranged magic blast.
  
• Back: Back kick.
  
• Down: Short range magic blast aimed down. Spikes.
  
• Up: Upwards jab with the broom’s end.
  

Grappling

Grab: Marisa grabs the opponent with both hands, then releases one of them.

Pummel: Kicks the opponent's shin.

Throws:

• Forward: Marisa blasts the opponent away with magic blast to the gut.
  
• Back:  Marisa tosses the foe behind her, smacking them away with her broom.
  
• Down: Marisa slams her opponent onto the ground and sits on top of them.
  
• Up: Marisa lifts her foe into the air and blasts them with a magic blast.
  

Smash Attacks

Forward: Marisa takes out her broom and whacks the opponent with it, as with a baseball bat.

Down: Marisa does a low sweep with the broom in front of her, then behind her.

Up: Marisa snaps her fingers above her, and forms a spark.

Special Moves

Neutral: Marisa shoots star shaped bullets. This move can be charged. Higher charge levels shoot with more power and range. If the move is charged completely instead, Marisa shoots a laser instead. The spread of the stars makes it hard to approach, while the laser is a good kill move.

Forward: Marisa mounts her broom and charges the foe with a powerful rush, launching her on hit and continuing forward.

Down: Marisa takes out a potion bottle that can be thrown. It can be caught or picked up by other players, and its explosion will hurt you as well.  

Up: Marisa hangs onto her broom as it rises into the air. This attack hits multiple times, with only the last hit doing any significant knockback.

Last Word

Master Spark: Marisa takes out her Hakkero and uses it to shoot a gigantic beam of light forward that deals multiple hits, with massive damage and knockback.

Here's Marisa. She's all about power, with spells that deal a lot of damage and sure look impressive. She's also one of the two most likely candidates for the title of fastest human. I had to emphasize that. She's also very commonly seen as a glass cannon, so I went that way too. Falling over dead from a light breeze is a common drawback on characters that have both damage and speed anyway.

Many thanks to Roku, who provided me with his notes, which I used as a starting point when writing my document. I did my own alterations to the stuff that was there, but if you know where to look you will still find some of his words here.

I'm pretty satisfied with the moveset, though as with everyone else, it will need to be documented in more detail once we reach the implementation phase. There are some hammerspace shenanigans with her broom, but that's unavoidable, and I doubt people will care anyway. As a mage type character, Marisa fights mostly with spells, so I had even some of her normals be magic attacks, though close range. Not all of them, though. Marisa needs to bludgeon people with her broom, and even though she's a mage, she's not afraid of some old fashined melee violence, though she's not very skilled at it.

The specials are a bit derivative, but no character has them in that combination anyway. The closest you can get to it is the Star Fox boys, and even then, it ain't too close. The neutral special blatantly steals Robin's gimmick, and the Last Word is pretty much a carbon copy of Samus', but I'm not too worried about it. Mokou, with a match of two for Captain Falcon, would be more worrying than this, and I'm also not worried about her. There is only so much design space, anyway.

As always, I'm open to your concerns, suggestions, and praise. Especially that last one, but don't let that stop you from giving me the other two as well.

Overall nice job!

For the Final Word, however, I do believe we can go with something more original. Master Spark is strong, but it's merely a regular spellcard. Marisa has had special cards for her Last Word in other games; I think we could do the same.

Rokugurin wrote:Overall nice job!

For the Final Word, however, I do believe we can go with something more original. Master Spark is strong, but it's merely a regular spellcard. Marisa has had special cards for her Last Word in other games; I think we could do the same.

Master Spark is super iconic though, it feels weird to not have it, although that might just be me.

GandWuser wrote:Master Spark is super iconic though, it feels weird to not have it, although that might just be me.

It's not just you. We had this exact same discussion on Skype before I posted this here, until I realized we were just going in circles and suggested Roku take it to the forums, where other people can weigh in.

That's 2-1 for me so far, then.

GandWuser wrote:
Master Spark is super iconic though, it feels weird to not have it, although that might just be me.

Super iconic, but just another spellcard. Other games using a Last Word have given her original ones.  I feel we could do the same.

Rokugurin wrote:Other games using a Last Word have given her original ones.  I feel we could do the same.

And once again I repeat myself. Those games had a Last Word and a selection of super moves, of spellcards. Emphasis on a selection of them, them, plural. They didn't exclude Master Spark to have that new attack, they had it alongside it. We, unfortunately, can only have one Last Word, so that's why Master Spark gets here over all the others. Because it's Marisa's most iconic spellcard by far.

Like I said before, a Marisa without Master Spark is not Marisa. It's a character that resembles Marisa very closely, but it's not Marisa. What you're suggesting is having Goku without Kamehameha, Naruto without Rasengan, Akuma without the Raging Demon, the Gurren Lagann without the Giga Drill Break. There are certain techniques that are a crucial part of a character's identity. Master Spark is one of them.

Outside of the controversy over the Last Word, is this moveset finalized enough for me to start a keyframe sheet?

Don't see why not. Go right ahead if you wish to. There's not much here that's likely to change, if chage happens it'll be to a small part.

Oh hell no, I am NOT missing out on Marisa character discussion. If I'm more critical or suggest overpowered stuff, it's because she's my favorite character...apologies in advance.

First, I actually designed about half of a Marisa moveset in my head before, but there's only a few things from it I'd consider using:

Down throw: Marisa striker her foe in the genitals with her broom, stunning them and knocking them down in a similar fashion to Johnny Cage's dickpunch. However, while the foe is in pain, Marisa laughs at them, preventing her from getting a follow-up—the move is functionally the same as Snake's dthrow.

Bair: Ass of Justice. (like Falcon's knee, butt...)

Master Spark: Marisa charges power for Master Spark when using/charging her neutral B. When full, she can use A+B to release Master Spark, while her Final Smash is Blazing Star or something.

Nair and Dtilt: All kicks have sweetspots at the tip of her foot that deal a bit more damage and have longer hitstun.

On to CyberDagger's proposed moveset!

Normals
Looks like a lot of aerials are based off her Soku moves? Anyway, a dominant aerial game is tricky to make, but one of the more frequent factors is long range on one's aerials, which Marisa may not have at the moment. Were you thinking of giving her pushback on Fair? (like in Soku) It could be like ROB's Bair and be meaty, long-ranged, and push her back.

I actually had the same beautifully evil idea for her Dair, but I personally hate her soku j.8A, so I don't really like the Uair idea. Perhaps a mini broom-uppercut (like she has in HM) would be better? (I'm sorry, I just really don't like that move in Soku)

And, well, Ass of Justice.

Grabs
I like the shin-kick...it fits very well. We can probably give her at least one throw with good follow-ups, as it helps an offensive character like Marisa.

Smash Attacks
The forward one is a Ness-like swing, not like her Soku 6A, right? If so, it should probably be very strong to compensate. Actually, maybe she should just have all powerful smashes :3

Specials
I actually had the exact same ideas for her B-moves, but with her up-b as a singlehit (like her Soku default 623) as opposed to a multihit (Soku alt 623), though it doesn't make much of a difference either way.

Master Spark Stuff
We'll discuss specifics on spell cards and such at the end of next week.

TL;DR
Throw followups?
Aerials need range/priority (via disjoint or invulnerable body parts or long-range sweetspots)
We agree on specials
ASS OF JUSTICE PLZ

CyberDagger wrote:
Like I said before, a Marisa without Master Spark is not Marisa. It's a character that resembles Marisa very closely, but it's not Marisa. What you're suggesting is having Goku without Kamehameha, Naruto without Rasengan, Akuma without the Raging Demon, the Gurren Lagann without the Giga Drill Break. There are certain techniques that are a crucial part of a character's identity. Master Spark is one of them.

And like I said before, it's not the Master Spark that makes Marisa. It's Marisa who makes the Master Spark. Besides, can't the Master Spark be the fully charged version of her neutral special? It seems as if you were going for something similar to Robin's Thunder/Arcthunder/Thoron with that idea. I'd rather go with that than claim that Master Spark is good enough to be her most powerful attack.

Daniel Y wrote:Oh hell no, I am NOT missing out on Marisa character discussion.  If I'm more critical or suggest overpowered stuff, it's because she's my favorite character...apologies in advance.

First, I actually designed about half of a Marisa moveset in my head before, but there's only a few things from it I'd consider using:

Oh, please. She's my favorite as well. Let's see it, then.

Down throw: Marisa striker her foe in the genitals with her broom, stunning them and knocking them down in a similar fashion to Johnny Cage's dickpunch. However, while the foe is in pain, Marisa laughs at them, preventing her from getting a follow-up—the move is functionally the same as Snake's dthrow.

That is hilarious, but I'm having a bit of trouble seeing how the animation would play out. At the moment, I like the original throw a bit better (one of the things I left untouched from Roku's notes, actually), but I'll let that idea mature a bit in my head. Sometimes things grow on me.

Bair: Ass of Justice. (like Falcon's knee, butt...)

Don't see why not. I had some ass action in the down throw and the neutral combo (kinda like how it is with Luigi, actually), but no reason to not have it there. Consider it added.

Master Spark: Marisa charges power for Master Spark when using/charging her neutral B. When full, she can use A+B to release Master Spark, while her Final Smash is Blazing Star or something.

Hmm... I'm not too fond of that, actually. First off, there's the fact that this would introduce a new type of input. Simultaneous attack button presses are not something I'm comfortable with giving to just one character. That, and having her circumvent the mechanic used to regulate Last Word use. You'd effectively be giving her two of them.

Nair and Dtilt: All kicks have sweetspots at the tip of her foot that deal a bit more damage and have longer hitstun.

Maybe... There's not a lot of precedent for tilts with sweetspots if your name isn't Marth.

Looks like a lot of aerials are based off her Soku moves? Anyway, a dominant aerial game is tricky to make, but one of the more frequent factors is long range on one's aerials, which Marisa may not have at the moment. Were you thinking of giving her pushback on Fair? (like in Soku) It could be like ROB's Bair and be meaty, long-ranged, and push her back.

Yes, they are indeed based off her Soku moveset. Her Fair and Dair would have disjointed hitboxes because of the magic blast. And yes, I intended for the Fair to be like you suggested.

I actually had the same beautifully evil idea for her Dair, but I personally hate her soku j.8A, so I don't really like the Uair idea. Perhaps a mini broom-uppercut (like she has in HM) would be better? (I'm sorry, I just really don't like that move in Soku)

I don't like it too much either, but maybe not with the same intensity as you. I was just without ideas, and didn't remember to check HM for ideas too. Not to mention that the Uair would look too similar to the UpB. Consider that attack changed.

And yeah, that Dair is evil.

And, well, Ass of Justice.

Already dealt with.

I like the shin-kick...it fits very well. We can probably give her at least one throw with good follow-ups, as it helps an offensive character like Marisa.

Yes... Which one do you think would work best? Maybe the down one?

The forward one is a Ness-like swing, not like her Soku 6A, right? If so, it should probably be very strong to compensate. Actually, maybe she should just have all powerful smashes :3

Yep, Ness-like swing. Marisa is going to be hotting some home runs.

I actually had the exact same ideas for her B-moves, but with her up-b as a singlehit (like her Soku default 623) as opposed to a multihit (Soku alt 623), though it doesn't make much of a difference either way.

That part was included in Roku's notes, and he actually had both the Up B and Side B being multihit. I decided that I wanted at least one of them to be single hit, and decided with the Side B, as having the knockback be instantaneous could make it a better defensive option.

We'll discuss specifics on spell cards and such at the end of next week.

Yeah. These things are going to be the last to be implemented anyway.

Rokugurin wrote:And like I said before, it's not the Master Spark that makes Marisa. It's Marisa who makes the Master Spark. Besides, can't the Master Spark be the fully charged version of her neutral special? It seems as if you were going for something similar to Robin's Thunder/Arcthunder/Thoron with that idea. I'd rather go with that than claim that Master Spark is good enough to be her most powerful attack.

No, I'd say the Master Spark completes the making of Marisa. Going back to my examples, imagine someone making a Dragon Ball game in which Goku couldn't do the Kamehameha. People would flip out. There would be riots in the streets.

As for your idea after that, I actually did think about it. But really, Marisa has a ton of lasers in her moveset, and Master Spark really stands out among them. The laser at the end of the charge was actually meant to resemble Narrow Spark. In every game, Master Spark is represented as this gigantic fucking beam that lasts for a good while and is wider than Marisa herself is tall. There's no way we can implement it as one of her specials in a way that won't result in either a) the attack being overpowered, or b) the attack being so impractical that it'll never see any use, despite its power. Because calling a random beam attack Master Spark doesn't make it Master Spark.

And I never made the claim that Master Spark is Marisa's most powerful attack. Just that it's by far the most iconic. Hell, I'd even go as far as saying Master Spark is the most iconic spell card in the entirety of Touhou. To not have it in the game would be a disservice to the fans. But don't worry too much. Reimu and Marisa (and arguably Sakuya) are the only characters that have really iconic abilities. We can get more creative with the other characters, even make up something entirely original. Nobody's saying that our choice for Last Word has to be the character's most powerful attack. It can even be very hard to figure out which one it is for most characters.

But let's go back to the assumption that what we choose for Marisa's Last Word has to be her most powerful attack. She has some cool acrobatic stuff with the broom, that's for sure, but I think we can tell that in terms of power, what wins out is one of the Master Spark variants. Maybe Final Spark, or that one with the small laser before the large beam that she has in Soku? (And she seems to have integrated the small laser into the vanilla Master Spark in HM, which leads me to believe that those variants are experiments and she integrates what works into Master Spark itself.) Would you be okay with a Last Word with the exact same properties if I called it Final Spark?

That is hilarious, but I'm having a bit of trouble seeing how the animation would play out. At the moment, I like the original throw a bit better (one of the things I left untouched from Roku's notes, actually), but I'll let that idea mature a bit in my head. Sometimes things grow on me.

It would be a couple of additional animations (probably 2 more for each character) which would be a bit of a pain...I think Smash Bros has an extra animation for everyone for Bowser's dthrow, but I'm not 100% sure.

Hmm... I'm not too fond of that, actually. First off, there's the fact that this would introduce a new type of input. Simultaneous attack button presses are not something I'm comfortable with giving to just one character. That, and having her circumvent the mechanic used to regulate Last Word use. You'd effectively be giving her two of them.

Yeah, I just realized how free that would be. I was thinking about Ivysaur and Lucario in PM, as Ivy has a chargeable Solarbeam and Lucario has an A+B super, but Ivy needs to either land hits or use a very unsafe move to charge it, and Lucario needs to land hits. Maybe if it required a lot of work to get, we could use a unique A+B input—if not on this character, on another. (it's not required though, just an idea)

Maybe... There's not a lot of precedent for tilts with sweetspots if your name isn't Marth.

I was thinking of adding this as it gives a couple of her normals more power (the sweetspots don't even need to be that strong, like weaker than Sm4sh Ness bair) while it makes canonical sense for Marisa to hit harder with her magic than her body. A strong sex kick Nair would give Marisa very strong aerial game, and she's rather short—a disjointed hitbox sweetspot would give her a nice range advantage.

Yes... Which one do you think would work best? Maybe the down one?

She'll look like Luigi, but that does make the most sense, unless Bthrow has mostly vertical launch.

Yep, Ness-like swing. Marisa is going to be hotting some home runs.

Does it reflect?

That part was included in Roku's notes, and he actually had both the Up B and Side B being multihit. I decided that I wanted at least one of them to be single hit, and decided with the Side B, as having the knockback be instantaneous could make it a better defensive option.

I would think that making up-b a single hit would be a better defensive option (as it can be done out of shield for an easy "get off me") but I want to know your reasoning.

Here's the key-frames for Marisa's attacks. Cyber expressed a desire to do them himself though so I'm not sure if I'm going to make any more.

The link is right here