Redesinging Ganondorf (but keeping him the same)

[Jotari]

This is a post I originally made on Smash Boards, but I thought I'd share it here too. I have something similar for Samus which I might show off later.

I think the desire to completely redesign Ganondorf from the ground up has died down since the release of Ultimate because they gave him a sword for his smash attacks. I was always in the camp that he should keep his current moveset, but should still get a few references here and there as nods to his games. So here are my ideas for such alterations to his existing attacks that would pull more from the Zelda series and throw off more of the Falcon clone label that still sticks to him if only a little.

 

First off this is his Jab.

It's a good fine move for him. Comes out quick enough and forces enemies away from him. I'm not sure if it's just a coincidence or not, but he also uses his palm like he does when casting magic in Ocarina of Time. Let's make that not a coincidence by adding an extra few frames onto the attack.

A ball of lightning appears briefly after the hit boxes go out. The palm thrust is still the main part of the attack, with the ball only dealing light damage. It serves more to make the attack safer on use by extending it's range and duration. I also think it would be really nice if his Jab could reflect projectiles. It's something he does in several appearances and it would give him some protection against enemies who can gimp him by spamming projectiles.

 

Next up his Forward and down tilts. These moves are fine. It's obviously inspired by the kick he does in the Space World Demo and Twilight Princess. It is a bit repetitive that he uses the same sort of kick for both attacks, but both of them are decent attacks so I don't see any pressing need to change them.

 

His Up tilt is a pretty odd attack that a lot of people complain about, but personally I love it. It's one of those really satisfying attacks to use, and unlike Warlock Punch it actually has use in edge guarding. I would like a way to cancel it for accidental uses though.

 

Dash attack fine. Don't find myself using it in Smash U as much as previous games (probably because his Air game has improved), but it works okay as an attack.

 

Next attack I want to change is actually his new forward smash.

I find it's not quite as useful as his Up Smash and it hits more or less the same area. And while everyone celebrating over him finally having a sword, it's a pretty generic swing. And I actually quite liked his old side smash, especially how you could angle it. So given the choice I would bring back his old side smash.

However, I'm adding another phase to the attack. Like with Link, if you attack again during the forward smash, Ganondorf will perform another attack. In this case, a turning swing with his sword. Unlike Link's side Smash however, the first hit does not deal set knockback into the second hit, both hits are moves with high knockback and kill potential. The sword swing comes out horizontally so it's range is good for hitting in front of Ganondorf, but does not cover much ground vertically. All in all the move looks like Ganondorf's combo from Twilight Princess.

 

Next is his down Smash.

I find that this attack looks a bit weak, especially the first knock with the hilt, it just doesn't feel like a solid move. And I don't know if it's just because of that or because it's also not a good move, but I just don't find myself using it often. I prefer going for a down tilt in such scenarios. So I want to give him a new down smash. For this attack Ganondorf charges up energy in his hands and then plants it onto the ground, damaging enemies on either side of him. Has a bit more start up lag than his current down smash, but he doesn't have to worry about enemies rolling behind him when using it.

 

Now we move onto his Aerials. Despite making this thread, I am pretty much fine with all of Ganondorf’s moves from an aesthetic point of view, with the exception of this one, his Neutral Aerial. The two quick kicks are the only move which I feel outright doesn’t fit Ganondorf at all. But they are a functional move and a good approach option for Ganondorf. So their replacement will cover more or less the same area as before. Instead of kicking however, Ganondorf will send out two streams of Blazing Bats from A Link to the Past. The distance travelled is approximately the same as his current Neutral Air and the hitboxes are largely the same too. The only real differences is that the outer most part of the attack has a slight disjointed hitbox and that it’s now considered a fire hit box and thus can instantly ignite explosive boxes.

His side aerial is fine, it’s been with him since Melee and it’s a reference to his games. His up aerial however, I am giving a similar treatment to his neutral air. Less because I don’t like it visually and more because I don’t want him summoning flaming bats for just one attack. That would look a bit random. For this move Ganondorf uses his arm instead of his legs. So it is quite visually different to his over the head tumble. Before Ganondorf’s toes had a weaker hit box than his legs, here something similar will happen, with Ganondorf’s arm having a stronger hit box than the bats themselves that he’s summoning. Like his new neutral aerial, this attack too is considered a fire attack.

Now that I think about it, just to squeeze the bats into one more move, they could also be featured in his up tilt as an effect. He's already dealing with fire and an explosion in that attack anyway.

 

Ganondorf’s back air is quick and effective, but I still want to change it because it’s an relic of Cpt Falcon and I think there’s a better character Ganondorf can steal from for a back aerial. That being Corrin’s cape attack. Ganondorf noticeably uses his cape in the Ocarina of Time battle, so I think having a cape attack fits him nicely. It would come out slower than current back aerial, which is surprisingly fast.

 

Down aerial thunder stomp is a classic, so it’s left alone. And that brings us to his grabs. Which is probably the thing I would most like to change about Ganondorf from a mechanical point. His grab range utterly sucks. Which is a shame because his throws are pretty decent. So I would give Ganondorf a grab that’s more similar to Pac-Man, much higher range, but fitting for him, quite slow and risky. Like most of Ganondorf’s arsenal, it’s something you have to judge carefully when to use.

 

On his actual throws, For his forward throws I'd change it from one upper cut to two uppercuts followed by a punch to the face, in reference to the punch rush Ganondorf uses in Ocarina of Time. This knocks enemies downwards into the stage and sends them sliding quite far. Enemies might instinctively tech it which actually leaves them open to follow up attacks.

 

Down and back throws are fine. Pummel could be changed to something more appropriate than a knee, but mechanically it’s hard to get a pummel wrong. The only other thing I have something significant to talk about is his up throw.

 

Ganondorf’s throws are good for leading into his combos (if you can ever actually grab someone), but he doesn’t have any kill throws. I would turn his up throw into a kill throw. Ganondorf holds his opponent up in the air and strikes them with lightning. This is reminiscent of Demise charging up his skyward strike, only Ganondorf is using his enemy as the sword.

Only last thing I’ll note is that his get up attacks are generic and fine, but his old down smash could be retooled into his get up attack, only weaker. Then again if it retained a similar power it would be rather hilarious and unique for a character to have such a strong get up attack.

 

Second post will contain his specials.

[Jotari]

Okay, now onto his specials. First thing I'll say is that I really want custom specials to come back, and not as variants like before but like what Paluentena has. A lot of what makes Ganondorf's moveset feel inappropriate is because of his appearances after Melee. Really if they'd used the sound affect for his floating on Dark Dive and replaced Warlock Punch with a projectile in Melee then he would have been pretty representative of Ocarina of Time Ganondorf, becuase there wasn't a whole lot to represent. And he's not the only character in this situation. Plenty of Smash veterans have newer abilities that aren't represented in Smash and custom specials would be a fantastic way to implement them. For more thoughts on my ideas for custom specials (including for Ganondorf) see here.

https://smashboards.com/threads/i-made-custom-special-moves-for-nearly-every-character-in-the-game.513181/

 

But enough of that, let's look at the specials Ganondorf actually has and see if there's anything we can do with them.

 

The first is Warlock Punch.

Now the obvious thing here is to replace it with a magic projectile. Zelda was even kind enough to  name such an attack in Phantom Hourglass, calling it Dead Man's Volley. But honestly I'm just too attached to this move to see it go. It's not massively functional, but it is so much fun when you land a hit. One possibility would be to add a projectile to the end of the attack like I did to his jab (kind of), and we even have a basis for that with Hyrule Warriors, but I think a projectile with so much start up just wouldn't be massively useful unless it's really strong, and Ganondorf's projectitles have always been simple lightning balls. So no, I think I'd keep Warlock Punch mostly the same, as ill fitting as it is to deny Ganondorf a projectile. I would however increase it's Power Armour to practically the entire attack, so it resembles Ryu's Focus Attack more than anything else. Unstoppable and devastating, but requiring a great read or a shield break to actually hit with.

 

^^^^

That's what I wrote on Warlock Punch when I first made this post. But later I posted this.

 

I happened to come across a video yesterday about Smash's most powerful attacks. Said video was good, but by the end was a thinly veiled video about altering Ganondorf's moveset. Specifically Warlock Punch, citing things like we have in this thread how the up tilt does more or less the same job. It got me thinking more about how to keep the move as it is, while also making it both more useful, and more unique. As I said before, the obvious answer is either to just replace it with a projectile, or to have it so Ganondorf punchs a projectile out of it like he does in Hyrule Warriors. But neither of those options sat right with me. As I want to keep the move, and making it effectively be a projectile (though one like Wolf's blaster with a more powerful melee hit box) would make the move lose it's identity, and probably wouldn't be a very useful projectile anyway with how long the attack still needs to be launched. So instead I came up with this.

So in function this is a lot like my idea for his Jab. Keeping the hit box as is, but extending it slightly to make it safer. However as this is a special move, this function is also more "special". The dark energy coming out of the attack is nowhere near as powerful as Warlock Punch itself, it's just a light stunning hit. However, if it hits any enemy that is above 100%, it will automatically kill them, similar to the Scythe or the lava pit in the Great Cave offensive. This sounds very dangerous, but remember, it's still Warlock Punch we're dealing with, even if the range is better, it takes an eternity to use. And if you're at 100% against Ganondorf, most of his attacks will probably still kill you anyway. No, the most effective thing about this is the mind games potential it has. Players will know getting hit by the blast when they are in the red will instantly kill them. And given Ganondorf's generous invincibility frames on the  move, they know running up and hitting him is not really an option (though grabbing him is). So now this makes it far more dangerous to actually approach Ganondorf while he's charging up this attack, as misjudge your punish and you can take the blast energy to the face. The blast also gives it a lot better edge guarding potential as the length of the attack extends beyond the stage a good distance.

 

The second part of this attack is removing most of its end lag. It still has a rather lengthy end animation, but you can interrupt it with an attack. That was one of the things I loved doing with Ganondorf in Brawl and SSB4, his up smash actually has like no ending lag, so baiting people into attacking you by launching a useless up smash and then jabbing them in the fact was so satisfying. I'd try to replicate that aspect here and even give the attack some combo potential with the energy blast being possible to chain into a Wizard's Foot (or Trident Rush as I've altered that attack to be) on low percents where it doesn't automatically kill the enemy.

 

Yeah at high level play Warlock Punch would still probably be pretty useless due to how highly it's telegraphed. But extending it's range and removing it's ending lag would make it harder to punish, and the ability to kill without actually knocking the enemy off the stage would give it a real "special" feel to it, distinguishing it as a pretty unique attack in the game (that's using a feature that's already in the game, just not on any character's actual moveset).

 

Anyway if you're still visiting this thread tell me what you think of my updated Warlock Punch

 

Next is flame choke.

Beautiful move, contains several references to his own game and is super useful. Everything you want. I think pretty much all Ganondorf redesigns still want to keep Flame Choke in there somewhere. It seems to be the one move everyone agrees is great on Ganondorf. So yeah, I have no desire to replace or change it. I would however give it an extra property by merging it with Flame Wave from SSB4. That's a Flame Choke custom where Ganondorf blasts the opponent away rather than dropping them to the ground. Personally I never felt Flame Wave all that useful, as I'd rather try and use Flame Choke to set up follow up attacks, but Flame Wave does give some kill potential on a command grab and both can be implemented simultaneously. So my version of Flame Choke would have the regular old drop them to the ground if you hold the B button, but if you merely tap it then he'll perform Flame Wave and launch them away. A bit like Mythra's up special having two variations of the projectile.

 

Next is Dark Dive. A burst of flight, and Ganondorf can fly, so I call that a reference to his games even though it's clearly just in there because that's what Falcon did. Still, they did make it more Ganondorfy by having him electrocute his enemies and they added that nifty punch in Brawl. But still I want more. So this is my Dark Dive.

I've added another ending to the move, one that actually let's the Dive part of the name make sense. This works like Flame Choke, if you merely tap the button he will do regular Dark Dive, but if you hold it throughout, he will do an extra pound going straight downwards, about as fast as Bowser's Bowser Bomb. This can deal some hefty damage and even buries foes it doesn't quite hit on the final frames. However it provides no horizontal movement for Ganondorf, so if you're not careful you can accidentally suicide with it. And as powerful as it is, it's pretty telegraphed as Dark Dive is going to put you pretty high in the air for opponents to see the attack coming. I've used frames from Wizard's Foot to represent it in my gif, but it would actually be an earth shattering punch like in Ocarina of Time (an attack that's already referenced in his forward aerial, but I think a more direct reference like this is nice for the sake of giving Dark Dive some extra umph). Speaking of Wizard's Foot, his last special.

So I'm happy with Wizard's Foot as a move and don't see any need to alter it (I did before Smash Ultimate, but it's actually much better now than before). However, representation is the name of the game and judging by how excited people were to see Ganondorf get a sword, they'd lose their minds if he got a trident. So I've replaced Wizard's Foot with Trident Rush. Functionally on the ground it is the same as Wizard's foot, though maybe with a more disjointed hitbox if people try to hit Ganondorf from above while he uses it, but I'm not sure if that would make any difference at all (probably wouldn't). However, in the air it works a bit differently.

Ganondorf first tosses the Trident downwards, and then performs a Wizard's Foot to catch it. The trident is launched much faster than the old Wizard's Foot and any enemy that it hits will be pinned in place, like with Corrin's Dragon Lunge, before Ganondorf blasts down on them with the main damaging part of the attack. The trident can be shielded, but the damage from the trident to a shield can make it so the Wizard's Foot part of the attack can potentially shield poke opponents who don't direct their shield.

 

His final smash is fine. It's always been one of the better final smashes (though I wouldn't be opposed to changing it to something else if it meant we could get Ganon in the game as a separate character).

 

And that's it. Tell me how you feel about all these changes, whether you like them or not, whether you want Ganondorf to stay exactly the same or change completely, it doesn't matter much. I'm eager to hear what you have to say.

 

And for the record, if all of these changes were hypothetically included, the only moves he would share any similarity at all with Captain Falcon would be his Down Aerial, Up Tilt and Warlock Punch, all of which function incredibly different to Falcon's versions (especially the up tilt).

Edited January 18, 2022 by Jotari

[Lord_Brand]

I'm trying real hard not to laugh at the GIF for the N air...and failing. XD

Honestly, I'm not a fan of mashing Ganondorf's clone moveset and original moves together into a Frankenstyle. I'm of the mind that his moveset should just be overhauled. Get rid of the Warlock Punch and give him a proper magic projectile already. The fire bats can go to Classic Ganon, if and when they add him.

Even though I know some fans don't want a Smash roster to be filled with different versions of Link, Zelda, and Ganon, Ganondorf is one character who could get away with it because his fighting style changes so drastically from game to game. In OoT, he's a wizard who mostly flies around and shoots you with magic (though the SpaceWorld sword has since become an iconic part of his character as well). In TWW, he's a duelist who wields twin swords and uses agility. In TP, he wields the Sword of Sages and fights mostly using simplistic slashes, thrusts, and kicks.

[Jotari]

16 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

Honestly, I'm not a fan of mashing Ganondorf's clone moveset and original moves together into a Frankenstyle.

He really doesn't have much resembling his clone moveset any more at all, in the sense that in Ultimate he has basically no moves shared with Falcon. It's just a few aerials.

16 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

I'm trying real hard not to laugh at the GIF for the N air...and failing. XD

Laughing at the animation or the concept?

Edited January 19, 2022 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:49 AM, Jotari said:

His final smash is fine. It's always been one of the better final smashes (though I wouldn't be opposed to changing it to something else if it meant we could get Ganon in the game as a separate character).

Seem pretty cool to me! Really impressive, the work you put into this. I'm a fan of introducing a Trident to B-down, and adding an extending energy attack to Warlock Punch is really cool. Personally, though, I'd like to retain the "overhead sword strike" in the forward-smash. There's something so satisfying about nailing the opponent with it, rare as that may be.

Ganondorf is one of my favorites to use in Ultimate. I'm just a casual scrub, but I still enjoy this sort of discussion!

[Jotari]

6 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Seem pretty cool to me! Really impressive, the work you put into this. I'm a fan of introducing a Trident to B-down, and adding an extending energy attack to Warlock Punch is really cool. Personally, though, I'd like to retain the "overhead sword strike" in the forward-smash. There's something so satisfying about nailing the opponent with it, rare as that may be.

Ganondorf is one of my favorites to use in Ultimate. I'm just a casual scrub, but I still enjoy this sort of discussion!

My main issue with the forward smash is less anything wrong with the forward smash itself and more just that I feel the up smash covers the same niche.