Redesigning Sonic's moveset

[Perkilator]

Sonic's moveset has been a point of contention for a while now, and for good reason; Sonic's moveset kinda...sucks. A lot.

So I decided to do my take on a moveset redesign:

Spoiler

Intro: Sonic Spin Dashes from the foreground onto the stage and strikes a pose.

 

Stance/Idle 1: Sonic’s idle pose from Sonic Rush

Idle 2: Sonic strikes an “I’m waiting” pose with an annoyed look

Idle 3: Sonic looks at the camera and wiggles his finger

 

Notable Palette Swaps:

1. Sonic the Hedgehog (default)
2. Classic Sonic (cyan; cuffs resemble the white Chaos Emerald)
3. Tails (yellow; cuffs resemble the blue Chaos Emerald)
4. Knuckles the Echidna (red; cuffs resemble the green Chaos Emerald)
5. Shadow the Hedgehog (black/red; cuffs resemble the yellow Chaos Emerald)
6. Silver the Hedgehog (gray; cuffs resemble the cyan Chaos Emerald)
7. Jet the Hawk (green; cuffs resemble the red Chaos Emerald)
8. NiGHTS (lavender; cuffs resemble the purple Chaos Emerald)

 

Walk: Sonic does a casual jog

Dash: Sonic does what he does best, which is run at the speed of sound

Damage: His damage animation from the Classic games

Jump: His jump from the games

Crouch: HIs crouch from the games

 

Normal Attacks

Jab: P / PP / PPK; Sonic mimics Mario’s 3-hit jab (7%, small knockback), but with a rapid punch in between (1% each hit, small knockback)

Forward+A: Horse Kick; Sonic turns around for a second to kick the opponent (9%, OK knockback)

Down+A: Split Kick; Sonic kicks on both sides of himself (6%, small knockback)

Up+A: Skip Kick; Sonic performs a 540 kick with both legs (8%, OK knockback

 

Aerial Attacks

Air+A: Insta-shield; A single white circle appears around Sonic, knocking away opponents (9%, OK knockback)

Air Forward+A: Sonic Rocket; Sonic performs a diagonally downwards kick in the air (11% with a meteor effect, OK knockback)

Air Back + A: Humming Top; Sonic performs a backwards spin kick (12%, OK knockback)

Air Up+A: Sonic Updraft; Sonic kicks opponents into the air with a somersault kick (11%, OK knockback)

Air Down+A: Stomp; Sonic stomps straight down as he plummets towards it at high speeds (8% with a meteor effect, OK knockback), leaving a small shockwave upon landing (6%, small knockback)

 

Dash Attack: Super Skid; Sonic slides along the ground at high speeds (9%, OK knockback)

Edge Attack: Sonic Eagle; Sonic gets up and performs an overhead axe kick (11%, OK knockback)

Get-Up Attack: Dizzy Spin; Sonic Spin Dashes back and forth (7%, small knockback)

 

Smash Attacks

Forward+A: Wind-Up Punch; Sonic winds up and punches the opponent (17%, OK knockback)

Up+A: Short Spin Attack; Sonic jumps up while performing a Spin Dash (16%, OK knockback)

Down+A: Sonic Flare; Sonic uses breakdance moves to hit opponents multiple times (21%, medium knockback)

 

Grab Game

Grab: Sonic grabs the opponent with two hands

Pummel: Grab Kneebutt; Sonic quickly pummels the opponent with his knee (1%)

Forwards+Throw: Close Kick; Sonic nonchalantly kicks the opponent like a soccer ball (7%, small knockback)

Down+Throw: Double Spin; Sonic pins the opponent on the ground and Spin Dashes into them multiple times (9%, OK knockback)

Back+Throw: Spin Throw; Sonic quickly backflips multiple times before performing the tomoe nage (11%, OK knockback)

Up+Throw: Hedgehog Needle: SOnic heaves the opponent upwards before stabbing them with his quills (9%, OK knockback)

 

Special Moves

B : Homing Attack; Sonic curls into a ball and homes in on the nearest opponent.

• Tapping B has Sonic home in quickly (10%, OK knockback)
• Holding B has Sonic charge up before homing in with a powerful strike, albeit with some endlag (20%, medium knockback)

B + Forwards : Light Speed Dash; Sonic speeds forward in a short burst (15%, OK knockback), stopping immediately after.

B + Up : Spring Jump; Sonic uses a spring to jump in the air, and he can move freely afterwards.

B + Down : Spin Dash; Sonic charges himself in a ball to dash towards opponents (14%, OK knockback). He can also use it as the Drop Dash in midair (9%, OK knockback).

 

Final Smash: Super Sonic; Sonic turns into Super Sonic and has the ability to move around freely, ramming into any opponents in his path (20%, OK knockback)

 

Gimmick: N/A

 

Taunts

1: Sonic does a front flip, then crosses arms with his index finger pointing out while making a teasing clicking tune, which forms into one of his signature poses.

2: “Too slow!” Sonic runs in place doing a figure-8 peel dash

1+2: Says "C'mon, step it up!" while performing a windmill, similar to his victory animation in Sonic Advance 3.

 

Winposes (credit goes here for the first one)

1: Sonic runs past a goal post that shows his face saying “Piece of cake!”

2: Sonic break dances while saying “Let’s do that again some time!”

3: Sonic sprints to the right and back to the left before stopping, giving a thumbs-up and saying “That was almost too easy!”

 

Applause: Sonic claps for the opponent.

Icon: The Sonic head logo, with Sonic’s eyes

Boxing Ring Title: The Blue Blur

Star K.O.: “NOooooo…!”

Victory Music: What else?

Kirby Hat: Sonic’s quills

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by Perkilator

[Jotari]

Bit hard to digest by just throwing up a list of every single detail of his moveset (many of which seem the same as what he already does). How about specifically talking about the things you would change and why the original is a weakness?

[Lightcosmo]

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

Bit hard to digest by just throwing up a list of every single detail of his moveset (many of which seem the same as what he already does). How about specifically talking about the things you would change and why the original is a weakness?

It's Sonic, there's no need to explain why his moveset needs changing. 

On topic, i noticed a few Sonic Battle moves in there (not inheretly a bad thing ofc) i was just honestly curious why you chose them (and why people always gravitate towards it)

I think i counted 4 SB moves there, i could be wrong though. XD

Edited October 11, 2022 by lightcosmo

[Perkilator]

On 10/10/2022 at 7:36 PM, Jotari said:

Bit hard to digest by just throwing up a list of every single detail of his moveset (many of which seem the same as what he already does). How about specifically talking about the things you would change and why the original is a weakness?

 

On 10/11/2022 at 6:38 AM, lightcosmo said:

It's Sonic, there's no need to explain why his moveset needs changing. 

On topic, i noticed a few Sonic Battle moves in there (not inheretly a bad thing ofc) i was just honestly curious why you chose them (and why people always gravitate towards it)

I think i counted 4 SB moves there, i could be wrong though. XD

I usually like to go all-in with my movesets. In Sonic’s case, I wanted to keep what works while fixing what doesn’t.

As for the Sonic Battle attacks, I just figured I’d include the ones that could be easily translated to Smash.

[Jotari]

On 10/11/2022 at 10:38 PM, lightcosmo said:

It's Sonic, there's no need to explain why his moveset needs changing. 

I know your joking, but I kind of think it does. Is Sonic great in Smash? Eh, no, not really, I mean I personally don't play him, but I'll take it as a given he has a poor reputation. But why is he bad? Is it because conceptually his moveset as a quick hitter is bad? No, not really. It's the balance of frame data and power not being quite good enough that isn't working. Up the power on his attacks and viola, he'd be a great character. Unless it's a case where a character is just attacking in a super weird way (I guess Piranha Plant is the closest to a genuine example) you could always "fix" a character by giving them better frame data and power.

3 hours ago, Perkilator said:

 

I usually like to go all-in with my movesets. In Sonic’s case, I wanted to keep what works while fixing what doesn’t.

As for the Sonic Battle attacks, I just figured I’d include the ones that could be easily translated to Smash.

Sure, I can get that it's fun to do that. But it's not that fun for a reader, at least for this reader. It's kind of just an overload of information, most of which is kind of meaningless. Like, for example, take his neutral special. You've basically just said "Insta Shield" for his neutral aerial. That's something Sonic already does for his neutral aerial. It's a spinning ball attack just like the insta shield in game (though offically named after the Air Spin in Sonic the Fighters, but even there it's obviously based on the Insta Shield). Could it do with some more visual flare to make that inspiration more obvious? Well, yeah, sure, but at the end of the day no matter what you call it and how visually distinct you make it, it's still Sonic attacking by being curled up in a ball. So there's not much value in saying "instead of being curled up in a ball and attacking, he should curl up in a bawl and attack with a white effect", which is effectively what you're saying. What precisely, aside from not more directly looking like the Insta Shield, is wrong with his old neutral aerial and how should it be fixed? Is it not coming out fast enough? Is there too much end lag? Is it not strong enough? This is the kind of thing that really needs to be discussed if it's about improving a moveset, but the closest thing you've come to that is just writing 9% (which, incidentally, is weaker than his current identical neutral aerial which deals 12% on a clean hit).

TL;DR, you've just put up a bunch of changes, a lot of which seem unnecessary, without explaining why they work any better than what already exists.

 

[Lightcosmo]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

know your joking, but I kind of think it does. Is Sonic great in Smash? Eh, no, not really, I mean I personally don't play him, but I'll take it as a given he has a poor reputation. But why is he bad? Is it because conceptually his moveset as a quick hitter is bad? No, not really. It's the balance of frame data and power not being quite good enough that isn't working. Up the power on his attacks and viola, he'd be a great character. Unless it's a case where a character is just attacking in a super weird way (I guess Piranha Plant is the closest to a genuine example) you could always "fix" a character by giving them better frame data and power.

Sonic is imfamous as "degenerate" to the core gameplay of Smash (that would be: actually engaging with your opponents)

And gets heavily rewarded for doing so, which has little to no counterplay, making it not fun to play against at all.

Whether he is good or not is irrelevent at that point if no one wants to see the character just play keep away till time runs out every game.

So i wasnt totally joking, Sonic deserves his rep in Smash honestly.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Sonic is imfamous as "degenerate" to the core gameplay of Smash (that would be: actually engaging with your opponents)

And gets heavily rewarded for doing so, which has little to no counterplay, making it not fun to play against at all.

Whether he is good or not is irrelevent at that point if no one wants to see the character just play keep away till time runs out every game.

So i wasnt totally joking, Sonic deserves his rep in Smash honestly.

Well the core issue there is how you can stop him from devolving into that while still maintaining him as the fastest character in the roster.

[Lightcosmo]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Well the core issue there is how you can stop him from devolving into that while still maintaining him as the fastest character in the roster.

Honestly with their current system i dont think its fixable without radical changes to his moveset like OP is getting at. 

Like... He doesnt even feel "fun" to play with his current kit. Like it works... Sorta. But it doesnt feel like "Sonic" to me and I assume alot of others agree, hence the topic.

[Jotari]

21 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Honestly with their current system i dont think its fixable without radical changes to his moveset like OP is getting at. 

Like... He doesnt even feel "fun" to play with his current kit. Like it works... Sorta. But it doesnt feel like "Sonic" to me and I assume alot of others agree, hence the topic.

That's my issue. I don't actually see any radical changes in this proposed moveset. It's just the altering of one move to another. Turning his forward tilt from one type of kick to another type of kick doesn't actually change the nature of the move, which is that he runs up and hits the opponent.

[Lightcosmo]

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

That's my issue. I don't actually see any radical changes in this proposed moveset. It's just the altering of one move to another. Turning his forward tilt from one type of kick to another type of kick doesn't actually change the nature of the move, which is that he runs up and hits the opponent.

While they are still kicks, the hitboxes will be different depending on the animation played (for example the propesed change of the Sonic Updraft for his U Air would be a kick that simply starts in front of him and ending up above him rather than the current anim which has a more flexible hitbox, therefore decreasing range of this example.)

Another example is down smash, which would now be a lingering hitbox rather than a quick one that doesn't last, changing how you combo and plan for his sweet/sour boxes entirely i think is the goal?

[Jotari]

11 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

While they are still kicks, the hitboxes will be different depending on the animation played (for example the propesed change of the Sonic Updraft for his U Air would be a kick that simply starts in front of him and ending up above him rather than the current anim which has a more flexible hitbox, therefore decreasing range of this example.)

Another example is down smash, which would now be a lingering hitbox rather than a quick one that doesn't last, changing how you combo and plan for his sweet/sour boxes entirely i think is the goal?

Exactly, that's the sort of things that need to be talked about. Hit box placement, hit stun, end lag etc, but the OP doesn't, the closest they get with is % damage. Changing from one kick to another kick isn't meaningful in itself, it's what the kicks are doing and how they integrate with the overall play style that matters.

[Lightcosmo]

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

Exactly, that's the sort of things that need to be talked about. Hit box placement, hit stun, end lag etc, but the OP doesn't, the closest they get with is % damage. Changing from one kick to another kick isn't meaningful in itself, it's what the kicks are doing and how they integrate with the overall play style that matters.

Well, i think it's implied, since most would just assume the hitbox aligns well enough with the animation, though i could be wrong on OP's goals or views here, just guessing. XD

[Perkilator]

Delzethin just did his take on redesigning Sonic's moveset.