Yeah, so I'm about 4 months late with this. Sorry, things have been pretty hectic in the past few months, what with classes, TA training, and the start of my Masters research. It does look like things are going to get more manageable soon though, so that's a relief.
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| Archetype Earth, the arm wrestling champion |
Anyway, Archetype Earth, or 姫アルク(Hime Arc) as the Japanese MB scene has nicknamed her, is the new character introduced in MBAACC 1.07. She's definitely a great addition to the cast, as she is one of the most unique characters in the game with a ton of personality to boot. I mainly want to write about Full moon Archetype Earth, since I feel she's the most interesting one and also the character I switched to in this version!
In a nutshell, F-Hime is a somewhat defensive oriented character which is pretty uncommon in a momentum based game like Melty. Her pressure is pretty whatever, and her mixup can be tricky but is very situational. Her normals are AMAZING but are some of the slowest in the game. Her fastest normal is 7f, which is pretty bad in a game like Melty where most characters have 4-5f jabs. She has a ton of range on all of her moves, with one particular super having fullscreen range! She also has one of the most broken specials in the game(ground geyser), and an amazing air super(EX light pillar) which is very similar to Ciel's EX Hiero. Her damage potential is above average: not the best, but not bad either. And finally she has a very unique mechanic in the form of flight which gives her a ton of air mobility options.
Flight is what really defines her as a character. Input as 22d, it's interesting in that it is considered to be a super, even though it has no superflash. I guess this was decided because it uses up meter in the sense that her meter will be continuously draining while she's flying. Because it's a super, all normals and specials cancel into it, which gives her a number of good combo and pressure options. She can do all of this on hit, block, and most amazingly, even on whiff!
This has a couple of applications. For example, her ground geyser(236a and 236b) are two staples of her game that are very unsafe on block(something like -10f). Normally if she whiffs this, she'll be in a lot of trouble, but she can herself "safe" by just cancelling it into flight.
Another example involves her air-to-air neutral game. Hime probably has the slowest jump in the game, and is very floaty when she's in the air. In addition, most characters in Melty can whiff a j.a and regain all of their air mobility and attack options after the j.a recovers, but Hime can't. If she whiffs a j.a, she's completely defenseless until she lands on the ground. Hime is actually not the only character who is cursed with this, as Satsuki and Kouma have to deal with this too, but it's especially bad for her because of how floaty she is. If she whiffs anything in the air, the opponent has all the time in the world to dash in and bring on the pain. But since she has flight, she can make herself "safe" by cancelling a whiffed air normal into it.
You're probably wondering why I put safe in quotations in those previous two examples. It's because Hime actually can't block while flying! During flight mode, she can do all of her air normals and specials, and she can even shield, but blocking is not an option. But if she absolutely needs to block, she can cancel out of flight mode with a double jump, airdash, or a fast fall input with 22. I want to make a special note about cancelling the flight into airdash, because the game allows her to do this no matter how many air options she has already used up. This means that she can do stuff like, airdash into flight and then airdash again in the same jump. Essentially, Hime can't double airdash normally, but with flight she can.
Now's a good time to talk about what she can actually do during flight. During flight, she levitates in the same spot in the air, and doing attacks won't make her descend. Not counting the amount of time that attacks take, she can stay flying for about 5 seconds before the game forces her to land. If she holds left or right while flying, it will make her go in that direction at a very slight downward angle. Her momentum is preserved when doing attacks while holding directions, so this is very good offensively and defensively. Holding down will make her descend until a different direction is pressed. Essentially, she can move in three different directions while flying. Since she can change direction at any time, it gives her a lot of control over her air position. Obviously this is very useful for the neutral game, but it also gives her some really cool left/right flight mixups midscreen.
One of the other cool things about flight is how much stronger it makes her air light pillars(j.236x). These are a great zoning tool as they essentially have infinite vertical range. But they do have a glaring weakness. Normally if she does a light pillar, she is completely defenseless afterwards, as she's forced to slowly descend to the ground. But when she does a light pillar during flight mode, she can continue moving and attacking afterwards. This even applies to her EX light pillar(j.236c) as well, which is amazing and forces her opponents to play the neutral game extra carefully when she has meter. j.236c is normally unsafe on block, but with flight it becomes a completely safe super she can use to snipe down her opponent whiffing any attack from full screen.
Since I spent the last few paragraphs talking about flight, you're probably thinking that Full Hime spends most of her time in the air. But in fact, the opposite is true. She's very much a ground based character, which pretty much flies against the face of Melty's air intensive gameplay. Even though flight gives her a bunch of good offensive and defensive options, her air movement is still slow overall. Most characters in the game won't have much of a problem intercepting her in the air to make her go on the defensive. It also doesn't help in how slow her jump is; I don't have the frame data to back me up, but I'm pretty sure she has the slowest jump in the game, along with the slowest fall speed. In contrast, her ground walk and run speed are AMAZING, and coupled with her strong normals, it makes her general playstyle almost look like that of an old school fighter: lots of walking back and forth, keeping the opponent at the very tip of her long ranged ground normals.
Since we're on the topic of normals, let's go over F-Hime's ground normals. They are just great in general(but slow!), but her best normal is definitely 5b. This move has some amazing vertical range and also hits multiple times. This makes it an excellent anti-jump tool, and the multiple hits make hitconfirms easy. You can even use it as antiair at certain distances. It has a weird property of not being jump cancellable until the 2nd hit. Sounds bad, but it actually gives her a very useful option select string in pressure with 5a6b23b. You can see a more in-depth explanation of how this works in part 1 of
LordKnight's F-Hime tutorial.
The other ground normal I want to talk about is 2c. This is the ground move that distinguishes Full Hime from her other moons, as H and C don't have her version of it. It's an almost half-screen range sweep that hits multiple times. But even though it's a sweep, it doesn't hit low. This might actually be a good thing, because the move would be totally broken if it was a low. Anyway, the sheer range of this move means that F-Hime can confirm pretty much any ground hit into a full combo. It's also very useful in the neutral game because of its sheer range. The vertical range on it isn't bad too, so some characters have trouble IADing over it.
Moving on to air normals, the one that everyone remembers is j.c. It looks a lot like IaMP Yuyuko's j.5a. It has the same function too: huge normal that hits everywhere around Hime, so it's the move of choice when going for a crossup. The charged version, j.[c], is the other normal that distinguishes Full Hime from H and C. It's not very useful in the neutral game, but it's absolutely essential for all of F-Hime's unique combos. When it hits, it sends the opponent reeling into the ground for a completely untechable groundbounce. Pretty much all of F-Hime's combos involve cancelling j.[c] into air pillar or doing an IAD cancel after the j.[c].
j.b is also really amazing, as it has some disgusting vertical reach. It's definitely the move of choice for air-to-air when F-Hime is below the opponent. It also hits a decent amount underneath her(but not as much as j.c), so it's also an acceptable jumpin at certain angles.
j.6b is... interesting, to say the least. It completely stops F-Hime's air momentum, and it makes her shoot out this short-range beam of light downwards at a diagonal angle. I have not found a use for this normal at all yet, other than random IH shenanigans. It is super cancellable on whiff, though. The charged version j.6[b] is a bit slower but shoots out a full screen diagonal beam of light, and it's quite a bit more useful. It has an application in one of F-Hime's corner only combos, and it's pretty good in the neutral game vs certain characters.
236a and 236b are easily Hime's best specials, and probably one of the best special moves in the entire game. These specials make a geyser come out of the ground, which: 1)launches 2)hits multiple times 3)hits low 4)is jump cancellable on hit and 5)has a decent vertical hitbox. 236a geyser hits between 2-3 character widths in front of her, and 236b is just a little farther than half screen distance. They are the main reason(other than 5b) that Hime is so dangerous on the ground. Many characters have to adjust their gameplan in the Hime matchup to play around this move.
The geysers have all sorts of uses. They are integral to all of Hime's combos since they launch and are jump cancellable. For F-Hime specifically, they also readily combo into j.[c]. They're also the main component in her pressure game. Since F-Hime doesn't have any ground overheads, her main pressure involves the mindgame behind whether or not geyser will be used. She can use geyser at the end of a string to catch people trying to jump out. But if opponent blocks geyser, then pressure effectively ends there. She can also use flight and the elbow(214a/b) followups during pressure, but those aren't nearly as safe and/or solid(since flight is very easy to react to) so their usage is much more limited.
Hime's DP 623a/623b is pretty amazing. The A version isn't really used, since it has no invincibility, but it is pretty fast at 8f. It's just 1 frame slower than her 5a/2a! 623b is the one that is used mostly, being one of the best dps in the game. It has 8f of invulnerability, and starts hitting on frame 9. In addition, it has a really high vertical trajectory and is air unblockable, so it's one of the harder dps to bait in the game. I have had some success using it as antiair as well, whenever the opponent has used up all their air options.
For supers, her EX uppercut 623c has a TON of invincibility. It's the go-to move to input if you need to counter an opponent's invulnerable super with your own. The recovery of this move throws a lot of people off, to comedic effect. Basically, after the move ends, Hime descends very slowly to the ground in a vulnerable state. I'm not sure if the move has no landing recovery, but I've seen many people try to punish it and then fail completely because they underestimate just how slow she falls. It seems like the most reliable way to punish EX dp is to just jump up and hit her in the air as she's descending.
EX elbow 214c is another interesting super which I have a bad habit of using a lot. The move has
ZERO invincibility, but it's very fast and has a ton of forward movement. It's also safe on block. I find it most useful against characters who rely on slow startup specials to reset pressure, like F-Akiha.
EX air pillar j.236c was briefly mentioned earlier, and it's easily her best super and one of the strongest in the game. It tracks the opponent's position, hits fullscreen, is really fast, and is guaranteed to come out after the superflash. You can almost think of it as an air version of Ciel's EX Hiero. The knockdown that it creates is techable, but this actually isn't a bad thing as Hime has a lot of time after the super hits to run over to where the opponent is.
Another use of j.236c is in her fuzzy! Hime has a fuzzy in the form of dj.a/dj.b after making the opponent block a deep j.b or j.c. However, the only way she can follow up this hit is by cancelling into j.236c afterwards. It's a very dirty trick, but it's somewhat limited in the sense that j.236c is "unsafe" on block. Remember how I mentioned earlier that j.236c is actually safe on block if it's done during flight? Imagine that Hime does the fuzzy on an opponent starting from an IAD j.ab, and it's actually blocked. The opponent will then be able to punish her as she descends to the ground. But if the fuzzy was done from something like, flight j.c or flight j.ab, then she can just fly away to safety after the super ends. Essentially, the only safe time she can attempt a fuzzy is in flight mode. But she can still get away with trying it sometimes from a normal airdash, since fuzzies in Melty are unreactable.
She has another air super in the form of EX kick, j.63214c. It costs 150% meter, and it makes her kick the opponent so hard that he/she bounces around the walls before falling. It generates an untechable knockdown, which is already very good. But she even has enough time to dash over while the opponent is falling, and hit them with a 2c(which will knockdown) into flight mixup!
Her arc drive and blood heat arc drive are amazing, as they are a full screen hit that circuit breaks the opponent. The circuit break generated from the BHAD is better though, because it has an extra property of increasing the opponent's meter to MAX before breaking it! This means that the opponent is pretty much guaranteed to have 0 meter after the Circuit Break period wears off.
Other than 2c and j.[c], the final thing that really distinguishes F-Hime from H and C is that she has a unique ability to do a combo that regains all of her red life while simultaneously destroying the opponent's meter! You can probably guess by now that it involves comboing into her BHAD, and that is exactly right. Basically, she just needs to combo into her EX air kick early in MAX mode. The idea is that after EX air kick, she has enough time to go into Blood Heat, which will heal all of her red life instantly. Then she can just immediately do Blood Heat Arc Drive, which will hit OTG. The extra damage from BHAD is pathetic at this point(since it's OTG), but it's guaranteed to Circuit Break the opponent and destroy their meter. So if F-Hime currently has a lot of red health, she can really turn the tables with this when she gets to MAX.
I've spent this entire post talking about her strengths, so now's a good time to talk about weaknesses and difficulties. One of her most obvious weaknesses is her defense modifier: it's the fourth worst in the game. The only three characters who have less health are F-Necomech, Neco Arc Chaos, and VAkiha. And those first two are considered joke characters! She bleeds badly, so she really can't afford to make any big blunders because every hit hurts.
Another difficulty is in input overlap. Specifically, it is with j.6b, that useless normal that I mentioned earlier which actually ends up being disruptive to her game! There are two main situations where it comes up, the first of which is easily remedied. Imagine you're playing Hime, and you want to fly forward and then j.b. Well, flying forward is input by holding 6, so if you press j.b... it will come out as j.6b and completely end all of your air options and momentum. This is a problem, but luckily it's easily solved by just holding 3 during flight. This way, the game won't register it as j.6b, and you will get your j.b with forward flight momentum. The other situation is much more problematic, and I still see Japanese Hime players struggle with it in videos. It arises whenever Hime needs to do an air combo involving a jump cancel into j.b, like 5b j.b or j.c dj.b. Since you're going to want to jump forward in her combos most of the time, it's very easy to hold forward for too long and get j.6b instead. This problem can also be remedied somewhat by holding 3 after the jump cancel, but that is very difficult to do when you're trying to do something like a quick hitconfirm from 5b.
Last difficulty I want to mention is in matchups. I haven't played against all of the characters in the game yet, but from my experience she seems to struggle against fast characters. This kind of makes sense since F-Hime is a semi-defensive character with zoning capabilities: fast characters and pixies can easily get in on her and start their offense. So, characters like VAkiha, VSion, Nanaya, and Ryougi are pretty tough for her to fight against. Ryougi deserves special mention, because not only is she fast, her normals are also faster than Hime's and have comparable range! Ryougi's air hitbox is also stupid, so many of F-Hime's optimal corner combos involving double air pillar don't even work on her.
That's about all I wanted to go over for F-Hime. She's a very fun and rewarding character to play! My next post will probably be something GG related
