Happy to see this mod get continuous updates, now with a new character!
Gemma is as great to play as before. There's greatness to find in the simplicity of things, and her moveset is as simple as they get. Her Tera-riser is just a fancier bubble shield, but what makes it work for her is that it also functions as a pseudo triple jump and stomp. Let go of jump, you stomp. Keeping hold jump, you bounce back up, functioning as your double jump. The higher your initial height was before initiating the Tera-riser, the higher your bounce will be. Bouncing on an enemy increases your height greatly. Destroying an enemy while riding the rock platform resets your Tera-riser, allowing for chaining, which I love! Jump off the platform, you get a triple jump. You can spindash while riding the platform, really neat. And that's it, a simple ability with a lot of use cases. Sprite work is amazing! There's so much of Lilac in her and I love it. Smooth animations, badass transformation... Definitely one of my favorite SRB2 OCs! 5/ 5!
Blake, on the other hand... Gotta be honest, like many other people shared, I'm not really feeling this one. He doesn't feel that unique compared to other shadowy characters, like Willo or the recent addition Echoes & Abyss for instance. He plays pretty much like Willo, having a dash, but Willo shines by having his dash be momentum-based. The faster you go, the higher you'll dash up and down, but here it's very stop-and-go and you don't have a downward dash that makes everything flow better. I feel like the slash should break spikes, not just walls, but the dash does tho. I'm not sure if it's just me, but his sprite work feels a lot lower quality compared to Gemma. Still good, but could be better. It seems you went for the "minimal animations" approach, meaning lots of animation and pose reuse. The walking cycle is exactly like Sonic's. His slash is just his forward running pose. Even his design and animations just feels like a combination of Dirk and Whirl. His personality just doesn't really show in his animations. Overall, and I hate to say it, but ehhh Blake's a bit bland at the moment. Shadowy characters have a lot of potential for unique abilities and animations, I feel! They don't always have to be given a dash... 3/ 5.
Cool that Gemma loves short kings tho. Respect lol