Luigifan18
Member
Hey, I'm currently brainstorming a set of four addon characters who will each have some shared abilities and some unique abilities that turn the game on its head, especially for co-op, and I want to know how feasible it would be to program them. I'll provide a detailed guide to their abilities when it's ready, which should take a couple of hours, but to summarize here, the characters are a very durable healer (the healing part will manifest in giving others Rings and reviving dead players, while the "durability" part means that she can survive stuff that would kill anyone else… though she does still have her limits), a chronokinetic prophetess (a chronokinetic is someone who can control time, like Blinx or the Prince of Persia in the Sands of Time trilogy; the prophetess part will come in the form of passive abilities that grant advance warning to hazards), a smol spellcaster (anyone who's played as Sypha or Yoko Belnades in a Castlevania game will feel right at home here), and a mimic (someone who can freely copy the abilities of other people, though there are limits on how much she can use borrowed abilities). The unique abilities (and their shared projectile ability) will be regulated by an energy meter, so they must be used sparingly. Anyways, I've got to finish the detailed synopsis.
Okay, the Belnades sisters synopsis is finally ready!!! That took a lot longer than I expected... anyways, let's see how much of a programming nightmare this would be.
These four female orange-furred foxes — Annie, Sonja, Flora, and Cassandra — are closely related (in fact, they're sisters), and thus look and play pretty similarly outside of their specialized powers. They share many abilities and attributes:
Annie Belnades — Healer's Necklace — Medic
Annie Belnades' powers revolve around healing and supporting her friends. This admittedly makes her rather unimpressive in single-player, as while she can still make use of the abilities she shares with her sisters (slightly-higher-than-usual spin-jump, spin-dash, double-jump, and Holy Bolt), her unique abilities only really function in co-op (and even then, she'll have a hard time using them if her allies are unwilling to give her enough time to keep them in fighting shape). However, Annie also has phenomenal durability that could make her very well-suited to beginning players who are unfamiliar with the level layouts and aren't yet good enough at SRB2 (or Sonic games in general) to avoid constantly bumbling into hazards, so while her manually-activated unique abilities are useless in single-player, her passive abilities can still make her worth playing as. (BTW to DrStephen, I'm sorry that I have an OC who just so happens to have the same name as one of yours.)
Sonja Belnades — Philosopher's Necklace — Seer/Chronokinetic
Sonja's powers revolve around peering into the past and future (or just someplace other than where she currently is) and manipulating the flow of time. In SRB2, her powers take a somewhat typical videogamey approach to time manipulation, a la Viewtiful Joe, Blinx, or Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, allowing her to rush through levels at hyper-speed, undo mistakes made by herself or other players, and evade attacks that would have hit her dead-on. Likewise, her clairvoyance takes a videogamey approach to how something like Peter Parker's Spider Sense would work, giving her player a "danger radar" of sorts that informs them of spikes, electrical floors, Badniks, etc. that would otherwise blindside them and providing an extra second of advance notice before a hazardous level element goes off or an enemy starts an attack.
Flora Belnades — Holy Necklace — Spellcaster
Flora's powers revolve around magical offense and defense. Her powerset is pretty much what Castlevania players were probably expecting when I uttered the name "Belnades", with a couple of extras.
Cassandra Belnades — Mimic's Necklace — Mimic
Cassandra's power is to copy the powers of others, either by scanning them with a bolt of light or just drawing upon her own knowledge of what they're capable of. This is as ridiculously versatile as you'd expect, but Cassandra can only copy one character's powers at a time, and using copied powers can also be physically taxing, which limits how much Cassandra can use borrowed abilities. However, she can swap between power sets at any time, which allows expert players to pull off some outrageously impressive feats by combining the powers of multiple different characters. For instance, she could chain Sonic's thok, Shadow's Chaos Snap, Silver's levitation or Psycho Boost, Tails's flight, and Skip's dive to cover ludicrously long distances in the air without touching the ground once, but it would take some really good APM to mimic each of those characters, perform their air actions, drop the power, mimic the next character, perform another air action, and so on without mimicking the wrong character or screwing something else up. I can imagine TAS runs with Cassandra being crazy awesome, though for regular play or anyone who isn't a gaming god, she would just be more of a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-all kind of character who can use the best tools for any given situation and beat Eggman and his army at their own game (especially in co-op, where she might have willing templates)… as long as she keeps a cool head and manages her energy well!
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Okay, the Belnades sisters synopsis is finally ready!!! That took a lot longer than I expected... anyways, let's see how much of a programming nightmare this would be.
These four female orange-furred foxes — Annie, Sonja, Flora, and Cassandra — are closely related (in fact, they're sisters), and thus look and play pretty similarly outside of their specialized powers. They share many abilities and attributes:
- Default stats (36 top speed, 40 acceleration, 5 thrust factor, 96 accel start; run animation starts at 28 speed).
- Slightly higher jump height than Sonic and Tails, but still lower than Fang and Amy (maximum jump height of 110 fracunits).
- Curls up when jumping, like all base characters except for Fang and Amy, and can attack by jumping.
- Pressing Jump in the air performs a second mid-air jump (with the animation involving spinning like a top, which can damage enemies), with slightly better height than the first (130 fracunits); this midair jump causes the Belnades sisters to uncurl, leaving them vulnerable once the animation concludes and they start falling. The double-jump can be angled somewhat for better horizontal distance at the expense of some height. Overall, it's great for reaching high platforms (it can't get nearly as high as Tails' flight, but can get to the heights it can reach faster) and crossing wide gaps; it's particularly good for jumping under overhangs like in RVZ 1 or ERZ 1.
- Pressing Spin on the ground performs a standard spin-dash.
- No special action for pressing Spin in midair; can perform shield actions.
- Other abilities are regulated by an energy meter that is visually and mechanically similar to Almost Super Sonic's. This meter is depleted at various rates by various abilities, replenishes very slowly over time when abilities aren't being used (1% per second), replenishes slightly faster when standing still (2% per second), and can be replenished by collecting Rings (5% per Ring). (Other means of replenishment or adjustments to replenishment rate are being considered. (For instance, energy replenishment may slow down slightly underwater or in space, since my justification for the limitation is that their powers work similarly to magic in Eragon and thus require them to expend their stamina in a similar fashion to physical exertion, and thus they need to catch their breath after extensive power usage, which would obviously be harder without access to oxygen.)) Energy replenishment stops while using abilities that continuously drain energy. Energy is fully replenished when respawning after losing a life or at the start of each new level.
- Fire: Holy Bolt: Shared ability. Press Fire to shoot a weak projectile that stuns enemies for a few seconds, but does hardly any damage (roughly 1/8 of a standard spin jump or spin-dash). Press and hold Fire to charge up a shot and increase its power, and release Fire to shoot; a shot charged for 2 seconds does damage equal to roughly 1/4 the damage of a standard spin jump, and it stacks linearly from there as you continue to charge. Other actions can be taken while charging Holy Bolt, with the possible exception of the unique actions. Holy Bolt has no hard cap to its potential damage (aside from the below-mentioned energy cost), and the projectile has impressive range and speed regardless of charge, but the fact that it takes an asinine amount of time to charge up enough to one-shot a Lance-a-Bot, let alone a boss, serves as a deterrent to abuse. At most 1 Holy Bolt can be fired per second, and each Holy Bolt costs 1% energy. A charged Holy Bolt costs an additional 1% energy per 4 seconds of charging. Energy replenishment is slowed, but not outright stopped, while charging Holy Bolt.
- Holy Bolt is superseded by ring-throwing in Ringslinger modes such as Match, Tag, and Capture the Flag, and can only be used with 0 Rings. Holy Bolt is available as normal in BattleMod.
- In the canon of my fanfics, the Belnades sisters do have a Super mode (and it doesn't even require the Chaos Emeralds, though it would need the Emeralds if implemented into SRB2), but I may or may not want to include it in these incarnations because it behaves… oddly. …It turns them into unicorns. Yes, seriously. The unicorn forms are pretty similar, boasting enhanced durability, speed, and the ability to attack and defend with the horn, though Annie is the sturdiest, Sonja is the fastest, Flora is the strongest, and Cassandra is a jack-of-all trades.
Annie Belnades — Healer's Necklace — Medic
Annie Belnades' powers revolve around healing and supporting her friends. This admittedly makes her rather unimpressive in single-player, as while she can still make use of the abilities she shares with her sisters (slightly-higher-than-usual spin-jump, spin-dash, double-jump, and Holy Bolt), her unique abilities only really function in co-op (and even then, she'll have a hard time using them if her allies are unwilling to give her enough time to keep them in fighting shape). However, Annie also has phenomenal durability that could make her very well-suited to beginning players who are unfamiliar with the level layouts and aren't yet good enough at SRB2 (or Sonic games in general) to avoid constantly bumbling into hazards, so while her manually-activated unique abilities are useless in single-player, her passive abilities can still make her worth playing as. (BTW to DrStephen, I'm sorry that I have an OC who just so happens to have the same name as one of yours.)
- C1: Healing: Press and hold C1 to replenish the life energy of an allied character within a short distance of Annie (roughly 20 fracunits… it requires physical contact in the source fanfics, as it works like a paladin's "lay on hands" ability in Dungeons & Dragons). For most characters (including everyone in the base game), this amounts to giving them 1 Ring per 2 seconds (the precise rate is up for adjustment). Characters under a ring drain effect, like being Super, will not lose rings as long as Annie is healing them (otherwise, the healing would be pretty useless for sustaining a Super form). Characters with an HP system, like Mario, Luigi, Lilac, or Samus, instead have their HP replenished at a steady rate while Annie is healing them (the rate of HP regeneration depends on the character). As a bonus, this ability also replenishes the energy/stamina/etc. of eligible characters, like the Belnades sisters, Silver, Dirfex, Lilac, or Almost Super Sonic; this accelerates the recharge rate of characters who recharge their energy over time, and stops the energy depletion of characters who lose energy over time. Annie spends 2.5% energy per second while healing someone and can only heal one player at a time. If the character who Annie's healing moves outside of her healing radius, the healing will stop. Press and hold C3 while healing to accelerate the process, doubling both the healing rate and the rate of energy consumption (make sure to press C1 first in order to use Healing rather than Revive). Annie can also hold someone with her C2 ability while healing them so that she and her patient can still move through the level while she does her thing; otherwise, Annie and whoever she's healing will need quite a bit of coordination to move through the level while healing without getting far enough apart to make the healing stop. (Or the both of them could stand still, but this is a Sonic game. Where's the fun in that?)
- (Going back to Samus, while Annie can't replenish the ammo for most of Samus' weapons (since the Missiles and Power Bombs are physical munitions rather than life energy), she can replenish the ammo for Hyper Beam (since the Hyper Beam works off the same energy system as the Power Suit's armor and life support). However, to prevent cheesing Samus's version of BCZ 3, the rate at which Annie can replenish Samus's Hyper Beam is dramatically slowed once Eggman steals Samus's Hyper Beam energy and doesn't return to normal until the scripted event where Hyper Beam energy starts filling the arena. Annie can still heal Samus's HP energy as normal during the final boss fight.)
- C2: Emergency Carry: By pressing and holding C2, Annie will automatically pick up any allied character that she comes in contact with and will start carrying that character, bridal carry style, and she will drop them when C2 is released. A character can force Annie to drop them by pressing any movement command. Much like Tails, Annie can pick characters up even when she's making contact with the very top of their hitbox. This allows Annie to pluck someone off an electric floor or spikes or out of shallow acid without being harmed, even if she lacks a shield that grants her immunity, as long as she double-jumps away from the damaging surface before touching down on it (she might have no choice but to take a hit to fish someone out of deeper pools of acid, though). Annie can double-jump and damage enemies while doing so while carrying a character, but she cannot spin-dash or curl up for a standard jump, so she is more vulnerable than usual. She also loses a bit of movement speed and jump height while carrying "heavyweight" characters like Metal Sonic, Maimy, Samus, or Kou (30 top speed, 34 acceleration, 4 thrust factor, 78 accel start, 90-fracunit jump height). Carrying players has no energy cost. Annie automatically drops anyone she's carrying if she takes damage (in which case whoever she's carrying will probably take damage as well). Annie can only carry one other player at a time, and since her own movement abilities are not as well-suited for level progression as quite a few others, like Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, or Maimy, it may be best for them to not be carried around if they don't need healing. (Carrying live players can be disabled with a console command in order to counteract griefing.)
- C3: Revive: While someone is playing as Annie, any other character who dies outside of lava, instant-kill floors, death pits, or stubborn crushers (i.e. crush hazards that don't reset) will collapse and lie motionless on the floor instead of going through the standard death animation (though they will take the usual knockback from the killing blow and could very well be knocked into lava, an instant-kill floor, or a death pit). Assuming that a dead character's body wasn't destroyed by lava, an instant-kill surface, or a death pit, it will remain where it fell for 10 seconds, after which the body will fade and the player will have a life deducted and be sent to the last checkpoint to respawn (or receive a Game Over). If two or more players are playing as Annie, all Annie players will be subject to this "respawn delay" rule as well. (The 10-second timer is a default value; it can be adjusted by console commands for both the Annie player and everyone else, because being griefed by an Annie who refuses to help dead comrades would be no fun.) This is because Annie's C3 ability allows her to revive dead players on the spot. By holding C3 near a dead player, specifically within 20 fracunits, or while holding them, Annie will channel her energy into the corpse to restart their life processes and wake them up. This process takes 4 seconds to complete (6 seconds if Annie is carrying them) and requires 50% energy to carry out to completion, which is consumed during the revival process. The revival process will be interrupted if Annie takes damage or knockback. The fade timer is paused during the revival process, and if Annie has to stop for whatever reason, she can pick up where she left off as long as the body has yet to fade. Annie can shorten the revival time by up to 1/3rd (3 or 4 seconds) by holding C1 after starting, which has no effect on the overall energy cost, though this revival acceleration immobilizes Annie until the revival is completed or interrupted or C1 is released. If Annie successfully revives a player, they will be able to resume playing immediately, without losing a life or being sent to the level start point or last checkpoint, and will be given 3 seconds of mercy invulnerability and either 5 Rings or 20% of their max HP (allowing most characters to take a hit without dying).
- Passive: Tough Body: Annie is quite sturdy and can withstand impressive amounts of damage. If Annie takes a hit while holding at least 50 Rings, she holds on to half of them and spills the remainder. If she has at least 6 Rings, she holds on to 5 Rings and spills the rest. If she has 5 or less Rings (but at least 1) when taking damage, she loses all of them as normal. A shield prevents Annie from losing Rings as normal.
- Passive: Hard To Kill: Annie's healing powers work on herself, too, and combined with her sturdiness (which she developed through an intense will to live in the face of constant danger to begin with), this allows her to survive some ridiculously lethal situations… at least, as long as she has enough energy to keep healing her wounds.
- If Annie takes a hit with 0 Rings and no shield, she'll survive as long as she has at least 25% energy, with 25% energy being lost upon taking damage; if Annie has 24% or less energy, she dies as normal.
- If Annie's air countdown runs out underwater or in space and she has at least 20% energy, she begins losing 20% energy per second until she replenishes her air, obtains a Bubble or Elemental Shield, or runs out of energy (needless to say, if Annie's energy is drained to 0% while she's out of air, she dies).
- If Annie gets crushed and has at least 25% energy, she won't die on the spot, but will enter a special "knocked down"/"plastered on the wall" state (depending on whether she was crushed against a floor/ceiling or wall), losing 25% energy in the process; roughly half a second after the crusher moves off of Annie, she'll pick herself up or push herself off of the wall, and will be able to move again once she's back on her feet or in the air. However, if Annie doesn't clear the area fast enough, it's entirely possible for the crusher to crush her again, further draining her energy and/or finishing her off. Annie will also lose her Rings or shield upon being crushed as though she took a regular hit in addition to the 25% energy loss; if she has 0 Rings and no shield, Annie will have to spend 50% energy to avoid being killed by a crusher. If Annie doesn't have enough energy to spare upon being crushed, she'll die like any other character. Also, Annie will die regardless of how much energy she has if the crusher doesn't move off of her for 5 seconds.
- If Annie ends up making contact with an instant-kill surface, like the Phazon in ACZ 4, she will survive if she has at least 25% energy to spend. Just like a crusher, this will also cause Annie to lose Rings or a shield as though she had taken a regular hit, and if she has 0 Rings and no shield, surviving an instant-kill surface costs 50% energy. If Annie doesn't have enough energy when she makes contact with an instant-kill surface, she dies.
- The one thing this ability can't save Annie from is pits (i.e. death pit sectors), since falling in one of those means that Annie's fallen out of bounds and wouldn't be able to get back up and complete the level, even if the fall didn't kill her.
- Energy replenishment is paused during the mercy invulnerability from an otherwise-fatal hit (or while in a crushed state) and for about 3 seconds afterwards, so while Annie has much more room for error than the rest of the cast, she still can't afford to be reckless and try to tank through everything that harsher levels like RVZ and ERZ throw at her.
- Easter Egg: Cute interactions with her boyfriend, Tails! (For instance, Annie and Tails could be blushing a little while Annie heals Tails or if either of them is carrying the other. The hug mod in particular would be adorable. Annie could look distressed if she sees Tails get hurt, outright distraught if she sees Tails dead, in despair if she is unable to revive him, or relieved if she successfully revives him. And so on.)
Sonja Belnades — Philosopher's Necklace — Seer/Chronokinetic
Sonja's powers revolve around peering into the past and future (or just someplace other than where she currently is) and manipulating the flow of time. In SRB2, her powers take a somewhat typical videogamey approach to time manipulation, a la Viewtiful Joe, Blinx, or Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, allowing her to rush through levels at hyper-speed, undo mistakes made by herself or other players, and evade attacks that would have hit her dead-on. Likewise, her clairvoyance takes a videogamey approach to how something like Peter Parker's Spider Sense would work, giving her player a "danger radar" of sorts that informs them of spikes, electrical floors, Badniks, etc. that would otherwise blindside them and providing an extra second of advance notice before a hazardous level element goes off or an enemy starts an attack.
- C1: Slow Time: Press and hold C1 to slow down the flow of time, causing everything but Sonja (including the level timer) to move more slowly than usual. Release C1 to allow time to flow normally again. Energy is consumed as long as this ability is in use, and the time slow automatically ends if Sonja runs out of energy. (Ideally, there would be multiple levels of this ability, allowing for time to be slowed to greater or lesser extents with greater or lesser energy requirements. This would allow this ability to be used in a variety of ways, ranging from only slowing the game down a little bit but spending energy slowly in the process, all the way up to having everything but Sonja barely be moving at all (at the expense of burning through her energy meter extremely quickly). I'm not entirely sure how to implement that beyond holding various combinations of buttons, though.)
- In multiplayer games, this ability will not cause other players to experience lag (as that would just suck); instead, the other players will see Sonja moving at
ludicroushigher-than-usual speed from their perspective, while from Sonja's perspective, she'll be moving at normal speed and everything else will be moving slowly.- (This could present the problem of Sonja's level timer not matching everyone else's, but I'm not sure how to resolve that outside of having Sonja's tomfoolery with the level timer affect everybody (which would be really freaking cheap for co-op speedruns, since Sonja herself is the only one who has to deal with her energy limitations and everyone else could just coast along) or having Sonja make everyone else's game run slowly (which, as I said, would suck).)
- In multiplayer games, this ability will not cause other players to experience lag (as that would just suck); instead, the other players will see Sonja moving at
- C2: Rewind Time: Press and hold C2 to begin rewinding time, causing all mobile stage elements (conveyor belts, moving platforms, crumbling platforms, water flows, crushers, etc.) to begin moving in reverse, the level timer to run backwards, and all active entities other than Sonja (enemies, bosses, projectiles, other players, etc.) to have their actions, position, and game state over the rewinding period reversed. Time stops rewinding and continues moving forward again (causing all mobile stage elements to resume their usual movement pattern) when C2 is released or Sonja runs out of energy and can't continue rewinding. This ability can be used to undo the mistakes of other players and rescue them from danger — for instance, if someone misses a jump and falls to a lower part of the stage or into a pit, Sonja can rewind time to put them back where they jumped from. It is even possible for Sonja to negate damage (including lethal damage) done to other players by rewinding time, since the damage or death is treated like any other game state change and will be undone as time rewinds. This ability also rewinds air countdowns for underwater or in-space players for the same reason. Sonja can even replenish energy reserves for other players by rewinding time, but not her own (for obvious reasons).
- This ability has three versions, distinguished by what buttons are pressed, which differ in energy cost and how Sonja is affected by time rewinding.
- Press and hold C2 alone, and Sonja will be locked in place while time rewinds (though she will still be carried by any moving floor she's standing on, so be careful not to drag yourself into harm's way, dump yourself off a conveyor belt, or get yourself pushed off a platform that passes underneath a solid object, like the jump-and-duck lift gauntlet in ERZ 1). Sonja is effectively "frozen" in time while doing this, so her air will not deplete if she is underwater or in space, but her air won't be replenished, either, and the countdown will pick up where it left off once Sonja stops rewinding (this clause is in place primarily to prevent Sonja from accidentally drowning/suffocating herself by not paying attention to her air while she's immobilized). Rewinding will automatically stop if Sonja somehow drags herself into something that would cause knockback or damage or kill her. This version costs 20% energy per second, allowing for a maximum rewind duration of 5 seconds.
- Press and hold C2 and Toss Flag to have Sonja's position, actions, and game state be rewound like the other players' (though Sonja cannot move to further adjust her position while this is happening). This version allows Sonja to hoist herself back up onto platforms in the event of missing a jump or undo damage she receives like she can do for other players, though she cannot undo being outright killed for obvious reasons. It also reverses her air countdown underwater or in space, but again, it can't save her after she's already drowned/suffocated. This version costs 22.5% energy per second, allowing for a maximum rewind duration of 4.44 seconds.
- Press and hold C2 and C1 (make sure to press C2 first) to enable Sonja to move normally while time is rewinding, allowing her to interact with the level elements moving in reverse or progress further in the level while the timer rolls back. Note that Sonja's air countdown will run down normally if she is currently underwater or in space. This version costs 25% energy per second, allowing for a maximum rewind duration of 4 seconds.
- Given the potential for griefing, the Rewind ability can be disabled with a console command. If Rewind is disabled, C2 instead serves as another Slow Time fine-tuning key. (Or maybe a Fast Forward function that makes everything but Sonja (again, including the level timer) move faster, though I'm not sure how useful that would be.)
- This ability has three versions, distinguished by what buttons are pressed, which differ in energy cost and how Sonja is affected by time rewinding.
- C3: Chrono Evasion: Press C3 to make Sonja enter a special evasion state, denoted by Sonja's sprite glowing with a faint purple hue. If Sonja is struck by any harmful entity or stage element while in the Chrono Evasion state, she will not take any damage or knockback at all; projectiles and enemies will pass right through her, while Sonja will abruptly vanish on the spot and reappear a split-second later in either the same location or a short distance away, depending on whether or not any movement keys are being pressed. (This isn't a teleport; it's more of a flash step.) However, the Chrono Evasion state only lasts for a short time (roughly 3/4 of a second) per activation, so it must be used with good timing, lest Sonja waste her energy on a failed evasion attempt and get hurt anyways. (And yes, Chrono Evasion can dodge hitscan attacks, such as Brak Eggman's sniper shot, as long as it's active when the attack goes off.) However, it is possible for Sonja to take a hit immediately after dodging something with Chrono Evasion if she reappears on top of something harmful, such as spikes or flames. This makes long-lasting hitboxes, such as Brak Eggman's flamethrower, something that Sonja must still be wary of. Chrono Evasion costs 10% energy to activate.
- Passive: Danger Sense: Sonja is able to look into the future to detect potential problems and respond to them ahead of time. Since constantly giving the player visions of what will happen in the future is impractical, this power will instead manifest in-game as a "danger radar" and "spider sense". While playing as Sonja, the HUD includes a radar that shows the locations of nearby hazards, such as spikes, electric floors, lava, lava falls, pits, and enemies, relative to Sonja, thus allowing a player who pays attention to this radar to always know in advance if they're about to run headlong into something dangerous and react accordingly. Furthermore, enemies (including bosses) will take on a reddish glow a second before they initiate an attack (accompanied by a red exclamation point appearing above Sonja's head); for enemies with multiple attacks, like Brak Eggman, an icon will appear alongside the exclamation point to show what attack is about to be used. A similar telegraphing system is applied to harmful stage elements that turn off and on, like lava spouts, retracting spikes, and crushers, with a faint image of the hazard appearing where it will be a second before it actually activates. Much like the radar, this extra layer of telegraphing allows Sonja's player to respond to threats sooner than usual.
- Since this telegraphing system is impractical in PVP modes (where the opponents are other human players rather than an AI), the red exclamation mark is replaced with a purple exclamation mark when Sonja is in another player's line of fire, with this exclamation point flashing when another player attempts to use a hitscan or high-speed attack such as a Rail Ring on her, giving Sonja a quarter-second window to activate Chrono Evasion to avoid being hit.
Flora Belnades — Holy Necklace — Spellcaster
Flora's powers revolve around magical offense and defense. Her powerset is pretty much what Castlevania players were probably expecting when I uttered the name "Belnades", with a couple of extras.
- C1: Holy Flame: Press C1 to cause Flora to unleash a narrow and short-lived ray of flame that extends 90 fracunits in front of her, which damages any enemy or monitor that makes contact with it. Most of the hitbox deals equal damage to a Spin-Jump, but enemies who are struck by the flames within 35 fracunits of Flora take double damage, similar to the red projectile of Susie's Red Buster. Holy Flame can also blast open walls, including tougher walls that would normally require Knuckles' strength or Amy's hammer to break, and demolish spikes. (However, Flora lacks the ability to glide, climb walls, or power up springs, which may prevent her from traversing the paths behind the walls that only Knuckles and Amy can break in the base game.) Holy Flame costs 8% energy to cast.
- C2: Blue Splash: Press C2 to cause Flora to conjure up several icicles that hover around her for a moment, then fly outwards in a straight line to impale any enemy or monitor in their way. Each icicle deals damage equal to a Spin-Jump. Blue Splash can act in one of four different ways, depending on whether Flora is currently in 2D or 3D and which buttons are pressed.
- When Blue Splash is used in 2D, it behaves just like it does in Dracula's Curse, Dawn of Sorrow, and Harmony of Despair, conjuring five icicles in a fan shape around her over the course of half a second which hover around Flora as they form, then are launched outwards as projectiles once they have all materialized; this version of Blue Splash costs 12% energy to cast. Blue Splash cannot be cast again until the icicles have expired.
- In 3D, Blue Splash is a three-stage move that functions like a blend of the classic Blue Splash and the Castlevania Judgment incarnation, with each stage having its own energy cost and effects.
- Press C2 once in 3D to cast Frost Shield, which conjures an array of 8 small ice obelisks which hover around Flora, moving along with her. These ice obelisks collectively behave similarly to a Pity Shield, protecting Flora from one hit, but not granting any shield action or passive effects; however, the obelisks overlap with any existing shield Flora may have instead of overwriting it, protecting Flora's shield from damage in addition to Flora herself. (In this respect, the Frost Shield functions very similarly to Dirfex's ice shield.) Having a Frost Shield active slows Flora's energy replenishment, but does not stop it, similarly to charging Holy Bolt (and it is possible to have a Frost Shield active while charging a Holy Bolt, in which case the energy replenishment penalties stack). Frost Shield vanishes when it blocks a hit, when 8 seconds have passed since it was cast, or when C2 is pressed again to transition to the next stage. Frost Shield costs 10% energy to cast.
- Press C2 in 3D while Frost Shield is active to transition into Icicle Blades, which causes icicles to erupt from the ice obelisks and linger around Flora for up to 1.5 seconds, after which they vanish. The icicles do not protect Flora from damage while they are active, but they can damage enemies and monitors. Icicle Blades costs 4% energy to cast (for a total of 14% when accounting for the cost of Frost Shield).
- Pressing C2 with an active Frost Shield while in a 2D zone will simply result in Flora casting the 2D version of Blue Splash rather than transitioning to Icicle Blades. This will not remove Flora's Frost Shield.
- Press C2 while Icicle Blades is active to transition into Blue Splash proper, launching the icicles outwards as projectiles. It costs 2% energy to launch the icicles (for a total of 16% when accounting for the cost of Frost Shield and Icicle Blades). Frost Shield cannot be cast again until the icicles have expired.
- [My initial idea for the 3D version of Blue Splash was for Flora to conjure five icicles, magically hold them, and be able to shoot them manually, aiming them in first-person view, but that isn't at all accurate to how Blue Splash usually works, so when I looked up the spell on the Castlevania wiki and saw how Castlevania Judgment handles it, I decided to go with that.]
- C3: Holy Lightning: Press C3 to cause Flora to conjure three orbs of electricity that slowly home in on nearby enemies and monitors, with each orb lingering until it has hit something twice or existed for seven seconds. The damage per hit is equal to that of a Spin Jump. Holy Lightning costs 24% energy to cast.
- Toss Flag: Holy Barrier: Press and hold Toss Flag to make Flora erect a wall of light in front of her that moves along with her. However, Flora's movement is slowed and her jump height is reduced while the barrier is active. This barrier repels enemies and stops enemy projectiles (and only enemies; allies can move and shoot through the barrier without issue), thus protecting Flora and anyone else who takes cover behind the barrier. The barrier is very wide (about 300 fracunits wide and 150 fracunits tall), allowing Flora to easily defend several allies at once. The barrier costs 3% energy per second to maintain, with an additional 1% energy being spent for every enemy or projectile that comes into contact with it.
- Press and hold C3 along with Toss Flag (make sure to press Toss Flag first) to change the barrier into a dome that covers Flora. This protects Flora and nearby allies from all sides rather than just the front, but Flora cannot move at all while using this version of the spell, and must either lower the barrier by releasing C3 or change back to the default barrier by releasing Toss Flag in order to move again. The energy costs are the same as the default version, and also like the default version, the dome is very large (enabling Flora to defend allies as well as herself).
- Passive: Small Stature: Flora is unusually short for her age due to… unfortunate events in her childhood. As such, she has a smaller hitbox than most other characters (she's bigger than Kirby and Slime, but that's about it), letting her fit through some cramped spaces that other characters would need to Spin-Dash or otherwise reduce their hitbox size to get through (however, she's still just a bit too tall to get through extremely tight spaces without Spin-Dashing). Compared to other characters, Flora is overall more difficult to hit, especially with projectiles, and has an easier time jumping through gates with spikes on the floor and ceiling, running under crushing ceilings, and dodging attacks at head level, among other perks of being small.
Cassandra Belnades — Mimic's Necklace — Mimic
Cassandra's power is to copy the powers of others, either by scanning them with a bolt of light or just drawing upon her own knowledge of what they're capable of. This is as ridiculously versatile as you'd expect, but Cassandra can only copy one character's powers at a time, and using copied powers can also be physically taxing, which limits how much Cassandra can use borrowed abilities. However, she can swap between power sets at any time, which allows expert players to pull off some outrageously impressive feats by combining the powers of multiple different characters. For instance, she could chain Sonic's thok, Shadow's Chaos Snap, Silver's levitation or Psycho Boost, Tails's flight, and Skip's dive to cover ludicrously long distances in the air without touching the ground once, but it would take some really good APM to mimic each of those characters, perform their air actions, drop the power, mimic the next character, perform another air action, and so on without mimicking the wrong character or screwing something else up. I can imagine TAS runs with Cassandra being crazy awesome, though for regular play or anyone who isn't a gaming god, she would just be more of a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-all kind of character who can use the best tools for any given situation and beat Eggman and his army at their own game (especially in co-op, where she might have willing templates)… as long as she keeps a cool head and manages her energy well!
- C1: Copy Bolt: Press C1 to fire a bolt of light which is similar to the Holy Bolt, but cannot be charged and has slight homing properties. If the Copy Bolt strikes a character or enemy, it grants Cassandra that entity's special abilities. Striking an allied character with a Copy Bolt has no effect on them, but striking an enemy causes damage equal to half that of a Spin Jump. You'll know if you're copying something when you see a translucent silhouette of their sprite on top of Cassandra's. For instance, copying a Stupid Dumb Unnamed Robo Fish would grant Cassandra a high jump; copying a Buzz or a Bird Airstrike Smash Hazard would grant her a free flight mode; copying a Crushtacean would grant her a spring-loaded punch capable of breaking strong walls; copying a Pyre Fly would grant her a self-ignite that acts like a temporary Flame Shield; copying the Egg Mobile would grant her a ground-scorching laser; copying the Sea Egg would grant her an electric shockwave and missiles; copying Brak Eggman would grant her Brak Eggman's entire arsenal of abilities, including the electric barrier (though Cassandra's version would function more like a Lightning Shield that replenishes itself 15 seconds after being lost by taking damage, rather than making her outright invincible as long as she avoids exposure to liquid); and so on. (The button(s) used to use copied abilities may vary based on what would be most practical and logical, and any ability that is used with the Fire key overwrites Holy Bolt.) When Cassandra copies a playable character with her Copy Bolt, she gains full access to that character's abilities as though you were playing as that character, but retains her own attributes and properties where those are better (for example, if she's copying a character with below-standard top speed, acceleration, thrust factor, or accel speed or whose jump height is lower than hers, she'll retain her own stats (she'll only copy stats that are better than her own), if she copies a character who lacks a spin jump, she'll still curl up when jumping, and if she copies a character who has special vulnerabilities (like Hyudoro's light vulnerability), she won't copy those weaknesses). Cassandra also retains her own double jump, only using the copied air action either as a triple jump when she's expended her double jump or by pressing Jump and Spin in midair simultaneously (with the latter allowing her to still use her double jump afterwards). However, firing a Copy Bolt costs 2% energy, Cassandra's energy regeneration is slightly slower while she has a copied ability, and using copied abilities costs energy (the precise amount depends on the ability being copied, but it's usually pretty low, since most characters' abilities are intended to be somewhat spammable). If Cassandra copies one of her sisters or another character with a similar energy mechanic, using their unique energy-requiring abilities (including Annie's lethal-blow-survival passives) costs 1.1× the amount of energy it would cost for the original character. (However, energy meters that behave sufficiently differently from Cassandra's own, such as Silver's, Dirfex's, or Lilac's, will not overlap with Cassandra's energy and will instead be an independent limitation on the copied abilities.) Copy Bolt itself cannot be used while copying an ability/power set. Press Escape, any unused Custom Key (including C1), or Toss Flag (if unused by the character you're copying) to discard the copied ability/power set.
- C2: Mimicry: Press C2 to open up a sub-menu containing all playable characters you have access to other than Cassandra herself — by default, this would be Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Fang, Metal Sonic (the latter three of those only if they've been unlocked), Annie, Sonja, and Flora, but it also includes almost any other character you may have downloaded (as long as the mods don't somehow come into conflict). You can still move around normally with the movement, Jump, and Spin keys while you have this menu open. Scroll through characters with C1 and C3, then select a character with C2 or press Toss Flag to cancel. (The mimicry menu's default character order will be the same as the character select screen, but it can be rearranged in the options menu in order to make the aforementioned ability chains slightly easier to pull off.) Once you've selected and mimicked a character, their sprite will appear as a translucent outline over Cassandra's (slightly more opaque than the Copy Bolt outline), and Cassandra will gain full access to that character's attributes and abilities as though you were playing as them. While mimicry is more versatile than copying, can be activated more quickly due to lacking the need to aim a Copy Bolt or account for its travel time, and lacks the limitation of the subject needing to be physically present and within Cassandra's line of sight, it has limitations of its own that are more severe than the Copy Bolt's. Activating mimicry costs 4% energy, Cassandra's energy does not replenish on its own during mimicry (and in fact very slowly drains over time, with the precise rate depending on how "powerful" the mimicked character is; for example, mimicking Samus would be more expensive than mimicking Fang), energy replenishment from collecting Rings is cut from 7.5% back to 5%, Cassandra fully copies the attributes (including top speed, acceleration, thrust factor, accel speed, and jump height) and properties of the mimicked character — even where they are worse than her own (including things such as lack of a spin-jump (Amy, Fang, etc.) and special vulnerabilities, such as Hyudoro being vaporized by prolonged exposure to light), she loses access to her natural double-jump, and activating abilities borrowed through mimicry costs slightly more energy than activating those same abilities if they were borrowed by the Copy Bolt. (With regard to the other Belnades sisters specifically, using their abilities when borrowed through mimicry costs 1.2× the usual amount. Like the Copy Bolt, energy meters that function sufficiently differently from the Belnades sisters', like Silver's, Dirfex's, or Lilac's, will operate independently of Cassandra's own energy meter as long as she's mimicking the character in question.) Press Escape, any unused Custom Key (including C2), or Toss Flag (if not used by the character you're mimicking) to discard the mimicked powers. Cassandra is automatically forced out of mimicry if she runs out of energy.
- Passive: Quick Recovery: To compensate for her energy-intensive playstyle, Cassandra recovers energy more quickly than her sisters. Specifically, her energy replenishment rate is 1.5× faster, so she regains 1.5% energy per second normally, 3% energy per second when standing still, and 7.5% energy per collected Ring.
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