Ayaka Kinoshita

Animation – SleP16
Base Sprite – Bar-Kun
Coding – BernardO and I

Hailing from the port town of Waveridge in a distant world, Ayaka Kinoshita takes the stage! With her trusty handaxes, arcane abilities and unbreakable will, she’s ready to enter the fight!

Ayaka is a long to mid range zoning character, with a slower, more rhythmic playstyle than most characters, who functions pretty differently than a standard character. Her kit is primarily inspired by Min Min’s appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but with the design goal of implementing similar mechanics in ways that feel much more fair and interactive. She also took heavy inspiration from Simon and Richter Belmont’s appearances in the same game, as well as a little bit of Jenny Fox from Slap City. She’s able to stay mobile while using her axes to let her stay a bit more on her toes than an average opponent. She’s able to use these projectiles in ways that allow her to start, extend or finish combos from very impressive distances with proper setup, which makes up for her lack of strong burst options.

Her frame data is fairly average and her killpower can range pretty drastically, killing pretty well off the top, but struggling to net kills off the side. Her strongest aspects are her neutral due to the bag of tricks that is her zoning game, and her edgeguarding, due to being able to keep opponents offstage from a safe distance. Her primary weakness is her vulnerable recovery, only having one option to recover with, and one that lacks a hitbox, at that, she can also struggle to kill off the side, meaning she usually has to resort to getting opponents above her in order to close out stocks.

Both Ayaka’s forward tilt and her forward aerial tosses the axe held in her left hand, which will return to her after traveling a certain distance or after hitting an opponent or surface. This move is meant to bear a resemblance to the first hit of Min Min’s Dragon Arm. This projectile of course, can be used as a traditional zoning tool, but it can also be used to follow up on things she wouldn’t be able to follow up on otherwise. Ayaka can move freely at about the speed of her walk, even while in the startup of the move, allowing her to do it while approaching or retreating, giving her a bit of an edge against the competition. It’s important to note that until the axe returns to Ayaka, she will not be able to perform any of her other moves with the exceptions of forward special and up special.

Ayaka’s neutral special allows her to switch her forward special between four different options; Standard Attack, Slashing Flourish, Defensive Flourish and Mobile Flourish. Tapping neutral special will quickly switch her to the next option in the cycle, in the order stated above. Meanwhile, holding neutral special will pull up each option in each of the four main directions, moving the control stick towards one of the options should then switch you to it.

Ayaka’s forward special will throw the axe in her right hand. This move has four different variations, which are selected via neutral special. This move has very similar properties to her forward tilt and forward air, where she can move during the startup and all. The only difference of course, being that instead of being able to toss out forward special while the axe for this move is out, it’s forward tilt or forward air. The variations of this move are as follows:

Standard Attack

This move is a carbon copy of forward tilt and forward air. Same damage, same angle, same frame data, etc, you just have the move twice over. This can actually chain into forward tilt and forward air at certain percents, and vice versa, allowing Ayaka to chain the two moves into each other to rack up a ton of early damage. The hitbox for this move is smaller than the other flourishes and is on the lower end of strength between all four options.

Slashing Flourish

This move is meant to be used in a very similar fashion to Simon and Richter Belmont’s neutral special in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It has the highest startup out of the flourishes and travels in a slow arc, rising before falling, stopping to return after a long distance, or when it hits an opponent or surface. Out of all the flourishes, this is by far the strongest, and is one of her best kill options, if not her best. This is best used to catch jumps at close range, while the opponent is in a juggle situation. Another good application of this is to throw it at a grounded opponent, and as they prepare to parry it, toss your left axe at them to throw them off, which will then put them in hitstun long enough to confirm into the flourish you previously threw out. This is the only axe that is not crouch-cancelable.

Defensive Flourish

This move is meant to be somewhat of a mix between the Belmont’s Holy Cross and Min Min’s Killawatt, both from SSBU, traveling slowly for a fair distance. It’s on the slower end of her axes, but packs a decent punch to it in return, doing decent damage and occasionally netting a kill or two. The primary use of this flourish is to deal with other projectiles, as it is the only axe that will win trades with projectiles, while all others usually lose to them.

Mobile Flourish

This move is meant to be reminiscent of Min Min’s Ramram from SSBU, quickly being thrown out underhandedly, and arcing up, with a hitbox throughout most of the toss. This flourish has a good number of uses, such as hitting opponents on platforms, catching jumps, or following up a standard attack axe throw at higher percentages. Since unlike the other flourishes, it travels in an arc, centered on Ayaka herself, she can fastfall during it, given she has the space, and as such, hit people from further away than one would expect.

Ayaka’s down special has her channeling arcane energy through a deep breath in order to calm her senses, allowing her to become much more in-tune with herself and the battlefield. Using this move will put her in a vulnerable state with an indicator below her. Hit special again when the white bar overlaps with the green segment, and Ayaka will gain the ‘Calm’ status. While calmed, you gain a few buffs. One, Ayaka becomes much faster while throwing her axes, especially when on the ground. More importantly, two, while calmed, Ayaka has basically complete control over her aerial drift. This allows Ayaka to stop on a dime in the air, leading to her being able to really mix-up opponents, get follow-ups that would be just out of her reach prior, retreat in ways she typically wouldn’t be able to, etc. This status effect is applied to Ayaka until she gets hit, which after losing the status, it will go on cooldown.

Ayaka’s up special lets her teleport a great distance. Normally, it is a rather linear recovery option, only able to go a set distance straight up with only very slight left and right variations, leaving Ayaka in freefall after using the move. It’s meant to be pretty lackluster and fairly easy to edgeguard. However, while calmed, Ayaka is able to teleport in all eight directions, and is not put into freefall. This does, however, lead to her losing the calmed status effect, and putting down special on cooldown.