Rhythm Girl moveset concept (Rhythm Heaven character for Super Smash Bros.)

Rhythm Heaven is my favorite video game series. I could literally go on all day about what I like about it, but for my purposes here I’ll just say it’s really good. it’s a series of rhythm games made by the same developers behind WarioWare, full of fun characters, charming animations, and a fine-tuned passion for music that I haven’t seen in any other rhythm game. much like every video game franchise, there’s been a lot of discussion about the possibility of a character from Rhythm Heaven appearing in Nintendo’s massive crossover fighting game series, Super Smash Bros. there’s a particularly strong case that can be made for Rhythm Heaven specifically, however. it can be argued that it’s the most popular Ninendo-owned franchise that isn’t already represented in Smash in some major capacity. in fact, Rhythm Heaven has the largest amount of minor representation in Smash (things like trophies, spirits, and music) of any series that doesn’t also have a playable character or stage. not only is a Rhythm Heaven character in Smash Bros. likely, it almost really happened! there’s unused data in Smash 4 that implies that at some point in development, there was going to be a playable character from Rhythm Heaven. nothing is really confirmed, but it’s widely believed that originally, Chorus Kid from Rhythm Heaven (DS) was going to be playable in Smash 4. and if that’s the case it like, kinda makes sense why that idea was abandoned, I think. like, Chorus Kid? don’t get me wrong, I like Chorus Kid as much as the next he/they, but Rhythm Heaven has dozens of great characters to choose from, and Chorus Kid is just, one of them. not really a main character, not really representative of the series as a whole, just one of many good characters from Rhythm Heaven. and that’s the thing about a Rhythm Heaven character in Smash, like, there really aren’t “main characters” to pick from, just this massive ensemble of fun and unique designs. sure, there’s characters who host the main campaigns, but none of them appear in more than one game in the series. quick tangent, I actually kinda suspect that if the Chorus Kid thing is correct, there’s a really good chance that it actually was going to be Marshal from Rhythm Heaven Fever, (aka Matt from Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise) and the leaker just didn’t know very much about Rhythm Heaven and mistook him for that guy you play as in that one minigame from the DS game. the only other strong options are characters who have appeared in multiple games in the series. the one I’ve seen the most people suggest by far is Karate Joe. I fully understand where this idea is coming from. Karate Joe is literally the only character who has been playable in more than one minigame in every single Rhythm Heaven game. his games are always either the first or the last standard rhythm game you play in the main campaign too, like he has a very prominent role. in fact, Karate Joe appears in the first minigame in the first entry in the series. he’s definitely the closest thing Rhythm Heaven has to a main character. the thing is, I don’t think he’s the best fit for a character to represent Rhythm Heaven in Smash. he is definitely a better pick than Chorus Kid or Marshal or whoever, but there’s one big problem. uh, Karate Joe is a fighter. like, he does karate. that’s his thing. I’ve seen some people suggest that this makes him a better candidate for a Smash Bros. character, you know, because Smash Bros. is a fighting game, which might even be true, but like, I think it makes him worse as a way to represent the Rhythm Heaven series. Rhythm Heaven is all about music, and, well, rhythm. a character that’s representative of what Rhythm Heaven is all about really shouldn’t be a fighter; they should be a performer. and like, I’m not saying Karate Joe couldn’t fill that role, but I think any version of Joe in Smash would have to either not feel like Karate Joe, or not feel like a Rhythm Heaven character. but like, okay, who else is there? who is better suited for the role of a character that fights in a way that’s representative of the Rhythm Heaven series? I’m jan Misali, and here’s my idea for a Smash Bros. moveset for Rhythm Girl. part 1: Rhythm Girl so, like, she doesn’t actually have a name. canonically her name is just “Girl”, or “Miss” in Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise. I’m just gonna call her “Rhythm Girl”, because it’s more of a name. anyway, right, Rhythm Girl is the player character in this minigame called Tap Trial from Rhythm Tengoku for the Game Boy Advance, which has also appeared in both Rhythm Heaven Fever for the Wii and Rhythm Heaven Megamix for the 3DS. she is one of the very few characters who have appeared in some capacity in every single game in the Rhythm Heaven series. granted, unlike Karate Joe, she wasn’t playable in Rhythm Heaven (DS), but hey look there she is on the title screen! I think that counts. there’s a few reasons I think Rhythm Girl is the Rhythm Heaven character who is best fit for Smash. first of all, she’s a dancer, not a fighter, solving the exact problem I had with Karate Joe. but also, her design is simple enough that the most distinct thing about her visually is that she looks like a Rhythm Heaven character. like, sure, anyone who has played any Rhythm Heaven game could see Karate Joe and be like “oh, is that the guy from Karate Man?”, but anyone who has even seen enough screenshots of Rhythm Heaven to know what the characters look like could see Rhythm Girl and be like “oh, is that a character from Rhythm Heaven?”. the other advantage of her being more generic is that she could have alternate costumes that all represent different Rhythm Heaven minigames. I’ll get into those later, but there are a lot more rhythm girls in this series than just the one from Tap Trial. okay, I’m gonna start going over her moveset in a bit, but first I should clarify that this is not a prediction. I think Rhythm Girl would be better for Smash than Karate Joe, but Karate Joe is far more likely. also, I don’t actually think a Rhythm Heaven character will be added as DLC for Smash Ultimate. it would be great if it did, I would love to be wrong, but it probably will not happen. I’ll still be presenting this as though she’s a DLC character for Ultimate, but it’s way more likely that a Rhythm Heaven character wouldn’t come around until the next Smash Bros. game, if at all. right, now let’s get into... part 2: moveset okay, so her jab is the “pa-pa-pa-punch!” from Space Dance, as a basic four-hit natural combo. and, while we’re talking about Space Dance, it’s also be the source of her forward smash (“turn right!”) and her down smash (“let’s sit down!”). having all three of the dance moves from Space Dance as attacks is crucial. then, her up smash is the “ka-pow!” uppercut from the end of the combo in the Wii version of Karate Man. for her forward tilt, she swings a golf club, as a reference to Hole in One. her up tilt, she claps above her head like the lions in The Clappy Trio or the monkeys in Fan Club. and for her down tilt, she does a powerful tap, like in Tap Trial. the other direct reference to Tap Trial in her moveset is in her down air, a stall-then-fall attack where she stomps on an opponent the way that she lands after doing a jump in Tap Trial. for her neutral air, she slaps the air in front of her like a monkey going for a high five in Monkey Watch. her up air is a flip, like the one the Synchrettes do in Splashdown, complete with the “alley-oop!”, of course. then her back and forward airs both have her swing a badminton racket, just like Baxter and Forthington in Air Rally. for her dash attack, she does a spin, like the cats in Kitties! I’m realizing this is uh, the only one of her moves I came up with that references something from Rhythm Heaven Megamix. uh, okay I didn’t have anything for this originally but let’s say her get-up attack is something from Pajama Party. I don’t know, there’s something there. her grab and throws are all from Love Lab. she grabs her opponent the way the research scientists grab the flasks, and throws them the same way. for her pummel she does the... yeah, that thing. hitting the grabbed foe against the ground. okay, now for the fun part, specials! her neutral B is Built to Scale. when you perform this move, all that happens is there’s a music note particle effect and you hear a piano note play. if you press the button twice in a row, it plays two notes, ascending in a scale. the actual attack happens when you press the button five times in a row. she pulls out a DS, and with a flick of the stylus, launches a widget component from Built to Scale or Polyrhythm as a projectile. the more consistently you time the five B presses, the more powerful the projectile is. the amount of damage it does is determined by comparing the time between the first and third press to the time between the third and fifth press, and the amount of knockback is determined by comparing the time between the second and third press to the time between the fourth and fifth press. determining it that way means that the player can input a swung rhythm and have it still count as frame perfect. oh, and if Kirby copies this he just shoots it from his mouth instead of from a DS. her side B is Exhibition Match. she throws a baseball, and a monkey poofs into existence sitting on a log suspended in midair. the monkey waits a couple seconds, then tosses it to the side, before disappearing again. her down B is Crop Stomp. she stomps the ground, plucking a beet. if you press the button again, she then hits it, and how you time it determines what angle it’s sent flying in. if you hit it quickly, it’s sent straight forward, but if you wait a bit, it’s sent upwards. if you wait too long, it just falls to the ground. and her recovery is Night Walk. an umbrella appears below her as she leaps upward, doing the same Mario style jump pose as Play-Yan. then once she’s in the air, she starts holding some balloons, which can slow her descent, kinda like Villager’s up B, except that she can’t gain any more height past the peak of her jump. also, the balloons start to spontaneously pop on their own after a bit, like in the intro to Night Walk. and finally, her final smash. the camera zooms in as she pulls out a microphone. a bunch of photographers appear from the bottom of the screen, shouting “pose for the fans!”. then, freeze frame. a Nintendo Times newspaper spins into view, and anyone who was in frame is sent flying. so, that’s all of her attacks. now I’m gonna go over some stuff that isn’t attacks. her idle pose is the same as in Tap Trial, but instead of directly facing the camera she’s angled a bit. she never stands still. she’s always bouncing a little bit, feeling the beat. she has one idle animation where she stands on one foot for a bit, like she does after landing a jump in Tap Trial, and another where she starts bouncing on her toes like the squadmates in Marching Orders. and speaking of idols, her taunts are all based on Fan Club and its sequel, specifically these three animations. oh, another fun one is uh, okay so you know that thing in Smash where sometimes the crowd starts cheering for you? so like, for Rhythm Girl there’s another reference to Fan Club there. when the crowd cheers for her, they go “Rhythm Girl, I suppose! (I suppose, hey!)” I could probably come up with a random thing for every single animation to reference but I don’t think that would be interesting to literally anyone, including me. except one! when she falls asleep, she does the same thing Mako does in Pajama Party where she gets down on her knees, goes “oh!” then lies down. I’m serious, these games have such good animation. I love it so much. uh, the Rhythm Heaven series icon is the P with eyes from when you “go for a perfect”, and the victory theme is this jingle that plays after clearing a game in Megamix. okay, now let’s talk about... part 3: alternate costumes so, as I was saying earlier, Rhythm Girl’s somewhat generic design works nicely for alternate costumes. the Tap Trial Girl herself actually has a lot of costumes already, but I think instead of just using those, it would be cool for each of her alternate costumes to be a different Rhythm Girl. that way, this one character can represent much more of the Rhythm Heaven series. this is the one advantage of Ko Takeuchi’s girl characters all kinda looking the same. her default, as you’ve seen, is the Girl from Tap Trial. her yellow alt is the Pop Singer from Fan Club, with her Megamix design. Pop Singer is actually quite a bit shorter then the rest of the rhythm girls, but making her taller doesn’t look that unusual. her white alt is the Reporter from Ringside, purple is the Cosmic Girl from Cosmic Dance, pink is the Pitcher from Exhibition Match, cyan is the Radio Lady from Shoot-’Em-Up (with her Megamix design), and green is a Research Scientist from Love Lab. just like “Girl”, none of these Rhythm Girls have actual names, so they’d all still be called Rhythm Girl. Rhythm Girl’s final alt costume is one of her actual alternate costumes in Rhythm Tengoku, specifically her design in that game’s fifth remix. by the way, there are so many characters to choose from here, it was really hard to narrow it down to just these ones. if it wasn’t standard in Smash Ultimate for everyone to have exactly eight costumes I’d absolutely have included way more than this. if I didn’t get your favorite Rhythm Heaven girl in here I’m very sorry. is it Donna? it’s probably Donna. I mean, who wouldn’t love Donna? she could be a Mii costume I think. part 4: stage okay, that’s all the stuff about Rhythm Girl herself, but any character added as DLC in Smash Ultimate comes with a stage too, so let’s talk about that. the stage is just called Rhythm Heaven, or Rhythm Paradise or Rhythm Tengoku or Rhythm World or whatever the series is called in a given region. it’s one of those gimmicky stages that the competitive Smash community absolutely hates. think “WarioWare Inc, but with rhythm”. just like the Rhythm Heaven series itself! the idea is that the stage takes place inside a Rhythm Heaven remix. the stage transforms into different Rhythm Heaven minigames, with stage hazards that all activate to the beat of the background music. but which Rhythm Heaven minigames are included? it has to be ones where it would actually make sense to fight on them, and also ones where you could line up their cues with any arbitrary song. it was a hard choice, but I picked eight minigames, two from each game in the series, that could work. Tap Trial is a single platform suspended in space, perfect for Smash. uh, there’s also the giraffe there, which is a platform too. the girl and monkeys tap dance in the background to the beat of the music. they just stay in the background though, they don’t impact the battle in any way. if you disable stage hazards, the stage just stays on this one. oh, and when Rhythm Girl joins the battle, Alfonzo is in charge of the tap dance. “leave it to me!” Sneaky Spirits is a stage with two platforms, with walkoffs on both sides. that hole in the middle isn’t actually ground, you can fall through there. but, if you’re in that hole while the spirit is sneaking by, you get hit by the arrow. Blue Birds is a mostly flat stage, but you can also stand on that platform with Captain Blue Bird. sorta like the Duck Hunt stage, the part that’s off screen in the original game is just a void you can fall into. watch out for those birds if you don’t wanna get pecked! Freeze Frame is another flat stage, but this one has walkoffs. the hazard here is that you can get hit by the racecars. TJ Snapper is still there, but he’s moved somewhere where he doesn’t block the view of the battle, and the photographs he takes are shown in the background instead of the foreground. just like in the original game, you can sometimes see different Rhythm Heaven characters watching the race in the background. Screwbot Factory just has a conveyor belt going off the left side. the robots and big factory machines are in the background and don’t interact with the fight at all, so the only hazard here is that the conveyor belt can carry you out of bounds. Night Walk is everyone’s favorite type of stage, a scrolling stage! it’s specifically based on Night Walk (Wii), so it’s Marshal instead of Play-Yan. you can also sometimes see some Huebirds from Flock Step in the background. no direct hazards in this one, just the risk of falling down a hole or not being able to keep up with the scrolling camera. how fast it scrolls depends on the tempo of the current background music. this applies to all transformations for this stage, but for this one especially which song plays in the background has a major impact on how easy it is to avoid the stage hazards. Fruit Basket has you fighting on top of Courtney as he tries to score some hoops. and again like Blue Birds there’s a void you can fall into just off screen. you can bounce off of the basketball hoops like springs, and if you’re standing directly above Courtney’s face as he’s dunking a fruit, you’ll be sent flying. finally, Super Samurai Slice, or more specifically Super Samurai Slice 2, takes place in midair on the back of a pixelated eagle. it’s a rather small platform that everyone has to fight over. the evil ghosts that show up also can be stood on, but when they explode they deal damage. you don’t take any damage from the Wandering Samurai’s sword, however, just the ghosts exploding. the stage switches between these eight transformations the same way remixes switch what game you’re playing. cut to black, then just as quickly cut to the next game. during that quick transition, all you’d see would be the fighters, and I guess items too if you’re playing with items on. in the cool fantasy version of this stage, which also includes way more than just eight transformations, every single song has a hand-crafted remix made for it. I don’t think that’s really reasonable, though. instead, everything is just synced to the background music’s tempo, and what cues happen and what transformations are switched to is just completely random. I think this is uh, much more possible to develop, and it also allows for a larger possible selection of music to go with the stage. part 5: music I’m gonna be real with you for a sec. the main reason I want a Rhythm Heaven character to be in Smash Bros. is because of the music that would come with them. the Rhythm Heaven series has some of the absolute best music in gaming, and the Smash Bros. soundtrack always does such a good job with new arrangements of already great songs. the earliest version of my idea for this video was that I would just list what Rhythm Heaven songs I think would be cool to include in Smash Bros. I do need to establish some type of limit for how much music could be included. otherwise it would just be like, “yeah, every single Karate Man song! why not? they all slap! yes I’m including Karate Man 2 from Rhythm Tengoku! don’t @ me! yeah of course I’m including Karate Man Tempo Up! from the arcade version of Rhythm Tengoku, who do you think I am? yes, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate needs at least fourteen distinct versions of Struck by the Rain. what’s not clicking?” so, looking at the eight Fighter Pass characters in Smash Ultimate so far, on average each one comes with around five new arrangements of songs and ten songs in their original forms. however, Terry is skewing that a lot, he’s a clear outlier here. so, not counting him, the average is like three new arrangements and seven not new arrangements. now, Rhythm Heaven is a Nintendo-owned franchise, so getting the rights to music isn’t as much of a problem for it as it is for the third-party characters here. in terms of old arrangements, Byleth and Min Min are both comfortably above the average, excluding Terry. for new arrangements, it’s less about Nintendo getting the rights to include the music and more about the workload for composers actually making the arrangements. since Rhythm Heaven is literally a series about music, having more new arrangements for it than usual makes sense. right, so all that said, Rhythm Girl as Smash Ultimate DLC comes with an above average but not unprecedented eighteen tracks. six of them are new arrangements, and the other twelve come straight from the official soundtracks of their respective games. by the way, this isn’t a list of my favorite Rhythm Heaven songs, just ones that make the most sense to be included in Smash, specifically alongside the character and stage I’ve been describing. so, a lot of really good music isn’t on here. Smash Ultimate already has three Rhythm Heaven songs: Blue Birds from Rhythm Heaven (DS), Monkey Watch from Fever, and Fruit Basket 2 from Megamix, so these would bring that up to a nice even twenty-one. I’m gonna stop talking for a bit. here’s the twelve songs that are included in their original forms. I think this is a pretty decent selection. got two Karate Man songs in there, and of course Dreams of Our Generation which is just the best song, that there is. okay, now for the new arrangements! the first new arrangement is Title / Let’s Practice!, from Rhythm Tengoku. this one is cheating because it’s two separate songs in one arrangement, but Smash Bros. does that sort of thing all the time so I think it’s fine. the two songs in question are the title theme from Rhythm Tengoku, and the practice theme used in both Rhythm Tengoku and Rhythm Heaven (DS). both of these songs are pretty short, but put them together and you get something that works as like, a “main theme” for the Rhythm Heaven series. the second new arrangement is Built to Scale, from Rhythm Heaven (DS). as the first minigame from the first game in the series released outside of Japan, Built to Scale is a pretty important part of the series. it helps that this song absolutely slaps. a new arrangement for this made for Smash would be pretty neat. the third and fourth new arrangements are Thrilling! Is this love?, also from Rhythm Heaven (DS). two different versions, one with Japanese vocals and another with English vocals. this song probably could use another new arrangement. there was that one made for Megamix, but that one only got new vocals for the Japanese version. this Smash Bros. version gets new singers for both Japanese and English. I suppose! the fifth new arrangement is Remix 10, from Rhythm Heaven Fever. there’s a long tradition in Rhythm Heaven of having one big remix that includes a little bit of every single minigame you’ve played up to that point, featuring a huge medley of all of their associated songs. Rhythm Heaven Fever’s Remix 10 is absolutely iconic. it’s a fan favorite, and for a good reason! legitimately, the fact that it isn’t already in Smash Ultimate is the single best piece of evidence to suggest that there might be a plan to add more Rhythm Heaven content as DLC in the future. and the sixth new arrangement is Final Remix, from Rhythm Heaven Megamix. yup, both Remix 10 (Fever) and Final Remix get new arrangements! however, the new arrangements are done in different styles, to keep the two songs distinct. Remix 10 is done in a big band style, and Final Remix is fully orchestrated. due to the nature of Megamix as being mostly a collection of remakes, Final Remix is a medley of songs from throughout the whole Rhythm Heaven series and not just one game. one major highlight is the part towards the end where it plays the title themes from all four games. that’s really fun. just like when I was picking alternate costumes, selecting music was hard just because there is so much good music in this series. once again, very sorry if your favorite didn’t make it. I tried to stick to ones that are important to the series as a whole and/or are directly connected to one of the Rhythm Girls or one of the stage transformations for the Rhythm Heaven stage. and... that’s everything! at least, that’s everything I cared enough about to come up with an idea for it. thanks for watching all the way through. I don’t have any other ideas for Smash Bros. characters, I just really like Rhythm Heaven. so, don’t expect another of these. actually, don’t expect anything. my video content is completely unpredictable. anyway, that’s it, play Dreams of Our Generation or something.

Channel: jan Misali

Views: 100,966

Keywords: jan Misali, Rhythm Heaven, Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, SSBU, Rhythm Paradise, Nintendo

Id: pH5aYByMtMw

Length: 26min 13sec (1573 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 05 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

This is neat! jan Misali's Built to Scale mashup is actually what got me into this game series, glad to see them make another RH video.

[u/OHejagsnhsvvshd]

you can't predict what video he's gonna upload

[u/Mariopoly]

I was literally just thinking about her in Smash a few days ago.