Hey guys I know it's been awhile and I have a backlog of requests to do, but to get back into the swing of things I decided to do a "fun" character, hence this is a more laid-back, "fun" review. I've also decided to change my metrics to 0/10 score with a "enjoyability" factor replacing the AI. I pondered how I would apply such a subjective metric to source accurate characters like various Ryus, when I decided since Pitchfork can rate the classics based on how they enjoyed them so can I. For the score out of ten, I will simply multiply my average by 2. Because it is an average please do not take these scores to heart. They can be incredibly skewed by a certain metric ie. someone has shit sounds but everything else about the character is perfect. Its just some fun little stats I'm putting up. As such I will change "overall" to "average score" to make it less misleading.
To get back into things I decided to do Galivan by Tokei. I chose this guy for various reasons: a) he is cool b) he has an english readme. Since I did not yet include a screenshot of him in action and only his super/intro bg as the preview gif, here is some info on where he comes from: His sprites and presumably his effects are ripped from the Japanese SNES game Cosmo Police Galivan II: Arrow of Justice, which is a sequel to the first Cosmo Police Galivan game which was for NES.
The sprite itself looks like this:
So yeah your basic SNES spritework, looks good and okay on your MUGEN screen but also extremely dated as hell, which it can't really help. His sprites are kinda roughly ripped, but again its hard to make them not look sloppy, since the sprite itself is a pixellated mess. He has no extra palettes besides his default. The effects he uses from the game also have not aged very well, though I was somewhat certain Tokei added an extra hitspark on the fourth A in his autocombo, it was actually just a skewed and supercompressed version of one of his projectiles. So graphics aren't too appealling unless you are really into building a retro-styled MUGEN (would be especially cool if someone was working on some sort of SNES fighters kinda thing). As for sounds he's got those typical japanese creator flourishes they were so well known for in the days of winmugen, which means random bgm from the game playing at length when a certain move is input. This can get rather annoying, especially when you whiff one of his supers and that fucking BGM keeps playing for god knows how long while the match continues as normal. He uses generic hitsounds which are much, MUCH louder than the voice samples on him and his helpers, which imo is kinda lazy and inconsistent but that is just me being a tightwad.
One draw he has is the intro, which is one of my favorites. It plays its own music, and shows his ugly ass, (and what I am assuming is his) NES graphic civilian sprite pulling off the transformation set against the backdrop of the .gif I have played. He does it via this funky 80s looking UFO thing.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Now let's be honest, you don't care about any of that shit- you care about the gameplay right. Galivan's got S tier gameplay. First off he is -technically- 6 button gameplay though in reality he is like 1-3 depending on what you're doing with it. Pressing A repeatedly does all his normals in an autocombo fashion, with the fourth hit causing knockaway. It comes out instantly and is extremely fast, and the hitboxes on this thing are pretty suspect. Even for the minuscule amount of damage it does it is very easy to overpower foes simply by mashing A like the close elevator button when some sweaty obese guy is walkin up on you. I originally took some pictures without hitboxes so I could demonstrate the way Tokei used his effects, but I felt a set showing off its CLSN stuff worked better. Thankfully Tokei though to throw in some blue to give it some semblance of lower priority.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
His specials are also performed with just A as well, and he has a couple. He does have a varied number of options and can deal with a lot of different stuff with his toolkit. His standard qcf + A fireball is Prism Wave, which has him take out his sword and hold it there as it shoots two waves. He can quickly cancel into it at any point before the fourth A of his autocombo, much like his qcb + A, which I am assuming is called his Jakaikyaku. (note: this is because in the english readme, jakaikyaku's input is listed as B, B + A which I believe is a typo. Note however he can do a ground version of his spark ball/capsule bomber by B, B + A but if that move is jakaikyaku his qcb move was never on the readme in the first place.) It just has him charge into the opponent, which causes knockdown. Both moves are good for pressure, though the recovery time on Prism Wave is thankfully pretty unsafe and give us a semblance of balance to hold onto for dear life. Here is a shot of the prism wave:
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Even more basic is his Hyper Lei, performed simply with f + A, which is a single gunshot much like Falco's neutral B in Smash except way faster and does less damage. In can be comboed into from close range but does such shit damage and I'm unsure if anything but the supers combo from it, in which case youd be better off just mashing A and then canceling rather than trying to cancel into the stricter window off of the forward A. His b + A, which has no title, is a launcher, but he has no air combos or actual followups. It's funny what you can do with tho, you can launch him up, jump, do one of his air fireballs, drop down and hit him with a couple Hyper Leis and do a slide kick (performed with d + A.) However this still does like absolutely no damage, which gives you no incentive to actually do any of that. The main draw is it looks funny and you can be creative with him at the cost of being useless.
He has also has a dp + A move with Cosmo Boomerang, which has him throw one of his prism waves. Doing a backwards dp (b, d, b) + A will activate his Laser Braid, which has nothing to do with braiding your hair. Instead he pauses to activate his beam sword and then slashes you. It's a mostly useless move, cant't be comboed into and takes forever to start up. It's main draw is higher damage output if you combo into one of his dino damage supers from it, but since pretty much everything combos into a super with Galivan and they do fucking huge amounts of damage anyway you may want to weigh the practicality there.
I'll start with pictures of his Hyper Lei and b + A. Dig the misplaced hitspark on the back A lmfao.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
And here are his Cosmo Boomerang and Laser Braid:
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Before I forget to mention this, he has a funny, nonsensical hitbox on his boomerang, making it less useful compared to most of his other fireballs. It also moves in a rather strange pattern, arcing towards the floor, check it out here:
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Finishing off are his air fireballs, Spark Ball (air f + A) and Capsule Bomber (air b + A). Trust me when I say there is no difference besides the direction of the fireball, even the sprite used is the same. Spark Ball flies directly horizontal making it useful for catching that launched opponent or denying a jump, and capsule bomber pretty much functions as a slower version of Akuma's air fireball.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Now, more interesting is the rest of the buttons on Galivan's 6 button gameplay. B and C each call a different helper. B will call in some grey dude who looks like a hybrid between Skeletor, Spiderman and the alien from Alien. It takes him about 2 seconds before he goes through the opponent with his freaky tail thing. It really isn't that useful besides starting up before the autocombo and adding an extra hit. C will summon a girl. She screams a little bit and does a shoryuken. That's all these buttons do. They are actually pretty useless. In fact most of Galivan's shit is useless, because his supers do so much damage there is no need to do anything else than burn meter. You can call them out at the same time to create some interesting setup situations for your supers. A couple pics of his first two helpers:
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
X, Y, and Z are the most important parts of Galivan's gameplay, they're his meter burning buttons. Normally I'd go in ascending order of hwo much power each move takes but I'd like to start with a 3 bar move Galivan possesses. When he presses Z, boss music starts playing and this big motherfucking dragon warrior thing with a giant sword starts running around the screen. It is impossible to hit him, and he hurts both of you. It quickly turns thing into a frantic gamble as his charging moves appear to be unblockable and his blockable move is a fullscreen attack that comes out randomly. It's fucking hilarious and a sort of last ditch roll the dice thing you can do with 3 bars of meter. It's actually worth it for the music. I dumped a bunch of pics of this bloodbath for you below:
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Now the major thing to know about Galivan's supers: they're all you need to win. If you get a confirm off the more expensive ones they do like half health at 150% mugen health. They are performed with X and Y which do nothing unless you do a directional command before them. That's a lot of health. They're also all cinematic and hilarious. Mega Break, performed with qcf + X, is the least conspicuous of the bunch. Fittingly, it takes one bar of meter. It is a standard Wave super in which he charges up for a moment and sends out two large Prism Waves front and back. Does about the same damage as 2 successful autocombos, and can be comboed into easily just like all the others. It's not useful unless you dont know the right times to burn meter Here's the cinematic:
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
He has a super that take two bars and this is where it gets fun. Galivan Blue Slash is performed with qcb + X, and to put this in perspective does about 35 to 40% damage roughly at 150% damage. Galivan turns on the beam sword, attacks, does another cinematic, attacks again to drain more damage, and then another fucking cinematic with the moon appearing for no apparent reason, for even more damage. There is no complex pattern to get the followups, it is done for you. It's awesome, and plays music too, which will continue after the super or if you whiff. It is the best super ever and probably his most useful. This dude goes straight anime on fools with it. Here's the cinematic(s), grab the popcorn homie:
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
His other supers are both 3 bars. The first is fucking boring tho, its called Cosmic Crash (done with qcb + Y) and its just him charging at you with his sword. First of all, for some reason this does less damage than his two bar super, and lacks the fucking cool cinematic action and, interestingly enough, comboing into it with the autocombo results in it doing less damage. It has nothing to do with his clsns (which on this move and his others are of course ridiculous) it just does less damage. I'm not sure what kind of coding fuckup is responsible for that but it sure is unappealing.
However his other 3 bar super takes second best. It has one of the most balling names ever: Big Magnum. That sounds like the hero of a 70s blaxploitation movie. Holy shit its cool too. Music plays, a cinematic with him holding his "big magnum" (one of them 
) starts, and then his UFO comes from fucking nowhere. It grows two sizes bigger as it lands, opens up its hatch, and lets loose its own big magnum on the poor motherfucker. At 150% damage ratio, this does half health. It can be comboed into the wave pretty much takes up a big vertical line on the screen. This thing is massively overpowered and massively hilarious. Have the Big Magnum cinematic:
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
So 4 broken supers, and everything else is useless. Therein lies the charm of Galivan, at 90% completion rate according to Tokei, who's main function seems to be fucking broken and hilarious. He is amazing but objectively a shitty character for this lmao. Either way this is something for people who aren't sticklers for quality MUGEN content and just like to have a little fun with broken stuff. Otherwise, I'd pass up on him unless you are a collecter, diehard fan of retro jap stuff, or like spritework like this. By no means a good character, Galivan shines as one of the many oddball creations Japanese creators have put out. However if you can't look past the fact most of his stuff is either useless or totally broken,a nd the fact his code is a gigantic mess, you might end up just suffering an aneurysm for your troubles. The gameplay is just horrid but so funny. That's why, since this character is cool like yours truly, he gets bonus points! Good job Tokei, America salutes you.
Download Link: http://mug3.anikipedia.com/chara.htm (first on last row, says Gyariban)
Presentation: 2.5/5
Sprites: 3/5
Sounds: 2.5/5
Fun: 4.5/5
Gameplay: 1.5/5
Overall: 5.6/10
Thanks for waiting fans, hope you enjoy!!
