Hey all, Jango here. I hope you are all having fun with the Champ Build and our revamped take on Mr. Satan. I wasn't lying about joining Team Z2 back on April 1st, but my involvement was actually being the head coder for Mr. Satan! Early on, the team agreed that his development (and my involvement) should be kept a secret from the public until release, so there was a lot of stuff that happened behind the scenes that you normally would've seen in other character WIPs. Therefore, I'm here to get you all caught up on what you missed, and show you some of the thought process that went behind it all!
There's a lot to talk about, so I spoilered a bunch of sections that you can read at your own leisure!
Spoiler: Great Saiya-NOPE (click to see content)
In an alternate universe, this is called the Hero Build and Great Saiyaman is the secret character
It may surprise you that my proposal that got me on the team wasn't for Mr. Satan at all, but for The Great Saiyaman! My original pitch was that I felt that there was already a strong typical Z-Warriors tone in the Gokus, Vegetas, Gohan, and the then-upcoming Piccolo. Saiyaman, I argued, would basically have a moveset that Gohan would use when fighting bank robbers instead of planet-destroying aliens. There would be more emphasis on powerful strikes versus long combos and ki blasts, and he'd employ gadgets ala Batman to help him out. While Saiyaman was rejected, it turned out that Balthazar and the other Z2 members were considering overhauling Mr. Satan's sprites and moveset, and needed a coder. Since Mr. Satan is my favorite DBZ character, I immediately accepted the offer.
The idea wasn't totally abandoned, though. Mr. Satan does carry some of the ideas I had for Great Saiyaman into his movelist (executed more comically), so in a way he lives on in Mr. Satan.
Spoiler: Oh take me back to the start (click to see content)
Imagine having to crop and align this by eye. Imagine doing that for the whole character. It's fun!
Now for those of you who downloaded my works prior to Mr. Satan, you know that I prefer to use game data and perfectly aligned sprites to cut out as much work as possible when making stuff. For Mr. Satan, I didn't have this luxury. Balthazar basically made a big ol' spritesheet that he updated regularly, and it was my job to look through the sprites, crop out the ones I needed, align them using nothing but my eyeballs, and give them move properties that “looked right.” It was a lot more trial and error than what my more recent works had, and in many ways it reminded me of when I was making my old Kirby Superstar characters using DrShnaps' spritesheets. More difficult? Yes. More rewarding? Oh yes.
Spoiler: Compromise with the Capsule (click to see content)
He's so fluffy I'm gonna die. Or at least take some damage from it.
One of my favorite things to code was Capsule Surprise. When the move was initially proposed, Balthazar and Iced had two conflicting ideas on how it should play out. Balth originally proposed that the move behave like Faust's item toss move from the Guilty Gear games with wildly different properties between them, while Iced was of the school that the only differences should be cosmetic. When I got around to coding the move, I decided to compromise between the two schools of thought. I have three types of items: Bad, Good, and Awesome. Bad items do a small amount of damage and travel the least, Good items do a little bit more and travel further, and Awesome items explode! The game randomly picks from one of these three classes and sends out the appropriate item type. However, to add more strategy/mindgames, every consecutive item throw actually slightly improves your chances of getting a better item, until it resets after you get an Awesome item. It adds a little tension because if your opponent throws a series of Bad items, you just KNOW an Awesome item is on its way. Also separate from these groups, I coded a few easter egg items that have a small chance of appearing (like 2% of every attempt), but they're basically good/bad items with different velocities/damage.
Spoiler: Everybody get hype! (click to see content)
When I was showing this to my IRL friends, they'd always ask me what Star Fox is doing in the crowd. Now I can't unsee him.
Deciding on how to go about Mr. Satan's Emo Mode was a bit of a struggle. At first, we had no idea what we were going to have for it: some suggested that he revert to his April Fool's mechanics whenever he gets hit, some suggested that his meter bar should be either his championship belt or one of the Mr. Satan dolls from his Anakaris Curse transformation. It was really a mess, so I took a step back and decided to focus on what really defines Mr. Satan. If you're familiar with him in the show, he's always trying to rationalize the Z-fighters' otherworldly powers as “light tricks,” “deceptions,” etc etc. So my thinking was that Mr. Satan (the character) wouldn't react too kindly to a little bar popping up in the corner arbitrarily determining things like move properties and what finishers are available. “A meter? That's for wimps! Let's see what the audience has to say about that!” So that thought was what made me decide how to go about making his Emo Mode. Mr. Satan is hyping up the audience for support, and in return he's putting on a bigger show for them as well. Additionally, this concept of him hyping the audience lead to the creation of his Crowd Goes Wild super (which you can only perform in this mode). It's an example of the HDBZ school of thought to develop character movesets and abilities based on their personalities, and there are few personalities as strong as Mr. Satan's!
Spoiler: References? In my Satan??? (click to see content)
So anyone who's played the game knows that the Z2 characters do a lot of references, not just to the show, but also to other characters in the pantheon of fighting games. Part of this is practicality: why not use a concept that already works? Another part is just fun. Sometimes the reference would be small.
I guess I gotta make a Jojoke. Ummmm... Part Five?
Other times, it could be the basis for an entire super move.
I still have to wonder how either dude managed to strap their enemy to a rocket.
The rocket one was actually one of the first moves ever planned out, and it ended up being the last one I coded because I'm lazy like that.
Spoiler: The colors, Duke! The colors! (click to see content)
It's usually tradition for HDBZ characters to have a palette template put out, and then the fans are allowed to make palettes that can show up in the character. In Mr. Satan's case, that obviously wasn't an option, so the task fell to me to make all the palettes! So taking a cue from Smash Bros, I made his first six palettes reference official materials.
From Left to Right: Default, Bojack Unbound, SSJ, Soul of Hyper, Legends of Manga, Yo! Return of Son Goku and Friends
But since Mr. Satan's wardrobe isn't nearly as extensive as, say, Krillin's, I had to make more palettes outside of that, so palettes 7-12 are of my own invention. 7 was basically my way of acknowledging the old April Fool's version of Mr. Satan. 8-9 were tributes to Mr. Satan's original voice actor, Daisuke Gori, referencing characters he previously voiced prior to his death. For the other three? Eh... just did them for fun.
R.O.B. Sm4sh alt palette VS Zap Rowsdower!
I proceeded to make a grand total of
50 palettes based on whatever caught my fancy and what would look good, although palettes preceded by “FAF” are palettes that some of my IRL friends actually designed. But yeah, there's a ton of 'em so check 'em out when you get a chance!
This is my personal palette selection for my "playing" build FYI
So those are some of the big things that came up in mind for Mr. Satan. If y'all have any other questions about him, feel free to ask or let me know what you think. The Champ's Build might be out, but there are still possibilities for the community to contribute to the big dude (additionally, I'm working with the staff to make sure said efforts are rewarded!). Speaking of WIPs, I will also take this time to announce that I'm teaming up with Daeron to make Krillin, so look forward to that! While I don't have anything prepared for everyone at the moment, keep your eyes peeled, because I'll be addressing it soon!
Thanks to the Z2 Team for welcoming me to work on this project, and thanks to all of you for downloading and supporting this character. I was lurking Maximilian's stream when it was on, and just seeing all the enthusiasm for Mr. Satan, both on camera and in-chat was really inspiring to me, and I'm really thankful for the opportunity to come onboard and do this.
And thanks to Daeron for doing this piece days before Satan's release!
And with that, I think I've earned myself a nap