I first thought of this idea when I was playing some Smash Bros with friends, and we pondered what the strangest character that could be added to the game was.
My answer was the Guitar Hero from Guitar Hero.
What is Guitar Hero?
Guitar Hero is a rhythm game. You use a guitar shaped controller to input the correct strings of notes at the correct time. It's heavily inspired (cough cough) by the earlier game Guitar Freaks. Originally, it was developed by Harmonix, but when they were bought out by another publisher, Activision handed the development of future games to Neversoft. Harmonix would later make a rival series, called Rock Band.
Guitar Hero and Rock Band eventually became too big for their own good, with large packaging, expensive controllers and too many successive releases leading to massive decline. After a hiatus, both series released follow-ups, however both have underperformed. (Guitar Hero Live's online has been shutdown, but Rock Band 4 still is being supported.)
Why Guitar Hero for Smash?
Honestly, no big reason other than I wanted to design a concept for the character. If they did make it in, it'd be a big surprise, but we'd have:
- A rhythm game rep
- A western game rep
- An interesting design for a character
- Possibly non-game music in Smash Bros too
Guitar Hero has been on Nintendo consoles before as well, for that's worth.
Okay, so what about their moveset?
I'll start with the specials first.
Down Special: Starpower Gauge - Charge up the starpower meter. If the meter is at least halfway full, using the Down Special activates the Starpower Gauge, which increases damages and knockback on all note-based attacks (denoted with an n next to them.) The meter will also charge with successful hits, and uncharge with missed hits. This move is directly inspired by one of the key mechanics of both Guitar Hero and Rock Band - the starpower meter. This meter doubles your current score multiplier and requires correct inputs of the famous parts of songs.
Neutral Special: Fret-Burnern - Another charge move, this time you play a series of notes, and when you release the button you fire the notes you've played forward. Could be random strings, or nods to famous phrases in Guitar Hero and music in general. (The name is taken from a frequent title given to Guitar Hero campaign levels, such as GH1's 5th level, Fret-Burners.)
Side Special: HoPosn - The term means Hammer-ons and Pull-offs. These guitar techniques are represented in Guitar Hero as notes you don't need to strum, providing you've hit the previous note. For Smash, this move allows you to strike up to 5 times in quick succession. However, in order to strike multiple times, you need to be successful with the previous strike. So to hit 5 times with the side special, you need to use the side special and hit the previous 4 hit times. (Basically a Guitar Hero styled Marth side-special).
Up Special: Guitar Highway - In Guitar Hero, the term for the board on the screen on which the notes come towards you is the Highway. For this special, the highway is summoned to send you straight vertically upward. Afterwards you can perform any action that doesn't require notes, or your down-special.
So with the specials done, here come the smash and other attacks.
Down Smash: Open Noten - Introduced in Guitar Hero: World Tour, the open note is a purple line across the highway that requires zero fret button inputs when strumming. This attack would summon an open note centred on the player.
Side Smash: "This Guitar's Trash!" - Based on an end of performance animation from the early Guitar Hero games, the player swings their guitar downward. The move has very high damage, but has higher-than-average endlag. (You've got to replace the broken guitar before you can play it again, you know?)
Up Smash: Tap Notesn - Also introduced in World Tour, tap notes are notes that only require fret button pressing. No strumming is required. For this attack, a series of alternating low and high tap notes spawn above the player, dealing damage to any opponent hit by them.
Tilts and Aerials would involve more moves based around the guitar, but you could fit notes into these moves to better suit the Starpower mechanic if necessary.
Final Smash: Big Rock Ending - This move transports nearby players into the audience of concert. An entire band (made up of playable characters from Guitar Hero 1-3) plus the player perform a big rock ending, which deals large damage and sends the audience flying.
Here's some taunts, alt costume ideas and other such things:
Taunt 1 - The player mimes tuning their guitar.
Taunt 2 - The player strums a big, sustained chord. The taunt is long, but can be cancelled, in which case one of the "note missed" sounds plays to cut it off.
Taunt 3 - The player throws up their hands and performs the classic Rock-N-Roll hand gesture.
Victory Pose 1 - The player slides across the ground on their knees, playing the series' victory theme.
Victory Pose 2 - The player is surrounded by amplifiers, they play the series' victory theme.
Victory Pose 3- The player is joined by the band from their Final Smash, they play the series' victory theme.
Entrance Animation - Simple walk-on animation, but accompanied by the song-startup sound.
Alt costumes: (These would be based on the playable characters from the early Guitar Hero games.)
Default - Johnny Napalm (Box art of Guitar Hero 1, punk styled character)
Colour 2 - Judy Nails (from Guitar Hero 1 onward, alt rock styled character)
Colour 3 - Axel Steel (from Guitar Hero 1 onward, classic metal styled character)
Colour 4 - Xavier Stone (from Guitar Hero 1 onward, funk styled character)
Colour 5 - Midori (from Guitar Hero 3 onward, J-Rock and pop-punk styled character)
Colour 6 - Lars Umlaut (from Guitar Hero 2 onward, extreme metal styled character)
Colour 7 - One of the unlockable boss fight characters from GH3, preferably Slash (from Guns 'N' Roses), but if real life likeness is an issue then probably Lou instead.
Colour 8 - Grim Ripper (Bonus unlockable character, literally looks like the Grim Reaper)
What about a stage? Music?
Stage would probably be Lou's Inferno. It's a concert hosted in the Rock Underworld, and is the final venue in GH3's campaign.
As for music, anything from Guitar Hero could be used, so we'd have non-game music for the first time. Some definite highlights to pick from: -Theme From Guitar Hero by Monkey Steal The Peach (probably decent fit for a victory theme) -Boss Battle themes from Guitar Hero 3 - (Tom Morello, Slash, Lou) -Through The Fire and Flames by Dragonforce, because that's the Guitar Hero song. -Jordan by *Buckethead (famous song within the Guitar Hero fanbase for its difficulty)
Edit 1: Added music and stage ideas
Tl;dr - if I could add one WTF character to Smash Bros, it'd be a rep from Guitar Hero.
Submitted December 26, 2018 at 03:55PM by ThatHydra http://bit.ly/2AjChnr
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