his movement is too slow. Example? Moving forward. Lmao. You already have near exclusive close combat, but your options to get in are so bad that your combo routes dont matter. Example: Walking in when everyone has hella disjoints and priority. You can deal with that by moving a lot faster. Movement options would make sense for a martial artist

He has several fast moving attacks, his dashes are faster than ninjas (I think, I haven't checked in forever but still he can move), his superdash/jump are armored... and uh. I dunno. You can deal with attacks by parrying and/or using armored moves, and he has Vanish and Reversal to help with getting around stuff. Don't know what else to add to his movement without it being obnoxious

Tho I agree yeah getting in with short range can be a challenge but I don't think it's his movement at fault

Besides dashing faster isn't gonna help you with dodging an attack if you get hit anyway lol

Probably the largest problem people are having, which is the same thing I personally wanted to come over to these comments to talk about, are that characters like this could definitely use something more. Moves that come out a bit quicker or have harder reads, if you're going for mass combo potential; moves which help to pin down enemy movement options; especially moves which have a bit more range than Little Mac with his elbows duct-taped to his sides; things about this character just need to be more tooled around the playstyle you're going for, rather than being more impressively-animated point-blank punches and kicks. Being able to use his Vanish during Ki Charge is an excellent example of this exact mindset, since it can be used both to get in and out of trouble, is excellent bait, and makes opponents think twice about going in or trying to cut off an escape. It doesn't need chasers or fancy projectiles or 'push button to win game' moves with unfair qualities, you just need to lean into what you want for this character without stifling its honestly pretty neat playstyle by giving him only two or three moves that wind up being useful outside of grab range/without giving extra options to specifically put him in ideal range.

A really good point to make on this, consider all the movement options the vanilla YOMI Hustle characters have. Each one has a few moves which are tailored to their playstyle that put them in good range, create hard-to-dodge hits, make them more unpredictable, and play to their individual advantages often without needing to go into point-blank without good reason. Even Ninja, who wants to be up in jabbing range about 100% of the time, has excellent mobility and area control options to cover up for poor range. All I'm saying is that this is a good base, you just need something more to really make him stand out.

Don't get me wrong, I get it
Thing is tho that the base chars for example all have some sort of setplay or tricky mobility
Ninja's shuriken/summon + substitution
Cowboy's Foresight, Temporal Bullets
Robot's LOIC, Grenade
Wizard's... everything LOL
Zen (mostly) doesn't, intentionally cause if I did give him something like that it'd betray his design idea lol
Giving him more range simply doesn't make sense without some cartoonish limb stretching (but I suppose I could give him a move that uses his Ki to extend range...), he was never meant to have anything like a fireball to pressure from afar, Vanish is the closest he's gonna get to burst mobility... dunno what to give him lol this is how Zen was supposed to be, he doesn't have 100% surefire ways to get in range but once he does you are getting torn up

His original moveset (from way before YH lol) had a slow-ish homing projectile that was meant to be used defensively to cover himself or used to work alongside his current pressure but I just didn't think it had a place really
Like yeah the weaknesses can be fixed relatively easily but not without making him a different character

That said I'm working on a big update that'll include new moves and move updates and all that so we'll see then how he shakes out
But I'm alright with him as is, apparently he's super difficult to use but he was never gonna be easy

I dunno man
if you have any move suggestions then shoot

I just put out an update, new move that'll help him greatly at midrange
Try it out

Less a criticism, more a question, but why's his grab so fast?

Originally posted by Bean:

Less a criticism, more a question, but why's his grab so fast?

His grab isn't faster than others, it comes out on frame 5, it's just immune to throws on frames 3-4
It's meant to counter other character's grabs specifically, but it loses to jabs and just... jumps and stuff lol

Just updated
Don't think anything drastic should pop up but lemme know

I want to like this character but he doesn't really have much hope in most matchups. Regardless of his speed, the fact remains that most characters just outrange him entirely, at which point it doesn't matter how many interchangable punches and kicks you can do. Even in the rare Ninja matchup, it feels like you're constantly trying to get in. Against other modded characters? Don't even go there.

He's getting revamped soon lol
I like him a lot too despite his faults honestly, but this kinda character just doesn't really work in a game with a stage this big, unless I just double his damage LOL but no one would want to fight that
At least not against anyone competent, to be real
Like he's not GARBAGE but his neutral just sucks which means most likely you'll just be getting strung along for the majority of the match
I like his undertones of rewarding good positioning, reads, etc, but he's just too *stubby* to REALLY work against other characters

So I'm keeping this version updated as needed but sometime soon I'll be just remaking him completely
Ground up, with YH's nature in mind
He'll still be close ranged and stuff but he'll have actual tools to help him deal with people with any amount of range on their moves
I'm working on other characters now as far as actual content updates and all, but Zen will have his time soon enough