Ristar

## General

Ristar is the protagonist of Ristar. He has made no prior appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series, but is featured as a character in Super Smash Bros. Crusade. He is a humanoid shooting star awoken due to the prayers of a galaxy being taken over by the space pirate Kaiser Greedy for someone to save them, which is answered by Ristar.

## Attributes

Ristar is a super lightweight with a somewhat unconventional mix of traits, combining powerful grab options with a mix of long-ranged zoning and short-range combo tools. Best described as a grappler, Ristar relies on his disjoints to shut down or stuff opponents in neutral while going for heavy punishes if he can catch them with one of his throws or other combo starters.

His grab is at the core of this, boasting extremely high range that can even beat out some tethers along with the speed of a normal grab, giving him a fairly safe and powerful option to catch opponents from a large distance. On top of this, almost all of his throws are useful, with two being great combo starters and the other two being powerful kill throws - combined with the incredible range of his neutral special and some of his aerials, Ristar can completely shut down opponents who can't find an opening to get into the closer range he struggles at. However, even close up, he has a number of quick and respectably strong tools that render him anything but useless in close quarters, including a number of great specials that give him a number of ways to escape pressure or get opponents on top of him off.

Ristar possesses some of the fastest ending and starting attacks in the game with his up aerial and forward aerial, which, combined with two amazing throws that place the opponent either directly in front of him in the air or right above him on the ground, give him a strong if somewhat binary combo game, only made stronger by how the range and speed of his grab allows him to chain together multiple re-grabs without the opponent even leaving hitstun. The ability to use his neutral special in multiple directions in the air also assists Ristar, giving him ways to follow-up even when he has no other attacks that can catch the opponent in time. Even ignoring his grab, his up tilt and down tilt both prop up the opponent and don't have high recovery, giving him alternate and quick ways to catch opponents and start up a combo, and the ability to act out of his side special, Star Catapult, gives it decent usage as a combo starter into the rest of his moveset as well. These tools give him a lengthy and strong, if binary and prone to DI combo game off of many of his already strong tools.

Ristar's kill options are less potent than his other two areas, as while he has reliable ones in his forward and back throws, they only begin killing at very high damage, causing him to struggle to quickly shut out opponents that are on the heavier end. Most of his smash attacks aren't particularly strong or have poor hitboxes, rendering them difficult to kill with outside of a good read. This is not to say that Ristar can't kill early, however. His great recovery ability allows him to venture far away from the stage safely, and his neutral special's aerial hitbox and low recovery on hit allows him to chain it directly into itself, allowing him to continuously knock opponents towards and then into the blast zone, and a number of his aerials (back air, down air) possess great knockback, but can potentially be difficult to land due to their speed and hitbox.

Despite the rather long list of strengths Ristar has, he suffers greatly from having so many moves be specialized and having his playstyle rely on factors like his grab, as his gameplan and options are always predictable and narrow, as some of his moves are effectively unusable outside of their particular niche. Additionally, if he cannot find a grab, the poor speed of his disjointed aerials leaves him prone to being opened up, and his faster attacks have poor hitboxes that are easily beaten out by moves with even a slight bit of reach. Many of his specials and non-grab options on the ground suffer from similar problems, being either too short or too slow and unsafe to be reliable. Because of this, Ristar will often buckle under the pressure of extremely aggressive characters who are familiar with the matchup.

Still, Ristar's great moveset consisting of incredible range and combos gives him a unique toolkit that shines in the hands of a player creative and skilled enough.

## Moveset

* Ristar can **wall jump**.
* Ristar can **wall cling**. While doing this, he can also walk up and down walls for the duration. This is mutually exclusive with his wall jump, and he can only do one of them before landing.

*For a gallery of Ristar's hitboxes, see here.*