Dev Blog #5: With Age Comes Wisdom

Update v1.4.0 is a huge update for us because with this update, we now have all the initial characters that we have envisioned as our initial roster. We felt that 8 initial characters is enough as a jump off point for a game genre that we didn’t have much experience in. It took us a couple of years to get to this point but here we are finally. With Lolang Tsora joining the roster, we can now officially declare that the initial roster is complete!

We did mention before that we will have 9 characters as part of the base game but the inclusion of the 9th (not-so) secret character was done via Kickstarter campaign. As such, we feel that the (not-so) hidden character be introduced as a FREE DLC instead.

Lolang Tsora is based off Melchora Aquino or more commonly known as Tandang Sora. In the Bayaniverse, she is basically at the center of everyone’s story and plays a very huge role in the over-all plot. As a character, she is our very first True Zoner which makes her one of the more complicated characters to balance and use. Initial development for her is easy but making a fun and balanced zoner is actually a lot difficult. In fact, we’re still not quite sure how the meta will be affected with her introduction.

True to her character, she is an old grandma who moves slow and is very frail sporting the lowest HP in the entire game. In fact, she can easily be KO’d by a couple of combos. However, that is under the assumption that the enemy can even close the gap and get a clean hit against her. As a true zoner, she has more than enough tools to keep her enemies away and create distance while piling on the pressure.

Tsora’s attacks can be categorized into three distinct magic types: Light Magic that draws power from the Moon which pushes opponents away; Dark Flames that draws from an ethereal Bakunawa which burns enemies even if you block it; and a Combined Light and Dark Magic that hits enemies multiple times for devastating damage.

All of her Light Magic attacks are orbs that push the enemy away and this is her most basic form of keeping enemies away. Her Dark Flames do significantly higher chip damage compared to other characters. All of her C attacks are Combination Magic projectiles that do both: it can push away enemies while burning them even on block. There are 5 variations of C attacks which give Tsora coverage for almost every angle of approach imaginable. However, these projectiles form slightly away from her which means if you can close the gap and get in at point blank range, these projectiles won’t even hit!

To compensate for this, her ground dashes and air dashes can phase through enemies and she is completely invulnerable while moving. Also, as part of her Light Normal Combo, you can cancel into an instant teleport by tapping twice on the direction you want to teleport to or you can cancel the teleport by tapping down twice. This means that if you can get a clean hit against your opponent, you have the option to reposition anywhere you want.

- Red