Project V/Shadow Queen



Shadow Queen (Paper Mario) "You are foolish to oppose me."

The Shadow Queen is one of the fifteen selectable fighters in Project V, representing the Paper Mario franchise. She had been selected largely thanks to her unique movepool and her initial status as an RPG character, something that is not otherwise represented in Project V. She is the main antagonist and the final boss of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. Her countless attacks give her a good offensive presence, and she can hold her own in battle with her defensive playstyle. She can also grab opponents from far away and drag them into her fury. The Shadow Queen is presented as two forms; possessed Princess Peach and her true form. For the former, she focuses on speed and offense, while she instead becomes more defensive in her true form and can recover health.

While the game is unreleased, players have noted through beta online play her numerous weaknessses, which led to her almost immediately being put on the bottom of the tier list, at 14th. The Shadow Queen does possess impressive play when it comes to her power and healing capabilities, but her weaknesses strongly weigh her down and limit her competitive representation. Her learning curve is among the highest in the game and her enormous hurtbox in her true form allows her to more easily take damage than her offensive Peach self, which is already hindered by low range and unimpressive K.O. options. Her slow speed and poor recovery make survivability difficult for the Shadow Queen, with recovery only being possible in her risky Peach self. Almost every character counters her, especially Poison and K. Rool.

Attributes
As her Peach self, the Shadow Queen is a lightweight character with extremely strong attacks that can rack up damage easily and without too many drawbacks. Her forward and back aerials are particularly useful, hitting opponents with strong, tough moves. She has average walking speed, great dashing speed, slow falling speed, great air speed, and good jumps. Her recovery bounces her into the air and attacks the ledges to prevent foes from touching her. Meanwhile, in her true form, she becomes a heavyweight character that uses her attacks more for defense than offense, blocking attacks with her shadowy hands and feeding on the opponent to restore her own health. Her Shadow Wave in particular is a very powerful attack with wide range, pushing opponents far away from her. Her true form has abysmal walking speed, way below average dashing speed, moderate falling speed, poor air speed, and little jumps.

Both of these forms suffer from their own issues though. Her possessed Peach form has poor K.O. options because a lot of her attacks don't deal a lot of knockback and are more effective for damage racking. In this form, her grab game is terrible and her defense is easy to shatter, making her easy to defeat with patience. In her larger true form, she has a far more impressive grab game but her hurtbox is enormous and she is far too slow to take on most of her opponents. Her recovery in this form is nightmarish -- worse than any found in Super Smash Bros. -- and doesn't even allow her to sweetspot the ledge. Despite being at the bottom of the tier list and suffering from a high learning curve, she is not very behind most characters and is only a spot behind Scrooge McDuck on the tier list.

Moveset
The Shadow Queen has most of her moves shared between moves other than their special movesets, which are almost completely different. In her Peach form, her attacks include being able to shoot out lightning bolts and utilize dead hands to attack her foes from up close. Her moves are quick and have little lag, and possess good power. If she goes over 90%, she turns into her true form. To go back to her normal self, she has to feed on the opponent to restore 30%, which can result in her Peach form returning with as little as 60% damage. In her true form, she can pass status conditions and utilize the Shadow Wave attack, which is almost as powerful as a reverse Warlock Punch.
 * Neutral Special
 * Peach form: Shadow Slap.  The Shadow Queen will dish out their arm, striking opponents that rest horizontally in front of her.  These foes will topple over after having taken massive damage.  If charged, the move will deal high knockback and knock the attacked foes clean off the stage.
 * True form: Dangerous Breath. She will breathe out toxic fumes from her mouth, which can poison opponents over time, lock them in place, or stop them from being able to boost their own stats or even use their special attacks, which can gimp opponents hanging over the ledge.  If charged, the breath will cover a greater distance.
 * Forward Special
 * Peach form: Shade Hands.  Peach will send forward a wave of dead hands that grab and attack the queen's opponents, letting her get close to them and attack them for herself.  If charged, the hands will brutally maul the opponent and then slap them in the queen's direction, letting her finish them off.
 * True form: Lovesucker. The Shadow Queen will grab her opponent and suck them of health, draining up to 30% if the opponent doesn't break free in time.  This can potentially bring her back to her Peach self.  If charged, it will help her restore up to 50%. Unfortunately, the move has little reach.
 * Recovery Special
 * Peach form: Grodus Ascent. Using Grodus' head, she will fly upwards and then grab the ledge, slamming opponents near it with a dead hand to stop her from facing a meteor smash.  If the move is charged, she will fly up faster and the head will fire lasers to attack any opponents in his way.
 * True form: Power Lift. This move only lets the Shadow Queen jump up just a little.  While it allows her to boost her offense and defense for a short period of time, it has some lag time and she cannot sweetspot ledges.  If the attack is charged, it boosts her stats even further although doesn't improve her recovery.
 * Crouch Special
 * Peach form: Charge / Dark Wave.  At first, the Shadow Queen will charge up her attack and needs to be left alone for 9 seconds so she can focus her energy.  Afterwards, she can release the massive-power, high-launching Dark Wave, which results in her taking some damage to compensate for how overpowered it is.
 * True form: Charge / Shadow Wave.  The Shadow Queen will again charge an attack, but she needs even longer: 13 seconds.  When she's ready, she will release a giant wave of energy that covers the screen, KO'ing any opponent that is resting at over 20%.  This attack damages her after being used.

In competitive play
Due to time constraints, this is incomplete.