Let me start off by saying that Lloyd overall feels..No..*IS* improved from his last iteration. He's fun and not Marth 2.0(as someone stated here). Frame data is on point, combo game is good and his projectiles are fairly decent, despite some of the end lag.

I'm a veteran Tales player who has gone in depth into those games for years. One of them has been Symphonia.

(Unsure if this is the right place to do this despite it being character specific but here it goes).

Coming from that game to here, I can safely say that in my opinion, Devs need to observe more on Lloyd's tools from TOS. In that game, he can chain all of his specials together seamlessly when he gets a certain skill later one.

Demon Fang>Tiger Blade

Sonic Blade>D.Demon Fang etc. Not to mention that he arcane artes, which are variations of his base artes to create fusions of other ones. Example: Demon Fang+Tiger Blade=Demonic Tiger Blade or Tempest Tiger Blade etc.. I think that this could be implemented into his gameplay because right now he feels...Better as character on a technical level in terms of how he functions(i'll get to this later) but he needs something that adds diversity to him to make him stand out. Nothing insane as he's almost perfect...

And if the whole Arcane thing doesn't work, I believe he should work like how Double Demon fang works. Tap the special button twice to get a different effect of his specials. I'll expand on this in a bit..

His specials could also use some more functionality.

Tempest shouldn't go into free fall. Since his recovery isn't that grand standing, this move can help with his horizontal recovery. Now here is the idea for the double tap. By pressing the side b twice quickly, it will instead do a rising tempest(omega tempest) just like when you hit the opponent with it. If we go with this then both Side B's can only be used once in the air(I think this is already true but haven't tested it) so that you can't spam these moves. It's either the vertical or the horizontal.

Hopefully folks will understand where I'm going with this.

In reality, Lloyd is a still amazing. His tilts are fine, his aerials are good(Nair is bae) and his smashes are all on point. Only aerial I would liked to be changed is Uair but I'm not complaining here.

Again, great job with fixing a lot of this character's issue and giving him more utility.

Linked Artes were actually implemented back in v0.8 but got dropped the following demo iirc

Yeah, they really should bring back Linked Artes in the final version. It'll make him a lot more unique and fun to play as.

I think Linked Artes on just Sword Rain and maybe Demon Fang would be enough

In v0.9b I almost always used Lloyd as my main, so I have to say I held high standards for him in this game. While I have primarily been experimenting with other new chars for now (mainly Pac-Man), I do have to say that I really like the new Lloyd and will probably go back to using him.

Overall, I feel like he's been made into a fully playable character now. Not to say he wasn't before, but like has been said here he was just "the other swordman" char instead of particularly unique.

In the previous version, I have to say the earthquake is what I'll miss. I know many people hated that, but I found it to be insanely useful against projectile spammers like Samus, since I could interrupt their attacks with a series of ground smash, both closing the distance between us (so I could get into melee) and doing damage (minimal, but still good). And, besides, what other move could insta-KO the whole stage if you cranked up the damage to 2x .

As for improvements, I'll still need to play him more to get a good idea of that, but I think what has been said here covers most of what I would add at this point.

whatever you do guys
don't shield against lloyd's sword rain
it's dangerous
really dangerous

Could you explain what you mean, please?

As in, what exactly happens?

Probably talking about the infinite. If you shield and he does it, you might not get out even if you let go of shield or try to roll out.

this guy is kinda nasty!!!

nair is kinda good!!!

fair is kinda good!!!

tempest seems pretty alright!!!

demon fang is kinda good in neutral!!!

down air is kinda good!!!

what do i do with this guy!!!

He's nasty for having "kinda good" moves? lol

he's uhhhhhhhhhh kinda nasty!!!

i'll uhhhhhhhhh ask a better question because this fell down!!!

how do i play::: neutral???

mash b

Demon Fang is retarded

They should add a finisher to Lloyd's Sword Rain, just like Luffy's infinite.