Congrats, Sorabros.

Looks amazing

look at this

are we getting good palletes?

Okay, so let's discuss what it looks like Sora has been blessed with in 1.2 courtesy of the resprite gods.

• Sora's mobility looks exactly the same on the ground but his air mobility looks a little bit better.
• Jab has returned to it's incarnation from 0.9b. This is a definite buff overall as it improves Sora's ground game by quite a bit by giving him a combo ender. Until we see hit properties though, we won't know how good Jab is and if his original Jab 1 has disappeared, then Sora's gonna suffer a little.
• Forward Tilt looks like it's gained a bit of vertical range. The move isn't great to begin with, but we might be able to get something out of it. Plus, any improvements are good.
• Up Tilt and Down Tilt look the same. That's good. Those are solid moves.
• Dash Attack looks like it travels much much faster and crosses up much much faster. This is good to see. Dunno how good the combo applications would be but it might be pretty nice on shield.
• Forward Smash is now a stab. I dunno if there's a substantial range or frame data difference given that we didn't see much footage, but it could end up being more powerful.
• Neutral Air now starts more obviously behind him. This might be a bit of a nerf in terms of making it an approach tool, but it might improve it's cross up game so I think it should be okay.
• Up Air, Down Air and Back Air look the same. Solid. They're good aerials.
• Forward Air looks like it has a bit more range as well as the hop that both Up Air, Neutral Air and Down Air possess. This is a significant improvement as it will make Sora's edge guarding and combos like Down Air -> Forward Air much more threatening because of this.
• Forward Throw looks like it might be better at starting positive situations for Sora. Looks like it could potentially lead to aerial combos or juggles on floatier characters and combo into Flowmotion on fast falling characters.
• Back Throw looks much more threatening as a tool for getting opponents offstage. Just judging from the angle, it might even lead into combos, which would be VERY nice.
• Down Throw is a more conventional combo throw. This is a huge buff for Sora as it means that unreliable Down Throw -> Flowmotion links are a thing of the past and Sora might even be able to get more reliable combos especially as it leaves him airborne on hit. Be very afraid of this character's grab game now.
• Strike Raid lost the Sora Dab. Huge nerf. Otherwise, looks unchanged.
• Flowmotion looks like it travels a much shorter distance. This leaves Sora's recovery with a bit of a dent if this is the case.
• Forward Flow looks a bit better despite gaining no height. Still combos into Thunder and the animation is nice.
• Aerial Recovery and Command Deck look unchanged aside from nice animations. Blizzard still has a short freeze time which sucks, but Sora's been given so much that I don't really mind.
• Sora's Final Smash is still Trinity Limit, and Donald and Goofy have returned with a fresh coat of paint. Nice.

Sucks that we still don't have Finishing Leap back, but these are some very nice buffs and changes.

Now regarding the new stage, The World That Never Was, I can't tell you anything about it right now that could help determine it's legality. We'll just have to wait.

Why's his old 0.9 jab a buff?
His 1.1 jab combos into FAir/Fire/Blizzard and is a solid kill confirm. If anything, his ground game will be worse because of this. His old jab ender was really strong.

1.1 Jab is good, but most of the best parts are from the first hit of Jab. It looks like Sora is keeping the first hit, and the extra two hits will probably carry over similar knockback prowess (if not better) and provide other things.

We won't know for sure though because we haven't seen it actually hit anyone, but it was pretty good in previous versions for similar reasons.

That's understandable. Jab 1 has good mix ups but I think the angle at which jab 2 sends at is really under-rated. It's so useful for netting safe kills and you can find jabs easily whilst ledge trapping. If the new jab sends at a similar angle with not much lag, it'll be fine but i highly doubt it.

Yeah, that's fair enough. Admittedly, most of my Sora knowledge came from 0.9b where I put an ungodly amount of time into him, so I may be wearing some rose coloured glasses, but still, it'll be something that needs to be checked when more tester footage comes out.

Strike Raid seems way faster now, that's good! Also I love the spinning double jump!.

That new resprite is absolute perfection.



(But for real, though.)

It's Sora related so...

The World That Never Was - Is it legal?
So, some things that I've noticed.

Click to expand thumbnail

Click to expand thumbnail
Relative to Sora's height in game, it seems to scale well with the Battlefield platforms. Sora looks to be roughly the same height pre-resprite and post-resprite, so we can assume that the platform spacing roughly matches that of Battlefield. This is already a point in Sora's favour as his new animations might enable better platform sharking and a lot of swordies are going to love this stage.


Click to expand thumbnail
The platforms have slopes. I'm going to assume this stage is symmetrical and say this applies to the other side. The slopes might make things a bit problematic as Battlefield requires most characters to full hop onto the platform and it's most likely that many characters will need to burn their double jump to reach the platform at the edge of the stage.

We don't know much about the size of the stage, but we can assume the platforms are likely gonna be placed similarly to PS2.

So, honestly. It's looking promising as a potentially legal counterpick. We will absolutely need more information such as size and full platform layout, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was tested as a counterpick,

Good description about the new Kingdom Hearts stage for SSF2. However, an odd trend with the Smash community is that stages with slopes aren't legal for competitive play, so maybe this could turn it around. Also, something else I noticed... Look at this photo.



Now look at this one.



Sora is taller in his new resprite, whereas pre-resprite, Sora was a little hunched over during his idle pose. I'd figure I'd point this out to you as you said that Sora, both pre-resprite and post-resprite, were the same height.

Click to expand thumbnail

Click to expand thumbnail
Sort of. His stance looks taller, however he definitely lines up with Marth at more or less the same space.

Ok, but Where's Lloyd's resprite. I'm so triggered.

I like Sora new design