Belmont Breakdown [Pt. 1]: Movement

Welcome to Belmont Breakdown!

This will be the first episode out of a 10 part series starring none other than the vampire killers of legend, Simon and Richter. In each episode I will be diving into a more specific portion of their game. These will be much more brief than a full guide, and will cover anything from one of their moves to a strategy in their game plan.

However, I don’t want to bore you too much during this intro, so let’s get into Episode 1 of Belmont Breakdown, this time covering all of the Belmonts’ movement options and how to utilize them!

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Table of Contents

I. Notable attributes/Overview

II. Ground Movement

III. Aerial Movement

IV. Platform Movement

V. Closing

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Notable Attributes/Overview

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All frame-data used is from [Kurogane Hammer|Kuroganehammer.com]

Okay, so the Belmonts are not exactly known for their movement stats and attributes. As a Belmont player, it’s important to understand and accept this.

Before getting into the rough stats, the Belmonts do have one solid Mobility stat: their falling speed, which is much higher than average. Their fall speed allows for solid aerial mixups and tomohawk grabs, but also leaves them vulnerable to extended combos and strings. Now for the bad:

The Belmonts rank in the bottom 15 for the following categories:

- Walk speed

- Initial dash speed

- Run speed

- Air speed

- Air acceleration

What we can take from this ‘disappointing’ load of information is that the Belmonts are definitely not movement based characters. Moving too much with the Belmonts will be detrimental to your play, since their poor mobility won’t allow to be as elusive as, say, Pichu or Fox.

However, moving is still necessary for the Belmonts, just not in that same was as the quick characters like fox and pichu. For the Belmonts, the goal of movement is actually to position the character in just the right spot to pressure with the powerful hitboxes and projectiles that they have access to.

Understanding this concept and applying all of the movement types available will allow you to greatly improve your overall gameplay.

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Ground Movement

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As a Belmont player, there are 3 main options to use on the ground, and they’re about as simple as ground options come: dashing, walking, and crawling.

Dashing is the primary option for the Belmonts to quickly reach a general position to apply pressure. Whether it’s a dash away to open up space so you can throw projectiles, or a dash forward to apply pressure with a tilt, simple dashes will be very useful.

Specifically, pivot cancel forward tilt stands out as an amazing option out of dash. Since forward tilt is a very safe option to throw out and the pivot cancel will boost you forward, it’s a great tool to clear some distance or close in on the corner. If you don’t know what pivot cancelling is, I recommend IzAw’s video on the topic:

Walking is most effective used if you need to inch yourself into the right spot quickly and don’t want to commit to a dash. It’s slightly faster than crawling which makes it a better option for quick micro-spacing.

Crawling, other than radiating constant big dick energy, finds its use in micro spacing. While being slower than walking, it keeps you facing your opponent while crawling backwards. This allows for great burst punishes, the most prominent of which is going to be a down tilt directly out of the crouch/crawl.

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Aerial Movement

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As I mentioned before, the Belmonts are quite slow in the air. In fact, Simon and Richter are tied for dead last in aerial acceleration speed, meaning their already poor airspeed isn’t very malleable. In other words, once committed to a direction there is no ‘changing your mind’ on where to go.

However, the Belmonts luckily have access to a very solid short hop that is great when combined with safe f-air or b-air to retreat, approach, or hold ground. Often these short hop aerials tend to be the majority of air commitments that Belmont players are willfully making, so it’s important that you master the timing for them.

They have very few mixups as far as aerial movement, but the mixup that definitely warrants the most attention is down air. As bad as the move seems at first sight, d-air is entirely necessary to keep the opponent guessing at all times.

The move stalls you in the air for a split second right before crashing down. This is important because it breaks up your momentum, forcing your opponent to consider it as a constant threat. Tricky down airs will be essential to coming back to the stage safely, as long as the move isn’t overused.

Airdodges, both melee and smash 4 style, are also good movement mixups to safely through a wall the opponent is trying to put up. They shouldn’t be used often, but as a rare mixup, airdodges will serve you well.

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Platform Movement

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I wouldn’t go as far as to say that the Belmonts LOVE platforms (in fact, I think their best stage is final destination at the current moment) but they do have some cool tricks to get around.

Firstly, I like using simple wavelands as a way to quickly force the opponent to reconsider their attack angles and adjust to your position. Wavelands are a commitment, as they have 16 or so frames of landing lag, but they are usable and helpful in a lot of situations.

Perhaps even more helpful would be a Belmont unique technique that allows you to NIL (no-impact-land) on a platform instantly. This is basically the only reason that there’s a section for platform movement, because it looks SICK and I couldn’t leave it out. However, I’m also currently to tired to explain it, so I’ll let Leffen do that one for you:

This is a great tricky mixup to use in order to find slick tomahawk grabs or bait your opponent into throwing out something unsafe out of surprise. It is hard at first, but I really recommend you learn how to utilize it.

Here’s to hoping it doesn’t get patched

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Closing

Thank you for reading or scrolling down to the bottom after skimming! This is just the first out of 10 episodes of Belmont Breakdown, so come back for the next episode (god knows when).

After I get all 10 of these babies done, I’ll most likely begin to draft my Belmont guide, so there’s a lot of vampire killing down the pipeline. See ya later!