Even though Roy is only a semi-clone of Marth in Project M, I still feel like doing a comparison between the two of them, especially when considering the many revamped changes to the former.
Differences between Marth and Roy in PM
Aesthetics
Some of Roy's attacks use the fire element.- Roy's taunts are different.
- Roy's idle pose is different.
Attributes
- Roy is shorter than Marth, shortening his hurtbox, making him slightly less easy to hit, but also reduces his attacks' range.
- Roy's sweetspot hitboxes are placed at the center of his sword's blade, which thwarts his ability to space and compels him to go up close to his opponents to deal maximum power; however, his sweetspots are also much larger than Marth's, making them typically easier to land.
Roy jumps lower than Marth.
As a result, his short hop is also lower than Marth's, improving his SHFFL.- Roy falls slightly faster than Marth (2.2 → 2.4) and his gravity is significantly higher, which make him easier to combo and worsen his recovery.
- However, the former also allows him to receive less vertical knockback than Marth, making his vertical endurance better overall; additionally, both his faster falling speed and much higher gravity, combined with a lower short hop, contribute to a better SHFFL.
- Roy dashes slower than Marth (1.8 → 1.61), though he still dashes fast nevertheless.
- Roy is lighter than Marth (87 → 85), thus slightly inhibiting his horizontal endurance; however, this allows Roy to get knocked down by Fox's shine instead of pushed back, thus nullifying the latter's waveshine combos.
Ground attacks
- Jab inflicts more damage and knockback than Marth's.
- Jab is slightly slower and lacks both a second hit and buffer, with the latter meaning that the player must press the button one at a time instead of mashing it.
- {{buff|Forward tilt has more range and the sweetspot is
Aerial attacks
- Neutral aerial's second hit use the fire element.
- Neutral aerial can hit behind Roy.
- Down aerial has a large "mediumspot" that is stronger than Marth's sourspot, and its sweetspot is a spike like Marth's, only it is much stronger.
- Down aerial sweetspot is smaller and thus more difficult to land than Marth's.
- Sweetspot inflicts a flame effect.
- Back aerial sweetspotted is much stronger than Marth's, being a reliable finisher at high percentages.
- Back aerial has less range.
- Forward aerial inflicts less knockback than Marth's, making it less reliable (if not not reliable at all) for KOing. In exchange, however, it allows Roy to link each hit together more easily, allowing him to rack up consecutive damage.
- However, it also inflicts less damage.
- Up aerial deals less knockback than Marth's, but again, this helps Roy combo each hit into each other more easily (especially if SHFFLing is utilized in conjunction), at the cost of making it an unreliable KO move.
- Again, it deals less damage than Marth's.