Zelda (PM)

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Zelda in Project M and Project+
Universe	The Legend of Zelda
Base game appearance	Brawl
Moveset inspiration	Zelda (SSBM), Zelda (SSBB)

Zelda is a playable character in the Brawl mod Project M, hailing from the Legend of Zelda series. She was one of the most buffed characters from Melee and Brawl, making her a reliable competitive fighter without need of Sheik.

Attributes

Similar to Bowser, Zelda was severely buffed in Project M. General buffs include better KO power for her magic moves, as well as increased combo potential for weak moves, plus her special moves are more efficient and can be canceled earlier.

Changes from Melee and Brawl to PM

• Forward and up smashes link much better; while the latter uses its superior Brawl format with reduced hitlag, the former has more favorable angles for the multiple hits, both hitting faster and with less freeze frames.
• Neutral aerial's multiple hits link into each other much better, and the hitboxes are larger.
• Zelda's Lightning Kicks have two sweetspots: a larger Melee sized one that is weaker than in Melee but still deals good knockback and damage, and Brawl sized sweetspots that are extremely powerful. They also have an electric flub sourspot and a body hitbox sourspot, both dealing decent damage, so the move is still effective at either damaging or KOing no matter where it hits.
• Up aerial has an early hitbox at the base of her fingertips which deals weak electric damage and links into her up air sweetspot. The explosion also deals more damage if it hits at the center.
• Down aerial has also been made to sweetspot on grounded opponents in addition to aerial opponents. While the sourspot deals stronger damage, the sweetspot is significantly stronger than in Brawl, and both are more powerful on aerial foes.
• Nayru's Love is land cancelable after the attack frames end, and while the ground version has no such cancel, it posseses improved invulnerability.
• Din's Fire no longer enforces helplessness.
• Farore's Wind can air dodge to interrupt teleporting from the ground, giving Zelda the ability to waveland or pseudo-wavedash any time during the duration of the move. The dissapearance hitbox also has its Melee power.
• Can act out of Transform sooner, like Sheik.
• Pummel now does 4% damage (1% more than average pummels) per use, racking up damage better.
• Up throw has decreased knockback, so it can now be used to chaingrab opponents.
• Down throw is much stronger in terms of damage.
• Up taunt's magical swirl now has damaging hitboxes.
• Up air has a sourspot at the bottom that deals less damage.
• Reappearance hitbox of Farore's Wind deals weaker damage.
• Up throw has weaker damage and knockback, no longer being able to KO reliably.
• Din's Fire functions significantly differently. Upon releasing a fireball, instead of quickly exploding it stops and hangs in the air for several seconds before exploding, and upon making contact with a foe, it inflicts damage and vanishes. Using the move again resets the timer on fireballs that already exist (up to three can exist at once). In addition to these changes, the control of fireballs is massively increased to the point where fireballs can almost loop in circles. After the fireballs are suspended for too long, they explode (like the original attack), possesing wide hitboxes that deal strong knockback.
• Most magic attacks were given additional sparkles, denoting their increased strength.
• Spot dodge was given magical sparkling graphics.
• Like Transform, down taunt now emits the characteristic "Puzzle Solved" jingle from Zelda games.

Revisions

2.5b

• Neutral attack:
  • Priority on hitboxes altered to work better on heavyweights' hitstun animations.
  • Linking hits use slightly negative angles, which prevents landing animations from being triggered on very slightly sloped areas which can cause the rest of the move to whiff.
  • Some animations and graphics cleaned up.

• Dash attack:
  • Animation adjusted to be closer to Melee.
  • Angle on sweetspot adjusted to be like other, similar attacks.

• Forward tilt:
  • Tipper hitbox adjusted in knockback and SDIability slightly to be more conducive to combos.
  • Hitboxes adjusted to give proper spacing for tipper hitbox.
  • Hit sound effects adjusted for sweetspots.

• Up tilt:
  • Hit duration reduced by 1 frame for visual corrections.
  • Graphical effects edited to match the new timings.
  • Launch has less base knockback but more growth, dealing less knockback at lower damages but more at higher damage.
  • Launch angle of first half of the attack raised slightly.

• Forward smash:
  • Linking hits use slightly negative angles, which prevents landing animations from being triggered on very slightly sloped areas which can cause the rest of the move to whiff.
  • Has a new linking hitbox far inside her only intended to prevent whiff issues in-close on heavyweights.
  • Innermost hitboxes on linking hits have reduced hitlag.
  • Launch hit has less base knockback but more growth, dealing less knockback at lower damages but more at higher damage, also taking greater effect with smash charge.

• Up smash:
  • Final hit has slightly increased base knockback.
  • Linking hits have slightly reduced SDI capacity, enough for opponents to control launch point when hit by the move but never enough to escape it in any normal circumstances.
  • Hit sound effects on linking hits altered to be softer.

• Lightning Kicks:
  • Melee sized sweetspots (first frame) regained a bit more of their old damage and knockback power.
  • Melee sized electric flubs (later frames) now use average KO move values instead of the non-magical sourspot values.
  • Back aerial's critical sweetspot deals slightly more knockback and shield damage.
  • Non-magical sourspots have more effectual damage and knockback growth values, but don't lead into the sweetspots as easily.

• Up aerial:
  • Fire hitboxes have slightly more base knockback.
  • Has very slightly increased shield damage on large fire hitbox.
  • Hit sound effect of fire sweetspot upgraded.

• Down aerial:
  • Sweetspot now deals extra shield damage.
  • Damage and knockback growth against grounded targets significantly increased.
  • Knockback growth against aerial targets slightly increased.
  • Thigh flub hitbox has slightly improved power and combo potential from ground bounces.
  • Sweetspot duration reduced.
  • Graphics altered to better match the presence of the sweetspot.
  • Animation adjusted for the hitboxes to be aligned with the axis for its hit duration.

• Nayru's Love:
  • Grounded version of the move deals more damage.
  • Aerial version of the move has quicker intangibility startup, equal to ground version.
  • Size of the last hitbox on aerial version was reduced to be consistent with the linking hits.
  • Knockback on aerial version adjusted slightly; it has less base knockback but more growth to induce tumbling later.
  • Grounded Nayru's is visually larger, and aerial Nayru's visually smaller to better show their hitbox size difference.

• Din's Fire:
  • Travel speed was slightly increased.
  • Has slightly lower maximum channel time.
  • Projectile starts out smaller, while ending size is unchanged.
  • Damage growth with travel duration on explosion hitbox altered slightly, now does a minimum of 10% and a maximum of 20%.
  • Explosion hitbox has slightly more base knockback and slightly less knockback growth for combo purposes.

• Farore's Wind:
  • Landing lag reduced.
  • Aerial reappearance transitions properly into helpless state.

• Other:
  • Pivot grab's hitbox size increased, now being able to grab very low crouching targets.
  • Forward throw slightly reduced in knockback growth.
  • Down throw graphical effects altered to look more similar to Melee.
  • Neutral aerial's graphical effects terminate earlier, closer to when the move stops hitting.
  • Zelda's Transform graphical effects adjusted to better match their timing.
  • Light Arrow uses a new Light element.

2.6b

• Up tilt knockback increased very slightly.
• Up smash's lifting hitboxes fine tuned to not throw certain characters out of the move after several connected hits. The move also has another linking hit, dealing 1% more damage.
• Lightning Kicks' flub damage increased slightly to be closer to Melee's, along with adjusted knockback to compensate for this. Critical sweetspots were slightly increased in size to offer more consistency, while still being tiny (2/3 the size of Rest). Non-critical electric hits have increased damage/knockback, closer to their Melee iterations.
• Critical sweetspot of back aerial has slightly more base knockback. Non-critical forward aerial's hitboxes have slightly lower launch angle, similar to the critical hit, but not quite as potent.
• Up aerial's sweetspot size minutely increased, while the weak electric hit was slightly improved, and graphical effects/sound effects were edited for more accuracy.
• Down aerial has somewhat increased shield damage and a bigger sweetspot, and more knockback growth against grounded targets. Sourspot damage was also increased slightly.
• Forward and down throws' damage increased slightly.
• Din's Fire's flashing graphics loop one more time than previously. Minimum time to set is slowed down, and set animation has its lag increased to deter walling. The explosions are significantly larger and deadlier.
• Up smash's IASA frames are no longer increased from those of Melee, but equal to them.
• Neutral attack's launching hitbox has a higher angle, along with slightly higher base knockback and less knockback growth.
• Neutral aerial inflicts a consistent damage output depending on number of hits rather than their placement.
• Graphical effects on grabs adjusted.
• Din's Fire's set fireballs have smaller hitboxes, but these activate sooner after setting the projectile.
• Transform's startup is faster, and its intangibility was adjusted slightly, but its interruptibility also occurs slower.

3.0

• Nayru's Love's final grounded hit has normalized SDI modifiers.
• Up taunt's hitboxes pull enemies in further towards Zelda.
• Forward tilt's sweetspots have less knockback growth.
• Forward air's critical sweetspot has slightly less knockback growth.
• Back air's critical sweetspot has slightly less base knockback.
• Nayru's Love's aerial land cancel has slightly more lag.
• Din's Fire static hitboxes inflict less damage (6% as opposed to 8%).
• Transform now detonates all current fireballs on the screen.

Moveset

Up to date as of version 3.0.

	Name	Damage	Description
Neutral attack	Short Flash	3 hits of 2%
Forward tilt	Mystic Swipe	13-14% (sweetspot) 10% (sourspot)
Up tilt	Protective Sweep	12% (clean) 11% (late)	A surprisingly powerful attack wherein Zelda sweeps her hand above her to launch enemies away
Down tilt	Trip	7%
Dash attack	Magical Push	13% (clean) 7% (late)	Zelda lunges herself forward in a pushing motion, attempting to crash into the enemy
Forward smash	Shining Palm	1% (first 2 hits) 2% (hit 3) 13% (final hit) 17% total uncharged, 1-2% (first 3 hits), 18% (final hit) 23% total fully charged
Up smash	Power Sweep	1% (12 hits) 4% (13th hit), 16% if all hits connect uncharged, 1-2% (12 hits) 5% (13th hit) 21% fully charged if all hits connect
Down smash	Compass Spin	12-13% (front kick) 13% (back kick) uncharged, 16% (front kick) 17% (back kick) fully charged
Neutral aerial	Magic Spin	2% (first 5 hits) 5% (6th hit) 15% if all hits connect	Zelda spins around quickly, releasing short bursts of light magic from her hands.
Forward aerial	Lightning Kick F	18% (Melee hit), 22% (Brawl hit), 15% (late hit), 8% (body)	A
Back aerial	Lightning Kick B	Same as above
Up aerial	Condensed Blast	3% then 18% (center) or 12% (bottom)
Down aerial	Meteor Heel	Ground: 18%, 8% (sourspot); Air: 20%, 9% (sourspot)
Grab	Magical Hold	—
Pummel	Hex	4%
Forward throw	Levitation	12%
Back throw	Reverse Levitation	11%
Up throw	Levitation Launch	9%
Down throw	Plasma Beat	5 hits, 16% total
Floor attack (front)	Floor Spin
Floor attack (back)	Back Spin
Floor attack (trip)	Sit Spin
Edge attack (fast)	Quick Kick	7%
Edge attack (slow)	Slow Swipe	11%
Neutral special	Nayru's Love	2% (5 hits) 4% (6th hit) 14% total	A quick multi-hitting move that also can function as a reflector.
Side special	Din's Fire	6% if hit after release or while suspended in the air, 11% on explosion	Casts a fireball one a time-delay explosion, the longer the hitbox is out, the bigger the ending explosion will be.
Up special	Farore's Wind	4% (both hits)	Teleports in a given direction.
Down special	Transform	0%	Transforms into Sheik, detonates any undetonated Din's.
Final Smash	Light Arrow	42%

In competitive play

Notable players

•  Blondie
•  Ryoko
•  Salem
•  Zhime
•  KoreanDJ

Palette swaps

Zelda's palette swaps in PM

External links

• Project M character page