time kompression

Mr. Compress

Mr. Compress is a villain from My Hero Academia, appearing in prominent roles in arcs heavily involving the League of Evil. His Quirk, the series' key term for "superpower", is that he can "compress" anything he touches down into a small orb, allowing him to carry many things that others couldn't. He first appears in the Forest Training Camp arc, kidnapping Bakugo with the use of his quirk, and then goes on to have more minor roles in later arcs, most notably getting his arm blown off by Yakuza member Overhaul. In the Forest Training Camp arc and the following Shie Hassaikai arc, Compress is portrayed as the right hand man to the League's leader, Tomura Shigaraki, even though a previous right hand man had already been established. Kurogami just kinda got forgotten about for a few arcs.

Mr. Compress is a magician at heart, which makes his Quirk perfect for him. The ability to carry many different items, be they every day objects or even more blatant weapons, makes him a character that's nearly impossible to predict the movements of. He takes this to heart in My Hero One's Justice 2, where he's playable. In that game, his moveset has him bringing in many illegal weapons, from explosives to shot guns to even giant cartoon anvils, all hidden via his compression technique. Despite all this, Mr. Compress is also portrayed as a bit of a coward and not nearly as intelligent as he is clever, and his constant need to show off generally acts as his downfall. With the loss of his right arm, Mr. Compress is also now only able to activate things with his left hand.

In Smash, Mr. Compress uses his design from the Shie Hassakai arc (pictured above) as his default costume, with his design from the Forest Camp arc acting as a secondary costume. Of note is that his default design is equipped with prosthetic arm, while his secondary costume does not. Also, his mask's pattern changes depending on the costume.


Stats
Weight - 89
Walk Speed - 1.14
Run Speed - 2.3
Air Speed - 1.2
Fall Speed - 1.2

Mr. Compress, as one might expect, isn't exactly a powerhouse of a character. He's thin and tall, roughly the size of Marth, but with a bit of extra height thanks to his top hat (though it isn't an extension of his hurtbox, which also applies to his coat in his secondary costume). He's very light, on par with the Princesses, but also incredibly fast on the ground and the air. His ground speed is far faster than his aerial speed, with run speed clocking in just below ZSS, and his air speed only being in the top 20. Also, when running and jumping, Mr. Compress always makes sure to grab the rim of his hat so it doesn't fall off.

Compress has great jumps as well, while not the best in the game, they are up their. This brings us to the most interesting part of his stats, his fall speed, which is tied as the 4th lowest in the game alongside Rosalina! He's incredibly good at aerial maneuvering because of this, allowing him to weave through aerial attacks with finesse.


Specials
Neutral Special - Compress
Mr. Compress reaches out with his left arm in a rather showy motion... and that's all that seems to happen. There IS a bright blue glow that happens for a moment, similar to Villager's Pocket, but that's it. Of course, as you might expect, this doesn't activate unless you touch something. Upon touching something, Mr. Compress will use his quirk to transform it into a small blue orb, which he then holds between his fingers. The variety of objects that Compress can compress is rather remarkable, far more than even Villager can, though he does have limits. We'll get into those in a second, but know that one of those limits ISN'T other players.

The arm reaches forward a decent distance, making it slightly more disjointed than Pocket as well, which can make timing a bit more difficult. His fast start-up as well, but is slightly slower than Pocket as well. The actual hitbox on the hand is the same size as Pocket's, fortunately. It also has fairly bad ending lag, as Compress will either flash the orb he's created, or shake his hand in disappointment.

The differences here make this seem a lot more awkward to use than Pocket is, but in addition to the absurd amount of things he can carry, Compress can also carry FOUR different objects at a time! Much like with Villager, Mr. Compress has a special icon on his character portrait, or rather, four icons in the shape of his iconic blue orbs. When an object is compressed, the orb will grow slightly bigger and then show an image of the compressed object (player stock icons will appear in the case of other players). As an additional bonus, Mr. Compress can even aim this up and down like a FTilt or FSmash, letting him compress things above and below his normal range.

For what he can compress, it's easier to list what he can't rather than what he can. Most of these are for balancing reasons. They are:
- Stage bosses and story bosses (That would ruin the fun of the bosses!)
- Non-interactable Assist Trophies (Assists that can't be KO'd, basically, which means he CAN compress the fly swatter and pong.)
- Interactable parts of stages and stage hazards (No compressing the Ultimate Chimera for you!)
- Miscellaneous objects that can't be collected by Pocket (idk if there even are things like this. i think it might just be fox's laser)
In other words, Compress can compress nearly anything in the game, including objects that Villager can't like Super Mushrooms and other strange intangible things.

Either by holding or by using the attack with four compressed objects in hand, Mr. Compress will quickly toss the ball up and transform it back to normal. This allows him to store items for later, as they won't vanish while compressed, but instead of just weapon or throwable items, Mr. Compress can strategically save some healing items for when he's getting high in damage. Compress prefers to use items with his right hand, indicated by all his animations holding it in there (so he can use his Quirk while holding a different item! When releasing a weapon item specifically, Compress will automatically equip it. If he tries to equip a second item he has stored, it will instead replace the original, causing it to vanish.

This can also be used to fire stored projectiles, but in a fairly unique way. Instead of firing the projectiles like normal, they will instead be fired at a much slower speed, and only performing 2/3rds of their usual damage. This isn't a particularly useful way, but it is faster than his alternative way of doing that (See SSpec for more on that), meaning that this can be used to quickly throw something, anything, out when cornered. This isn't reliable in item matches, since the item released will always be the first thing compressed, with the second thing compressed moving to the first spot when the previous has been released. So you'll need to make sure you have a projectile in your next slot if you want to perform something like this.

Of course, another use of this is to get rid of trash you compressed for some reason and don't need any more. Speaking of trash, let's talk about how this works on other characters (and by extension, minions and assist trophies). When compressing a characterm they will act like normal, but only for a short time. After 5 seconds of carrying an opponent (something that can be lessened by mashing, cutting it down to a minimum of 3 seconds), they will be released in the exact same way as a grab escape, putting both players into lag. You can kayfabe this as the opponent having such a strong spirit they can break out of his compression, or that Compress doesn't want to hold the opponent forever because it wouldn't be a fun fight that way.

Either way, opponents can't be held forever, and neither can minions or Assist trophies. Though they have a much more generous time limit of 15 seconds, and they obviously can't reduce it either. It's important to specifically note Olimar, as Mr. Compress can ONLY compress his Pikmin while they are separated from him, and they will be compressed alongside Olimar if he ends up compressed. When released, minions and assists will be put into a knockback state without taking damage, allowing Compress to potentially put an end to them (or guaranteed put an end to them in the case of Pikmin). Opponents that can create minions still need to abide by their "X minions on stage at a time" limit, and these minions are still on stage, so unless you're Pseudo Vorgis, they can't replace them by making a new one. Hey, at least they get freed eventually, as being compressed doesn't decrease how long they can be active on stage!

There are still a handful of differences between characters/assists, however. The main one being that minions/assists are treated like other items and put into the standard order as mentioned above, but characters are ALWAYS placed in the first spot, allowing Compress to be able to do what he wants with them instantly. The second difference is that, when KO'd, Compress will lose all the objects he had previously compressed, and while this applies to minions/assists normally, this has standard suicide deterrence by KOing Compress first.

Unsurprisingly, this move is the cornerstone of Compress' moveset, and while not particularly useful on its own, it can be made into a devastating, flashy instrument of destruction when in combination with his other attacks!


Side Special - Compression Toss