vava vett

Vile

Vile is a major antagonist in three of the Mega Man X games. He specifically shows up in the original Mega Man X, X3, and X8, each time with a different appearance due to him being scrapped the previous time. Vile was originally a Maverick Hunter, a police force that hunts down dangerous robotic criminals, but he himself turned Maverick after his squad leader, Sigma, did. He lives up to his name by being a very violent individual, who values power over everything else. His backstory implies that he very willingly went Maverick once Sigma, showing that he was probably just in the job for the killing.

Notably, Vile gets his own playable appearance in the PSP remake of X1, Maverick Hunter X. There he’s shown to have a lot more weapons in his arsenal than is shown in previous games, but in the end, he still gets defeated by X. His defeat at the hands of X in the first game fueled a burning desire to scrap him, which carries over into X3 and X8, though less pronounced in the latter.

Another thing Vile is known for is his use of Ride Armor, big mechs that make him basically indestructible. He uses one in all three games, though he still shows himself to be arguably more capable outside of one. Vile is also very infamous for looking exactly like Boba Fett but purple, though he shifts to Boba Fett but blue and then just Boba Fett by X8. His Japanese name, VAVA, makes the connection even more obvious.

In Smash, Vile takes on his classic purple look.

Stats
Weight – 104
Walk Speed – 1.1
Run Speed – 2.05
Air Speed – 1.5
Fall Speed – 1.8

Vile is quite fast, but very heavy. He shares his fall speed with X’s classic counterpart, but he has far better air maneuverability, even if just by a bit. Vile is overall just faster than Mega Man, with his dash being of particular note. It has him activate his jetpack and perform his dashing animation from the original X game. This is a very fast dash, but his walk speed is decent as well. During it, he walks creepily. Being a robot, Vile is also very heavy, even heavier than Mega Man himself thanks to his larger build.

Speaking of, Vile is relatively human sized, maybe slightly shorter than most of the other human sized characters, but only by a small bit. Vile’s idle animation has him standing like his original sprite, with him clenching and releasing his hands in a manic way. Vile’s jumps are decent, with his second jump being much better than his first thanks to his jetboots. Vile actually has a hover option involving these boots, activated the same way other hovers are. In this case, Vile will activate his jetboots and glide down gradually for the next 3.5 seconds.

This can help to recover, and to keep Vile in the air, but there are some downsides. The main is that he will constantly drift down the entire time, so its really not as broken as Peach’s hover. It will automatically cancel if Vile touches the ground. This should really be considered a supplement to Vile’s actual recover, for reasons you’ll see in a moment.

Specials
Up Special – Hunter and Prey
Vile activates both his jetpack and jetboots at the same time, before flying upwards a short distance. This behaves nearly identically to Fox Fire at first glance, with Vile being able to aim his flight in any of the 8 cardinal directions, but there are notable differences. For one, this has less start-up lag than Fox Fire, with it instead having start-up more akin to Mario’s Super Jump Punch. The second difference is the distance that Vile will travel, which is a lot shorter. The burst will only go a Ganondorf in terms of distance before Vile stops.

This might seem a bit terrible, but that isn’t all Vile can do with this move. He can actually use it two more times after the initial take off. Those two extra bursts can be aimed in any direction as well, and each goes the same distance. This allows for some incredible aerial maneuvering, and on top of that Vile doesn’t need to worry about this putting him into helpless. On top of that, it has very little lag, letting vile combo from this into any aerial or special, giving him a ton to work with in his air game.

As an attack, the hitbox encompasses Vile’s front half during the animation. It does a weak 4% damage on contact, while also launching the opponent the direction that Vile’s back is facing, making it harder for him to knock them around with the move beyond that. Also, while the attack can be used multiple times in the air, if the left or right directions are inputted while on the ground, he cannot follow the attack up, but it will also not waste any charge and directly transition him into his dashing animation.

Finally, we have to talk about the move’s main drawback. Once all three charges are used, while Vile isn’t put into helpless, he will not be able to use them again until three seconds after he touches the ground. Due to the rather short range of each charge, a suggested strategy involves Vile’s hover to make the landing after getting leveraged from the Up Special itself.


Neutral Special – Shoulder Cannon
Vile grips onto his iconic shoulder cannon, and proceeds to fire out a projectile. Upon first use, this projectile will be a large yellow orb, much like the projectiles from his boss fights in X1. In fact, these are the exact same projectiles, but we’ll get to that in a moment. The orb will fire at a decent speed, with only a bit of start-up lag, but a noticeable amount of endlag. It can also be aimed in three directions with the control stick, diagonally up, forward, and diagonally down, as you might expect.

The orb itself is fairly large, around the size of a mid-charged Super Scope shot, and flies forward at a decent speed, though very slow for a projectile. It has infinite range, however, so it isn’t a massive deal. When the orb hits an opponent, it won’t actually deal damage to them. It instead paralyzes them, making them stuck in their hit animation for a full second, unable to do anything else. This allows Vile to follow up with another attack, potentially starting a combo. The opponent can actually reduce the timer by mashing the button, similar to a grab, but this will usually just barely be helpful. Vile can also only have one of these on screen at a time,