Hat Kid vs Umbrella (A Hat in Time vs Skullgirls)

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them”

-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Hat Kid - a chaotic smug space-traveller and collector of the Time Pieces 

Umbrella - the newborn salty Skullgirl and princess of the Canopy Kingdom

When it comes to stories and their heroes, children are normally not someone from whom you'd expect to take notes from. They are young, immature and don't know as much, yet through boldness and simplicity they manage to solve their problems differently, through compassion and wonder they manage to find fun in something that seems rather simple, and at the end of it all, through new experience and memories, they manage grow up just as all of us once did. And with these 2 sassy venturers, no matter how terrifying the challenge may be they would always be bold and compassionate enough to go through it. But out of these 2 hatted (is in fact, a real word…) umbrella-wielding girls, whose death wish will come true and who will have the time for the next desert?

Before we start…

Should be pretty simple in terms of what is being covered. Hat Kid will get A Hat In Time with all DLCs (including Creator’s DLC) and some official mods that were created officially by Gears for Breakfast developers (not accounting for specifically Community Event Death Wishes such as Summer or Winter Death Wishes (not to be confused with Community Time Rifts)), and to spice things up a little, we will also cover one of her two official crossovers - Tunche. We also could have covered Here Comes Niko! which came out under the wing of Gears for Breakfast, and has Hat Kid in that party as well, but in it Hat Kid is only on vacation (for real this time), so may she take a break in it.

But given Hat Kid’s traveller nature, Tunche doesn't exactly contradict her story/canon either so it ultimately shouldn’t be harmful.

With Umbrella  we will cover all of Skullgirls, practically taking a look at every single of the story modes (more on that later), plus we will take a look at a webcomic of the series and have her basically as “composite” with all her counterparts in Skullgirls Mobile, with the exception of one fairly specific (and inconsistent with others) counterpart that deserves own discussion. In addition we will be also using Skullgirls Forums for any potential lore clarification (and if possible, direct sources for some of these clarifications). These forums practically gather around various lore statements from official people behind Skullgirls (with some of the statements even being, eventually, straight up confirmed within the game itself), so it should be a fair game.

Additionally worth saying this isn’t particularly first A Hat in Time and Skullgirls blog, as there were previous ones tackling these games and their feats, so we’d like to give additional credit to The Black Shulk’s Annie vs Linne blog and Capejedi’s The Devil vs The Snatcher blog in particular, as they’ve been very helpful with their various new finds and/or documentations. With all said and done, let’s do this in one take! Action!

Background

Hat Kid

“Oh HI!”

• Full Name:   (which translates to “Hat Kid’s Name ”, yes, Hat Kid’s name is Hat Kid’s Name)
• Age: A kid (possibly around 10 years)
• Height: 2’32” | 0.71 m
• Weight: 22 lbs | 10 kg
• Likes: Her Robot Rumbi, Fast Food, Her Spaceship, Kraft Singles American Cheese, Kaomojis, Her Hat, Cookies, Shiny Stuff.
• Dislikes: Singing, Rude and mean people, Winning fairly, Old Creepy Ladies, People Taking Her Stuff.

Welcome, to the depths of outer space, where throughout its lightyears of void, sometimes there appear to be planets that instead of being just a very big piece of rock, have a life. It takes courage, wonder and curiosity to explore these unknown lands, and learn its inhabitants’ stories left in the long past, though in this example, learning went in a pretty hard way. Hat Kid, a child alien who was just five light years away from getting home, one day all of a sudden gets interrupted on her way by an unknown goon who calls himself “Mafia”. It seems that they want their toll to be paid even in space, it may look like this stranger is stretching his reasoning, so reasonably Hat Kid closed the window away from him, only for it to be smashed so hard both got dragged into an unknown planet with all of her Time Pieces spread out. Without her main fuel to go home now, Hat Kid has to travel across the entire globe in search of her pieces, and maybe even getting something more alongside.

In the first visited town she was greeted by a girl named literally - Mustache Girl, who was fighting against the Mafia ever since they were occupied in this island. While the intentions of Mustache Girl were good-natured, the means she attempted to free people from them were sometimes out of line to say the least and ambitions in her view between good and evil were twisted. Especially after seeing a tiny glimpse of what Time Pieces are capable of. With a power like that, no Mafia or any resemblance of evil would’ve stood in their way. Unfortunately for her, Hat Kid didn’t really see the vision here, both because of what big power can lead to and because she needed them to get home. Because of that they’ve separated ways and turned from friends into enemies on spot.

Nevertheless, Hat Kid’s journey across the globe led her to meet a lot of people with a lot of strange circumstances, a film studio where owl and penguin are facing off to get as many awards as possible while Hat Kid had to work in making their films better, a dark spooky forest where Hat Kid had to make deals with the ghost of prince, an ancient civilization that lives in the mountains, yakuza cats, not even a simple vacation can end up that simple with Hat Kid around. Yet despite the fact that a lot of her adventures involved people that are far from perfect, she didn’t necessarily hold a big grudge against them, was reasonably angry at a few of them backstabbing her, but ultimately understanding of what skeletons in the closet they have and what they’ve been going through.

On that note, the moment Hat Kid was about to get all of her Time Pieces back to the ship, Mustache Girl stole most of them and changed the whole world to her control, making herself the judge who decides who is good and who is evil. Practically no one on the planet was happy about it yet only Hat Kid was able to confront and fight Mustache Girl. But if Mustache Girl was thriving for justice over evil, was Hat Kid then evil for standing up to them? Well, think about it this way, no place Hat Kid visited in her adventure was “good”, but neither was it “evil”, it's impossible to be a judge of that really, not without knowing more than meets the eye.

What Hat Kid managed to do instead is to come to terms with the good side of the majority of people and places she visited. She had to fight against a good chunk of them, sure, but not only she met those who simply lived their lives, but even most of her big enemies kind of became her friends - even The Snatcher, deal making ghost of the prince mentioned earlier. And in the end, it all got paid back, with the support from all of those she met in her adventure, Hat Kid eventually managed to defeat Mustache Girl, and turn everything back to normal. And yet even after all that, Hat Kid didn't see Mustache Girl as a “bad guy” either, just like with all of her previous foes, and decided to actually give her a single time piece to deal with bad guys. In the end, the only thing that was left at the end of the adventure was to go home. This was a pretty big journey, at some point terrifying, at some point simply bizarre, but despite all that, Hat Kid's wonder, courage and at some point kindness, led it to not go in vain. And this space traveler has all the time in the world to have this sentiment in all of her visits. Though today’s adventure may prove to be just as whimsical…

Umbrella

“HellOOOOooooOOOOooooOOOOooooOOOO!”

• Full Name: Umbrella Renoir
• Age: 11 Years
• Height: 3’10” | 1.16 m
• Weight: 60 lbs | 27 kg
• Likes: Parasoul, Hungern, Ice cream (especially salted caramel), Drawing, TV, Amphibians, Scary B Movies, Rainy days, Pro-wrestling, Justice!, Hungern’s origami
• Dislikes: Also Parasoul, Home Schooling, Annie of The Stars TV Show, Stuffy fancy dresses, Foie Gras, Getting caught, Egret Operation S.I.T.T.E.R.S, The Princess Wave, Skinned knees, Crying over spilled milk

Legend tells of an ancient artifact that can grant a woman’s wish…but with a little catch. If she has an impure heart, even a selfless wish will be twisted in the most vile of ways. Queen of the Canopy Kingdom - Nancy Renoir has fallen to be one of the victims of said artifact. As her Kingdom was in a Great War against another 2 countries - The Chess Kingdom and The Gigan Nation. Nancy prayed for peace above all else, but words alone were not the solution. It was at this time Nancy encountered the magical wish granter - Skull Heart. Given the opportunity Nancy wished for the Grand War to end and for the three kingdoms to come in peace, yet despite the wish being as selfless as that, it didn’t come true. At least, it didn’t seem like it came true, years passed since Nancy gave birth to a second child in the family, yet war was still ongoing. Until it turned out that her wish wasn’t pure in Skull Heart’s view, that ever since she wished for world peace, she turned into a Skullgirl. One of the worst and violent Skullgirl known to people at that time, so much so that her own husband King Franz, united with the other 3 kingdoms just to kill her - granting Nancy’s wish of peace in the most violent and poetic way possible. Yet still, despite her death there was one last thing left after Nancy, another Skullgirl that appeared in this world after Nancy’s wish for peace. That Skullgirl was Umbrella. 

A phenomenon like that is pretty much a rarity, if not a complete novelty, given there are no recorded moments of similar events. While she didn’t turn into a Skullgirl completely, there should’ve been a way to prevent her from doing so, so for the purpose of both self defense and preventing her Skullgirl half taking over, Umbrella was gifted with one of the 4 umbrella-shaped living weapons - Hungern (a name which also refers to Famine horsemen of apocalypse). Despite being a rather apocalyptic creature, Hungern and Umbrella very quickly became each other’s friends. One of the few true friends to each other probably, given normally Umbrella isn’t allowed to go out of the halls of the royal palace, at least without being followed by a member of Egrets. Umbrella however was desperately wishing to go on into adventure and kick some evil butt in the name of justice. But it took years until she even had a chance to participate in such an adventure, until she least expected it…

One day, instead of showing Umbrella criminals like it may seem usually, Parasoul took her to the Boardwalk full of attractions, arcade games and ice cream, however it was the same day a new Skullgirl was taking over New Meridian. In a hurry, Parasoul left Umbrella at the ice cream stand hoping for one of the Egrets members to pick her up. Instead, Umbrella got herself in trouble after trouble, a teenage girl with monster hair, a circus acrobat along with an Egyptian monstrosity, a girl who was turned monster, even Parasoul herself with Egrets at her command, Umbrella was fighting them all and proving herself to be more than capable of facing danger. But during the same adventure Umbrella also found out about some of her family’s not so great past. If all her family members achieved is only destruction via violence, would Umbrella’s acts of violence lead to the same fate? Would she be any different from Skullgirls or her parents, who despite their good intentions, ended up doing bad stuff?

While not entirely intentional, Umbrella was able to find her answer. Sure she had to fight her way through, but at the same time, throughout most of her fights, Umbrella was ultimately understanding enough to reason with, and even befriend most of those she fought in the end. To such a degree that she even managed to cheer up Painwheel, a girl turned monster mentioned earlier. As well as ultimately getting trust from Parasoul, despite their constant fights, and with a little support, Umbrella was able to defeat another Skullgirl just like her. It is rather ironic, Skullgirls, either those from the past, or those who will turn into one in some other future, are usually people who despite their kind intentions, become corrupted by a Skull Heart to destroy the whole world. Yet Skull Heart, the source of Skullgirls’ powers and wish granter, was destroyed by a Skullgirl with a weapon meant to devour people, armies, civilizations, and everything in-between. Umbrella, despite her very not bright origins, was the one to bring peace into Canopy Kingdom for the next 7 years, and even get new friends while being at it. In her first dangerous and unnatural adventure, Umbrella was both kind, curious and brave enough to go through anything that has been thrown at her. Who knows, maybe that mindset will lead her to even more bizarre adventures in the future, including the one she’ll be going through today…

Skill & Experience

Hat Kid

In-lore

Surprisingly, despite Hat Kid being, well, a kid, she’s far smarter than meets the eye. From starters, the spaceship from which her adventure starts in, as well as which acts like a main base of her operations, is built entirely by herself, from top to bottom. Which manages to have “Space-resistant wood” and glass durable enough to tank comets (yet for some reason have fists as a weakness), a full range satellite and even a computer. In addition she also built and fixed her robot vacuum cleaner Rumbi and very likely built this alternate dimensional transporter to bring Hat Kids from other universes, proving her to be extremely knowledgeable when it comes to science and engineering.

But it doesn’t end here, throughout her adventure Hat Kid managed to perform a variety of feats no ordinary kid would be able to, whether it be overthrowing Mafia Boss who has been controlling the whole island, participating in DJ Grooves’ and Conductor’s…really dangerous and deadly movies (such as attempting to turn off the bomb of the train on a limited timeframe or being a leader of a parade on the moon, while trying to turn on all of the equipment), sorting around Snatcher’s contract that include killing various spooky spirits and going through the horror that is Queen Vanessa’s manor, stealing from a cat yakuza while later running away from basically a Metro filled with hundreds of them while having a bounty on herself or even just going through the civilization that residents within the mountains in the skies (which includes interdimensional bell, giant bird houses, whirl mill and a lava cake, literally a cake made out of lava).

Even during the vacation there were complicated tasks she was doing throughout the entire ship in a limited timeframe, while later accidentally causing it to crash like The Titanic (thankfully though due to Hat Kid’s efforts, somehow no one actually died during this event…no one that we know of…). However none of that come close when it reaches to Hat Kid’s…biggest achievements so to speak:

In-game

A Hat in Time is your good ol 'cute-as-heck 3D platformer when you play the main story. However the real bullshit starts the moment you are going through Snatcher’s Death Wishes…here all of your skills in 3D platforming are being put to a test.

Being inspired by the golden age of 3D Platforming Collectathons such as Super Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie, it's no surprise Hat Kid would be an expert in finding goodies left and right, but when it comes to Death Wishes, this gets turned up to 11, having to do some of her hardest tasks in a whole new harder light. Having to survive a burning Mafia Town, so hot the atmosphere itself can hurt her, completing the Conductor’s train on a bomb timer of less than 15 seconds with very few chances to refill said timer, all of the purple time rifts that will be mentioned a bit later also are necessary to complete in a very limited timeframe but without any refills. Or better yet, one of the given tasks to Hat Kid is to complete several of her levels without jumping at all. In another task she must get past the entire film studio that is full of security from top to bottom without being noticed at all, not even once. Or there is a level where she has to collect a lot of pons (in-game currency) in a Mafia Town while said pons eventually disappear over the time, making it that if there are no pons left and you were too slow…failing that task. Or how about completing one of the levels in Mafia Town that has plenty of obstacles all around (that just force you to jump several times over) but by using only 7 jumps. OR, how about capturing Vault Codes that are scattered across Mafia Town to open a vault in a time limit of 30 seconds, with only said Vault Codes refilling the timeframe and without even using a Time Stop hat, and all of that is still kind of a tip of the iceberg.

Additionally a bit separate from Death Wishes, but Vanessa’s Curse is also a notable example of Hat Kid’s platforming being top notch. In it, Hat Kid(s) visits Vanessa’s big sized Mansion in which she must steal her crowns that are placed practically around the entire Mansion, yet at the same time, she must be able to hide and run away from other Hat Kids that got cursed by her instead and are trying to catch and curse her as well. Alternatively it can go the other way around and she is the first to be cursed by Vanessa to catch other Hat Kids that are attempting to steal her crowns. Making it basically a very fast paced play of both hide and seek and tag.

Needless to say, Hat Kid has got a LOT of challenges that are heavily complicated even in a meta context of video game player, which is especially backed up by boss fights (with a whole damn Boss Rush), where all of Hat Kid’s opponents got far more powerful, and far more harder to deal with, in some cases we have DJ Grooves AND The Conductor (who previously, depending on the route were fighting alone) teaming up against Hat Kid, Mustache Girl and Mafia Boss became a lot less exploitable for the attack and The Snatcher on top of all that, steals the whole show turning his boss fight into essentially a miniature 3D Touhou fight, where projectiles are being thrown at you from here and there non-stop, at some point one of the challenges even forces Hat Kid to attack ONLY with Blue Potions which The Snatcher throws far from often. It is even implied Hat Kid might actually have performed all of these Death Wish contracts without dying once.

And to spice quite literally all of the aforementioned feats that require high skill and understanding of 3D platforming mechanics, as well as to look a bit ahead, Hat Kid can perform all of that while also handicapping herself in a multitude of ways, such as worsening the entire screen with her retro badges (to the point that everything can either look like a game boy, virtual boy or straight up an epilepsy screen), reflect the entire world into a mirror making everything less familiar or better yet, turning her HP down to 1, practically giving herself full on Sans Undertale experience, attempting to complete everything in a game without being damaged AT ALL. It is honestly quite terrifying to think what kind of beast she turns into if played with good hands.

Umbrella

In-lore

At her young age, Umbrella was already being trained by Parasoul in order to be ready to fight against the Kingdom's threats when the time comes, including Skullgirls. In usual storylines she isn't exactly helping out normally, even in a webcomic prequel you can notice her being not brought into action (at least not yet). However in her own storyline, Umbrella proved to be an extremely capable combatant, especially with an elderly being, that is Hungern in her hands.

First defeating Filia and Samson, latter which is a centuries old parasite, Samson even notices Umbrella being able to hold back Hungern from going all berserk and causing chaos. But it was only a beginning for Umbrella’s adventure when right afterwards she also managed to defeat Eliza and Cerebella in a 1v2 fight, former who also existed for centuries, then right after she defeated Beowulf who, despite him being probably the most ”””normal””” in the cast is actually a professional and very fast paced wrestler (as well as one of the most dangerous characters in meta which we’ll come back to very soon, wait a bit). She also managed to win in a fight against Parasoul herself, who has been training her in combat, and who also technically had support from all of trained Egrets in a fight. Even Painwheel mind controlled by a genius head Brain Drain, couldn't best Umbrella in combat.

And after all of that she was even able to beat Marie herself, The Skullgirl of this era, who had an army of skeletons, a shadowy figure, and other ranged spams equivalent to the other similar zoner in this game…oh and on top of all that Umbrella did everything aforementioned in a matter of a single day, with somewhat little gaps in-between for breaks. All of that is, very impressive and notable especially considering the differences in each of the fighting styles of her opponents, and yet at the same time, when it comes to Umbrella's capacity in combat, this is probably only the tip of the iceberg compared to what you've got to see next:

In-game

Alright guys, if fighting ancient beings and trained warriors isn’t satisfying enough to you, then be ready to witness what terrifying beast Umbrella turns into in combat when she is played by very competitive gamers in fighting games. It may be hard to generalize how far her potential can go, but let’s at least try to comprehend some of it. Pretty hard to pick what to start with, so let’s go over the basic knowledge of how Skullgirls is played in both main and mobile metas. That is being…well you guessed it if you are a knowledgeable Fighting Games veteran: insane combos, parrying, blocking, timing of ults and other special moves, recovering, all of that and more is here included to Umbrella despite her being one of the most recent newcomers. And when you play as Umbrella, you have to play around plenty of skilled opponents who either are kept in check by you as an unstoppable beast or who will destroy you with a devastating combo should you make even the slightest mistake or misjudgement. (Will admit, usually it is the latter for me) 

For instance, let’s take a look at how usual gameplay against Beowulf goes, with him being a grappler you can imagine how most interactions against him go: being grabbed by him even once can prove to be a fatal mistake. And players within Skullgirls are playing around that the best way they can, avoiding conflicts picking the right moment to burst out of the combo, or just not giving him rest, can’t grab you if he’s busy being hit all the time, you know, fighting game stuff! Beowulf is probably a big and notable example but in the nature of fighting games with enough skills anyone can be insanely powerful. To put into a slightly broader perspective here are various Skullgirls Tournaments that are being held where you can see player’s skill in some of the best ways possible, even though some of them are pretty long so our advice would be to either take your time, or well, trust by word and look up later if you are interested in fighting games shenanigans and love watching tourneys. But whichever tournament you look up to, there is tons of action, lots of straight up multi-tasking and fast paced movement, while attempting to predict your foe’s movements within fractions of seconds, Skullgirls is generally very good as a fast paced fighting game.

To go slightly back on topic as surprising as it may sound to you at first, Umbrella is also a grappler (at least partially), who at good hands can as well either take plenty of health or even defeat you with one good grab, that and generally there are tons of potential combinations Umbrella can pull off in a fight, hell, within Skullgirls Mobile if you are stubborn enough Umbrella theoretically can even just, infinitely combo you (with some slight assistance, but still it is practically insane). Though it is also important to take her when she’s played either by more famous Fighting Games players or within tournaments (sadly not EVO, but still very interesting ones). For example here’s Umbrella gameplay at hands of SonicFox, who you probably know through other fighting game communities, with good enough timing and build up Umbrella practically can finish you off in a matter of a minute, or like in this match, keeping up despite having Hungern at Starving state and risking with fast paced combos Umbrella can pull off when having Hungern at Ravenous state. Or how in this match she can just ride around you while keeping Ravenous state for as long as physically possible.

Or let’s take a look at one of Umbrella’s tournament performances, like for instance in this match up (hey, she looks pretty familiar here…) she was able to build up a combo and defeat another Umbrella player with just a few grabs, or how in the very next match Umbrella could defend and stall long enough until foe revealed the opening for her to not just beat up with a long combo, but also make sure Valentine she was fighting against would not recover by any means. To practically summarise there is a lot of room to go around and frankly even with what  we have given now we may not have scratched every surface (and practically are far from doing so realistically), but that is partially beauty when it comes to fighting games, its characters and its players, that sheer unpredictability, all these various interactions, various strategies depending on situation, to the point that it becomes as entertaining and competitive as any other cyber sport. And with good hands, Umbrella turns into one hell of an unpredictable monster.

Equipment

Hat Kid

Hats

It wouldn't be called A “Hat” in Time without Hats would it? Hat Kid has an affinity to carry and even create hats on the fly, so long as she has one yarn for one hat, she can make it. These are no normal hats however, similarly to a certain shop owner in another classic Indie Game, each different Hat gives Hat Kid a different power. All hats somehow seem to have their own hammerspace, either that or Hat Kid can simply make things appear inside or under them.

Kid’s Hat

Hat Kid’s main and the most iconic hat, generally it doesn’t do anything offensively but it helps Hat Kid to see her main objectives. Whether it be Time Pieces or places and people she must visit/target. In other words it is sorta like, 6th sense from Hat Kid’s point of view that leads her the way to perform certain tasks.

Sprint Hat

This hat allows Hat Kid to, well, run. Pretty self-explanatory and simple, but thanks to said running in question, Hat Kid can also build up faster momentum for her various acrobatic moves. While running however, she does lose her double jump, so she better be steady on her feet when to use it.

Brewing Hat

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble… This hat allows Hat Kid to, in her own words, unleash her magical potential! By blowing things up! While she has this hat on, she can magically create purple potions filled with mysterious, bubbling chemicals that, after being shaken for a couple of seconds, explode whenever they’re thrown at something. These highly-explosive potions also serve as her Magic Attack in Tunche, where she’s able to throw several of those potions in quick succession, but without the explosion.

Ice Hat

Brrr…This knitted bear beanie allows Hat Kid to turn into a statue made of ice and squish her enemies with a powerful ground pound that sends anyone nearby into the air!

While Hat Kid is in this statue, she is completely immobile but also can’t take any damage from attacks. She can’t stay in the statue forever though, and is forcefully turned back to normal after a couple of seconds.

Dweller’s Mask

Despite what her name would imply, Hat Kid doesn’t only have magical hats to give her special powers, she also has a magical mask! The Dweller Mask allows Hat Kid to create an area around her for a couple of seconds that lets her interact with and see the Dweller objects, which are objects that exist in alternate dimensions.

It also makes purple dweller objects within the area around Hat Kid become intangible, letting Hat Kid or any object in the area move through them like they aren’t even there.

Time Stop Hat

Hat Kid’s most powerful hat. Despite what the name implies, this strange hat and visor combo doesn’t actually allow Hat Kid to stop time, but instead, gives her the ability to heavily slow down time for several seconds, making it so she’s even able to outrun or hit things that are normally way faster than she is. The hat itself also comes with a really existential label for some reason.

Raz’s Goggles (Mod)

That’s right, our good ol psychic acrobat is back at it again, and this time with his helmet and goggles assisting Hat Kid by making her somehow able to create a levitation ball from Psychonauts. This is something that normally psychics don’t need equipment for remembering. This levitation ball though has a major difference from the Psychonauts one. That being, despite its bounciness, Hat Kid can't really use it to glide across obstacles like in the original Psychonauts. However otherwise it operates somewhat similarly.

Side Note: Now we’re starting to reach into the Mod Territory. Where we are exploring mods but strictly those that were officially created and/or supervised by Gears For Breakfast. Should be noted that only those official mods (the ones that are specifically mentioned in this blog) are being accounted for and nothing else. We will also label and source all mod equipment, for the sake of not being confused with the base game and/or DLC. 

Llilac’s Headpiece (Mod)

This headpiece allows Hat Kid to perform Lilac's Cyclone attack while in the air, which makes Hat Kid spin around, damaging anyone who touches her. The Cyclone attack also serves as a third jump for Hat Kid that lets her quickly glide in the air for a couple of seconds. Though in-game it counts more as a badge, the way it is placed is certainly more hat-like.

Shovel Knight’s Shovel Blade and Helmet (Mod)

(Strike the Earth!)

Somehow, Hat Kid managed to get her hands on replicas of the chivalrous Shovel Knight’s iconic Shovel Blade and Helmet! Though these are just cosmetics for Hat Kid’s Umbrella and Ice Hat respectively and don’t give her any special abilities, it doesn’t change the fact they still look extremely cool.

Niko’s Hat (Mod)

(The closest you guys will get to Niko being vs viable…)

With this cute little cat-eared hat, Hat Kid can summon the giant, yellow phosphor lightbulb known as The Sun!

With this massive lightbulb, Hat Kid can light up the area around her, and chuck it at her enemies!  When it’s chucked at her enemies, it explodes, creating a powerful explosion! Though, this explosion can hurt Hat Kid as well.

After The Sun is summoned, it’ll stay out permanently. Even if Hat Kid changes to another hat, it won’t go away and will stay wherever Hat Kid left it. Hat Kid cannot summon The Sun again with Niko’s hat once it’s already been summoned though, and the hat will only show her where The Sun is if she tries to.

Essentially, it works like a summonable and renewable Cherry from Subcon Forest that you can locate after summoning it.

Drifter’s Hood (Mod)

With this sick looking hood, Hat Kid can quickly dash forward a short distance, leaving afterimages behind her, and letting her do things like cross gaps, dash past or to enemies, or quickly dodge attacks. If timed correctly, like in Hyper Light Drifter, Hat Kid can perform a “Chain Dash” which allows her to repeatedly dash in quick succession in different directions.

Umbrella(s)

At first Hat Kid wasn’t particularly strong with her own hands, her punches couldn’t do much so she only could hurt by jumping on a foe. However, right in the first act, she managed to steal an umbrella right out of the Mafia's hands and use it against him. Now this umbrella is Hat Kid’s signature weapon as originally intended, which she wields and fights with throughout the entire game.

She doesn't have just one umbrella however, in Vanessa’s Curse, she can purchase a fancy Magenta and White one (the one you see on the right), so if she ever loses one, it's possible she could pull that one out, or…

Baseball Bat

When Hat Kid got herself into a Nyakuza, and was tasked with getting Time Pieces for its Empress, she also needed a little change in style, so with the gem pons that she had left in hand, she bought herself a pretty big Baseball Bat, good for beating guys up and destroying stuff, and on top of that you can probably play a baseball with it! Otherwise it is practically as versatile as her umbrellas, including the interaction with a variety of badges, speaking of that…

Badges

“Badges are... totally "in" right now. That's what I've been told to say. So make a purchase, please”

Aside from hats or weapons, Hat Kid can also equip various badges which she buys from this weird glitchy Badge Seller. Said badges either allow Hat Kid to have new abilities, or augment her equipment, whether it be weapons or hats…or they act pretty much as a cosmetic (or even a handicap!). While Hat Kid can wear only 3 at the same time, she can very easily switch them up in a quick succession like with her hats. Here is the list of all badges Hat Kid can acquire:

Image of the Badge	Name of the Badge	Description of the Badge
	Camera Badge	Basically Hat Kid’s camera, with this badge she is able to take pictures of all of her adventures and everything that is going on around her, no matter at what moment. Aka in-game screenshot maker. Though on top of that The Snatcher does imply in one of his tips that the Camera Badge pauses time, but only allows Hat Kid to look at everything at paused time, potentially giving her a good amount of time to strategize.
	Projectile Badge	Thanks to this badge, Hat Kid can hold onto the energy and eventually release it in a big and long blast, through her umbrella or any other object she holds; the longer she holds it, the more powerful blast comes out in the result.
	Fast Hatter Badge	Hat Kid can say goodbye to long cooldowns on her hats with this badge on, as it dramatically cuts down all of the cooldowns for Hat Kid’s hats, making it so she can use them again a lot quicker than she can normally.
	Hookshot Badge	The Hookshot badge works exactly like the name implies, and let’s Hat Kid shoot out a Hookshot from her umbrella! This hookshot grabs onto things, letting Hat Kid cross gaps she couldn’t normally, and lets her launch herself into the air by building momentum from swinging on whatever she’s latched onto.
	Hover Badge	With this Badge, Hat Kid can say goodbye to worrying about fall damage, as it makes it so Hat Kid will always quickly pull out her Umbrella (or do a quick flutter in the air if she doesn’t have it) to make it so if she falls far enough to take fall damage, she harmlessly floats down to the ground right before she hits it.
	Item Magnet Badge	One of most useful badges early on, this badge allows for Hat Kid to pull in stray Pons (currency) and Heart Pons (heath) from further away than normal.
	Mumble Badge	With this badge, Hat Kid can make the words that come out of everyone’s mouths sound like a bunch of mumbles, which also sound like the talking effect from a certain platformer with a bear and a bird…
	No Bonk Badge	Like any good 3D platformer, Hat Kid is occasionally thrown off her midair groove if she directly dives into a wall or object, causing her to lose all of said momentum and fall… usually to her death. However, this badge just… negates that entirely! Letting Hat Kid dive head first into however many walls she desires!
	Compass Badge	The badge for the completionists! This badge displays a large, red arrow atop Hat Kid’s head that points towards any hidden goodies for her to find! This mainly relates to hidden treasure that she can display in her ship.
	Scooter Badge	An accessory to the Sprint Hat. Who needs legs with wheels like these??? This badge allows Hat Kid to summon a scooter whenever she uses her Sprint Hat, granting superior speed and ground maneuverability at the cost of not having as great aerial movement.
	1-Hit Hero Badge	The most dangerous badge Hat Kid has… …but only to herself. While this Badge is equipped, it instantly sets Hat Kid’s HP to 1, making it so she instantly dies in a singular hit.
	Mirror Badge	.rorrim a otni gnikool yltnatsnoc s’ehs ekil skool ti os ti gnikam ,dnuora noisiv s’diK taH spilf ti ,deppiuqe si egdab siht nehW
	Nostalgia Badge	When this badge is equipped, the graphics of absolutely everything are instantly dropped to the lowest quality possible, making everything look so low-poly that it looks like they would fit in a N64 game.
	Peaceful Badge	When it gets too hard to do it on your own~ Welcome back to the no Judgement zone~ When it seems that you just can't pick up the slack~ Time to take a breath, you really should relax~ Life is hard, life is mean and full of stress~ Take a breath and you can do your very best~ Welcome to where nobody expects a thing~ Chill out here among peace and tranquility~ You don't have to prove yourself to anyone No one is around to help No one stares, no one to judge You've earned second chances Release all that tension In a trance Swing your arms You should be dancin’ Unclench the muscles so tight~ Take a step back from the fight~ Go ahead and rub your eyes~ To the beat so synthesized~
	Retro Badge	When equipped, this badge makes it look like you're playing on a Gameboy by pixelating absolutely everything and changing every color to the colors that are able to be shown on a Gameboy!
	REDtro VR Badge	Okay, so imagine everything the Retro Badge does, but instead of making everything green like if it was on a Gameboy, it makes everything an extremely painful, headache inducing red like if it was on the Virtual Boy. That’s what this badge does. [Epilepsy Warning] Wanna know another funny part? Mixing this badge, and another filtering badge causes the entire screen to go nuts! Have fun watching it!
	Vent Badge (Mod)	With this badge Hat Kid gains Among Us’ Impostors iconic ability to vent. Though, if in the context of Among Us Imposters vent through already placed ventilations within the map, in this mod, Hat Kid instead places ventilations herself first (up to 3). After placing 2 or 3 ventilations she can use them to fast travel from Point A to Point B or Point C as if she was teleporting.

Yarn

Yarn is essentially one of the collectibles in A hat in time, which Hat Kid collects to stitch herself new hats with them! Technically despite getting enough material to stitch herself all of the 5 main hats, he still collected dozens of more throughout her adventure, meaning that theoretically if she loses her hats, she can always stitch herself new ones!

Alpine Skylines Flower

Hat Kid, for some odd reason, decided to take a flower that came from Alpine Skyline and put it in a pot. But this is no ordinary flower, this specifically a flower from The Illness, a species of evil plant that can mess with people’s minds with its pollen. While just a single flower of The Illness shouldn’t have enough pollen to mind control anyone, it’s pollen is still powerful enough to make even a robot dizzy.

Time Pieces

The main object that Hat Kid collects (and rightfully owns) throughout all her adventures are these magical hourglasses called “Time Pieces”. The origin of those is quite unknown, but the moment they fell from Hat Kid’s ship into an unknown planet, almost all of its inhabitants wanted to have a piece of it. Not without a reason, they are very powerful, and have a pretty big list of powers such as:

• Time Rewind: One of the first things we see a Time Piece to do is reversing time back for some period, all while people become aware of it being reversed. We don’t know the exact range of how far time reversal can go, but we did see DJ Grooves/The Conductor stating that he wanted to use a singular Time Piece to reverse time years back to win previous awards against The Conductor/DJ Grooves (the person Hat Kid will speak to is dependent on whoever you managed to get most points, however the motive The Conductor and DJ Grooves have to use a Time Piece is practically same word for word). We also see Hat Kid using them at the end to reverse everything Mustache Girl caused at the end of the game, which should be an hour(s) back or so. 
• Portal Creation & Pocket Dimension Creation: If the Time Piece breaks itself, it can create a Time Rift. Essentially a portal to a whole new dimension with obstacles for Hat Kid to go through, and get the Time Piece within said dimension. Normally Time Rifts of the blue color lead to a dimension where Clocktowers exist below the sea (for an unknown reason). However, if a Time Piece specifically hits a person on the head, it will create a dimension themed around the person it hit, usually based on the memories of past events, given on top of said dimension there are pages of a storybook Hat Kid can collect to read a story of someone in the past. These Time Rifts have portals of purple color instead of the average blue. On top of everything aforementioned, we see Mustache Girl directly creating a Pocket Dimension in her boss fight by throwing a Time Piece.
• Light Emission: Time Pieces upon being found, emit light from themselves. Which is especially noticeable in a Snatcher’s dark pocket dimension. But on top of all that, we see Travellers in Alpine Peaks stating about them emitting light far in the mountains, to the point that the light was just way too bright for them even in the daytime. This is also noticeable when Hat Kid takes the vacation on a cruise ship, where Time Piece’s light was seen on an iceberg.
• Empowerment: Time Pieces are fuel for Hat Kid’s spaceship, energy of which is used to power everything inside of said ship, as well as giving her enough power to travel back home. Mustache Girl was also empowered by Time Pieces in her boss fight, becoming stronger and getting new powers.
• Teleportation: In the beginning of her boss fight, Mustache Girl was teleporting across the place, likely due to Time Pieces’ empowerment.
• Shockwave Generation: While powered by Time Pieces Mustache Girl was also able to cause shockwaves through sheer power by landing on the ground.
• Energy Projection: By using Time Pieces’ power, Mustache Girl was able to shoot big energy beams in an attempt to kill Hat Kid, on top of that, upon being thrown they also emit dark blade-like energy that damages whoever touches it.
• Forcefield Creation: While using Time Pieces, Mustache Girl was able to cover herself with a forcefield that was unbreakable until The Snatcher and an Alpine Skyline Goat started using explosive cherries against it.
• Reality Warping: By using the Time Pieces, Mustache Girl created an “alternate reality” in which the entire planet was deformed into being covered with Lava and Volcanoes, as well as had her own castle, with giant golden statues, self-portraits and everything else themed around herself. [See Before the Verdict]

While Hat Kid owns Time Pieces, she never really uses them in combat, and only will use them in absolute dire situations, at best only to reverse time if something massively bad happens. Like how she reverted the planet from Mustache Girl’s regime back to normal. [See Before the Verdict]

Costumes, Color Palettes, Hat Flairs, etc.

One last thing to add on for Hat Kid is her very big style in fashion - she has 48 Hat Flairs each of which stylizes one of the 6 Hat Kid’s main hats, 34 Color Palettes that change her costume, hair and hats’ colors. And perhaps the most stylish options - costumes which change Hat Kid’s appearance in a lot more than just color, it can be her raincoat that she wears in a rainy days, her detective outfit she was wearing during Murder on the Owl Express, a punk jacket, a ghost-like look, a wireframe that makes her look like an unfinished 3D model or better yet, polygon outfit that makes her look as if she came directly from Nintendo 64 console.

Should be noted however that while these all offer a variety of “new” hats and costumes, they all are merely cosmetic features, so while this technically means Hat Kid has 50+ hats, it’d be a misconception to say that they all act different, as in summary functionality goes down to her 6 original (+ a bit more officially modded) hats, just with slight design changes. If you feel rather curious about these cosmetics, A Hat in Time wiki has covered it very well.

Tunche Equipment

Potions

To help Hat Kid with her journey through the extremely dangerous Amazon Rainforest, She was given magical, red potions that can be used to heal a chunk of her HP if she ever needs to recover damage dealt to her quickly.

She doesn’t have an unlimited supply of these though, and can only hold a total of 5 potions at once.

Spiritual Cores

During Hat Kid’s adventure through the Amazon Rainforest, potions were not the only thing she ended up obtaining to help her with her journey. While she was traveling through the forests, she ended up finding the very rare and powerful relics known as Spiritual Cores. These cores are filled with the distilled and transmuted power of a spirit that sacrificed it’s own existence, and can provide a multitude of buffs for Hat Kid or debuffs for whoever she’s facing.

They come in four types, Offensive, Defensive, Effect, and Life.

Here is the list of Cores she has access to:

Image of Core	Name of Core	Description of Core
	Dazzling  Style	When your Stylish Grade is at A or higher, there’s a 50% chance that an enemy gets struck with a bolt of lightning.
	Interlink	When your Stylish Grade is at A or higher, when you attack an enemy with a basic melee attack, a ray of energy will bounce to and hit four other enemies in range for the same amount of damage as your attack.
	Ritual Blade	When your Stylish Grade is at A or higher, when an enemy is hit by your magic attack, a dagger will fly towards them and damage them every few seconds. Five daggers can be applied to one enemy.
	Explosive Touch	When your Stylish Grade is at A or higher, when you defeat an enemy, they will explode and deal damage to everything around them.
	Retaliation	When knocked down, you release two waves. The first one pierces and hits everything, and the second one knocks enemies down.
	Guardian’s Flight	After dashing in the air, you can glide for a bit and drop damaging pellets on your enemies.
	Luck Of The Mystics	When your Stylish Grade is at an A or higher, there’s a chance your Mana won’t be spent after doing a super move.
	Rush	When your Stylish Grade is at an A or higher, you move at lightning speeds.
	Ghost	Whenever you get knocked down, become invisible to enemies and unable to be targeted by attacks. However, you can still take damage, and stop being invisible the moment you attack.
	Implacable Nature	Whenever you get hit, there’s a chance that your Stylish Grade doesn’t go down.
	Paralysis	Whenever you hit an enemy with a Power or Magic attack, there is a 25% chance they become stunned, rendering them unable to do anything for a few seconds.
	Slow	Whenever you hit an enemy with a Power or Magic attack, there is a 25% chance they move slower.
	Poison	Whenever you hit an enemy with a Power or Magic attack, there is a 25% chance they get poisoned and start taking poison damage for a couple of seconds.
	Burn	Whenever you hit an enemy with a Power or Magic attack, there is a 25% chance they get burned, and start suffering fire damage for a couple of seconds.
	Regeneration	When your health drops under a quarter of it’s max, you start to heal 2 HP per second with a 15% chance every second to heal 4 HP instead of 2 until your health is at a quarter of your max HP or higher.
	Vital Explorer	After you enter a new room, heal a bit of your HP and Mana.
	Leech	Whenever you defeat an enemy, you get healed for 3 HP.
	Jungle’s Endurance	You gain 100 shield HP that protects you from taking damage. This HP cannot be replenished or restored, and after the HP is completely depleted, the core is destroyed.
	Second Chance	Whenever your HP drops to zero, instead of dying, you revive with 20% of your HP restored. When this Core is activated, it ends up being destroyed, which damages any enemies that are nearby.
	Sanctuary	Whenever a potion is used, it creates a small healing area that remains fixed to you for 6 seconds, which heals you and any ally that is inside of it for 8 HP per second, and damages any enemy that enters it for 8 HP per second.

Aya Vines

Spiritual Cores weren’t the only thing Hat Kid found throughout her adventure though, she also found other people who had also been traveling through the Amazon Forest, who managed to get themselves trapped in plants. Whenever she freed one of these adventurers, they gave her an Aya Vine, whic h are magical vines that give her various buffs. Such as…

Look of the Vine	Name of the Vine	Description of the Vine
	Prosperity Vine.	Enemies that Hat Kid defeat will drop more coins for 5 encounters with an enemy or boss.
	Luck Vine.	Hat Kid has a slightly higher chance of finding Mana and Life Orbs for 6 encounters with an enemy or boss.
	Spirit Vine.	Hat Kid’s mana is slightly increased for 4 encounters with an enemy or boss.
	Health Vine.	Hat Kid’s health is slightly increased for 4 encounters with an enemy or a boss.
	Strength Vine.	Hat Kid’s attacks will do slightly more damage for 4 encounters with an enemy or a boss.
	Protection Vine.	Some of the damage Hat Kid takes will be negated for 4 encounters with an enemy or boss.

Umbrella

Hungern

“Don't worry, Hungern has never eaten anyone!...That I know of.”

Hungern is Umbrella’s… umbrella, pretty straightforward. But on top of that it is one of the 4 often encountered supernatural phenomenons in the Skullgirls franchise (the other 3 being Parasites, Various creations of Labs (from 0 to 8) and well, Skullgirls themselves) - a Living Weapon! This means that Hungern possesses sentience and is self-aware of his actions, all while shifting his abilities and shape to suit his owner as well as practically never actually aging (similarly to Parasites but without a need of a host), albeit his intelligence is more animalistic compared to Parasites. Crafted out of Theonite (Skullgirls’ in-universe material) this elderly creature came into Renoir’s hands as one of the 4 powerful umbrella-shaped weapons, and it was a very natural to be on around Umbrella throughout practically her entire life, with one of his abilities being able to suppress Umbrella’s Skullgirl side. This essentially led to him and Umbrella developing a friendly bond with each other, and thus he is very protective of her in-combat. Hungern got plenty of powers, but given he is Umbrella’s main weapon, and contributes heavily for Umbrella’s moveset, as they are inseparable from each other, it is more fair to mention them later down in the ability section.

Raincoat

(By @0QlCZLTKSRS3BxJ)

Considering Umbrella always carries Hungern around and uses him in combat, this also means that she needs an outfit that helps her to cover up from his drooling, which as you may notice later, he does a lot. Which is why her raincoat is a perfect choice that lets her use Hungern without letting drool get in her body all that much.  

Skullgirls Mobile Equipment

(Unfortunately we were unable to find the original artist behind the drawing even though it’s funny…If you happen to find the og, let us know!)

Surprise surprise, though it is brought up not as often in a vs scenario, as mentioned in “Before we start”, we are soft compositing Umbrella with what she can do in context of Skullgirls Mobile, which, aside from what we’ll mention later, includes various other items you can equip all characters with. And most of them allow Umbrella to inflict modifiers via different specific ways. What are modifiers you ask? Well let’s dive right into that:

Modifiers

(actually happened in the game btw)

In Skullgirls Mobile, Umbrella was only a fairly recent character, so she didn’t get as much of stuff from it, still, she and plenty of her other variants have a big variety of Modifiers, as well as lots of Catalysts and Artifacts to use them. Modifiers are effects that can be inflicted on yourself or on the enemy, with said effects being either positive BUFFS, or negative DEBUFFS (with buffs being orange, yellow, purple, blue and green while debuffs being solely red). Modifiers can be inflicted by signature abilities, special moves, blockbusters, etc.

Side Note: Technically these are more so “abilities” but these Modifiers are better off being mentioned and explained first before taking a look at aforementioned artifacts and catalysts that can also give various effects, including that of a modifier. So don’t be afraid to use Ctrl+F to look back what each of the mentioned modifier does.

Here’s the list of the ones Umbrella can use with stuff that will be mentioned lower:

Icon of Modifier	Name of Modifier	Description of Modifier
	ENRAGE	Prevents damage and hit reactions from the next hit. Can stack up to 5 times.
	BLESSING	When taking lethal damage, REVIVE with 10% HEALTH per STACK. Can stack up to 5 times.
	BLEED	Drains 1% max HEALTH per second. Removes REGEN and HEAVY REGEN upon activation. Can stack up to 5 times.
	HEAVY BLEED	Drains 2% max HEALTH per second. Removes REGEN and HEAVY REGEN upon activation.
	DISABLE BLOCKBUSTERS	Prevents BLOCKBUSTER (Super Moves in a fighting game language) usage. Duh.
	DISABLE SPECIALS	Prevents SPECIAL MOVE (Similar as with blockbusters but with more basic special moves) usage.
	DISABLE TAG INS	Prevents TAG IN (in other words escaping/summoning) usage.
	BARRIER	Absorbs damage equal to 10% of max HEALTH. Blocks ALL damage (bleed, health removal, physical hits, throws, et cetera). Can stack up to 5 times.
	THORNS	Reflect 20% of the attacker's physical damage when HIT, per STACK. Can stack up to 5 times.
	REGEN	Heals 1% of max HEALTH per second. Removes BLEED and HEAVY BLEED upon activation. Can stack up to 5 times.
	HEAVY REGEN	Heals 2% of max HEALTH per second. Removes BLEED and HEAVY BLEED upon activation.
	SLIME	Suffer damage equal to 4% MAX HEALTH each time a BUFF is gained.
	DOOM	Causes an instant death upon expiration. Bypasses INVINCIBILITY.
	PRECISION	Guarantees the next HIT is CRITICAL. PRECISION HITS will not trigger enemy SIGNATURE ABILITIES. Can stack up to 5 times.
	IMMUNITY	Prevents new DEBUFFS from being applied. You were expecting something a bit more weren’t you.
	ARMOR	Reduces damage taken by 20%. Removes ARMOR BREAK upon activation.
	ARMOR BREAK	Increases damage taken by 20%. Removes ARMOR upon activation.
	GUARD BREAK	10% chance while BLOCKING for the block to fail. Removes AUTO BLOCK (a modifier that causes the user to block hits automatically) upon activation. Can stack up to 5 times.
	POWER SURGE	On Blockbuster activation, take damage equal to 5% of max HEALTH. Can stack up to 5 times.
	DEADEYE	Attacks ignore the opponent’s DEFENSE and will not trigger the effects of AUTO-BLOCK, UNFLINCHING, EVASION, or THORNS.
	INVERSE POLARITY	Reverse all effects of healing.
	EVASION	Prevents damage and hit reactions from the next hit. Can stack up to 5 times.
	UNFLINCHING	Prevents Fighter from experiencing hit reactions. Has no effect on airborne Fighters and against BLOCKBUSTER HITS.
	HASTE	Increases meter gain rate by 100%. Removes SLOW upon activation.
	FINAL STAND	Prevents HEALTH from dropping below 1HP. Blocks death effect from DOOM.
	HEX	Disables the use of Signature Abilities. Marquee Abilities are unaffected.
	CRIPPLE	Reduces damage inflicted by 20%. Removes ENRAGE upon activation.
	CURSE	Prevents new BUFFS from being applied.
	INVINCIBLE	Prevents damage taken from hits. Blocks damage from BLEED and reflect damage, as well.
	DEATH MARK	Increases damage taken from CRITICAL HITS by 50%. Increases damage taken while blocking by 50%.
	FATIGUE	SPECIAL MOVE and TAG IN cooldowns recharge at half speed. When FATIGUE expires, it has a 50% chance to apply STUN for 2 seconds on the afflicted fighter.
	WITHER	Removes 5% BLOCKBUSTER METER every second. Can stack up to 5 times.
	SLOW	Decreases meter gain rate by 50%. Removes HASTE upon activation. Can stack up to 5 times.
	STUN	Prevents all actions until effect expires.
	IMMOBILIZE	DASHING is disabled.
	MIASMA	Drains 1% HEALTH from nearby opponents, while healing 1% HEALTH per second. Also drains 1% BLOCKBUSTER METER from nearby opponents every second, while granting 1% BLOCKBUSTER METER per second.
	HEAL BLOCK	Prevents healing from all sources

Catalysts

Catalysts are selectable modifiers that can be put on nodes on Rift Battles. There are Element Specific, Character Specific, and Unspecific catalysts. Each element has two catalysts. One can be obtained at any rarity level, and the other is only gold. Note that the upgrades for the catalysts are as follows: Bronze unspecific/silver unspecific/gold unspecific (bronze character specific)/silver character specific/gold character specific. There's gonna be lots of text so, we warned ya...

Character specific

UMBRELLA

RHYTHM AND OOZE

Umbrella gains 1 stack of MIASMA every 13/3 seconds. MIASMA is removed when Umbrella is KNOCKED DOWN. When reaching 5 stacks of MIASMA, opponents suffer 2 stacks of permanent SLIME.

Elemental specific

Each element has two catalysts. One can be obtained at any rarity level, and the other is only gold.

Elements	Name	Effect
Water	Frost Armor	5 - 10% chance when HIT to gain ARMOR for 2 - 12 seconds. When HIT while benefiting from ARMOR, reflect 15% of the incoming damage.
Water	High Waters	10% chance when HIT to gain ARMOR and MIASMA for 10 - 30 seconds if you have a fully charged BLOCKBUSTER.
Air	Overload	Gain 1 - 6% BLOCKBUSTER METER per second if the opponent has a fully charged BLOCKBUSTER. Also gain a 15 - 25% chance to inflict a 5 second STUN.
Air	Into Thin Air	Every 30 - 10 seconds, all DEBUFFS are removed and all opponent BLOCKBUSTERS are reset.
Fire	Rising Temperatures	Gain a 10 - 30 second ENRAGE every 10 - 5 seconds. DASH ATTACKS and BLOCKBUSTERS are UNBLOCKABLE while benefiting from at least 2 stacks of ENRAGE.
Fire	Fire Starter	Gain ENRAGE for 10 seconds and 1 stack of PRECISION every 15 - 5 seconds. While benefiting from PRECISION, inflict GUARD BREAK on HIT (includes blocked hits).
Light	Last words	Once per match gain 25/50/100% chance when suffering a HIT that would be fatal to gain FINAL STAND for 5/15 seconds.
Light	Light weight	Begin the match with 10/30 seconds of UNFLINCHING and IMMUNITY.
Dark	Shot in the Dark	25/50/100% chance when BLOCKING a HIT to inflict WITHER for 5/15 seconds.
Dark	Darknut	Begin the match with 5 stacks of ARMOR. Each stack is removed when HIT with a combo count at any multiple of 10. Gain a 10% chance to inflict BLEED for 5/15 seconds when HIT while benefiting from ARMOR.

Unspecific Catalysts

Name	Effect
Armor Rating	10/12/15/17/20% chance when HIT to avoid all damage and gain ARMOR for 5/15 seconds if the opponent has over 10 COMBO HITS.
Autoimmune	25/35/50/75/100% chance when suffering a DEBUFF to gain IMMUNITY for 1/6 seconds.
Bleed Guilty	25/35/50/75/100% chance when inflicting BLEED to increase its duration by 1/6 second.
Blockbusted	10/12/15/20/25% chance when HIT to DISABLE opponent’s BLOCKBUSTERS for 5/15 seconds if the opponent have a fully charged BLOCKBUSTER.
Cripple Decker	Inflict CRIPPLE for 5/15 seconds when an opponent's HIT inflicts at least 10/7/5/4/3% HEALTH.
Curse of Knowledge	25/35/50/75/100% chance to inflict CURSE for 5/15 seconds when gaining a BUFF.
Doomsday Device	50/75/100% chance to inflict 30/10 seconds permanent DOOM when using level 3 BLOCKBUSTER.
Final Fight	25/35/50/75/100% chance when opponent uses a BLOCKBUSTER to gain FINAL STAND for 5/15 seconds.
Hexy Time	Every 30/25/20/18/15 seconds opponents suffer HEX for 3/13 seconds.
Invincible Armanda	25/35/50/75/100% chance when a teammate is defeated to gain INVINCIBLE for 5/15 seconds.
Marked for Deletion	Opponents suffer DEATH MARK for 5/15 seconds when falling below 25/40/50/60/70% HEALTH.
No high Heals	Opponent suffers HEAL BLOCK for 5/15 seconds when gaining REGEN while above 65/50/35/25/15% HEALTH
Post Haste	15/20/25/35/50% chance when HIT with a BLOCKBUSTER to gain HASTE for 10 seconds. When HASTE expires, gain 10/30% meter for all BLOCKBUSTERS.
Primal Rage	Gain ENRAGE for 10/20 seconds for every 15/12/10/7/5 combo hits suffered.
Record Breaker	Each HIT has a 15/20/25/35/50% chance to inflict ARMOR BREAK for 5/15 seconds. Landing a CRITICAL HIT will
Regeneration X	25/35/50/75/100% chance when gaining REGEN to increase its duration by 1/6 second.
Special Exception	25/35/50/75/100% chance when using a SPECIAL MOVE to DISABLE the opponent's SPECIAL MOVES for 5/15 seconds.
Stun Grenade	PROJECTILES have a 15/20/25/35/50% chance on HIT to STUN opponent for 1/6 second.
Super Slo-Mo	Opponent suffers SLOW for 5/15 seconds after every 10/7/5/4/3 seconds not using a BLOCKBUSTER.
Tag n’ Gag	25/35/50/75/100% chance when TAGGING OUT to DISABLE opponent TAG-INS for 5/15 seconds.
The Angry Flinch	25/35/50/75/100% chance when using a BLOCKBUSTER to gain UNFLINCHING for 5/15 seconds.
To be Precise	Gain 1/2/3/4/5 stacks of PRECISION every 15/5 seconds.
Wither Forecast	Every 30/25/20/18/15 seconds your opponent suffers WITHER for 5/15 seconds. WITHER is removed if the opponent uses a BLOCKBUSTER.

Artifacts

Artifacts are bonus items that can be collected as you go through the map that will serve as beneficial modifiers for the player. Defeating each node in a map will grant a random choice of Bronze and Silver Artifacts. Successfully clearing an Area will grant a choice of three Gold Artifacts to be carried to the next Area. Artifacts are reset for each run.

Bronze Artifacts

NAME	EFFECT
IRON CURTAIN	Your Fighters gain +15% DEFENSE and +15% RESISTANCE (cannot exceed 50%).
PRIORITY CONTRACT	Your Fighters gain 15% BLOCKBUSTER METER when an opponent is defeated during the first 60 seconds of the match.
SLIVER OF FLAME	[Fire Element Fighters] Deal 10% BONUS DAMAGE.
SLIVER OF SKY	[Air Element Fighters] Deal 10% BONUS DAMAGE.
SLIVER OF FROST	[Water Element Fighters] Deal 10% BONUS DAMAGE
SLIVER OF RADIANCE	[Light Element Fighters] Deal 10% BONUS DAMAGE
SLIVER OF SHADOW	[Dark Element Fighters] Deal 10% BONUS DAMAGE
SOUP DUMPLINGS	Your Fighters gain REGEN for 10 seconds the first time they TAG IN during a match
SUPPRESSIVE SHOTS	Your Fighters' PROJECTILE attacks have a 25% chance on HIT to inflict IMMOBILIZE for 10 seconds
TIME BALM	Your Fighters gain HASTE for 10 seconds when suffering from a DEBUFF. When this HASTE expires, remove all DEBUFFS

Silver Artifacts

NAME	EFFECT
ACE OF SPADES	Your Fighters gain +15% ACCURACY (cannot exceed 50%
APPLE JUICE	50% chance for your Fighters to gain MIASMA for 10 seconds when using a BLOCKBUSTER
DAGONIAN FEAST	Your Fighters recover 15% HEALTH at the start of each match
EXPLOSIVE TIPS	Your Fighters' PROJECTILE attacks deal 15% BONUS DAMAGE and have a 15% chance to inflict HEAVY BLEED for 10 seconds
FRAGMENT OF FLAME	[Fire Element Fighters] Deal 15% BONUS DAMAGE
FRAGMENT OF SKY	[Air Element Fighters] Deal 15% BONUS DAMAGE
FRAGMENT OF FROST	[Water Element Fighters] Deal 15% BONUS DAMAGE
FRAGMENT OF RADIANCE	[Light Element Fighters] Deal 15% BONUS DAMAGE
FRAGMENT OF SHADOW	[Dark Element Fighters] Deal 15% BONUS DAMAGE
HIT LIST	Your opponents start the match with permanent DEATH MARK
JACK OF CLUBS	Your Fighters gain +10% ATTACK
JELLYFISH LANTERN	Your Fighters start the match with IMMUNITY for 20 seconds. IMMUNITY is removed when suffering a HIT
KING OF DIAMONDS	Your Fighters gain +30% DEFENSE
KNUCKLEDUSTERS	Your Fighters' CLOSE-RANGE attacks deal 15% BONUS DAMAGE and have a 15% chance to inflict ARMOR BREAK for 10 seconds
QUEEN OF HEARTS	Your Fighters gain +20% MAX HEALTH
SUPERCHARGER	Your Fighters' BEAM and ENERGY attacks deal 25% BONUS DAMAGE and have a 25% chance to inflict INVERSE POLARITY for 10 seconds

Gold Artifacts

NAME	EFFECT
ABLATIVE ARMOR	Cannot suffer more than 10% of your MAX HEALTH from a single HIT
CRYSTAL OF FLAME	[Fire Element Fighters] Deal 20% BONUS DAMAGE
CRYSTAL OF SKY	[Air Element Fighters] Deal 20% BONUS DAMAGE
CRYSTAL OF FROST	[Water Element Fighters] Deal 20% BONUS DAMAGE
CRYSTAL OF RADIANCE	[Light Element Fighters] Deal 20% BONUS DAMAGE
CRYSTAL OF SHADOW	[Dark Element Fighters] Deal 20% BONUS DAMAGE
DARK GRIMOIRE	Your Dark Fighters inflict SLIME when using a BLOCKBUSTER or SPECIAL MOVE. When reaching 5 stacks of SLIME, opponents suffer HEX for 10 seconds
FISHBONE CLEAVER	For the first 30 seconds of the match, 10% of all damage inflicted by your Fighters is regained as HEALTH
FLASHBANGS	The first Fighter on the opponent team takes damage equal to 10% of their current HEALTH and suffers STUN for 2 seconds at the start of each match
FOG MACHINE	Your Air Fighters gain a stack of EVASION and inflict FATIGUE for 10 seconds every 15 seconds
GEHENNA'S OBLIVION	Your Fighters' BLOCKBUSTER HITS instantly defeat opponents with less than 15% of their MAX HEALTH
HOT ROD	Your Fire Fighters have a 15% chance on HIT to inflict WITHER for 10 seconds. When reaching 5 stacks of WITHER, opponents suffer 2 stacks of GUARD BREAK for 20 seconds
ICE 'EM	Your Water Fighters have a 15% chance on HIT to inflict SLOW for 10 seconds. When reaching 5 stacks of SLOW, opponents suffer STUN for 5 seconds
IMMORTALITY OF LAMIA	Once per match, the first Fighter on your team to suffer a HIT that would be fatal recovers 25% HEALTH and gains FINAL STAND for 10 seconds
PARASITIC IMPLANTS	Your Fighters gain +20% DEFENSE, +20% MAX HEALTH and +20% ATTACK but lose 1% HEALTH every second
PRESCIENCE OF AEON	The first Fighter on your team gains 2 stacks of EVASION at the start of each match. Your Fighters gain 5% BLOCKBUSTER METER every 3 seconds while benefiting from EVASION
STAGE OF SPOTLIGHT	When TAGGING IN, your Light Fighters DISABLE the opponent's BLOCKBUSTERS or SPECIAL MOVES for 10 seconds
YEARNING OF VENUS	When defeating an opponent with a BLOCKBUSTER or a special move, recover  25% HEALTH and gain ENRAGE for 20 seconds

Prize Modifiers

Elemental prize Modifiers

Name	Element	Modifier
High Tide	Water	PERMAFROST [Water Element Fighters]: Gain 1 stack of ARMOR every 2 seconds, but each HIT suffered will remove a stack. When benefitting from ARMOR, hits DISABLE opponent SPECIAL MOVES and BLOCKBUSTERS for 5 seconds.
Ring of Fire	Fire	FLASH POINT [Fire Element Fighters]: Gain permanent ENRAGE for every 15% HEALTH lost. 50% chance to inflict STUN for 4 seconds when landing a HIT that deals at least 10% damage.
Eye of the Storm	Air	GONE WITH THE WIND [Air Element Fighters]: Regain 25% HEALTH when TAGGING OUT. Whenever the opponent uses a BLOCKBUSTER, all their SPECIAL MOVES will be reset and their BLOCKBUSTERS will have their meter reduced by 100%.
A shining Example	Light	EMISSION SPECTRUM [Light Element Fighters]: Gain a BUFF every 10 seconds and at the start of the match. The BUFF gained lasts for 10 seconds and cycles between IMMUNITY, FINAL STAND, UNFLINCHING, and INVINCIBILITY. 25% chance on HIT to TRANSFER 1 DEBUFF from yourself to the opponent.
A Shot in the Dark	Dark	NYCTOPHOBIA [Dark Element Fighters]: Gain HASTE for 5 seconds when HIT. When HASTE expires, inflict a 5 second DOOM. If the opponent lands a HIT, DOOM will be removed.

Special Prize Modifiers

SILVER BULLET	BUTTON SMASHING
Standard attacks deal 50% less damage!	SPECIAL MOVE and BLOCKBUSTER ATTACKS deal 100% damage.
PARTY STARTER	THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
Equal chance on TAG IN to suffer IMMUNITY or CURSE.	HITS inflict 1000% bonus damage during the last 10 seconds of every minute.
SHE LOVES ME	SHE LOVES ME NOT
When at an ELEMENTAL ADVANTAGE, 50% of damage inflicted is regained as HEALTH.	When at an ELEMENTAL DISADVANTAGE, 50% of damage inflicted is reflected back.
LUCK OF THE IRISH	SAINTS AND SCHOLARS
[Air Element Fighters]: Gain 1 stack of PRECISION every 3 seconds. CRITICAL HITS have a 20% chance to grant REGEN for 10 seconds.	Gain a BUFF every 10 seconds and at the start of the match. The BUFF gained lasts for 10 seconds and cycles between FINAL STAND and IMMUNITY.
APRIL SHOWERS	CLEAN SWEEP
Every 5 seconds, both Fighters gain 1 random BUFF or DEBUFF for 20 seconds.	All BUFFs and DEBUFFs are removed each time a BLOCKBUSTER is used.
SPF 20	YOU MIGHT GET BURNED
On MATCH START and TAG IN, gain IMMUNITY and 2 stacks of BARRIER for 20 seconds.	If not benefitting from IMMUNITY or BARRIER, suffer BLEED every 10 seconds for 20 seconds.
STARS AND STRIPS	BURSTING IN AIR
Convert 1 opponent BUFF into a 5 second STUN when dealing at least 10% of the opponent's MAX HEALTH from a single HIT.	Deal 100% bonus damage to airborne opponents who have a fully charged BLOCKBUSTER.
MINUTEMEN	REDCOATS
Every 60 seconds, gain 5 stacks of PRECISION and 5 stacks of EVASION.	Gain ENRAGE and BARRIER every 5 seconds.
TAKE A SPIN	DOUBLE TAKE
Every 10 seconds, gain 1 new, random BUFF for 20 seconds.	While benefiting from exactly 2 stacks of any BUFF, also gain PERMANENT IMMUNITY.
TRIFECTA	JACKPOT
While benefiting from exactly 3 stacks of any BUFF, also gain PERMANENT HASTE.	While benefiting from exactly 5 stacks of any BUFF, also gain PERMANENT PRECISION.
TEAM SPIRIT	TRICK OR TREAT!	PIÑATA MEXICANA
While facing an opponent of the same character type, gain 2 random BUFFS for 10 seconds every 10 seconds.	At the start of the match, gain 1 random permanent BUFF or DEBUFF, excluding DISABLE BLOCKBUSTERS. When a BLOCKBUSTER is used, the effect will be replaced with another permanent effect.	[Air, Light and Fire Element Fighters] Gain 3 stacks of a BUFF every 10 seconds and at the start of the match. The BUFF gained lasts for 10 seconds and cycles between REGEN, BLESSING, and ENRAGE.
MID-TERMS	FINAL EXAM
Once per match, the second-to-last surviving teammate TAGS IN with 5 stacks of ENRAGE and ARMOR. Each stack is removed after every 3rd COMBO HIT suffered. While benefiting from either buff, gain 5% BLOCKBUSTER METER per second.	Once per match, the last surviving teammate TAGS IN with INVINCIBLE for 20 seconds. INVINCIBLE is removed if HIT while attacking. While benefiting from INVINCIBLE, DRAIN 2% of an opponent's HEALTH per second.
FALL SHORT	AMPLE-TUDE	FAMILY FEAST
Suffer a stack of SLOW for 10 seconds when reaching 2 COMBO HITS.	Gain HASTE for 20 seconds when either Fighter reaches 8 COMBO HITS.	Gain 2 random BUFFS for 20 seconds when either Fighter reaches 20 COMBO HITS.
SLAY BELLS	SILENT NIGHT	MR. GRINCH
[Fire Element Fighters] Gain ENRAGE for 5 seconds every 3 seconds not suffering a hit (includes blocked hits). ENRAGE is removed when HIT.	[Dark Element Fighters] When suffering a CRITICAL HIT, DISABLE the opponent's BLOCKBUSTERS for 10 seconds.	[Air Element Fighters] Using a BLOCKBUSTER will convert up to 2 opponent BUFFS into random DEBUFFS.
O HOLY NIGHT	LET IT SNOW
[Light Element Fighters] RESURRECT with 25% HEALTH and FINAL STAND for 15 seconds after being dead for 60 seconds.	[Water Element Fighters] Gain ARMOR for 3 seconds when suffering a HIT that deals less than 1% MAX HEALTH.

Healing Nodes

During the travel between parallel realms you may also encounter Healing nodes on your journey where Ileum will recover some of your Fighters’ missing HP, or possibly even revive a fallen Fighter, she can use a bunch of these throughout her journey making it useful if she’s super fatigued or hurt.

Abilities

Hat Kid

Acrobatics

As you know A Hat in Time is a 3D platformer, and a very good one at that. Inspired by plenty of classic old 3D platformers like Mario 64, Banjo & Kazooie and Psychonauts, Hat Kid managed to have a lot of acrobatic moves and skills. Aside from basic stuff like the basic running/walking, crouching and swimming, Hat Kid can do a double jump (simply because she’s short mind you), even when she’s about to fall from a very high fall (which if timed correctly, saves her from fall damage), she also is a really good rope walker.

As a matter of fact not only can she casually walk and jump on ropes but even ride on ropes while using the scooter. Hat Kid also can dive, both on air and on ground which pushes her even further, if she lands on ground while diving and jumps at a correct timing she can even fly further, on constant use and precise movement this can even make Hat Kid faster than her with just a sprint hat. In addition Hat Kid is capable of wall climbing & jumping which in tight places lets her climb up at a really fast pace. But perhaps her most offensive and in a way the most physically impossible move is her Homing Attack, which well, is pretty self-explanatory, Hat Kid just defies all physics and flies directly into her foes while doing a flip in the air.

Minor Toon Force

To a certain degree, Hat Kid possesses a tiny bit of toon force, but only very minor parts of it, like some numerous showings of hammerspace (even though in some other levels she simply carries that stuff single handedly without putting it in the pocket), as well as recovering from being flattened by stretching herself back.

Cosmic Awareness

Also to a degree, we do see Hat Kid be capable of sensing a “temporal disturbance” (in this case, a Time Rift) if she creates a relic from another planet before unlocking a room of her ship where she can detect it. 

Possession

…Also to a degree, ok promise this is the last one!

While Hat Kid herself isn’t able to just possess things when she feels like it, her soul can. And for some reason, her soul is really, really violent. If Hat Kid’s soul leaves her body, it’s shown to be capable of possessing objects and, judging from what happened when it possessed a seemingly completely ordinary outhouse, turn whatever it possessed into a full on mini-boss that’ll attack anything it sees (including Hat Kid herself) and cause havoc.

Respiratory Self Sustenance

Hat Kid, pretty much probably lacks a need of the oxygen as she has shown to be capable of just casually breathing in space, as seen in several cutscenes and her being filmed in a literal moon. Aside from that we see her be able to breathe in Blue Time Rifts, which as title of the level’s theme suggests, are literal clock towers beneath the sea. This is a bit more supported by one of the Purple Time Rifts as well, which as you can notice is literally under the sea as well. Though at the same time we also see Hat Kid shown to be drowned in pools so, take that at your judgement.

Stylish Grade

The Stylish Grade is, simply put, a Devil May Cry style combo grading system. Whenever Hat Kid hits someone with a combo of attacks, the Grade goes up. To make the Grade keep going up, Hat Kid has to use different attacks and combos.The more unique and long a combo is, the higher the Grade goes.

The Grade can go from a D, all the way to a SSS. Getting this Grade high enough will activate certain Spiritual Cores, allowing Hat Kid to use the abilities that they give her.

But, whenever Hat Kid isn’t attacking someone, the grade rapidly decreases, and if Hat Kid ends up getting hit at any point, she loses the grade entirely.

Dancing

Dancing is what to do, Dancing's when I think of you, Dancing's what clears my soul, Dancing's what makes me whole, Dancing is what to do, Dancing's when I think of you, Dancing's what clears my soul, Dancing's what makes me whole, Dancing is what to do, Dancing's when I think of you, Dancing's what clears my soul, Dancing's what makes me whole, Dancing is what to do, Dancing's when I think of you, Dancing's what clears my soul, Dancing's what makes me whole.

Resistances

Extreme Temperatures: Hat Kid can survive falling into burning hot lava and (literal) freezing cold water. 

Cosmic Radiation: As you’d expect from a space-traveling alien, Hat Kid is capable of surviving in space without suffering any negative effects.

Soul Manipulation: Sorta, while her soul can still be manipulated, thus how Snatcher was able to take it for himself, she herself can live perfectly fine without a soul.

Mind Manipulation and Corruption: Hat Kid is completely unaffected by being near a large amount of pollen from The Illness, which mind control and corrupt anyone who inhales it. This is also backed-up in the One Last Journey storybook, where she’s shown to be unaffected by the pollen of a flower from The Illness, while Rumbi is actively made dizzy because of it.

Umbrella

Necromancy

Given Umbrella is a newborn Skullgirl, it is natural that she got some powers on Mother's end when she was a Skullgirl. In this case, even while suppressed by Hungern, unknowingly via her Skullgirl blood Umbrella can resurrect dead people near herself, as stated in the official Skullgirls forums (and even sourced with a screenshot!). Given the way we see how necromancy works with other Skullgirls such as Marie, it is fair to assume that revived people in question aren’t in exactly the best shape, usually a skeleton, or a zombie like we see with Selene’s Undead Minions.

Shapeshifting

One of Hungern’s primary powers is the ability to shapeshift himself into various shapes and sizes. While normally he looks like a pretty average umbrella, with sharp teeth on top, he can reform himself to eat his victims. He has various eyes across that let him see from all 360°, said eyes Hungern can also shoot out and very quickly regenerate. In addition Hungern can stretch his tongue, reshape his teeth from claw to blocky shapes, increase the amount of eyes from a few to tens, become so big, he can pretty much become the tallest among all of Skullgirls’ playable cast. Umbrella has come to be insanely creative with Hungern and his shapeshifting abilities, as you may notice a bit lower.

Life Drain

Another Hungern’s main ability is passively absorbing life energy out of nearby people, as it happened in a fight between Umbrella and Filia, Samson also directly states that as seen above, you might be asking, how is Umbrella able to carry him if being nearby it causes your life force being drained? The answer is the exact main reason why she was given Hungern in the first place - Hungern absorbs her life force too, but mainly he is siphoning off Umbrella’s Skullgirl side, were it not for Hungern, perhaps Umbrella would’ve turned into a Skullgirl on a very quick time frame. Due to her Skullgirl side, Umbrella has so much power/life force that she can use Hungern without any ill effects whatsoever (which is something that even Samson who knows Hungern for a while, shocked about), making them as perfect as bread and butter on each other.

Flight

In one of Umbrella’s entries and victory poses, like Mary Poppins we just see her flying in/away…yeah that’s it, she can just do it.

Move List

(Ok well, it’s not as confusing as some other fighting games can get, but still hard for me to memorise (at least she has no “Z”s)…)

As one can guess Umbrella is a fighting game character and therefore the real deal comes when her moveset is involved. Though before tackling her moveset, we must discuss some of the mechanics that come along with her moves. This shouldn’t take long but is important as a matter of giving context for some of the moves.

Special credit to Mizuumi wiki for some of the images presented below.

Hunger Meter

Umbrella’s main mechanic in Skullgirls revolves around Hungern and his appetite. There are 4 states Hungern can be in combat, which by itself already puts Umbrella at minimum 4 playstyles. The bar of Hungern’s hunger (which is seen above and indicated via colors) increases when Umbrella hitgrabs and throws you (aka when Hungern chews and spits you out), but decreases the moment Umbrella uses Hungern to do hits.

• Starving: This is Hungern at its weakest form (and is practically the lowest tier in the game because of that), as you can notice it’s starving to consume or at least chew something. While at this state, it is slow, weak, can’t do any bubble specials that we’ll mention below, and its Under the Weather move (which we’ll also mention later) is also at its weakest. The only benefit is that it has the most damage from throws and hitgrabs.
• Ravenous: Hungern is still hungry but in this pretty short state his other stats also increase, all of his attacks become much faster, he still hitgrabs you stronger than before, and on top of all that, one of Umbrella’s ults, Retina Reflector is at its strongest here.
• Satiated: This is Hungern’s normal state, he is not overstuffed, but neither is he starving, so all stats and moves here are the most “normal” so to speak.
• Overstuffed: This is pretty much the entire opposite of Starving Hungern. While it is just as slow as Hungern at its Starving state, its damage from any of the attacks further increases. Its bubble specials enhance much further as well, and in this state Under the Weather move is at its strongest. Oppositely to Starving Hungern, Overstuffed Hungern does less damage when throwing and hitgrabbing.

Bubble State

Upon using plenty of moves that we’ll mention below, Umbrella can inflict a unique on-hit property called Bubble State. In this state the opponent is trapped inside a bubble for a considerable time, and is then ejected while still in hitstun. This essentially gives Umbrella enough time to do a lot of stuff, either build up any of her combos or setups, tag in another character, build resources for other characters (this if Umbrella is fighting alongside someone), convert from moves that are not usually possible to convert from, and a lot, a lot more. How long the foe is in Bubble State depends practically on how far from the ground her opponent is (in other words, as long as the bubble does not touch the ground, her foe will be trapped in it).

Side Note: Not all of Umbrella’s moves that involve bubbles inflict Bubble State, some just damage the opponent or have other functions. The moves that do inflict Bubble State however will be clarified below in her moveset.

Puddle

Umbrella via various means, can create puddles by using Hungern’s drool. Said Puddles can be used to enhance a variety of her moves, damage and range wise. Which moves are enhanced by Umbrella utilising Puddles you can see above, they will be also listed below within her moveset as the ones that can be used with puddles.

Pushblock

Now it is slightly harder to elaborate on, but as one knows in a fighting game you often can be pressured, and with long enough pressure, you can’t just block all day long, and at some point you gotta counter attack! Now how do you do that in Skullgirls?

The answer is, pushblock! Pushblock pushes the opponent away and out of range of most attacks, often ending block pressure for them. It's safe to do, doesn't cost a resource, and forces counterplay from the opponent. Umbrella, much like everyone in the Skullgirls cast, can do pushblock both on ground, while crouching and in the air. Here is also an extended tutorial if there are people curious on how to implement pushblock in-game, not completely research necessary but who knows how curious a reader could be.

Burst

If Umbrella is being wombo-comboed for way too long she can break the combo by bursting (in this context, constantly hitting Hungern, causing him to spread really quick) pushing the opponent far from herself, allowing to get momentum for a comeback. With all of that out of the way let’s now get to some fighting moves.

Side Note: No Filias were harmed during the recording

Lips Stick

Hungern quickly smooches you with its lips.

Skewer Spewer

Umbrella first slides forward with Hungern’s sharp teeth and then opens and spins him quickly around, allowing for a quick combo.

Grand Slam

Umbrella pulls Hungern back and then slams him into the opponent really hard, causing her foes to be sent far away, especially if Hungern is Overstuffed. On top of that by using this move Umbrella can also reflect thrown projectiles at her as she is playing tennis against you (even if it is a homing attack)!

Cupkick

Umbrella basically turns back and quickly kicks you, a solid follow up for a combo.

Shin Dig

Umbrella now uses her other leg to kick you slightly harder, though what’s more impressive is that if there is a puddle nearby, by kicking it she also basically shoots that small wave of puddle at you as well, dealing more damage and even slightly stunning.

Rough Housing

Umbrella runs at you and quickly grabs your neck/body by Hungern’s crook handle, after grabbing you, she then quickly slams you into the ground mid air, allowing her to follow up with any other moves.

Mlem

Mlem

Tongue Lash

Here Hungern is basically used as if he was a frog gun which you could aim at others, making his tongue as damaging as a lash, hence the name of a move.

Salt Lick

Umbrella’s two hit launcher during which Hungern basically licks you while sending upwards allowing Umbrella to set up aerial combos.

Rain Boot

Umbrella basically just crouches and hits you on legs with her rain boots (hence the name).

Puddle Stomp

As the name implies Umbrella basically jumps on land really hard as if she was trying to splash a puddle, causing a small shockwave affecting nearby foe, impressively enough if she actually stomps on a puddle, then a nearby opponent will be launched in the air also allowing her to do aerial combos.

See You Next Fall

Umbrella uses Hungern’s crook handle again, but instead of neck this time she targets foe’s legs, making her opponent, you guessed it, fall. Giving her just enough momentum to use any other moves while the opponent tries to get back on their legs.

Taste Test

Umbrella basically opens up Hungern mid air with his tongue aiming diagonally down, useful to use if the opponent happens to be below her.

Melon Splitter

Umbrella BONKS you in the air very hard while covering a good amount of area in both air and ground, allowing her to hit the target at any position.

Ice Cream Swirl

Basically Umbrella and Hungern are vertically spinning themselves at fast speeds as if they were in a Sonic game, while concluding it by a slam on ground. In Starving state, it doesn’t work that much, in Ravenous state, Umbrella and Hungern spin even faster, while in Overstuffed state, it doesn’t spin but slams in the ground much harder.

KickFlurry

Umbrella kicks you really fast in mid-air, following up her other combinations.

Budding Grace

Umbrella, mimicking her sister’s graceness, basically opens Hungern up in mid-air, sending his drool at the opponent, before falling into the ground. During that moment she can also slightly glide in the air before Hungern snaps back, falling and also damaging foe that way. If she falls into the puddle, the effect of her fall would also spread similarly to puddle stomp.

Carousel Kick

Umbrella basically pulls out a good ol’ tatsumaki mid-air.

Tight Squeeze

Umbrella hugs Hungern so hard that she literally squeezed out his eyes, while said eyes sharpen their eyelashes, this is overall a good move to cover from air to the ground, acting as practically an anti-air move in close combat.

Overbite

Umbrella leaps forward into the air as Hungern takes a downward chomp.

Cliff Hanger

Umbrella holds Hungern above her head as he grows taller and then slams him down. While growing Umbrella can also hit whoever is above her, but most importantly here is the longer Umbrella holds Hungern, the harder she proceeds to slam him into the ground.

Appetizer

Hungern eats you, and then spews out leaving you at the aforementioned Bubble State. Even allowing to follow up with combinations like in example above.

Acid Reflux

Same thing as above except Hungern grabs you like a frog mid-air.

Merry Pop-in

When being tagged in Skullgirls while everyone else jumps in, Umbrella seems to be just…inside of Hungern, flying in as Hungern spews her out. Well now it is a lot more reasonable for her to wear a raincoat as you can see.

Gesundheit

“We’re allergic to YOU!”

Basically Umbrella’s snapback during which she can throw her opponent also really far away, in context Umbrella does it by making Hungern sneeze really hard. In context of being put against several foes this forces one of her opponents to temporarily go unconscious forcing their other teammate to come out into the fight.

Tongue Twister

“Oh, you have to jump that.”

Hungern rolls out his tongue in an attempt to grab the opponent, reeling them in and chewing on them before spitting them out. The tongue is very long and can be used almost across the entire stage, the only real way to countermeasure it is by jumping it.

Salt Grinder

Hungern chomps and grinds up whoever is in front of him, staggering on the way out. This probably hurts the most out of all the moves…

Slurp ‘n’ Slide

Umbrella mounts Hungern and slides forward like a skateboard, stopping either by traveling the full distance or once it hits the foe. At Ravenous state she can even slide much further, and if Umbrella makes contact with a puddle during the move, Hungern can practically slide across the entire stage.

Hungern Rush

Hungern lunges upward, eating anyone in his path before falling downward, while Umbrella rides him as if she were on a dolphin. In turn this also lets Umbrella follow up with other moves and keeps Hungern from starving. If Hungern is Overstuffed he will instead just bite and move as seen above.

Cutie Ptooie

“Is this a pigeon?”

Umbrella gets distracted by a butterfly while Hungern spits out an arching eyeball bubble projectile, eating said butterfly afterwards. The more Hungern is satiated the further bubbles will go.

Bobblin’ Bubble

Hungern burps a pretty big Bubble with enough drool to make a puddle, Umbrella in turn can either hit an opponent causing a bubble to hit an opponent nearby as well, or Umbrella can literally just jump on it, causing her to hop really high and very fast.

Wish Maker

Umbrella plants Hungern in the ground and blows a bubble that travels just short of half of fullscreen. Said bubble on contact with anyone causes them to be trapped in a Bubble State.

Retina Reflector

This is a pretty much nightmare for all zoners out there.Inspired by Urien’s Aegis Reflector, Umbrella uses Hungern’s own eyes to create basically an energy shield which in turn reflects all projectiles back. On top of that this energy shield will also damage anyone on contact allowing for Umbrella to build up for another combo. Umbrella can also just hit those eyes to use them as a projectile against a foe. This obviously disables the shield but in turn those eyes fly at the target much faster, sticking to the opponent and exploding like small bombs.

Retina Reflector: Contact Lens

Instead of creating a barrier with eyes, Umbrella charges Hungern up for a powerful blast which at close distance sends opponents really far as well as deals damage.

Under the Weather

Basically Hungern tears so much that for a few seconds Umbrella causes the massive rain while also sending out several of his eye-bubbles into foes, dealing a lot of damage. Umbrella can control where to target these bubbles, as she can use them either offensively and move them forward, or use them defensively and keep them near herself, which at bare least countermeasures any airborne attacks.

Feeding Time

Umbrella’s strongest move. Hungern massively increases in size and grabs an opponent, afterwards proceeding to straight up eat her opponents. At this point you are basically at Umbrella and Hungern’s mercy as either Hungern spits you out through its lower parts, or he just straight up swallows you…

Umbrella’s signature variants (Skullgirls Mobile)

And now we’re entering into territory of various Umbrella variants, each one has different effects throughout the fight, as mentioned earlier we’re gonna composite all of those into one, but for clarification it’s worth pointing out which one does what (remember to look back to Modifiers if you forgot what do they do in the first place):

Name & Look of the variant	Signature Ability 1	Signature Ability 2
	Once per match, gain BLESSING and 3 stacks of ENRAGE for 5/7/10 seconds when falling below 35% HEALTH.	While benefiting from ENRAGE, THROWS have a 50% chance to inflict BLEED for 5/7/10 seconds.
	DASH ATTACKS have a 50/75/100% chance on hit to DISABLE opponent BLOCKBUSTERS for 10 seconds.	Gains 25/35/50% BLOCKBUSTER METER when defeating an opponent whose BLOCKBUSTERS are DISABLED.
	While Umbrella is alive, all teammates gain 1 stack each of BARRIER and THORNS for 5/7/10 seconds for every 25% HEALTH lost.	While Umbrella is alive, she clears all teammate DEBUFFS every 30/25/20 seconds.
	Opponents lose 1 BUFF every 4/3/2 seconds while near a puddle.	While not Ravenous, Umbrella gains 3/4/5% HEALTH whenever an opponent loses a BUFF.
	Gain REGEN every 5/4/3 seconds while Overstuffed. REGEN is removed when KNOCKED DOWN.	Once per match, gain permanent HASTE when reaching 5/4/3 stacks of REGEN.
	While not Overstuffed, Umbrella's THROW HITS have a 20% chance to DRAIN 10/12/15% of the opponent's BLOCKBUSTER METER.	Inflict 2 stacks of SLIME for 10/12/15 seconds when the opponent is KNOCKED DOWN.
	While Ravenous, inflict DOOM for 15 seconds when an opponent's HEALTH drops below 25/35/50%. DOOM is removed if Umbrella tags out or is defeated.	When defeating an opponent, gain 3 stacks of PRECISION and 3 stacks of a BUFF determined by the opponent's ELEMENT for 10/12/15 seconds. So if the opponent's element is Air, Umbrella gets REGEN, Fire = ENRAGE, Water = ARMOR, Dark = THORNS, Light = BLESSING, Neutral = BARRIER.
	Puddle HITS grant IMMUNITY for 10/12/15 seconds.	While benefitting from IMMUNITY, BUBBLE attacks deal 25/35/50% bonus damage. Also DISABLE BLOCKBUSTERS and inflict ARMOR BREAK for 15 seconds each (also applies on blocked hits).
	All BUBBLE attacks have a 35% chance on HIT to inflict POWER SURGE for 10/12/15 seconds (also applies on blocked hits).	When reaching 3 stacks of POWER SURGE, the opponent loses 50% BLOCKBUSTER METER and suffers damage equal to 50/75/100% of Umbrella's attack.
	When hitting an attacking opponent, gain DEADEYE and inflict INVERSE POLARITY for 10/12/15 seconds each.	50/75/100% chance to reset the timers of all Umbrella's BUFFS and all opponent DEBUFFS except STUN and DOOM when the opponent bounces off a wall.
	Gain EVASION for 7 seconds and grant all teammates 1/2/3% HEALTH every 5 seconds while not suffering a HIT (includes blocked hits).	Every 15/12/10 COMBO HITS while benefiting from a BUFF, transfer 1 opponent BUFF to self and grant teammates ENRAGE for 30 seconds.
	Well-timed BLOCKS have a 50/75/100% chance to grant 1 stack each of PRECISION, BARRIER and BLESSING.	50% chance when using a BLOCKBUSTER while Ravenous to convert 1/2/3 BUFF(S) into permanent ENRAGE.
	Umbrella starts the match with UNFLINCHING for 5/7/10 seconds and 2 stacks of permanent ARMOR. ARMOR is removed if Umbrella has no living teammates.	While Umbrella is alive, teammates gain HASTE and FINAL STAND for 10 seconds every 30/25/20 seconds.
	When TAGGING from Umbrella, the incoming Fighter gains 3 stacks of ENRAGE, 3 stacks of MIASMA, and IMMUNITY for 15/18/20 seconds each at the cost of up to 35/30/25% of Umbrella's MAX HEALTH.	When Umbrella TAGS IN, gain 3 stacks of EVASION, 3 stacks of REGEN, and IMMUNITY for 10/12/15 seconds each and DRAIN 25/30/35% BLOCKBUSTER METER from the opponent.

Hug It Out

Awww, just look at them…oh also it causes Hungern to drop his Hunger meter down to 0 eventually, so you gotta be really flexing if you want to use it mid-combat…

Resistances

Life Absorption: Due to Umbrella being a Skullgirl, having so much power/life force inside of her, Hungern’s absorption of life energy has caused no ill effects on her.

Stats Reduction: Via ENRAGE and IMMUNITY

Death Manipulation: Via FINAL STAND and IMMUNITY

Bleeding: Via IMMUNITY and REGEN

Power Nullification: Via IMMUNITY

Stun: Via IMMUNITY

Buff Negation: Via IMMUNITY

Forms

Hat Kid

Mud Kid

Spooked yet? If Hat Kid somewhere in some way will fall into a puddle her appearance will change from small kid into a very spooky eye glowing alien, so scary that all of the ruthless Mafia Goons immediately run away upon seeing her like that. It can be any sort of puddle really, so she better watch her step!

Umbrella

Skullgirl Umbrella

So, in her story mode despite her Skullgirl origins Umbrella was able to save the world from its doom. But what if, instead of going through various fighters and both fight and reason with them, Umbrella was immediately given a Skull Heart. Well then, she turns from an innocent girl to one of the most violent monsters (not only physically but also verbally…) controlled and corrupted by Skull Heart. Skill wise she remains the same, Hungern still has his shapeshifting abilities though also controlled by Skull Heart. However she theoretically gains more of Skullgirls powers in this state, such as more passive flight, skeleton thematics in her attacks, possibly even abilities of other Skullgirls like fire control, shadow figures, creation of massive kaiju sized forms and even regeneration from nothing as long as Skull Heart stays in one piece (basically anything other Skullgirls can do).

Should be noted however that despite hypothetically Umbrella being able to achieve this form, she shouldn’t be given it normally under any circumstances, for somewhat identical reasons as to why Hat Kid wouldn’t normally use Time Pieces in combat, aside from being specific it would simply just be way too out of character. [See Before the verdict]

Feats

Hat Kid

Overall

• Defeated Mafia Boss, The Conductor/DJ Grooves, The Snatcher, The Illness and Mustache Girl
• Practically slightly pacified Mafia Town after dethroning its boss.
• Successfully filmed in all of Conductor and DJ Grooves’ movies, making them hit success and resulting in one of the two getting The Annual Bird Award
• Has cleared all of Snatcher’s contracts.
• Served well in the Arctic Cruise.

• Also successfully saved everyone in the Arctic Cruise during the crash (which admittedly she herself caused)

• Managed to steal and escape from the Nyakuza
• Threw down Mustache Girl’s regime, during which she was killing anyone she didn’t consider to be good enough.
• Ultimately despite all of her conflicts, was understanding and kind enough to befriend almost all of the planet’s inhabitants (even if messing up sometimes), to the point that they were risking their own lives in order for her to succeed.
• Cleared all of Snatcher’s Death Wish contracts (which are much, much harder than average ones…)

Power

• There’s a metal gear sandwich in Hat Kid’s ship, implying she can eat Gears for Breakfast.
• Launched a Mafia Goon REALLY far.
• Spun a giant faucet handle very fast. 
• Smashes through a train’s window.
• Can lift several objects or people at once with a single hand and still move like nothing (including baby owls, toolkits, food, etc. all at once technically with no limit)

• This includes Walrus Captain, who is…well…a Walrus (1 Metric Ton)

• Can blow up large crates with the Brewing Hat.
• Can flatten a small UFO by jumping in it.

Speed

• Can outrun cannonballs.
• Can outrun homing missiles.
• Can precisely fall from space to the planet, even to an already moving train. (Mach 25 - Mach 2168.22)
• Can dodge octopus’ electricity (even underwater)
• Raced with a Mafia Goon in a rocket and won (can do that even without Time Stop Hat)
• Can dodge and outrun electricity in the wire. (3.84 c)

Durability

• Can survive being yeeted from Mafia Goon’s punch
• Can survive electricity shocks
• Can also survive being damaged from hot temperatures like fire and lava
• Can survive explosions from a homing missile.
• Can survive explosions from the cherries in Subcon Forest, which are strong enough to destroy large ice walls. (0.04 Tons of TNT.)
• Tanked an extremely long fall from space with no injuries whatsoever. It’s implied she does this every time she enters a level. (0.23 Tons of TNT - 2.113 Kilotons of TNT)

Umbrella

Overall

• Defeated Filia, Cerebella alongside Eliza, Beowulf and Painwheel in a span of a single day
• Bested Parasoul and Egrets in combat after being trained by her for years.
• Killed Marie - The Skullgirl of New Era, as well as destroyed The Skull Heart.

• Possibly (keyword possibly) even destroyed The Skull Heart permanently, unlike in most of other story modes, due to her natural connection through it with blood.

• Befriended Filia and Carol and even reunited them with each other.

• As well as managed to help Carol break out of Brain Drain’s mind control and live on as she is right now, something that she practically only was able to do in Filia’s story mode at the cost of the latter eventually becoming a Skullgirl.

• By achieving all aforementioned feats have shown, that despite her rather dark origins, that she’s still kind and understanding enough to do good even if sometimes messing up (as a matter of fact, what she achieved in her story is probably one of the most happiest ending out of all Skullgirls story modes and that’s saying something).
• Finally got herself in the game as the last of the original 8 Skullgirls characters.

Power

• Can launch her foes across the entire stage
• Hungern can grab and devour all of the combatants in Skullgirls, while Umbrella can hold Hungern during the process.

• This includes the heaviest combatant of all, Big Band, whose entire body is practically giant pieces of metal. (2.5 Metric Tons)

• Can hit strong enough to destroy a whole bike.
• Hungern was stated to be an “insatiable devourer of people, armies, civilizations, and everything in-between” by Samson.

• According to Samson, Hungern can eat half of the New Meridian, which given the situation at hand is implied to be something he could do in a very short notice. New Meridian is considered to be a megacity, likely similar to other megacities in size.

Speed

• As mentioned earlier, just flies…
• Can dodge and block Parasoul’s gunshots
• Can also block shots from Egret’s sniper rifle
• Can block Big Band’s barrage of punches
• Can dodge and block Robo-Fortune’s and Peacock’s lasers.
• Can dodge and block Sagan Beam’s cosmic rays which move at near light speed

Durability

• Can survive and block various gunshots.

• Including Parasoul and Egret’s mass shootings.

• Can survive getting rammed by a barrage of bikes.
• Can block Peacock’s and Robo-Fortune’s lasers (either via normal means or just protecting herself by Retina Reflector)
• Can survive and block fire from Leviathan.
• Can survive and block various explosions, most notably from Peacock’s big bomb called Lonesome Lenny.

Scaling

Hat Kid

Mafia Town Residents

Hat Kid’s very first adventure in the game was her and Mustache Girl overthrowing Mafia regime, which eventually not only Hat Kid managed to casually beat tens of Mafia Goons, but also at the end managed to beat Mafia Boss himself, as well as later even racing and saving Mafia Town from being filled with lava. All in all Hat Kid should easily scale to them.

• A Mafia Goon could shatter Hat Kid’s window with its fist. [Partially Applicable; Don’t See Before the Verdict, have context now instead]
• The same Mafia Goon also survives the fall from orbit that was caused by this. 
• Mafia Boss rolls around the giant Mafia Ball.
• Mustache Girl was able to send a few Mafia Goons flying.
• Steve from work sent a postcard from the sun to a Tourist. (Mach 721 - Mach 2524) [See Before the Verdict]

• Mafia can survive indefinitely on Lava
• At the end of the game, a Mafia Goon along with the rest of the cast was able to catch Hat Kid’s ship right when it was going full speed (1.93 Million xFTL) [See Before the Verdict]

Subcon Forest Residents

Hat Kid’s third spookiest adventure that she was having somewhat simultaneously with her second one, was her being obliged to clear The Snatcher’s contracts, which involved her going through various tasks at hand, whether it is to help suicidal firefoxes, clean the toilet, fight the toilet, steal from a very VERY angry and scary ex wife and more. For Hat Kid all of that was no big (but scary) deal. At the end Hat Kid even had to fight The Snatcher himself who is pretty much the strongest, or at least the main bad of the forest, meaning realistically Hat Kid should scale to his feats and feats of other spooky residents of the forest.

• A possessed toilet could shake the whole area where it was fighting Hat Kid.
• Queen Vanessa froze the majority of Subcon Forest. (1.63 Megatons of TNT) [See Before the Verdict]
• Snatcher creates huge pillars of fire.

• Snatcher’s Death Wishes potentially reality warp the locations of the contracts [See Before the Verdict]

Miscellaneous Cast (Birds, Cats, and more!)

In addition, while these characters are a bit less impressive, Hat Kid had some small adventures in various movies, mountains, arctic cruise and nyakuza metro, where she had to fight off yakuza cats (even Goro Majima from the hit game series Yakuza???), help the crew with its internal ship problems, fight against various birds including The Conductor and/or DJ Grooves or even go against The Illness that was spreading across mountains along with Goats that were corrupted by it. Naturally given Hat Kid managed to tank hits from the main boss of Nyakuza, fought back against all these cats, birds, The Illness itself, as well as heavily carried ship crew throughout the cruise, she should scale to all of these minor feats that happen within these stories.

• The Conductor and DJ Grooves can stab REALLY REALLY fast.
• The Conductor and DJ Grooves can create shockwaves by smashing their disco balls in the ground
• The Illness caused an absolutely massive storm by spreading its pollen. (156.23-546.82 Teratons of TNT)
• The Empress can kill Cats in one hit with her claws.

Time Pieces

Last but not least is the main mcguffin of the game - Time Pieces! Although despite its name, and what purpose some of Hat Kid’s foes were intended, its abilities seemingly were beyond mere time manipulation, as Mustache Girl was empowered by them to make her own justice. As well as later on via similar in nature Death Wish Time Pieces, other bosses in A Hat in Time were empowered for a fight. Hat Kid managed to beat both Mustache Girl and later on others who were using the Death Wish version of Time Pieces, so naturally Hat Kid should scale to feats Time Pieces were powerful enough to do.

• Mustache Girl warped the entire planet, creating what seems like an “alternate reality” by transforming it into a mostly lava and volcano covered wasteland. (2.13 Exatons of TNT) [See Before the Verdict]
• With just a single Time Piece Mustache Girl was able to create Hyperzone - a Pocket Dimension filled with stars.
• Similarly one of Time Rifts generated by a Time Piece, could also recreate a starry sky. (16,880,000 TeraFoe) [See Before the Verdict]

• And also was able to create seas filled with clocktowers and skyscrapers

• Time Pieces power Hat Kid’s spaceship and everything what is inside of it, including this alternate dimension transporter which collapses dimensions so that other Hat Kids would co-exist with each other (56x-2800x Uni, Possibly Higher) [See Before the Verdict]

Umbrella

Living Weapon Users

Well, let’s start from one department where Umbrella specializes at. As a living weapon user herself, Umbrella needed plenty of skill to utilize Hungern in a good way, and Hungern himself is considered to be a highly dangerous creature out there. So with Hungern’s status, and Umbrella’s record against other Living Weapon users (including her own sister Parasoul), she should be just as powerful as each of them.

• With Vice-Versa, Cerebella, while walking on tight ropes, can lift 2 Elephants. (10 Metric Tons)
• Cerebella by using her Living Weapon Vice-Versa can not only lift an entire chunk of rock off the ground, but also punch it hard enough to turn it into a diamond.
• Parasoul can spin her own Living Weapon Krieg fast and precise enough for Black Egret’s guns to pass through its napalm eyes.
• By using Krieg, Parasoul can also create an explosion big enough to block the road for Ms Fortune.
• Also by using Kreig (presumably) created a massive explosion in a fight against Peacock.
• King Franz (Father of Parasoul and Umbrella) was using another umbrella-shaped living weapon Eroberung to kill his wife Queen Nancy - one of the most violent Skullgirls.

• Eroberung is also stated to be partially responsible for the way No Man’s Land is after the war. No Man’s Land is a collection of countries/territories that were affected during the war between three nations, since they were separating them, essentially filling the distances in-between these nations, which are stated to be “roughly the equivalent of the distances between Europe, Russia and the Middle East”.

Lab Creations

And with her win record against aforementioned characters, Umbrella should also safely scale to various creations made to fight against Skullgirls. Most notably Umbrella defeated one of those designed weapons - Painwheel who also was controlled to be bloodlusted by Brain Drain. There are several labs that are designed with the purpose of essentially eliminating Skullgirls, but the most notable ones are projects of Lab 8 and Lab 0

• Painwheel can spin her claws in the spine fast enough to make herself fly, heavily impressive given her weight. (170 kg)
• Robo Fortune can shoot lasers out of her eyes and from her other blockbusters. [Debatable; See Before the Verdict]
• Robo Fortune’s heads can create small explosions.
• Robo Fortune also can just “self-explode”
• Peacock, can pull out various heavy objects, either physically or via her hammerspace, like:

• A fish, a cup, a bag, a bowling ball, a glass bottle, a pot with a plant…
• Iron made beings such as Andy Anvil and Tommy Ten-Tons…
• A TV, a large spike ball, an iron safe, a drum can from Final FIght, a sink, Ms Fortune’s head in Touhou art style(???)…
• A large grand piano…
• A fridge…
• An elephant…
• Even more spike balls Hsien-Ko style…
• Lenny who is a giant bomb…
• 🗿
• DIO’s Road Roller

• Peacock can very casually lift Andy Anvil and Tommy Ten-Tons.
• Peacock crashed into a tree hard enough to curve it.
• Peacock with her heavy hammer was able to crash the ground around her.
• Peacock’s Lenny and other bombs can cause human sized explosions.
• Peacock also exploded the door in her lab.
• Peacock via Argus Agony shoots “Laser Bolts”. [Debatable; See Before the Verdict]
• Avery, Peacock’s bird, is stated to be a super computer who helps her process hammerspace/BFR methods.
• Due to Big Band’s sheer size and mass, he manages to shake the entire stage where fights can happen via his moves, whether it be nearby cars alongside a ship, on a train, inside of a building and so on.
• Surprisingly despite his sheer size, Big Band can punch at frequently high speeds, creating afterimages with his punches JoJo style (even with MudaMudas as his voicelines)

Parasites

These are perhaps the most common characters within Skullgirls universe, as plenty of characters even within the roster have one (hell, some aforementioned creations of Lab 0 and 8 utilize parasites, like Peacock and Painwheel), Umbrella herself has fought several people who use parasites, such as Filia from the start of her story mode, and even Eliza (alongside Cerebella) right after. To put you into a perspective, Eliza is one of the most feared characters in lore, as well as a person who originally made people fear Parasites in the past, and on top of that is the one who even Double (one of the rather cold-blooded characters in Skullgirls) hates, while Umbrella defeated that Eliza while the latter had assistance. Naturally Umbrella should scale to every single parasite and their hosts.

• Filia can spin at frequently high speeds, as if she was a hedgehog of sorts
• Filia’s parasite - Samson, is strong enough to burrow underground and quick enough to move it as fast as a drill, via Ringlet Spike
• Samson also was able to just casually knock out this fellow medici goon in a single hit.
• Fukua most certainly broke that mirror with her indomitable clone spirit (oh and would ya look at that, Umbrella and Annie are also here)…
• Squigly can incinerate Double’s entire body.
• Squigly pierced Marie’s chest.
• Eliza moved a lot of blood while rising upwards. (technically some other substance but for all intents and purposes still basically blood)
• Eliza also presumably filled her palace with blood.
• Later, Eliza uses that blood to create several floor building sized kaiju.
• Annie by using her parasite Sagan could carry: people of Medici Circus, Lab 8 workers, Ms. Fortune, and the Black Egrets all at once out of Gehenna - Double’s domain.
• Annie’s move “Destruction PIllar” is stated to move at a speed approaching escape velocity (Mach 32.61)
• Annie can use Sagan Beam, this beam is stated to be made out of cosmic rays, which move at near light speed

• Other characters are able to block Sagan Beam at close distances (2.56с - 5.45c)

• With Annie’s super move, “Meteor Strike” she can hurtle forward at such high speed that the very air around her gets compressed, generating an intense heat.
• Another Annie’s super move, “Gravity Collapse” is stated to increase the density of Annie’s star power, causing gravitational collapse (201.05 Teratons-2.01 Petatons of TNT)

Miscellaneous Cast (Nurse, Nun, Cat, and more!)

Among other various weird phenomenons there are some characters who are to say the least, are very unique on their own, whether it be an immortal thief, a secret nurse ninja, a shapeshifting nun, a heartless mafia’s mercenary. All have fought and crossed paths of other characters in Skullgirls stories, have won or have been defeated. Umbrella herself also managed to defeat one rather unknown wrestler, Beowulf (you might have heard of him a bit while reading this blog). Ultimately by virtue of fighting aforementioned cast all of whom have fought each other in one way or another, Umbrella should scale to their feats as well.

• One of the Black Egrets - Panzerfaust, can destroy a giant metal door in a few punches.
• Panzerfaust can also punch hard enough to accidentally make a hole in the floor.
• By just sneezing Ms Fortune can launch her head upwards.
• Ms Fortune can spin her own head fast like a drill.
• Ms Fortune can very quickly tie her foe up in her own blood veins as if it is a yarn cats play with. (yuck)
• Valentine can move so fast it appears like she is teleporting.

• Twice

• Valentine can also move quick enough to create afterimages.
• Valentine can hit the ground with AED Paddles so hard she sends her opponents upwards.
• Beowulf is so strong that he somehow can just rip an entrance directly from devs for himself(???)
• Beowulf could tear off the arm of Grendel, a Gigan who was massively larger than him, later on long after Grendel’s death when all of a sudden (due to Skullgirl involvement) his severed arm came back to life (which mind you is still much larger than Beowulf’s body), Beowulf was still able to casually carry it and use as a weapon.
• Beowulf even did that again once Grendel was fully “revived” so to speak.
• Beowulf can also send your waifu into trash
• Black Dahlia can use her arm canon with various ammunition such as:

• A regular ammunition which just explodes.
• Buckshot ammunition which shoots like a shotgun strong enough to send foes across the stage.
• Fire ammunition which fires its targets.
• Ice ammunition which instantly freezes anyone.
• Lighting ammunition which shocks any of her opponents.
• Railgun ammunition which shoots straight light beams, which other characters can block (1.22c-25.7c) [See Before the Verdict]

• Black Dahlia can also somehow move quick enough for her to disappear and reappear wherever her doily lies (Is evidently confirmed her being just that fast to do so rather than teleportation in one of the twitch streams)
• Black Dahlia can fire/explode everything around with her oil barrel.
• Black Dahlia can also toss a dynamite and explode her foes with it.
• Like a terrifying badass she is, Black Dahlia flew in a jetpack at intense speeds shooting a jetpack right into Marie who was holding Medici’s Skyscraper, causing the explosion powerful enough to destroy the latter.
• As a shapeshifter Double can transform into (and fight as) many beings made of various material and physiology, such as:

• A giant hand with teeth
• Peacock and her car alongside her other companions
• That one crocodile from Cave Story
• Several Ms Fortune heads all of which can also spin fast like a drill
• 🗿
• Tommy Ten-Tons, Filia, Parasoul, Painwheel, Cerebella, Umbrella herself, Peacock, Ms Fortune, Andy Anvil, Valentine, Squigly and Mrs Victoria (Tutorial Lady who in lore is literally just an average school teacher) all in a matter of 7 seconds.

• Double has full control over Gehenna, which is a semi-pocket dimension that’s essentially part of her and runs under the entire West Continent, if not the whole world. Double maintains it and can choose to collapse it whenever she pleases. She even was able to nearly pull it off against Annie forcing the latter to retreat. (575.13 Teratons-2.75 Petatons-33.7 Petatons of TNT) [See Before the Verdict]

Skullgirls (+ Skull Heart)

At last but not least, the very main final boss, main antagonist and cause of the conflict - Skullgirls and the source of their power - Skull Heart! Each 7 years, Skull Heart finds itself a new host, new Skullgirl to terrorise the world with, and often it takes plenty of forces to take one down, hence multiple people have been creating various countermeasures shall a new Skullgirl rise once more. Umbrella happens to be determined enough to beat a Skullgirl herself in her story mode as well as destroying Skull Heart. Naturally considering Umbrella not only killed one of the Skullgirls but also fought and scales to characters that also have fought and killed other Skullgirls in the past (or other presents), and considering that Umbrella is quite literally a Skullgirl herself, she should scale to their feats as well.

• Queen Renoir parts clouds (0.036 tons of TNT)
• Marie simply by thinking both intercepted and burnt both bullets and people aimed at her.
• Marie generated an explosion big enough to break the glass in the Medici Tower.
• Marie throws the Medici Tower at Lorenzo (3.49 kilotons of TNT and 1.861.300.642 Metric Tons)
• In Black Dahlia’s story mode, Marie also tanks Black Dahlia’s precisely aimed jetpack which seemingly caused destruction of skyscraper.
• Skullgirls’ entire purpose is destroying the world as agents of Trinity.
• Skull Heart (probably via its flight methods) was able to dodge Black Dahila’s Railgun shot. (0.45c) [See Before the Verdict]
• Upon Black Dahlia’s wish to “live for nothing but the thrill, and know that nothing else exists.” and to “everyone to face that truth and come away knowing what their true selves are.” Skull Heart reshapes the entire world to her likeness. (likely 183.24-646.57 Petatons of TNT, possibly higher) [See Before the Verdict]

Weaknesses

Hat Kid

True to her name, Hat Kid wouldn’t be herself if she weren’t…a kid. So naturally her childish traits are also to a degree, her weaknesses. She’s a bit naive from time to time, her sassiness can be rather disadvantageous occasionally and it’s not hard to intimidate her, especially if you are really old, these two old ladies were giving her creeps.

On top of that, Hat Kid is definitely more reliant on her equipment overall and doesn’t have much particular offensive powers on her own, shall you disarm her from hats she no longer would be able to use its abilities (which is something that has been done plenty of times in the game). And even then, even with Fast Hatter Badge taken into account, most of her hats still have cooldown so she can’t outright spam all of her hat powers, especially from the likes of Dweller Mask and Time Stop Hat. She also can wear only 3 badges simultaneously so she has to switch between them pretty quickly if she wants to use various effects each can give (especially considering plenty of them are overall cosmetics). And to add to her Tunche spiritual orbs, plenty of them either require some specific circumstances or don’t have a 100% guarantee to work, so you need to read all this fine print.

Umbrella

Very similarly, it’s important to remember that Umbrella is also a kid, so she naturally has somewhat identical weaknesses. Pretty naive, can be a bit too sassy for her own good and pretty possible to intimidate given her experience with one pretty scary old lady.

Practically speaking Umbrella also heavily relies on Hungern in her moveset, while she isn’t completely defenceless without him as some of her moves clearly involve her doing the kicking, Hungern usually is the one doing the main job in combat. From a fighting game perspective, it is also pretty hard to keep the track and take advantage of Hungern’s various states, especially Ravenous and Overstuffed, both of which last only a few moments for Umbrella to use her moves differently (such as Retina Reflector and eating moves operating better in Ravenous State but Under the Weather and other bubble moves operating better in Overstuffed State). To add onto with her Mobile shenanigans, similarly Umbrella can’t (or at least hasn’t shown to) use straight up all of the modifiers at once, each still requires some sort of a general setup, so you must also read fine print carefully.

Before the Verdict…

A Hat in Time and Skullgirls both are not exactly easy to discuss when it comes to stats, some power mechanics and some context of situations, given their quite ambiguous lore. So naturally, as you can notice by the sheer amount of “See Before the Verdict”s we’ve got here, there are a lot of clarifications that we must go through before the overall conclusion, so let’s go with each one step by step.

Both

Time Pieces and Skull Heart, cool powers and stuff, now how about actually using them in character…

This shouldn’t take particularly long but generally worth covering, both have a bit of a “““potential””” to go for their main mcguffins, Time Pieces for Hat Kid and Skull Heart for Umbrella, causing the former using all these various powers we’ve seen Time Piece do while Umbrella essentially turns into a Skullgirl. Despite potentially (very big focus on that word) these being their “strongest” appearances (ability wise) so to speak, they shouldn’t be using them realistically. Let’s start with Umbrella.

Umbrella while does have an alternate form in the game that basically makes her act and play like a Skullgirl, that perhaps for reasons that will be presented below even something that may even have happened at some point, shouldn’t generally apply to Umbrella as a whole despite other stuff that we gave to Umbrella that may seem identical. Aside from the fact that generally for her to turn into a Skullgirl, Double essentially must interfere into the fight and give her the Skull Heart (cause otherwise Umbrella just won’t have access to it), it also essentially goes against what Umbrella’s story mode tried to demonstrate her to be despite her already being a Skullgirl. So naturally we’ll discard that for Umbrella, at least in the average fight scenario. Thankfully no one seemed to genuinely argue that for the record, but it’s better be safe than sorry.

Now with Hat Kid, Time Pieces are something she collects throughout the entire game, they are something that rightfully belong to her, and is something she seems to know how to operate with. If Mustache Girl could use Time Pieces in a variety of ways, so could Hat Kid, no? Well there’s a difference between “could” and “would”, as even in the literal first Chapter, Mafia Town, we’re revealed that Hat Kid doesn’t want to use them in a way Mustache Girl wants to. This is what causes the conflict in the first place aside from her owning Time Pieces; it just isn’t a way how Hat Kid fights, nor does she want to use them in combat. Within the story of A hat in Time itself Hat Kid really only used Time Pieces once and it was to specifically undo what Mustache Girl did, while otherwise it practically mainly is just a fuel for her spaceship.

TL;DR: Despite Skull Heart and Time Pieces being very powerful artifacts which theoretically could be given to the combatants if you want to increase their power sets (and the ones that would still partially contribute to the debate), neither would willingly use them, as doing either would be practically going against who they are as a character. Speaking about Time PIeces though.

A Hat In Time

Wait a second, A Hat in Time isn’t about time???

Speaking about Hat Kid and her usage of Time Pieces, let’s go around the topic they both usually can be misrepresented as (which also will be important in consideration of later feats), that being well, is A Hat in Time really not all time centered? After all, she collects literal hourglasses that are called “Time Pieces” which can rewind time, and she calls herself “time travelling explorer” in the instruction manual, surely this means that the plot of the game and character is time involved.

This sentiment would’ve been true if you approach A Hat in Time from earlier development, at that time you could see some notes here and there of it having time shenanigans especially given we even see Hat Kid becoming a Hat Adult, presumably in a similar way Young Link becomes an Adult Link in Ocarina of Time (at least if picking the inspiration). But when it comes to the final product…

Well what can we say, guess the title was a bit misleading (on the flipside the other combatant’s franchise is called Skullgirls yet it had 0 playable Skullgirls until 2020s, makes you think🤔). Realistically the entire game is about almost everything but time with its various plots, given that for all purposes it is mainly a 3D platformer inspired by Classic 3D platformers notably Mario 64, Banjo & Kazooie and well, Psychonauts.

Time shenanigans originally already weren’t the main focus. Hell even when you look up the premise of A Hat in Time in Gears for Breakfast’s site you can now notice Hat Kid being called “space-travelling girl” instead. That being said, this section isn’t solely to lecture about a misleading title but also just to cover what Time Pieces do as a whole. When it comes to some arguments that will be presented lower, a counterargument that can be presented is it being some time ability instead. Aside from various story context that makes such argument unavailable to argue, let’s just do a quick comparison between Time Pieces doing and not doing time related powers:

Cases when Time Pieces did (or could do) something time related.

Cases when Time Pieces did literally anything that is NOT time related.

Reversed time once for a few seconds back when Mustache Girl accidentally dropped it DJ Grooves/Conductor wanted to use one to reverse time. Hat Kid used it once to reverse what Mustache Girl did.

Empowers Hat Kid’s ship as a fuel from the very beginning of the game (even is literally said doing so) Emitted really bright light that is possible to be seen from far away in the daytime, on mountains and on a far away iceberg. Created portal to a completely another dimension (on 11 occasions) Created dimensions based entirely on person’s past/memories if it hits someone, along with storybooks that directly tell about said past (on 10 occasions) Were used to create an “alternate reality” with the entire planet changed under Mustache Girl’s vision Empowered Mustache Girl throughout her entire boss fight Caused her to teleport across the battlefield Created a Pocket Dimension in a 2nd phase Upon being hit, create a dark blade-like energy attack Were used to create massive beams Used by Mustache Girl to cover herself with a forcefield.

To put it lightly, yeah the word “Time” may be very misleading here overall, as it is clearly not something A Hat in Time and Hat Kid are about, but most importantly for the debate side of things it is not something Time Pieces are limited to. Remember that for later.

Who the hell is this Steve From Work???

Ok so you might be sitting here reading this blog seeing all these feats from decently familiar characters if you’ve played and then you see one of the decently fast speed feats belonging to some Steve from work. Just who the hell is this guy and what is even going on???

Well, let’s start from the beginning, in the very first chapter in Mafia Town you meet this Tourist who is named…Tourist!

You must’ve at least seen him in Mafia Town right, right? While he isn’t largely plot relevant, he appears in almost every A Hat in Time chapter with his own subplot. You see, the guy actually has a small rivalry with a guy who is just known as “Steve from Work”. We never see that Steve guy in person as you only hear about him from a Tourist. But we know for a fact that this person exists and is not just someone Tourist made up, as Tourist actually tries to one up him.

Just for clarification, the order in which you can play A Hat in Time is a bit more free once you finish a few acts in the second chapter, which is why at first you meet The Tourist in Mafia Town where he tells about going to the moon then we (at least supposed to) see The Tourist in The Subcon Forest where he says Steve visited The Moon and that Tourist wants to visit it too. And only then when we actually are filming in The Moon ourselves we see The Tourist here as well, and here he mentions that the same Steve now sent a Postcard from The Sun. Considering the gap between Hat Kid visiting Subcon Forest and The Moon for a filming are at most just a few days (each Act of a chapter is considered as a separate day in Hat Kid’s diary), the result of Steve somehow doing all that turns out to be pretty fast.

Is the feat applicable? Well generally it is fair to disagree with this one under the premise that we don’t have too much context but considering that A Hat in Time characters are consistently have literally zero issues in being in space and considering that all of them can also just, very casually somehow travel from their planet to The Moon with zero issues and seemingly no space ships involved, it’s possible that this feat of traveling to the sun was done physically too. Hell The Tourist himself even implies that it is actually possible to get to the sun, somehow in some way Steve indeed got there:

Overall as weird as this feat is, it is pretty possible and open to argue considering everything that already happens in A hat in Time in mind, though it is fair if it’s not entirely for your liking.

Queen Vanessa scaling

Alright let’s get to a rather spooky topic but worth clarifying on. When going around doing The Snatcher’s business, Hat Kid is tasked to get a Time Piece from Queen Vanessa. If you haven’t heard about A Hat in Time because of dancing memes, you probably have because of this level notoriously being a lot scarier than any others, where Queen Vanessa even upon touching can basically kill Hat Kid. But Queen Vanessa herself also carries a potentially powerful feat, that being freezing a very big part of Subcon Forest, this feat is pretty powerful, 1.63 Megatons to be precise, given the huge area of the forest it covered as well as how quickly it happened with villagers being unable to escape, making for a good result with KE used. But given the nature of her levels shouldn’t it be impossible for Hat Kid and the rest of the cast to scale? Our team believes there to be a case for several reasons. First things first it’s probably worth addressing why Hat Kid can’t even fight back against Vanessa.

For one, whenever Queen Vanessa gets Hat Kid she doesn’t really kill her physically, her methods as seen in either of her two manors involves either quickly freezing or cursing you (in other words practically instantly killing like a grim reaper). Neither are conventional means so it doesn’t really mean she is physically superior to Hat Kid, she just has insta kill abilities so to speak. For two, as mentioned earlier, Hat Kid is afraid of old people, who Queen Vanessa just so happens to be, unknown to what degree old counts (given she’s definitely less afraid of The Snatcher but someone else like The Empress terrify her as well) but Vanessa seems to be extremely creepy in that case (it is a horror level after all). For three, within level itself Hat Kid was contractually handicapped, with all of her hats (besides Dweller’s Mask) being disabled. And within the game itself it doesn’t exactly make sense for Vanessa to be the strongest there is, at least with The Snatcher in mind. He is pretty much Subcon Forest’s final boss and furthermore, big bad of Death Wish DLC, making him practically a bigger deal than Vanessa and even in the context of Vanessa’s Curse DLC they are treated as somewhat equivalent forces who equally can help out their Hat Kids in their fight of Hide and Seek. The Snatcher doesn’t interact with Vanessa mainly because:

1. Child labor is a common deal for The Snatcher, his minions are kids and even with Hat Kid he was still messing with her within the context of his contracts at least.
2. She’s his ex, sounds self-explanatory.

It is obviously understandable if reasoning for scaling may be insufficient, and with all feats in mind scaling to her is definitely not a hill to die on, but the leeway for scaling is there.

MFTL+ or City level ship?

This should be quick. At the end of A Hat in Time when Hat Kid prepares to fly in her ship at full speed, in the first try it is stopped by Mafia Goon and the rest of main A Hat in Time cast. This obviously means that they were fast enough to react and stop the ship from going, which is pretty impressive, especially speed wise. From here, our research has come across two variants of how this feat is approached. First is a calculation done by Koolguy, to whom large credit goes (and greetings if you happen to read it…), the result of which gets 1.93 Millions Times FTL, this one assumes trajectory in a literal sense as we see the ship moving showing us the progress. The second calculation comes from VSBW, this calculation uses a more visual approach and calculates how far we see a ship to literally fly on screen. Speed gets much lower, down to Mach 348, but now also potentially works as a Kinetic Energy feat, with the result getting basically 9 Megatons of TNT. Both use different approaches to the same feat, the question is, which is more accurate?

Well, let’s take a more narrative approach here, remember, Hat Kid is 5 light years away from home, and all things considered it realistically shouldn’t have taken her too long to get back. Assuming the spaceship moves at just light speed (JUST light speed, not even faster than light), it would take Hat Kid 5 years (because 5 light years…duh…), and after that she won’t be a Hat Kid anymore, but rather a Hat Adult. And that is assuming it moved with just lightspeed let alone moving at Mach 348 (0.00039 times Speed of light), which would take Hat Kid approximately 12,565.54 YEARS. Don’t think we need to elaborate on how it is just narratively impossible and silly even in the context of A Hat in Time for the spaceship to move so slow that by the time Hat Kid will be home she’ll turn into a literal ashes. Practically if we’re to pick a side, the former (MFTL+) interpretation makes a lot more sense.

Contract(s) with The Snatcher

Another topic that somewhat is brought up within Hat Kid and A Hat in Time debates are her contracts with The Snatcher. There are two topics related to it so let’s start with a simpler one. Given Hat Kid’s contractual obligation, Hat Kid normally can’t die permanently within Death Wishes because of that. As The Snatcher himself says, he just doesn’t allow it and instead, resurrects her. Does this make Hat Kid technically immortal? By a contract yes, but there is a caveat because of which it normally isn’t really combat applicable, as again, she is immortal but only by a contractual obligation, because she is needed for The Snatcher so that she would do her part of whatever deal he gives. Normally Hat Kid isn’t really acquainted with The Snatcher as she did all of his contracts, meaning practically this potential immortality for Hat Kid is something only possible through outside help and preparation time by virtue of her getting to The Snatcher and making a deal with him. Which is not something you’d really expect Hat Kid to do midway through her fight.

The other thing though that is more important are Death Wish levels, the way Death Wish works is that The Snatcher basically takes previous levels Hat Kid went through and modifies them in his own way, practically reality warping them. So for instance making Lava Mafia Town level even hotter, so Hat Kid can get damage without proper hydration, or adding more owls to follow Hat Kid, or increasing Dead Bird Studio’s security, list goes on and you can notice it being The Snatcher’s doing as even level’s art changes with his influence, hell it was even implied that he is the reason why Subcon Forest changed to be so spooky. This is largely impressive, especially as an ability but we can’t say exactly if his reality warping shenanigans go beyond the level in range so it is rather ambiguous to measure its power, as majority of the levels aren’t particularly big or events not as large as some of other notable feats, performed by other characters and objects such as Time Pieces, speaking of those…

Time Pieces’ feats

Alright this is probably the most important part of A Hat in Time’s half of the blog. As you can tell Time Pieces are main objects Hat Kid collects in A Hat in Time, normally they’re known for rewinding time but within the vs community there are dozens of known and debated feats that are performed via them, so let’s go over each one.

Mustache Girl’s Planet Change

Starting from the end game feat Mustache Girl performs once she gets her hands on Hat Kid’s Time Pieces from the vault. The entire planet’s surface changes, has volcanoes all over the place, water replaced with lava and on top of all that an entire castle built in her liking. When it comes to a matter of how to calculate such a feat, the simplest solution was to basically calculate the energy required to change the temperature of the entire planet’s worth of water to magma, getting the result of 2.13 Exatons of TNT, which adds up for a visual scale of the feat.

However this feat has some counterarguments against it not scaling to the cast and/or not being a feat in the first place, so let’s address each (or at least, the main two):

1. “Mustache Girl actually used faucets like she did in Mafia Town.”

One of the explanations for that is the fact that she used faucets that have lava, like in one of Mafia Town levels that involved Hat Kid closing these faucets, so that Mafia Town won’t be in lava. But not only that doesn’t explain all of a sudden there being volcanos all over the planet and there being an entire castle, nor does it explain disappearance of all other continents and islands even though if faucets were used again, at bare least Mafia Town would’ve stayed intact (like it did in the actual level where it was in lava). But it also practically makes Time Pieces useless, because under that interpretation she didn’t even do anything with them, despite the fact that we also quite literally see the whole planet being affected once she starts using Time Pieces, which in turn blatantly indicates their involvement. In other words Time Pieces have to be involved, otherwise it just doesn’t add up, but in what way?

2. “This is actually a result of Time Pieces’ time manipulation.”

The second interpretation is that Mustache Girl used time manipulation in order to change the planet, this at first makes sense, after all the level is called “End of Time” and before using Time Pieces Mustache Girl even makes a small time pun. But it starts to fall apart the moment you look a bit deeper into the context. For one, that interpretation, like the first one, doesn’t explain the existence of the whole castle that has materialized once Time Pieces were used, nor does it explain how she suddenly started to rule over the entire planet simply by controlling time. Just to be clear, let’s try to go over all potential ways that time manipulation could’ve been involved, and why it did not overall.

Potential Time Ability	Contradictions
Reversing TIme	Reversing time is probably the first thing to think of, especially given this is the only time related ability we see Time Piece actually doing. Does that interpretation work? No. Mainly given that The Snatcher existing just makes it impossible to happen. Remember, before being a ghost, The Snatcher (like all ghosts…) was a living human, so reversing time potentially so far that the entire surface has lava, would’ve at least turned him from a ghost back into a human, and rest of the cast probably would’ve de-aged, even though we see none of characters changing in terms of age.
Accelerating TIme	This is not something Time Pieces have shown to do, but nevertheless it has practically the same issue, characters’ age did not change, even though with that ability involved it probably should have.
Time Travel(?)	Keep in mind this is something Time Pieces also never actually have shown to do, again, they have shown and been stated to only reverse time when it comes to time related powers. But even if Mustache Girl could hypothetically time travel, where would she go? To the future? To the past? Neither of those really give a valid explanation to what is happening at the end of the game. If Mustache Girl time travelled to the future no one would’ve really cared, if Mustache Girl time travelled to the past, by virtue of time travel being time travel there would’ve been more noticeable changes. Neither of those interpretations fit in. Especially given that Hat Kid just reverses changes by actually rewinding time, meaning she couldn’t just rewind rewinding, so like, no way it'd work out with just time travel.
Stopping Time	Well we technically see Time Pieces stopping time before reversing it so at least it is real, on the flipside, this still doesn’t explain any of the events either. Where is the castle from? How did Lava and Volcanoes form?
Slowing Down Time	We don’t see Time Pieces do that and has same issues as the Time Stop method.
Skipping Time	What is this, JoJo???

To put it bluntly, any time based interpretation requires us to think that A Hat in Time focuses around time, but, as pointed out earlier, beyond the title and a few wordings, it really does not. Time Pieces themselves have shown to do a lot more shenanigans without involving any sort of time manipulation while practically performing only one time ability. And both first and second interpretations fall apart once we see The Snatcher just directly calling it out as an “alternate reality”, which actually potentially makes Mustache Girl feat go even beyond a single planet, as we also happen to see the entire space to change from average dark blue to red (noticeable both within the planet and literally outside of it, in Hat Kid’s spaceship). It sort of makes more sense if take into consideration some other feats that are done by Time Pieces, notably:

Starry Pocket Dimensions

Your good ol favourite. We pretty often also see Time Pieces to create pocket dimensions within the game. One of the most blatant examples is perhaps Mustache Girl creating the hyper zone, which is practically a pocket dimension we see to be full of stars and even with what it looks like an interstellar cloud. But besides Mustache Girl creating such a realm, we also see similar cases being done with Time Rifts. The average blue ones already have not only just what it seems like a city, but also basically an entire sea (as the name of the track also implies). Purple Time Pieces meanwhile are more like Psychonauts levels, with them being designed after the character's/place’s past. Is there reason to believe these are not pre-existed dimensions? Well let’s hear an explanation from one of Mafia Goons whose interaction with a Time Piece caused the creation of a purple time rift : “Hello little child. This is Mafia Time Rift. Time Piece hit mafia in head and now time rift filled with Mafia thoughts and dreams. This Time Rift is simple, simple like Mafia, just how Mafia like it.”. As you can notice from this statement, Time Rift only started to exist once it hit, meaning that they indeed create pocket dimensions, and the fact that the process is very similar when we see Mustache Girl doing so, only supports such an idea.

Now one could doubt the feat extending as far as creating constellations, as it is partially for a reason “Starry Sky” feats are, to a degree, infamous within vs community. Practically speaking, the visual itself can be enough of an evidence for us until stated otherwise, but we can do better and try harder than that. And in the case with Time Pieces at least, there is slightly more proof. Remember, Time Pieces recreate people’s past and their places upon the hit, hence levels containing pages of the storybook. And the location that a Time Piece recreated was essentially another already existing “alternate dimension”, known as Twilight Bell which also has been shown to have stars in the sky, as well as The Alpine Goat that travelled to Alpine Skylines and after whom the Time Rift was likely designed (he does have own statue in it after all), shown to essentially become a constellation (not even in some stylish sense either, as Nomads have witnessed that event as well). So overall considering Time Pieces managed to recreate a past of the goat whose theme already essentially were stars/constellations, it should be enough justification at least for us. As for calculation, well it is rather hard to count all stars in the background, so for the sake of not wasting too much time, we’re gonna consider the general value, that being 16,880,000 TeraFoe, considering the feat is done by a single Time Piece you can multiply it by 56 times (the maximum amount Hat Kid collected and by the transitive property, Mustache Girl used) and you would get the result of 0.94 Zettafoes (About 9 Zettafoes away from Galaxy Level if you want a specific tier), should be sufficient enough, and it is consistent with Mustache Girl’s creation of “Alternate Reality”. This leaves us with one more, crucial and potentially big feat related to Time Pieces:

Every copy of A Hat in Time is Personalised

But this was not all, as there is one more biggest even though it may seem as a rather random feat that can belong to Time Pieces, ladies and gentlemen, time to talk about A Hat in Time’s online feature. Ok ok, let’s make it super quick and super blunt. The way A Hat in Time’s online works is that inside of Hat Kid’s ship there is a big machine which, as it says, collapses dimensions together so that other Hat Kids would interact with each other. That’s it, there, that simple (and given that this is elaboration for online multiplayer it shouldn’t take much to guess that “dimensions” are being referred to here as universes either). For one this technically means that everyone’s copy of A Hat in Time is individual and we all have different Hat Kids in this multiverse of potentially infinite Hat Kids…Though the machine can only contain 50 Hat Kids, so only 50 universes being merged so that Hat Kids would meet up with each other.

Meaning that in theory this fight could also go like this:

However given the machine’s placement is in her ship and the fact that Hat Kid normally can’t toss her ship around, it is highly unlikely for her to set it up like some army summoning, especially considering chances for Hat Kids to also not help and just minding their own business somewhere else like in the actual game, requiring Hat Kid overall a plenty of prep time for a setup like that, even assuming if her ship is nearby.

Buuuuuuut, this is still, mainly a feat, to which the cast of A Hat in Time has a way to scale to. You may ask how? Well let’s go back, waaaaaaaay back to the very beginning, to the premise of A Hat in Time, that being the entire plot revolving around Time Pieces being a fuel for Hat Kid’s ship, in other words, Time Pieces giving her spaceship power so it could work in the first place. Now guess what so happens to be a part of the ship…

In other words, by virtue of Time Pieces having enough power to make the machine merge universes, and Hat Kid beating one of the gals who was literally empowered by them, it makes sense for A Hat in Time cast to just, scale to this feat. Now how far does this feat go? Well let’s see, practically even a single Time Piece is enough for this machine to operate and merge 50 universes already (with a single machine implied to be a host while others are being basically merged), and in the game the maximum amount of Time Pieces Hat Kid collects is 56, as mentioned previously, so let’s go with some simple math. 56 Time Pieces x 50 merged universes = 2800 Universes (Multiversal). The number potentially could be either lower to 56 Universes assuming other machines are involved in the merge, or it could be higher as we technically see Mustache Girl using way more Time Pieces than just 56, but either way you get the gist. Practically speaking to say the least, this is a pretty strong high end among Time Pieces’ feats, that is pretty open for scaling in our opinion.

Overall A Hat in Time scaling

Overall, the cast of A Hat in Time has plenty of solid feats, with all of the relevant characters scaling to each other, with main scaling from Time Pieces sitting around from Multi Solar System and up to Multiversal levels, depending on how far you want to push Time Piece related feats. While speed wise varying from FTL and up to Millions of Times FTL, depending on how you interpret the spaceship feat. Pretty good for basically one game huh.

Skullgirls

Every copy of Skullgirls is Personalised

Same joke as the one we just had a few headings before, but it is for a reason. Because now we shall also very quickly and bluntly dive deep into how Skullgirls multiverse works. From starters let’s go over what we have within just Skullgirls. Within it we have The Divine Trinity…who are The Divine Trinity? Well they are gods of Skullgirls and the ones that created Skull Heart. As you can guess by the name, there are three of them: Venus - goddess of space, Aeon - goddess of time and their mother whose actual name we don’t know of. These goddesses are the ones that also want to destroy the entire world. At the same time they exist somewhere in a separate plane of existence known as The Abyss, so they can’t directly interact with the world of Skullgirls, only play it, that’s right, Skullgirls world for them is practically what Skullgirls is for us - a videogame!

You heard it, you saw it, the entire Skullgirls verse practically exists as a videogame or any other work of fiction for them, like a written text story, Nintendo 64 cartridge which you can notice on a middle left of the image, as an RPG, as a literal film reel, or VHS cassette, or audio cassette, or memory disk and so on and on. This is not even a gag of sorts, it’s just how it is as they’ve appeared in plenty of significant story modes and well, they are actually characters that were even planned to be potentially added to the game. 

The first potential question that a well versed vs debater would probably ask is “does it count as R>F?”. The answer to which is…maybe??? Maybe not??? To be exactly clear, we don’t know enough about The Trinity to approach that question with certainty, we know they don’t interfere either and mostly act as watchers that observe all of these different timelines, at best, as mentioned earlier, interacting with characters via a joystick. To actually approach that question we should answer first whether anyone can scale to The Trinity in the first place. And the most logical answer would be no (for now at least), as directly no one has shown to interact with The Trinity.

Squigly potentially can do it via Abaddon’s power, but we never got to see it beyond being stated to be potentially capable of reaching them. Eliza is implied to presumably take over (or well, “kill”) The Trinity when they were within Skullgirls’ planet but we also have little to no context for that, so nothing to operate on yet. And additionally Marie was able to technically fight off against The Trinity in her story mode, but it was more so mental fight than anything, Skullgirls (the game) tend to have those from time to time, whether it be Filia with Fukua, or Painwheel with Brain Drain, Marie’s case is likely the same. So for now we don’t need to particularly overthink ourselves in the specifics of whether all of Skullgirls is fiction to them or they just watch it as a video game while existing somewhere simultaneously.

What is more important here is the fact that because of The Trinity and their state of existence, every individual character’s story mode is an existing timeline among an infinite amount of. In other words this means that, yes, all of Skullgirls story modes, all of Skullgirls matches, all these Skullgirls Mobile variants and webcomic itself despite being a separate genre, are canon at the same time. Yes, EVEN the Robo-Fortune one where Marie explicitly breaks the 4th wall and calls it non-canon, given we see The Trinity at the end and EVEN Fukua whose character is literally being a joke about clone/echo fighters in Fighting Games, given that she also appeared in Black Dahlia story mode (alongside Robo-Fortune), which also happens to be a story mode where The Trinity appears.

Practically speaking, everyone pretty much scales to everyone, as they’ve fought each other at some point within some story, with the exception of The Trinity itself despite them probably being the most impressive in-verse. Nevertheless while this big potential to scale to The Trinity is unavailable to the cast, with Skullgirls’ cosmology this big, the scaling chain can safely apply for pretty much any other possible feat unrelated to them. Everyone beats everyone, Mortal Kombat type of scaling. This essentially leads us to the question of their feats alone as scaling itself is safe all things considered.

Light speed in Skullgirls, which arguments are good, which are not so much?

Now that we’ve addressed scaling within Skullgirls, let’s talk about some big feats, starting from speed, Skullgirls’ biggest speed feats include characters dodging various light beams from a variety of characters in the series. Which ones actually count as light speed and which ones don’t? Well let’s try and look around. One thing that all of them generally correlate is a potential issue of having force, given that characters react to them as if they were forcefully hit upon taking damage, however this specific point is rather moot, as average fighting games normally don’t overthink with projectiles and have characters react to them just as with any average hit, as in, developers physically can’t just portray being hurt via heat any other way, without making it too convoluted for something as minor as that at least. With that out of the way we can now discuss their own qualities:

1. Peacock’s Lasers

Let’s start with Patrcia herself as she is the first one in the roster. Hers are perhaps most controversial and back and forth, on one hand Peacock herself, despite cartoony looks, is mechanical character designed in the lab, even Avery himself is stated to be a “super computer”, and when it comes to Peacock’s lasers we do see a few showcases where they actually burn their target rather than hitting, like in this animation with the ant and her own story mode where she shot Skull Heart with lasers, and on top of that, game itself also calls them lasers. On the other hand the source is definitely rather uncommon for a laser, mainly the eyes, and in addition they also shoot themselves like…laser bolts, to put into perspective, lasers in real world normally don’t move as bolts, at least with the way we perceive them that is, making them more of a straight burning line rather than a glowing bullet like in something like Star Wars, so visually speaking Peacock’s laser bolts may not fit the requirement for lasers. So it is rather debatable, albeit not completely impossible if you are generous with some of their visualizations.

2. Robo-Fortune’s Lasers

This one is a bit easier, Robo-Fortune is a robot, her eyes that already illuminate light, shoot lasers, they’re called lasers as well in the tutorial, twice and one time is even stated to “vaporize anything standing before her” which is normally a trait related to heat rather than strength. The issue comes when one of her moves that uses lasers is called “Theonite Beam” (which as we’ve pointed out earlier is Skullgirls’ in-universe material), which also is called out as “solid beam of energy” in the tutorial.

To be fair despite the name, it doesn’t necessary mean beams themselves aren’t lasers, case in point Krieg and Hungern are living weapons that are made out of theonite, yet operate completely differently, with the former using actual napalm as a weapon and with the latter having drools. And considering that theonite is a material out of which people have crafted living weapons, it is obviously a containable material rather than some beam flying around (as a matter of fact, it is shown to be a literal bunch of blue crystals in Skullgirls Mobile). Meaning theonite is more likely a source of power for Robo Fortune to use when shooting a laser (or just in general power source) rather than something that she shoots out of her body. This makes more sense as beings made in the lab, such as Peacock also have theonite in them. This leaves her lasers also to a slightly more debate, choosing between them being called laser and vaporise objects and it being called a “solid beam of energy”. Personally it being called a solid beam of energy doesn’t necessarily cancel out it being a laser either, laser technically is a form of energy, but it is understandable to be more cautious and strict with Robo Fortune’s case.

3. Black Dahlia’s Railgun

Our third subject to these laser shenanigans is Black Dahlia with her grenade launcher, shooting beams of light. Now it may be the most suspicious one as its source is literally, well, a grenade launcher, shouldn’t it be a grenade? Which is a bit fair but there is more to Dahlia’s moveset, her weapon is indeed a grenade launcher, but the ammo itself is different depending on the type, for instance Fire, Ice and Lighting Ammunitions have specifically those traits when reaching their victims, with the latter being either burnt, frozen or electrocuted, and with buckshot this grenade launcher suddenly turns into a shotgun instead, so it’s obvious that ammunition itself can act differently and railgun shot is no different, as instead of being a grenade it actually produces a beam which disappears as soon as being shot. As a cherry on top, in Skullgirls mobile, a game that categorizes characters and (conveniently) Black Dahlia’s ammunition by elements, Rail Shot is considered to be a move of light element most likely meaning that it is a light beam (on top of that when Dahlia shot Railgun shot at Robo-Fortune it seemingly burnt her arm instead of having any force). So while it’s more visually questionable, practically we believe it can be decent enough to count, though it is still a bit more up in the air.

4. Annie’s Cosmic Rays

And this is probably the most solid out of the 4, by virtue of not even trying to qualify for a laser, instead, her move “Sagan Beam” is called out as shooting Cosmic Rays, which in turn move at speeds near speed of light. Which is still very fast, but is it approvable or is it just a flashy space aesthetics? Well to answer that let’s go further on that topic.

Annie’s “cosmic” feats

On behalf of Annie’s Cosmic Rays it probably is worth mentioning her in general, as she is one of the three characters who has pretty big feats in Skullgirls. To be very clear, Annie is inherently a character with “cosmic” thematics. This is not only because of aesthetics of her moves but also somewhat connected to her lore, as her profile in “Keep Skullgirls growing” indiego campaign states: “Her sword is forged from a meteorite and can channel the power of the stars in its sweeping cleaves. Her right eye bonds her to her Remote Parasite and partner, Sagan, who grants her powers of a galactic motif.”.

So when it comes to statements on how her moves operate, all these cosmic references should make sense as her powers intended to be that way. As a matter of fact, plenty of Annie’s move have similar approach, Destruction Pillar is stated to thrust Annie upwards at a speed approaching escape velocity, Meteor Strike is stated to be Annie moving at such high speed that air around her gets compressed and generating heat, Pillar of Creation is stated to be Annie “drawing on the power of the cosmos”, her special form Star Power is also stated to be her harnessing the energy of the cosmos, and most famous one Gravity Collapse is stated to do gravitational collapse. There are a lot of these statements which, well, add up to what indiego campaign was going for with her, even her story mode kind of backs it up, on top of that Theonite and Skull Heart were stated to be of an alien origin, so Skullgirls having space related shenanigans aren’t completely out of nowhere. And with so much space inspiration or even her own lore related to space thematics, it is heavily unlikely to be just aesthetics. This in turn justifies both her aforementioned Cosmic Rays, and makes Gravity Collapse more than likely a literal move rather than some fancy exaggerations.

Hungern eating half of the New Meridian

This one is more so a potential feat, but probably worth mentioning, in Umbrella’s story mode, the moment Samson hears Hungern’s name he immediately calls out him being insatiable devour of people, armies, civilizations and everything in-between, and on top of that Samson decided to immediately fight Umbrella and Hungern over searching Skullgirl, saying that Hungern will eat Half of New Meridian. New Meridian itself is already a very big city, as a matter of fact, it is considered to be a Megacity, which is a status that only some of the biggest cities get in real life, cities like Moscow, New York, Los Angeles, Rio, and so on, making it very impressive feat. The issue is a bit identical to the ones we would encounter later on, that being lack of timeframe, that’s really the only problem to tackle, as feat becomes a bit more “hypothetical”. Because of that I (Oleggator) am not exactly sure on how to approach this feat to a full extent, but at bare least, it is just one more statement that supports higher lvl Skullgirls shenanigans. Including one more that is worth speaking about below.

Double’s spread across continent(s) explained

Now this one is generally the most popular argument out of the new ones, if you’ve played any Skullgirls story mode where Double does more than fight you alongside Valentine, you may notice that in underground there is flesh all around. That is Gehena -  a space that runs under the entire continent if not the whole world, according to Marie in her own story mode (which visually adds up given Marie and Peacock managed to move from New Meridian to No Man’s Land through that very Gehena). It’s Double’s domain and a part of her body, and quite literally at that. As we can see in Annie’s story mode, Double is even using it to her advantage creating more physical copies of herself. As well as in Double’s and Beowulf’s story modes, Double was using Gehena to hold people in it (on top of that you can see more of various body parts just being alive and active such as eyes or beast-like mouth and even blood, lots of blood alongside teeth and nerves). To put it simpler, Double essentially is Gehena, she is everywhere in Gehena and she is everything in Gehena. And on the verge of death she was actually collapsing Gehena (at least was trying to do so to force Annie retreat given Double is implied to live at the end).

With all that in mind, it is safe to say that because Double is essentially this whole meaty cave which she can do whatever she wants to with, it is reasonable to believe that she has power to collapse the entire thing. And with the rest, aforementioned Annie vs Linne blog handled it well all things considered, with both finding direct statement of No Man’s Land size and general approach of the calculation varying from 575.13 Teratons of TNT to 2.75 Petatons of TNT and up to 33.7 Petatons of TNT. The result of the calculation does add up with how Gehena itself is presented as this large dungeon spanning across continents so they are fair to use as well as justified by the final, crucial topic which while was covered plentifully would be worth to look at once more…

Skullgirls must destroy the world

Ok if there is any topic that is worth finishing on at this moment, it is definitely this whole Skullgirls destroying the world thing. If you’ve read previous Skullgirls blogs you probably already are aware of most of these shenanigans. There are, multiple pretty direct statements where Skullgirls are pretty much stated to be capable of or made for world destruction, it is the main purpose of what The Trinity, Double and Skull Heart are doing throughout generations and being prevented from doing, and why in-verse there are so many countermeasures to prevent them from doing so (at least by the time Marie became a Skullgirl), starting from various laboratories and their creations, and ending with beings of equivalent status.

Skullgirls technically aren’t the only ones who are stated of being able to pull off big scale feats, remember, Hungern himself (who is used to countermeasure Umbrella’s Skullgirl side) is just directly called out as “insatiable devourer of people, armies, civilizations, and everything in-between”, and that is considering that civilizations in the past were most likely decently advanced too. Or another living umbrella who directly killed one of the most violent Skullgirls, Eroberung, is just called out to be one of the reasons No Man’s Land (a land of practically nuked countries) is the way it is. And this is without mentioning the more known aforementioned Gehena and Gravity Collapse. This is clearly quite more consistent throughout the series and were the threat not so actively dangerous it probably wouldn’t have so many countermeasures prepared. Obviously there is a minor thing that keeps the majority of these statements from being taken as feats, given we don’t see them directly and therefore without a visual approach there is a possibility a lot of these could be just overtime.

Of course there is a reason, Selena and Nancy were likely dealt with relatively quickly (The biggest known time frame of dealing with the Skullgirl was with Nancy that being around a week, and even then there are various caveats where she had to fight against several forces while Nancy despite being the most violent was still somewhat conscious), and Marie was one of the Skullgirls who was able to partially control herself and even break out of Skull Heart’s will in her own story mode (hence there really wasn’t any particular outcome where Skullgirl destroyed the world as either they were killed before doing so, or resisted Skull Heart’s corruption as far as they could). While with other dozens of Skullgirls we don’t have any particular information on how they were dealt with or what they were doing, for instance Annie’s mom (whose name we don’t even know of) has clearly existed long before the majority of the Skullgirls cast was born, so we can’t even tell exactly how was she killed besides the fact that she was, somehow, and in-between Selena and Annie’s mother there were clearly tons of other unnamed Skullgirls, we just can’t really say anything about them because they were never mentioned. Regardless the issue is still less of a logical and more of a simple lack of footage meaning normally these statements really only support the existence of other high scale feats, such as aforementioned Annie’s and Double’s. But could Skullgirls pull a Tekken 8 and prove themselves to be more than big talk…?

AND HERE COMES BLACK DAHLIA WITH A STEEL CHAIR

As it turns out, our answer would be yes! Thanks to our lady Black Dahlia who practically directly wished for the whole world to be in an apocalypse. Keep in mind, Dahlia wished not just for herself to be in constant thrill, she wished for EVERYONE in the world to live for nothing but a thrill.

Keep in mind, Skull Heart usually acts as a monkey paw when it comes to fulfilling a woman's wish. No matter how kind the wish may be, Skull Heart will pull a twist and/or won’t consider it pure, wishes are inherently not pure, and Dahlia’s story mode basically points that out (which Skull Heart itself uses for its advantage, making a new Skullgirl every 7 years). So normally, you would expect Skull Heart to have some twist here too right? Well Dahlia’s wish not only is just so purely evil, but it worked out practically because it left Skull Heart with no meaning, as in, Skull Heart itself directly just says, it is no longer needed in the world, Dahlia wished into existence:

Meaning that in practically an instant Skull Heart managed to reality warp the entire Skullgirls planet into a Doom level, if you couldn’t tell by the reference. At bare least, this means that Skull Heart managed to just, reshape and/or fill the surface with dozens of kaiju sized monsters, so we think that surface wiping works fair at least as a minimum (result of which, as brought up earlier is varying from 183.24 to 646.57 Petatons of TNT), potentially it may be higher up to planetary depending on how far you wanna push the feat (assuming more than just surface was involved), but we consider its minimum as a safest ground. One can call it lazy compared to other feats and their calculations, but realistically this is the best approach we can do with the feat without being unfair to the fact that we just witnessed the entire world essentially die in a moment. And considering that Skullgirls have just so many statements about world destruction, it pretty much justifies Skull Heart’s feat and vice versa, the fact that Skull Heart managed to change the entire world in an instant, proves Skullgirls deal to be more than big talk.

Overall Skullgirls scaling

Overall, though it takes effort, Skullgirls cast has a good amount of feats to scale around to, with lore supporting their biggest and more bizarre feats getting up to Multi-Continental level and FTL where thanks to its timeline based cosmology so to speak, everyone relevant essentially scales to everyone.

There are still lots of Cliffhangers/Chekhov’s Guns that didn’t fire yet, like various routes that character’s story modes follow after (such as Brain Drain’s own version of Skull Heart at the end of Marie’s Story Mode), various stories of the past Samson, Leviathan and other parasites, living weapons and Skullgirls been going through, its plethora of cast that hasn’t been used or involved as much yet, Gigan Nation or Chess Kingdom that were at war against Canopy Kingdom in the past and biggest of all, The Trinity and their relevance to this Skullgirls multiverse. A lot of potential that is yet to shoot both in context of vs-debating and in general narrative. Whether these guns will fire, only time will tell, but so far it is sufficient to say they are still strong, and hopefully will keep going strong, being true to the nature of this series and its resilience.

Support/Art/etc.

(By Tyranii)

(By Spectral)

(By Necrostar)

(By Jacket)

(By @Liam2D)

(By @ARandumPerson)

(By VegaSlash)

Fight Script

First time in Blo𝐆ator blogs we have made an entire script of the fight! Read it here, hope you’ll enjoy it!

Verdict

Now there are plenty of factors to consider in this match up, despite their rather simple nature, let’s start with the way they would interact with each other…

Equipment & Abilities

Starting with their small but extensive potential equipment and abilities, it might seem there isn’t much to talk about, after all their rather obscure powers are used not as much, while what they use in a fight seems small, but in a matter of how they use it, their potential fairly expands. On one hand Hat Kid definitely has more in her arsenal to use, several hats with different abilities and badges after all, compared to Umbrella just having Hungern, however don’t underestimate Hungern, as he is very versatile, with him simultaneously being able to use bubbles as ranged attacks, shapeshifting for offense or defense as well as be used for mobility options he sure is to counterplay with the variety of hats. For instance when it comes to range play, Grand Slam and Retina Reflector help Umbrella countermeasure Hat Kid’s Brewing Hat and even block Projectile Badge, with Hat Kid’s bigger edge here being that she can spam her Projectile Badge more often. When it comes to close quarters, Hungern can just do more than Hat Kid’s CQC weapons whether it is being used to do various hits or grabs, so Hat Kid would like to avoid being too close. And luckily for Hat Kid, she has various options to do so, sure Sprint Hat, Kid’s Hat and Dweller’s Mask aren’t exactly useful in a direct confrontation, but Time Stop Hat, which slows down time, makes it easier to avoid hits, and her other tools such as grappling hook or scooter give her more opportunities to keep the distance. Practically speaking in sheer versatility, it is like several different knives vs one schweizer knife.

Though their “off-screen” equipment/powers so to speak, also make things pretty complicated. Skullgirls Mobile is just very loaded with various Modifiers that help out during the fight, and so is Tunche with their Spiritual Cores. For instance both Hat Kid and Umbrella can heal with various methods, whether it be regeneration, or even a full revive, Umbrella though has a big edge thanks to HEAL BLOCK, BLEED and MIASMA. The first blocks off any healing methods, the second countermeasures regen, and the third straight up steals health from the opponent. On top of that Umbrella also can use DOOM which upon infliction instantly kills you ignoring any defenses. Hat Kid has a few ways to slightly negate Umbrella’s healing options too, particularly via poison and burn, but they are a lot more chance based compared to Umbrella’s methods. Umbrella can also STUN Hat Kid via some specific moves but if Hat Kid is knocked down, Retaliation helps her to recover and keep distance once she falls and ghost makes her invisible on top of that, though Umbrella can also counter latter via puddles that passively negate any buffs if Hat Kid is too near them. Practically speaking if you look closely Umbrella’s abilities have a lot of punishment if you are getting hit by her for too long, while Hat Kid’s powers help her to try and keep distance without getting hit all that much.

Overall there are plenty of edges both can take in their playstyle or cancel out and a lot of just back and forth, so with how rather ambiguous it is, it’s safer to call it even, especially considering…

Experience & Skills

Their skills and experience also similarly plays into their powers and arsenal working as intended.

As one might notice from the previous section, Hat Kid’s equipment makes it so it is pretty hard to hit her, while Umbrella’s powers benefit from when she reaches her target. Similarly their skills are suited to their playstyles. On one hand, Umbrella at good hands can kick ass so badly she may not even give you a break, and from what she did even in her story mode or just basing off her moveset, she is clearly far better in close quarters than Hat Kid is. It is natural to expect such between a platformer character vs fighting game character. Alternatively, Hat Kid is also just, really, really good at dodging and avoiding attacks. Her Death Wishes won’t lie, she has been through lots of challenges that required her to be very quick thinking and navigate herself out of any form of damage. Even against characters like The Snatcher or Mustache Girl whose attacks are just… very hard to avoid to put it lightly. Additionally, when it comes to experience and intelligence, Hat Kid has shown to go through more stuff, as well as she is the one who built a whole spaceship, while Umbrella on the other hand was trained by Parasoul even before her adventure. It contributes to the general fight way less than their actual skills demonstrated in combat but is a small bonus.

Overall though it’s rather clear that Hat Kid is, very, very good at dodging while if Umbrella grabs Hat Kid even once, it can be proven fatal for her, with both having some slight minor countermeasures against either of playstyles, a case somewhat similar to something like Speedrunner Mario vs Melee Fox - A Professional Speedrunner vs A Professional Wombo Comboer. A case surprisingly similar to how their Equipment & Abilities play out perfectly reflecting how the dynamic goes. And with the amount of potential benefit both get from their skills they are pretty even at that, to the point that it’d be insanely hard to figure out the winner were their stats equal…

…so to determine who will have a bigger edge to exploit their advantages in these 2 departments let’s take a look at these stats in question now! Starting with…

Lifting Strength

Probably the most simple category, when it comes to direct feats, Hat Kid was able to grab a Walrus with a single hand, impressive but Umbrella was able to hold Big Band who weighs twice as much, and that is without mentioning to potential sizes Hungern can get if he can quickly devour half of the city. There is scaling to the cast of A Hat in Time which was able to hold back Hat Kid’s ship from flying away which is impressive even if taking into account it being more of a speed feat, but Marie holding the very large structure of Medici’s Skyscraper should be still more impressive in that regard as it generally is obviously a larger and heavier structure than Hat Kid’s ship. Skullgirls overall is more impressive than A Hat in Time in this department.

So Umbrella should take the edge here, which extremely helps her grappling style of play and lets her keep Hat Kid in her hook. But would it be enough? Let’s see in our next just as important category being…

Speed & Mobility

When it comes to speed feats, they have plenty of minor speed feats such as dodging bullets or rockets, and with some of bigger speed such as Hat Kid dodging electricity which travels through wire and Umbrella being able to block lasers and Cosmic Rays, they do come off as rather evenly matched in their FTL feats. Though Hat Kid got a very big ace in her hand, that being scaling to the cast of her game, who have caught her Millions of time FTL Spaceship from flying! This, despite Umbrella matching most of Hat Kid’s speed feats, gives Hat Kid a significant speed edge when it comes to her best, which plays very well into her dodging tactics.

Though this isn’t end of it all, because they both also are decently mobile, Hat Kid is more notable because well, she is from a cute as peck platformer after all, so she has a lot of versatile moves, double jump, diving, grappling hook, wall climbing, rope hopping, scooter, same Time Stop Hat and so on, though Umbrella isn’t completely out of the game either, as Hungern, by a virtue of being an umbrella can, you know, fly (because that is obviously what all umbrellas do…). And that flight along with Bobblin Bubble and puddles which lets Umbrella do some bigger hops, gives her not bad potential in closing gaps, or coming out of tight spots like Hat Kid herself.

Practically speaking, Hat Kid has got more applicable mobility options, but Umbrella has methods to keep up, but overall considering the huge lead in reaction/combat speed, Hat Kid should safely take this category, leaving us to the final dealbreaker.

Power

As usual for most matches, their power is normally what gives the main answer to who should take the cake, so let’s go over A Hat in Time and Skullgirls feats. Visually speaking they are pretty even so we can skip to their scalings, at which point Skullgirls cast and A Hat in Time cast, generally, have some decently even feats. Annie’s Gravitational Collapse and Double’s Gehena are pretty big deal which beats out Queen Vanessa’s Ice Creation scaling and matches with The Illness’ feat if we’re going with their low-mid ends. However, it is at their best scaling where we should take a note of and what gives us the final decision in this factor, that being the titular mcguffins of their series with Time Pieces and Skull Heart…so with that in mind:

Time Pieces vs Skull Heart

Now the final answer lies in their mcguffins, the ones which while Hat Kid and Umbrella have enough will to not use, but also the ones that are the most dangerous artifacts in their verse respectively. At which point, on one hand while Skullgirls destroying the entire world isn’t normally demonstrated as much, the Skull Heart itself has shown to have enough power to practically turn the entire world into the apocalypse, which actually is pretty similar to what Mustache Girl was able to do with Time Pieces as well. And number wise the result does turn out to be pretty even as well, with Skull Heart’s getting half of an exaton and Mustache Girl getting only 2 Exatons, with only 3 times the difference is rather small. But for the Skull Heart, it is the limit. For Time Pieces, it is only the beginning. With their most famous feat being various examples of creating starry pocket dimensions, it already eclipses Skull Heart’s feat, but on top of that, the fact that thanks to Time Piece’s power, Hat Kid’s technology can practically merge universes together, means that Time Pieces are much more consistently on a cosmological scale than Skull Heart is. Skull Heart’s power proved its worth, but it is still far from enough to match with the maximum potential of Time Pieces, meaning that the category of power should go to Hat Kid.

Summary

Hat Kid

“Bye Bye!”

Advantages:

• Takes the stat trinity by a landslide on middle and high ends.
• A lot better at dodging attacks and projectiles.
• The Time Stop Hat’s time slow can further the speed gap a lot more and make it easier to avoid attacks.
• Experienced more adventures
• Book smart and overall more intelligent.
• The invisibility given by “Ghost” can be very useful…
• Second Chance allows her to come back from death and counters DOOM…
• Potions can provide quick and easy healing and Sanctuary allows her to heal even more while also dealing damage to Umbrella if she gets close…
• Projectile Badge gives her a solid ranged advantage.
• Voiced by Miles Edgeworth
• JOINED FRAYMAKERS, PECK YEAH!!!

Disadvantages:

• If she manages to lose her hats and umbrella, it would put her at a big disadvantage.
• Even with the Faster Hatter Badge, some of her hats take a good bit to cool down.
• Is less skilled and trained in a direct close combat
• Generally inferior health regen, which can also be stopped by BLEED and HEAL BLOCK.
• Jungle’s Endurance gets negated by ARMOR BREAK
• …But being near a Puddle too long could remove the buff (or falling into it, whichever happens first…).
• …But it can only do it once before the core is destroyed.
• …But she has a limited supply of them.
• Where’re my new Creator DLCs, Gears for Breakfast…
• Tf you mean she lost to Edds???

• (At least she won against Head Chef Heavy…)

Umbrella

“Goodbyyyyyyye!”

Advantages:

• Is even in stats with Hat Kid’s low ends…
• Better trained and fought more skilled opponents
• Grand Slam and Retina Reflector countermeasure Hat Kid’s ranged options
• DOOM can instantly kill Hat Kid…
• BLEED and HEAL BLOCK allow Umbrella to prevent Hat Kid’s healing options
• BLESSING, EVASION and REGEN make it pretty hard to put Umbrella down for good
• ARMOR BREAK negates Jungle’s Endurance
• Puddles can remove Hat Kid’s buffs/abilities, giving her the edge.
• If Umbrella can grab Hat Kid once, she can put Hat Kid into a heavily uncomfortable position.
• Flight and Bobblin’ allow Umbrella to keep up with Hat Kid in terms of mobility
• Man it is a miracle Skullgirls is still alive…

Disadvantages:

• …but much weaker and slower against Hat Kid’s mid and high ends
• Experienced less adventures and not as book smart
• Generally Hat Kid is hard to get a hit on
• And Time Stop Hat along with some other equipment increases difficulty of doing so
• …though Second Chance allows Hat Kid to come back, forcing Umbrella to resort to it twice
• Projectile Badge is pretty hard to avoid, even with Retina Reflector in mind
• Where’re my new Skullgirls webcomic chapters…
• …no really, it is a miracle.

Conclusion

Overall, while it was a pretty simple match, there were plenty of details to be uncovered, from their power interactions and their skills to the point that it is generally hard to pick who has a bigger edge, to various scalings and feats that were overall a deciding factor in this match up. And from there, despite Umbrella’s lifting strength edge, Hat Kid had both speed and power on her side to benefit her playstyle more times than not. As salty as it may be, no deal or wish of pure heart will make Umbrella throw Hat Kid from her peace and tranquility.

The Winner is Hat Kid!

Team Hat Kid - (6) Oleggator, Jacket, Spectral, Necrostar, Pasbros, RedHeadedElf

Team Umbrella - 

Bonus: A Hat in Time and Skullgirls Matches talk

I mean hey, for a blog that compiles so much shenanigans with A Hat in Time and Skullgirls, would be criminal to not yap about some other popular or new MUs for these two indie games that we find cool. Let’s start with some more known matches first, aka the ones where most of us in the team agree to be preferred options, and then have each team member share their own favorites!

Popular ones!

The Devil vs The Snatcher

Oleggator: If there is any A Hat in Time matchup that is the most popular and loved it is definitely this one, and that’s for a reason! I mean the theme is obvious you got your powerful spooky child laboring dealers, the fight and banter also just writes itself, and I can definitely expect a banger track. Debate wise I mean, yeah it is pretty easy Snatcher W, Cape’s blog for this match covered both very well, to give my thoughts, even my skepticism with some higher Cuphead stuff aside, it's basically just whatever The Devil does The Snatcher does it better.

Spectral: I mean… yeah? This one just rocks hard. The banter, the potential, the themes, everything just works. I especially like the idea of the instigation basically being one or the other taking out the competition in the soul snatching department. From there, dark comedy and a banging fight ensues. Music potential too is great, ESPECIALLY is it’s a lyrical track and I would love for them to get Man on the Internet on the track considering his lyrical cover of You’re Contract Has Expired is VERY good. It all culminates in just one Hell of a Time and topped off with a dope Snatcher W. Yeah, this fucks.

Necrostar: In my opinion, this Is THE A Hat in Time matchup, as you will soon see below, the other characters with potential MU’s, even Hat Kid herself, don't have an agreed upon opponent, that isn't the case with Snatcher tho, Devil vs Snatcher was born from a connection of another matchup, and almost everyone realized how peak of a matchup Devil vs Snatcher is (still like Cuphead vs Hat Kid tho) and by god it's so fun and filled to the brim with potential, especially with the banter these two shit-talkers could have.

Pasbros: I LOVE it 👍

Skullstalkers Matches

Every fighting game has their “rivalry” so to speak, even if franchises don’t necessarily compete against each other and it just happens they have several similar coded characters. For Street Fighter it is King of Fighters (with Tekken also thrown into the triangle), for Mortal Kombat it is Killer Instinct, for Guilty Gear it is BlazBlue, and for Skullgirls it just so happens to be Darkstalkers. There are plenty of matches that are specifically these 2 beefing, some comparisons are rather basic, some hit pretty hard, and given the majority of comparison is specifically with B Tier Darkstalkers or lower, the debate is largely similar: Peacock vs BB Hood, Squigly vs Hsien-Ko, Eliza vs Anakaris, Black Dahlia vs BB Hood, Ms. Fortune vs Felicia maybe someone decided to come up with Beowulf vs Jon Taliban because of their “wolf” shenanigans., the question would still be what is the biggest hit of this series pairing?

Squigly vs Hsien-Ko

Oleggator: I mean, come on, if any of the matches takes the spot it probably is this one. Theme is direct, simple, gets its characters and generally it probably is the most favorable Skullgirls AND Dartkstalkers match up I’ve seen to the point that I’m a little jealous. No like, seriously, having a matchup that just straight up has zero genuine haters and no competition while having characters that are decently known in circles (and not something like Strelok vs Artyom which sadly only a few alongside myself enjoy…) is a massive feat way too few matchups can replicate. As for who wins, well Hilda’s blog for this match covered it well but overall, like all B-C Tier Darkstakers vs Skullgirls MUs it largely depends if you think scaling B-C tiers to A tiers is fine or not. If you buy B-C tiers = A tiers then Darkstalkers win, if you don’t, Skullgirls win. Same goes here really, I myself lean more to not scaling with what I’ve seen.

Spectral: Yeah, this is cool. ‘Nuff said.

Necrostar: I like it, would love it purely for the notes Squigly and Leviathan could have on Hsien.

Pasbros: Squigly's one of my fav characters in general so obviously i'd love seeing her in any match up and well this is a very fun one anyways.

Annie vs Linne

Oleggator: Well that one is also a super known Skullgirls match, fairly intuitive to the point that if you played both Annie’s and Linne’s story modes you immediately get it. Badass fast paced anime-like swordfight with cool fighting game super moves, what else you could ask for? Plus Therewolf’s track managed to mix Annie’s theme and Night Walker very well together, definitely one of my favorite commissions he’s done. I know I’m the only one speaking about this MU in this blog, but I can swear it got plenty of movement, and rightfully so. As for debate, well I feel like results from Black Shulk’s blog doesn’t change much if use identical interpretations, though I think with Skull Heart changing the entire world in Black Dahlia’s ending you can definitely argue ends where stats actually are close between them at which point Annie might actually win especially if you want full balling mode and give her Skullgirls Mobile shenanigans like we did with Umbrella. But that is a more subjective topic and I don’t think I am as knowledgeable with UNiB to say that Annie has the edge for sure so who knows.

Specter Knight…just Specter Knight

Note from Necrostar: I love Specter of Torment :3

So, aside from Darkstalkers being a very common pairing, for some magical reason Specter Knight managed to somehow get paired up with plenty of Skullgirls’ cast as far as we could see in our circles, which with the variety of Skullgirls cast is kinda wild to picture. Not a lot of them are perfect or cover much for his character or vice versa don’t cover his opponent in the most important and relevant aspects, but there are some interesting options and even the one that we actually like! Which one it may be?

Specter Knight vs Ms Fortune

Spectral: So… I randomly spit balled this when a friend of mine was asking around for better Ms. Fortune ideas (said friend being me, Red… hi) and gave basic information and… this… works??? And really well actually??? Basically “Once thieves who lost their found family when searching for a dangerous relic who then turn into undead warriors BECAUSE of said dangerous relic and have regrets over said past heist and mistakes before finally embracing the present with their new found family and finally taking out their big bads who were also empowered by that same dangerous relic from long ago.” And like… yeah, no, we fuck with this. On top of this, Nadia’s body dismemberment pretty much fits perfectly with Specter’s literal hack and slash fighting style. Not only can you have some comedic moments with Nadia being far less serious than Specter, but also some genuinely heartfelt moments with them fighting for the present they treasure just as much as they did their past lives. I like the idea of Specter trying to heal with the Will Skull, only to realize that he’s accidentally holding Nadia’s head while the Will Skull got misplaced onto Nadia’s body. Then immediately in the next scene, they begin to realize how far the other was impacted by their past mistakes. Add on top of this that “Reap What You Sew” is just the perfect track name, and I finally have an mu I like for one of my favorite characters of all time!

Oleggator: Can confirm everything that Spec said, I was there…I’ve seen it…and yeah it does actually work well! I mean you have it all in one package: Thieves, undead, their dead dear friends that they want to bring back to life, the point of their stories being not to hold onto the past and rather cherish the present they have, Nadia (alongside Hisako) practically just fits what Specter of Torment is about, while at the same time getting treatment as an actual character and not just female cat.

Necrostar: Yeah after looking into it, and after getting a More preferred matchup for Marie, this really Is just a really good matchup for Specter Knight and Nadia, playing perfectly into their characters and breaking them down throughout the fight, and tragic endings are bound to happen on Skullgirls MU’s, for this one it's just a given and it makes it perfect.

Pasbros: How did i get here.

Team’s Favorites

Jacket

My Hat is In Time.

Mustache Girl Vs Audrey Redheart!

The heroes! (Obviously…)

This match-up is really, really good.

It manages to perfectly play into MG and Audrey’s obsession with being the heroes of the story,  as well their general personalities outside of that, and has a pretty fun dynamic with MG’s and Audrey’s extremely fast fighting styles meshing pretty well with each other.

The general series pairing is also a really nice vibe to me and clicks well.

Sadly, it isn’t too debatable though. Audrey is only around Star and MHS+, while Mustache Girl is MSS to Multi and FTL to MFTL+, which means MG just kind of statstomps.

Tho, that doesn’t change the fact the match-up is incredibly fun and, imo, absolutely perfect for both.

Also, PLAY WANDERSONG, IT’S A REALLY FUN AND GREAT GAME!!!

Spectral

Me when my hat is stuck in time and the skulls are girls or smth idk

Mustache Girl vs Audrey Redheart (Wandersong)

Yeah, like Jacket said, this one clicks REALLY well with me. Not only is Wandersong peak, this it’s basically the perfect fit for both. It’s one of the few MG MUs where it actually plays into the “I’m the hero… obviously!” angle of her entire character, and that pretty much applies to Audrey in spades. Both have access to the most powerful weapons of their respective verses, and abuse their power to control the endings of everyone.

Yeah, this is basically perfect for both, and their petty and stuck up personalities make for a fun sort of “two children who want to god mode their play date” sort of vibe. Sadly, isn’t exactly debatable as Mustache Girl just kinda stat stomps, but Audrey definitely has some advantages.

Overall, yeah, perfect main theme, really fun dynamic, and PLEASE PLAY WANDERSONG!!!

The Conductor vs Glomgold (Ducktales)

Scottish(?) noises intensify. I got introduced to this one thanks to Elf, and… yeah this is just REALLY fun. Petty bird asshole rivals whose lives revolve around trying to one up said rival. It’s worth noting that I’m fairly certain this mainly relies on the Ducktales Reboot version of Glomgold, but hey, that’s the one I know and love so I ain’t complaining. Anyway, the banter here already is just *mwah* Chef’s Kiss, and despite only having one boss battle to go off of, The Conductor can rather easily hold his own, especially if you want to factor in his train or if you want I suppose you can include the Time Piece he has during the finale of Act 2.

It isn’t the most debateable, as Reboot Ducktales isn’t nearly as cracked stat wise as the rest of Disney, but that doesn’t really bother me. Is it wrong to simply want to enjoy Scottish squabbles and scuffles? Anyway, yeah, this is cool.

Hat Kid vs Cuphead (Cuphead)

Yeaaaah this one is a major guilty pleasure. It’s far from my preferred for either, but this one appeals to the “I just want to see them fight” side of my brain. In fact, so much so that this was actually the very first script I wrote! Like hell I’m posting it here though lmao. But yeah, basically take Snatcher vs Devil’s connections and use them for the basis of this except as the victims of said big bads. From there, you have a simple yet fun fast paced and cartoony clash of chinaware and head dressing.

Beowulf vs Lucas Lee (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World)

This one just fucks. I may not Scott Pilgrim much, but even just the movie gave me enough to get sold on this (bless you, Chris Evans). The fight basically being Captain Falcon vs Johnny Cage but as a more scrappy and goofy street fight is kinda all you need. Both are set to film a flick, one or the other gets fed up with the other’s shit, movie magic and wrestling moves ensue! Also, you can literally get BEOWULF SKATING ON HIS CHAIR TO KEEP UP WITH LUCAS DOING SUCK GRINDS ON HIS BOARD so, yeah, this has got damn good potential. Scott Pilgrim stats are kinda just a mess, so I’m not entirely sure who wins, but I’d imagine Beowulf? Either way, this is just simple and dumb fun and just my cup of tea.

Marie vs The Enchantress (Shovel Knight)

Wait what the fuck that isn’t Specter Knight-

Ok so I may kinda like Specter vs Marie, but this just clicks a bit more for me. Women who were corrupted by the main mcguffin of their series and gaining the powers or even just flat out becoming the big bad. Enchatress’ and Marie’s aesthetic mesh a bit better for me than Marie and Specter, and I think their more regal sort of demeanor can lead to more interesting exchanges, and the ending being a sort of Ultron vs Sigma case of The Amulet vs The Skull Heart could be REALLY cool, and the ending either being one overpowering the other or or god forbid using the opponent as their new host is… very raw. The debate is basically the same as Specter vs any of his Skullgirls MUs, so basically relies on interpretation.

Overall, yeah, this is cool.

Pasbros

The sillies

You know what, a lot of mus I like is already talked about so I'll just be a contrarian and talk about a mu I don't like.

Peacock Vs Cuphead

I don't really like this match up. While I do get the appeal, it would honestly be a fun wacky battle. The differences in story kinda puts me off badly.

That's all really. Uhhhh, Necrostar's next so

Necrostar

This Is Tuna with Bacon!... Wait what the Peck-

Marie Korbel VS The Collector (The Owl House)

This one may sound weird without context, but it's really fun.

The main theme for the matchup is “big sister vs little brother”, or more expanded upon, Young kids manipulated into becoming the biggest threat in their worlds, and it's not only unique, but also makes for a unique potential I haven't seen in almost any other matchup, with Marie almost trying to stop Collector from having a tantrum.

You may think it's a stomp, but thanks to Mobile Marie does have some arguments to win, and even if it wasn't, it's still my preferred for both.

The Conductor VS Sam & Max

Oh boy I love having the out of the box picks :D

Admittedly this one takes a bit more to explain so, picture this. You're playing Sam and Max (I have never played S&M so bear with me), you get a New mission, and Guess what it Is? “Murder on the Owl Express”. Essentially Sam & Max investigate Dead Bird Studio while dealing with Collector and his crew, Eventually they find the basement and you can just go buck wild with the fight, and you know that Max and Conductor would have the banter of a lifetime while Sam watches. And surprisingly debatable too so that makes it better for me.

We don't get a Lot of 2v1’s so this could be really fun.

RedHeadedElf

Mustache Girl vs Starlight Glimmer

Hey all, Red here. I have limited time so I'm only gonna yap about one matchup (and keep it rather short, unfortunately) but it's one I'm super passionate about- that being Mustache Girl vs Starlight Glimmer from My Little Pony. I adore this matchup, as it focuses a lot on the extremist ideals of both- Starlights communism equalism and MG's black and white morality, which I think have some really unique contrasts with each other. There are also some more exact connections, such as these ideals both forming from loss and their relationships with the protag. It's also just a really fun fight. Starlight is haxxed up the wazoo and MG has plenty of abilities of her own thanks to the Time Pieces. Starlight's redemption and status as a councilor could also make for some really fun character interactions as she tries to empathize with MG and her ideals, reflecting on her own past. The time pieces give you a perfect opportunity to do this btw with their memory worlds. Cutting it here but yeah, I really love this idea, and could yap more.

Oleggator

Filia Medici vs Kei Sagami

As much ironic it would be to have Umbrella as first Skullgirls rep (being probably one of (if not) the first drawn mascot characters in the cast as well as a literal Skullgirl) Filia is probably the most obvious contender to represent Skullgirls first, given Filia for Skullgirls is what Ryu is for Street Fighter, Scorpion is for Mortal Kombat and Jin/Kazuya are for Tekken, she’s the mascot with whom only Peacock can compete.

The question is “Who shall face her?”. At first, her spread was rather small with a few basic but options (Shantae who while covers a very decent amount of similarities doesn’t go around Filia’s main thing that being her Samson relations or amnesia part and Venom who is…Venom), later though it began to grow continuously and there is a lot more to choose from (and unfortunately, Peacock has to wait for something like that to happen…). Personally, I’m starting to like the sound of Kei from Maken X more and more so far. It’s like, as soon as I see her premise it literally matches Filia’s very precisely so it is easy to connect the dots. Don’t let her SMT looking design fool you either, it is quite a more fair option than something like Beowulf vs Kanji or smth. And Kei/Maken being the protagonist of the series I feel like, just like Hat Kid in this match she has enough to catch up, even just looking at her VSBW page, while I’m heavily unsure on stats, she seems to have a buttload of stuff to use, definitely could use some research at some point. 

Robo-Fortune vs Fake Peppino

Ok but hear me out…all I’m asking is, hear, me, out…two copies made to best their original but in actuality turn into goofy bootleg clones that are more funny than anything until they are not, and turn into damn scary beings once they lock in. I know Robo-Ky is more obvious and in line comparison for Robo-Fortune but I mean like, come on look at them…

Idk I just think it’s funny, would’ve definitely pushed more if Fake Peppino officially wasn’t here for only like, one boss fight in Pizza Tower (it was kinda even hard to generally make a TN by using only official stuff…), for all other intents and purposes it gives me a chuckle so I’m living with it…debate wise, well Pizza Tower stats are kinda all over the place, I definitely gotta pay a visit and look at all various high or low arguments our italian war veteran got, obviously if stats are close Robo-Fortune probably just takes it, and I don’t mean because of Skullgirls Mobile, Robo-Fortune generally is just, a bigger menace in the overall picture, good for her.

Afterword

Well if you managed to reach here that means you’ve read this blog or skipped to results, whichever of the two. Either way, hello there, and thank you for reading this blog, hope you had as much fun reading it as us working on it. And I mean it, with the help from each of team members going through this blog was a breezer to go through. With Spectral and Jacket helping image wise, Red doing various calcs, Pasbros covering Skullgirls Mobile which is doing god’s work if you ask me and Necrostar (and Jacket too in that department as he is probably one of the biggest fans of this match alongside myself) for managing to keep me alive during the thing (which means a lot to stay motivated) on top of all of them generally contributing in the blog.

If you know me, then you probably know I really like this match myself, I mean, duh, why else would I do a blog if I don’t like a match up. But really, A Hat in Time is probably my favorite Indie Game if Psychonauts doesn’t count as one, and Skullgirls is also a very awesome Fighting Game that I have fun playing and only probably matched by Tekken when it comes to discussing/playing. Originally when I first had a discovery of this match up it was more intuitive and simple, but as time went by and I get to know Umbrella better (and by that I mean her getting in the game which gave her, you know, more dialogues and a story mode…) it really grew a lot in various metrics. It is inherently still simple on paper but overall just childishly fun & simple, just as combatants of this match fittingly enough. And I hope that you may see the same parallels between them as I do.

With that being said, this afterword isn’t a sole “thank you” but also a little warning, I usually take plenty of time making my blogs and trying to cover as much as I can, so with that in mind I do want to warn to wait for the next blog just as long to come out. This time not only due to me wanting to cover all I can, but generally cause:

1. I’ll be moving to another city for quite awhile, so no access to the main PC where I like to do my shenanigans, wouldn’t stop me entirely though, I believe I’m stubborn enough to find my way around that, the bigger thing to note tho is…
2. I’ll be also trying to focus myself more on other blog projects I’m in and/or want to contribute to, there are plenty to count in mind, and I obviously won’t be telling which ones I’m working on, you’ll see me in them when they are out, but I am excited to finally help and contribute.

So I’ll be surprised if my next project will release in a short timeframe, with that being said, the next time, despite having some rather obscure faces, is also one more project that not only me have been looking forward to, which you may already guessed what it is if you’ve been reading another blog series, so let’s see what’s cooking (meanwhile imma go and prepare myself, Silksong is not gonna buy itself…):

NEXT TIME on Blo𝐆ator…