Haughty and imposing; such a description of Kanako has never been more true than this version of the Moriya shrine goddess. When you have an extremely effective zoning fighter that can easily put the pressure on the opponent with relative ease and little to no drawbacks, who needs danmaku projectiles? Kanako might as well be the final boss of an SNK fighting game.
Kanako is a four-button character with the fundamentals of a three-button character, using Ⓧ, Ⓨ, and Ⓩ for all of its attacks sans the Power Charge, which is activated by pressing and holding Ⓢ to gradually build up Power.
Unique to Kanako over RicePigeon's other Touhou characters is that Kanako is able to perform up to two air dashes instead of one, including a vertical upward airdash that can act as a double and triple jump. While it may have less reliance on projectiles compared to a standard Touhou character, Kanako can still be an effective zoning character. Most of Kanako's normals are relatively fast and sport a huge amount of range, allowing Kanako to not only easily keep opponents away, but to do so without fear of much punishment. Most of Kanako's specials are projectile based, and cover different spaces of the screen. While at first glance such an arsenal might suggest a keepaway character, Kanako's most frightening strong point is offensive pressure.
At the beginning of the match, Kanako must select from a total of nine different spellcards; three level 1s, three level 2s, and three level 3s, each one corresponding to a different Hyper. Each selected spellcard costs a number of points equal to its level, and Kanako can only use a maximum of nine points before no more spellcards can be selected. This offers a wide diversity of attacks to choose from, making Kanako even more of a threat.
The character utilizes a custom AI that can be quite difficult to defeat due to all of the aforementioned properties of Kanako's attacks.
Stats[]
Life
1000
Power
3000
Attack
100
Defence
100
Movelist[]
Hovering the mouse cursor over the Command Input icons will display text that refers to the inputs set in M.U.G.E.N's Key Config.
Icons encased in square brackets [ ] require the respective button(s) to be held down. Hovering the mouse cursor over the icon displays the hold duration if applicable.
Specials[]
Revered Pillars
Command Input
Properties
Ⓩ version: uses 500 Power
Rising Zephyr
Command Input
Properties
Ⓩ version uses 500 Power
Ground Serpent
Command Input
Properties
Does not hit airborne opponents Ⓩ version: *, *, uses 500 Power
Serpent Bite
Command Input
Properties
Ⓧ version: , does not hit airborne opponents Ⓨ version: , , * Ⓩ version: , , , does not hit crouching opponents
Thrust
Command Input
Properties
Ⓩ version: uses 500 Power
Hypers[]
Divine Festival "Expanded Onbashira"
Command Input
Properties
Ⓧ
Only usable if respective spellcard is selected prior to match Uses 1000 Power
God Sign "Beautiful Spring-like Suiga"
Command Input
Properties
Ⓧ
Only usable if respective spellcard is selected prior to match Uses 1000 Power
God Sign "Omiwatari God Crosses"
Command Input
Properties
Ⓧ
Only usable if respective spellcard is selected prior to match Uses 1000 Power
Heaven's Dragon "Source of Rains"
Command Input
Properties
Ⓨ
* Only usable if respective spellcard is selected prior to match Attacks activates during opponent's hitstun Uses 2000 Power
Mystery "Yamato Torus"
Command Input
Properties
Ⓨ
Only usable if respective spellcard is selected prior to match Uses 2000 Power
Divine Pillar "Meteoric Onbashira"
Command Input
Properties
Ⓨ
Only usable if respective spellcard is selected prior to match Uses 2000 Power
Wind Goddess "Heaven's Tempest"
Command Input
Properties
Ⓩ
Only usable if respective spellcard is selected prior to match Uses 3000 Power
Bundled with this character is a WinMugen compatible version that lacks a localcoord value and has a different internal name of 'Kanako_RP'; other than that, there doesn't appear to be any other differences between the two versions.
This version of Kanako was originally part of the playable cast of Touhou RP Extended, but was cut from the game due to balance issues.
Curse God "Red Mouthed Mishaguji" is not a spellcard that Kanako uses in any of her appearances in Touhou Project, and is actually used by Kanako's rival goddess and friend, Suwako Moriya.
The Hyper, however, ironically fits in with Kanako's snake motif.