Them's Fighting Words: Skullgirls Guide to Parasoul

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, to yet another installment of Them's Fighting Words. For the halfway mark, we’ll be taking a detailed look at quite possibly the coolest crowned princess in the world, Parasoul.

 

The Run Down

Parasoul is the Guile-type of Skullgirls. She specializes in pokes and managing the fighting space with her many zoning tools. While her movements may not be as quick as Valentine or Ms. Fortune, her graceful and well-paced movements allow for some nicely set up timing attacks. In addition to her back-up soldier attacks she’s essentially a three person tag team on her own.

 

The Basics

Parasoul is an odd mixture of poise and power. Her movement speed is that of an expert fencer: slow, methodical, and calculating. Her normal walk speed is a steady progression with no run to speak of. Her forward dash is essentially a long forward step that has a solid speed to step in with a quick poke of her umbrella. Her jump is a single jump, but it’s higher than most players in the cast. Overall, her mobility is no nonsense with little to no bells and whistles.

Her basic attacks all have a good speed and coverage. Many are efficient at poking in for a quick hit confirmation that can lead into a quick combo string or tap into her many specials to dictate the pace of the fight. Her attacks are by no means the rush-down type, but are more used to bait and coerce her foe into making a hasty mistake upon which she can capitalize.

Parasoul’s standing light punch can reach up to half screen and offers excellent coverage and priority in many instances. Her backwards heavy kick has overhead property which can keep her foes guessing as to where she’ll strike, while her forward facing light punch goes out at an incredibly quick pace and can catch many opponents off guard.

 

One Woman Army

One of Parasoul’s go-to moves is her “Napalm Tears” attack. Depending on the doing-a-sonic-boom motion coupled with a punch sends out an explosive orb that ignites after a few moments. By doing a backwards quarter circle motion with a kick, she’ll toss them into the air where they’ll stay until they either ignite or she gets hit. Parasoul can have up to three “Tears” out at any time. Where the strategy comes into play is she can also manually ignite them in a myriad of ways. The first is through her attacks “Napalm Trigger”, “Napalm Quake”, and “Napalm Pillar.”

Each Napalm move has Parasoul slamming her umbrella into the ground which causes an explosion around her and causes her “Napalm Tears” to ignite. The Trigger variation sets off one Napalm Tear, Quake sets off all of them, and Pillar also sets off all of them with the added benefit of causing a taller explosion around Parasoul, turning it into a very effective anti-air move. Along with these moves, many of her normal moves can cause them to ignite, which can open up new combo potential if she sets them off close enough to her to continue her onslaught.

Where Parasoul truly excels is at being a queen of spacing. Much like Peacock, Parasoul is at her best when she can control the fighting space. Unlike Peacock though, she has a few tools keep her alive when her foes slip past her volley of long range attacks in the form of her loyal troop of soldiers, the Black Egrets.

Her Egret troops give her three unique and very useful moves to use to better shape the pace of the fight. Her “Egret Dive” summons a single soldier who leaps in front of her shielding her from any and all projectile attacks for as long as he remains on screen (but will be immediately dismissed if he’s hit with a physical attack). The “Egret Dive” is perfect to guard her against long-range sweepers like Peacock and can allow her to set up some counter attacks or even just a breather to break up the foe’s attack string.

The second summon is her “Egret Charge” which calls up a motorcycled soldier that grabs the target and drags them across the field ending in a wall bounce. It not sets up a nice combo line, but it also gives another tool to give Parasoul some breathing room against rush-down type characters.

Her last move is the “Egret Call” which is a bit unorthodox in its usage. This move summons a soldier that quickly interrupts whatever move Parasoul is doing at the moment. At first this may seem like a useless maneuver but in truth it actually works like a cancel move that resets her quickly to follow up on attacks she usually wouldn’t be able to string together. This one is a bit more of an advanced tool but in the right hands can be down-right punishing.

 

Super Combos

Parasoul’s three super combos all link together rather easily with any of her normal and special moves, making them the perfect hit to confirm into.

Her first level one super, “Silent Scope” is a single shot projectile that can hit from anywhere on the screen. What makes it so dangerous is the crumple state it leaves the target in, opening them up for more follow-up damage.

Parasoul’s second level one super called “Motor Brigade” is an amplified version of her “Egret Charge” special, summoning a small posse of motorcycled soldiers. It hits multiple times for some decent damage and hits targets on the ground as well.

Her final super is a level three attack called “Inferno Brigade” in which Parasoul joins her Egret soldiers to unload on her targets in a sudden firing squad. While it does high hits, the damage is a bit scaled down because of all the hits. This move can be a perfect punisher when coupled with the “Egret Dive” to punish anyone foolish enough to fire projectiles at her. In addition, it also carries invulnerable start-up so she can whip it out without much fear.

 

As a Team Player

On a team, Parasoul works equally well on point or as support. Her “Egret Charge” assist makes for an excellent addition for many team ups. Parasoul works best with people that can play off her tactical methods and possibly play as foil to her calm cool and collected playing style.

 

Table of Contents

Peacock

Ms. Fortune

Valentine

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