"Justice Choujin Founder" Silverman Review: Silver Throwback

Muscle Shot is a game that is over three years old, having amassed a huge amount of units, having over 1800 these days, with that number increasing atleast once per week most of the time.

 

If we take a look to the units that were released during the game’s first months, we can see that the thought process in terms of giving an unit an ability set were way simpler back then, with the design philology being around the Killer abilities, with the Rope and Gimmick resistances being seen as something secondary, which isn't that surprising considering how back then things were way more forgiving than modern Events.

 

Over time, as things became more complex, so did the ability sets, and the focus shifted from Killer abilities to Resistance ones, with new units having at least 2 gimmick resistances these days, to the point that Killer abilities became sort of a “cherry on top” kind of skill. It is a nice addition to the unit, but it isn’t something that you wouldn’t mind if they take it out for some reason or another in most cases.

Suffice to say, Rope Resist/Killer Ability units are quite outclassed these days, and while some of them still haves solid niches, you have to build your team around helping those units so they don’t get harmed by the gimmicks, which can be a bit taxing sometimes. 

Although there is one Rope/Killer Ability unit that is proof that with some little tweaks, an unit of that kind can be relevant, and that unit is “Justice Choujin Founder” Silverman.

Silverman has an ability set of Current Rope Recovery (Strong)/Water Attribute Killer (Medium)/Absolute Resistance (Strong).

A really basic ability set to say the least, being only slightly better than others of its kind due to recovering HP out of the ropes and having an universal damage reducer (specially against Water units), that, while nice, it’s nothing to write home about…although before taking an early judgment (like I did back when I was starting) we should take a look to his Friendship attack and Finisher.

Unlike most Rope/Killer units, whose Friendship attacks only target a single unit without having an Area of Effect, leaving adjacent enemies without any scratches, but oh boy they went all in on this one.

Silverman’s friendship attack not only targets, but also damages every adjacent unit with the same amount that the main target received, with said amount of damage being quite large for a targeting friendship attack that also has an AoE.

And let’s not even talk about how much damage it deals to Water units…

Silverman’s finisher is really similar to the one his previous light version has, although with an important difference.

This finisher stuns the target, which by itself is already good, but it also has the chance to damage and stun units near the area of impact, which is pretty sweet to say the least. This gave Silverman not only relevance in Events, but also in Coliseum, which is something big for an unit with his ability set.

Also I found amusing how this move is the Incomplete Arrogant Spark, but it’s actually better than Light Silverman’s apparently complete version of the move. All things considered I don’t blame that people really wanted a Bond Awakening for him before he was part of the winning bunch of the Bond Awakening poll.

 

So yeah, while Silverman is a Rope/Killer unit… he is a super charged one. DeNA was aware of the many pitfalls Rope/Killer units have fallen into, so they did his best on making an unit that would be desirable by many despite his extremely simple ability set. And seeing how relevant and popular he is to this day, he definitely is one of their biggest success histories.

Although what I really like about him it’s the overall presentation he has, being an amusing living reference.

This is the version of Silverman that appeared during the early days of the Perfect Origin…and has an ability set reminiscent of the early days of the game, where Rope/Killer ability sets were more common.

It’s a pretty good throwback all things considered.