Blinx (BLiNX the Time Sweeper) Discussion - Crusade's First 4-D Fighter Ever

Blinx is the titular character of the extremely short-lived BLiNX the Time Sweeper series, which had only two games, both exclusive to the original Xbox, and he wasn't even playable in the second game, being replaced with a surprisingly in depth character creation system. Blinx was created as a sort of mascot character for Microsoft, like how Nintendo had Mario, Sega had Sonic, and Sony had Crash, and his first game was advertised as "the first 4-D action game ever" (with the 4th dimension being time). Unfortunately, poor sales and reception for both Blinx games led to him falling into obscurity, leaving Microsoft without its own cuddly mascot character (unless you count Banjo-Kazooie, but that's irrelevant).

Now with that brief history lesson out of the way, onto Blinx's own abilities:

As you guessed by the name of his game, Blinx is a Time Sweeper. Now, what the heck is a Time Sweeper, you may ask? Well, a Time Sweeper is a cat armed with a vacuum cleaner that can suck up trash, bombs and other objects. Time Sweepers are sent to different dimensions on behalf of the Time Factory to thwart the schemes of the Tom Tom Gang, a group of anthropomorphic bandit pigs who steal time and sell it to other worlds, in the process creating glitches in time that the Sweepers must then fix. Now, what the heck do I mean by "glitches in time", you may ask? Well, to quote the Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space manual: "When time goes bad, it forms time monsters." When these time monsters are defeated (by shooting trash at them), they turn into time crystals. A Time Sweeper can sweep up these time crystals to gain access to time controls! Time controls allow Time Sweepers to, what else, control time, from making foes around them PAUSE, to speeding themselves up with FAST FORWARD, or they can even RECORD themselves to be in two places at once.

In Crusade, Blinx would use his appearance from his first game, as seen at the top of this post, but he uses the TS-5000X, a sweeper he's seen wielding in the cutscenes for BLiNX 2: Masters of Time and Space, shown in the BLiNX 2 render below (and in case you ask why Blinx looks "edgy" in the second game, it came out in 2004, that should be the only explanation you need)

Blinx is all-around average when it comes to his most basic physics: Average walk speed, average dash speed, and average jump height. However, he is a bit (word for the opposite of floaty goes here), and his air speed is fantastic, at the cost of bad air acceleration, meaning he falls downward very quickly. As for any other physics, I'll need some suggestions.

Neutral Attack: Blinx does a quick slap with one of his hands, which can be immediately followed up with a second slap. Think Villager's neutral attack in Smash 4.

Forward Tilt: Blinx jabs forward with his sweeper like a bayonet. Good reach but not much damage.

Up Tilt: Blinx does a simple uppercut. An average attack in every sense of the word.

Down Tilt: Blinx does a quick sweeping kick ahead of him. Medium range and solid damage. If you need a visual aid, just think of that cheap floor kick move from Mortal Kombat that trips people, and that's what Blinx's Down Tilt looks like.

Dash Attack: Blinx takes off his sweeper and uses it to deliver a quick one-two whack in front of him. When this move is performed, Blinx will start to "slide" on the ground for a few seconds before going to a complete stop.
Origin: This is based off the melee attack animation from BLiNX 2: Masters of Time and Space.

Forward Smash: Blinx swings his sweeper down on the ground like a hammer. Short range but good damage.

Up Smash: Blinx performs a Fox-like flip kick, hitting opponents above him. Good balance of range and damage.

Down Smash: Blinx shoots a purple bomb from his sweeper at the ground below him, damaging anyone near him caught in the blast. High damage, but hurts Blinx slightly.
Origin: In both BLiNX games, bombs can be swept up in addition to the normal trash. Obviously they do much more damage than shooting rubbish at enemies. Bombs appear as purple cartoon bombs with a golden pig snout on them, indicating they once belonged to the Tom Tom Gang (see the "Who is Blinx?" section of this post for a brief description of the Tom Toms if you don't get it).

Neutral Aerial: Blinx performs a somersault to hit opponents around him

Back Aerial: Blinx swings behind him, using his sweeper like a sword

Down Aerial: Blinx activates a Slow time control as he descends, slowing his movement and dragging nearby opponents with him before deactivating the time control right as he lands with a strong slam punch. Unlike other Down Aerials, Blinx can move from side to side while using this, acting as sort of a glide move.

Grab: Blinx uses his sweeper to "sweep" up an opponent, getting them stuck on the nozzle.

Pummel: Blinx hits the grabbed opponent with his knee. Spammable, but low damage.

Forward Throw: Blinx launches the grabbed opponent out of his sweeper. Not much damage, but has a good throwing distance.

Back Throw: Blinx does a quick backflip, slamming the opponent as they are shot out of the sweeper behind Blinx.

Up Throw: Blinx aims upward and launches the opponent from his sweeper.

Down Throw: Blinx shoots out the opponent on the ground and immediately does a kick to send them flying.

Neutral Special - Sweep 'N Shoot: Blinx takes out his sweeper. This move has two purposes: First, holding down the special button will make Blinx start sweeping. While sweeping, Blinx can move left and right, but he is much slower and can't jump. As the sweeper is active, any items (excluding crates and barrels) in front of Blinx (about the same range as Kirby's inhale) will get pulled into the sweeper. Any healing items Blinx picks up with his sweeper will get used automatically, weapons (fire bar, laser gun, etc.) will go into his hand, and throwable objects (Capsule, Bumper, Pokeball, etc.) will get "stored" inside the sweeper (indicated by a total x/5 on Blinx's HUD, with x being equal to the number of items inside the sweeper). This move can also be used to "steal" an item another fighter is carrying.

To make this attack not useless during no items matches, when using the sweeper for long enough without picking anything up, trash and bombs will magically appear around Blinx. The trash and bombs have no purpose other than for Blinx to sweep up, and other fighters can't interact with them, but in a match with more than one Blinx, one Blinx can take another Blinx's trash and bombs. Blinx can suck up to 5 items/trash/bombs at a time. For the second purpose: tap the special button to fire out the last item/trash/bomb Blinx swept up. Trash and bombs automatically vanish after a short time like any normal item. Bomb explosions are identical to Bob-omb explosions, just smaller and not as damaging.

Side Special - FF Boost: After about a 1 second delay, Blinx activates Fast Forward, one of his time controls. Blinx in FF Boost is indicated by an orange glow around him and a "blur trail" of himself following behind. During this period, his jump height, speed, and momentum are greatly increased, making him the fastest character in the game, faster than even Sonic. However, Blinx cannot use any other specials, grabs, or smash attacks while FF Boost is active, restricting him to standard attacks. Once activated, the only way to turn off FF Boost is to either get KO'd or wait until the duration ends.

Similar to Wario Waft, the duration of FF Boost increases the longer you go without using it, up to a maximum of 10 seconds and a minimum of Blinx slipping and hurting himself slightly without activating FF Boost if you spam it enough. Blinx is immune to flinching while FF Boost is active, but if he's hit by any flinch or knockback inducing attack during the delay before starting it, the move will be interrupted.

Up Special - REC Backflip: Blinx performs a high backflip as Record, another time control, is activated (indicated by a green "blur trail" effect following him as the backflip is performed). The backflip sends Blinx in an arc opposite to the direction he was facing (meaning if Blinx uses REC Backflip while facing the right side of the screen, he will do a backflip to the left side of the screen and vice versa). Once Blinx touches the ground, a green-shaded copy of him appears where he was when the REC Backflip started, making its entrance with the same backflip, runs a short distance in whatever direction Blinx was facing at the start of the backflip, and then it disappears. The recording of Blinx damages and slightly knocks back any opponents it touches.

Don't quite understand? Open the spoiler below for a simplified graph that should how REC Backflip works.

Spoiler:

Down Special - REW Bubble: Blinx creates a small purple force field around him, which stays where it was activated. Any opponents who go inside the force field will be shrunken down as if they picked up a Poison Mushroom, making them more vulnerable to attacks, and will stay like that until they go outside of the bubble, where they will regrow to normal size after about 4 seconds. Only one REW Bubble can be active at a time, and once a REW Bubble disappears, Blinx will have to wait a few seconds before he can create another one.
Origin: In BLiNX 2's Versus Mode, using a Rewind time control would make opponents shrink down to size, making them weaker.

Final Smash - PAUSE Button: Blinx activates Pause, making the entire stage freeze with a blue tint . All fighters, projectiles, moving platforms, stage hazards, and a timer if there is one during the current match will stop moving. Blinx and his teammates are completely unaffected by the pause control (save for any projectiles, which will freeze in midair), and can move around as normal.

While the world is paused, Blinx can damage fighters with his attacks while they stay frozen. After about 8 seconds, the pause control ends, opponents suffer the knockback from any damage Blinx or his teammates did while paused, projectiles continue on their path, the timer resumes its countdown, moving platforms start moving again, and stage hazards go back to normal.

Open the spoiler below for the "music" that plays during this Final Smash:

Spoiler:

Stage Entrance: Blinx jumps out from a time gate, which then disappears.
Series Symbol: The logo for the Time Factory in the series (this is literally the best image I could find of it, it's the symbol behind the white cat, and both Blinx games use the symbol in their logo)



Taunt: Blinx chugs down a giant carton of milk which he then throws away.
Origin: In BLiNX 2: Masters of Time and Space, milk is used to restore your health. This taunt is based on the animation when a Time Sweeper drinks milk in the game.

Victory Animation: Blinx uses his sweeper like a guitar and rocks out.

Defeat Animation: Blinx claps for the winner, but has a sad expression on his face.

Victory Theme: A remix of the Stage Complete theme from BLiNX the Time Sweeper.

Spoiler:

Palette Swaps:

Spoiler: