Meta Crystal

Metal Cavern, also known as Meta Crystal, is an unlockable stage in Super Smash Flash 2 coming from the original Super Smash Bros. In Level 9 of Classic mode, the player will fight either a random metal character (on normal difficulty or lower) or the Metal Bros. (on hard difficulty or higher) on this stage.

Layout
Metal Cavern is a relatively simple stage with an uneven main platform and a single, off-center platform resting above. It is the smallest stage in the game in terms of floor area, if one does not count Central Highway after being affected by its hazard.

Music

 * The main music track is titled Metal Cavern, an arrangement of the Metal Mario theme from the original Super Smash Bros.. Arranged by Alex Chernabogue Mourey.
 * The alternate music track is titled Metal Bros., an arrangement of the Metal character battle theme from Super Smash Bros. Melee. Arranged by Alex Chernabogue Mourey.

Tournament legality
Metal Cavern, as a legal stage, has a contested history.

The stage is currently banned due to its tiny, uneven layout providing advantages to larger, stronger characters such as over smaller, faster characters that rely on having a wide space to move such as. However, beforehand, it was a common counterpick and is still a popular choice for exhibition matches.

Though it was initially thought to show promise in SSF2, eventually the same conclusion was reached, as larger characters, particularly, along with characters heavily reliant on disjoints, such as , still perform exceptionally well on it compared to other stages.

Origin
Metal Cavern is a stage that only appeared in the original Super Smash Bros. On it, the player battled Metal Mario as a mini-boss before advancing to the Fighting Polygon Team and, finally, Master Hand.

The stage's design is very loosely based on the Cavern of the Metal Cap within Hazy Maze Cave in Super Mario 64, where Metal Mario is encountered for the first time as a power-up.

Meta Crystal, as it was referred to in the original game's files, could not be unlocked for players to use and could only be played on with the use of a GameShark or other cheating device. However, due to its popularity despite that, Project M included it as a standard playable stage, renaming it to Metal Cavern and giving it a new design, albeit with the original N64 graphics still available as an alternate option.

In Super Smash Bros., its blast lines were massive, especially compared to the size of the stage itself, to enable the player to recover easier against the very resilient Metal Mario. However, in Project M, its blast lines were greatly reduced for the sake of ordinary play, which Super Smash Flash 2 uses instead.