Rayman (Super Smash Flash 2)

Rayman is a newcomer unlockable character in Super Smash Flash 2. His reveal was shown during the Day 3 livestream at Super Smash Con 2018. His appearance is based on his design in the game Rayman Origins and Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc.

Attributes
Rayman is a speedy yet floaty medium-light weight character. He has a fast dashing speed and air speed, while his falling and walking speeds are slow to compensate.

Rayman is a very unusual character with his limbs and head levitating around his body. This trait gives Rayman his staple asset: an extremely long melee range both in the ground and in the air. His jab's range, for example, is arguably one of the longest in the game, even outspacing 's infinite hit finisher. He also has very fast frame data with his tilts, jab, up special, and aerials. His sends a flurry of punches to knock opponents downward, making it a very frustrating combo move for opponents to deal with. These traits grant him a naturally strong combo game and strong spacing abilities.

He has a decent grab and throw game, with a combo throw in his up throw, and back throw, and his forward and back throws setting up edgeguards (with forward throw having slight combo potential at low percents.) However, he has no kill throw, with forward throw, his strongest throw, not killing well beyond 200%, and while his grab does have a long range, is also laggy.

Rayman has good kill power in his smash attacks and aerials, with his aerials also fast for their decent power. Rayman also has a great neutral game, with his down special, the plum, and his side special, Vortex, a tornado projectile, being able to trap opponents in, allowing Rayman followup potential.

His edgeguarding game is among the best in the game. Due to his sheer melee range, all his aerials, tilts, and even his jab combo can all be used to safely edgeguard the opponent on stage or off stage. His forward air, back air, down air, and neutral air are notable for having lingering hitboxes, while also being somewhat powerful. Furthermore, his side special and standard special, though laggy, can be used to set traps or launch an aerial throw to follow up with any aerial move. Rayman's down aerial is notorious for quickly launching a flurry of punches downwards, sending the opponents down the abyss. This move, when used for edgeguarding, is very difficult to punish and is used to score early KOs.

One of his unique moves is his down special, Plum, which grants him a giant plum. The giant plum acts as a projectile and a platform. Rayman can stand on it, attack it with tilts or smash attacks, and the platform moves. These properties make the giant plum a very useful tool in a number of situations. The plum can act as a stage control tool and an advanced combo tool. More skilled players can even send the plum offstage with Rayman standing on it, and finish the opponents off with it! Furthermore, the plum can be used as an emergency platform offstage. This is handy as a recovery move since the plum grants Rayman back his midair jump.

Rayman does, however, have some noticeable weaknesses. Many of his moves have blindspots, as they stretch out his hands with no hitboxes in between the hands and body. This leads to situations where his hitboxes have awkward placements. For example, his forward aerial will miss if Rayman tries to use it on a small opponent right next to him.

Another notable weakness is his lack of disjointed hitboxes. Because most of his moves involve stretching his limbs and levitating them away from his body, in a similar vein to Luffy, this means, with a few exceptions, that every time Rayman attacks, his hurtboxes also extend. This makes him very vulnerable to characters with projectile-heavy playstyles, such as Falco, Mega-Man, and Link, and somewhat vulnerable to characters with disjointed hitboxes like Marth, Ichigo, and Lloyd.

A third weakness is his recovery. In theory, he has an infinite vertical and horizontal recovery due to his plum. However, should Rayman lose his Plum, his recovery options are limited to his midair jump and his up special, which grants negligible vertical height; such traits make his recovery very easy to gimp. Additionally, the plum can be used against him. When an opponent attacks the plum, the plum now has hurtboxes used against Rayman, in addition to sending him away from the stage. As such, Rayman players need to take precautions in order to maximze his recovery

Overall, Rayman is a very unusual, unorthodox character with great potential against much of the cast. Players must be mindful of his spacing game, his blind spots, (particularly when dealing with projectile campers), and his exploitable recovery in order to mitigate his weaknesses and maximize his potential.

External link

 * Rayman's reveal video