Mr. Game & Watch (Super Smash Flash 2)

Mr. Game & Watch is a veteran starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. He was revealed on the third day of the APEX 2015 stream. His moveset and sprite design are taken from Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Unlike his usual appearance as an unlockable character in all the official  games released to date and the previous game, he was made a starter instead in Super Smash Flash 2.

Mr. Game & Watch is currently placed at 28th of B tier on the current tier list, a big noticeable leap from F tier from the tier list from Beta 1.0, where he was residing as the first bottom-tier character in the game. Mr. Game & Watch has strong KO moves in his disjointed smash attacks, all aerial attacks (excluding back aerial), and, as well as his potentially strong special moves, Judge and Oil Panic, with Judge having various strong effects (such as Judge #9 being an OHKO attack, #3 being a potent shield breaker, #6 burning the opponent, #7 generating food to heal himself, and #8 freezing the opponent), and Oil Panic absorbing energy-based projectiles and releasing a large projectile that will OHKO opponents, depending on the strength upon the projectile that is absorbed. He also possesses a very strong combo and juggling game, a strong edgeguarding game, amazing out of shield options, and a potentially deadly grab and throw game. Due to his high air speed, he has an amazing air game, along with fast and high priority aerial attacks that provide good spacing and edgeguarding tools, with his able to meteor smash if landed on the initial hitbox. His relatively slow falling speed allows him to break out of juggles, and combined with Fire, he has one of the best vertical recoveries in the game. Since forward aerial has good and slightly disjointed range and has slow falling speed, this helps in Mr. Game & Watch's great edgeguarding tactic in the wall of pain.

Despite these strengths, Mr. Game & Watch possesses a few notable weaknesses. He is tied with and  for being the third-lightest character in the game, which makes his survivability very weak by being easily KO'd. Despite possessing disjointed hitboxes, his overall range is mediocre, as this is worsened by the fact that many of his disjointed moves like down tilt, up tilt, and forward smash have underwhelming range for a disjoint, allowing sword-wielding characters to keep him away. Additionally, while Mr. Game & Watch's up throw and down throw are strong combo starters and back throw launches the opponent the farthest, none of his throws tend to KO until very high percents of damage, which means that his back throw, his strongest throw, will only KO at around 180%. His strongest special moves, Judge and Oil Panic, are also very situational, with Judge having a random effect with each use and Oil Panic only being useful against opponents with absorbable projectiles.

Attributes
Mr. Game & Watch is a medium-speedy, yet floaty third-lightweight character who has a moveset of disjointed attacks. Mr. Game & Watch has fairly average attributes all around, running slightly slower and jumping slightly lower than, but runs faster and jumps higher than most of the other characters like and , mainly the lightest characters, such as  and. He has good air speed and is on the floatier side of the cast. His most notable attribute is his light weight, being tied for the third-lightest character in the game, as well as one of the lowest crouches in the game.

His only other notable attributes are his dashing speeds, being tied with Black Mage, Bomberman, Jigglypuff, Luigi, Mario, Simon and Waluigi, and being tied for the twentieth-fastest character in the game, and his jumping speeds being tied with Naruto, along with his jumping height being tied with a few other characters like Rayman, but his walking speeds (tied with Bomberman and ) and falling speeds are slow to compensate (tied with Marth and Rayman).

Mr. Game & Watch has a fairly unorthodox playstyle focused on vertical combos. Mr. Game & Watch's greatest strength is his set of brutal combos and his strong juggling game, as well as for his high KO potential, high damage output and nearly all of his attacks possessing disjointed and lingering hitboxes. He possesses a very strong juggle game, with his neutral air having a large vertical hitbox and combo ability, his up special allowing him to quickly reach opponents above him, and his up air being able to keep opponents in the air with its windbox effect while also being a strong KO move. He has a strong set of smash attacks that deal huge knockback and KO opponents relatively early, especially when charged up. Many of his attacks, including his tilt attacks, smash attacks, and aerials, are disjointed with somewhat long durations and lingering hitboxes, which gives him an advantage in spacing and gives him great approach and also increases his KO power. He possesses various strong attacks in his moveset that grant potent offence and harsh punishment, but they are rather slow in the process.

Mr. Game & Watch's greatest weakness is his lack of horizontal approach options. His running speed is not fast enough to catch many opponents, and his only fast horizontal aerial is his back air, which does little damage and is difficult to combo with. His grab possesses little forward range and is somewhat laggy, though it also reaches slightly behind him. Many of his other attacks, especially those with disjointed hitboxes and horizontal hitboxes, are also either slow or have awkward properties that make them difficult to use in the neutral game. As such, he has a difficult time getting much of anything started and struggles against characters that can outbox him on the ground, like and. He also has trouble with some zoners, as his down special only absorbs energy-based projectiles. He sometimes struggles to KO due to his slow smash attacks which have either slow startup or have more amount of time before releasing to attack, leaving him with a few KO options outside of forward aerial, combos into up air (which is inconsistent), or his grab KO confirms. Mr. Game & Watch also has a hard time landing, due to his floatiness and lack of a good options to hit below him outside of down air, which has hefty landing lag.

When he does get in, though, Mr. Game & Watch can deal a lot of damage to opponents. His neutral air, up tilt, up special, and down air are all powerful combo tools that have the ability to link into each other, and forward air and up air are good combo finishers that can net a KO at high percents, along with his standard attack being able to quickly rack up damage. Mr. Game & Watch's neutral air can also drag the opponent down, leading to a grab or even a smash attack if timed properly.

Mr. Game & Watch has a decent and potentially deadly grab and throw game, as his back throw launches the farthest of his throws which makes it his only strong KO throw and sets up edgeguards, and his down throw forces the opponent into a tech chase scenario and can also send the opponent off the ledge if used near it. His forward throw and especially his up throw are combo throws that can follow up into aerial attacks such as his forward air or up air for KO confirms, or even his potentially deadly side special, Judge — a special attack that can KO at even low percentages if the number strikes 9 —, it is extremely easy to hit opponents (and KO if the number strikes to 9) with both vertically and horizontally, due to his floatiness, combined with his lightweight status. His other potentially deadly down special, Oil Panic, will absorb energy-based projectiles, and if filled, it will release a large and disjointed projectile that can one-hit KO opponents and destroy full shields, depending on the strength of the projectiles absorbed. Overall, many of Mr. Game & Watch's attacks, such as standard attack, tilts, smash attacks, aerials, and special attacks (Judge #3 and #9, Oil Panic), are very strong on shield if used on it more than three times in order to destroy it (which makes those attacks potent shield breakers), allowing Mr. Game & Watch to punish with one of his powerful smash attacks. Mr. Game & Watch also has a strong edgeguarding game, with his high aerial mobility, ability to put out a large number of falling projectiles with his neutral special, long-lasting aerials, and the ability to quickly react to opponents above him with his up special. His down air is also an extremely strong meteor-smash and a potential stage-spike, and its disjointed hitbox allows it to beat out or trade with nearly every recovery move in the game, severely punishing opponents that have to recover low, such as Jigglypuff or. Mr. Game & Watch has a strong recovery himself, with a fast up special that covers a long vertical distance, slows his descent after rising, can be canceled with another attack, retains his midair jump, and has a hitbox when rising. Because of this, Mr. Game & Watch is almost never at a disadvantage offstage, as up special is capable of KOing opponents that are off the stage, which makes him more dangerous off-stage. Overall, Mr. Game & Watch is extremely deadly off-stage and at the ledge to all characters, even those with great recoveries like Pit, Isaac, and even himself.

Overall, Mr. Game & Watch is a powerful glass cannon (also being viewed to be the most potent glass cannon in the game), possessing a potent offense while being very vulnerable himself. He has high KO potential, dealing high damage and having a strong combo and juggling game, along with an arsenal of overall very powerful attacks in his moveset, while also being easily KO'd himself due to his extremely light weight, and is overall the third-lightest character in the game. He is also held back by a weak approach and overall slow and short-ranged attacks, which can be made up for with his disjointed and long-lasting hitboxes, high shield pressure, and strong air game backed by an excellent recovery, making Mr. Game & Watch one of the most fragile characters, but also one of the most powerful in the game, as many players either consider him a high-tier or top-tier character, with most considering him top-tier.

Changes and revisions
Mr. Game & Watch was mostly directly a buffed character from Beta 1.0.0, which means he has very potential and powerful KO power and a numerous amount of combos, although bugs related to down throw severely hurt his KO power, outweighing most of the buffs done, but has the least nerfs out of the other characters in the game (excluding ), fairly making his survivability strong. Below is a list of the major changes done in v1.1.

Tier placement history
Mr. Game & Watch was first placed 40th out of the 39 characters in the previous SSF2 Beta tier list since Beta 1.0, making him the first bottom-tier character in the Beta 1.0.0 metagame, the second bottom-tier character in the metagame is Black Mage. However, he rose to becoming 2nd and overall 17th in the mid tier list, being ranked 28th in the tier list, however, according to the fans of Mr. Game & Watch, he was most directly one of the most popular characters to be more played than the other characters, making him to be considerably ranked 1st high-tier or top-tier character in the game.

Trivia

 * Mr. Game & Watch,, , , , and are currently the only true "silent characters" in the game.
 * Mr. Game & Watch and are currently the only characters to have more than one victory pose in the game, with Mr. Game & Watch being the only one to have three.
 * Mr. Game & Watch, alongside Black Mage, Pikachu, Pichu, and Sandbag, are currently the only five characters to have unique sleeping animations in the game.
 * All of Mr. Game & Watch's moves use objects from games in the  series, making him the only character to have every single move in his arsenal based on a game he appeared previously before.
 * Mr. Game & Watch's Ball form when thrown by another Mr. Game & Watch is simply a giant black circle for his head since he does not have a visible nose or a mouth if facing the screen, resembling the other balls thrown.
 * Although Mr. Game & Watch's appearance mainly consists of two flat colors, his appearance when metal consists of multiple shades of gray. To accomplish this, his default sprites are actually the same sprites he uses when metal, which are then recolored for his costumes.
 * Mr. Game & Watch,, , Jigglypuff, , Mega Man, Rayman, and are currently the only characters who do not go into a helpless state under normal circumstances.
 * Mr. Game & Watch's artwork is based on his official pose in Super Smash Bros. Melee, ringing his alarm bell.
 * Prior to Beta 1.2, in which costumes were simple filters and hues, Mr. Game & Watch's sprites were red by default. This was due to the fact that it allowed for more varied costumes for the character, as grayscale colors like black cannot be changed by applying different hues.