Samus (Super Smash Flash 2)

Samus is a veteran starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. In this game, she has custom sprites instead of rips and her sprites are based off her appearance in Super Metroid and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Her moveset and sound clips come from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Samus ranks 13th place in the B+ tier. Samus has a great projectile game, fast startup on her attacks, great air speed and finishers in her down smash, down tilt, fully charged Charge Shots, and Super Missiles. She can rack up damage quickly with her up smash, forward aerial, and up aerial. She has one of the best recoveries in the game due to her low falling speed, ability to use Bombs to gain extra height, great air speed, and hard-to-gimp recovery in her. She has a vast arsenal of projectiles with her charge shot, bombs, and missiles. Samus has great horizontal endurance thanks to her weight. She is also the only character in the game to possess a reliable instant-KO projectile via charge stacking, in the tournaments that allow the glitch to be performed.

However, Samus is a large, floaty character with one of the slowest accelerated falling speeds in the game, which makes her easy to KO vertically despite her weight. She has a high gravity and is heavy, which means that the combos that do work on her will continue to do so even at higher percents. Her projectile game is easily gimped, as most of her projectiles can be destroyed by even the slightest of disjointed hitboxes, and all of them can be reflected or otherwise nullified by perfect shields, reflectors, and thrown items. Her close-range game is not much better as she possesses, on average, fewer disjoints and more endlag on her attacks than the other fighters. Her high jump height and low aerial acceleration also greatly hinders her air game, despite her high air speed. Together, these attributes significantly limit her approach options. Most of Samus' finishers are easily telegraphed and relatively weak, requiring approximately 120-160% damage to KO, even on lighter characters like.

For these reasons, Samus has some very difficult matchups against the higher-tiered characters.

Samus has a very small player base and has lackluster representation in online tournaments.

Attributes
Samus has a unique blend of attributes that makes her feel largely different from the rest of the cast. She is a tall heavyweight, but is also very floaty due to having one of the slowest falling speeds in the game. Her gravity is above average, yet she also has very high jumps. She has a fast aerial speed, yet she has a very slow aerial acceleration. These attributes help her out by giving her a strong recovery, high survivability, good range, and strong resistance to being juggled. However, she also has trouble maneuvering in the air, a vulnerability to vertical KOs, and is susceptible to juggles that specifically work only on herself.

She is largely considered to be a zoning character with a large arsenal of projectiles, including her Charge Shot, Missiles (Homing and Super), and bombs. Her Charge Shot has transcendent priority when uncharged, allowing her to pierce most attempts at walling her out. Her fully charged Charge Shot is her strongest KO move, and she has a guaranteed setup involving her down throw on most characters. Her Super Missiles move very fast and have decent knockback, making them her primary means of edgeguarding offstage opponents. She can also cancel her aerial missile animation immediately by landing, allowing her to fire off two missiles in quick succession. Her homing missile moves slower, yet lasts longer and does not reverse direction when reflected, making it a safe option for creating stage control and extending combos. Her Morph Ball Bombs also provide a good stage controlling tool, which can also be used to break out of combos or edgeguard her opponents if they try to go for the edge. With these tools, she can projectile camp her opponents and control their approach, giving her one of the best zoning games in the current demo. However, due to the way that powershielding and priority function in the current demo, her zoning game is restricted somewhat. Most of her projectiles can be destroyed without actually setting them off, which prevents them from trading with their target's attacks even at close range. All of her projectiles can be reflected by powershielding, which would not be too big of a problem if the timing for the technique was not so lenient. This in turn makes her projectiles very risky to use at mid to close range, where she does not have enough time to properly react to avoid them if they get reflected.

Samus has a relatively weak grab game overall, but it is not without its strengths. Her standing grab and dashing grab both have the longest range of their respective types. She can combo into her dashing grab by hitting the opponent with a fast-fall zair. Her dashing grab has a relatively fast startup and endlag, making it superior to most other tether grabs despite the reduced range. Her down throw can be used to start combos, and is capable of effectively chain grabbing. However, her other throws are only average at best. Samus' standing grab is almost completely useless, as its long startup and endlag guarantees her opponent a free punish on a whiff. Even with her dashing grab, Samus must commit herself more than most characters, making it difficult for her to successfully pull off a grab in neutral.

Due to a combination of low gravity and good air speed, this helps her recover with her bombs giving her height when they explode near her, Screw Attack being a hard to gimp recovery and her tether recovery which has little start up lag and long range, which can also be used immediately out of an air dodge. She has a strong meteor smash in her down aerial which can be used to get rid of her opponents faster and when combined with her bombs makes it easy to set up KOs. Her floaty nature and low accelerated falling speed makes her less susceptible to combos and chain grabs then other heavyweights.

However, Samus floaty nature makes her vulnerable to vertical KO's. Due to Samus being tall and her shield not covering her body properly, she is susceptible to shield stabbing. Also due to her height and weight; it makes her easy to hit while also making her susceptible to horizontal combos and chain grabs.

Samus' only problem when it comes to recovery is her zair. The move has a very small grab box that only lasts for a brief moment before vanishing, even though the tether appears stays out for much longer. This means that Samus can only reliably grab the edge from a very specific location offstage. If she is too high, the grab box will disappear before grabbing the edge; if she is too far or too low, the grab box will not reach; and if she is too close, the grab box will appear behind the edge's hitboxes and miss completely. If she misses the edge, the move's long end lag guarantees that Samus will SD unless she still has her second jump. The move is not very good for recovering in competitive play because it's so predictable due to the highly restrictive spacing required, leaving Samus vulnerable to edge guards.

Her best KO moves are projectiles, which makes her more reliant on them, because of this them being reflected can be trouble for Samus. Her non-projectile KO moves have short range, such as down smash. Her offensive game is below average which requires her to play defensively. With this in mind she has trouble being rushed down, this makes small stages horrible for her due to having little space to camp and being rushed down by her opponent more easily. Even though she is a good camper; she has trouble breaking through opposing camping abilities her self especially opponents who can counter her own camping abilities such as characters with reflectors like and.

Changes from v0.9a
Samus was buffed in the earlier patches for demo v0.9b, but she ended up losing KO power in the most recent patch which made her nerfed overall from last demo.

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Trivia

 * With authorization from McLeodGaming, Samus' sprites were used on a video for Screw Attack's One Minute Melee.
 * Samus' early pixel art is based on a victory pose that she makes in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

External link

 * Samus' page at Smash Flash DOJO!!!