Simon (Super Smash Flash 2)

Simon is a veteran unlockable character in Super Smash Flash 2. His reveal was shown during the Day 1 Livestream at Super Smash Con 2018. His appearance is based on his design in the game Castlevania Chronicles, in which Simon has long red hair and black armor, and his voice clips come from Castlevania Judgment. Simon's moveset mainly consists of attacks with his whip, the Vampire Killer, along with several items he uses in the  series. Simon's forward aerial and back aerial can be angled upwards and downwards. He is the only character in the game as of now capable of angling his aerials.

Attributes
Simon is a tall character with a handful of projectiles and long reach in his attacks. However, this is compensated by a below average mobility.

As mentioned before, one of Simon's key traits is his projectiles, which mainly take the form of his special moves. His neutral special move, Axe, is a strong, powerful projectile that can serve a variety of functions, such as edgeguarding. It also creates a lingering hitbox once touching ground before disappearing, making it a useful tool to disrupt approaches. His side special move, Cross, functions much like 's Boomerang, though it does not follow Simon once thrown. Instead, it will continue going backwards until it hits an opponent. In addition, it launches vertically with low knockback, making it a favorable tool for set ups. His up special move, Ring Grapple, covers a decent amount of horizontal and vertical distance, as well as functioning as a tether recovery after its first midair use; the move also includes a kick hitbox, and can serve as a movement option if Simon lands on the ground during the initial swing. Finally, his down special move, Holy Water, moves forward as it deals repeated flame damage, making it a useful combo tool or ledge-trapping tool.

Simon's other notable trait is his long reach. His whip, the Vampire Killer, grants him the longest disjointed reach out of the cast, making his normal moveset very versatile. While his air mobility is below-average, his aerials do make up for it. Neutral aerial is a circular whip swing that covers all around Simon, making it a useful approach tool. In addition, his up, forward, and back aerials all have impressive ranges, further exacerbated by the latter two's ability to be angled either upward or downward. While his down aerial lacks the range of his other aerial attacks, it more than makes up for by being a versatile combo tool: the clean hit is able to strongly spike opponents hit, but the late hit makes Simon and the opponent bounce upward, opening up combo or KO setups.

His grounded moveset continues the trend of long, disjointed attacks, some of which are more powerful if connected at the tip, at which they can be considered safe on shield. His forward smash is a notable example of this: it is very powerful when connecting its tip sweetspot, while also being able to poke shields due to its downward angle. His up smash can serve as a very useful anti-air due to its high vertical reach, while down smash is a useful out of shield option that keeps Simon's range while also launching at a semi-spike angle, making it useful for forcing opponents offstage. His forward tilt has decent range and low ending lag, allowing it to be a useful spacing tool, while his dash attack is a useful way to cross up shields. Like his down aerial, Simon's up tilt lacks the range the rest of his grounded moveset sports, but compensates by being a fast, relatively powerful attack. Finally, his down tilt functions as a useful combo starter due to its spike hitbox, while also functioning as a short-range spacing tool.

His grab game is also very useful. While his grab is somewhat medium-range, all of his throws have low knockback as well as low ending lag. His up and down throws both launch at vertical angles, allowing them to be used as combo tools, while his forward and back throws can force opponents offstage for edgeguarding set ups.

However, Simon is burdened by a somewhat below-average mobility; despite his dashing speed being below average, his air speed is also very low, making his aerial approach very limited, despite the reach in his aerials. This trait can make his struggle against faster characters who can effectively bypass his range. In addition, his high falling speed makes him very susceptible to being comboed, while his tall frame makes him easy to hit.

By far however, his two most glaring weakness are his susceptibility to characters with a reflector, as well as narrow hitbox placements on his whip attacks. While his multiple projectiles do play a huge part in Simon's playstyle and the way he plays the neutral game, all of them can be reflected, which gives Simon trouble against characters that possess a reflector, such as or, as his projectiles are an integral part of his neutral game. Additionally, most of his whip attacks have narrow hitbox placements, which can spell trouble when going against smaller characters, such as. Simon also struggles in finishing opponents when his attacks aren't timed and spaced properly, as the sweetspots of his attacks is located on the tip of the Vampire Killer, and only the sweetspots are capable of KOing at reasonable percents.

Additionally, while Ring Grapple covers a decent amount of vertical and horizontal distance, this can cause Simon to miss the ledge entirely if he is recovering from under the stage. To further this, the kick hitbox does not activate immediately, making him very prone to gimping and while he can use any aerial attack after the first use, most of them have more than 10 startup frames, making his aerial protection somewhat unreliable.

Overall, Simon is a fighter who specializes in distance-based combat. The objective of his playstyle is to keep opponents at bay using a combination of his long reach and his projectiles to compensate for his rather average mobility. As of now, Simon sees no notable tournament play.

Trivia

 * Simon Belmont's confirmation as a playable character in Super Smash Flash 2 came only two days after his confirmation as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Coincidentally, the two versions of the character feature similar movesets.
 * Simon, like and, was sprited solely by Steven.
 * Simon's artwork in SSF2 is based on his artwork from Castlevania Chronicles.
 * Simon's All-Star mode congratulations screen references Captain N: The Game Master, which features him, Pit and Mega Man as protagonists and Mother Brain as the main antagonist.