Sora (Super Smash Flash 2)

Sora is a newcomer starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. His design is overall based on KINGDOM HEARTS II.

Sora is currently ranked 22nd out of 40 on the tier list, placing him in the B tier, a small leap from his 25th-place position on the last tier list at the very bottom, but it is still a big drop from his 5th-place position on the tier list for the previous demo build, giving him having the third largest tier drop. Sora's strengths include a has great combo ability, good range in most of his attacks, solid, speedy aerials and reliable KO moves in his forward smash and up smash. He has a great air game with long range in his aerial attacks and little start up and ending lag in most of his aerial attacks. He is one of the best edgeguarders in the game so breaking his guard will be tough. Additionally, Aerial Recovery sports impressive maneuverability and does not leave Sora helpless, allowing for varied followups.

However, Sora's weight and fast falling speed makes him easy to KO vertically and horizontally. Some of his recovery options leave him open while he is trying to get back to the stage and Aerial Recovery covers an unimpressive vertical distance despite its maneuverability. He has low priority for a fighter with a disjointed hitbox, and he has a hard time KOing his opponents due to having only two reliable KO moves which are needed to be kept fresh in order to net the KO, much like.

Sora appears to have a low player base and lackluster representation in online tournaments. His tournament placings fluctuate, but are generally low and his results are incredibly inconsistent when compared to other characters.

Attributes
Sora is a medium-weight character heavily focused on damage racking and combos. His strongest aspect is his air game, which is where his combo ability shines the most, as his aerials have good range and priority. Additionally, if his aerials hit, Sora will be given a slight upward boost, which can help him extend his combos or give him more options to recover. Sora's fast aerials also give him a spectacular edgeguarding game, which opponents may have trouble breaking through.

This impressive air game is also mirrored in his ground game. He sports good ground mobility, allowing him to chase down his victims to start or extend combos reliably. HIs most reliable KO moves, his forward smash and up smash, are very damaging, allowing Sora to quickly rack up damage and prepare his victims for a finisher.

His special moveset is also very versatile. Strike Raid is a good damage-racking tool because of its duration, and this can also turn it into a good edgeguarding tool. Command Deck is very useful as well: Blizzard can be used to freeze enemies for a short time, denying approaches; Thunder is an excellent anti-air move, and Fire is useful for its KO ability. Additionally, Aerial Recovery sports impressive maneuverability and does not leave Sora helpless, allowing him to followup his already-lengthy combo strings.

However, due to Sora's below average weight, and below average accelerated falling speed, he is very easy to KO vertically and horizontally. Additionally, he lacks reliable ways to deal with projectiles, as his main options are slow or require him to be on the ground, which gives him trouble breaking through fighters with a camping-heavy playstyle.

Arguably, his most crippling flaw is his overreliance on keeping his moves fresh, which is especially true with his forward smash and up smash, his only reliable KO moves. As such, this can prove problematic if Sora goes against opponents who perform good D.I., momentum canceling, or heavy characters like, and forces him to rely on his combos more than ever. Additionally, despite his up smash being the most damaging of all his smash attacks, it will often not KO most characters until over 100%. To further add to this, most of his ground moves, including a few special moves, have punishable lag, which will leave Sora open to attack if he misses. Furthermore, his grab game is mediocre at best, as all of his throws, outside of his down throw, have little utility and are difficult to follow up with, and cannot KO until unrealistic percentages.

His recovery options leave him extremely open to gimping, further worsening his offstage survivability. Despite having a somewhat versatile recovery near the stage, once Sora is knocked far enough away from the stage, his chances of survival completely plummet, as Aerial Recovery, though it does not leave Sora helpless, is rather slow and does not grant a high vertical distance. Additionally, Flowmotion covers very minimal vertical height when angled upwards, has a very slow startup, does not ledge snap, has a very small edge grab range, and leaves Sora helpless when used in midair..

Overall, Sora is a character who, if used correctly, can be a very rewarding and interesting character to play. However, his weak recovery and overreliance on keeping his KO moves fresh hold him back from the higher tiers, keeping him as a mid-tier character.

Changes and Revisions
In the latest version, Sora was mostly buffed. Below is a summary of the changes to Sora in demo 1.1:

Tier placement history
In the tier lists for demo v0.6; Sora ranked 6th of C tier on the first list and ranked 8th of C tier on the second list where he was seen as a lower-mid tier character. On the tier lists for demo v0.7; Sora stayed a solid mid tier character due to him staying C tier for both lists. He ranked 9th of C tier on the first list and ranked 8th of C tier on the second list. Sora's tier position jumped in demo v0.8v; Sora ranked 4th of A tier where he was seen as top tier character. In demo v0.9a; Sora ranked 5th of what can be considered A tier where he is still seen as a top tier character. However, in demo v0.9b, whilst initially considered a Top 5 character by many, Sora dropped to 25th of C tier where he is now seen as a low tier character again. On the second tier list of V0.9b, he dropped once more to at 29th of C tier, dead last and is considered the worst character of the demo. However, in new tier list Sora raised from 29th tier to 27th, making him no longer the worst character of v0.9b.

Trivia

 * From demo v0.6 to v0.8b, Sora's portrait was taken from KINGDOM HEARTS II.
 * Sora is one of the few characters that does not applaud on the results screen when he loses., , , , , and also share this trait.
 * Throughout SSF2 ' s development, Sora has gone through the most changes to his moveset out of all the characters in the game.
 * As of version 0.9b, Sora is the only character to have two KO audio clips instead of four - one KO audio clip and one Star KO audio clip alongside with Jigglypuff and.
 * In demo v0.6 to v0.7, Sora's voice clips was taken from the very first video game, KINGDOM HEARTS.
 * With the exception of the dark-blue swap, the Keyblade's trails slightly change color with the different palette swaps Sora has. However, his Flowmotion aura stays the same.

External link

 * Sora's v0.8 Dev Blog