Mario (Super Smash Flash 2)

Mario is a veteran starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. He is one of the first four characters, alongside, , and , to be confirmed and first incorporated into the game. His sprites are custom-made and based on his appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but with his bright colors from. His voice clips are directly taken from Brawl and his moveset is a combination of his Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl movesets.

Mario is currently ranked 18th of B tier on the tier list (the 3rd highest ranked Mario character if sub-series characters are not included). Mario has fast, low-lag attacks, good combo ability, a good grab game, and strong finishers in all of his smash attacks, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, and his back throw. He has a projectile, a, which he can use to hinder his opponents' approach, zone, edgeguard, or bait out a shield. He has a strong edgeguarding game with his Fireball, Cape, and strong aerial attacks. He also has an average recovery with Mario Tornado and covering good vertical distance while Cape stalls him in midair for a short moment.

However, Mario has blatant problems with his range, which leaves him highly vulnerable to characters with disjointed range, especially swordfighters like and. His recovery is linear and predictable, especially after he uses his double jump and Mario Tornado, making him somewhat easy to gimp and edgeguard against. His zoning game is not great, as his projectile is weak, slow, and can be reflected.

Mario appears to have a small playerbase and has decent representation in online tournaments as players using him from time to time. Of those few, Mario's placements in tournaments are shown to be high.

Attributes
Mario is considered the most well-rounded/balanced character in the game. He appears to have average dashing, walking, falling, and air speeds, gravity, and weight. Due to this, beginners should consider using Mario as the start-up character when playing the game for the first time. His fast attack speed allows him to consistently apply pressure to the opponent, and he is capable of quickly racking up damage once he gets the momentum. Excluding his forward smash and forward aerial, all of his moves have very fast startup and low ending and landing lag, which helps him gain the upper hand in close combat.

As mentioned before, one of Mario's key traits is his fast attack speed, especially with his grounded moveset. Mario's neutral attack is rather quick, and an effective way to rack up damage thanks to its damage output. Both his up and down tilts send at a vertical trajectory with low knockback, and have low ending lag, allowing them to be effective combo starters or extenders, with up tilt being notorious for its reliability as a followup from his down tilt. His smash attacks are all useful in their own right: while his forward smash has the longest startup out of all his smash attacks, it pulls back his hurtbox a noticeable distance, and is very powerful when sweetspotted; his up smash is one of his most useful vertical KO options, as well as being a great out-of-shield option; down smash is the weakest out of all of them, but its semi-spike angle can force opponents offstage for an edgeguard situation.

The effectiveness of his ground game is also reflected in his air game. Neutral aerial is a fast sex kick that can be useful in combos, edgeguarding, or even breaking combos. Up aerial's extremely quick startup makes it a useful combo breaker and aerial interceptor, though its horizontal launch trajectory makes it near-useless for combos. Forward aerial is a meteor smash with high base knockback, making it one of Mario's most reliable KO options. Back aerial has the longest range and the highest knockback of his aerial moves, allowing it to space effectively and reliably KO offstage. Finally, down aerial can be used to start combos or set up into a smash attack.

Mario's special moves are highly varied and has plenty of uses. Fireball is a projectile with decently long range. It can be useful in the neutral game or edgeguarding. It can also help him control his opponent's approach and can also be used to hinder some characters' recovery offstage thanks to its disruptive knockback, downward trajectory, and good SHFFL. Cape reverses opponents, allowing a free hit or efficient gimp on an opponent who is trying to recover. It is also a strong reflector, making it highly useful in matchups against projectile-heavy characters like and. Super Jump Punch travels in a diagonal direction that grants moderate distance, making it good at recovering. It also has intangibility upon startup, allowing it to be used out of shield very effectively thanks to its extremely quick startup. Mario Tornado is a great anti-juggling move thanks to its quick startup. His recover is also relatively safe, as Cape gives him a near-infinite horizontal recovery, and both Super Jump Punch and Mario Tornado grant horizontal and vertical distance.

Mario also sports a good grab game, despite having one of the shortest grabs in the game. His up throw is his most useful throw, as it can chaingrab high and fast fallers at low percents. He can combo from the throw on other characters due to the hitstun of the move. His down throw does little knockback and hitstun, but has low knockback and a vertical angle, making it useful for combos, most notoriously with up tilt. His back throw is his strongest throw, especially when used near the ledge that can kill at high percentages. Finally, his forward throw sends the opponent at a disadvantageous position, where Mario can capitalize on their mistakes.

However, Mario most critical flaw is his lack of range: his poor attack reach prevents him from fighting at a safe distance and consistently forces him to approach characters in close-quarters combat. This can give players difficulty when fighting against characters with large or disjointed hitboxes like and. Additionally, his recovery is very predictable, as Super Jump Punch is a little on the slow side despite its quick startup and he might encounter problems recovering when he is up against a good edgeguarder. His Fireballs are low-priority, which allows them to be canceled out easily by many other attacks, while Mario Tornado can only serve as a close-range interceptor, not KOing until very high percents. Additionally, Cape has little hitstun and moderate ending lag, making Mario open if the reversed opponent bounces back towards Mario.

Overall, Mario has many clear strengths and few weaknesses, resulting in his strengths outweighing his weaknesses. He is in the middle of characters who can be combo'd because of his average weight and falling speed. It is hard to escape from him once he gets to combo the opponent, while being easy for him to escape and regain the advantage. However, his own combo game is sometimes dependent on reading DI when compared to other characters. This is also hindered by his below-average overall mobility, which makes it harder to do certain follow-ups.

Changes from v0.9b
Mario has received a mix of buffs and nerfs, but mostly buffed overall. The reduced knockback in some of his attacks significantly improves his combo game and a few moves also having more priority and hitlag. These changes allows him to compete against the roster better. However, his recovery and a few of his KO options has been nerfed. Despite the nerfs he was given, he has impressive combo ability and framedata, decent recovery, and good edgeguarding options.

Tier placement history
In tier lists for v0.6, Mario ranked 8th of D tier on the first list and 7th of C tier on the second list where he was seen as low tier character. In demo v0.7, Mario still stayed in C tier where he ranked 8th on the first list and ranked 10th of C tier on the second list with players now viewing him as a mid tier character. He once again was stuck in C tier in v0.8b where he ranked 11th and was still seen as a mid tier character. However, in demo v0.9a, Mario got his best tier position yet where he ranked 10th on the list where he can be considered a high tier character. In demo v0.9b, Mario dropped to 19th of B tier where he is seen as a mid tier character again. The changing metagame showed Mario to be a less effective character and he dropped to 21st of C+ tier, where he is seen as a low tier character again. After this, however, Mario rose to 18th of the B tier, being seen as a mid tier character again.

Trivia

 * In previous versions of the SSF2 Demo, Mario used a slightly different moveset. Prior to v0.2b, Mario used F.L.U.D.D. as his side special move rather than the Cape. Additionally, Mario Tornado had a special homing attack effect when it was done in midair.
 * During the development of Mario's new sprite sheet, former developer, ItsameSMB, had created a new variation of his down special move called the F.L.U.D.D. Tornado, but was dropped from the game for being un-intuitive.
 * Mario has gone through the most sprite changes throughout the game's development, the second being Link.
 * Mario along with, , , and are the only characters so far to wear their default costumes in team battle when they are on the red team.
 * Mario's previous sprites, alongside with, , and , were used in one of ScrewAttack's Death Battles.
 * Prior to v0.9b, Mario originally transformed into Fire Mario as his Final Smash. This was eventually scrapped in favor of the Mario Finale.
 * Mario's early pixel art resembles his on-screen appearance where he jumps out of a Warp Pipe.

External link

 * Mario's page at Smash Flash DOJO!!!