Super Smash Flash 2

Super Smash Flash 2, commonly abbreviated SSF2, is an upcoming Adobe Flash Player 10 non-profit fangame developed by Super Smash Flash 2 Developers, led by Cleod9 of Cleod9 Productions, and published by McLeodGaming. It is the direct and official sequel of the critically received fangame Super Smash Flash. SSF2 is loosely based on the Super Smash Bros. series, specifically Super Smash Bros. Brawl; featuring many characters from the aforementoned series and game, such as Mario, Link, and Kirby. However, the Flash game is not a clone of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, as the content inclusion criteria has been loosened greatly to include content from any series that has ever appeared on a Nintendo console, including, but not limited to Lloyd, Mega Man, Ichigo Kurosaki, and Son Goku.

NOTE: Since this game is still under active development, all information below is subject to change at any time.

Gameplay
The following explanation is based on the gameplay of the demo.

Super Smash Flash 2's gameplay is very similar to the official Super Smash Bros. games. Unlike most traditional 2D fighting games, a character's health is measured by a damage percentage counter. As the character is attacked, damage accumulates, and the percent value increases. The higher the percentage, the easier it is for a character to be knocked off the stage.

The controls are also different from its predecessor. The controls are switched by default. The A, S, D, and W key are now assigned to Player 1's movement, while the arrow keys move a second player. However, the O and P keys still remain in the P-1 possession; the O key is used for special moves (or activating a Final Smash), the P key for standard attacks, the I key for shield, and the 1 key for taunting. Meanwhile P-2 uses the 1 key on the numpad for special moves (or activating a Final Smash), numpad 2 for standard attacks, numpad 3 for shield and numpad 4 for taunt. Players can customize their controls in the menu.

Matches can be played in either Time mode, Stock mode or a combination of the two. Coin matches are also avalaible. In Time mode, each player receives a point when they KO an opponent, and loses a point if they are KO'd, or if they self-destruct. At the end of the designated time limit, the player with the most points wins. Should two or more players accumulate the same amount of points, there will a Sudden Death match to determine the winner. In Stock mode, each player is given a chosen amount of lives, and every time they are KO'd or self-destruct, they lose a life. When a player loses all of their lives, they are out of the game, and the match's conclusion is reached when there is only one player left standing. In Coin matches, that make use of a time system, each player has to attack his opponents to spawn coins from them, the stronger the attack is, the higher value the coin will be. If a player is KO'd, his coin amount will be reduced to the half. The player with the most coins wins.

Almost every mechanic missing from Super Smash Flash is added to Super Smash Flash 2, making it more similar to the rest of the Super Smash Bros. series than its predecessor.

Characters
The characters are the fighters that brawl in Super Smash Flash 2, representing the universe in which they belong. Each character has a number of special attacks, standard attacks and an unique special move called a "Final Smash".

There are 2 types of characters: the Starter Characters, which are available for use from the beginning, and the Unlockable Characters, which are accessible only after being unlocked.

This list is a compilation of the characters in Super Smash Flash 2 that have been confirmed to appear as playable characters, with a total so far of 21. They are listed in alphabetical order. Three characters from the past game are confirmed to not return: Young Link, InuYasha and Mr. Incredible. Mega Man X was intended to be replaced with Model X, who was ultimately replaced by the classic Mega Man; which has sparked controversy regarding whether Mega Man should be regarded as a newcomer or veteran. All deconfirmed characters have the possibility to return as expansion characters.

Expansion characters
The expansion characters are optional playable characters not bundled with the game, and, thus, need to be downloaded. These characters are supported in the Super Smash Flash 2 Expansion Forums. With this concept, any player with time, dedication, sprites, and a copy of Flash, can create a playable version of almost any character for others to enjoy.

Adventure Mode: The Flash Of Shadows
The story mode for SSF2 is entitled The Flash Of Shadows. It will be a downloadable extension that will only work for the EXE version (downloadable version) of the game. The storyline is rumored to be completed, but is yet to be revealed. As a downloadable extension to the game, The Flash Of Shadows will not be available for the browser version of SSF2, due to technical limitations.

Adventure Mode
There will be a Melee-styled Adventure Mode, somewhat similar to SSF's Adventure Mode, but considerably larger and with more stages; however, nothing relating to this mode is known at the moment.

Classic Mode
Classic Mode has been confirmed to return; this time with more stages and new bonuses. You fight a random order of characters on their respective stages while progressing through this mode. It is yet to be confirmed if the final boss will be Master Hand (and Crazy Hand on higher difficulties).

Brawl Mode
Brawl Mode is the standard fighting mode for the game. The first thing you must do after clicking it is select your character. To select the character you want, click and drag the circle with you player number on it to the character's face you want. It is also likely that in a future demo, you will be able to tint your character(s) to different colors.

Once the characters are selected, you may decide how difficult you want the foe's AI to be. Below each CPU, there is a slider that lets you select the CPU's difficulty. The further right the slider, the more difficult the CPU. Nine is the highest level of difficulty.

In the top of the character select screen there is a large gray bar that says "-man KO test!" If you click that bar, another screen pops up. In this menu you can decide how long the match will be, and/or how many lives you get. You can also determine the damage ratio, (a value that multiplies with knockback that changes the distance a foe is thrown by attacks), the item frequency (how often items appear), the start damage (how much damage you start out with), and whether or not to display the player number above characters' heads at all times.

In the top right corner of the options screen there is a circular button with a gamepad on it. If you click that button, another screen pops up. Here you can decide what controls you want to use. If you are playing against someone else, you can decide what their controls will be too. To change their controls, click the players' number, then click on the name of the command you would like to change. Then press the key you want to trigger that action. You can set up controls for up to four people, and up and jump may be mapped to the same key. Once you are done, click back to return to the character select screen. Once everything is set up the way you want, click "GO!".

After you have everything set up the way you want it, you must pick a stage. Hover over the small boxes to see a bigger preview of the stages on the right. You simply have to click on the stage you want and then you're ready to fight. All 45 characters have a brief entrance animation before the match begins during the 3 second countdown.

The difference between this mode and the Melee mode of SSF is that now secret characters can be unlocked by playing a certain number of matches.

All-Star Mode
All-Star Mode is an assumed unlockable game mode, likely to be obtained when all of the secret characters are unlocked. Mirroring Brawl, players will likely fight all characters and their respective series, in order. But unlike Brawl, the order of the series themselves, is said to be random.

Multi-Man Mode
Multi-Man Mode is a rumored single-player mode that will challenge the player to defeat as many opponents as possible, under various pretenses, before falling from the stage, self-destructing, or being KO'd. It is not confirmed if the opponents will again be SSF 's Fighting Shadow Team or if there will be a different team like Brawl's Fighting Alloy Team. The sub-modes are yet to be confirmed, most likely the same as SSF.

Star Snag Brawl
Star Snag Brawl is a debated VS. game mode that is similar to New Super Mario Bros.' "Mario vs. Luigi" 2P game mode. It was created by itsameSMB. Your goal in a Star Snag Brawl is to get the highest collection score of all of the combatants before the time limit is up. To do this, you must collect items called big stars. You start out with 0-5 big stars (depending on the handicap; 3 is the default) and you can get more by grabbing them when they appear or stealing them from other players (hence Star Snag).

Final Form Brawl
Final Form Brawl is another debated VS. game mode in which all the Final Forms in the game will fight each other as if they were normal characters. Characters without Final Forms (including Semi-Final Forms) will not be selectable in this mode. Unlike Brawl mode, Final Forms will have neither a Final Form Bar nor such high knockback resistance and damage dealout.

Events
Events have been confirmed for inclusion. They expand far beyond Brawl to minigames and such with a specific objective the player must achieve in order to complete the event. Events include different characters, stages, and items, and some unlock additional content.

Stages
A stage is an arena where battles take place. Some stages have hazards to add uniqueness and complexity. Listed below are stages that have been confirmed to appear in the game:


 * Battlefield
 * Casino Night Zone
 * Castle Wily
 * Central Highway
 * Chaos Shrine
 * Dream Land
 * Final Destination
 * Galaxy Tours:
 * Comet Observatory (main)
 * Freezeflame Galaxy
 * Good Egg Galaxy
 * Green Hill Zone
 * Hidden Leaf Village
 * Hueco Mundo
 * Hyrule Temple
 * Jungle Hijinx
 * Mushroom Kingdom III
 * Planet Namek
 * Rainbow Route
 * Saturn Valley
 * Sector Z
 * Shadow Moses Island
 * Temple of Time
 * Tower of Salvation
 * Twilight Town
 * Waiting Room
 * WarioWare, Inc.
 * Yoshi's Island

Stage Builder
The Stage Builder lets players create their own stages using different themes. It is unknown how it will work at this point.

Items
Items fall from random places on stages, and characters can grab from the foreground and use them to attack, affect their status, or protect them. Below is a list of all items in the demo.

Normal Items
Some items come from the Super Smash Bros. series, and others come from the McLeodGaming series. They appear randomly in the stages or inside of containers, such as capsules. These items have been confirmed and are featured in the current SSF2 demo and/or the DOJO!!:


 * Beam Sword
 * Bob-omb
 * Capsule (normal and explosive)
 * Cucco
 * E-Tank
 * Exploding Tag
 * Fan
 * Food
 * Green Shell
 * Heart Container
 * Home-Run Bat
 * Maxim Tomato
 * Mr. Saturn
 * Ray Gun
 * Red Shell
 * Smash Ball
 * Spike Shell
 * Super Mushroom
 * Trigger Item

Poké Balls
The game will feature Poké Balls, that were absent from the first game. When thrown, Poke Balls release a randomly chosen Pokémon to either aid or hinder the player. So far, the following Pokémon have been confirmed:


 * Charizard
 * Chikorita
 * Delibird
 * Gligar
 * Hitmonlee
 * Koffing
 * Magikarp
 * MissingNo.

Assist Trophies
A feature also new to Brawl, Assist Trophies will make an appearance in SSF2; using them consists of grabbing a capsule-like trophy to summon a random guest character, and, similar to Pokémon, the summoned character will aid the player that summoned him/her and attack the opponents. These Assist Trophy characters have been confirmed so far:


 * Amigo
 * Bandana Dee
 * Light Yagami
 * Metroid Hatchling
 * Pac-Man
 * Proto Man
 * Renji Abarai
 * Starfy
 * Viewtiful Joe

Battle Cards
A completely new feature coming directly from the Kingdom Hearts series, the Battle Cards can cause a singular effect on the player that activates it. Most notably, some work in a similar way to Assist Trophies, with the difference being that only Kingdom Hearts and Disney characters can be summoned. These characters also have unique features that neither Pokémon or Assist Trophies have. There are four different colored-cards but it is presumed that there is a fifth color. These characters have been confirmed:


 * Genie
 * Jack Skellington
 * Stitch

Trophies
It has been confirmed that there will be randomly appearing trophies, similar to Melee and Brawl's, and 3 trophies for each character (most likely). It is not certain what trophies there will be.

There is an outdated trophy compilation with content not publicly described here:


 * Trophy's List 1
 * Trophy’s List 2
 * Trophy’s List 3

Development
During the release of the first Super Smash Flash in 2006, Nintendo announced the development of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the third installment of the series. Seeing the popular demand for a sequel, and the popularity of his first game, Greg McLeod (Cleod9) decided to make a new Super Smash Flash game loosely based on Super Smash Bros. Brawl, crowning it the appropriate name of Super Smash Flash 2.

Cleod9 made this announcement on the McLeodGaming Forums, so its members could provide him with sprites, effects, and sounds to make his new game. In seeing how open the development of the game was, this soon also led to the creation of an usergroup called the Super Smash Flash 2 Developers, which keeps track of users with major contributions to the development for the game, and hiding the majority of the content from the public.

Super Smash Flash 2 is released to public by Cleod9 in a demo format that gives the public a sneak peek of the progress that is being made on the game. Newer versions are periodically released with many enhancements, such as character improvements, bug fixes, new stages, etc. In doing this, everything is tested before the final release, the public stays excited for the game, and no unlockable content is spoiled in doing so. The first ever playable demo was released on Christmas of 2007. Since Super Smash Bros. Brawl hadn't been released as of that moment, Cleod9 developed his own game mechanisms, such as the grounded, pick-up-able Smash Ball. Many other mechanisms were implemented with the release of newer and improved demos after Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released.

Some of the promotion for the game is in the hands of the Developers. A trailer was released to project the game's existence to non-McLeodGaming Forums members. A DOJO!! was also released to provide info on characters, stages, and many other things relating to Super Smash Flash 2.

Wii compatibility
Cleod9 confirmed that he was attempting compatibility with the Wii Web browser (Internet Channel) and Wiimote in early 2009. As of v0.6, this is no longer possible - the Wii's browser does not support Flash 10, or ActionScript 3, which the game was reprogrammed in in order to run faster.

Differences from Super Smash Flash
Super Smash Flash 2 also improved many qualms and errors from the first Super Smash Flash retaining few mechanisms but fixing some others.


 * Characters (including veterans) have gained eight different standard attacks (a standard combo, three strong attacks, three smash attacks, and a dash attack), five different aerial attacks, four different special moves, and a unique Final Smash.
 * Characters can protect themselves by shielding.
 * Characters can perform 3 different taunts.
 * Characters can pummel and throw in 4 different directions.
 * Characters can grab on to stages, ledges, and use ledge attacks.
 * Characters' attack can no longer deal massive damage and multiple hits with one attack unless specifically coded to do so.
 * Certain characters can now use tether recoveries. Ex. Link.
 * Wall jumping has been implemented.
 * Air dodging and sidestep dodging have been implemented.
 * Tints have been implemented.
 * On-Screen Appearances have been added.
 * Revival platforms have been added (each character has an unique revival platform that represents something from their own universe).
 * The camera is no longer in a single angle and follows all players, rather than just P1.
 * The camera can be panned and zoomed while paused, and can take pictures.
 * Contains exclusive and/or edited sprites' by the SSF2 Devs. Ex. Mario, Kirby, Ness, etc.
 * The Skip glitch, along with many other glitches, have been remedied.
 * More P-1 Modes and Vs. Modes have been added and others improved.
 * A completely new Adventure Mode mechanism has been implemented.
 * Trophies have been added.
 * Stage Builder has been added.

Reception and impact
From the view of the demos, Super Smash Flash 2 is considered a big departure from its predecesor thanks to its improvements on the gameplay, controls and interface that were widely criticized from the first game, being more similar to those from the official Smash Bros. games. The sprites and tileset from the stages have received some praised for their unique design, edits and complexity which gives the game a unique polish, despite some being ripped from other official games, with minor complains focusing on the origin of the rips, such as Mario using edited Super Mario World sprites rather than Mario & Luigi series sprites, which other Flash works from McLeodGaming used. The game modes and items, not present in any the official Smash Bros. games have also met a positive reaction citing them as original and clever, comparing them with the actual modes and items from the official games. Critics for the game were focused on the bugs and lag found in the demos, making the game uncomfortable and tiring to play, but most are ultimately fixed in timely demo updates. The sound effects has also been criticized due the tone changes and unfitting clips on the voices of some characters, like Wario's dash attack for example. While, according to Cleod9, it is still under development, the unproper looping of background music on menus and stages has also been criticized.

From many Super Smash Bros. fangames, Super Smash Flash 2 is considered a very advanced game, thanks to its constant progress and attention given to it from its Developers, while many other fangames are simply left in development or are abandoned without any notice. GamesRadar listed Super Smash Flash 2, 5th on its list of "10 Fan Games That Shouldn't Be Ceased or Desisted" citing the improvements and characters added from the first game. It is by far one of the most popular Flash games around the Internet, scoring 70,000 plays a day on McLeodGaming alone, and has been compared to other similarly successful Smash-oriented fanprojects that, much like Super Smash Flash 2, have constant development, such as Super Smash Bros. Crusade and Super Smash Land, who are often considered as the main competition for Super Smash Flash 2 for the title of Best Smash Fangame.