Mr. Game & Watch (Super Smash Flash 2)

Mr. Game & Watch is a veteran starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. He was revealed on the third day of the APEX 2015 stream. His moveset and sprite design are taken from Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Unlike his usual appearance as an unlockable character in all the official  games released to date and the previous game, he was made a starter instead in Super Smash Flash 2.

Attributes
Mr. Game & Watch has fairly average attributes all around, running slightly slower and jumping slightly lower than. He has good air speed and is on the floatier side of the cast. His only really notable trait is his light weight, being tied for third-lightest in the game.

Overall, Mr. Game & Watch has a fairly unorthodox moveset focused on vertical combos. He possesses a very strong juggle game, with his neutral air having a large vertical hitbox and combo ability, his up special allowing him to quickly reach opponents above him, and his up air being able to keep opponents in the air with its windbox effect. Many of his attacks, including forward tilt, up tilt, and all of his aerials, are disjointed, which gives him an advantage in spacing, but many of his attacks, especially those with horizontal hitboxes, are either slow or have awkward properties that make them difficult to use in the neutral game. By far Mr. Game & Watch's greatest weakness is his lack of horizontal approach options. His run speed isn't fast enough to catch many opponents, and his only fast horizontal aerial is his back air, which does a mere 6% and is difficult to combo with. His grab has very little range, and none of his moves are very strong on shield, with the possible exception of a spaced forward air or forward tilt. As such, he has a difficult time getting much of anything started, and struggles against characters that can outbox him on the ground, like and. He also has trouble with some zoners, as his down special only absorbs energy-based projectiles. He sometimes struggles to kill due to his slow smash attacks, leaving him with few KO options outside of random forward airs, combos into up air (which is inconsistent), or his grab kill confirm. Mr. Game & Watch also has a hard time landing, due to his floatiness and lack of a good option to hit below him outside of down air, which has hefty landing lag.

When he does get in, though, Mr. Game & Watch can deal a lot of damage. His neutral air, up tilt, up special, and down air are all powerful combo tools that have the ability to link into each other, and forward air and up air are good combo finishers that can net a kill at high percents. Mr. Game & Watch's neutral air can also drag the opponent down, leading to a grab or even a smash attack if timed just right. Mr. Game & Watch also has a potentially deadly grab game, with his up throw setting up for a juggle, his down throw forcing the opponent into a tech chase scenario, and his forward throw comboing into neutral air at low percents, forward air at high percents for a kill confirm, or even his potentially deadly side special, Judge. Mr. Game & Watch also has a strong edgeguarding game, with his high aerial mobility, ability to put out a large number of falling projectiles with his neutral special, long-lasting aerials, and ability to quickly react to opponents trying to jump over him with his up special. His down air is also an extremely strong spike, and its disjointed hitbox allows it to beat out or trade with nearly every recovery move in the game, severely punishing opponents that have to recover low. Mr. Game & Watch has a strong recovery himself, with a fast up special that covers a long distance, the ability to mix up his recovery after his up special with aerials, and his ability to retain his double jump after using his up special. Mr. Game & Watch is almost never at a disadvantage offstage.

Overall, Mr. Game & Watch was seen as an extremely weak character in Beta 1.1, due to his difficulty in the neutral game, poor disadvantaged state, light weight, and inconsistency of multihit moves like neutral air, up air, and back air, even being ranked as the absolute worst character in the game. However, he seems to have improved somewhat in version 1.2, with the most notable change being greatly increased consistency of important multihit moves like neutral air, back air, and up air, significantly improving his aerial combo game. However, it is unclear how significantly these changes have benefited him, and he still suffers from severe weaknesses.

Changes and revisions
Mr. Game & Watch was mostly directly buffed, although bugs related to down throw severely hurt his KO power, outweighing most of the buffs done. Below is a list of the major changes done in v1.1.

Trivia

 * All of Mr. Game & Watch's moves use objects from games in the  series, making him the only character to have every single move in his arsenal based on a game he appeared previously before.
 * Although Mr. Game & Watch's appearance mainly consists of two flat colors, his appearance when metal consists of multiple shades of gray. To accomplish this, his default sprites are actually the same sprites he uses when metal, which are then recolored for his costumes.
 * Prior to Beta 1.2, in which costumes were simple filters and hues, Mr. Game & Watch's sprites were red by default. This was due to the fact that it allowed for more varied costumes for the character, as grayscale colors like black cannot be changed by applying different hues.