Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / Super Smash Flash

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d31f3477d05b527ea7cd51108c294167.png
Then and now.

"Made by McLeodGaming, a group of passionate Smash Brothers fans, the Super Smash Flash series has done an admirable job of creating a fast-paced game with an excellent physics engine. Most impressive, it truly feels like Smash Brothers - no easy feat considering the game and its engine were made from scratch."
— Smashboards News on the release of v0.9b

Super Smash Flash is a series of Flash-based Platform Fighter Super Smash Bros. clones by McLeodGaming, hosted and playable on their website.

The original Super Smash Flash, released in August 2006 on Newgrounds, is somewhat weak; among other things featuring only one attack buttonnote . It was nonetheless notable for its large amount of unlockable content.

The sequel, Super Smash Flash 2, which is currently in its beta release, started out as just a similar fun little project that added special moves but didn't even consider most of the mechanics at first. However, after a number of suggestions and positive reception from fans, it began to piece things together slowly around the bare-bones engine with each new demo version and, after having undergone a full-blown Retool in 2011 with a vow to aim for professional quality, is shaping up to be a true Flash installment of Super Smash Bros..

Now has a character page.

    open/close all folders 

    Playable roster from the first game: 
Note: Bold denotes unlockable characters.

    Playable roster from the second game: 
Note: Bold denotes unlockable characters.

    Features other elements from: 

Note: This list does not include series that playable characters are drawn from. An asterisk (*) denotes a series with elements exclusive to the first game.

The first game:

The second game:

Along with many Tropes in the official Super Smash Bros. games, these games contain examples of:

     Tropes present in the series as a whole 

  • The All-Seeing A.I.: Much like the original series, the AI will most likely be more aware about its surrounds and nearby items than most human players would.
  • Art Evolution: Very clear. From directly ripped and MS-painted sprites in the original game, to ripped-but-tweaked sprites in the early sequel demos, to every character having entirely-custom, uniformly-styled sprites.
  • Home Stage:
    • In the first game, despite its many characters, there were only five franchises having stages of their own. Which were:
    • In the second game, due to the larger file size limits, every franchise with a playable character gets at least one stage based on their series.
  • Meteor Move: In 1, every character's up attack and down aerial can dunk opponents. This can be difficult to pull off, as the opponent needs to not only be airborne, but also either moving slowly or not at all. 2 has meteor smashes and spikes, with the same functionality they have in the official Smash games, but a few characters don't have access to either.
  • Platform Fighter: Much like the original Smash Bros. series.
  • Retool: There were two notable ones in total:
    • The transition from Flash to Flash 2 completely rebuilt the mechanics and the focus from the ground up.
    • Demo v0.7 of 2 was the official turning point from "anything-goes fangame" to aiming for professional quality.
  • Ring Out: Just like in the original Super Smash Bros. games.
  • Stock Footage: Present, but diminishing rapidly.
    • The original didn't have any of its own sprites, save for the Pokémon Stadium stage. All others were taken from The Spriters' Resource. The earliest demos of 2 also used ripped sprites; Lloyd and the Sonic characters used the same sprites as in Super Smash Flash, Sora was ripped from Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, and the anime characters were ripped from Jump Ultimate Stars. Gradually, however, more and more of the characters began getting entirely custom-made sprites, to the point where the series is now fairly well-known for its quality graphics.
      • Amusingly, the earlier, lower-quality custom sprites for Link, Ness, and Mewtwo* later became stock footage when they were salvaged by Super Smash Bros. Crusade.
    • The original also didn't have originally composed music (save for the How to Play track), ripping songs from Melee, the "Smashing... Live!" album for Melee, and in one case, The Matrix Reloaded. 2 also used ripped music from various sources, including remixes from other composers, before gradually replacing them with the dev team's own remixes and even giving SSF2 its own theme to use as a Leitmotif for all Smash-related content.
  • Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: The first game is this, full stop, with characters like Blade and Mr. Incredible. Traces of this sentiment remain in 2, at least in development; Cleod thinks that the anime characters fit in well (although the other developers don't), and he has a personal soft spot for the Original Characters who were planned to be in but had to be removed due to losing contact with their creators.

     Tropes present in Super Smash Flash 

  • Canon Discontinuity: Super Smash Flash 2 is officially considered a reboot and not a sequel, as explained briefly here, thus pushing Super Smash Flash out of canon.
  • Collision Damage: The enemies in Adventure Mode, along with the Mario brothers, the Sonic characters, and Samus while they're jumping.
  • Combos: While normally impossible due to the primitive engine, some could be performed due to a bug with some characters, namely Mario, Zelda, and Captain Falcon.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The second game seems much like the official Smash games. The first, not so much.
  • Game-Breaking Bug: The famous "One-Hit KO" bug, which allows some attacks to kill instantly at just 50% while standing still. Unfortunately, though, Master Hand and Crazy Hand's attacks have this trait, too, which makes unlocking Inuyashanote  nearly impossible without cheating.
  • Gender Flip: The announcer is female here, voiced by Kira Buckland.
  • Hitbox Dissonance: Samus' machine gun moves in the first game. The machine gun fire has a hitbox. Not Samus' gun, the actual machine gun's bullets have hitboxes. This can be seen in Adventure mode levels where if you use the machine gun specials at certain ranges, Samus will be the one to take damage and be knocked back. It's like something out of Daikatana.
  • Mercy Invincibility: While the Smash games weren't known for this, it becomes a point in the first Flash which also averts this in the worst possible way. Especially in Adventure Mode, where just brushing against an enemy in any level could result in your damage skyrocketing to maximum in a very short time. A normal enemy can do this.
  • Misbegotten Multiplayer Mode: You could battle it out with two players... but the camera always follows the first player, ignoring the second.
  • Multi-Slot Character: Much like Super Smash Bros. Melee, the first Super Smash Flash has two playable Links from Ocarina of Time; one being his adult form and his young form. Sonic is also playable in this game, alongside his Super Form as an unlockable separate fighter. Compared to normal Sonic, Super Sonic has higher jumps and damage output, but ironically has slower attacks and a larger hitbox.
  • Original Character: Blade the Hedgehog and Blue the Hedgehog, sword-wielding Sonic the Hedgehog fan characters someone made who ended up as characters in Super Smash Flash.
    • Before the roster was revised, Super Smash Flash 2 had those two return, and added Azrael and Spikeman.
  • Punched Across the Room: A Game-Breaking Bug allows this to happen with many normal attacks if one stands completely still as the opponent approaches.
  • Shockwave Stomp: Mr. Incredible's ground down attack.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Crossover: The official Super Smash Bros. is a crossover between various Nintendo franchises, yet the most repped franchise in the first Flash game was Sonic the Hedgehog, which got five characters (seven if Blade and Blue are counted).
  • Swap Fighter: Kirby became a Swap Fighter with Meta Knight due to technical limitations of the developer being unable to implement the copy ability.
  • Two Girls to a Team: More like "Two Girls to a Roster." Not counting Jigglypuff, who's gender is ambiguous, the only female characters are Zelda/Sheik and Samus Aran.

     Tropes present in Super Smash Flash 2's development 

  • Aborted Arc: Before the retool, a story mode in the vein of The Subspace Emissary known as The Flash of Shadows was plotted out with all of the old roster's characters battling an army called the Cubots. A summary of the first half was posted publicly. The second half was kept under wraps and is presumably lost.
  • Artificial Stupidity: The earlier demos were criticized for their incompetent A.I., but this was thankfully (or not) fixed.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Several Final Smash transformations had an attack that functioned like a Final Smash in its own right.
  • Call-Back:
    • The first trailer, made in 2007, mirrored Super Smash Bros. Brawl's E3 2005 trailer. A newer trailer, released for v0.9b, was modeled after the same trailer.
    • Despite the technical limitations of Flash's Palette Swap functionality, they were nevertheless able to successfully recreate the Melee colors of Mario, Link, Kirby, and Donkey Kong as alternate costumes.note .
  • Downloadable Content: Expansion characters for Super Smash Flash 2 were planned to be supported after the final release, though this has since been scrapped.
  • Easter Egg: In one demo version, the credits said that the WarioWare, Inc. stage was "Made by Wario. Waa haa haa!"
  • Surprisingly Creepy Moment:
    • The 2nd Target Test stage from 2's demo v0.9. It has depressing music, seems to be aesthetically based on Limbo, and overall seems out of place in a Smash Bros. game.
    • The Super Smash Flash 2 Beta stream at Super Smash Con 2016 on Saturday was very lighthearted and fun, even introducing Bandana Dee as a character. Then, at 2 AM on Sunday morning, the stream unexpectedly started up again with an extremely mysterious video featuring Giygas. This was foreshadowing Beta's inclusion of Devil's Machine, an unlockable stage based on the final battle of EarthBound (1994).
  • Wallbonking: This was a problem in v0.6 on the Hidden Leaf Village stage, where the wall of the building on the right proved to be irresistible to computer players.
  • Wheel of Decisions: The Peril Roulette, a now-scrapped new element in the higher difficulties of Classic Mode that spins a wheel to choose something to detriment the player, assist the opponent, or, on the hardest difficulty, both. This was presumably to make up for the notorious-for-the-series impossibility of making a hyperintelligent computer player.

     Tropes present in Super Smash Flash 2 

  • Artifact Title: The game has long departed from Super Smash Flash; that game is completely ignored here. The title was originally considered "likely to change" in the official FAQ due to the differences, but it's definitely permanent at this point as that's what everyone knows it as now.
  • Artificial Brilliance:
    • Demo 0.9 introduced character-specific A.I. hints, which made some characters outright brutal to play against. CPU Fox is known for pulling high-level tricks such as cancelling shine into aerials or grabs, and will try known KO options when the rival is damaged. CPU Jigglypuff was given code to use Rest on reaction, if the opponent was close enough. CPUs handle all recovery options and will use them as they need.
    • High-level CPUs are very good at working in teams; they seem to be in perfect sync with their teammate. For example, if one plays against Mega Man and Captain Falcon: Mega Man will often try to grab the player if they're at high levels of damage, leaving them helpless against the nearby Captain Falcon performing a reverse Falcon Punch. This works with almost any duo or, if you're feeling masochistic, trio.
  • Artificial Stupidity:
    • On the World Tournament stage, CPUs are programmed to stay in the ring and avoid the grass. This makes sense when hazards are on, as any fighter who touches the grass is instantly KOed. With hazards off, though, the grass is safe to stand on, but the CPU fails to recognize this and acts as if it's still an instant kill. Hanging out on the grass will result in a CPU trying to chase you down, only to turn around the second they're in the air above the grass. Repeatedly. Sandbag in particular, if he launches you far enough out of the ring, will rack up his damage and eventually KO himself wavering between his options and slipping off the ring's edge, then using his up special, Bob-omb Toss, blowing himself away while you just stand there.
    • The level 9 Luffy CPU is rather aggressive and likes to use his special moves frequently, but this often has the side effect of him overshooting his attacks and barreling right down the nearest bottomless pit, leading to a KO.
  • Assist Character: Summoned via Assist Trophies and Poké Balls, as in the official series.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Players who are used to Super Smash Bros. Crusade tend to have a little trouble here, as the directional inputs are on the other side of the keyboard and the attack and special keys are reversed.
  • Demoted to Extra: Renji, Riku, and Vegeta were originally planned to be full characters in the sequel. Vegeta became a background character on Planet Namek, while Renji and Riku became Assist Trophies. Unfortunately for Renji, he was eventually removed entirely.
  • Easter Egg:
    • Black Mage has a taunt where he takes out a lute and usually plays part of the song it could in the first Final Fantasy. However, if he is under the effect of a Metal Box, the song played will instead be a metal version of the first few notes of the Final Fantasy fanfare.
    • The bottom of the Central Highway stage has a hidden sign depicting Cut Man in his 8-bit sprite. It was initially only possible to see it by tricking the camera into moving below the normal lower boundary of the camera's range, but this is no longer possible to see without going through the game's files. The background of the stage also contains a neon sign depicting Proto Man fighting a Met, and a traffic sign reading "Raccoon City."
    • Usually, the Nintendo 3DS stage will randomly pick a color variant for the 3DS every time you play a match. However, setting your name to match those of specific SSF2 developers will allow you to automatically get a specific color variant for as long as you keep that name. So far, we have Refurin (Yellow), ElvisDitto (Flame Red), Jamal (Orange), Gabe (Cerulean Blue), Liki (Green), PixelBoy (Goldnote ), Zuko (Orange + Black) and Turbo (NES Edition). This method is the only way to play with these color variants, with the exception of ElvisDitto's and Gabe's.
  • Fragile Speedster: Sonic and Tails are pretty much this. Specifically, Sonic is this on the ground and Tails in the air.
  • Gangplank Galleon: Gangplank Galleon itself appears as a stage.
  • Gender Flip: Averted. Unlike the first game, the announcer here is voiced by a male.
  • Glass Cannon: Kirby is the usual Smash rendition of this trope, as is Black Mage. Lloyd, however, is closer to the traditional fighting games variant of this trope.
  • Grandfather Clause:
    • Ichigo, Naruto, and Goku were all programmed before the Retool, and the game has largely been trying to break away from the anime stigmatism that it's been relentlessly criticized for. According to developer Kiki in a forum post (which no longer exists), Naruto in particular wouldn't have made it in if it had been up to her, although she respects how well he gradually developed into a unique character over the years rather than being a generic Shotoclone like in the earlier demos, and is now glad he's in.
    • As aforementioned in Artifact Title, the name of the game will stay as Super Smash Flash 2, in spite of the fact that it's considered a reboot and not a sequel to the first game, because it's been around for long enough that changing it would be pointless now.
  • Holiday Mode: The Waiting Room stage has Halloween and Christmas themes that appear during the months of October and December, respectively.
  • Jack of All Stats:
    • Who else? Mario.
    • Link is like this, but with a focus on projectiles.
  • Kamehame Hadoken: With Goku and Ryu around, of course this had to be their respective signature moves.
  • Leitmotif: The game has had one since version 0.9a, where it was used in the menus, Battlefield, and Waiting Room. There have since been even more uses for it.
  • Long Song, Short Scene: The song that plays while loading matches in Classic mode. Even slow computers are likely to finish loading well before it loops.
  • Mighty Glacier:
    • Donkey Kong. Slow and huge, but has some of the most dangerous smashes in the game.
    • Ganondorf one-ups Donkey Kong in this department.
    • Mega Man is the projectile version of this trope. Slow in both attack and movement speed, but with an arsenal of projectiles to make up most situations and give him combo options in long distance.
  • Minigame Zone: Arena Mode, the first element with no equivalent in the Super Smash Bros. series to be introduced, is a mode with several multiplayer minigames that play with the physics engine.
  • Nostalgia Level:
    • Along with the Past Stages from 64, Melee, Brawl, and Project M, The Sand Ocean stage is a composite of both Big Blue from Melee and the stage where Meta Ridley was fought in Brawl's Subspace Emissary.
    • The Silph Co. stage has all kinds of nods to Saffron City from 64, including the layout of the first area and the design of the moving platforms. Justified, as most of the fighting on Saffron City took place on top of Silph Co.'s roof.
  • Outside Ride: Sand Ocean.
  • Palette Swap: As is tradition in Super Smash Bros., these are available as alternate costumes, with each character planned to have twelve colors in total.
  • Power at a Price: Goku can use the Kaio-ken, which increases his power at the cost of slowly ticking damage.
  • Power Glows: Characters while holding Smash Balls, many Super Modes, and Kaio-ken Goku.
  • Pragmatic Adaptation: Many aspects of Smash have been modified to work around Flash's limitations. For instance:
    • As proper costumes and palette swaps are virtually impossible to apply to sprites in Flash, SSF2 used hue sliders to create alternate colors instead. It's difficult to recreate iconic costumes from Smash this way, but SSF2 has its own unique costumes, such as a semi-transparent version of Ness nicknamed "Ghost Ness." Subverted in this case as of Beta, as the developers were eventually able to make actual palette swaps for most of the characters using a specific technique, with every character planned on getting a full set of twelve palette swaps.
    • Bowser's Fire Breath move uses particle effects which would have tanked SSF2's performance, so Bowser instead shoots a single powerful fireball, serving as an extra reference to the original Mario games while also giving him a useful projectile.
  • Recursive Fanfiction: The game takes many cues from Project M, such as Turbo Mode, moveset alterations (Wario and Sonic in particular), and the Dracula's Castle stage.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: The characters on the menu screen for Multi-Man Smash will gain glowing red eyes if you put the cursor over the hardest difficulty, Cruel Smash.
  • Retraux:
    • Downplayed with the three Mushroom Kingdom stages, which clearly use design elements from their retro incarnations but are resprited to match SSF2's style and perspective. Played straighter with the PAC-MAZE and Urban Champion stages.
    • Most characters who debuted in (or at least appeared in) NES or Game Boy games have a Palette Swap which changes them into their colors from those games, complete with palette limitations and Deliberately Monochrome for Game Boy characters.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The version of DJ K.K. that plays on Smashville includes a subtle portion of U.N. Owen Was Her? in its arrangement.
    • Some of the characters' Palette Swaps reference characters from other franchises, often due to similarities between them.
  • Sprite Vector Mix: Custom-made sprites are used for characters, stages, items, and Assist Characters, while certain effects are flash-animated.
  • Stock Shōnen Hero: Not just the famed Shonen Four (Goku, Naruto, Ichigo, and Luffy) but several others qualify (Mario, Sonic, Pit, Lloyd, and Sora), making up nearly a quarter of the roster. Compounding this is the initially planned roster including a number of Stock Shonen Rivals (Vegeta, Sasuke, Renji, Shadow, Kratos Aurion, Riku, and Meta Knight), of which Meta Knight is the only one to appear post-retool due to being a Smash veteran.
  • Stopped Numbering Sequels: The penultimate release was officially titled Super Smash Flash 2 Beta rather than "v0.9c" as most of the fanbase previously expected. The reason? The team felt that the v0.9 series was named too early, expecting the final release to be ready much sooner than it actually would be. The re-titling signifies that it actually is the end of the line this time.
  • Super Mode:
    • Some characters' Final Smashes are temporary power-up transformations, called Final Forms. Before Beta, some Final Forms could use Final Smash-like attacks as one of their special moves, although this usually resulted in the Final Form ending early.
    • Kaio-ken Goku is currently the only non-Final Smash example.
  • Trap Master:
    • Bomberman. His neutral special lays up to five bombs anywhere around the stage which can all be detonated at any time.
    • Naruto, to an extent, as his attacks strike at distances and angles. He can also leave shadow clones on the ground for the opponents to trip over.

Alternative Title(s): Super Smash Flash 2

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top