Mario (SSF2)

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 Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. His voice-clips are directly taken from Brawl, and his moveset is a combination of his movesets in Melee and Brawl.

Mario is currently ranked 17th of A tier on the current tier list, one spot higher of his last position on the previous tier list, 18th of B tier. Mario has fast, low-laggy attacks, good combo ability, a good grab and throw game, and strong finishers in all of his smash attacks, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, and his back throw and up throw. He has a projectile, a Fireball, which he can use to hinder his opponents' approach, zoning, edgeguarding situations, 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 Super Jump Punch, covering good vertical distance, while Cape stalls him in mid-air for a short moment.

However, Mario most critical flaw is his lack of range: his poor attacking 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 , or characters with large hitboxes, like. 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 with recovering abilities when he is up against a good edgeguarder. His Fireballs possess 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. 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 or absorbed.

Mario appears to have a small playerbase, and has decent representation in online tournaments. Of those, Mario's placements in tournaments are shown to be high, and Mario appears to have a superior neutral game; in comparison to the other characters like, and. Although he possesses apparent weaknesses, his strengths drastically outweigh the aformentioned weaknesses, causing him to reside at high-tier.

Attributes
Mario is considered the most well-rounded/balanced fighter in the game. He is a middleweight character who appears to possess standard dashing, walking, falling, and air speeds, and gravity. Due to this, beginners should consider using Mario as the start-up character when playing the game for the first time. His fast attacking-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 attacks in his playstyle possess swift startup and low ending and landing lag, which helps him gain the upper hand in close combat.

As mentioned before, one of Mario's biggest key-traits is his swift attacking-speed, especially with his grounded moveset. Mario's jab is rather quick, and an effective way to rack up damage; thanks to its high damage output. Both his up and down tilts launch the opponents at a vertical trajectory with low knockback, and possesses 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 possesses the longest startup out of all his smash attacks, it pulls back his hurtbox at a 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 powerful semi-spike angle can force the opponents off the stage for an edgeguarding situation.

The effectiveness of his grounded game is also reflected in his aerial game. His neutral aerial is a fast sex kick that can be useful in combos, edgeguarding, or even breaking combos. His up aerial's extremely quick startup makes it a useful combo breaker and aerial interceptor, though its horizontal launching-trajectory makes it near-useless for combos. His forward aerial is a powerful spike that deals high base-knockback at the sweetspot, while the sourspot is powerful enough to KO reliably under 90%, making it one of Mario's most reliable KO options. His back aerial possesses the longest range and deals the highest knockback of his aerials, allowing it to space effectively and reliably KO off-stage. 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 utilizes. Fireball is a great projectile with relatively 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 a handful of the cast's recoveries off-stage; thanks to its disruptive knockback, downward-trajectory, and good SHFFL. Cape reverses the opponents; allowing a free hit or an 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 fighters; like and. Super Jump Punch travels in a diagonally vertical-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 recovery 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 an authentic grab and throw game; despite possessing the 9th-shortest set of grabs in the game. His up throw is Mario's most utiliizeful throw; as it can chain-grab high-fallers, heavyweights and fast-fallers at low-to-midway percents. He can combo from the particular throw on opponents; due to the high hitstun of the move. His down throw deals little knockback and hitstun, but deals low knockback and launches at a vertical angle, making it useful for combos; most notoriously with up tilt. His back throw is Mario's strongest throw, especially when used near the ledge that can KO at high percentages; being able to KO most of the cast reliably under 100%, while up throw is strengthened enough to become a reliable KO throw at high precents, killing at around 105%. 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 attacking-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-prioritied; 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 vulnerable if the reversed opponent bounces back towards Mario.

Overall, Mario is described as a versatile all-rounder, a fighter who possesses several clear strengths and a few weaknesses, resulting in his strengths outweighing his weaknesses. He is in the middle of the suspectible cast who can be easily comboed; 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 DIs when compared to other characters. This is also hindered by his below-average overall mobility, which makes it harder to do certain follow-ups.