Chibi-Robo (SSF2)

Chibi-Robo is a newcomer starter character in Super Smash Flash 2. He was announced, alongside and  at the McLeodGaming's booth for Super Smash Flash 2 in APEX 2014. His sprites are custom-made and he is accompanied by his best friend, Telly Vision, to give him "support on battles", though Telly is not part of Chibi-Robo's moveset.

Chibi-Robo is currently ranked 35th of C- tier on the the current tier list, placing him at the middle of mid-tier, a noticeable drop from 15th of C tier on the previous tier list, but a noticable leap from 42nd of C- tier from the second-previous tier list. Chibi-Robo's strengths include a disjointed range and good priority in most of his attacks, as well as some reliable finishing KO moves in his aerial attacks, smash attacks, forward tilt, up tilt, and back throw. He is able to reflect projectiles by using Pick Up, which allows him to store a projectile and release it whenever he wants, thus allowing for some good projectile-shenanigans. His Toothbrush is a good recovery move that covers a large horizontal distance at the expense of a rather negligible height loss, which is easily compensated by both his midair jump and his up special move, Chibi-Copter. He has a fast projectile, Chibi-Blaster, that can be aimed freely, limiting his opponent's approaching options. Chibi-Robo has a great grab and throw game as well, due to possessing a long-ranged grab with throws that can lead directly into his finishers via DI traps or simply KO the opponent. His combo game is also potent, if straightforward. Common combo starters and extenders include his down tilt, forward aerial, neutral aerial, up tilt, up throw, and down throw that can often combo into each other and finish with a sweetspotted up aerial, Chibi-Robo's most reliable KO move.

However, Chibi-Robo possesses high gravity (despite his average falling speed), which makes him combo fodder at most percentages. His horizontal recovering move, Toothbrush, is fairly linear, thus limiting its effectiveness at high-level play. To top it off, as Chibi-Robo is an anthropomorphic robot, Chibi-Robo is tied with for the eight-lightest character in the game, making him one of the easier characters to KO in the game, severly hindering his survivability; coupled with his mediocre defense, and this causes him to get easily KO'd as early as 40% by a drastically powerful attack. This makes it more of problem that he is easy to combo, since he can be KO'd early horizontally, thus making him relatively easy to zero-to-death. His second hindrance is that while Chibi-Robo has plenty of finishing KO moves and even more setups into them, most of those setups also require the player to successfully read the DI of their opponent in order to net the stock. In addition, his out-of-shield game is fairly weak, making him ineffective at dealing with strong shield pressure outside of rolling or committing to a laggy and slow up smash or up tilt, which have less ending lag, but also much smaller hitboxes. Chibi-Robo also notably suffers from opponents that can take advantage of his lacking mobility, such as or, or characters that outrange him with superior disjoints, like  or. His reflector, Pick Up, also tends to be glitched, causing most expelled projectiles to be useless in battle. Also, Chibi-Robo has a long hurtbox with his electrical cord, despite a relatively small size.

Historically, Chibi-Robo as a character has had a small playerbase with few noteworthy players that actively utilize him in tournaments outside of the now somewhat-inactive players, Drarky and Cookies. Though his strengths are apparent, his significant weaknesses drastically outnumber his apparent strengths, causing him to reside at the lower side of mid-tier.

Attributes
Chibi-Robo contains fairly below-average attributes all around, running slightly slower and jumping slightly lower than most of the cast, like and.

Chibi-Robo is a relatively lightweight character who contains disjointed ranges in the majority of his attacks that can help him out-space his opponents. His attacks also possess a good amount of priority. Chibi-Robo has strong KO moves and breakers and finishers in his back aerial, sweetspotted up aerial, all smash attacks, back throw, forward throw, a sweetspotted down smash, and neutral aerial, all aerials, as well as Pick Up if the captured projectile was powerful. He possesses a spammable projectile in Chibi-Blaster that can help punish approaches, anti-air, juggle opponents or gimp opponents when they are trying to recover. He contains a long recovery move in Toothbrush, which contain high priority.

In terms of grab and throw game, Chibi-Robo's grab and throw game is among the best in the game; despite possessing a somewhat laggy grab. He has the second-longest grabbing range in the game after, and , and the grab can uniquely be angled above and below himself. His up and down throw are great for starting combos, getting great follow-ups and getting KO confirms, if the DI is read correctly. This works on characters of all accelerated falling speeds. His forward throw can set up tech-chases on characters with high accelerated falling speed or even confirm into a KO with up aerial or down aerial if the throw is DI'ed poorly, which can easily happen due to the speed of the throw. Back throw is Chibi-Robo's strongest throw, being able to KO characters as early as 80% close to the ledge and 100% center-stage, but is heavily hampered by proper DI, in which case opponents can live up to or even over 140%.

Chibi-Robo also contains one of the strongest air games, with each aerial being useful in its own way. Neutral aerial and forward aerial are great for approaching and starting combos, with the latter arguably being Chibi-Robo's best combo tool outside of his throws. His back aerial is strong and possesses good range, while also doubling as an effective spacing tool. His up aerial is one of the strongest in the game (after Spitball Sparky, 's up aerial); and possesses a sizable hitbox that can be comboed into from a majority of his other moves. Though his down aerial deals the weakest knockback of all his aerials, it is one of the strongest meteor smashes, and is a reliable combo starter on grounded opponents that boasts impressive vertical range, making it a big threat to any opponents off-stage.

Despite these numerous strengths, Chibi-Robo also possesses a few notable and significant flaws that severely give him a disadvantage. As an anthropomorphic robot, Chibi-Robo is tied with for the eight-lightest character in the game, which, coupled with his high gravity that makes him susceptible to combos, juggles and chain-grabs, causes him to get easily knocked out as early as 40% by a significantlly strong attack; severly hindering his survivability and making him suspectible to early KOs, especially vertically and off the stage. In addition, despite possessing great disjointed range in most of his attacks, his overall range is mostly mediocre. This is compounded by the fact that a variety of his electrical moves like up smash, down smash and up tilt possess underwhelming range for favorable disjoints. Because of this, this allows weapon-wielding characters like and  to easily keep him at arm's length and bring his approaches to an end.

For instance, most of his KO confirms can be avoided by proper DIs, mostly seen when he tries to get a KO confirm off of his throws; if his grab misses the opponent, it will lead to Chibi-Robo being incredibly vulnerable for attack to the move's ending lag. Even if he manages to connect it, he has to read the opponent's DI correctly in order to net a stock. This issue can be mitigated by the sheer number of DI-mixups that can all lead into a KO, but against players with proper DI and knowledge of those setups (or even just a missed input), it can be surprisingly difficult to take the stock nonetheless. He also cannot reliably combo into his smash attacks outside of a few select setups that are avoidable, and his forward and up smash also are notorious for not properly connecting on opponents; despite their impressive range.

Chibi-Robo's special moves are also extremely situational; while his retains one of the best vertical recoveries with Chibi-Copter, his main means of horizontal recovery, Toothbrush, leaves Chibi-Robo completely vulnerable from all sides (except his front), and travels rather slowly, making it easy for skilled edgeguarders to intercept it, and causes Chibi-Robo to easily get gimped. It also does not KO at very high precents, only powerfully semi-spiking opponents at high precents. Additionally, though Chibi-Blaster is spammable, it also has massive lag on startup if grounded and very little hitstun; not even able to KO at very high precents, which weakens its utility. Also, Chibi-Robo's range in some of his attacks leaves him vulnerable to characters with disjointed hitboxes in the majority of their attacks, such as and. He also contains high gravity, which makes him susceptible to combos, juggles and chain-grabs, with the combination of his below-average weight, makes him easy to zero-to-death horizontally.

While Chibi-Robo possesses a great grab and throw game, none of Chibi-Robo's throws outside of back throw tend to KO until extreme high precents, with his second-strongest throw, forward throw, having trouble to KO until well past 180%, and his useful combo throws, up and down throws, unable to KO reliably well beyond 200%. While his grab does have extreme long melee range, it is also somewhat very laggy. Chibi-Robo also possesses a mediocre defensive game; despite possessing fast rolls, air dodges and sidesteps, and a relatively small size. His rolls gain among the shortest distance, and his sidestep and air dodge gain among the shortest period of intangibility.

Lastly, Chibi-Robo's greatest weakness is the lack of disjointed hitboxes. Because a variety of his moves involve Chibi-Robo using his electrical cord, in a similar vein to and, that means, with a few exceptions, that every time Chibi-Robo attacks with his electrical cord, it acts as a large and extending hurtbox, causing him to get easily out-spaced by a long-ranged attack; similar to 's large head, which also acts as a large hurtbox.

In the end, Chibi-Robo is described as a grappling-based glass cannon who runs hot and cold; a character who possesses potent offense while being very vulnerable to early KOs himself, at the expense of an extremely hampered defense. Chibi-Robo can easily KO his opponents with an arsenal of his powerful reliable attacks, but can be easily KO'd just as quickly before the opponent does due to his extremely light weight. He is assisted with one of the greatest grab and throw games, among the strongest aerial and grounded game, a strong approach, and explosive power in his smash attacks, all aerials and back throw. However, he is held back by overall laggy and short-ranged attacks, DIs, difficulties to net stocks, and a mediocre horizontal recovery, which is compenstated by an excellent vertical recovery, long-ranged and disjointed attacks. He contains several powerful strengths that can make him a formidable fighter in the hands of an experienced player. However, his flaws are significant enough to outweigh them all, causing him to reside at the lower side of mid-tier.