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Super Smash Flash

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"SSF2" redirects here. For the Capcom video game, see Super Street Fighter II.
Super Smash Flash
Logo for the original, Super Smash Flash (top), and logo for the reboot, Super Smash Flash 2 (bottom).
Genre(s)Fighting, action, platformer
Developer(s)McLeodGaming, Cleod9 Productions
Publisher(s)McLeodGaming
Creator(s)Gregory McLeod (Cleod9)

Super Smash Flash is a series of non-profit, fighting, crossover, fan-made Flash games published by indie website McLeodGaming, led by Gregory McLeod under the alias Cleod9. It is based on the Super Smash Bros. series.[1] The original, Super Smash Flash, is based specifically off of the Nintendo-made game, Super Smash Bros. Melee. The series altogether has spawned a large community on their official forums.

Gameplay

The common objective, much like official Super Smash Bros. titles, is to knock opponents off of the screen. Players are given a percentage counter instead of a health bar, which increases as they take damage. A higher damage percentage means that attacks will send the player farther, which may ultimately lead to a KO.[2]

The games are not direct clones of the official titles, featuring adjusted mechanics and playable content, both stages and characters, not present in the original Super Smash Bros. series by virtue of being fanmade projects.

In the original Super Smash Flash, characters only have a total of five attacks each, activated by pressing the "P" key along with an arrow key, additionally, some characters presented an extra attack while jumping. The reboot, Super Smash Flash 2, tries to greater emulate the feel of a console game by giving characters a much wider variety of movement options, and while keyboard control is still the default configuration, there exist settings and guides to facilitate play with USB controllers.[3]

Multiplayer

Both Super Smash Flash and Super Smash Flash 2 feature standard multiplayer battles, both against other players on the same machine and against computer-controlled characters with configurable difficulty levels.

The original game was very limited by its software Flash capacity; aside only one multiplayer mode (crowned as Melee mode), matches were limited for only two human players per match, the other remaining two slots could be filled with CPU entries only. Playing this way was also very disadvantaged for player-two as the camera was programmed to solely follow player-one.

The reboot further expanded the multiplayer mode by finally allowing 4 player-entries controlled by human players, in addition to an improved camera system that follows all the players. Version 0.9b introduced Special Versus, a similar mode in which certain "game modifiers" like Mini, Slow, or Turbo can be applied to matches.[4]

Online

In the latest demo of Super Smash Flash 2, version 0.9b, players are given the ability to fight against opponents online through a proprietary system dubbed the "McLeodGaming Network".[4][5] Connections use the proprietary Adobe RTMFP technology unless the "high latency" setting is chosen, which hands the players off to a server rather than using a P2P connection.

Playable characters

The original Super Smash Flash features 30 characters.[6] These characters represent a wide variety of media, spanning not only their respective video games but also anime, film, and fan-made creations. Like in the Super Smash Bros. series, a number of these characters must be "unlocked" through various means.

Super Smash Flash 2 is confirmed to feature at least 36 characters as well. Fan-made newcomers from the previous game will not reappear, due to the developers wanting to give a more professional tone to the game.[7]

Development

Super Smash Flash

Development of the original Super Smash Flash began around mid-2006, as Cleod9's first Flash game project on his then TI-89-centric website, McLeodGaming, after understanding Flash coding well enough to make a full-fledged game. Originally, the game was a combat-oriented platform game with a Sonic the Hedgehog fan-character called "Blade" (whom would remain a playable character even in the final product) and the focus was to get through a large level with suspended platforms taking out flying robotic bees called Buzzers (enemies from the Sega Genesis game, Sonic the Hedgehog 2)[citation needed] The game was eventually reworked into a Super Smash Bros. fan game - then early called a "flash Smash engine" by Cleod9 - where small updates began incorporating new content, be new playable characters, stages or items[1] It was based on Super Smash Bros. Melee as that was the current title in the official series at the time. As Cleod9's first big flash project, the game was considered "a great success for its time".[8] The game was completed within roughly half a year's time without any outside coding assistance, and was released August 21, 2006 on Newgrounds, a website known for its user-made Flash content.[9]

Super Smash Flash 2

The success of Super Smash Flash soon led to high demand for a sequel. When McLeodGaming first started development on Super Smash Flash 2 in 2007, the game was planned to be a sequel to the original Super Smash Flash, with the incremental aesthetic and gameplay improvements. This plan was ultimately discarded in favor of making a fresh, new start to reboot the series. Despite the title, Super Smash Flash 2 is not actually a sequel; it is an entirely new game, and only retains the original name of the project because of how widely known the title has become throughout the fanbase. Although the game is not complete yet, pre-releases – also known as demos of the game – have been posted to their website for users and fans to see how far in development the game is. Various attempts to post minor updates to the game have also been posted to the "Smash Flash DOJO!!!", one of several websites run by developers based on a similar Nintendo-run site for the Smash Bros. series, but each attempt has been abandoned.[10] Updates are also occasionally posted on the team's Facebook and Twitter pages.

There were two major turning points in the game's development. The first was on January 1, 2009, on the release of v 0.4a. This was the point where the game began to sharply grow considerably more complex, leading to snags in development as the difficulty of adding new characters was stated by Cleod to have "increased exponentially" at this point.[11] The second turning point came with the following release, v0.7, on January 1, 2011. Initially thought to merely be an update that added content, Black Mage was included as a hidden character after playing ten battles. This was a shock to the fanbase, as he was the first character to be introduced who was not in the originally planned character roster. Directly related to knowledge of his surprise inclusion spreading among the general fanbase, McLeodGaming soon made an announcement that the oft-criticized planned roster had undergone a complete overhaul.[12]

The final demo, Super Smash Flash 2 Beta, was announced on January 25, 2015. It was notable for dropping both the version number and designating itself as a beta version rather than a demo. Though it is not yet feature complete, it has added various aspects to stand on its own as a game, both present in the official Super Smash Bros. titles, such as Classic Mode (primarily in the vein of the original Super Smash Bros., but with added elements), and original to the game, such as "Arena Mode", a multiplayer minigame collection playing with the existing physics and characters in unorthodox-for-the-series ways.[13]

Reception

Super Smash Flash

Super Smash Flash garnered a mixed to positive critical reception. Though initially reviewed positively, later reviews such as one on FlashGN found the game to be "lacking control", and "simply a buggy and flawed attempt at recreating one of the best fighting games of all time."[14] Despite some poor reviews, Super Smash Flash earned a Newgrounds daily feature award, over 11 million views, and a four star rating, and later was categorized as making "Flash Portal History" for 2006.[15] The game has picked up several other minor awards.[16]

Super Smash Flash 2

Super Smash Flash 2, though currently incomplete, has gained significantly more traction than its predecessor. It was featured in GamesRadar's "10 fan games that shouldn't be ceased or desisted" as number 5 while still in its infancy, and gained a feature article on GoNintendo.[17][18] Shortly before the release of version 0.9b, one writer for the video gaming website Polygon opined that "There's a low-fi pixel art aesthetic and a sense of freedom that makes Super Smash Flash 2 more appealing to me than the real thing."[19] Super Smash Flash 2's demos maintain over 400,000 plays a day on McLeodGaming alone, and peaked at over 1 million daily plays on January 20, 2013.[20] Notably, the game's work-in-progress v0.9a demo was featured as an indie game at the worldwide Super Smash Bros. tournament Apex 2013, and returned the following two years with subsequent updates.[21]

References

  1. ^ a b McLeod, Gregory. "McLeodGaming :: About". McLeodGaming. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  2. ^ "Battling | Smash Flash DOJO!!!". Smash Flash DOJO!!!. McLeodGaming. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  3. ^ Dingman, Hayden. "Super Smash Flash 2 brings 16-bit Smash Bros. straight to your browser". TechHive. IDG Consumer & SMB. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
  4. ^ a b Neltz, András. "The Smash Bros. Where You Can Play As Sora, Naruto, Ichigo, or Goku". Kotaku. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
  5. ^ "McLeodGaming Network". McLeodGaming Network. McLeodGaming. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
  6. ^ McLeod, Gregory. "McLeodGaming :: Games". McLeodGaming. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
  7. ^ "Facebook – Fun fact: As of Super Smash Flash 2's v0.9b..." McLeodGaming. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
  8. ^ "McLeodGaming – View Topic – SSF2 General Discussion [v0.9]". McLeodGaming. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  9. ^ "Game Projects | Greg McLeod". McLeod, Gregory. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
  10. ^ "Welcome to the Smash Flash DOJO!!!". Smash Flash DOJO!!!. McLeodGaming. Retrieved 5 August 2014. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |website= (help)
  11. ^ "January 1, 2008 News (Happy New Year + v0.4a Released)". McLeodGaming (1 January 2009). McLeodGaming. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  12. ^ "January 6th, 2011 News (v0.7 Update + Important Roster Info)". McLeodGaming (6 February 2011). McLeodGaming. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  13. ^ "YouTube - McLeodGaming Direct - Super Smash Flash 2 Beta (1/25/15)". YouTube. Google, Inc. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  14. ^ Shawn. "FGN- 'Super Smash Flash Review'". Afro Ninja Productions. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  15. ^ "Flash Portal History: 2006". Newgrounds, Inc. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  16. ^ "Super Smash Flash EXE Software Informer: Awards". Informer Technologies, Inc. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  17. ^ RawmeatCowboy. "Super Smash Flash 2 – fan-made game footage | GoNintendo – What are YOU waiting for?". GoNintendo. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  18. ^ Chiang, Oliver. "10 fan games that shouldn't be ceased or desisted". GamesRadar. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  19. ^ Riendeau, Danielle. "Fan-made Smash Bros. has better characters". Polygon. Vox Media. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
  20. ^ "Facebook – Well, looks like we're going to have to amend Friday's post..." McLeodGaming. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  21. ^ "Indie Developers". Apex Series. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
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