Super Smash Brothers Crusade - v0.9.0 Demo Available for download!

[Bakuryu]

Its going so slow it doesn't even show a FPS during the demo just the letters FPS. Its completely unplayable for me.

 

[Dr.MarioX]

If you would like to vote on our polls, here are the links:

Game Mode Polls: http://www.snappoll.com/poll/320590.php
Retro Character Polls: http://www.snappoll.com/poll/320595.php
Zelda Character Polls: http://www.snappoll.com/poll/320600.php
Other Character Polls: http://www.snappoll.com/poll/320602.php
Mario Stage Polls: http://www.snappoll.com/poll/320605.php
Favorite Demo Character Polls: http://www.snappoll.com/poll/320608.php
Rate The Demo Polls: http://www.snappoll.com/poll/320609.php

These polls may decide some things for the game. However, this game is not completely based off these polls, but please check them out. More Polls Will Come As Game Development Progresses.

 

[wildvine47]

There's a problem with the polls, because I tried to vote for Zant in the Zelda one, but it says I can't vote repeatedly, even though I haven't voted yet.

Also, Pac-Man is 3rd party, so why is he in the retro poll? He's still going strong today with the Pac-Man World games.

 

[fortwaffles]

Well, if character suggesting is ok, I'd like to suggest:
Sly Cooper (PLZ!)
Phoenix Wright
Tails
Felix
Isaac
Geno
Ashley (wario ware)
Neku
Roy
Eliwood
Rayman
Iron knuckle (zelda)
Spyro the dragon (based on ps1 games)
Crash bandicoot (based on ps1 games)
Zidane (final fantasy 9)
Freya (final fantasy 9)
Lethe (fire emblem)
Ralph (ledgend of Zelda OOA)
Gary Oak

 

[Dr.MarioX]

There's a problem with the polls, because I tried to vote for Zant in the Zelda one, but it says I can't vote repeatedly, even though I haven't voted yet.

Also, Pac-Man is 3rd party, so why is he in the retro poll? He's still going strong today with the Pac-Man World games.

I'm sorry about that. This isn't the best website for the job. I'll update these sooner or later.

 

[smashbro29]

Dude, that's X!! Not Mega Man!!

Above is Mega Man

and this is X.

Also, Pac-Man is 3rd party, so why is he in the retro poll? He's still going strong today with the Pac-Man World games.

Umm... not really, his last game was in like 04 and it was kinda generic.

Certainly not "going strong".

 

[Dr.MarioX]

Dude, that's X!! Not Mega Man!!

...

So, Mewtwo is now finished in the game!
His final smash is Psycho Boost. He unleashes six shock waves out of his body that inflict major damage. It's so powerful, he has to rest for a second afterward.
Overall, he's mostly the same as Melee. He's a small bit better, however.

We will be posting matches from the game soon! Some may have Mewtwo!

 

[fromundaman]

I'm sorry about that. This isn't the best website for the job. I'll update these sooner or later.

The problem with the polls is it counts a vote in any category as a vote for every category.

 

[Fijoe]

I downloaded it, but how do I open it? It's just an unopenable file.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

You need the 7zip application.

 

[Fijoe]

Where can I get that?

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

www.7zip.org

So I finally got around to playing it. Great AI guys, it doesn't kill itself constantly, it fights pretty well... yeah.

The largest annoyance for me was the control scheme, which is tricky to get used to. I'm just not blocking, and I don't know how to grab. Please, PLEASE make us able to configure it. I have a certain scheme that I'm used to and that works really well (asdf movement, uiop for respectively grab/throw, block, b, a).

As far as gameplay goes... I don't really see that many problems. I can look deeper though. The Tornado on hyrule is invisible and very buggy. Might wanna fix that. Also, final smashes are horribly unbalanced, in the sense that with Fox, you can usually consistently knock two stocks off with it, but with snake, you'll be lucky to hit the opponent at all after activation. Not bad though. Not bad at all.

 

[Falcon88]

As far as gameplay goes... I don't really see that many problems. I can look deeper though. The Tornado on hyrule is invisible and very buggy. Might wanna fix that. Also, final smashes are horribly unbalanced, in the sense that with Fox, you can usually consistently knock two stocks off with it, but with snake, you'll be lucky to hit the opponent at all after activation. Not bad though. Not bad at all.

I actually fixed some bugs with the Tornado not being able to throw certain characters, however, I have never had it come up invisible... Check the stages\hcastle64 folder and see if you have tornado.png. If the sprites are missing, that's the problem. There were in the game when I zipped it, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't be in yours unless there was some network error or an error in the zip file.

Thanks for pointing that out! By the way, the controls are in the Game Info (press F1 to view it). I want to have customizable ones, but I'm not sure how to begin to set them up. I know I'll need some variable to store the keys in, but I don't know how to physically record the keys! Any thoughts, GM users?

Final Smashes: I see where you are coming from, actually! Gernade Launcher is not good in a one-on-one. I will try to do something about that. Bigger explosions, maybe? A tad faster on the reticule movement? I think either would help. So, would someone list in more detail how I should modify the Final Smashes? I want Final Smashes to be balanced, really! To be honest, I knew they weren't perfectly balanced, but I guess I overdid the nerfing on Snake's. :/

Here's what I as a developer am seeing for FS's. This is based on damage, knockback, and range.
Awesome:
Super Sonic
Landmaster
Volt Tackle

Good:
Crash! (Kirby)
Zero Laser (Samus)
Psycho Boost (Mewtwo) (not in demo, but still)

Average:
Mario Finale
Hyper Mega Man
Triforce Slash
Dragon Fist (Goku, Kaioken)
Shun Goku Satsu

Below Average:
Shin Shoryuken
Spirit Bomb (Goku, normal)
Super Star Launch (Ristar)
Power Strike Explosion (Waluigi)

Hard to land/not too good:
Grenade Launcher
Power Suit Samus (ZSS)

Thoughts...?

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Landmaster is seriously stupid. The Grenade Launcher... well, between shooting a grenade and it exploding, you can't move the cursor. Being able to do that would make it way better.
What happened was, I was Ristar, and I just got stuck in the looping animation right before the tornado throws me. It would repeat again and again. I wouldn't take damage, but I couldn't get out. I'll check if the file is there...

 

[Bakuryu]

Its going so slow it doesn't even show a FPS during the demo just the letters FPS. Its completely unplayable for me.

10cantplayz

 

[Phantom7]

Landmaster is seriously stupid. The Grenade Launcher... well, between shooting a grenade and it exploding, you can't move the cursor. Being able to do that would make it way better.
What happened was, I was Ristar, and I just got stuck in the looping animation right before the tornado throws me. It would repeat again and again. I wouldn't take damage, but I couldn't get out. I'll check if the file is there...

Landmaster -- we'll make it move more slowly for sure. Maybe the laser should have more starting lag? I also think hovering is over-powered, so we'll probably limit how high you can hover.

Grenade Launcher -- I like that idea. We're also planning on making it move faster and increasing the size of the explosion.

 

[smashbro29]

...

Care to explain WHY that's not a valid point?

 

[Falcon88]

Care to explain WHY that's not a valid point?

To be fair, the technicalities are not the point of this thread. Mega Man is his name in the game, and we shouldn't change that at this point. Please try not to interrupt other discussions with posts like this which are frankly irrelevant. If you have any comments about the game itself, go crazy.

So anyway, an update on the Final Smashes. I have addressed your concerns! I have sped up the movement of Snake's aiming reticule on his Final Smash and allowed you to move the reticule while shooting. Also, the size of the explosions is larger. Landmaster's mobility has been nerfed, and the laser has more ending lag. Also, the laser does 1% less damage and less knockback (from 15% to 14%). I'm also going to reevaluate all the other Final Smashes. They might need some work, too.

I fixed the tornado glitch as well. I still can;t figure out the invisibility thing - I can see it just fine every time.


But anyhow, I will update and upload a new version soon, after I add in some more newsworthy stuff.

 

[Qarano]

I read the first 10 pages of this thread, every last post- not just most- but all of the posts were saying that you were just throwing ideas around and that you had no ability to make this game whatsoever.

If I were a mod I would go ahead and give you permission to make a thread purely for gloating, in which you list the names of all the people who said you absolutely cannto do this and told you to just quit. (Then again, that's why I'm not a mod lol)

At any rate, congratulations on making a decent smash game that didn't go the route of ssf.

 

[Falcon88]

I read the first 10 pages of this thread, every last post- not just most- but all of the posts were saying that you were just throwing ideas around and that you had no ability to make this game whatsoever.

If I were a mod I would go ahead and give you permission to make a thread purely for gloating, in which you list the names of all the people who said you absolutely cannto do this and told you to just quit. (Then again, that's why I'm not a mod lol)

At any rate, congratulations on making a decent smash game that didn't go the route of ssf.

Thanks dude. I never realized it, but yeah those first few posts were all like, "Game Maker sucks and this game is never gonna happen anyways lol u should make tripping in the game"

Yeah let's see what they think now...

 

[Lore]

Landmaster is seriously stupid. The Grenade Launcher... well, between shooting a grenade and it exploding, you can't move the cursor. Being able to do that would make it way better.
What happened was, I was Ristar, and I just got stuck in the looping animation right before the tornado throws me. It would repeat again and again. I wouldn't take damage, but I couldn't get out. I'll check if the file is there...

I had something happen with the tornado to me too. I stepped on where the tornado can appear, got thrown into the looping animation, took damage/got thrown out, and the tornado appeared after that.

To be fair, the technicalities are not the point of this thread. Mega Man is his name in the game, and we shouldn't change that at this point. Please try not to interrupt other discussions with posts like this which are frankly irrelevant. If you have any comments about the game itself, go crazy.

He was joking, and even if he wasn't, don't feed the trolls. >_>

 

[smashbro29]

I had something happen with the tornado to me too. I stepped on where the tornado can appear, got thrown into the looping animation, took damage/got thrown out, and the tornado appeared after that.



He was joking, and even if he wasn't, don't feed the trolls. >_>

Well I wasn't joking but I also had no idea the game was this far along.

I was trying to help, you'll be hearing it a lot when you make the game public.

 

[Stoney]

Dang, this took a while to write

Holy crap. I downloaded the demo on a whim, not really expecting much of anything. I was pleasantly surprised and a little amazed at the quality of the engine and the character implementation.

Then I went back and read through the entire thread out of curiosity. You guys seem to have come a long way from those humble MSPaint roots ( I say "seem to" since the MSPaint screenshots in question no longer exist, so I can't tell for sure). The amount of negativity you received at first actually shocked me; those first screenshots you posted must have been truly abysmal, Phantom. I'm glad to see that the backlash didn't hinder this game's development in the slightest. Heck, knowing what I do now, most of the posts in the first 10 pages are hilarious.

I came away from my testing of all 14 characters and 6 stages with many, many impressions. If it isn't too arrogant of me, I'd like to share them with you, since I imagine any feedback whether positive or critical could only help improve a project like this one. Please keep in mind that I have never played Super Smash Flash and hadn't even heard of it before reading this thread; the only other PC-based Smash game I've played is Super Nuke Bros. Melee, which is an order of magnitude different from what you've done here, so my impressions should be relatively "untainted".



GRAPHICS

They are hit-and-miss at times. A lot of the characters like Link, Snake, Samus, and Mario all have the same general "style" of sprites, but characters like Goku stand out glaringly and feel like they don't quite belong with everyone else -- as if they were dropped into the game as a careless afterthought. (I know this isn't the case; that's just the impression I was left with.) This might be part of the reason why so many people dislike Goku's inclusion in the game. If he was given custom sprites that fit better alongside the art style of the other characters, people might be more willing to forgive his anime origins.

A lot of the sprite sets are quite excellent. Samus, Link, Fox, and Toad were very well-done and I was delighted to see ZSS use modified Zero Mission sprites. Snake needs more work; he moves unnaturally, as if he was a robotic Snatcher posing as Snake rather than the real deal. Mario's head looks a little too tiny in proportion to his body (his series uses a more cartoonish look, here he looks more realistic). Waluigi is pretty amazing and I liked the blend of Wario's moves with the more original Waluigi ideas, but like Goku he looks different when placed next to the other characters (black outlines rather than light gray, a larger head and smaller body, etc.); maybe it's a side-effect of using more than one sprite artist, or using modified Wario Land sprites?



MUSIC & SFX

Some of the music choices were a little...odd. Remixed Pokemon music on Hyrule Castle (possibly a glitch)? Some random vocal track on Mute City (possibly from the F-Zero anime)? But I did enjoy most of the selections and don't have any serious complaints. The quality was a little scratchy at times, but I've been spoiled by high-definition audio and a pair of huge, expensive headphones that simulate surround sound, so take that as you will.

Sound Effects need more work; they tend to continue playing even after the move they are assigned to is ended or canceled prematurely. The worst offender is Samus's Charge Shot, which plays the entire "charging" sound effect even when you just tap the Special Move button to fire off a quick shot without charging it. Firing several of these shots in a row sounded like a demonic Metal Gear with Parkinsons was trying to roar at me.



ITEMS

No complaints here, other than the lack of variety; but that can be fixed easily and you're probably already working on it. What you've already implemented works as it should, with appropriate damage/healing/knockback. Good showing all around.

I should mention, though, that the character animations for holding a Capsule or Pitfall are really awkward. They aren't held in a character's hands and instead float above the sprite layer like they are magnetically attracted to the character's side. This would look just fine for Mewtwo but is very strange for everyone else.



STAGES

The stages are fun. I was pleasantly surprised to see the triumphant return of Smash 64's Saffron City and Hyrule Castle. Their stage hazards were faithfully replicated and worked well, although I noticed some glitching with the Hyrule Castle tornado where it refused to launch a character into the air and kept them stuck in the twirling animation until they were damaged by another character.

Some of the stages seemed like they hadn't reached their true potential yet. When I saw Good Egg Galaxy on the list I was expecting something similar to Brinstar Depths from Melee; a spherical battlefield that occasionally rotated, to keep in line with Mario Galaxy's mini-planetoid theme. Instead I got a simple, flat battleground with four platforms, two to each side. It's decent for battling purposes, and the falling Star Bits and Luma in the background make for some nice set decoration, but I was hoping for more interactivity than I'd get with Battlefield or Final Destination.



CHARACTERS


Mario: Decent and well-rounded. His Final Smash is ******** but that's to be expected since it sucked in Brawl too (it has almost NO knockback, so although it does lots of hits for decent damage it will never, ever, ever KO someone). You removed FLUDD and I thank you deeply for it. He's got some good damage and knockback on his Smash Attacks but I had a real hard time pulling them off (see the Gameplay section below). Pretty average overall.

Link: I was not expecting a new Side Special, that surprised me a lot. It seems decent, but I will definitely miss the Vacuum Boomerang in future matches. I love the increased range on his Up Smash, even if it is a bit slower to come out. His Up Special has poor recovery again and is very slow now, which saddens me since it was so amazing in Melee. I half-expected his Down Special to transform him into Wolf Link like Zelda turns into Sheik. When he pulls out a bomb, he can't throw it with a second press of the Special Move button like he can in Brawl and must instead throw it like any other item; this threw me off for a while, no pun intended. You gave him Toon Link's excellent Back Air and I have no complaints about that. He comes out of his Down Air very fast now, removing all potential risk from using it and leaving it ripe for spamming. His Triforce Slash is still ridiculously strong, but it still only targets one guy, so it's a fair tradeoff. Overall he seems much quicker and more agile than Brawl; he can actually run instead of trotting around like he's going out for a light jog. I like him more now.

Samus: Hoo boy, Samus. She's a LOT faster now, almost as fast as her Zero Suit version. The clunkiness she had in Brawl is pretty much eliminated and she can combo really well now. Her Up Smash and Up Tilt have been swapped for some reason beyond my understanding, which led to lots of initial confusion. She can't Bomb Jump. Charge Shot has very little charge time compared to Brawl. Her grab executes instantaneously if the enemy is within range (they literally teleport over to her side from however far away they are) and you only actually see the animation for her Grapple Beam if the enemy is out of range. This seems a bit broken IMHO. Screw Attack now does as many hits as it did in Smash 64 but isn't half as slow as it was back then. Zero Laser is still one of the most broken Final Smashes in the game, but can no longer be aimed up and down like it could in Brawl (though it lasts long enough to catch anyone who jumps over it, so it doesn't really matter).

Zero Suit Samus: We need a way to select her from the Character Select Screen without going through the process of getting a FS with Samus. She's slower than in Brawl, possibly to balance out Power Suit Samus's new speed, and doesn't use her whip as much; she stole Snake's Back Air. Her sprite limitations have made her legs a lot shorter, so her range has suffered quite a bit in the air. Her new running attack is...interesting. It's a cartwheel that doesn't have as much horizontal range as her flying kick did, but has more vertical range. Her Final Smash is actually worth a darn now, with a much bigger radius and more knockback, and since normal Samus has been improved so much it doesn't feel like a chore to go back to her afterwards. Overall, ZSS is more powerful but her attacks lack the ridiculous range they had in Brawl. I think it's a decent balance.

Fox: Fox's special attacks act very oddly now. His Up Special tends to not damage the opponent when it is aimed sideways or diagonally; I was only able to consistently do damage with it when Fox used it to divebomb straight downwards. His Side Special doesn't have a hitbox anymore it seems, and is purely used for recovery purposes. It also has a nonexistent startup and executes swiftly, so it's a nice mobility aid in a pinch. Other than those oddities, he acts pretty much as I expected. Fast and light. The problems with the landmaster have already been addressed and fixed, so no comment there.

Kirby: I love this guy; he's so aloof. His Inhale is different; if he chooses not to copy an enemy ability, the enemy doesn't get spit out as a projectile anymore and instead materializes above Kirby's head; it's the exact same result as Kirby copying the ability but without the benefit of him getting it. The copied abilities themselves are charming as always, but Kirby doesn't have hats anymore to give the player a visual reminder of who Kirby is copying. This can be troubling in matches with more than one opponent. Some of the copied abilities don't match the opponent either; Shoryuken from Ristar? I do like how all of the copied moves wind up being moves from the Kirby games, but I still haven't figured out how to Taunt since it isn't listed in the controls, so I can't remove an ability once Kirby has copied it. His hammer uses the Melee air animation but does more damage and has multiple hits. Stone has a LOT of starting and ending lag, to punish spammers I guess, and it knocks opponents straight upwards if they are standing on the ground when hit by it. Although Final Cutter has been slowed down a bit. it goes higher and the wave it shoots out at the end can travel across half of Final Destination if you let it. His new Final Smash covers the entire screen; there's no escape from it like there was with Chef. This is pretty broken, since one of the big factors that balanced FSes in Brawl was that they were all potentially avoidable in some way.

BTW, I noticed a gravity glitch with Kirby; if he jumps off the spawn platform and multiple-jumps, he will fall much faster than usual afterwards.

Sonic: For some reason, Sonic can run off the edges of platforms without auto-sweetspotting to them like Kirby and others do. This makes him more dangerous to use, since he slides around like he's on ice while he runs and most of his special moves involve speeding him up further. His Down Air is totally different now and doesn't send him careening downwards anymore, being more similar to Mario's Down Air than anything else. He has a lot of trouble reversing direction in midair since he keeps whatever momentum he had on the ground, which is usually considerable. The Homing Attack now works kind of like Pikachu's Quick Attack in that it goes in one direction, pulls a sharp turn, then goes in another direction; it doesn't hit the opponent if they stand still. He can only use his spring ONCE, and other players aren't affected by it. His Side Special Spindash has been replaced by the Light Speed Dash, which is chargeable. It might be because of my crappy laptop keyboard, but on occasion Sonic would not respond when I switched directions with the arrow keys, so he went running off the right edge of the stage while I was holding down the left arrow key trying to make him turn around. He's fast and powerful, but dangerously slippery; use with caution.

Super Sonic is still, without question, the cheapest Final Smash in the entire game. Here it's even MORE so, because Super Sonic controls better than he did in Brawl!

Pikachu: My God, that sprite is adorable. I just wanna pick him up and squeeze him like a plushie. He remains mostly unchanged, moveset-wise, but his Thunder is slower and the bolt itself is MUCH smaller and less powerful than before, thank God. His Down Smash seems to have a smaller hitbox than before, too. His Forward Smash has less range and his Skull Bash has a longer charge time. Overall he feels pretty nerfed, but that's not a bad thing; he needed it.

Volt Tackle got seriously nerfed; it no longer goes through walls and is a lot slower too. In exchange, however, it controls even tighter than Super Sonic.

Snake: Snake uses the same moveset he had in Brawl, but for many reasons he feels rushed and incomplete. This is mostly due to his animations, which are goofy as heck; his arms shrink while he's running and when he stands up from firing a Stinger missile his arms get stuck in one of the tweens, making them look like an amorphous blob. His Down Air looks like a tap dance. His leg changes its length during his Forward Air. His neutral Air uses the same kicking animation three times in a row instead of alternating legs. He cannot crawl. To throw a grenade you must press the Special Attack button and then the Normal Attack button; while he carries it, it floats in front of him like the other items. His Down Smash looks like he's laying down one of those Ghostbusters traps rather than digging a hole. He's balanced, but his sprites need tweaking.

The problems with his Final Smash have already been addressed and fixed, so I won't comment on those.

Toad: The first of the new characters added to the roster. Toad is fairly well balanced, with powerful moves but a really short range. He's got a Side Special just like Diddy's, except he doesn't cling to your face. His Neutral Special is unusual; he shoots spores out to either side of himself, and can charge it to shoot them farther. This is the closest thing he has to a projectile attack. His Up Special gets ridiculous height and should probably be nerfed; not even the propeller hat Toads in NSMBW went that high. His Final Smash is very strong but has an obvious and exploitable weakness; it only hits people who are standing on the ground, and can be avoided with a simple jump. This makes it nearly impossible to hit with, since Toad telegraphs the FS so much and anybody who figures it out will be able to easily avoid it unless they've been Pitfalled.

Mega Man: X is very weird. his sprite is based off of his design from Command Mission but he uses moves from all of the Mega Man series, including the Classic Series' Leaf Shield and Zero's saber swings from Mega Man Zero. In terms of functionality, he reminds me of Mewtwo...a LOT. He's got an amazingly spammable projectile as his neutral special. Down Smash creates a large hitbox in front of him but none behind him, Up Tilt is just like Mewtwo's Up Smash, creating a huge multi-hit hitbox that sucks in characters standing next to him, and Forward Smash has a start-up delay but creates a powerful concussive thrust in front of him. His throws all function similar to Mewtwo's as well. in terms of differences; his Up Smash is a double-swing of the Z-Saber that feels way overpowered in terms of knockback and doesn't really do a good job of hitting above him; it would make more sense as a Forward Smash. Up Special is an uppercut swing of his saber that gets way too much height, just like most up specials in the game. Side Special is a neat little flamethrower with next to no range so I won't hardly ever get to use it unless I'm fighting, say, Toad. Down+B creates the Leaf Shield, which blocks all projectiles, including X's, so he can't use his buster while it's active. And you can't throw the shield at enemies like the original Mega Man could, so you have to wait for it to disappear on its own.

Honestly, other than the special moves, X seems very similar in playstyle to Mewtwo. If you liked the psychic pokemon in Melee, you should give X a spin. I was surprised; I expected his Side Special to be X4's Giga Attack or something similar. And he uses Marvel Vs. Capcom's Hyper Mega Man as his Final Smash instead of the Giga Crush? Huh.

Ryu: He's unique in that he has Special moves that can act like Smash attacks, becoming stronger if you time their button presses properly. This works fine for the Side Special (Hurricane Kick) but is a terrible idea for the Neutral Special, the Hadoken. Ryu can execute a red Fire Hadoken if he presses a side direction and Special Attack...but that's also how he performs the Hurricane Kick. It is extremely easy to get the two motions mixed up (Fire hadoken requires pressing left or right after pressing Special Attack, Hurricane kick requires pressing it before) and the Fire Hadoken remains one of the most annoyingly difficult moves to execute I have ever seen. It would make much more sense if the Hadoken could simply be charged up by holding down the button without pressing a direction and turn into a Fire Hadoken when charged.

Ristar: I was amazed when I played as this little dude. His moves are creative, original, and well-balanced, while paying due respect to the game he spawned from. I don't have any real complaints for him at all, and I gotta say, that Final Smash kicks ***. He's got good range but his attacks are a little weaker than most, so he's more of a hit-and-run type character. Pretty nice.

Goku: Ugh. Nothing against the character himself, but using Kamehameha as his neutral special is not the best of ideas. The laser beam has seemingly infinite range (half of Final Destination for the wind-up, goes across the entire stage on the wind-down) and pierces through walls and multiple enemies, the startup isn't nearly slow enough to make up for this, and it can be spammed with ease. That's pretty darn broken. At least the start up makes it impossible to use in the air, but that's small comfort for all the non-Kirby players who have to land on the ground eventually. It's pretty much the horizontal equivalent of Pikachu's Thunder as it was in Brawl.

His Final Smash is ridiculous. And here I thought the Triforce Slash was brutal...

EDIT: As an experiment, I tried going up against the CPU playing every character while I played Goku. Final Destination was the battlefield. I did nothing but mash the Special Button to spam Kamehameha and Goku's Final Smash whenever I was given the opportunity. The only character who gave me any trouble at all was a second Goku. Nobody else even got close -- not even the other characters with spammable projectiles, X and Pikachu. Mario almost got me once, but I discovered a delightful glitch Goku can do: since Kamehameha has the slightest bit of recoil, if you spam it when you're right next to the edge of a stage, Goku's animation gets interrupted, allowing him to do Kamehameha without the slow startup and stack Kamehamehas on top of one another, creating a never-ending blue laser beam of death. Mind you, I did all of this without using his Down Special to power up.

Either nerf the range, nerf the damage/knockback, or nerf the amount of hits it does. Right now the move is ridiculous. I can't imagine that it or his Final Smash will make people more fond of Goku being in the game.

Waluigi: What a silly, silly character. Waluigi is difficult to KO with but he has multiple projectiles and a move that incapacitates the victim for easy pummeling. The trick with him is to gradually build up the enemy's damage meter over time and then rush in for the kill with a close-range powerful move like his Forward Smash. His Up Special functions similarly to Luigi's but I have yet to figure out whether it can do a Flaming Uppercut of Doom like Weegee can. Crossing my fingers for it. All in all, he seems well-balanced and has a good playstyle going for him.

Now watch someone come along and prove every single one of those character first impressions wrong. There will be an infinite combo for Pikachu within days, I just know it.




GAMEPLAY

I saved this for last because it is arguably the most important part of the game. All the graphics and SFX and movesets in the world won't save this game if the engine is fundamentally unsound. It is the cornerstone of the Smash Bros. experience, and the rope that ties everything else together.

First of all, I have to ask why there is no option to exit a match that is already in progress, like Brawl did with A+R+L+Start at the Pause menu (resulting in a No Contest)? If I get bored with a current match against a CPU and want to try a different character, I'd like to be able to go back to the character select screen without suiciding several times (which takes too long) or resetting the entire game with F2 (which resets the multiplayer match settings and forces me to configure them all over again). This would have sped up my testing of the characters and stages quite a bit.

WHY are two characters allowed to grab the same edge of a stage at the same time? This destroys the edge-hogging tactic but more importantly, it shouldn't be possible in the realm of Smash Bros., which traditionally takes place on a 2-D plane.

Characters like Kirby auto-sweetspot a platform edge when they walk off the side of a platform. This will probably hinder the edge-guarding game with them, since a Kirby player trying to step off the edge would grab onto it instead, leaving the opponent free to grab the edge too since two characters can do that simultaneously in this game. I'm not sure whether this was your intent or not, guys, but it winds up making it very difficult to keep someone from jumping back to the stage after getting knocked off of it, since you have to jump over the edge and avoid the massive auto-sweetspot zone in order to successfully deliver a Meteor Smash to the recovering opponent. I'd suggest making the auto-sweetspot area smaller; being Kirby's width is just too much, the result is highly conspicuous as the characters seemingly teleport to the stage edge from a foot or so away, leaving me feeling jarred. Plus it is impossible to get away from the stage by pressing away from it while hanging off the edge, since the sweetspot area is so huge.

Beyond those flaws, the game engine is pretty solid; all that reworking you guys did last year paid off really well. Characters have weight and gravity appropriate for their size and stature; there is minimal lag and the framerate is consistently high. When Sonic runs his momentum makes him slide around like he's walking on ice and Mario jumps as high as you'd expect. New characters like Ristar have been implemented scarily well and feel like actual proper additions to the Smash Bros. formula. The new method of executing Final Smashes might be copied straight from Street Fighter and King of Fighters, but that's only because the method works very well in both of those series; it continues to work well here, and being able to customize the length of your FS Bar is a great touch and a good way to balance out some of the more broken FSes.

This has already been mentioned several times, but customizable controls are an absolute necessity. The current control scheme is horrible. My gameplay experience was hindered by it to the point that I could not even complete a normal match against a CPU due to spending most of my time fumbling with the keyboard rather than looking at the screen. I'd probably get used to it with time and practice, but why should new players need to climb over such a difficulty curve right from the start? It's discouraging and can be easily avoided.

• I play on a tiny laptop with a tiny keyboard and having the action keys so close to the movement keys is extremely uncomfortable. My hands were rubbing together the entire time I played.
  
• The Special Move button and the Normal Move button seem like they have reversed positions from what they should be (B is to the left of A on the GameCube controller, which is how I've always played Brawl, and I'm not in the minority there).
  
• I actually prefer to play without Tap Jump on when I use a GC controller because the controller layout puts the X and Y buttons within easy reach of my right thumb, but when I'm using a keyboard's arrow keys I expect the Up Arrow to make my character jump so I don't have to fumble around with my left ring finger for the Jump button. This is a personal preference, however, and should be a toggleable option like it was in Brawl so the people who prefer a dedicated jumping button don't get annoyed.
  
• The Smash Attack mechanic of the Smash Bros. series is probably one of its most fundamental aspects (heck, it was the primary gimmick that the original N64 game was focused around). It was designed to take advantage of an analog joystick, allowing the user to execute different attacks depending on how hard the stick is tilted in a certain direction. It is impossible to translate this to a digital interface, such as keyboard arrow keys, so what you guys did instead was make Smash Attacks dependent on timing; push the action button within a certain time frame after pressing a directional key and a Smash Attack will be performed. This is the same method used in TMNT: Smash Up on the Wii, and while it seems fine on paper, it is very disorienting to a Smash veteran such as myself. Only solution I can see to this problem is gamepad support, but that would require quite a bit of engine tweaking.
  
• Smash Special Attacks like Ryu's are a concept I've expected ever since the first Smash Bros. on the N64. But as mentioned above, it doesn't work too well with a digital interface. I kept messing up the timing and my characters rarely performed the attacks I meant for them to. (Pushing the directional button and action button simultaneously did not work, to my confusion. I had to delay my press of the action button slightly, and the window for doing this seemed nebulous at best.)

You've got an amazing game here. You really do. It looks good, plays good, and is fun. I'm looking forward to just how much more amazing it can get in the future. Just try not to overreach, okay? I don't doubt your determination to put 60+ characters and stages in this game, I doubt the patience of your fans and whether they are willing to wait long enough for you to do so. Lord knows people went crazy enough over Brawl's delays...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to stop writing this post before my eyes melt and dribble off my face. Christ, I am long-winded.

 

[GP&B]

Thanks for pointing that out! By the way, the controls are in the Game Info (press F1 to view it). I want to have customizable ones, but I'm not sure how to begin to set them up. I know I'll need some variable to store the keys in, but I don't know how to physically record the keys! Any thoughts, GM users?

Yes, actually. I have implemented configurable controls in my Gradius fan game. The main idea is using .ini files to save the settings (which you should also do with a lot of different settings). As for setting the keyboard, you create global variables for each player's controls (ie. global.p1down/up/left/right, global.p1a_button/attack, global.p1b_button/special, global.p1shield) and save these in an .ini (use scripts to check for an existing .ini with name _'name'_; if one doesn't exist, it will create one and name it _'name'_ and set the default controls). A default .ini file will be saved upon first loading unless one already exists. This is also loaded on game launch.

As for setting those variables: have a separate room/screen that can be used for this. There are several ways you can do this (some which I'd have to specify through functions, but can't right now). One method is click-hold-and-press. You create one object with multiple instances using different "case" number variables. When you hold the left-click button down (or any button of specification), it checks what the variable number is and then matches it with the specific case. Then you press the key you want to be set on the action (you will draw text saying what this function is next to the right instance; I can get you a picture of this example). Repeat for all other actions. Make variables between control objects that allow you to change which player you are altering. It's also a good idea to draw the ASCII symbol of the key that was set in addition to the key itself (which comes with that anyways).

Alternatively, instead of click-and-hold, you can find a way to just click once to proc the configuration, and then press the key desired.

Another method is step-by-step. It's the most common approach used. First, you make an object that, when clicked, procs the user to press the key desired for the action presented (for example, the Up function). Once the user presses a key, it gives the next function and so on until completed.

If you want some specific functions and coding structure, I can get that to you sometime later. At the moment, my PC is screwed the heck up.

 

[Falcon88]

Changes since demo

Thanks for the comments, Stoney. They helped a lot!

She can't Bomb Jump.

She can't? Last I checked she can!

I fixed Samus's sound effect problems on Charge Shot, so no worries there. Just pretend they're fixed when you play the current demo.

I think Goku's B will need to be tweaked, eh? One thing I need to do is make that beam go away when he grabs the edge. Not hard to do. I will have to decrease the damage and lengthen the startup though.

I have had lots of people talking about edge size being a little big, so I made them smaller.

Here are (most of) the changes I've made so far since the demo:
Snake's Final Smash: aiming movement improved and explosion size increased
Fox's Landmaster: Horizontal and vertical mobility decreased, laser is weaker
Zero Suit Samus's Final Smash: Knockback increased a little
Waluigi: Back Air: Knockback increased on final hit
Down Air: Hits link together more easily
Kirby can no longer inhale characters who are using Final Smashes or air-dodging
Ristar, likewise, can no longer grab players who are invincible with his Standard B
Hyrule Castle's Tornado glitch fixed
Slopes fixed at all stages
Edge sweet spot size decreased (going to fix edge-hogging problem ASAP)
Items now properly travel up and down slopes
AI recovery fixed on Saffron City
Mewtwo is in the game!

 

[Lore]

Pikachu's thunder hitbox is too small, and he seems to be massively nerfed overall. Also, goku's neutral b doesn't need to be tweaked, it needs to be completely changed. A projectile that goes all the way across the screen, pierces walls, and does good damage just SCREAMS unbalance. Other than that, good demo.

 

[GP&B]

Thanks for the comments, Stoney. They helped a lot!



She can't? Last I checked she can!

I fixed Samus's sound effect problems on Charge Shot, so no worries there. Just pretend they're fixed when you play the current demo.

I think Goku's B will need to be tweaked, eh? One thing I need to do is make that beam go away when he grabs the edge. Not hard to do. I will have to decrease the damage and lengthen the startup though.

I have had lots of people talking about edge size being a little big, so I made them smaller.

Here are (most of) the changes I've made so far since the demo:
Snake's Final Smash: aiming movement improved and explosion size increased
Fox's Landmaster: Horizontal and vertical mobility decreased, laser is weaker
Zero Suit Samus's Final Smash: Knockback increased a little
Waluigi: Back Air: Knockback increased on final hit
Down Air: Hits link together more easily
Kirby can no longer inhale characters who are using Final Smashes or air-dodging
Ristar, likewise, can no longer grab players who are invincible with his Standard B
Hyrule Castle's Tornado glitch fixed
Slopes fixed at all stages
Edge sweet spot size decreased (going to fix edge-hogging problem ASAP)
Items now properly travel up and down slopes
AI recovery fixed on Saffron City
Mewtwo is in the game!

Good, with those additions in there to give people a little more time to review, you can work on the configurable controls (or at least get started).

 

[Bakuryu]

Does no one give a **** that I can't play this game? Because after this im just going to cease to care, running the game works, but its going at like 1 fps which makes it unplayable I have a Vista Prem, 2gb Ram, 3.0 GHz Dual Core Processors, and a Geforce 8800 GTS

 

[Falcon88]

Kirby's CRASH, Edges, and Performance Recommendations

Does no one give a **** that I can't play this game? Because after this im just going to cease to care, running the game works, but its going at like 1 fps which makes it unplayable I have a Vista Prem, 2gb Ram, 3.0 GHz Dual Core Processors, and a Geforce 8800 GTS

I'm sorry, but I can't really help you there. My pc's not exactly a power machine and it runs it fine. Make sure you are NOT using Windows Aero and have your background processes to a minimum (and this is for everyone, even Windows 7 users! I am one of those!). That's all I can tell you. By the way, that is a nice graphics card, and mine is low end (GO 6150) so I have no idea why it wouldn't run at a decent speed. You may have to download some new DLLs for Game Maker or something. Check the GM Community forums.

Okay, so I saw where Stoney said Kirby's Final Smash is like the whole screen and is nearly unavoidable. To be more specific, here it is:

That's what it looks like. It looks like it's covering the whole stage!

And this one has the actual blast hit bubble. Waluigi's blinking lol. He doesn't care about the deadly explosion that is a few feet from his nose. You can tell its actual range by the location of the "1P" tag there compared to the first pic.

Also, I have had even the CPU's roll dodge it before. And, it does less knockback than POW Block (Toad's FS). So, I am unsure as to whether this should be nerfed. Although I am considering upping the damage on POW Block from 35 on ground hits and 40 on direct hits to 45 on all hits.

Also, EDGES. I have made a neat feature that makes edgeguarding better. If you drop off of an edge, you're not grabbing it unless
A) you're really close to it
or
B) you DI towards it while falling.

And finally, edgehogging is back! Yay! It was supposed to be in the game anyhow and worked in the early stages of the game, but a gltich slipped by me at some point before the demo. But anyway, it is back. You have 15 frames of invincibility when grabbing an edge, FYI. Use that knowledge carefully.

 

[Stoney]

Thanks for the comments, Stoney. They helped a lot!



She can't? Last I checked she can!

I just went back and tried doing it, and I had a really hard time pulling it off. Eventually I managed it but it felt like an accident more than anything else; you might want to tweak Samus's hurtbox or increase the size of the bomb hitbox. It's no surprise I assumed it wasn't possible before.

I fixed Samus's sound effect problems on Charge Shot, so no worries there. Just pretend they're fixed when you play the current demo.

I'll do my best to remind Snake that her Power Suit is NOT a humanoid Metal Gear, even if it DOES shoot missiles.

I think Goku's B will need to be tweaked, eh? One thing I need to do is make that beam go away when he grabs the edge. Not hard to do. I will have to decrease the damage and lengthen the startup though.

Werekill has a point; the move feels a little unnecessary overall, TBH. Goku already has a decent, balanced projectile for his Side B, why does he need another one? I understand that Kamehameha is symbolic and probably is his most famous move, but with the current width of the laser beam, its piercing abilities, its range and its damage, wouldn't it make more sense as part of his Final Smash? Think Shinku Hadoken versus normal Hadoken.

'Course, if you do that his FS will be REALLY overpowered between the Kamehameha and the Spirit Bomb, so you'd have to nerf the opening lunge of his FS as well to make it more difficult to hit. It travels pretty far as-is right now, about half of Final Destination's length. I'd reduce it to about a quarter of FD's length instead.

Another option is to do something similar to Ness and make Kamehameha be the aerial version of his Side B. Make it travel downwards at an angle to avoid the problems with the move's range, and cut off the beam when it reaches the ground or an opponent. You'd have to make the startup almost nonexistent for it to work as an aerial move, but as long as gravity keeps pulling Goku downwards while he uses it rather than him freezing in midair, it should be a little more balanced.

Here are (most of) the changes I've made so far since the demo:
Snake's Final Smash: aiming movement improved and explosion size increased
Fox's Landmaster: Horizontal and vertical mobility decreased, laser is weaker
Zero Suit Samus's Final Smash: Knockback increased a little
Waluigi: Back Air: Knockback increased on final hit
Down Air: Hits link together more easily
Kirby can no longer inhale characters who are using Final Smashes or air-dodging
Ristar, likewise, can no longer grab players who are invincible with his Standard B
Hyrule Castle's Tornado glitch fixed
Slopes fixed at all stages
Edge sweet spot size decreased (going to fix edge-hogging problem ASAP)
Items now properly travel up and down slopes
AI recovery fixed on Saffron City
Mewtwo is in the game!

I didn't even notice the glitches with Kirby's inhale/Ristar's grab. That's hilarious, hahaha!

I'm intensely curious to know what a match between X and Mewtwo would play out like.

Okay, so I saw where Stoney said Kirby's Final Smash is like the whole screen and is nearly unavoidable. To be more specific, here it is:


That's what it looks like. It looks like it's covering the whole stage!


And this one has the actual blast hit bubble. Waluigi's blinking lol. He doesn't care about the deadly explosion that is a few feet from his nose. You can tell its actual range by the location of the "1P" tag there compared to the first pic.

Also, I have had even the CPU's roll dodge it before. And, it does less knockback than POW Block (Toad's FS). So, I am unsure as to whether this should be nerfed. Although I am considering upping the damage on POW Block from 35 on ground hits and 40 on direct hits to 45 on all hits.

Huh. I did notice that it sometimes wasn't harming characters that were far away from Kirby, but I thought that was a problem with hitboxes and hurtboxes because quite a few moves I tried went straight through a standing opponent without hurting them (Fox's Up+B and Side+B, Sonic's neutral B, etc). It seemed to happen more often when X was the opponent, but maybe that's just me.

Since it IS avoidable, you might want to give some visual indicator of it rather than having the explosions cover the whole screen and make everyone assume they're screwed. Perhaps limit the red filter to the move's hitbox so it is visible and can be dodged?

Also, EDGES. I have made a neat feature that makes edgeguarding better. If you drop off of an edge, you're not grabbing it unless
A) you're really close to it
or
B) you DI towards it while falling.

Awesome. I love playing as Kirby, and that made it really annoying to play as him before.

And finally, edgehogging is back! Yay! It was supposed to be in the game anyhow and worked in the early stages of the game, but a gltich slipped by me at some point before the demo. But anyway, it is back. You have 15 frames of invincibility when grabbing an edge, FYI. Use that knowledge carefully.

AWESOME. Can't wait for the next demo whenever you choose to release it.

 

[Falcon88]

Werekill has a point; the move feels a little unnecessary overall, TBH. Goku already has a decent, balanced projectile for his Side B, why does he need another one? I understand that Kamehameha is symbolic and probably is his most famous move, but with the current width of the laser beam, its piercing abilities, its range and its damage, wouldn't it make more sense as part of his Final Smash? Think Shinku Hadoken versus normal Hadoken.

'Course, if you do that his FS will be REALLY overpowered between the Kamehameha and the Spirit Bomb, so you'd have to nerf the opening lunge of his FS as well to make it more difficult to hit. It travels pretty far as-is right now, about half of Final Destination's length. I'd reduce it to about a quarter of FD's length instead.
...

I'm intensely curious to know what a match between X and Mewtwo would play out like.

Huh. I did notice that it sometimes wasn't harming characters that were far away from Kirby, but I thought that was a problem with hitboxes and hurtboxes because quite a few moves I tried went straight through a standing opponent without hurting them (Fox's Up+B and Side+B, Sonic's neutral B, etc). It seemed to happen more often when X was the opponent, but maybe that's just me.

...

AWESOME. Can't wait for the next demo whenever you choose to release it.

<sigh> Well, you know, I hate to part with Kamehameha since I really don't have any other ideas for Goku's B off the top of my head. Except - Spirit Bomb as a chargeable move like Charge Shot? That might be what I do. Then, he could use a Kamehameha-projectile thingy during his FS instead of the Spirit Bomb. I think King Kai would approve.

========================================================

I have looked into the attacks going through people thing, and it is an obscure glitch with priority that happens mostly at the beginning of a match. You see, air attacks have a different kind of priority than ground ones, or should I say, they don't have functioning priority. This is fine, most of the time, but if the opponent just stands there and doesn't attack, air attacks (which have 0 priority) have no frame of reference for priority and hence fail to hit.

It's complicated, but if I just give all air attacks at least '1' for priority, problem solved. I believe, though, air attacks could have some sort of priority. In Brawl, air attacks are prioritized simply by range, really (of course, priority is debatable in Brawl since it rarely makes any sense). However, assigning priority values to air attacks nay not be such a bad thing.

In this game, all attacks have a set priority value. Swords and electrical attacks naturally have higher priority than punches and kicks. Of course, there are some cases where attacks have equal priority. If two attacks of equal priority collide in the same frame, and the attacking characters are on ground, the characters will both freeze for ten frames and a "dink" sound will play, and they will be pushed back a little, like in Melee. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen enough, so reacting appropriately (example: Mario's FSmash) is important!

========================================================

Glad to hear that you're excited about the new demo. Mewtwo is a little faster, but only a little, than he was in Melee. His jump is about the same. He is slightly floaty and has average air mobility. He is actually a little heavier than Mario this time, weighing about the same as Waluigi. IMO it made no sense for him to be as light as Falco in Melee, even if he isn't well-anchored to the ground. He's freakin' Mewtwo, okay? But yeah, as far as attacks go, he's pretty similar. Tilts are fast and combo-friendly, Smashes are long-ranged and moderately powerful, and Forward Air is a great KO move. His only different moves are Back Air and Down Air, which are both dark bursts, and Down Air is a strong spike.

 

[Stoney]

Saiyans and Spirit Bombs

I think that's a great idea. Reminds me of Mega Man's Pharaoh Shot from MM4 on the NES.

PRIORITY ONE HEDGEHOG

The greatest defense a Crusader can muster against someone like Meta Knight is to stand perfectly still and do absolutely nothing? Man, I've been going about it all wrong!

You could really encourage some creative and varied playstyles if you give some characters higher priority in the air than on the ground and vice-versa for other characters. (If you're gonna include as many characters as you say you are, you'll need all the variety you can get to keep things from going bland.)

Mewtwo still kicks *** fyi

:D

I wouldn't expect Mewtwo to weigh very much, or be very strong physically. Why bother buffing yourself up into a heavy, muscle-laden beefcake when you can explode heads with a snap of your fingers?

His slowness in Melee, on the other hand, did not make sense to me and I'm glad you fixed it. He attacks with his mind and minds act faster than bodies do, so he should probably be faster than Ganondorf.

 

[fromundaman]

First off, thank you very much for the review.

Keep in mind that for everything I say, I will base on the pre-demo demo I played a month or two prior to the current one, since I was out of the country when the current one came out.

You guys seem to have come a long way from those humble MSPaint roots ( I say "seem to" since the MSPaint screenshots in question no longer exist, so I can't tell for sure).

Haha, yeah, thank god the MS paint stuff is gone. I mean, it worked, but back then Petey's DownB looked ridiculous.

Kirby: The copied abilities themselves are charming as always, but Kirby doesn't have hats anymore to give the player a visual reminder of who Kirby is copying. This can be troubling in matches with more than one opponent. Some of the copied abilities don't match the opponent either; Shoryuken from Ristar? I do like how all of the copied moves wind up being moves from the Kirby games, but I still haven't figured out how to Taunt since it isn't listed in the controls, so I can't remove an ability once Kirby has copied it.

Oops, forgot to reply to this. The reason for this is due to the large scale of the project and the large amount of characters planned, he does not get a unique ability for each character, and rather each character gives him an ability from his game closest to that character's style. It's like how, for example, in Kirby Super star, you could get some abilities, like Sword and Beam, from multiple enemies.

Also, throws are not listed in the controls either if I saw correctly.

Snake: His Down Air looks like a tap dance. His leg changes its length during his Forward Air. He cannot crawl.

It was worse before the engine got changed. On the old engine, hitting the ground didn't cancel aerials, and as a result he literally did tap dance!
That being said, I agree.

He can't crawl? Weird... he could on the old engine. Must have been an oversight. I have no doubt he will by the next version.

Goku: Ugh. Nothing against the character himself, but using Kamehameha as his neutral special is not the best of ideas. The laser beam has seemingly infinite range (half of Final Destination for the wind-up, goes across the entire stage on the wind-down) and pierces through walls and multiple enemies, the startup isn't nearly slow enough to make up for this, and it can be spammed with ease. That's pretty darn broken. At least the start up makes it impossible to use in the air, but that's small comfort for all the non-Kirby players who have to land on the ground eventually. It's pretty much the horizontal equivalent of Pikachu's Thunder as it was in Brawl.
Either nerf the range, nerf the damage/knockback, or nerf the amount of hits it does. Right now the move is ridiculous. I can't imagine that it or his Final Smash will make people more fond of Goku being in the game.

I second this; especially about kamehameha being an aerial sideB. That would look awesome and work well. As for a neutral B... hmmm... I don't know, but I'm sure we can come up with something... If worst comes to worst, he can get a teleport/counter skill.

[*] The Smash Attack mechanic of the Smash Bros. series is probably one of its most fundamental aspects (heck, it was the primary gimmick that the original N64 game was focused around). It was designed to take advantage of an analog joystick, allowing the user to execute different attacks depending on how hard the stick is tilted in a certain direction. It is impossible to translate this to a digital interface, such as keyboard arrow keys, so what you guys did instead was make Smash Attacks dependent on timing; push the action button within a certain time frame after pressing a directional key and a Smash Attack will be performed. This is the same method used in TMNT: Smash Up on the Wii, and while it seems fine on paper, it is very disorienting to a Smash veteran such as myself. Only solution I can see to this problem is gamepad support, but that would require quite a bit of engine tweaking.

A dedicated Smash button may be the best way to go for this. I think the old engine had one, and I don't remember, but I might have been the one to say it felt awkward, but in comparison, it is probably better. There's only so much you can do with keyboard controls...

 

[Lore]

A dedicated Smash button may be the best way to go for this. I think the old engine had one, and I don't remember, but I might have been the one to say it felt awkward, but in comparison, it is probably better. There's only so much you can do with keyboard controls...

Yeah, the original demo had one. That WOULD come in handy with customizable controls, and it would be really cool as well on a gamepad too, since it might be possible to use one with custom controls.

 

[GP&B]

Got to play it today. I'm fairly impressed with what you have so far. Let's overview a couple of things.

Graphically, your game is very good with a few exceptions here and there. One thing I suggest is making the stages "stick out", similar to what SSF2 does with FD and Battlefield. The particle effects and all really come together nicely. Mega Man X's standing pose moves a bit too fast (and yes, please PLEASE rename it to Mega Man X; if you were actually using Mega Man's sprites, this would be perfectly fine, but we're dealing with X sprites that can wield the Z Saber).

Controls: Yikes, when people said the controls were bad, they weren't kidding. Besides the default controls being bad, there's the great need for custom controls. As such, I have already posted some basic instructions on setting this up. Another thing that was already stated is the left+right key glitch. This should be an easy fix for the most part and with it out of the way, dash dancing should be much easier. You also need to discriminate walking and dashing. If you're having trouble with this, simply do one tap for walk and double tap for dash. Then set a timer that will count down on a variable after releasing left/right. If the player doesn't press left/right again within that time frame, it will revert the variable to 'walk'.

Also, you need to work on the frame timing for smash attacks. I know this is a little difficult, but you can use SSF2 for reference as the timing on that is pretty good. Plus, at some point you'll want to add grabbing.

Gameplay: A major issue that was mentioned is aerial moves on standing targets (and aerial priority in general). I played a Mario (Me) vs. Pikachu (CPU) match and it was extremely frustrating. Besides the fact most of my ground moves felt outprioritized, Mario's nair (a move that is best used as a combo breaker) was almost constantly denied even if it was already out before Pikachu made a move. There needs to be better control during aerials in general.
One important piece that might be difficult to add is a momentum engine. This will become very essential for characters like Captain Falcon. There's also (I guess you could call it) a glitch where you can roll off the stage. The more I think about it though, it effectively works as a good way to hog the edge quickly.

Try to do something a little more related to the characters for their Final Smashes. SSF2 has a greater focus on Final "Forms" rather than single moves or temporary forms (Super Sonic/Wario Man in Brawl), not that you need to follow this. I guess try straying away from Brawl in general with these. Some are fine as is, though (Fox and Snake).

Characters: From what I tested, here's a couple of things.
-Mario: UTilt needs a way better hitbox and needs to hit somewhat behind him. Rarely could I ever land one of his essential combo moves on opponents. That, and Uair only manages to hit on the front part rather than a full circle (or almost full circle). Nair needs to stay out a little longer and Fair needs a better hitbox in general. Fireballs are great; it's like SSB64 Mario's fireballs. Cape sound effect is a bit funky (sounds like the roll sound); go get Melee's or Brawl's cape sound for this. FTilt doesn't get much use, primarily because it's hard to see if you're going to execute a dash attack or FTilt.

-Fox: Seems decent so far. UTilt does well to combo into Uair or any other assortment of moves. Bair needs to come out a bit faster. Fox needs to fall a bit sooner after using ->B. UpB also needs to move a bit faster. You should also be allowed to jump cancel the shine. Didn't get to go through his tilts and smashes that much. Yeah, yeah, nerf the Final Smash.

-Mega Man X: First off, I don't even know what sound effect clips you chose for his voice. If you want, I can get you his voice from X5, which is probably one of his better ones (X6 is good, too). You have to make a decision here with X: either go to Mega Man and drop the Z Saber and sprites or keep X and drop Leaf Shield and other classic MM powers. It just doesn't make any sense. If you still want to include the one you chose not to stick with, that's perfectly fine. As it is, I don't have the moveset fresh in my mind besides the MM powers that stuck out.
Note: If you intend to go for Mega Man instead, a good example of voice clips for him would be Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters.

-Samus: If you can, add more frames (and thus more individual images) in the charge shot. It's a bit misleading to have it sitting at full size like that. Bombs definitely need a large fix as they're fairly useless at the moment. One thing that made them good was being able to DI away when dropping the bomb to cut off ground game. Just allow for control after laying the bomb. Next, make it explode on contact. Didn't get to see the whole moveset/don't remember too well at the moment about the rest.

Stages: You have some decent effects running here. Like I said before, add a "2.5D" look to them if you can. Otherwise, it just doesn't feel as dynamic. Hyrule Castle is pretty nice, but one major problem is the tornado becoming active the second it appears. Give it a buffer time before it can actually sweep somebody. I've gotten caught way too many times from that thing spawning on me. With Mute City, I'm sure you intend to add some effects later on. Right now, it's just another Battlefield (same with Good Egg Galaxy). Saffron City is decent; Charmander needs an extensive on that Flamethrower and Chancey should throw the egg out a small bit (plus healing characters that stand next to her the second she comes out).
There tends to be trouble with slopes that, I believe, you have taken care of for the next demo.

Some advanced things that should be seen later on in development:
-Directional Influence: Very important factor that will ultimately add the tech chase game and determine the combo abilities of the characters. This factor is extremely noticeable when used after being hit by a Smart Bomb in Brawl.

-L/S-canceling/Auto-canceling (or just removing those massive frames of lag on some aerials, period): A necessity for combos in general.

-Momentum Engine: An absolute necessity for characters with speed or high risk-high reward off-stage game. Captain Falcon benefits greatly from this.

-Ledge Dropping (not hard to do), different ledge recoveries: I have a good feeling you are planning to add this. Ledge dropping is great for gimping. You also need alternate ledge recoveries, such as roll recovery, jump recover, and then ledge drop -> DJ -> aerial (will come with adding ledge drops). I didn't get to check, but do you have auto-sweetspotting (even if not intended)? Ledge dropping leads to planking if you have this still in. Just add a variable that checks if a jump or jump special is still in the process before it allows you to grab the ledge.

-Pivot (also not hard to do, I assume): Basically, it's the action of pressing in a direction (usually while in the air) then using a move that will react to this (usually a B-move like Mario's fireball, Fox's laser, Falcon's Punch, etc.; throwing something also accounts for a pivot initiation). In Melee, Dr. Mario makes great use of a retreating dash jump -> pivot -> pill for defense.


For now, I have to play some more to find a couple other things and review some more.

 

[Stoney]

Try to do something a little more related to the characters for their Final Smashes. SSF2 has a greater focus on Final "Forms" rather than single moves or temporary forms (Super Sonic/Wario Man in Brawl), not that you need to follow this. I guess try straying away from Brawl in general with these. Some are fine as is, though (Fox and Snake).

Hang on. This is a Smash Bros. Brawl fan-game; why shouldn't the veterans use the Final Smashes they had in Brawl? Why must they be changed so dramatically? I don't recall the Brawl FSes being so fundamentally stupid that they deserved to be scrapped altogether...except for Donkey Kong's. Those drums can take a flying leap.

Some advanced things that should be seen later on in development:

I need a dictionary. Or better yet, an interpreter.

 

[GP&B]

Hang on. This is a Smash Bros. Brawl fan-game; why shouldn't the veterans use the Final Smashes they had in Brawl? Why must they be changed so dramatically? I don't recall the Brawl FSes being so fundamentally stupid that they deserved to be scrapped altogether...except for Donkey Kong's. Those drums can take a flying leap.



I need a dictionary. Or better yet, an interpreter.

I didn't say anything about Brawl's Final Smashes being stupid. They just don't relate well to the character most of the time. I merely stated this as a suggestion.

 

[fromundaman]

Yes and no, it depends on the FS.

IMO, DK's and Mario's were the two stupidest, especially considering the number of other things the two characters could have done. Luigi could have had a Poltergheist related FS too.

 

[Falcon88]

Everybody's Game?

PLEASE rename it to Mega Man X; if you were actually using Mega Man's sprites, this would be perfectly fine, but we're dealing with X sprites that can wield the Z Saber).

Well, okay. He'll be X from now on. However, I have no plans of changing his moveset. Remember Ness's PK Starstorm in Brawl? He didn't actually use that move in Mother. You see, there are things I like about X and about Mega Man, so why isn't it okay to have both in one character? IMHO, there's no reason why X couldn't at some point use Leaf Shield. It's feasible.

Another thing that was already stated is the left+right key glitch
You also need to discriminate walking and dashing.

The left-right key mechanism is to help prevent dash-dancing. Dash dancing is still doable, but much harder. I feel that Dash dancing is funny, but also unnecessary.
As for the walking/dashing thing, I'm sort of unsure as to how necessary this is. I feel like it is a chore to have to double tap a key to move at full speed. Having dashing as the only option simplifies the controls a bit, and given that this is a keyboard-based game for the most part (until custom control is implemented), that is a good thing.

Also, you need to work on the frame timing for smash attacks. I know this is a little difficult, but you can use SSF2 for reference as the timing on that is pretty good. Plus, at some point you'll want to add grabbing.

The frame window for Smashes is frames 0-3 after you press a direction. 4 is the highest I'll go, because after that Tilts start to become slow.

Grabs are performed by holding shield and pressing standard attack, like always in Smash. Each character has four throws. (If you fought CPU's I'm sure you saw them use throws.)

Try to do something a little more related to the characters for their Final Smashes. SSF2 has a greater focus on Final "Forms" rather than single moves or temporary forms (Super Sonic/Wario Man in Brawl), not that you need to follow this. I guess try straying away from Brawl in general with these. Some are fine as is, though (Fox and Snake).

Okedoke. So what are you specifically suggesting I change? I feel like the current ones are all pretty appropriate.

-Mario: UTilt needs a way better hitbox and needs to hit somewhat behind him. Rarely could I ever land one of his essential combo moves on opponents. That, and Uair only manages to hit on the front part rather than a full circle (or almost full circle). Nair needs to stay out a little longer and Fair needs a better hitbox in general. Fireballs are great; it's like SSB64 Mario's fireballs. Cape sound effect is a bit funky (sounds like the roll sound); go get Melee's or Brawl's cape sound for this. FTilt doesn't get much use, primarily because it's hard to see if you're going to execute a dash attack or FTilt.

Utilt's hitbox is pretty generous. This hitbox shown below is the same one in the demo and hasn't been edited since then.

Edit: I added another hitbox that is at Mario's right shoulder, so it may hit someone standing right behind him.

And since you mentioned the nair, here's what its hitbox looks like. The air-to-ground glitch is gone! I will agree on its duration needing a little more, though.

Also, the Uair does actually come around behind Mario. And generously so!

Mario has many combos, so you should mess around with him some more. Some of them are:
Dthrow -> Uair -> Uair
Utilt -> Uair/Nair
Uair (landing) -> Uair/Up B
etc.

It takes practice to unlock Mario's true potential.

-Directional Influence: Very important factor that will ultimately add the tech chase game and determine the combo abilities of the characters. This factor is extremely noticeable when used after being hit by a Smart Bomb in Brawl.

I'm considering making it affect only certain moves. I'm afraid it would make some moves useless, especially ones like Samus's Uair or Snake's Nair. Against an opponent with good DI, you'd be lucky to hit with it all. (Even though Snake's does have a slight magnetic effect, I think DI would be stronger.) Besides, DI would be very easy with a digital control set like the arrow keys.

You also need alternate ledge recoveries, such as roll recovery, jump recover,

There are already. Press shield when on the ledge to roll, left or right to stand, and jump or up to jump.


Lots of feedback, I like that. Couldn't say I agreed with about half of it, though. I don't want to make this game exactly like Brawl, or Melee, or SSB, or even Super Smash Flash 2. This game is going to be different, while still paying homage to Smash. Notice the Combo Counter? The new Final Smash system? This game is obviously different.

On the other hand, I do take suggestions, but only to a certain extent. Ultimately, this game is for our enjoyment as developers (we're not selling it or anything), so if it's not our game anymore, it's not fun anymore.

EDIT: I have reworked the aerial movement. On most aerial attacks, you can press left or right to influence your trajectory, so for example, with Kirby, you could do a retreating Fair. Some moves, like Up B recoveries, etc., don't allow much maneuvering, for obvious reasons. Also, you may now do a Uair or Dair without halting your horizontal movement. Mario is much more fun now with his awesome advancing Uairs!

 

[GP&B]

Well, okay. He'll be X from now on. However, I have no plans of changing his moveset. Remember Ness's PK Starstorm in Brawl? He didn't actually use that move in Mother. You see, there are things I like about X and about Mega Man, so why isn't it okay to have both in one character? IMHO, there's no reason why X couldn't at some point use Leaf Shield. It's feasible.

I'm just trying to be technically correct. I can live with you keeping the moves though. I think it's a strange choice though.

The left-right key mechanism is to help prevent dash-dancing. Dash dancing is still doable, but much harder. I feel that Dash dancing is funny, but also unnecessary.
As for the walking/dashing thing, I'm sort of unsure as to how necessary this is. I feel like it is a chore to have to double tap a key to move at full speed. Having dashing as the only option simplifies the controls a bit, and given that this is a keyboard-based game for the most part (until custom control is implemented), that is a good thing.

But it's also a bit of a detriment to control itself. There have been times where my intent was simply to turn around and I'd get stuck going in a direction (partly used to SSF2, but it still feels uncomfortable). And why do you need to remove it?

The frame window for Smashes is frames 0-3 after you press a direction. 4 is the highest I'll go, because after that Tilts start to become slow.

I'm just not so sure why it's so awkward to me though. I bring up SSF2 often not because I want this to be like it, but because, for a 2D Smash fangame, it has the technicalities down fairly well; SSF2 does a fairly decent job with smashes and tilts. I'm not sure what it is.

Grabs are performed by holding shield and pressing standard attack, like always in Smash. Each character has four throws. (If you fought CPU's I'm sure you saw them use throws.)

I had tried that before... or at least I think I did. The control scheme was extremely awkward so once that is fixed up, it should be fine. I'll test some more tomorrow.

Okedoke. So what are you specifically suggesting I change? I feel like the current ones are all pretty appropriate.

From what I can remember, Mario's definitely. Like I said before, I disliked the fact some Final Smashes were irrelevant to the character. Whether you choose to change them is completely up to you. As for any ideas? It's funny that I ask for a change when I can't really find a great idea myself. I don't want to take the Final Form idea from SSF2 (or at least Fire Mario for that matter), but I do like the idea of Mario temporarily wielding a hammer, changing his moveset for the time.

Utilt's hitbox is pretty generous. This hitbox shown below is the same one in the demo and hasn't been edited since then.

Edit: I added another hitbox that is at Mario's right shoulder, so it may hit someone standing right behind him.

And since you mentioned the nair, here's what its hitbox looks like. The air-to-ground glitch is gone! I will agree on its duration needing a little more, though.

Also, the Uair does actually come around behind Mario. And generously so!

Utilt: I'll have to experiment more. Compared to Mario in the real games, it didn't feel very lenient.
Nair: Alright, good to know.
Uair: I guess it was more of the aerial -> standing glitch or something. It felt lousy.

Mario has many combos, so you should mess around with him some more. Some of them are:
Dthrow -> Uair -> Uair
Utilt -> Uair/Nair
Uair (landing) -> Uair/Up B
etc.

It takes practice to unlock Mario's true potential.

Once we get some cleaner controls, I'll be glad to try some things out. I play Mario in Melee and Brawl+ so I definitely know a couple things that work. Good to know similar setups and follow-ups work here well.

I'm considering making it affect only certain moves. I'm afraid it would make some moves useless, especially ones like Samus's Uair or Snake's Nair. Against an opponent with good DI, you'd be lucky to hit with it all. (Even though Snake's does have a slight magnetic effect, I think DI would be stronger.) Besides, DI would be very easy with a digital control set like the arrow keys.

Well, of course. The Smash series has factors that control how much you can DI or SDI a move. Smart Bombs give tons of room on DI movement while multi-hit moves like Samus' USmash or Uair and Kirby's Dair allow for very little. Pikachu's DSmash allows for a moderate amount.

There are already. Press shield when on the ledge to roll, left or right to stand, and jump or up to jump.

Odd, because I was trying that on FD and couldn't get any to work besides offensive and standard ledge recovery.

Lots of feedback, I like that. Couldn't say I agreed with about half of it, though. I don't want to make this game exactly like Brawl, or Melee, or SSB, or even Super Smash Flash 2. This game is going to be different, while still paying homage to Smash. Notice the Combo Counter? The new Final Smash system? This game is obviously different.

Of course it shouldn't be exactly like those games, but it will still be fundamentally related to Smash (which it primarily is). What we're expecting is good, common stuff like combos, a balance between offensive and defensive styles, viability, and (for the lulz) awesome items and stages. I am also sure you'll add your own unique items

On the other hand, I do take suggestions, but only to a certain extent. Ultimately, this game is for our enjoyment as developers (we're not selling it or anything), so if it's not our game anymore, it's not fun anymore.

Perfectly understandable. Heck, isn't it the reason why we are inspired to make these kind of games?

EDIT: I have reworked the aerial movement. On most aerial attacks, you can press left or right to influence your trajectory, so for example, with Kirby, you could do a retreating Fair. Some moves, like Up B recoveries, etc., don't allow much maneuvering, for obvious reasons. Also, you may now do a Uair or Dair without halting your horizontal movement. Mario is much more fun now with his awesome advancing Uairs!

That's great to hear! I was worried if you wouldn't catch what I meant by that and I'm glad you already got that down. SSF2 doesn't even have this to a large extent.