Smash Crusade

[Abigail Tyrie]

The crusade starts here. Super Smash Bros. Crusade is a large project built from the ground up and started by three Super Smash Bros. fans: Phantom 7, Falcon8r, and Dr.MarioX. Their goal is to create a Super Smash Bros. game packed with characters and stages from the most memorable video games of all time and create a Smash Bros. experience that combines the greatest features from the Smash Bros. series. The game is now headed by a new development team, named Project: Crusade, led by Jaklub (the head programmer, and overall head of the game) and many others. The goal of the game remains the same, and they are all hard at work to make it the greatest Smash Bros. Fan Game that they can.

Along with many Tropes in the official Super Smash Bros. games, this game contains examples of:

• Advanced Movement Technique: Using the Air Dash as soon as the fighter jumps off the ground results in them gliding across the ground until they immediately land at the apex of the dash, with it being possible to do so in rapid succession with the right timing.
• The All-Seeing A.I.: As with the canon Smash games, the AI can see crucial items even if they are off-screen.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The game has its own incarnations of Battlefield and Final Destination, which keep true to their roots.
• Animation Bump: The character portraits of the v0.9 test release, which are significantly higher-quality than the battle sprites. Earlier installments lifted portraits from various sources which often clashed with each other, so this is a notable improvement.
• Art Evolution: Ever since the 0.9 update, the battle sprites, originally criticized for Limited Animation, have been slowly but steadily increasing in quality, character-by-character, over the succeeding updates. The 0.9.5 update is slated to have an overhaul of the menus, title screen, and victory screen among other UI upgrades.
• Artificial Stupidity: Certain stages, such as a Hyperbolic Time Chamber, will have CPU controlled players gravitate towards the blast zone for unknown reasons, making for short-lived battles.
• Art-Style Dissonance: Prior to versions 0.9, most if not all of the sprites are ripped from various sources, with the more original animations added to said sprites appearing more rigid at worst. Later versions would later produce more original pixel art overall for the menus, portraits and fighters similar to Super Smash Flash 2, with the animations of the fighters themselves catching up in quality as well.
• Asset Actor: In Classic Mode, characters without stages from their own series instead use loosely fitting locations as home stages. For example, Little Mac appears in Pokmon Stadium (closest thing to a boxing ring), while Waluigi is fought on Excitebike Course (due to its similarity with a Mario Kart track).
• Bait-and-Switch:
• One of the character trailers features Goku fighting Mario and Luigi in the Time Chamber. It comes to a head with what appears to be Vegeta assisting Goku, only for Weegee's splash screen to appear with him donning Vegeta's outfit and hair.
• Agumon's trailer begins with a sequence similar to Terry's reveal trailer in Smash Ultimate, starting by entering a Game and Watch system and playing Pokemon music, with Pikachu fighting Mr.Game and Watch, which could lead players to believe a new Pokemon rep would be revealed.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Players who are used to Super Smash Flash 2 tend to have a little trouble here, as the directional inputs are on the other side of the keyboard and the attack and special keys are reversed.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Given how Ganondorf's moveset is generally considered The Artifact in the main series, several steps have been taken to heavily differentiate him from Captain Falcon here. Some of the most notable changes include making several normals use his sword, making his down tilt his earthquake punch, and reassigning his Warlock Punch to his forward smash and making his iconic Dead Man's Volley his neutral special. The 0.9.3 update differentiates him further, giving him even more sword moves, making Warlock Punch his forward throw, and giving him a new up-tilt among other things.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The original demo of Super Smash Bros. Crusade was probably the most ridiculous thing you would ever see. Thankfully, it is no longer really around.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Duck Hunt Dog and Mach Rider.
• Floating Limbs: Rayman himself. And Sukapon.
• Game Mod: Later versions of the game allow players to create their own assets (fighters, stages, music, etc.) to add on top of what's already there, effectively making Crusade one of the closest things thus far to a "Smash Bros. M.U.G.E.N". One of the most extensive collection of these mods is CMC+, which has over 200 fighters total.
• Gag Penis: Weegee's forward tilt. And it's a lightsaber.
• Idiosyncratic Combo Levels: A departure from the source, the game keeps track of combos. Expect the announcer to shout "Very good!" and the like.
• Improbable Weapon User: Phoenix Wright, true to his Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 incarnation, primarily fights with paper and evidence.
• Jack of All Stats: Mario and Ryu, true to their origins.
• Kamehame Hadouken: With both Trope Namers present, of course this is going to come into play.
• Large Ham: Porky Minch is the most talkative character in the game.
• Limit Break: Every character has a Final Smash just like in Brawl. Some characters like Ryu and Goku have multiple Final Smashes due to coming from more traditional fighting games.
• Mana Meter: The game uses one instead of Smash Balls.
• Pretender Diss: The method by which you unlock Tetromino is by getting Kirby's O-Block transformation for his Stone move. This summons the real deal whom you must fight.
• Promoted to Playable: Petey Pirhana, Porky, and Ridley, all bosses in Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Subspace Emissary, are playable here.
• Rank Inflation: After the match, the winner is ranked from E up to S. Versions released after v8.4 have since done away with this factor of the game.
• Retraux: The Q*bert and Excitebike stages keep their native graphics, and the background of Battlefield appears to be a Shout-Out to the Metal Mario stage in the original Super Smash Bros..
• Shotoclone: Ryu, true to the Trope Codifier. And, oddly, Mega Man.
• One could argue that Mario, Dr. Mario, and Luigi could fit under this category, with their fireballs, uppercuts, and advancing/spinning attacks.
• Stock Footage:
• Several of the character sprites were salvaged from Super Smash Flash 2 after being retired due to that game's Art Evolution; notably, Link, Ness, Lucas (who was edited from Ness) and Mewtwo*He was planned to be in the pre-Retool SSF2 roster, but now his inclusion is uncertain..
• Goku's sprites were ripped straight from the Dragon Ball Z arcade game. They have since been replaced in favor of his Jump Super/Ultimate Stars sprites.
• Training Stage: One which you can fight on through normal means unlike Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, introduced in the 0.9.5 update.
• Truer to the Text: Ganondorf's moveset and general portrayal, particularly from the 0.9.3 update and on, is this to the official Smash games. His Crusade moveset features much more extensive use of his canonical abilities such as the Dead Man's Volley, more sword moves than even his Ultimate portrayal, and even original moves that are closer in spirit to his canonical portrayal.

Note:

• Characters who are already in the official Smash games will share tropes with their official portrayals unless noted.
• This character page was created circa the 0.9.3 update with much of its information added circa the 0.9.4a update, so information from prior versions will most likely be missing.

Nintendo charactersSuper Mario Bros. (and its spin-offs) Mario Debut: Donkey Kong (1981)Nintendo's ever-popular mascot, a red-clad plumber known for his jumping abilities.

• Attack Reflector: The main use of his side-B, Cape, is to turn around projectiles. It can also turn opponents around, leaving them open for a follow-up attack in certain situations.
• Badass Cape: His Side-B has him use the Cape from Super Mario World as a weapon.
• Dance Battler: The 0.9.5 update changes his Down Smash to the breakdance flare from Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix much like in Ultimate.
• Fireballs: Uses his Fire Flower-granted fireballs for his neutral-B. These bounce along the ground but are a fairly standard projectile otherwise.
• Human Hammer-Throw: His back throw has him wind up his opponent with a few spins and then throw them, much like in Super Mario 64's Bowser fights. In reference to this, using Mario's back throw on Bowser himself sometimes has him exclaim "So long, King Bowser!"
• Kamehame Hadoken: His Mario Finale is a large blast of fire from Mario's outstretched hands. His Forward Smash is also a short-ranged variant that causes a small explosion in front of him.
• Lightning/Fire Juxtaposition: Mario uses fire for his projectiles while his brother Luigi uses lightning.
• Mercury's Wings: The 0.9.5 update give him the Wing Cap for his Super Jump Punch.
• Playing with Fire: Throws fireballs for his neutral-B, and his forward Smash has him create a short-ranged explosion of fire in a Kamehame Hadoken motion.
• Shoryuken: His Super Jump Punch is essentially a standard dragon punch without spinning.
• Shotoclone: Has equivalents for the Hadouken, Shoryuken, and Tatsumaki in his Fireball, Super Jump Punch, and Star Spin (formerly Mario Tornado).
• Star Power: The 0.9.5 update replaces the Mario Tornado with the Star Spin similar to Super Smash Flash 2.
• Spin Attack: As opposed to FLUDD which has been his canon down-B since Brawl, Mario has the Luma-powered Star Spin as his down-B in this fangame (prior versions to 0.9.5 used the Mario Tornado from 64 and Melee).

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