Now I’ll discuss the modes you’d be able to play in Ultra Smash Bros., and the stuff you could mess with in the options menu. This part is very technical, so there isn’t a lot of creative writing to keep it interesting. Like before, everything past this paragraph is in present tense for clarity.

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In this article, I’ll be going over the stages and items I’d want to see in another Super Smash Bros. game.

We’ll start with the stage concepts…

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One of the boss battles I wanted to go over has a lot of stuff to explain, which is why I held it over for another post. No sense in stuffing an entire 400kb text file’s worth of info in one article, if you ask me.

-Great Sprite Contest 4 Losers
In this battle, you’re up against dozens of really stupid-looking sprites, the worst of those submitted to a custom sprite-designing contest. Like the Fighting Polygons, Wire Frames and Alloys, they have very limited movesets. A few of them have Final Smashes, but there are some with only one or two attacks. Their AI is severely dumbed down, and they only become a significant threat on Very Hard or higher. Some of their attacks were chosen arbitrarily, either due to their appearance or the characters their sprites were edited from. To see the sprites used as the basis for these characters, go here and check out the Great Sprite Contest 4 special (parts one to six).
-A.C.: A red helmetless MM7 Megaman, with punches and kicks and a couple of electric attacks which produce red scribbles (also known as his SHOCK!).
-Bass Boost: MM8 Bass in his Treble Boost armor, but with the purple parts recolored to gold. He doesn’t do anything but flash with power, but touching him while he’s flashing will knock you away. He’s a 1-hit KO on Very Hard.
-Batman: A colorswap of MM7 Megaman with Proto Man’s head, hastily drawn bat ears, cape and emblem, with severe patterned dithering. He can only attack by throwing straight-flying batarangs, batarangs that actually turn around, and three-way batarangs.
-Berserk Zero: An edit of Omega Zero (who’s just MMZ Zero with another palette), with spindly arms and claws on his hands and feet. He has some of Wolverine’s attacks from Marvel vs. Capcom, and nothing else.
-Beta: A weird spliced-together sprite, with Zero’s face, Slash Beast’s mane, Colonel’s body and right arm, Duo’s left arm and Magma Dragoon’s legs. Being a jumble of parts, he has Slash Beast’s lunge, stomp and somersault kick, Magma Dragoon’s diving kick, and Colonel’s sword wave. For a Final Smash he uses Colonel’s lightning attack.
-BFlameslash: A yellow 32-bit Zero with red hair, and a blue flaming Z-Saber. He has Zero’s 3-hit combo, standing uppercut and somersault slash.
-Blues EXE Bowl Soul: Proto Man’s sprite from Megaman Power Fighters, turned blue and green with a bowling pin buster for one arm, and another arm made of bowling balls. He can shoot 1-damage buster shots, as well as throw pins and bowling balls.
-Blues EXE Kendo Soul: The same Proto Man sprite, with an ornament on his helmet, and his legs replaced with those of Kendoman.EXE. He can repeatedly whack you over the head with his kendo stick, and use a clear-out attack to spin around. His clear-out attack damages him a bit, and he makes the Punisher’s scream from his Capcom beat-em-up.
-Crash Man: A lackluster edit of MM7 Megaman made to look like Crash Man. His helmet appears to be hanging over his eyes, so he can’t see. He still has the arm cannon, and most of the Crash Bombs he fires are duds.
-D-Man: A strange edit of MM7 Megaman, with short brown hair, sunglasses, a white shirt with a green “D”, bright yellow gloves, blue pants, black shoes with flat white highlights, and a red cape. He’s covered with patterned dithering. Along with a punch and kick, he can shoot eye beams and do Onslaught’s dashing multi-hit attack.
-Demon Wolf: A weird splice, with the wolf head from Sigma’s final form in Megaman X1, the body of the X1 Ride Armor, and the legs of one of the Gundams from Gundam Wing: Endless Duel. It has the Ride Armor’s dash and punch, Sigma’s fire breath and sparks, and can kick with its legs.
-Double Sword Ninja: 32-bit X colored dark gray, with a pair of swords and random dithering all over him. His torso is obscured with messy pixels. He has two three-hit combos, one of which he can use in mid-air too, a head-stomp, dash attack and spinning slash. If he gets a Smash Ball, he can instigate an autocombo where he attacks you in slow-motion.
-Dragonman.EXE: This character seems based on Megaman.EXE’s Proto Soul form, but with a dragon’s head on a squiggly neck, and one wing. He can bite, and use the Sword, Cannon and FireTower battle chips.
-Eviilcarbsorrd: Possibly an intentionally awful sprite, consisting of Charge Man’s upper body sticking out the top of Gunyolk (from Super Mario RPG), filtered so that his only colors are black, cyan and red. He hovers over the stage and throws energy spears at you.
-Excalibur: A dark-yellow and blue Magma Dragoon with a beam saber. He has Magma Dragoon’s Hadouken, Shoryuken and dive kick, and he can use the beam saber like Adol from Ys III, either swinging it repeatedly, stabbing while crawling on the ground, vibrating the beam saber upwards or swinging it once in mid-air and pointing it down.
-Flat: A recolor of Auto’s MM7 body with the head of the tractor-driving Sniper Joe, and the robotic beehive on a chain. He can punch, headbutt, and swing around the beehive like a flail. Whenever he hits anyone with the beehive, a bee robot pops out and attacks whoever is nearby, even him.
-Gate.EXE: An edit of Megaman.EXE’s Proto Soul, turned yellow and gray with a purple beam saber. He has Gate’s purple slashing attack, and can use the WideSword, LongSword and HeroSword battle chips, as well as a 1-damage buster gun he can charge up to shoot a paralyzing ZapRing. Because he’s based on Gate from X6, he also shoots colored energy orbs with different effects, and will only take damage if you destroy the orbs and make their pieces hit him. His AI will always use this attack at regular intervals. Other attacks will still knock him back.
-George Sigmet: Sigma’s body from X1, with a tiny photo of George W. Bush’s face for his head, and an 8-bit Metool helmet. He can wall-jump, use Agile’s dashing attack and shoot bullets from the helmet.
-Ghost Zero: A colorswap of someone’s decent sprite of MMZ Zero in the style of his sprite from X2. Because he’s based on Zero from X2, he has his moves from when he was a boss in that game, and nothing else. He moves by dashing with his Z-Saber out, and he can smash the ground to kick up rocks, but he usually just stands still and does his triple attack, firing two buster shots and a Z-Saber wave. He can’t jump off the ground. As a joke on the once-common trend of “Ghost” MUGEN characters, he’s immune to projectiles simply because he has “Ghost” in his name.
-The Infamous Random Person: MM7 Megaman’s helmetless head with solid black hair, on a cartoon body that looks like it was drawn without any consideration of artistic clashing. He has Fat Mario and Gay Luigi’s voices for his voice bites, and uses Ryu and Ken’s specials for his B moves, along with Tenma Gou Zanku as his Final Smash.
-Laser.EXE: A simple edit of MM7 Megaman with horrible JPEG compression, and what looks like a giant toothbrush. He can do combo attacks with it, on the ground or in the air.
-Mega Blitz Man: A recolor of MM7 Megaman, turned blue and yellow with a matching Protoshield, fuzzy pixelation around his right arm, and a little dithering. His sole attack is the Mega Buster, which has its charge speed, power and bullet velocity randomized every time he shoots.
-Megakiller: A disturbing edit of 32-bit X, turned black and gray with bits of red, a long neck, and really long legs that take up the entirety of where his torso used to be. Because of his overall proportions, it looks like his X-Buster is coming out of his crotch. The fact that he shoots while holding it with his arm doesn’t help things either. With his big legs, he can do sumo stomps and electric kicks.
-Mike: A colorswap of MM7 Proto Man, with an orange helmet, a bright red shield, and dark purple arms and boots. He has Proto Man’s moves from when you fight him in Megaman 7.
-MNG-2000: A chunky character drawn mostly from scratch, with what looks like a green version of Goku’s hair from DBZ Hyper Dimension, and an oversized pulse rifle that he’s holding in one hand. He can shoot and bash you with the pulse rifle, and due to having Goku’s hair he can fire chi bullets, or charge up to launch a Kamehameha Wave.
-Namatoka: A colorswap of qwerty1080′s sprite of Marth, which was made from 32-bit X. He’s got random dithering on most of his sprite, except the underside of his cape. He does Zero’s third slash three times in a row, and that’s his only attack.
-Otto von Brunswick: A splice of Junk Man’s head, Freeze Man’s body and Burst Man’s legs. He can use all three of their special weapons.
-Peregrine Armor: An edit of X3 Zero, with blue armor, a pair of short swords, Shade Man’s legs from Power Fighters, a beak, and Storm Eagle’s wings. He can multi-jump and glide, and use Pit’s A-moves.
-Pyroes: A red and black colorswap of 32-bit Megaman, with an emblem on his chest, an angry expression, and fire-like markings on his helmet. He has an arm cannon, punches, a Fire Sword and Heat Shot, and all of his attacks burn you if they hit. Even his arm cannon shoots flaming circle bullets.
-Recolored Megaman with a Machine Gun: A green recolor of MM7 Megaman with a slightly detailed machine gun. He can bash with his machine gun, and fire it for about two seconds before having to reload.
-Rick: A black and blue recolor of MM7 Megaman without his helmet, but with white hands. Normally he can just kick and punch, but if he transforms into Rickoshet, he turns into a blue and gray recolor of Megaman’s Jet Suit form with messed-up shading on the blue parts, and he can fire an arm cannon or launch his fist, or even charge up to launch two fists at once.
-Sandman: An outline with a horned helmet, and a body in the shape of MM7 Bass. He’s filled in with a pattern that’s supposed to look like shifting sand, but he has no shading. He has the Bass Buster, and Bass’ flying kick and dash.
-Sblameblade: A black and blue colorswap of 32-bit Megaman with his Fire Sword, which has become similarly blue and black. He has very strange color allocation. His Sblameblade attacks are based on those you’d see in a twitchy Arc System Works fighting game, including a light hit that he can repeat infinitely, a heavy attack he can cancel the light one into, a rapid-fire energy slash, and an instantaneous air dash.
-Shadowsigma: Shadow Man’s head from Power Fighters, on Sigma’s X1 body with X3 Zero’s legs. All three of his parts were scaled in different ways, and Zero’s legs were stretched vertically, so he can dash twice as fast and jump twice as high as you might expect him to. He has one slash attack, and can throw Shadow Blades.
-Shadow Z6: 32-bit Proto Man’s helmet with his face blotted out, on the body of a 32-bit Sniper Joe, colored mostly black. He’s limited to that type of Sniper Joe’s moves, which include jumping, shooting, and throwing grenades. Having no walking or dashing animation, he can’t move except by jumping.
-Smega: A blue recolor of MM7 Megaman’s Jet Suit form with random dithering, wearing a black belt with a yellow S on it, and wielding 32-bit X’s Falcon Armor’s buster. He can launch his fist, and has access to X’s abilities with the gimped version of the Falcon Armor from X6- a slow air dash that gives him super armor, wall-jumping, and the Falcon Armor’s charged shot which no longer penetrates anything.
-Stripper Man: A recolor of MM7 Megaman with no helmet and no hair, the blue parts of his armor turned white, and the light-blue parts changed to a skin tone. He has an arm cannon that he can fire rapidly with no limit to the number of onscreen bullets, but he can’t charge it up.
-Swordroll: A recolor of MM7 Roll with patterned dithering, a yellow dress and shoes, brown hair with yellow streaks, a gray speck on her dress, and a sloppily drawn sword that appears to not even be strapped to her back. Her only actual frames of animation are from Megaman 7 and Power Fighters, and she can barely jump off the ground. With her A moves, she wields the sword like a Monster Hunter character would use a greatsword, including the dreadfully slow attacks and charged slash, and an uppercut with extreme reach. For special moves, she can use Majinken to shoot a ground-travelling shockwave, Shoma’s spin attack from Rival Schools (with his voice bite), and a strange Up B where she uppercuts herself into the air.
-Tristor: An outrageous splice, with 32-bit Zero’s head colored black, his chest and shoulders colored gold, the wings from MM8 Bass’ Treble Boost colored gray, two of 32-bit Megaman’s Mega Buster colored red for his arms, Proto Man’s legs, and one of Spike Rosered’s vines which he uses like a whip despite not having hands. Since it functions like a whip, he can swing and brandish it, and use a couple of Castlevania subweapons, in addition to firing his twin Mega Busters, hovering and grappling to the terrain. For his Final Smash, he uses both Grand Cross and Rakuhouha at the same time- a huge energy cross appears from him, and he shoots plasma shots in nine directions.
-Virus: A splice with Freeze Man’s head, torso and shoulders, Turbo Man’s arms and Shade Man’s boots, all from their Power Battles/Power Fighters sprites, and colorswapped to a mostly red and gray palette. Like Otto von Brunswick, he has all three of his component Robot Masters’ special weapons, the Freeze Cracker, Fire Wheel and Noise Crush.
-Vyse: A wonky, dithered edit of MM7 Megaman with a pair of flat-looking swords. His only attack is to turn left and right as if he was spinning, making the tornado noise from Kirby’s Dream Land 2 and rapidly hitting you if you’re in range. This makes him hover, so it’s his sole means of attack and recovery.
-Wilyzoid Mode Zero: A jumbled combination of parts from the Game Boy sprites of Zero and Serges, with the only definite features being Zero’s helmet, hands and feet, and Serges’ face. He can drop energy mines, and use the X6 version of the Z-Buster, which will hurt you more if he fires it from a shorter range. On Very Hard or higher, he can KO you with one point-blank shot of the Z-Buster.
-Wooodsorrddoom: Life Virus, but with one of its minions’ heads for its head. It holds a drastically stretched WoodTower, and has exactly three moves. It can fire its Dream Beam with equivalent strength to a simple punch or kick, activate LifeAura to absorb one hit, and make a WoodTower sprout in front of it.
-Xotoeroman: A splice of MM7 Megaman’s head and arms, 32-bit Zero’s body and 32-bit X’s legs, all palette swapped to make the result mostly black with red thighs and chest lights, and incorrect shading on his arms. He has slight dithering on his sprite, and his left arm appears broken, but he can actually use that arm like a tentacle to imitate a couple of Yamazaki’s slashing attacks, and grapple to the terrain. His Final Smash lets him extend his arm in any direction until he snatches someone, then the screen goes test-pattern for a split second (the implication being Xotoeroman has raped them) before his victim takes a huge hit for about 50% damage.
-Yellowhead: An indescribable blob that looks like it might’ve been an attempt to draw Roll from scratch. For no good reason, it imitates Chun-Li’s kicks and special moves.
-Zerox: A yellow 32-bit Zero with red hair and two Z-Sabers. He can hit four times in a row, but when he enters the fray, a gray 32-bit Zero without hair also appears, and they automatically fight each other until one is knocked out of the stage. Whoever remains will then attack you.

There’s one other boss I forgot to add in Part 2, so I’ll tell you about it here real quick-like.

-Z-GRADT (Virtual On)
The last boss of the original Virtual On, this big lumbering machine is armed with lots of weapons designed to make it hard to approach and harder to avoid. In the Sega Ages port of the game, you could actually play as Z-GRADT in a special mode where you fought the rest of the playable Virtuaroids.
[Damage resistance]: Normally, your attacks will barely make a dent in Z-GRADT’s health. It only takes proper damage during its strongest attack.
Ring Laser: It shoots double-layered versions of Bal-Bas-Bow’s Ring Laser.
Phalanx: Hatches on Z-GRADT open and launch bombs that create waves of explosions.
Laser guns: While stomping around, Z-GRADT sometimes shoots simple laser beams every which way.
Floating Mine: It also dispenses Floating Mines like Bal-Bas-Bow, but in greater volume.
Laser cannon: At regular intervals, Z-GRADT stops and diverts all of its energy to an enormous laser cannon which unfolds, then fires a sweeping beam of destruction which can potentially KO you in one hit on Normal or higher. During the entire attack and its recovery time, Z-GARDT’s defenses are lowered, and your attacks will deal full damage. You can see it turn brown during the entire time that it’ll take full damage.

In this part, I’ll be describing some of the boss battles I’d want to see in another Super Smash Bros. game in excruciating detail, along with their attacks, and some other things. For one thing, you wouldn’t have to weaken bosses to get their trophies with a Trophy Stand like you were catching a Pokemon. Instead, when you hit them with a Trophy Stand it would scan their data like the Copy power from Kirby Super Star, then become a trophy you can pick up. That way, it wouldn’t be necessary to fight them any differently than normal, and you’d still get to see their death animation.

It’s important to know that a number of these bosses have gimmicks associated with them due to their games of origin, or my personal opinions towards them. These gimmicks and other traits which don’t count as attacks are shown in [square brackets].

-Chronoforce (Megaman ZX Advent)
A Pseudoroid based on a horseshoe crab, who uses ice attacks and can manipulate the flow of time in the immediate area. One of the harder bosses to defeat, especially because in ZX Advent it was early on in the game before you had anything useful and safe to transform into. You fight him underwater, so in this case you’d probably have a diving helmet or something.
Water dash: He tries to line up with you, then charges forward off the screen. He leaves behind a current that might pull you right into his tail. On harder modes he dashes faster.
Icicle shots: He charges up and fires a couple of icicles, then moves forward off the screen. If you can keep him shooting at the higher part of the screen, you can just fall back down when he’s done.
Icicle spread(s): He hovers at one side of the screen and shoots a spread of four icicles before charging forward. On Hard or higher, he shoots two spreads and the second covers all the angles the first doesn’t, making it even harder to dodge.
Drone deploy: Chronoforce burrows into the ground and pops out four little drones that charge straight at you one-by-one. Once they’re all moving, he zips along the ground. Try to make all the drones move towards the ground, then you can jump over them and Chronoforce.
Time Bomb: Chronoforce moves to the background, then turns his tail spike like a hand on a clock, speeding himself up for a while. All his attacks go that much faster too. On Hard or higher, he always starts by using Time Bomb, and it never wears off.
Ice burst rewind: Chronoforce moves to the background and starts firing icicles offscreen. They come into the foreground in a spiral, and any of them which get near you will burst into ice flakes. After that, Chronoforce rewinds the icicles so they go the other way, and any that already burst will un-explode before going off the screen. Staying on the ground may be your best bet to avoid the whole thing.

-Dual Orbs (Contra: Hard Corps)
The second sub-boss you fight in stage 4 of Contra: Hard Corps, the jungle area. It starts out as one robot ball that rolls into the stage, then pops out a pair of legs for its first attack.
Jumping: It leaps around doing flips.
Cannon: When it’s done jumping, it pops out a cannon pointing straight up, and shoots bullets into the air while shaking its groove thing. The bullets rain down in numerous directions but explode harmlessly when they hit the ground.
Bouncing: After that it retracts its legs and bounces around the screen with a trail of afterimages.
Boomerangs: Next, it hops to one corner of the screen and throws its legs at you like boomerangs.
Ground shots: For its last attack before the pattern repeats, it moves to the other corner and bends down to look like a turret, then starts shooting bullets at the ground which make little waves of fire that go towards you.
When you empty its lifebar, it bursts into flames and breaks down, but another robot ball flies down and attaches to it, starting the second phase.
Flailing: It starts by walking towards you and flailing its arms.
Jumping: Then it does more flips through the air.
Fly-by: Its last attack in this form is to pop the cannon out its rear end, using it as a jet engine to fly off the screen. It zooms by a few times before slowing down and landing.

-Spiky Tiger (Secret of Mana)
A very dangerous early boss, since you had to fight it before you learned any magic. This time it still leaps onto a couple of the walls in the immediate background, but your attacks can still hit it.
Bite: If it bites you, you’ll take multiple hits unless you break loose.
Rolling attack: It curls into a ball and rolls across the ground, bouncing off the left and right sides of the screen. At lower health, it rolls in different ways, like going across the walls and ceiling, and bouncing in large arcs.
Diving attack: It curls up and jumps right off the top of the screen, then dives on top of you unless you move quick.
Fire Breath: It shoots a stream of fire which can hit you rapidly. On Very Hard or higher, the attack becomes its unavoidable version from the original game, where you just get engulfed in flames and can’t do anything for a second.
Fire Bouquet: It creates a ring of fireballs centered on you. Unless you jump just before the fireballs close in, then you’ll take damage and your attacks will become weaker for a moment. On Very Hard or higher, the attack changes into its version from the original game, and the ring of fire automatically hits you.

-Seth (Street Fighter IV)
The end boss of all the versions of Street Fighter IV, in all his unclothed glory.
[Easy mode immunity]: Setting the game to Easy or Very Easy doesn’t affect Seth at all normally, and if you were playing on one of those modes, a message will appear under his lifebar saying “Game level has been forced to Normal!”. If you put in a certain cheat code, you can override this and force him down to Easy or Very Easy then move on with the game.
[Always reads input]: Regardless of your game settings, Seth always reads your inputs to react to your moves instantly. Like his exemption from Easy mode, you’re warned of this. There’s another cheat to make him stop this, but if you use both this and the cheat to force him down to Easy mode, the level won’t count as being beaten.
[No Super Armor]: As a fighting game boss, Seth flinches and gets knocked back by your attacks, and with the right timing you can even juggle him.
[Super gauge and Revenge gauge]: Seth’s super gauge is used for his EX special moves and super combo, and his Revenge gauge is used for one of his Ultra combos.
Wall jump
Quick stand: Sometimes when you knock him down, he flips back up instead of falling.
Yoga Teleport
Punches and kicks
Stretch punch
Stretch kick
Focus Attack: Seth charges up and rushes forward doing a shoulder tackle. If he hits you, you’ll collapse to the ground slowly. Hitting him once during any part of the attack won’t make him flinch, but if you hit him twice you’ll knock him back.
Focus Attack Dash Cancel: If Seth has at least half his super gauge, he can cancel any of his attacks into a Focus Attack, cancel the charge-up of that into a dash, and do another attack. He becomes more likely to abuse this ability on Hard or higher.
Warp Piledriver: Seth’s close-range grab.
Throw Tech: If you grab him and he makes the input to grab you close to the same time, you’ll break each other’s throws and get shoved back.
Sonic Boom: He doesn’t have to charge this, and can EX it to shoot two Sonic Booms at once.
Spinning Shoryuken: He can extend the attack to hit you three times, or six if he EXs it.
Hyper Lightning Legs: Seth makes one kicking motion, and if he hits you’ll take a dozen invisible hits before collapsing. If he EXs the move, he’ll be invincible during the first kick.
Dive kick
Head stomp: When jumping, Seth can try to stomp on your head, which bounces both you and him up a bit. He can stomp you three times in a row, then dive kick.
Tanden Engine: Seth uses his Tanden Engine to suction you towards him. If he EXs this, he pulls you from a much greater range, but it costs him half his super gauge instead of a quarter.
Tanden Storm: Seth uses up his whole super gauge to unleash a ball of energy from his Tanden Engine, rapidly hitting you if you’re close. The energy also nullifies projectiles.
Tanden Stream: Seth uses up his Revenge gauge to try and absorb you into his Tanden Engine, then launch you into the camera (a 1-hit KO on Hard or higher). If you stay in the air or block, the attack won’t hit you.
Tanden Typhoon: Seth uses up his Revenge gauge to shoot a huge tornado out of his Tanden Engine, aiming diagonally upward.

-Rathalos (Monster Hunter)
One of the harder early monsters you fight in Monster Hunter, this wyvern is one of several points where the game’s difficulty rose sharply. He frequently attacks you from the air, while his female counterpart Rathian usually stays on the ground when fighting.
[Staggering]: Rathalos only flinches from your attacks after taking a certain amount of damage. This resets each time it staggers.
Charge: Rathalos can instantly break into a charge. You can block this, but it’ll seriously damage your shield. Sometimes he’ll stumble and fall after charging.
Bite: Like most of the wyverns, he can bite you if you’re close.
Tail whip: Another common wyvern attack, he turns twice to whack you with its tail. No matter what, he always turns twice in a row.
Fireball: He rears back, and spits an explosive fireball. If you dodge the fireball, you’ll have a perfect opening to give Rathalos a good hit in the face. He can also shoot three fireballs in a row, whether on the ground or flying.
Diving claws: While flying, Rathalos might lean back and flap his wings rapidly, then dive straight at you. If he hits you with his claws, you’ll be poisoned and gradually take more damage after the initial hit.
Leap: He can also take off and immediately land.
World Tour: At least once every time you fight him, he’ll stall for time by flying up and soaring through the background, before attempting to dive-bomb you.
Roar: When you’ve dealt enough damage to him, he’ll roar loudly and fly into a rage for a while. For as long as you see his breath, all his attacks will be much faster and more damaging.

-Seven Force (Gunstar Heroes)
Gunstar Green uses his transforming Seven Force to fight you. You battle him while riding a rolling platform which stays under your feet, and whenever you double-jump, you turn upside-down to move towards the ceiling, or back to the floor if you were already upside-down. After depleting his current form’s health, Seven Force changes into the next one and the stage scrolls in another direction. In the vertical parts, your rolling platform sticks to the walls and jumping will push you off them. On Very Easy mode, you only have to beat 3 of Seven Force’s forms to win. On Easy you have to battle 5 of them. On Normal or higher, you have to beat all 7 forms. On harder modes, its attacks get a little faster.
-Soldier Force (A giant running robot)
Arm Vortex: It points one arm at you, then extends it to try and punch you.
Arm Boomerang: It throws boomerangs which fly forward, then turn back and go off the screen.
Ball throw: It throws balls that fall in an arc.
Power slide: It slides feet-first, hitting you if you’re on the ground.
-Tails Force (A hovering robot with a long tail, the area scrolls vertically)
Somersault Tail: It backflips, swinging its tail about.
Lightning Zap: It shoots a stream of bullets, while either hovering in the middle of the screen or crawling from corner to corner.
-Tiger Force (Gallops along the ground, horizontal stage)
Sight Laser: An aiming cursor tracks your position, until Tiger Force shoots a laser. If the cursor is larger, then it’ll fire an explosive shot.
Trace Zapper: A tracking beam appears, then Tiger Force shoots a reflecting laser that goes along that path.
-Eagle Force (Shaped vaguely like an eagle, vertical stage)
Dance Dance: It climbs up the screen while shifting its wings and tail into different positions to try and hit you. When it’s reached the top of the screen, it flies up further then falls down, raising its wings at the last second so you can avoid it by staying in one of the lower corners. At low health, it’ll dance upside down.
-Blaster Force (Shaped like a gun, horizontal stage)
Grenade Shoot: It fires large bullets at you, spinning around before shooting each one. If you position yourself in the right spot, you can stand still and its shots will miss you. After shooting 12 times, it reloads.
-Urchin Force (Round, spiked ball, vertical stage)
Rush & Roulette: It bounces between either the upper or lower corners of the screen, then spins quickly and moves vertically. Unlike in the original game, you won’t take damage from it when it’s just bouncing horizontally, unless you get caught between it and the wall.
Hypersonic Spin: At low health, it moves to the center of the screen and charges up energy in its spikes while spinning. When it stops, it shoots bullets in all directions.
-Crab Force (Very large crab-shaped form, horizontal stage)
Wall: It drops a segment that extends into a wall, which can push you off the right side of the screen if you don’t get over it or destroy it.
Crash Mine: It drops mines on the floor and ceiling.
Will o the Wisp: One of its claws shoots an energy ball that bounces diagonally as it goes off the right side.

-Tower Knight (Demon’s Souls)
The boss of area 1-2 of Demon’s Souls, a giant suit of armor with a humongous lance and shield. Since it’s gigantic, its attacks are very slow but extremely dangerous. On Hard or higher, it can usually KO you in two hits. On Very Hard it gets a little faster, and on Extreme most of its attacks are one-hit kills.
[Very Easy mode immunity]: Because of the limit to how much easier white World Tendency can make its original game, it’s not possible to fight the Tower Knight on Very Easy.
[Weak point]: Most of the Tower Knight’s body is quite resistant to your attacks, but its head takes much more damage. If you don’t feel like knocking it over, you can use projectiles to aim for its head.
Crossbowmen: Positioned on the castle walls in the background are some soldiers with crossbows, who fire upon you whenever they get the chance. If you press Up next to the door on the far right or the stairs on the far left, you’ll go to the background where you can deal with the soldiers. The view will be turned so that the Tower Knight is now in the background, and it’ll be trying to hit you with energy lances until you return to the foreground.
Backstep: It leaps back, severely damaging you if you’re anywhere underneath it, or even too close to its feet.
Energy lance: If you’re far away, it’ll wind up and throw an energy lance at you. There are spots on the far left and right of the stage where you can hide from its lances, and if you’ve moved to the background then the ramparts where the soldiers are perched are the only spots where the Tower Knight’s energy lances can hit you.
Lance stab: If you’re right in front of the Tower Knight, it can thrust its lance right at you.
Lance swipe: It swings its lance in a wide arc, aimed towards your general location if you’re on the ground.
Shield smash: It lifts up its shield and strikes the ground with it, kicking up dust and debris.
Stomp: If the Tower Knight stomps you, you’ll get embedded in the ground.
Fall over: If you attack its legs enough times, it’ll lose balance and fall to the ground. Naturally, you don’t want to be underneath it when it lands. While it’s flat on the ground, you can beat on its head.

The next boss battle I want to discuss is a Multi-Man Melee-type of fight, with a LOT to cover. That’s why it’ll be its own post, Part 2A.

Several times I’ve brought up my enormous backlog of game concepts, varying in length from just names and the basic gist, to pages upon pages upon pages of conjecture. One of the biggest piles of babble is an idea I titled “Ultra Smash Bros.”. In a nutshell, it’s everything I’d want to see in another Super Smash Bros. game, official or otherwise. Going over the whole thing at once is madness, so in this article I’ll just tell you about some of the characters I devised movesets for.

-Epsilon-Eagle (Alien Soldier)
A little light and fast, he can use his jets to hover, but he can’t spam his projectile weapons constantly. Most of his A moves are punches and kicks, with a few incorporating energy weapons.
B: Weapon Force. Epsilon fires his selected weapon, either Buster Force (rapid-fire bullets that don’t cause flinching), Fire Force (acts like a Fire Flower, but can only shoot two seconds of flames before stopping), Lancer Force (concentrated laser beam, only two shots before having to recharge) or Ranger Force (homing fireballs, but they’re weak).
F+B: Counter Force. Epsilon creates a split-second force field in front of himself. If an energy-based projectile hits the shield, he absorbs it and recovers some health. Other projectiles will just bounce off.
U+B: Zero Teleport. Epsilon zips in the direction you point.
D+B: Force Switch. After pressing D+B, press one of four directions to switch to another Force.
Final Smash: Phoenix Teleport. Epsilon hurtles forward with a phoenix-shaped blast of fire around himself, dealing rapid hits to anyone in range. If he ends up off the ground, he can still use his double-jump, hover and U+B.

-Fat Mario (Hotel Mario)
As opposed to the real Mario’s short stature and middling abilities, Fat Mario has worse overall speed, and lower jumps. Most of his attacks are based on movements from the game’s cutscenes.
B: Toast. Fat Mario pulls out a toaster. If you just tap B, he fires a piece of toast, but you can charge up the toaster to launch up to four pieces of toast. Like Diddy’s peanuts, sometimes a piece of toast won’t crumble after hitting, but you can’t eat it. (It’s Bowser’s Sourpuss Bread.)
F+B: Smoke. A simple burst of smoke and fire, even though he can shoot fireballs with one of his throws.
U+B: Vine Block. Fat Mario conjures a vine block from nowhere, kicks it and climbs the vine that comes out. It stays there for a little while, or until he makes another one. Even though anyone can grab and climb the vine, Fat Mario can climb it faster than a ladder.
D+B: Pinchback. If anyone pinches his pennies, he pinches back.
Final Smash: Too Many Toasters. Dozens of toasters appear around Mario, and they shoot toast into the sky, which rains down like meteors all over the stage.

-Marco, Tarma, Fio and Eri (Metal Slug)
They make up a “Landmaster” set of characters. All of them summon vehicles for their Final Smashes, but they have different vehicles, and totally different weapons for their B moves, except using a jetpack for U+B.
Marco
B: Heavy Machine Gun. Fires rapidly, and can sweep shots up or down, but you have to hit with 5 bullets to make someone flinch.
F+B: Rocket Launcher. Can aim very slightly.
D+B: Drop Shot. Bounces along the ground and explodes.
Final: Metal Slug. The classic tank drops onto the stage and Marco hops in for 16 seconds. Press A to fire the aimable vulcan, B to fire the cannon, and X or Y to jump.
Tarma
B: Laser Gun. It takes a sustained hit to make an opponent flinch.
F+B: Shotgun. Great knockback, but crummy range.
D+B: Iron Lizard. Rolls across the ground.
Final: Slug Copter. Flies around, and opponents can’t stand on it because the rotor will damage them. The vulcan aims in all directions, but you can double-tap A to fix it in one direction and strafe, like Tarma can do with all the Slug vehicles in Metal Slug 6 and 7. Press B to drop dumb bombs.
Fio
B: Flame Shot. Shoots a burst of fire for 3/4 of a second, and it can be sweeped, but the duration can’t be controlled.
F+B: Enemy Chaser. Homing missiles.
D+B: Zantetsu Sword. If you hit with the sweetspot of the attack, it does more knockback at a lower angle.
Final: Slug Flyer. The jump jet doesn’t move around as fast as the copter. Its vulcan only aims 45 degrees up or down, and pressing B launches air-to-air missiles.
Eri
B: Dual Machine Gun. The pairs of bullets have a wider hitbox than the Heavy Machine Gun’s shots, but you can’t spray bullets, and it still takes multiple hits to make an opponent flinch.
F+B: Super Grenade. Shoots a straight-flying rocket with a bigger bang than the Rocket Launcher, but the projectile itself is smaller and doesn’t home in.
D+B: Thunder Shot. Possibly a homing projectile or PK Thunder-ish?
Final: Slug Gunner. The robot walker can jump and hover, fire a vulcan gun or cannon, crouch to sprout tank treads and drive over the ground faster, and if you input a forward Smash it’ll use the pile bunker.

-The Boy (Secret of Evermore)
He’s light on his feet, and has a lot of projectiles, but takes knockback badly. His Smash attacks have different effects when uncharged, partly charged or fully charged.
Forward Smash: Bone Masher. Simple swing, overhead swing or double swing.
Down Smash: Spider Claw. Downward slam, front and back swing or spinning axe.
Up Smash: Horn Spear. Overhead swing, upward throw or swing and throw.
B: Flash. Small fireball that can be guided a little.
F+B: Bazooka. Fires forward with recoil, which you can use for recovery by firing the other way.
U+B: Levitate.
D+B: Acid Rain. Creates a cloud above and in front of you, which makes acid rain for a couple of seconds.
Final: Energize. For a limited duration, you get to use the endgame arsenal from Secret of Evermore, with new Smash attacks and B moves.
Forward Smash: Laser Lance. Thrown straight forward.
Up Smash: Atom Smasher. The boy spins the axe over his head.
Down Smash: Neutron Blade. Spin attack that hits twice.
B: Fireball. Explosive homing projectile.
F+B: Cryo-Blast. Stronger bazooka shot with major recoil.
D+B: Lightning Storm. The cloud blasts the area below with multiple lightning bolts.

-Hero, Yangus, Jessica and Angelo (Dragon Quest VIII)
It’s fun to poke fun at the Landmaster set, even though these four don’t have any real overlap in their moves. All they have in common is a secret taunt where they psyche up to Super High Tension.
Hero
B: Metal Slash. Charging slash like Marth, Roy and Ike’s. Deals significant damage to the opponent’s shield if they block, and if you fully charge it becomes an automatic shield-breaker.
F+B: Mercurial Thrust. High-speed spear dash, like Fox and co. but more startup time.
U+B: Dragon Slash. Hero jumps up and slashes on the way down. Only one hit, but he can steer himself better than Ike or Kirby.
D+B: Zap. Hero makes a small multi-hit lightning bolt shoot down in front of him. Not as much total damage or knockback as Pikachu’s Thunder.
Final: Gigaslash. Hero swings a huge energy sword that hits in a very large arc.
Yangus (Heaviest, best in close range)
Up Taunt: Underpants Dance. If anyone’s standing right next to him, they get knocked down for zero damage.
B: Heart Breaker. One spin with the hammer.
F+B: Parallax. Like Pit’s F+B, but he doesn’t step forward so far.
U+B: Boulder Toss. Gives an upward boost like Yoshi’s U+B.
D+B: Steal Sickle. Sickle attack that pulls the opponent towards Yangus, and is very likely to make them drop whatever they’re holding. In adventure mode, it makes enemies drop items even before you kill them.
Final: Golden Oldies. King Trode and a crowd of old fogies stampede across the stage and trample anyone in their way.
Jessica (Lightest and fastest)
B: Frizz. Slow-moving fireball that can be charged up. When charged at least halfway it becomes explosive with a wider hit radius, but still doesn’t hit Jessica if fired at point blank.
F+B: Twin Dragon Lash. One crack of the whip in a small arc that can be aimed slightly. Press B again for a second hit.
U+B: Accelerate. When used in the air, it works as a third jump with great horizontal speed. On the ground, it lets Jessica sprint really fast for a second. She can tackle opponents for a little damage.
D+B: Bounce. Projectile-reflecting barrier, but it only shields Jessica from the front.
Final: Magic Burst. Swirling beams converge on one spot which gets nuked. You can guide the beams to choose where the explosion occurs.
Angelo (Between Hero and Jessica in weight)
B: Multishot. Angelo prepares to shoot multiple arrows, up to five at once.
F+B: Miracle Slash. This sword attack takes about as much time to do as a Falcon Punch, but if Angelo scores a clean hit he’ll heal a little of his damage.
U+B: Woosh. Angelo conjures a twister that carries him left or right with a little vertical lift, like Spinning Kong.
D+B: Angel Eyes. Angelo casts a stunning gaze that paralyzes anyone who’s close enough and facing towards him. It has a bit more reach than Mewtwo’s Disable.
Final: Pearly Gates. Angelo makes a wide spell circle around himself, and for a short while you can guide down beams of holy energy to blast the stage, controlling where they hit like Snake’s grenade launcher.

-Claude Kenni (Star Ocean: The Second Story)
Claude is a little light, and moves pretty quickly, but he doesn’t jump very high normally, and because his sword is long, his attacks aren’t as fast on average as other lightweight sword-users.
Mash A: Shooting Stars. Claude punches nonstop.
B: Air Slash. Claude shoots a shockwave along the ground. In mid-air it travels at a slight angle until hitting the ground.
F+B: Mirror Slice. A variable combo attack, like Marth and Roy’s.
U+B: Head Splitter. Claude leaps up and points his sword down. On the way up he’s easier to steer left and right, but after hitting the apex of the jump he has more horizontal inertia.
D+B: Ripper Blast. Claude smashes the ground and kicks up stalagmites. In mid-air he dives down hard before smashing the ground.
Final: Sword Bomber. On the surface it’s like PK Starstorm, but the meteors all come down in one diagonal direction, whichever way Claude is facing.
or Killer Link Combo. Claude does a huge combo, then fires off three shots from his Phase Gun.

-Adol Christin (Ys)
Adol is very light and very fast, but his attacks are a little weak even for a light character, he falls quickly and he has a lot of inertia in mid-air which makes recovery hard.
B: Ignis Bracelet. Adol shoots a fireball with low recovery time. You can charge it up to launch an explosive fireball.
F+B: Terra Bracelet. Adol does a charging tackle, with a few frames where he can take a hit without flinching or getting knocked back.
U+B: Earth Shaker. Adol jumps up and smashes the ground with his sword.
D+B: Ventus Bracelet. Adol spins into a cyclone. This carries him up a little, but it’s mostly for horizontal recovery.
Final: Lunar Crystal Blade. Adol does a frenzied autocombo, then shoots a laser from his sword. The beam can be aimed a little.