Geno

## General

Geno (ジーノ, *Geno*) is a character from the Mario universe that appeared firstly and primarily as a party member in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Having previously appeared as a mii costume and spirit as well as being considered in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Geno makes a fully playable appearance in Super Smash Bros. Crusade. He is one of the two original protagonists in Super Mario RPG, who takes the form of a nameless star spirit possessing a toy doll with the name he takes. Sent from his home due to the crisis of the Star Pieces being scattered, he unites with Mario and friends in order to regain the remaining Star Pieces and save the world from Smithy.

## Attributes

Geno is small, lightweight character with an unconventional mix of projectiles and wide, difficult to challenge normals that allow him to comfortably swap between the roles of long range zoning and close range pressure as is required. With a strong neutral focus, Geno excels at shutting down opponents close and afar with careful use of his multitude of options before taking control of the stage and ceasing any attempts to recover.

Likely his biggest strength, Geno's neutral is almost unparalleled by most characters. With surprisingly good range for such a small body and a plethora of disjointed or projectile options, very few other characters can even hope to trade with Geno in any exchange. From afar, his empowered forward smash and side special are both fast and powerful projectiles, with the former being incredibly spammable with little risk and the latter being an easy kill option off of a single catch. His back aerial is similar, if weaker than both of them, but difficult to challenge. At a closer range, combating Geno is no easier. With a forward tilt and up tilt that both possess incredible disjoints amongst his neutral and down special extending even further in those same directions if required, Geno is hard to approach from any angle safely, and a number of quick, closer ranged options like his neutral air or jab make an easy punish if an opponent can't capitalize on his openings fast enough. Combined with his naturally high speed in the air and on the ground, getting in to even land a single hit on Geno can seem impossible at times.

While not his main strength, Geno is fortunate enough to have a respectable amount of combo potential that make his punishes even stronger than they would be otherwise, quickly racking up percentage to get opponents into the threshold where his neutral options hurt. His up tilt and up air are by far his strongest options, being quick, dealing high damage, having an excellent hitbox and having low enough scaling that with good DI followup you can land as many as your jumps allow you to with effectively 0 chance of retaliation from the opponent. While less effective due to their knockback or speed, his forward air and neutral air are serviceable followups if their properties of a different angle or multi-hit are desired, and a lot of Geno's grounded options like forward tilt and down tilt easily lead into his up tilt ladders.

Geno has a number of strong kill moves, though it should be noted that many of them come with a particular downside that can render them difficult to use. Combined with no easy combo finishers or exceptional smash attacks, Geno may struggle against opponents who are familiar with his standard options and how to deal with them. While it is possible to kill opponents with a full up air string at high enough percentage, Geno's more standard kill options are his empowered down and up smash, which both have lingering hitboxes capable of punishing poor rolls or spot dodges and powerful final hits that can easily close out stocks at moderate damage values. They struggle from stubby range and the lingering being a downside, however, if the opponent isn't caught. Additionally, his neutral special and side special both can kill respectably early, especially if they are used in their preferable way to catch recovering opponents. Again, however, they are both somewhat sluggish, and the former can be easily avoided or shielded with how telegraphed the strong version is and Geno's side special is easily shielded or even reflected with a good power shield. Finally, his forward smash unempowered is capable of killing well, but has pitiful range that leaves it often whiffing or beaten out without a great read, and his neutral air and down air are possible, but often too unreliable without enough knockback or speed to be good kill options.

As mentioned previously, Geno can somewhat struggle to close out stocks despite how easy it is for him to get opponents offstage, and his entire moveset has the unfortunate side-effect of being relatively poor in terms of speed. While this is mitigated by landing his attacks, as opponents cannot retaliate while being hit, it means that careless usage of them renders Geno one of the most easily punishable characters in the entire game, and this is only compounded by his lacking tools to get opponents off of him or recover well, as while the armor on Geno Boost makes it somewhat difficult to stop, it's predictable nature allows opponents to exploit and rack up percentage on him by even getting him slightly offstage. Additionally, being light does not help this weakness, allowing stocks to be taken incredibly early off of catches and often leaving Geno to be completely stomped by faster and more immediately powerful characters who can take advantage of him.

However, Geno should never be underestimated. His control over the match is second to none in the hands of a careful player, leaving him seemingly downright oppressive to anyone who can't find an opening.

## Moveset

*For a gallery of Geno's hitboxes, see here.*

## Alternate costumes

This character currently does not have real alternate costumes, and instead uses costumes based on hues instead.

It has been confirmed that Geno is getting new costumes in an upcoming update of SSBC.

## Trivia

He used to have a voice in the earlier versions of Crusade, but due to negative reception to it, he was muted.