Super Smash Bros. Converge

## Introduction

Super Smash Bros. Converge is a collaborative Smash Bros project between Empress Scarlet and Gold-sans Mobile. Which acts as both a partial reboot of the franchise, featuring reimagined mechanics and modes along with being an experimental title with changes to the series that'll freshen up the overall experience, bringing the series into a new era.

This also acts as a hub for both of the lead game developers to pour all of their ideas and ambitions from their past works in the Super Smash Bros series to create an absolutely massive game packed full of content. From wild new modes and game changing mechanics to a gargantuan roster with tons of newcomers and reworked veterans. Making for a very refreshing experience that keeps the franchise moving forwards in strange and wild new directions.

## Gameplay

Converge's gameplay acts as a revitalized version of the franchises most iconic traits and mechanics. Keeping the core idea while also remixing it to make it feel fresh and brand new. Such as changing the ways fights play out, like how damage works, while the changes are small, they are significant enough to make a difference. The standard way to win matches is still to deal enough damage to your opponents to send them flying off the stage and taking a stock from them but with the addition of something called the **Hardy Meter**. The Hardy Meter will build up overtime from taking fierce blows and dishing out strong attacks. It's shown as a small blue and grey meter right next to your fighter's health and portrait, when enough of the bar has been filled up they'll start to shrug off the knockback of certain moves. Which essentially gives every character in the game super armor, which is put in place in order to help balance the rosters overall power imbalance and to give the weaker characters a much bigger fighting chance. It also forces more projectile heavy characters from camping on one side of the stage and gets them to fight up close since the meter can only be built up from physical attacks and not projectiles.

Onto a much bigger mechanic, in addition to the Hardy Meter, which is focused on increasing defense. There's also a mechanic focused on pure, raw damage that acts as a stand in for final smashes since they've been cut from the game entirely. In its place is something known as the **Nitro Surge** which is a smash-ball shaped meter on your characters portrait that'll steadily build up the more you take damage or the more damage you dish out. When at full capacity it'll activate, giving the players a boost in all of their stats along with making their attacks much more deadly and have larger hitboxes. When shielding pressing the special button will have the player preform a **Nitro Charge** which'll steadily increase the nitro charge in addition to projecting a blazing blue and yellow aura around themselves. Which acts as a weak barrier that deals damage to another fighter so they're not so vulnerable while they charge. Extra buffs are also included with these which include giving characters two additional jumps, increasing air speed and air control along with increasing shield health and invincibility frames when perform a dodge of any kind.

On top of all that, you're able to store upwards of three Nitro Surge meters that all stack on top of each other. As using attacks at a full bar will cause it to decrease by a little bit with higher damage moves causing a much larger decrease. However, there's something a lot more devastating you can perform with these meters as pressing shield and the special button will cause the player to flash with intense light. as they teleport to the top of the screen and create a giant, energy-based version of themselves that towers over the stage and unleashes a barrage of powerful attacks which is unique for every character. The amount of meters you have built up also increases the damage and adds on extra effects to where at three charges it guarantees a knockout to all opponents, but it can only be performed at full capacity. If you have any less than full charge on each meter then the level three version will not work, same goes for the level two and level one variants. There's one last thing to note, if you don't use up any of your charged meters and instead store them for too long you'll eventually be inflicted with **Burnout** which is a special status effect that causes the player to take large amounts of damage, has each of their stats cut in half and prevents the use of special moves for a bit. The severity of this is dependent on how many nitro meters you have on you, if a burnout happens at 100% or higher then they'll be instantly KO'd.

Moving on from the more complex gimmicks to more technical and smaller mechanical stuff. Shields now have a visible health bar that appears over it when it's active, with different characters having different health for their shields. Bigger characters possessing beefier health bars while the smaller ones having frailer ones. Size also determines how long a broken shield needs to recharge with shorter time limits being on lighter shields while heavier shields taking much longer to be restored. On the topic of shields, you're able to rapidly expand it by spinning the control stick while shielding to either make it last longer to sacrifice it as a powerful explosive attack. Which disables your shield until you're knocked out which puts a heavy factor of risk/reward on this maneuver. Lastly for shields, quickly flicking the control stick in any direction will cause it to transform into a powerful fireball that deals great damage but doubles the time required for your shield to regenerate to balance it.

Movement options are also greatly expanded making the process of moving around the stage more flexible. Long jumps can be performed by crouching while running and then jumping at the same time to bound across the stage, which is faster than simply running and the momentum from it can be carried over to further jumps you do. Alongside that each fighter can also do a sliding attack by crouching and dashing without pressing the jump button which can go as far as you want until you either hit a wall or jump out of it. Which can trip other fighters and hit through shields along with being a great way to dodge attacks aimed at higher angles. Footstools have also been changed to make players gain more height from jumping off an opponent's head instead of just acting like a glorified jump. Footstools also deal damage with the damage dealt being determined by your characters weight and size with heavier ones dealing massive damage while the small and light deal next to nothing or just nothing at all.

## Characters

 **Down Special***Star Spin* | Mario spins around with his arms outstretched that creates a blue ring around him. This deals minor damage up close along with turning opponents the opposite way. It's real use however, is as a reflector that can bounce back any projectiles along with it acting as an additional recovery move if used in the air. Giving Mario extra distance.

 **Down Special***Spin Dash/Flame Somersault* | Sonic curls up and starts spinning rapidly, with him blasting forwards after the special button is let go. Dealing multiple hits of damage and launching opponents back with the final hit. Pressing the special button during the final hit will have Sonic engulf himself in flames, dealing extra damage and knockback along with inflicting a lingering burning effect.