SUPER PHANTASY FIGHTERS

Honestly game feels amazing even on my phone. But I do wanna say that maybe adding keyboard controls might benefit the people who don’t own a controller. I’ve been playing smash bros and its “clones” on keyboard for a long time and playing on controller never felt good. Would heavily recommend adding keyboard controls. EDIT: controller felt responsive and very good

Even as it is, the game feels so warm to boot up and play.

Thank you for the hard work until now.

Hi! I played around with it a bit, and wanted to share some of my thoughts about the proof-of-concept. It's fun to see a PSO2 fan game, and there's a surprising amount of polish in the UI and some other features. Block of text incoming:

Positives:

• There's a lot of good in the UI for the menus, on the visual side of things, even it's in an early stage. (some areas are clunk like the character select, but you're likely aware of that)
• Stages like PSO2 Lobby and Shiva's stage, where background stuff happens, are a highlight, and feel very smash bros in that aspect. Sachiko Kobayashi as a stage hazard was absolute peak.
• Cool to see some stages and music from other Sega games, including Skies of Arcadia YOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
• Camera control during pause is always a treasure to have.
• Credits minigame is an accurate recreation of Melee's credits minigame.

Stuff to improve on:

I don't think Smash Bros' gameplay works for the current roster of characters. This does not mean that the work needs to be scrapped, but, imo, I do think it needs to be retooled to play differently, especially if you want a roster of monsters from PSO2. My reasons:

• 3/4th of the roster are gargantuan fighters, and even in smash, ejecting enemies of such scale always feels wrong: too light, and everyone weighs like a feather, too heavy and nothing gets thrown around.
• Playing as the characters feels more like manipulating mechas, with huge animation locks, abysmal movement speed, and things like being unable to attack in mid-air.
• Jumping, so far, doesn't add anything to the gameplay. At best, it is a glorified dodge. At worse, it's an opening for an opponent. 
• If you're controlling powerful bosses, it sure looks meh to see it fly away. The power fantasy feels diminished, especially when one plays powerhouses like Hunar or Exegul, who in the original game, exude a fearsome power in 3D space.
• On the topic of animation locks, I get that it's much, much, easier to rip the animations than to create/edit entire animations from scratch... but in a smash-like, controls really, really, need to be reactive. Some of the weakest attacks have insane setup time, when they should be the fastest moves to pull out. 

You can see through with your vision, but I do have some possible suggestions (take whatever you want, or keep going the smash bros route, that's entirely up to you):

• Abandon 2D, embrace 3D: the game doesn't have any directional attack inputs, and verticality doesn't really serve any purpose, even though you're in a platform fighter, where jumping is a whole playstyle. All your attack options are tied to buttons and hold one button+ press other button, and should work fine in 3D (PSO2). Now, between doing something like a Powerstone, or something like ARMS/Virtua-ON, or Custom Robo, I don't know. This changeup shouldn't be difficult coding wise: it consists of making the movement be tied to 3D, hopefully hitboxes aren't hardcoded to be 2D only, and then drop or alter jumping's relevance.
• Drop jumping: if you're having trouble with getting jumping to work... it could be worth exploring options where jumping isn't a thing, or at least less importance. Smash Bros is a platform fighter, so jumping isn't an option, it's a requirement. 
• Work within animation limits: It's a fan game, don't overdo stuff. The models from PSO2 are limited in what they can do, and you're not going to be opening Blender to hand animate a dozen attacks per character. You're not going to create a bunch of aerial attack animations either (hence why jumping is pointless to have). If animation attack lag is an inevitability... why not build gameplay around that limitation? 
• No hitstun, maybe: You're controlling mighty beasts, with wildly different builds. Exegul swings a massive axe covering a massive distance, while Hunar needs to get close. Exegul can just get away with endless attacks.
• Add UI to describe usable actions, a la PSO2: The weapon palette switched icons when holding the shoulder button, letting you know when you've swapped possible actions, and it would light up the slot to indicate the action was used. Having something like that for each player is vital.
• Not everything needs to be melee range, maybe look into projectile based gameplay: Even Hunar in PSO2 had projectiles, such as his powerful slam that creates vicious looking embers that expand outwards. In 2D, this wouldn't be great, since the effect is 3D. But if you make something 3D... then it not only acts as a visual feast, but it can be a powerful wall of projectiles that you'd dodge in 3D.  On the other hand, it is significantly easier to create the assets for a projectile, than to create an animation for every possible melee attack to satisfy the gameplay needs of a platform fighter. Virtua-ON and Custom Robo are 3D arena fighters where projectiles are king, maintaining distance is common, and melee attacks are opportunities for massive damage, if you manage to get close. Heck, just in PSO2, most bosses have AOE. Weaving through the enemies AOE while you try to establish your own, sneaking in close to them and unleashing a powerful melee hit, could work.
• But ...if you still want to make Smash: Smaller characters are a requirement. I know you don't want to make the humans from PSO2, because they're a bunch of detached objects that get attached through their proprietary character creator, but there's a reason why most platform fighters focus on humans: they're generally easier to rig and animate, they're flexible for any type of fighter, throwing them through % doesn't seem out of place, etc... You can maybe recreate the characters through something like VRoid Studio/MMD, even though they won't be faithful graphically to the original or NGS, but there's also a better idea if you want to stick to monsters only:
  
  • Focus on small enemies, not bosses: They're more nimble and lighter, and therefore make way, way, WAY more sense in terms of a platform fighter. You might however end up with a lack of attacks (since I don't think basic enemies have a lot of moves to begin with). You could throw in other sega enemies or creatures as a result, but in terms of PSO2 monsters, here's some I think have potential:
    • Dagan: This is the mascot of the Falspawn. It was the first to be seen by every player, and manages to be the perfect blend of a demonic zerg-like creature that kills humans with it's legs... and the weakest enemies of the force. For the animations, it's pretty much insect animations, so look to nature for inspiration.
    • Rappy: eh
    • Dicahdr: Fighting stance falspawn.
    • Goldrahda: Fighting stance x2.
    • Cuchronahda: Sword
    • Solda Capita: sorta human
    • Bonta Beadda: sorta human
    • Sil Deenian: draconian sword
    • etc etc you get the point
    • The Human-like NGS DOLLS: If you're able to rip them, and as much as I hate them... they do feature a complete set of actions for any situation.

• Regardless of what you do, it might be worth working on a single character first, to establish a baseline character. Do a 1V1 mirror match, try a 4v4, etc, see if it all feels right, before jumping into making other characters.
• OK, last point: Just because I don't think Smash Bros isn't ideal, doesn't mean you have to do something like a competitive 1V1 Fighting game. Keep it casual.

I don't want to detract from the fact that regardless, this is an impressive proof of concept for having a fully functioning system for a game, and making anything like a platform fighter is no easy feat. Pat yourself on the back, but look beyond following Smash Bros to the letter. Whatever you work on next, or future updates/reworks to this project, I'll be sure to keep an eye on it!

P.S: Make sure to test you game on an Xbox Controller if you can. Most PC gamers are used to it, and a lot of 3rd party controllers generally tend to follow the Xbox layout.