On August 21, 2006, developer Gregory McLeod submitted Super Smash Flash to Newgrounds after two to four months of solo work — a Flash fighting game built explicitly as an homage to Super Smash Bros. Melee, complete with a roster spanning Mario, Sonic, Naruto, and dozens of other characters no single console crossover would ever legally combine.
A Solo Homage to Super Smash Bros. Melee
Built by one teenager rather than a studio, Super Smash Flash never hid its inspiration — its stage layouts, item spawns, and move sets openly mirrored Nintendo's console original. What it lacked in polish it made up for in scope: dozens of characters, several stages, and a multiplayer mode, all running inside a browser plugin never designed for a fighting game of this size.
Frontpaged, Flawed, and Beloved Anyway
Reviewers immediately flagged the game's dull hit feedback and frequent glitches, but Newgrounds' community forgave the roughness for the ambition. The game was Frontpaged on release day, went on to earn a Daily Feature and the site's Best of the Month award for August 2006, and has since drawn more than 13 million views — numbers few Flash fighting games ever approached.
McLeodGaming turned the experiment into a career, following the original with Super Smash Flash 2 — a sequel that spent years in open development and became one of the most-played fan fighting games ever built in Flash.