Mario's comboability is limited while he is able to cancel any of his Normals, most of them have long startup frames. Like Shazzo's other characters, he is a spriteswap of Actarus' Axel Stone, though Mario plays differently compared to his base. While Mario is able to crouch, he doesn't really 'crouch', instead, his crouching animation shows Mario holding a red hammer, with his crouching Normals being stronger but take longer to connect, while his aerial Normals are also different. Mario is a six-button character that uses the buttons for his Normals, although they also respond to the buttons respectively.