Is Unity capable of implementing Complex 2D Characters/Animation/Sprites

The Project: I would like to create a medium-fast paced, action-fighting, side-scrolling game with 2D sprites, using sprite sheets or even animation files. A single player-controlled character would have a variety of sprite-animations to run through during gameplay, such as:

• Walking, Running and Dashing

• Jumping, Diving, Landing and Crashing

• Various Attacks that can be stringed into combos

• Being hit and thrown

• etc.

My Question: Would Unity (Specifically the free edition) be able to pull this off in a reasonable manner? I cannot afford to go Pro.

To My Knowledge: It appears possible, though I haven't seen much. The one and closest thing I've seen is this Beat Em Up Test game. Others are a Platformer Shooter, BonBon Attack and Troll Onslaught. But sadly, I haven't found much information about more complex sprite animation, nor many games made in this manner using Unity, nor many Unity developers (whether small or large) talking about it (Again, this is to my knowledge). Most of what I find is 3D models in 2D panes.

Where I'm Coming From: I have made two successful (based on my goals) games. Both action. Both side-scrolling.

• The first was Super Mario Bros Z: The Game (Thankfully some of the fans uploaded videos about it) made using Game Maker. I eventually dropped the project because I didn't like how bulky and difficult to expand my code/objects were getting. I couldn't easily copy-paste-alter my character objects, for example, to make new ones. Things were getting messy, the game was starting to fall apart and the foundation was way too tedious to reorganize without starting from scratch. I needed a new means of creating games and furthermore, to start orginal content (I can't market sprites, characters and storylines I didn't make).

• So I moved on to XNA, using C# (which is my most experienced language), which gave birth to a prototype of the aforementioned project. It loads smoothly, the code is easily expandable to add more content, the foundation is easily manageable and reorganizeable and I did it all much quicker than my old project, even though the editor is all text based. But I've heard from a review that XNA might fall in the later years and switching to a new editor was advised for the long-run. A recommended editor was Unity...and here I am.

And My Options:

• Stick with XNA and hope for the best (My bets are on this)

• Switch to Unity, granted the free edition has the capability (I have doubts)

• A new suggestion??