Headscratchers / Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

• How does Galeem have puppets of Kirby? It's specifically stated that Galeem made puppets of the captured fighters, and Kirby wasn't captured. Did Galeem modify puppets of Meta Knight, since he's implied to be of the same species as Kirby?
  • Most likely the answer.
  • Maybe he used Shadow Kirby.
  • There are canonically multiple Kirbys, shown in games like Kirby & the Amazing Mirror and Kirby's Return to Dream Land, so maybe Galeem got those Kirbys and only one escaped.
  • In an interview, Sakurai said that he managed to analyze him and made copies based on said information.
• Why does the X Parasite Spirit evolve into Nightmare and not SA-X?
  • The X Parasite needed Samus's DNA to become the SA-X.
• If Galeem (though maybe Dharkon can make them too, though it's less clear with him) is the only one who can make spirits...then how the heck did he and Dharkon become spirits (at least after the true ending)?
  • He isn't. If anything dies, it becomes a spirit just like trophies in Subspace Emissary. It's telling you that you just killed them.
• Why is most of the music from Super Mario World unavailable for Yoshi's Island Melee, a stage based on Super Mario World?
  • Because Yoshi's Island (Melee) is a Yoshi stage and the only SMW song that's a Yoshi-series song is the Yoshi's Island (Melee) song, because it's always played on what's been a Yoshi-series level since its debut.
• Although Chrom was chosen as a playable character, Robin’s Final Smash has not been changed. This means if Robin is fighting Chrom, he can potentially summon Chrom... to beat up Chrom.
  • Similar logic can apply to both Samus and Zero Suit Samus considering the two are no longer able to switch between eachother. Meaning you can unlock Zero Suit Samus by fighting her as Samus.
  • This has been around since the first Smash where you could have 4 of the same character fighting each other at the same time.
  • Maybe each fighter is from a different individual game in the franchise.... or they were literally copy-and-pasted with magical cloning technology.... or (going by the "Smash is just a kid playing with toys" theory) the kid owns multiples of all the characters.
• In the Ice Climbers' Classic Mode, you fight various duos, ending with Master Hand and Crazy Hand. The last fight before that is Mario and...Peach? Wouldn't Mario and Luigi make more sense?
  • Maybe it's because one's a boy and the other is a girl.
    • It seems more like the theme is just "duos," since Ryu and Ken are the second fight, and Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong are the fourth. Had "boy-girl teams" been the theme, they could've had any two of the Fire Emblem: Awakening characters for one battle, and maybe two Inklings or Wii Fit Trainers.
• So how is it that inanimate objects like power ups and vehicles were turned into spirits?
  • some religions believe everything possesses a god/spirit inside it even inanimate objects, guess they were right
• Why was Random removed from Quickplay? It's in Arena, so it's not like they didn't bother to program in a randomizer.
  • It's most likely for one of two things. First off, Quickplay has the training room while finding a match, so the game may need to pick your character for the roster for both that and the actual match, so random may give you a completely different fighter than you practiced with. Second, even if that was not an issue or easily fixable, in Battle Arenas, picking Random changes your character on a match by match basis because there's some downtime in the Arena menu for the game to do that. In Quickplay, you're either picking a character, in a loading screen, in the practice stage while finding opponents, or fighting. Less downtime for the game to change your character between matches if you wanted random to give you some variety, or you don't care for want character you got.
    • Then why didn't they do it the way 4 did it? The character assigned for the practice stage is the character you'll play as for that match. The game does not show you which character has been chosen until you get to the practice stage, and your chip remains on the Random slot for the time being. (This also means you can leave your chip on Random and it will randomly pick again for the following match.)
  • It was most likely due to complications from whether the random character qualifies for Elite Smash or not; Elite has a separate matchmaking queue from the standard queue.
• At the start of World of Light mode, every fighter is ready to face off against Galeem and his army of Master Hands without any build up like it is the final battle? How did Galeem, and his dark counterpart, Dharkon, came to be and how did it all start? Also, how did all the fighters gather together to fight this evil threat?
  • We never really get an origin of any of the original smash bosses; Master Hand, Tabuu, and now Galeem and Dharkon all just come out of nowhere, because the smash roster isn't interested in explaining the bad guys lore, just kicking his butt. As for how they gathered, there's a massive angelic Eldritch Abomination with an army of massive flying hands in the sky. Kind of hard to miss, so any hero willing to fight them would have been able to meet up pretty easy. Plus the start of Subspace implies a lot of smash fights are friendly battles for entertainment so they likely know each other.
  • We imagine the phone call to gather everyone up went like "Hey, remember that time a few years ago when we almost got killed by that weird dude who had managed to control Master Hand? Now there's an even weirder creature controlling hundreds of Master Hands, we better team-up ASAP. Call any new friends you met since then."
• So why did Dharkon not use Hades for a commanding role against Galeem instead of turning him into a spirit? The lord of the Underworld fits very well with Dharkon's army, and Hades is considered the second strongest god in Kid Icarus Uprising and not neutral as Dyntos is, he would have been a massive help for Dharkon beating Galeem, and the other characters.
  • It was Galeem that turned Hades into a spirit first. Besides, Hades isn't the type to take orders from anyone. He'd probably try to betray Dharkon to have all the power for himself.
    • Galeem did also kill every spirit and fighter on Dharkon's command as he stole them for himself. The rest of the point stands, though.
• If Mega Man 11 was announced and came out before Ultimate, why is there no content from that game in here?
  • Just because it came out before Ultimate doesn't mean Capcom gave everything to Nintendo with enough time to integrate it into Ultimate. They're separate companies and Capcom would likely not want to send its as-yet-unreleased assets to another company.
  • Development schedule started in 2015, which is why they weren't able to get Rex & Pyra/Mythra playable. Mega Man 11 came out even later than Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The game would have had to be significantly delayed or Mega Man 11 content would have to be DLC.
• So Galeem slew everyone (except Kirby) and used their trophies to build an army. The thing is that Galeem kept half of the playable characters out in the open in the World of Light which means that the other half was kept in reserve. Probably someplace safe and inaccessible that Kirby couldn't possibly reach. So how did Dharkon take the other half of the roster from Galeem??
  • It could be that upon Galeem's defeat, Dharkon took the fighters that were not on the Light Realm map and submaps from Galeem's capture, or Dharkon secretly took some of the fighters Galeem was keeping.
  • The game outright says that Dharkon took control of the spirits and fighters that were still captured after Galeem's first defeat.
• WHERE are you legs◊, Piranha Plant? No, seriously. Where are his legs? Was the option to have vines for legs not taken into consideration at all?
  • He has legs. You can see them in his running animation.
    • Adding on to this, the legs this Piranha Plant has is much more akin to the stubby legs as seen on Stalking Piranha Plants◊ and Elasto-Piranha Plants◊ than those vine legs in Mario Party.
  • It was probably decided that a potted plant was more representative and made for a more unique fighter.
• How did galeem manage to create another army if his spirits and fighters were either freed by Kirby and the others or claimed by Dharkon?
  • He may have had other spirits and fighters stashed away somewhere safe.
• Why do the Pokémon Trainers use their Ultimate renders for their Fighter Spirits instead of their official artwork from FireRed and LeafGreen? Did they just have something against using Ken Sugimori's artwork considering the artwork for the other Pokemon Spirits or something?
  • It's likely to do with both legal issues and consistency. The Pokémon Company is very stingy when it comes to representation in Smash, and it seems wanting it to be represented at its most generic status rather than it to be tied to specific instalments like other characters do, and Sugimori's artwork has drastically changed over the years. Just compare Red in the first game to the Let's Go! protagonists and you'll see the difference. It's the most likely reason why with Detective Pikachu and the Let's Go Spirits exception, all the other Pokémon use Dream artwork, being the most uniform and generic they could find. As a result, restriction to no Sugimori artwork made them have to use their Ultimate renders.
    • The "legal issues" aspect makes sense, but the "consistency" aspect is kinda irrelevant because characters like Ridley and Wolf have Fighter Spirits artwork that don't even match their Ultimate appearances.
    • Ridley and Wolf's designs are amalgams from multiple appearances, are both fully owned by Nintendo and are from franchises mostly restricted solely to video games. Pokémon is a multimedia empire that can be recognised by most people around the world, gamers or not, and that has multiple owners (Nintendo, Game Freak, Creatures Inc.). That's the difference, it's easier to use whatever artwork they want with those Nintendo has no shared ownership of, and that more casual fans won't know from where they come from, than one of the largest franchises at global scale, where they might want to be as consistent as possible with the artwork to make the brand be at its most generic and recognisable state.
• How come that despite Dr. Wily being an assist trophy, he doesn't appear at all in his spirit battle?
  • Because said Assist Trophy has a spirit fight of his own where he appears.
• If Galeem doesn't actually need the Smashers or Spirits to make Puppet Fighters...why bother with his World-Wrecking Wave at all?
  • Because he still needs to analyze the Smashers in order to make Puppet Fighters based off of them. Additionally, the Puppet Fighters made from pure light are Action Bombs when directly defending Galeem and are significantly less powerful when they appear on their own. It's likely that the solidified puppet bodies require Spirits to pilot them, meaning Galeem needs at least the Spirits to maintain the power of his army.
• How does Toon Link manage to be the fastest of all the Links with those stubby little legs of his? Toon Physics?
• After going solo in the previous title, the Charizard once again tagging out with the Pokemon trainer's Squirtle and Ivysaur in SSB Ultimate like they were doing in Brawl. So then why is Zero-suit Samus still a separate character from her armored counterpart like in Smash 4 rather than going back to alternating between both armored and Zero-suit mode?
  • Because of the "Everyone is Here!" tagline. Pokémon Trainer can't return without Charizard being reincorporated in the team as his whole concept is to have different Pokémon to fight with, and Sakurai has the principle to not change the movesets of characters too drastically to alienate people who mained them in previous entries, so replacing it with another Pokémon would've been a no. Zero Suit Samus works much better as a solo character as in Brawl she had a much different moveset that didn't turn her into her Power Suited self unless she did her Final Smash; and unless you knew of button combinations that aren't mentioned in-game, you could only use ZSS after waiting for a Smash Ball to appear and be lucky to use it, which is tedious and makes her being separate to be more convenient.
• Spirit battles are you fighting puppet fighters controlled by spirits, but how do the battles take place as in, how does your character and puppet fighters get there?
  • Teleporters, warp stations.... maybe they just walked?
• In both King K. Rool and Banjo & Kazooie's trailers, why was Meta Knight chosen as Kirby's "rival" instead of King Dedede? King Dedede was always better known as Kirby's arch-rival ever since the very first Kirby game, and he's still considered as such as recent as Kirby Star Allies, which has his introduction splash screen call him "His Royal Nemesis". Sure, Kirby has fought Meta Knight countless times before, but his reputation as a rival to Kirby is nowhere near the same level as Dedede's. Sure, Dedede plays another role in K. Rool's trailer by disguising himself as the reptilian king, but considering that the whole "heroes vs. villains slideshow" was just a show being watched by the Kongs^note Not to mention that in BK's trailer, the Kongs and K. Rool are watching the same show again, now with a newly added scene with them in it, that's not really a strong enough excuse for Dedede's exclusion.
• There was an Online Tourney called Heroes Vs. Villains, in which only heroic or villainous fighters could be selected. However, Donkey Kong (as well as Diddy Kong) and Kirby were strangely unavailable during the event, despite both of their series' antagonists being selectable (King K. Rool for the former, Meta Knight and King Dedede for the latter). While one could argue that either Meta Knight or Dedede could be chosen as the Kirby hero, Dedede was previously put on the villains side in a cross-promotional Splatoon 2 Splatfest and Meta Knight is outright paired with the villains in the event's promotional picture◊, so it's unlikely that either of them are supposed to be on the heroes' side for this event.
• Why doesn't using Inkling's weapons on invisible enemies mark them, thus making them visible. This is a pretty common tactic when fighting invisible enemies in any media, so why doesn't it work here?
  • Game balance, obviously. It would make Inkling too strong against invisible puppet fighters.
• In Terry's trailer featuring other SNK characters attempting and failing to claim the flying invitation, Geese Howard tries to grab it by leaping off the roof, only to fall to his death. Even if he did grab it via this method, exactly what was he planning to do then?
  • He was planning to survive the fall. It wouldn't be the first time.
  • If he receives it, he'll vanish in a flash of light, then return back standing on the respawn platform. He'd be like any other Smash Bros. character.
• Pit accuses the Ice Climbers of cheating since its two of them at the same time. Yet, his conversations about Mario and Snake mention Brawl when it wasn't a problem. He also mentions they were kicked out of Smash as a reference to their absence in Smash 4, yet that game introduced Duck Hunt, who also work as a team. So what is Pit complaining about?
  • It's possible that Pit had a problem with them back then, it's just that it wasn't commonly seen as a problem back then by the other fighters. When Pit mentioned how the Ice Climbers got cut for illegal teaming, it's likely that the in-game reasoning was actually due to infamous tactics often associated with the Ice Climbers such as wobbling in Melee and chain grabbing in Brawl, something that neither Duck Hunt nor Rosalina/Luma are capable of doing.
  • While Rosalina is barely a problem in terms of gameplay, Duck Hunt is a duo fighter that isn't a Puppet Fighter, which is is something the Ice Climbers pioneered in fighting games.
• In Spirit Battles with an ally, where did the ally come from?
• Spirit Battles against Assist Trophies (not battles that have a hostile Assist Trophy), if the Assist Trophy is fighting you, who's controlling the puppet?
  • Your school bully. Yes they're even trying to ruin your relaxing game of smash!
• Roy's Classic Mode involves fighting characters that wield swords. However, the only exception is the boss at the end, where he fights Master Hand (and Crazy Hand on 7.0 or higher). Why does he fight the hands instead of Ganon, who wields 2 swords?
  • As another page pointed out, he's not fighting characters that use swords. His opponents are using legendary swords or are otherwise special. Note that he doesn't fight any Mii Swordfighters.
• Why do you fight Ryu on Battlefield when you unlock him through Smash matches or Classic Mode instead of Suzaku Castle? I know he is unlocked on Suzaku Castle's Omega form in World of Light, so doesn't it seem a bit weird?
• Why are the Ice Climbers and Duck Hunt music in the Others section, while Game and Watch has its own section despite having the same number of tracks?
  • Ice Climber and Duck Hunt were one-shot (no pun intended) games, while Game & Watch was a whole series.
• What will happen to Min Min's Spirit Battle once she is released as a playable character? Will her battle be replaced, or will it still remain there albeit edited?
  • It's exactly the same. Pyra and Mythra have the same situation.
• While we could chalk this up to Acceptable Breaks from Canon (Min Min spends half the trailer as an unassuming waitress), how is Min Min able to walk around with normal arms and eyes without her mask? According to ARMS lore, once you get the genetic mutation, it's permanent and the ARMS gained from it are uncontrollable without a mask.
  • Smash content doesn't always reflect the source's lore and has also created its own content.
• For fighters with other characters as pallet swaps, (Bowser Jr., Robin, Corrin, Wii Fit Trainer, Villager), how are they freed when you only fought the original.
• Why is it that Ganondorf has both a fighter battle and a boss encounter, but Bowser only has an encounter via Giga Bowser?
• Does anyone else feel like some of the spirits should have different effects? For instance, Mia, Mist and Sharla should have Autoheal because their stats indicate that they heal their teammates in their game and Snorlax should have the Weight Up effect instead of giving resistance to Strong Winds.
  • There's a lot of discrepancies between spirits and their source material or primary spirits who don't have an ability when they should since the effect is in the game like Napalm Man not having the "Fire & Explosion Attack Up" ability. Also, Snorlax is a support spirit while "Weight Up" is only for primaries.
• So, if there's a Cat Princess Peach spirit in the game, why does scanning the Cat Peach Amiibo result in the Amiibo be treated as a regular Peach Amiibo instead of just handing you the spirit?
  • Cat Peach is only obtained by summoning and does not possess any Spirit Battle (Inkling's Squid form also applies here). Therefore, it cannot obtained by any regular means. Spirits like Waluigi, Tom Nook & Pikmin, which have amiibos that grant spirits can all be earned in normal conditions.
• What is the In-Universe reason that Pyra and Mythra got invited to Smash instead of their Driver Rex? Is it because they're the Aegis; being special Blades that is much capable of doing much more than regular Blades. Judging from Rex's comment about how thought that he was going to be in Smash, it would've meant that Rex would be able to fight alongside the Aegis by his side (Which is something Sakurai originally had plans before choosing the Blades as the playable character).
• How come all the third party fighters (sans Cloud and Sephiroth) were absent from Sora's reveal trailer? Did Disney mandate that they couldn't be used or something?
  • The Trailer plays out as Sora coming from the Disney Universe and making his way into the Nintendo universe. It makes the whole handshake at the end symbolic, as it does not applies to Mario and Sora but to extent to their respective companies as well.
• Why does Morgana appear in the background of Mementos (in his van form), when he already appears whenever Joker taunts? Wouldn't it make sense to not have Morgana only show up in background, rather than both?
• So they introduced a new term for clones called "Echo Fighters", which don't really hide the fact that their movesets and how they function are derived from an existing character. Dark Pit and Lucina are now referred to as "Echo Fighters", but what's preventing Dr. Mario from being one? Are Wolf and Ganondorf now so different that they're no longer clones, and thus, no longer counted as Echo Fighters?
  • Dark Pit and Lucina are definitely the most derivative of the Echo Fighters. Dr. Mario is notably heavier and slower, and his down special is different from Mario's. Ganondorf has different regular attacks from Captain Falcon, and some of his specials have different properties. Most of Wolf's attacks have notable differences from Fox's, and Falco, who's more like Fox, also has some notable differences, like his jab combo and Reflector.
  • They just blanketly made everyone before smash 4 not an echo fighter. If they said that Dr. Mario was an echo fighter of Mario, they would have to admit that Roy is an echo fighter of Marth and Young Link is an echo fighter of Link, and it make the numbering even more confusing.
• Why is Chrom still in Robin's Final Smash, despite how he's now playable in Ultimate? Wouldn't that confuse anyone to see 2 Chroms on screen (especially since the non-playable Chrom is always with his default colors), or rather, a non-playable Chrom beating up another Chrom?
  • Simple. The fighters are all toys. The Chrom in Robin's Final Smash is the product of the child's imagination, whereas the playable Chrom is just a toy.
• Soooo...how exactly would Ridley's Final Smash work if he was fighting against Samus? Who's driving the gunship in that case?
  • The Etecoons and Dachoras.
  • Alfonzo?
  • The Adam A.I.?
  • One possibility is that Samus knows how dangerous Ridley is, so she has her Gunship waiting in the wings on autopilot just in case she (if Zero Suit) or Ridley decide to unleash a Final Smash (in Ridley's case, to save whoever becomes the Final Smash's victim). Unfortunately, her ship's A.I. Is a Crapshoot, so if Ridley uses his Final Smash, the Gunship fails to save the Final Smash's victim.
  • And another thing: What happens if both normal and Zero Suit Samus are in a fight and Ridley uses his Final Smash on either Samus?
    • That question brings up the hilarious mental image of Ridley using his Final Smash immediately after Zero Suit Samus uses hers (which calls the Gunship in to shoot her enemies), which would neatly explain what the Gunship is doing there. Sadly, if Final Smashes work like they did in the last two installments (only one Smash Ball/Final Smash-ready character on the stage at a time), this can't ever happen.
    • Indeed, only one Final Smash can be active at a time.
    • Not anymore, thanks to the new Final Smash Meter mode, which can allow multiple Final Smashes ready (but still not usable) at the same time, so this scenario CAN happen.
  • This also brings up another scenario in which (Zero Suit) Samus and Ridley are on the same team and he proceeds to use his Final Smash and destroy it. Wouldn't she be a little teed off at him destroying her ship?
    • He's Ridley. He wants to see Samus suffer even if she's on his side.
• Related to the above, Fox and Falco's Final Smashes involve them getting in their Arwings and joining Team Star Fox (Peppy and Slippy) in obliterating the enemy. But if they're both in the fight, then who's in the fourth Arwing?
  • R.O.B. 64?
• What was up with the intro to Piranha Plant's reveal trailer? I want to say it’s supposed to be a reference, but I honestly don’t get it.
  • It was presented like that to build tension and suspense, and to make the actual reveal all the more surprising. Not really a reference to anything as far as I know.
• Spirits. In the Nov. 1st Direct, it's said Spirits are those who have lost their physical form. But, some Spirits are also Assist Trophies, such as Starfy. How can that be? Assist Trophies are corporeal, aren't they? I know, Spirits are kind of replacements for trophies, but it's still explicitly explained what Spirits are, so it doesn't make sense... and what makes even less sense is that Super Sonic is a spirit as well, even though Sonic very much has a physical form.
  • What was said in the Direct was probably lore for the sake of lore, and really doesn't mean much. All the fighters have a spirit (though you can't use them).
  • If Galeem (and maybe Dharkon, though it's less clear with him) is the one creating the spirits... then how in the hell did he and Dharkon become spirits (at least in the true ending)?
    • It's never been stated it's something unique to them. Even so, they were seen dying, and spirits are souls with no body. Alternatively it's just a completion bonus and it isn't meant to connect to the established lore.

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