Super Smash Bros / Tropes A to D

Tropes A to D | Tropes E to M | Tropes N to Z

A

• 100% Completion:
  • So, you've played throughout the extensive Subspace Emissary, unlocked all the secret characters… or have you? Did you remember to backtrack to that hidden room to fight (and defeat) Wolf? Or Jigglypuff? How about Toon Link? After that, there's 544 trophies to find, and after that, 700 stickers to collect! What's worse, one of the trophies can only be found by collecting all 700 stickers! What's even worse is that they all randomly drop!! Completionists will be foaming at the mouth before long…
  • For Melee, Brawl, SSB4, and Ultimate, true 100% completion would involve getting all the possible Notices/Milestones. In the games before Ultimate, one of these is only obtained by playing a million matches. If you treat both versions of SSB4 as one game and try to get 100% completion on both, that's two million matches you'll have to play. You'd better have a lot of spare time. Ultimate toned it down to fifty thousand matches, but it's still quite a while until you get the Milestone.
• Achievement Mockery: Earlier installments^note the original and Melee deduct points from your score for things such as dropping items^note Butterfingers, blowing yourself up with bombs or capsules^note Bob-Ombs Away, taking cheap shots^note Cheap Shot, and making no attempt to recover after being knocked off the stage^note Quitter.
• Achievement System: The "Challenges" grid in Brawl, 3DS/Wii U, and Ultimate, which was originally used in Kirby Air Ride and later in Kid Icarus: Uprising. The player can view the details of any achievement that is adjacent to one already obtained^note horizontally only in Brawl, horizontally and vertically in 3DS/Wii U (but can obtain any one at any time; the game will notify them before returning to the character select screen or menu); each one usually provides a Cosmetic Award like a new trophy or music for their in-game collection, though a few will unlock stages. The player also receives a few "hammer" items to bypass a given Challenge and unlock its reward directly, but a few Challenges cannot be hammered. In 3DS, the challenges are divided into three sets of 35 challenges, while Wii U puts all 140 of its challenges on one screen. Ultimate splits up the achievements into categories, and forgoes the grid system for irregularly-shaped panels with all the objectives revealed right away, besides some Adventure achievements that would spoil elements of the story. 3DS, Wii U, and Ultimate also provide a picture with each earned achievement.
• Achilles' Heel: The damsels of their own series who are in these games (Peach, Zelda, Palutena) are lighter than their respective male saviors and kidnappers. This rather accurately (if unintended) makes some "kidnapping" items that are affected by weight such as the beetles take the damsels away faster and more efficiently than said males who either kidnap or save them (for example All versions of Links even the children are heavier than Zelda so said items would take Zelda away faster and give the player less time to escape, same with Peach to Mario and Palutena with either Pit).
• Acrofatic: Bowser, King Dedede and King K. Rool are surprisingly mobile for their weight. Special mention goes to Wario, who, despite his obesity, has one of the fastest aerial accelerations. Somewhat amusingly despite being more fit than anyone listed it is Gannondorf who looks and plays like a traditional heavyweight.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Snake's Japanese voice actor is also the son of Eggman's Japanese voice actor; Snake not liking Sonic makes a bit more sense in Japan but a whole lot less in any other country due to the fact that the VAs in English (who carry over to the other Western language versions of Brawl) are different.
  • Otacon's Japanese voice actor voiced Captain Falcon in the F-Zero anime. So he did get to use the Falcon Kick, too.
• Action Commands: The "Smooth Landing"/"L-Canceling" mechanic in the first two installments qualifies as this, albeit with an unusual reward. By hitting the shield button in the middle of an aerial normal before hitting the ground, your landing lag will be reduced.
• Adaptational Badass: Many characters were non combative in their home games.
  • Fox and Captain Falcon were the first to display this. Back in the days of the first game, there were mostly shown as pilots in their home games, with Captain Falcon only seeing action in a comic, and Fox only using fire weaponry in his Star Fox 64 multiplayer, with their movesets in Smash being fully original full of hand-to-hand martial arts moves and pyrokinesis. The same applies to Falco and Wolf, whose movesets are derived from Fox and share the same lack of direct combat circumstances.
  • Some Pokémon, namely Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Squirtle and Ivysaur, are still unevolved Pokémon with less than impressive stats in their home games, while in Smash they're all capable fighters. Especial mention goes to Pichu, a baby Pokémon who hurts itself and was in fact a Joke Character in Melee, whereas in Ultimate, it has been tremendously buffed to not be a joke anymore.
  • Ness to an extent, while he was never a slouch in his home game, his kit was more specialized in healing, unlike how in Smash only one of his moves focuses on self-healing. The same applies to Lucas.
  • Zelda, who becomes a Kung-Fu Wizard, as well as Palutena, who steps into the battlefield unlike in her games.
  • Albeit Rosalina is a non-combatant in the Galaxy games, she was a playable character in Super Mario 3D World who could clear the game like any other. The Lumas on the other hand were never seen in combat previously.
  • The Ice Climbers display a number of moves they never had in their original game, most notable bring cryokinesis.
  • Roy is an interesting example, in that, while the main Lord of his game, he's a particularly mediocre unit until very late in his game, and even in his debut in Melee he's considered low tier. Come Ultimate, he's got a number of buffs that make him considered one of the best characters in the game.
  • While Pac-Man is by no means uncapable of fighting in some of his games, here he's able to summon various elements from Namco's arcade games.
  • The most notable characters in this regard might be R.O.B., Mr. Game & Watch, Duck Hunt, Wii Fit Trainer, Villager and Isabelle, who in their respective games are: a real life toy, normal people thrown into weird situations, a duck to be shot and a dog that laughs at the player if they miss, a fitness instructor, a village inhabitant living their daily life and a secretary for the town's mayor. Here, they all can go toe to toe against trained warriors and gods.
  • The Zero Suit in the Metroid games tends to be seen in only cutscenes, and in its debut, was confined to a stealth section. Zero Suit Samus in Smash is the opposite: she's a much faster and aerodynamic version of Samus who has been seen more competitively favorable since her debut. Her gun was also called an useless emergency pistol, while Smash also turns it into an energy whip.
  • Piranha Plants are for the most part stationary mooks who stay in place and either bite or spit either poison or fire. The one in Smash can not only move freely, but it can use various attacks from many of its sub-species.
  • Joker is another interesting case, while no slouch in his game, his moveset in Smash make him rely more on close melee combat than relying on various Personas. This also goes for Arsene, as an initial Persona, he has mediocre stats and is encouraged to be disposed of quickly; here he boosts Joker's moveset when summoned, and even allows him to access skills he couldn't in his original game.
• Adaptational Skill: Characters that can't swim in their games of origin such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Charizard are just as capable of swimming as any other character. This becomes downplayed in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate where these characters now take constant damage whenever they are swimming.
• Adaptational Wimp: On the other hand, some characters have been stripped of their abilities:
  • Ganondorf is the prime example, while in his series he's a powerful warlock and also a master swordsman, as well as a competent trident user, he was introduced in Melee as a last minute Moveset Clone of Captain Falcon, relegating him to pure physical attacks, that are very powerful, but so slow they're easy to punish.
  • Dark Samus also has this stemming from being a Moveset Clone. In her series, she is the Metroid Prime, a being that spread Phazon throughout the galaxy. Her playable version in Ultimate is an Echo Fighter of Samus, thus her moveset is identical to her but with electricity effects to simulate Phazon.
  • This also applies to some weaknesses and elemental properties from the characters original appearances; for example, Greninja as a Dark-type Pokémon, is immune to Psychic attacks in its home game, whereas in Smash it can be attacked by Mewtwo, Ness or Lucas with no issue. Another example is Marth, Lucina and Chrom's blade Falchion, which in Fire Emblem titles, is a weapon designed to slay dragons and thus deals more damage to them, whereas in Smash it doesn't gives any more damage to the dragons in the roster, such as Ridley or Corrin, than it does to other combatants.
• Affirmative Action Girl:
  • The roster has worked to improve the gender ratio (from only Samus to more than a dozen female characters), and it shows. Special mention goes to Villager, Robin, Corrin, and Wii Fit Trainer, as you can play as either the male or female versions of these characters.
  • Ultimate not only brings Nana back, but adds female alts for Pikachu and Pokémon Trainer and adds one for Pichu. Similar to Villager, the Inklings can also come in male and female variants. And albeit she's sharing her spot with Banjo, Kazooie can count as well. And as with Kazooie, Downloadable Content also adds female Byleth, Min Min, Alex, Pyra and Mythra to the list.
• Aggressive Play Incentive: In Coin Battles, players drop Smash Coins whenever they get hit by an attack. Whoever has the most Smash Coins at the end of the battle wins. This means that even in a free-for-all, you have to get up close to the fight to collect coins — you can't just stay away from the chaos and spam long-range attacks and/or wait for your opponents to defeat each other.
• A.I. Breaker:
  • It varies from game to game, but generally, the AI will at least occasionally walk into very slow and powerful attacks that players would be unlikely to, at least not in one-on-one situations. The Home Run Bat swing and the chargeable neutral special attack of most Fire Emblem characters are especially effective. 3DS/Wii U has an equipment attribute that can cause your fighter to become invincible for a few seconds if you are the first to do damage, and the AI doesn't treat you as invincible if you get this.
  • In Melee, there are a number of ways to get level 9 CPUs stuck in indefinite loops where they'll repeat the same action/movement over and over until interrupted. Some of these loops will involve them killing themselves, such as Luigi on Mushroom Kingdom 2, Fox on Jungle Japes, and Roy on Jungle Japes (the lattermost example resulting in CPU Roy being able to kill himself 98 consecutive times). Surprisingly, level 8 and 7 CPUs won't get stuck in these loops, only level 9s.
  • The A.I. in all Smash games tends to have difficulty navigating any stage geometry that isn't a simple flats + plats, as well as properly recognising and avoiding stage hazards. This has resulted in three famous videos of a player beating all the level 9 Melee CPUs by doing nothing, and later replicating it in ''SSB4'' and ''Ultimate'' despite the significantly improved AI. They also struggle when it comes to navigating large stages, often taking weird paths, getting stuck in loops, and accidentally killing itself over and over.
  • Due to a glitch in Wii U, playing on a specific type of custom stage^note only flat platforms with lava on the undersides causes the A.I. to do absolutely nothing. This was fixed in Patch 1.1.3
• Airborne Aircraft Carrier: The Halberd and the Great Fox.
• The All-Seeing A.I.:
  • Assisting items that block the screen, such as the Nintendog and Togepi, have no effect on the A.I.. They are also unphased by Interface Screws that get thrown at you. This was supposed to be averted in 3DS/Wii U^note in his description of the Nightmare assist trophy, which blacks out the stage, Sakurai notes that "Blinding and reversal effects even make the computer players mess up.", but in the final game, the AI remains unhindered by these interface screws.
  • The AI knows the exact location of every item that spawns, even if it isn't visible to the player. Some items make a distinct noise when they spawn, but most of them don't. 3DS/Wii U tones this down by zooming out the screen for a moment whenever a powerful item appears.
  • In Smash Run on 3DS, enemies with long-range attacks will see, aim at, and hit you from outside the player's field of vision on the screen.
• Alternate Company Equivalent:
  • PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is Sony's answer to Smash, as a multiplayer Platform Fighter featuring characters from its biggest franchises.
  • Disney Infinity is part Smash and part Skylanders. While the gameplay is similar to Skylanders, the game is also reminiscent of Smash as a Massive Multiplayer Crossover of its respective company's biggest franchises, with the characters depicted as Living Toys^note although Infinity takes this concept even further than Smash, in that the characters are clearly shown to be animate toys and don't transform/translate to depictions of the "real" characters and summonable in-game using NFC figures (which is also similar to Skylanders).
• Alternate Universe: As heavily implied and speculated for years and confirmed by Iwata, Smash Bros. is a series of imaginary battles between toy versions of the Smash characters (dolls or trophies). This trope applies in that the characters appear as regular living beings most of the time, so the Smash universe as depicted in-game seems to be a tangible fictional universe created via imagination, with the figures "translating" to imagined versions of the real characters (as shown further in Fire Emblem Fates) and, in some cases, possibly being the real characters (like the Kid Icarus cast).
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield:
  • Final Destination, in all games, has swirling and generally trippy backgrounds.
  • Battlefield, in the first two games, was more trippy and abstract in appearance in contrast to the more natural theming in the games afterwards.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Invoked in 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate, where most characters that aren't carrying weapons will have their arm and leg positions mirrored when they turn around so that their chest and face are always turned towards the camera, unlike the previous games where they would simply rotate and have their back turned.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore:
  • The original Japanese name for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is Super Smash Bros. Special, and it sounds more tame in comparison.
  • Zig-zagged. Kirby himself was not changed for Brawl's American release. Instead, the bright blue sky from the Japanese◊ and European versions of the box art◊ was removed, leaving the starburst-esque light in the background taking up the entire box◊.
  • Inverted with Kirby in Wii U. His American Punch-Out!! arena alias is "The Pink Puffball", while the Japanese and European aliases are "Pink Demon"^note translated, of course and "Gritty in Pink", respectively.
  • Lucina is portrayed as more arrogant and overconfident through her quotes in the English dub, which is quite unlike the Japanese version and her original appearance in Fire Emblem: Awakening. Unlike with most examples, it's unknown whether this was for marketing purposes or a simple translation error; the fact that her personality in her and Robin's reveal trailer is closer to canon implies the latter.
• Anachronism Stew: In 3DS/Wii U's All-Star Mode, players fight each playable character in order (or in Wii U's case, reverse order) of their original games' release. However, some characters have alternate costumes that turn them into different characters that were introduced at different times, but this doesn't affect their placement in the stage, resulting in the Koopalings appearing much later in the timeline than they should in place of Bowser Jr., and Alph appearing earlier than he should in place of Olimar.
• And the Rest: Mega Man 1, 2, and 3 have individual Medleys in Wii U's soundtrack, but Mega Man 4 through 6 share one. Mega Man 7 and beyond are completely skipped. In Ultimate, 4 gets its own medley while still sharing the old one with 5 and 6.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: In 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate, you can win outfits to customize your Mii with.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • In Brawl, an alternate option to unlocking all of the characters was to simply play through The Subspace Emissary.
  • In 3DS, unlocking all the secret characters through the "# of Versus Mode matches played" method is far more lenient than in Melee or Brawl, where you'll have all of the secret characters unlocked by 120 matches, with a secret challenger appearing every 10 matches until then. For comparison, unlocking all of Brawl's secret characters through Versus Mode matches alone would have taken 450 matches, while in Melee it would have taken 1000 matches to unlock everyone. Its Wii U counterpart is similar, only you need to do 100 matches instead of 120 (due to some characters already being unlocked by default).
  • In previous games, there was no indicator of how much ammo an item had, meaning you could leave yourself vulnerable by firing a weapon that was empty. In the fourth game onwards, if players try to fire a weapon that's out of ammo, the character will automatically throw it instead (unless you are rapid-firing a Super Scope).
  • Ordinarily, multiplayer modes have no challenges associated with them, so all unlockable content can be obtained by a single player. In 3DS, several challenges involve playing StreetSmash (a StreetPass-based minigame). This may sound annoying for someone who doesn't live in a StreetPass-friendly area, but it's possible to obtain all of them simply by playing against the CPU.
  • Two stages in 3DS are unlocked simply by using certain characters' respective Final Smashes. This also works in Training Mode, where one can just spawn a Smash Ball and destroy it while unhindered by the CPU.
  • In the Home-Run Contest minigame, several characters are modified. Olimar starts out with three Purple Pikmin, the most powerful of the bunch. This is already the maximum amount in 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate, but in Brawl, he can use Pikmin Pluck to get three more. Joker starts with Arsene, which would normally require filling his Rebellion Gauge. Most randomized attacks, such as Peach's turnips and Mr. Game & Watch's Judge, are guaranteed to have a certain outcome, so players don't need to keep restarting until they get the ideal result from them.
  • If you're playing Smash Run as Olimar and the minigame for that session is either the racing minigame or the climbing minigame, Olimar starts out with no Pikmin within that mode so his "Winged Pikmin" Special will have maximum effectiveness from the get-go.
  • In 3DS/Wii U's All-Star Mode, Little Mac's KO Punch and Mr. Game and Watch's Judgement #9 will do minimal damage and knockback if used by the CPU to prevent cheap deaths. A few stages are also modified; for example, WarioWare, Inc. will never enter microgames and Luigi's Mansion is unable to be destroyed.
  • After clearing Classic or All-Star in 3DS/Wii U, you have to reveal a picture by hitting credit names. If over 80% is revealed, then the unrevealed areas will flash; if over 90% is revealed, then the unrevealed areas will give off sparks. If you're close to completion but don't quite make it, the entire picture is revealed anyway; if you reach 99%, the game will round it up to 100%.
  • The Soccer Ball (or Football in the European version of 3DS/Wii U) is an Improvised Weapon in the game that you don't pick up, but instead launch at opponents using strong attacks. It's programmed as of 3DS/Wii U to automatically respawn itself if it gets knocked off the stage until it expires for real just so that it's readily available.
  • When fighting a character to unlock them for the first time, their AI is set to high levels and can be difficult to beat. To make up for this, whenever you fail a character-unlock match, their AI will be set to a lower level each time you rematch them. Even more, you don't have to go through the method to unlock them to fight them again — just play a regular match, and the winner will face the foe.
  • In the fourth game, losing a match in Classic Mode reduces the difficulty by .5 of the Intensity scale. However, this may be subverted depending on your playstyle: For those who genuinely need the step-down and are testing their ability against higher difficulty levels, this is a helpful way of meaning you don't have to re-make all your progress. On the other hand, those who can generally play on 9.0 Intensity but make occasional slips may feel penalized by the forced difficulty decrease. Also, for each integer of Intensity added, the final boss gains an extra form — so if you want to see them all, you have to set Intensity to as high as possible and then lose at most two matches against the hardest computer setting, including the final boss' various forms that all have very strong, very hard-to-dodge attacks.
  • If someone is sufficiently far behind from Brawl onward, there's a chance that they might respawn with a Final Smash ready to use.
  • In the fourth game, modes like Crazy Orders and All-Star will usually punish you for failing by taking away some of your rewards. However, if you fail early in the mode, you'll keep any of the rewards you've earned. This is particularly useful if you've earned a rare CD or a custom move you've sought after.
  • You don't have to own a particular DLC character in order to use their corresponding amiibo figure, avoiding the need to pay again if you just want to play with your newly gained amiibo figure, but have yet to buy their corresponding DLC.
  • In 4, if a timed match is close to ending, Screen and Star KOs no longer activate, preventing a scenario where players could unfairly fail due to the length of them when they themselves are plummeting to their dooms.
  • In Ultimate, all Final Smashes have been streamlined to keep matches fast-paced. To name a few examples: Pikachu and Wario's Final Smashes have them attacking automatically; Fox and Falco's Landmasters are retired in lieu of a cinematic attack by the Star Fox team; and Donkey Kong's Final Smash replaces his bongos with Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs.
  • In Ultimate, to mitigate stalling and keep up the pace of combat, ground dodging now decays with repeated use, like moves. The more times you dodge in a row, the longer the dodge animation takes and the less invulnerability the dodge gives you.
  • In Ultimate, if any character is offscreen, a minimap now appears at the corner of the screen that displays the current location of all fighters on the field.
  • Also in Ultimate, Charged Attacks can now be charged in the air, and all charges can now be jump cancelled.
  • In Ultimate, characters with specific gauges and unique mechanics, like Cloud's Limit Break, Villager's Pocket, or Robin's weapon durability, will now always display a character-specific icon next to their damage that displays relevant information.
  • Ultimate alters Monado Arts so that you can now pick a specific Art right away by pressing a direction after triggering Monado Arts.
  • In Ultimate, Ryu, Ken, Terry, and Kazuya always face their opponent in a 1-on-1 match like they would in Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, and Tekken, making it much easier to use Input Specials.
  • Using PK Thunder in Ultimate now shows a trajectory arrow next to Ness or Lucas that tells you where the attack will fire you if you hit yourself with it.
• Anti-Rage Quitting: 3DS and Wii U have rules that can disqualify you from playing online such as targeting a single player, idling, and disconnecting during a match. Players are banned for a minimum of 10 minutes and can go higher.
• Anti-Trolling Features: Games which use online play can stop people from going online if they engage in trolling behavior. This includes targeting the same player over and over, idling after getting into a match, and repeatedly disconnecting one's connection during online play. Ultimate expanded this to include repeatedly self-destructing during matches as well. Players are banned for a minimum of ten minutes, though this can go higher if the trolling was especially egregious or they continue to engage in such behavior.
• Arbitrary Mission Restriction: Some of the challenges in the series fall into this sort of thing — some challenges are even the same as other challenges, but with even more restrictions. For instance, in Wii U, one challenge is to clear All-Star mode on normal difficulty or above without healing; another challenge is to clear All-Star mode on normal or above without healing while playing as Captain Falcon.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Pit is revealed to be one if you are to use Palutena's Guidance on Ness due to him saying "Isn't [the supernatural] kinda unscientific?" in response to Palutena explaining to him that "[PSI, Ness's power,] is a general term for supernatural abilities". Of course, Palutena calls him out on it by explaining that several of the powers she grants Pit can be considered supernatural abilities as well.
• Arrange Mode:
  • Since Melee, there has been the "Special Smash", which allows you to switch on or off certain conditions for fights, like the size of the fighters, the speed of the fight, and inflicting permanent conditions like the Flower debuff or the Metal Box. Since Brawl, these switches are stackable, so you can have multiple modifications on, like a "Stamina Flower Smash" or a "Mega Flower Tail Curry Heavy Slow Angled Smash".
  • In Coin Battles, in Melee and Brawl, when fighters are hit, coins of different denominations are produced when any attack hits a fighter. The goal is to collect as many coins before the time runs out. KO'd players will lose half of their coin cache, and a shower of coins will be expelled from the blast zone.
  • Stamina Battles, also introduces in Melee, instead of KO'ing a character when they get blasted off the blast zone, KO a character when they lose all their HP, turning Smash into a more prototypical fighting game. Notably, in Ultimate, this mode was moved out of the Special Smash, and turned into a standard game rule alongside the Time and Stock matches.
  • 3DS has Smash Run, a mode where you traverse a large map with enemies for five minutes. Killing enemies and doing certain challenges rewards you with stat boosts to speed, jump, attack, special, arms, and defense. During the 5 minutes, several events will occur, which range from boosting stat boosts given by enemies, to spawning enemies of a single type. After 5 minutes, all four players will participate in a final battle, which ranges from a Multi-Man Smash, to a race up a tower.
  • Wii U has the Smash Tour, which is a board game-like mode where players use Mii characters and travel across a board on a turn counter to collect fighters, stat boosts, and trophies, which can be used as items. When the turn counter runs out, the players have a final fight on Battlefield where the fighters they collected are used as the stocks. Battles can also occur in the board game segments when 2 players land on the same space or a battle space is landed on. After those battles, the winner is given the loser's last KO'd fighter.
  • Ultimate introduces the Squad Strike, more specifically the Tag Team ruleset, which is a single stock battle of either 3v3 or 5v5, where each stock is a different fighter, and when one fighter is KO'd, the next fighter/stock will be used.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Upon unlocking all characters in 3DS/Wii U, you get three consecutive notifications:
  All fighters are now available! Let the true battle begin!
  Unlocked the true All-Star solo mode! Find it in Games & More.
  Unlocked all of Kirby's copied voice clips and sounds!
• Art Evolution:
  • The series underwent a notable art style change between the original and Melee, from an exaggerated, cartoony and comic book-like style (even more so than the styles of the source materials) to a very realistic style (see Art Shift), with more realistic coloring and textures in Brawl. Compare Link's artwork in 64◊ with his artwork in ''Brawl''◊.
  • The 3DS version of the fourth game takes on a more cel-shaded/"paint"-like appearance, which, according to Sakurai, is there to make the characters easier to see on the small screen. Its Wii U big brother is realistically shaded, but has taken on a much more vibrant and colourful style, and the more cartoony characters are much closer to how they look in their source material.
  • Ultimate looks similar to Wii U on the surface, but it takes on a more subdued palette and adds additional detail to the characters, similar to Brawl. The lighting system also received an overhaul, now using much more detailed shadows and realistic material shaders.
  • Also, when a series has its art evolve, then the related Smash designs will often follow suit to match. This can be best seen with characters from Zelda (who went from Ocarina of Time to more detailed Twilight Princess designs), characters from Star Fox (who evolved from Star Fox 64 to Command and then to Zero), Marth (whose design in the fourth game matches his appearance in the DS remakes of his games^note  Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem which were released after Brawl), and Little Mac (whose Brawl Assist Trophy was based on his NES version, while his 3DS/Wii U/Ultimate appearance is based on the Wii game).
  • Lampshaded if you use Palutena's Guidance on Ike in Wii U, with Pit noticing him looking different than he remembered.
  • One character who has always been subjected to this trope is Peach, whose princess dress is always much more pimped out than in the Mario games. Daisy gets the same treatment in Ultimate.
• The Artifact:
  • Marth's Distaff Counterpart Lucina speaks English in the fourth game, yet Marth himself still speaks Japanese. This is despite Marth's game getting an international release, bringing him outside of Japan. After 3DS/Wii U, Marth's appearance in Code Name: S.T.E.A.M finally gave him an English voice actor, who provides his English voice in Ultimate.
  • The Classic modes in 3DS and (especially) Wii U are called that even though they aren't entirely "classic", as in replicas of the first game's single-player mode. Rather than progressing from one stage to the next entirely based on the whim of the computer, the player instead gets a choice of enemies to face at each round. 3DS at least keeps to similar battle themes to those in the older games (1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2, free-for-alls, giant and metal, and ending with a mass number of one fighter before the battle against the Hands), but Wii U takes things in a totally different direction, focusing more on battling against varying numbers of fighters.
  • Most pre-Brawl characters' movesets; since these characters came from earlier, less-technically advanced entries in the series with drastically smaller budgets and developmental resources, they have generally more basic designs with simpler moves, while Sakurai's hesitance in significantly changing up veterans to avoid alienating their players means such characters never get updated much and generally lack much of their new moves and abilities they gained in their own games after their Smash debut, which leaves them looking rather outdated and out of place compared to the post-Brawl newcomers that feature more complex designs and movesets alongside taking plentiful moveset/ability material up to their most recent games. Among the characters most suffering from this include Samus^note she still has an all-physical set of standard attacks despite almost never fighting hand-to-hand in her home series, in stark contrast to the almost completely far-ranged Mega-Man and Mii Gunner, while lacking a lot of her iconic abilities, the Links ^note they take very little moveset inspiration from post-OoT Zelda games, with even Link being changed to his BOTW self for Ultimate just resulted in his bombs being changed to the remote-controlled bombs, his Gale Boomerang being turned into a normal Boomerang, and losing the Clawshot, rather than an actual BOTW-based moveset overhaul, and Ganondorf^note he was a Moveset Clone of Captain Falcon in Melee as a result of a lack of development time, and while he has been substantially decloned in post-Melee entries, he is still a semi-clone that takes much of his moveset from Falcon and fights mostly as a brawler that takes little of his material from the Zelda games.
  • Bowser, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong both still use animalistic sounds in 4, despite Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings retaining their usual cartoony voices and Bowser himself looking and moving far more like he does in his home series (as opposed to his more feral stance and movements in Melee and Brawl).
  • The logos for the Fire Emblem and Xenoblade Chronicles series have become this.
    • When Fire Emblem debuted in Melee, only Marth was in the original plans, so the logo of the series was his signature sword the Falchion, and even though Roy was added as a late-development clone, prominence to Marth's games was notable by how the scrapped Fire Emblem stage would be based on his continent Archanea. Over time, more fighters from the series were introduced, some from games that didn't feature the Falchion at all (Ike, Byleth), looks radically different (the Awakening trio) or is at most minor content (Corrin).
    • When Xenoblade Chronicles debuted in the fourth title, there was only one Xenoblade Chronicles game, thus the logo was the Monado, Shulk's sword that plays a pivotal point in the plot. By Ultimate however, two more games in the series were released, one which doesn't has the Monado at all and the last where it only appears with Shulk as DLC, making Pyra and Mythra's inclusion to the roster turn the logo into this.
• Artifact Title: A number of Melee songs in SSB4 are named after the stage they were originally featured on, even when it's inaccurate to the actual games. Mostly fixed in Ultimate.
  • "Corneria" is a remix of the Venom theme from Star Fox... whereas "Venom" is a remix of the Star Fox 64 theme. Sakurai himself apologized for this one in the Pic of the Day post about it.
  • One track's name was changed to be more confusing. "Battle Theme" from Pokémon Gold and Silver (originally the alternate music for Melee's Pokémon Stadium) was renamed "Pokémon Stadium 2", despite neither being composed for the Pokémon Stadium 2 stage or technically being from the game Pokémon Stadium 2.
• Artificial Brilliance:
  • The CPUs in each game are quite proficient at grabbing people at precise times that would be difficult for human players to replicate, such as shield grabbing an opponent attacking from an underneath a platform they're on and during someone's recovery.
  • High-level AI characters from Brawl onwards who respawn within the duration of a Hammer or other powerful item will loiter on the recovery platform until it times out to avoid being hit.
  • In every installment, the CPUs are incredibly good at perfect shielding attacks. Smash 4 takes this up to another level where the CPUs have become notorious for being ridiculously good at perfect shielding near every attack.
  • In Ultimate, even level 1 AI CPU opponents will recognize when there's still a significant threat in play on the stage when they respawn, such as a player swinging around the Hammer or Golden Hammer. They'll intentionally wait for the respawn pad to disappear to save them as much time from getting hit again unless the weapon times out first.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • The Smash games are rife with this, with there being countless examples on Youtube of such, including a playlist from a player finding all the various ways the AI can be exploited, which is currently up to over 100 videos. As such, trying to cover every example would make this page massive, so here are some of the most notorious examples:
  • As described in the A.I. Breaker section, the AI in all games will have tremendous difficulty navigating any stage that isn't simple, resulting in them often killing themselves trying to reach/attack an opponent and sometimes even getting stuck in indefinite action loops. They also don't properly recognise stage hazards and will get easily hit by them regardless of their level.
  • The AI in all games have a lot of difficulty with recovery:
    • The Smash 64, the AI will do nothing offstage to defend themselves or evade edgeguarders, and if hit during their recovery, they will just fall instead of trying to use their recovery again.
    • In Melee, the AI again does nothing to defend themselves offstage, and each character is programmed to recover the same exact way every time, ignoring all alternative and recovery-boosting options. The most infamous example is CPU Luigi being programmed to just use his Green Missile during recovery, thus he will never use his Super Jump Punch and will invariably die the instant he falls below the ledge.
    • In Brawl, the AI still does nothing to defend themselves offstage outside of sometimes using their recovery move sooner to hit an edgeguarder, despite now having an air dodge that doesn't make you helpless offstage. Many characters also have glaring flaws in their recovery (such as CPU Ike, who will only use his Aether the moment he's directly below the ledge even though it gets a little horizontal distance, resulting in him usually using Aether too late or falling to his death before doing any recovery move).
    • In Smash 4, the high-level AI finally is able to defend themselves offstage. However, they do it primarily by air dodging, and will always air dodge the moment an attack is thrown their way, even if they're far/low enough offstage that air dodging will cause them to fall too low to recover.
  • CPUs in Melee will always walk towards their opponent and never dash except when going for a dash attack or dash grab, and will usually only jump if the opponent is above them. They'll also throw a single projectile out at repeated intervals during their approach, and when near the opponent, will mostly just spam jabs and grabs. They also don't properly defend themselves against moves that aren't projectiles outside a few specifically-coded exceptions, and will just walk/jump into attacks (plus they don't defend themselves when airborne, resulting in them being juggled without resistance).
  • Conversely, higher-level CPUs in Melee will always shield against projectiles (unless it's CPU Bowser, who seemingly never shields projectiles). If you can shoot a projectile fast enough (like with Fox's Blaster), they'll remain stuck in their shield until it breaks (as seen in this video that exploits it to beat The Showdown with impunity).
  • CPUs in Brawl on a Custom Stage will always go to the lowest part of the stage and fight there, regardless of how inconvenient (or worse) it may be to stick around that part of the stage. And if there's a fall-through platform over a pit with grabbable ledges, the CPUs will often try to reach the platform instead of the ledges, no matter how out of reach it is.
  • If a Brawl CPU is launched to near the upper blastline while over an elevated platform, they'll fall straight down while making no effort whatsoever to evade attacks.
  • The amiibos do not learn and adapt as advertised; instead, what happens is they alter their move choices to favor moves they hit with most often. While in theory it would result in the amiibos using moves more often that you're more vulnerable to (and thus putting up the illusion that they learn and adapt to your playstyle), it's possible for a trained-up amiibo to end up spamming the same ineffectual attack over and over if they happen to hit with it a lot during training. They'll also dumb down considerably if you try to fight on a custom stage.
  • Amiibo also have a bad habit of laser-focusing on a single character in a free-for-all match, which means they will try to walk through other opponents, guard completely open, to get to the one they're focusing on. They would also get hit by attacks they could have easily avoided, just because it was from a character they weren't targeting.
  • Even the items suffer from this. Of particular note are the Boss Galagas. They don't have any specific targeting system the same way the Spiny Shell does, and will often go for a character who is up way above the point where most characters can jump.
  • In Melee, the CPUs have a really bad habit of air-dodging at the most horrifically inappropriate times, often resulting in them self-destructing.
  • Elaborated upon in detail here.
• Artistic License – Biology: Diddy Kong is portrayed making animal noises in the Smash Bros. games, possibly for realism or Rule of Cool. However, Diddy Kong is a monkey (most monkeys have tails) that makes chimpanzee noises. Chimpanzees are apes, a group of primates (that includes humans) that do not have tails. Apes and monkeys may be both primates, but they are not closely related at all.
• Art Shift:
  • Almost every character that appears in Melee and Brawl has a level of detail miles higher than in their native series.
    • This is most perceptible with Mario characters. Mario and Luigi's overalls have highly detailed and realistic denim textures on their overalls, instead of the solid, brighter blue typically seen in their home games).
    • Compare Peach's more traditional design◊ to her Melee◊, Brawl◊, and for 3DS/Wii U◊ designs.
    • Another easy comparison is Captain Falcon's designs in F-Zero GX and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate◊. His racing suit is a dark navy rather than the normal blue color.
    • The easiest comparison is with Bowser in his home◊ games◊ and 'Super Smash Bros. Ultimate◊''. Bowser never had mustard yellow skin in any of the Mario games, and why is his hair so dark?
  • Some of the trailers used for newcomers in 3DS/Wii U have different artstyles to better represent the characters. Little Mac's used a detailed comic book style, Palutena's is done in anime style like in the Kid Icarus: Uprising shorts, Lucina and Robin's was made with the graphic style of Fire Emblem: Awakening's cutscenes (including Captain Falcon, who is from an entirely stylistically different series), and Duck Hunt's trailer begins in an 8-bit style, a la the original NES game.
  • Toon Link. His game of origin was cel-shaded, and everything from that game in Brawl (the Pirate Ship stage, the trophies, the Tingle assist trophy) is too; but Toon Link himself isn't. In Brawl's grittier, more realistic artstyle, Toon Link looks incompatible. The fourth game's change to a brighter, more colorful art style rectifies it.
• Ascended Extra:
  • The Villager from Animal Crossing was originally a spectator in Smashville.
  • Gerudo Valley was just background music in Brawl, while in 3DS and Ultimate, it is its own stage.
  • Charizard was summoned from a Poké Ball in 64 and Melee. In Brawl, he becomes a playable character alongside Squirtle and Ivysaur (summonable by the Pokémon Trainer), and in 3DS/Wii U, he's his own character.
  • Wario, Captain Olimar, King Dedede, Squirtle, Pit, and Meta Knight were just trophies in Melee, and became playable in Brawl. King K. Rool had to wait three games later (Ultimate) to join the roster.
  • King Dedede and Ridley appeared flying in the distant backgrounds of the Dream Land and Zebes stages, respectively, in the original game, and were trophies in Melee. In Brawl, Dedede becomes playable and Ridley is used as a boss. After staying a Boss/Stage Hazard in Wii U, Ridley finally joins the playable roster in Ultimate.
  • Moltres could be seen flying in the background of Saffron City in the original (albeit rarely). It's been a Poké Ball Pokémon in later games.
  • Little Mac appeared in Brawl as an Assist Trophy before becoming a playable character in 3DS/Wii U.
  • Palutena received a short, unvoiced cameo in the Subspace Emissary, and appeared in the background of Pit's Brawl Final Smash. She's a playable character as of 3DS/Wii U.
  • The ducks from Duck Hunt were only a trophy in Melee, but rise to playable status along with the dog in 3DS/Wii U.
  • The Inklings graduate from a trophy and Mii Fighter costume to playable between 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate.
  • Daisy was formerly only a palette swap for Peach before becoming a playable character in her own right (albeit an Echo of Peach) in Ultimate.
  • Chrom went from an Assist Character for Robin's Final Smash in 3DS/Wii U to his own fighter (albeit an Echo of Roy with Ike's Up B) in Ultimate.
  • Dark Samus was an Assist Trophy in 3DS/Wii U before becoming a playable character in Ultimate (as an Echo of Samus).
  • Like Dark Samus, Isabelle was only an Assist Trophy in 3DS/Wii U. She's playable in Ultimate, as a semi-clone of Villager.
  • Wolf appeared in a very brief cameo in the opening sequence for Melee before being playable in Brawl.
  • Bowser Jr. appeared as a trophy in Brawl before being playable in 3DS/Wii U.
  • Ken appeared as a trophy in 3DS/Wii U as part of Ryu's DLC pack, before becoming playable in Ultimate as Ryu's Echo Fighter.
  • Piranha Plant appeared as a stage hazard in 64, and as a trophy in Brawl and 3DS/Wii U before appearing as a DLC fighter in Ultimate, in addition to being a stage hazard again in the Mushroom Kingdom stage from 64.
  • Min Min, Pyra and Mythra all were spirits in Ultimate at launch, before being added as DLC in the second Fighters Pass.
• Ascended Meme:
  • 3DS/Wii U features an official "No items, Final Destination" mode in the online multiplayer component, titled "For Glory". Funnily enough, there's also another mode that blocks the Final Destination stage from being chosen, for those people who are sick to death of it.
  • For a while, there was a petition for Reggie Fils-Aime to be playable in Super Smash Bros. Cut to E3 2014, and the first Mii Fighter introduced is the Regginator himself.
  • The message for unlocking all custom outfits for the Mii Fighters in 3DS includes "Your body is ready!"
  • One of the random names in Wii U is "NOJOHNS" after a famous slang term used by the series' competitive community to mean "No excuses". Reggie Fils-Amie also used the phrase in one of the videos promoting the game.
  • In Bayonetta's artwork depicting the forces of light versus the forces of darkness, the Villager, long depicted as an Ax-Crazy sociopath, is shown in female form wielding an Axe on the dark side.
  • Prior to Roy's return, it was a common joke that Roy Koopa had stolen his identity. When Roy returned, he was shown to be quite hostile towards Roy Koopa in his trailer and in an image on the website.
  • For years, it was accepted as fact that Ridley would never be a playable character in Smash because he was "too big", e.g. he was so large compared to Samus that to make him playable would require scaling him down to the point that he doesn't feel as fearsome as he rightfully should. When he was finally announced to make his Smash debut in Ultimate, what was his newcomer blurb? "Ridley Hits the Big Time!"
  • The frequent comparisons of Duck Hunt to Banjo and Kazooie due to their similar style of a bird teaming up with a brown-furred animal were referenced in Banjo and Kazooie's reveal trailer in Ultimate, which is a replay of King K. Rool's trailer except that he's taking a nap at the Kong's house and the Duck Hunt duo are pretending to be Banjo and Kazooie only to get shoved away by the actual duo. Also, one of Duck Hunt's Palette Swaps used a color scheme similar but not identical to Banjo and Kazooie's, leading to fan debates on whether it was a deliberate allusion to them or just coincidental. The first round of Banjo and Kazooie's Classic Mode in Ultimate pits them against Duck Hunt with this color scheme.
• Assist Character: The Poké Balls and Assist Trophies summon Pokémon and other video game characters, respectively, to assist the character that summoned them. The assistance they provide is either attacking opponents directly as an (usually) invincible NPC, affecting the stage in some way, or summoning items. In Robin's Final Smash in 3DS/Wii U, Chrom acts as one (and he still does in Ultimate, despite being playable); Tom Nook, Timmy, and Tommy assist Villager and Isabelle in their Final Smashes.
• Ass Kicking Pose: Many of the taunts.
• Attack Backfire:
  • Ness' and Lucas' PSI Magnets absorb energy projectiles (i.e. Mario's Fireballs, Samus' Charge Shot) and heal by the amount of damage the attack would have caused.
  • Mr. Game & Watch's Oil Panic technique can also simulate this, where energy projectiles are absorbed over time in a bucket (energy-based projectiles are then converted into units of oil). When full with 3 units of oil, the bucket can dish out 2.8 times the combined damage of the absorbed attacks, resulting in an attack with high damage and knockback (capped at 200% damage in Melee and 60% damage in Brawl). The 3DS version gives him a custom version of Oil Panic that can fill instantly if hit.
  • In Melee, thanks to a glitch, if Mr. Game and Watch absorbs three fully charged PK Flashes from Ness and hits somebody's shield with it, he flies back at high speed, KOing himself if he doesn't hit a wall. However, he KO's anyone he hits, as well.
  • Villager does this exactly, plucking attacks out of the air to use against opponents. This includes attacks like Phantom Zelda. Same goes for Isabelle.
• Autobots, Rock Out!:
  • In Brawl, the Final Destination theme is a hard rock arrangement of the main theme of the game. From the same game, there's also the infamous synth metal arrangement of Kirby's "Gourmet Race".
  • The fourth installment features rock and metal arrangements much more than the OSTs from the previous games. Besides the main theme having a prominent hard rock breakdown, many of the remixes also qualify. A few examples:
    • The "Mega Man 2 Medley" is a hard rock recreation of the famous title screen and Wily Castle themes from Mega Man 2, featuring a guitar layered on top of chiptunes.
    • The "Meeting Theme Series Medley" from Fire Emblem contains a symphonic metal portion during the "Together We Ride" section of the track.
    • "Ballad of the Goddess / Ghirahim's Theme" from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword features several electric guitars playing the main melody to an orchestral backing.
    • "Ground Theme/Underground Theme (Super Mario Bros.)" doesn't seem like it's going to be this, initially sounding like a standard Mario rearrangement that would feel at place in the home series... before the underground theme portion starts and several guitars join in. The song ends with an extended guitar solo that only barely sounds like the original tune.
    • Final Destination's regular theme in 4 is a fairly standard dramatic version of the game's main theme, but in Wii U, there is also a "Ver. 2" of the song that leans on the heavy rock angle even harder than Brawl's Final Destination theme did.
• Award-Bait Song: "Calling to the Night", although as you might expect, it's a song from another game, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Any Final Smash that requires you to catch an opponent or it's wasted falls under this. They are among some of the flashiest in the game and can score knockouts at relatively low percentages, but often have very short range and can all easily go to waste if the opponent uses a well-timed dodge. It also means you have to time your usage of it, giving other players (especially ones with zoning characters) the chance to knock the Smash Ball out of you and making it easy to know when you might try and use it so they can time their dodge.
  • Special mention goes to Marth's (and later Lucina's) Final Smash. They hold their swords upwards, charge forwards rapidly, have an absurd amount of movement range, and it does 60% and an almost guaranteed kill if it lands, with a Fire Emblem health bar shown depleting as a bonus for landing it. However, if it whiffs, you will quickly discover that it the range it has is so big that the attack can easily backfire on you as it sends you to your self-destruction (especially if you used it while airborne). This is subverted if you press B again after using it, though the game doesn't explain this upfront.
  • Captain Falcon's infamous Falcon Punch is not only extremely powerful, but extremely cool, being a supercharged Megaton Punch that creates a flaming falcon and sends foes flying...but with its heavy startup and endlag, it's also really hard to use the move without it being blocked and eating a heavy punish. Later games gave Falcon the option to turn around while charging it, which can catch opponents off guard if they try to get behind you, but it has even more startup if you do this.
  • Ganondorf has his own version of the Falcon Punch, the Warlock Punch, and it is overtuned to the point of even more uselessness. KOing middle- to lightweights at 0% isn't unheard of for this powerful move, and in later games Ganon is Immune to Flinching while charging it. While Falcon's is just fast enough to catch an opponent if you predict their movements, though, Ganon's is so slow that you can predict your opponent and they'll still have time to get away. The move also belongs to a character that has no shortage of KO moves, so it's just inefficient to use the move when a charged smash attack could KO more reliably and only one or two hits' worth of percent later, at that.
  • The Miis have gained some of these moves in Ultimate;
    • Brawler's Exploding Side Kick is basically a copy of the Falcon Punch, and while it has its own attributes that make it a bit more usable than the Punch, it can also be swapped out for two far more useful specials, so it never sees serious use. Onslaught is similar, having great KO power and an Aura effect that lets it KO when you're at high percent, but it's slow to start, and it has such high endlag that if it hits a shield, you're taking a smash attack, no questions asked. When you're at high enough percent for it to KO earlier than up smash, missing the move will also get you K Oed, making it very inefficient.
    • Swordfighter has Blurring Blade and Airborne Assault, which again suffer from not only giving up more useful moves, such as the greatly-buffed Gale Strike and Chakram, but have similar speed problems. They are usable, but are generally too situational and punishable to use effectively, and leave you just as open when you miss.
• Awesomeness Meter: Smash 64 and Melee give you bonuses at the end of a match for playing in specific ways or doing certain actions; for example, scoring a knockout while standing on the revival platform. These bonuses only have value in a Bonus Mode match or in the one-player modes where they count toward your score.

B

• Background Music Override: Cloud's victory theme, the victory fanfare from Final Fantasy VII, acts in this matter, replacing the game's generic theme that usually plays after the other characters' victory themes in its entirely. Same goes for Joker and the Persona result screen tunes.
• Badass Adorable: Every character in the game is a skilled fighter, but many of them are also portrayed as adorable as well:
  • Kirby is a pink ball with Blush Stickers and in cutscenes is one of the biggest badasses.
  • Most Pokémon qualify for this as well:
    • Pikachu is just as cute as ever, but still shown as a badass in cutscenes and combat.
    • Pichu is even more of a Ridiculously Cute Critter, and while it wasn't much of a threat in Melee, it can still kick all kinds of ass, especially in Ultimate.
    • Squirtle, being a fully unevolved Pokémon, is incredibly cute, but probably Pokémon Trainer's best Pokémon, particularly in Brawl.
    • Jigglypuff is a pink floating balloon, but has one of the most deadly single attacks and one of the best aerial games in the series.
  • Ness and Lucas from EarthBound and MOTHER 3 respectively, thanks largely to the series' distinctive art style, their impressive array of psychic powers, and their characterization in Subspace Emissary.
  • Pit is a young and adorable angel in a toga, but fights using a bow that turns into swords and magic rings. Dark Pit qualifies for similar reasons, in that he's just as young and cute as Pit but tries hard to be "edgy".
  • Even with her trollish demeanor, Palutena can certainly qualify in that she's playful and just having a fun time while fighting. She even blushes when she's released from a grab.
  • Lucina is a young girl who's very tough and a skilled swordswoman hardened by a Bad Future. She also has a lovable personality in her game of origin, which while not shown in detail here, is hinted at by Viridi and shows through a bit in her and Robin's reveal trailer (when she's almost to the point of Squee-ing over Robin showing off his moves).
  • Yoshi, with its Pokémon Speak and exaggerated motions (its second jump is trying to run on air!), seems like it'd be harmless, but it's anything but.
  • The Ice Climbers' Popo and Nana. Their cute Cheerful Children faces and their fluffy winter clothing makes the duo look adorable, when fighting the all-stars with their cartoon hammers.
  • Toon Link is a cartoony swordsman, but just as good at fighting as his more realistic counterpart. His taunts and win poses emphasize his lighter side, though (how many fighters wave around a conductor's baton?).
  • The Villager from Animal Crossing is a bit stumpy, always smiling, fights with household implements, and kicks ass.
  • Mega Man. Classic series Mega Man has always had the appearance and personality of a pre-teen boy, which is only exacerbated by his Super-Deformed styling. And yet, he's on some levels a more dangerous fighter than in his own series.
  • Princess Peach fights using hearts, ribbons, rainbows, and other girly things. Even her trophy mentions that she proves that "cute" and "powerful" are not mutually exclusive.
  • Rosalina and Luma are a tag team of fighters that are both badass and both adorable. Rosalina is an elegant queen-like woman who happens to spontaneously produce galaxies in her smash attacks while Luma is an adorable plush-like star that can take on the likes of Bowser and Ganondorf.
  • Bowser Jr. is the young son of Bowser and he's a mischievous little brat. He also happens to be armed to the teeth via a Swiss-army vehicle that he uses to bludgeon, stab, run over, and explode opponents with. If Bowser Jr. isn't up to your taste, there's always the Koopalings.
  • Duck Hunt's dog and duck also qualify, as they're literally nothing more than a normal dog and duck taking on the likes of Nintendo's finest in battle.
  • Inklings are cute kids with the ability to turn into squids who participate in Turf Wars (which are mostly like paintball matches). They can even take on entire armies of Octarians (judging by the single-player campaigns of both of their games) and will take on the whole roster in Smash.
  • Ultimate redesigned Zelda to resemble her The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds incarnation, and it makes her look super cute while blasting foes with her powerful magic powers and magic-augmented strikes.
  • Daisy appears as Peach's echo fighter and she's just as spunky and adorable as she is in the spin-off Mario titles; similar to Peach, she can bring the pain with rainbows and flowers.
  • Isabelle is an adorable anthropomorphic Shih Tzu who is the secretary of your village in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Like Villager, she comes from a non-violent series, yet she can face the greatest of foes here.
  • Pac-Man is a constantly smiling Cephalothorax who will gladly use his Bonus Fruits and Fire Hydrants to hand you your ass.
  • Young Link is one of the youngest and cutest fighters in the roster, but is nimble and quick enough to run circles around opponents while pelting them with bombs, arrows (on fire, nonetheless), strikes from his boomerang and sword slashes. Ultimate, with his new confident (and a little smug) victory poses, gives him a bit of attitude to go with it.
  • Banjo and Kazooie, like in their own series, are a cute pair with big eyes of an anthropomorphic bear and a bird teaming together to face anything. That includes facing the biggest faces in gaming.
• Badass Boast: Some of the taunts qualify.
• Badass Normal:
  • The Villager is just a regular young person who beats their opponents with everyday tools such as a bug net, a shovel, a slingshot or an axe.
  • Snake is by far the most prominent example, considering his usage of modern-day military tactics and hardware.
  • There's Little Mac, who (besides his Final Smash) is just a boxer.
  • The Wii Fit Trainer is able to defeat the likes of Ganondorf or Ridley with yoga poses.
  • Isabelle is a secretary, and a singer — that's the entirety of what she is in her home series. She's fully capable of defeating Galeem and Dharkon in a straight fight simultaneously.
• Banana Peel: One of the items in Brawl and subsequent installments.
• Batter Up!: The Home-Run Bat, which can send anything it connects with flying with a Smash attack. This includes other players.
• Battle Aura: Anyone with a Final Smash ready.
• Battle Strip: Little Mac's entrance animation has him enter the stage wearing his pink sweatsuit before throwing it off to reveal his boxing gear. Obviously, this doesn't happen if his sweatsuit alternate costume is chosen.
• Beak Attack:
  • The duck of the Duck Hunt duo uses its beak in rapid-fire attacks, accompanied by Audible Sharpness.
  • As part of his Divergent Character Evolution from Fox in Brawl and moving forward, Falco was given a drilling peck attack for one of his aerials, replacing what was a rapid series of kicks in Melee.
  • When Banjo is not the one attacking, Kazooie has many attacks when she uses her beak to either crush or drill into opponents
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Applies to all the girls. Men snore while sleeping, girls don't. Males can have their faces distorted when hit girls can't. Male gets screen ko'd? His face can appear smooshed in the "glass" while when a girl gets screen ko'd they just appear in front of the screen for a minute being going down. All the girls look cutesy in their own way when grabbed.
• Bee-Bee Gun: Throwing the beehive item (from Animal Crossing) at opponents will swarm bees around them, dealing them damage and brief but numerous hitstuns.
• Big Fancy Castle:
  • Dr. Wily's pad from Mega Man 2 makes an appearance.
  • Peach's Castle
  • Hyrule Castle
  • A random non-descript castle from Fire Emblem.
  • Unova Pokémon League takes place at N's Castle.
  • Suzaku Castle is a Big Fancy Japanese Castle.
  • Dracula's Castle lands on the eerier side of fancy castles.
• Big "NO!":
  • Most of the characters do this, though in the Japanese version only.
  • Sonic (Brawl only), Snake, Peach and Daisy can do one.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Certain characters retain their Japanese voice acting even in the international versions, such as Marth (until Ultimate), Roy (also until Ultimate), and Cloud.
  • The specific names for the different Monado Arts differ slightly with each translation:
    • When Shulk's lines are heard in Japanese, they are roughly translated as "Jumping", "Running", "Protect", "Attacking", and "Destroying/Smashing", respectively.
    • When the symbols for the Monado are read in Chinese, they are roughly translated as "Flying", "Faster Than The Wind", "Shield", "Sword/Cutting", and "Destroying/Smashing", respectively.
• Bittersweet Ending: In Classic and All-Star modes in Melee and Brawl (along with Adventure mode in Melee), your character is reduced to a trophy as a music box plays a bittersweet rendition of the theme. The ending for 64 was much less of a downer, as it was strongly implied that the game was just a kid playing with some toys. Completely averted in 3DS/Wii U, which is more triumphant with fireworks to celebrate your victory.
• Blade Lock: In Cloud's newcomer poster, the center focus is of him and Link doing this. Seems to be a nod to the people who have debated which one of them would win in an one-on-one fight for years.
  • Peach also has one with Mr. Game & Watch in Bayonetta's poster. They use their frying pans, though.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Melee and Brawl have several misspellings and errors in the trophies and stickers, most of which were fixed in the PAL versions. Some of the most obvious are:
  • Daisy never appeared in the N64 Mario Golf. She was paired with Luigi in NES Open Tournament, a golf game, and didn't appear in the Mario Golf series until Toadstool Tour for the GameCube.
  • Kaptain K. Rool is King K. Rool in a pirate costume, not his brother.
  • Baby Mario's trophy shows him wearing overalls, despite the description saying he "lacks" them. He is only seen without overalls in the Yoshi's Island series.
  • Lyn's trophy in Brawl doesn't take localization into account and states that she's 15, instead of 18 like in international versions.
  • One could make a Drinking Game out of how many times Melee's trophies got the "origin game" of a character or item wrong.
  • According to Dr. Wright's trophy in Melee, "As a player [in SimCity], you'd have to use your wisdom and experience to give timely advice to the mayor[.]" Actually, you are the mayor; Dr. Wright is your advisor.
  • The Black Knight's trophy calls his sword "Ettard", while the English name of his sword is Alondite. This was the result of his sword swapping names with Ike's.
  • In Snivy's trophy in 3DS, the Pokémon Onix is spelled "Onyx". This is a common mistake among people on the internet, especially those who have not had an interest in Pokémon since the first games, but it's a bit jarring to see Nintendo themselves make that error.
  • The 64 announcer's call of "GAME SET!" after every battle is clearly a mistranslation of "Game, Set, and Match", which is announced when someone wins all three divisions of a Tennis match; the game, the set of games, and the match of sets. Nintendo apparently forgot the comma, leading the announcer to think that the winner had won a "game set". While fixed in the English versions in Melee and beyond to just say "GAME!",^note unless the Japanese language setting is chosen it remains in the Japanese versions for the sake of Gratuitous English.
  • Lip's Stick is claimed to come from Tetris Attack in European versions of Wii U. Tetris Attack was a Dolled-Up Installment of Panel de Pon, its actual game of origin; Lip's Stick appears only in Panel de Pon.
• Blob Monster: Yellow Devil is back as a boss for Mega Man's stage, looking like he did in the first Mega Man game.
• Blocking Stops All Damage:
  • Blocking will not only prevent all damage, but can even reflect projectiles if done properly. However, every attack blocked weakens the shield, culminating in a possible stun state.
  • Several fighters ^note Marth, Roy, Ike, Lucario, Lucina, Little Mac, Greninja, Palutena, Shulk, Mii Swordfighter, Chrom, and King K. Rool; Corrin has a similar move that dodges attacks and then counters have a move that not only negates all damage, your character will also immediately counterattack. Peach and Daisy also can do this with Toad, but it works a little differently.
  • Other fighters ^note Zelda, Fox, Falco, Wolf, Pit, Dark Pit, Mario, Dr. Mario have a move that will block and reflect projectiles.
  • Bayonetta's Witch Time has her negate damage, but instead of counter attacking, she slows down the opponent for a few seconds, allowing a manual counter attack or the chance to flee. Unlike other counter moves^note except Shulk's, to an extent, it gets weaker if it's spammed repeatedly. If her timing is off, she'll activate Bat Within instead and just dodge.
  • Incineroar subverts this. It has a counter in the form of Revenge, but it takes reduced damage from the attack and uses it to power up its next move.
  • Similar to Incineroar, Joker's normal Down Special, Rebel's Guard, does not negate damage. However, it halves it and transfer it to boost his Rebellion Gauge, making it easier to summon Arsene that way.
• Bonus Stage: The Classic Mode of each game has a bonus stage or three that awards bonus points for completion, but will not trigger the Continue screen if failed (due to running out of time or going off the stage):
  • Break The Targets / Target Test / Target Smash, in which you must travel around a large stage and destroy targets before time runs out. Each character has their own BTT stage. Introduced in 64, made into a Smash Run room in Smash 4, and dropped in Ultimate.
  • Board The Platforms, in which you must get onto platforms throughout the stage before time runs out. Like with BTT, each character has their own BTP stage. Exclusive to 64.
  • Race To The Finish, in which you must reach the goal of the stage before time runs out, often with enemies and other hazards inhibiting your progress. The basic format was introduced in 64, Melee features a variant with multiple exits where further exits are worth more points, and Ultimate eschews the on-screen timer for an Advancing Void of Doom. Unlike with the first two bonus stage types, the layout for RTTF is fixed regardless of character.
• Boom in the Hand:
  • This trope can happen to anybody who grabs a Bob-omb or Gooey Bomb and holds on to them for too long. Both become active the moment they are picked up, so it is important to throw them soon, or they will blow up on you instead.
  • In Melee onward, Electrode can also be picked up. However, he is seconds away from detonating when one can do so, which means that you will have to immediately throw him the instant you pick him up.
  • Any character who has explosives as part of their moveset also falls under this. The Links pull out active bombs for their down special (except for Link in Ultimate, who uses remote bombs), Snake's neutral has him pulling the pin out of a grenade and, similar to the Links, the duo of Banjo and Kazooie have the Grenade Egg as their down special. These specials can inflict self-damage.
  • Ultimate features Bomber as an item that can be picked up. Whoever picks it up will lift it above their head upon usage and let Bomber explode in their hands, damaging everybody near them. Unlike other examples, though, the person holding Bomber remains unharmed. However, Bomber will harm the holder if left unused for too long.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Grabbing. From Melee onward, it doesn't have much knockback power or damage in comparison to other attacks. However, it's a great combo starter, and also ignores shielding, counter stances, and super armor.
  • Ness's PSI Magnet ever since the original game (and by extension — Lucas's version ever since Brawl, and the Mii Gunner's option ever since the fourth game(s)). No damage, knockback, or movement at all; but defense against projectiles, as well as a way to heal without items. Brawl toned this down slightly — not by nerfing the moves, but by giving them added effects when the barrier is dropped (Ness generates a (weak) windbox to push enemies away, while Lucas zaps enemies in front of him for a little bit of damage and knockback).
  • The Level 1 Back Shield Power in Smash Run. All it does is protect your back for a short time, but it has a weight of 1, allowing it to fit within most Power set-ups, protects from attacks like Plasma Wisp's projectiles, and with enough Arms boosts, it can last for a while.
• Boss Banter: Metal Face sprouts out commentary while he fights the players on the Gaur Plain stage in Wii U and Ultimate.
  Metal Face: Hey, hey, time to DIE!
• Boss Battle:
  • There are some in the single-player modes in all games. They don't receive knockback like normal fighters and are instead defeated by depleting their life meter in the traditional way. 1P-Mode/Classic Mode in all games, for example, culminates in a showdown against Master Hand, and if certain conditions are met in Melee onwards, Crazy Hand as well. In Ultimate, other bosses can be the final encounter instead of Master Hand.
  • In the 3DS and Wii U games, bosses show up during battles on certain stages, with Yellow Devil (both versions), Metal Face (Wii U only), and Ridley (Wii U only) also appearing as boss encounters in Smash Tour. If a player finishes off a boss, effects will occur that can help the player:
    • Yellow Devil: Unleashes a large growing explosion that traps and damages anyone who is caught in it before launching them off, with possible points going to whoever dealt the finishing blow to the Yellow Devil. Said explosion also cannot harm that particular player.
    • Dark Emperor: When he moves to the foreground, whoever "defeats" him will automatically receive a buff.
    • Ridley: Whoever attacks him more will have Ridley temporarily side with that player. Additionally, whoever lands the killing blow (including the player that befriended him) will gain a point in Time matches.
    • Metal Face: Defeating him causes him to burst into flame and fall down through the center of the stage, counting as an extremely high-powered attack from whoever dealt the finishing blow.
• Boss Bonanza: In higher difficulties in Classic Mode in the 3DS version, you fight Master Hand and Crazy Hand. Deal enough damage to them and Master Core will appear, who has four phases with very powerful attacks. The last phase is a shadow clone of your character. Defeat the four and you have a Smash Ball-like object to knock out. Fail to knock it out and it will knock you out. That's a total of six bosses in one. The Wii U version has a True Final Boss after you beat your clone, but you have to be at 8.0 difficulty or above to face it.
• Boss Rush:
  • All-Star Mode in Melee, Brawl, and the fourth game, where you fight everyone in the game.
  • The last battle in Melee pits you against 25 (!) copies of Mr. Game & Watch.
  • In Brawl, you go through this in chronological debut order: Mr. Game & Watch being first, and Olimar going last. Oddly, this only applies to the debut of the series; perhaps the most egregious example being Ness and Lucas, who are separated by more than a decade in the release dates of their respective games and are gauged by a game neither of them was in (they're placed where Ninten would be).
  • In the fourth game, you fight characters grouped by the first game they appeared in, in chronological order in the 3DS version, and reverse chronological order in the Wii U version.
  • Completing The Subspace Emissary unlocks Boss Battles Mode. They have a lowered difficulty than their appearances within Subspace Emissary, but this is justified since sticker boosts don't apply here, you only get one life, and they are all played back-to-back in random order, except for Tabuu, who always comes as the Final Boss.
  • The All-Star Battle Events from Melee, Brawl, and Wii U pits you in an endurance match against groups of playable fighters. The "final" Co-Op Event also pits you in an endurance match against the playable villains/rivals. The true final Co-Op Event in both Brawl and for Wii U crosses this with True Final Boss and takes it to the extreme: You and a partner must fight and defeat all of the playable fighters in the game in one go.
• Boss Subtitles: The Boxing Ring stage gives every one of the characters a title before their name; for example, Donkey Kong's is "King of the Jungle" and Samus's is "Bounty Hunter Extraordinaire".
• Boss Warning Siren:
  • The series generally has a klaxon of some sort for secret character battles.
  • In the Wily Castle stage, a faint warning siren can be heard before the Yellow Devil makes its appearance.
• Bowdlerization:
  • The Japanese version of 64 has "organic" hitting sounds which, for some reason, were replaced with "metallic" hitting sounds in the western ports. The most probable reasoning is that they wanted the violence to feel less real, even though the intro had already established the setting as an imaginary fantasy fight between animated toys.
  • Melee featured the return of the Donkey Kong Rap from Donkey Kong 64, but with the "hell of a guy" changed to "heck of a guy."
  • One of Mr. Game & Watch's taunts in Brawl vaguely resembled him Flipping the Bird. In 3DS/Wii U, this taunt was changed to have him sit down and sigh, which was taken from Game & Watch: Mario Bros.
  • To keep a Japanese "A" rating and an American E10+ rating for 3DS/Wii U, the underside of Peach's dress was shaded in to prevent the player from seeing her underwear. The same situation also resulted in Palutena and Wonder-Pink's models being modified in Japan-only patches. Additionally, Bayonetta isn't allowed to curse in the English versions, and her outfit has more clothing during attacks. Female Corrin's outfit reveals her thighs in her game of origin, but are covered in Smash presumably for this reason.
  • In the original Persona 5, finishing an enemy with an All-Out Attack causes their silhouettes to begin spewing High-Pressure Blood. In Ultimate, Joker's Final Smash makes them emit sparkles instead.
• Boxing Battler: Little Mac from Punch-Out!! is an Assist Trophy who can tear up anyone he comes across with his boxing moves. He's Promoted to Playable in the fourth game onward.
• Bragging Rights Reward:
  • Completing all three challenge boards in 3DS will net you a Gold Bone trophy.
  • For Wii U, completing the entire challenge board nets you 2,000,000 gold (the currency of the game). As you need to unlock and collect practically everything to complete the challenge board, there's barely anything to spend it on. Plus, unless you hammer it, one of the challenges is to possess 300,000 gold, which would take a great deal of time to spend anyway.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • The characters face the screen for many taunts.
  • A top of the screen ring-out — if the characters don't go off as a Twinkle in the Sky — has them bounce off the camera as they fall. In 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate, they crash against the screen and then slide down, to lengthen out the time so it's the same as the sky-twinkle KO.
  • Sometimes when the Bob-ombs start spawning during Melee's Sudden Death matches, one will drop right in front of the camera.
  • The Nintendogs that climb on the screen act like puppies climbing on a glass door.
  • The crowd will occasionaly cheer and chant a character's name if they're doing well.
  • When he first appears, Snake says "Kept you waiting, huh?" There was no one there for him to address, so it must have been directed towards the player.
  • In 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate, one of Pit's win quotes is "It's Game Over for you!".
  • When using Pit's Palutena's Guidance Easter Egg, the conversations between him, Palutena, and Viridi constantly break the fourth wall — as well as show a great deal of Medium Awareness — rather than just Leaning on the Fourth Wall as Snake's Codec conversations typically did. Among many other things, they point out that characters aren't always named after their games (after Viridi accidentally calls Samus "Metroid," and using Pit's own Kid Icarus as an example), mention that Link and Pit were "born" (ie, their games came out) at around the same time, and joke about how Bowser shows up in a lot of spinoffs but appears particularly mean this time because Smash is a fighting game.
  • Cloud's first spoken line mirrors what everybody was thinking when he was revealed.
  • Azurda is amused at becoming a stage.
    Azurda: My back - a Smash stage! What will they think of next?
• Break Meter: The shield which can be used for defense will eventually break if used too much, stunning you for a short duration^note which is more than long enough for the opponent to land a fully-charged Smash attack or other normally Awesome, but Impractical or Difficult, but Awesome move, most likely KOing you right then and there unless you have very little damage. Also, in the first three games, when a character reaches 100 damage, their ledge attack becomes slower.
• Breakout Character:
  • Captain Falcon. While his home series has largely been forgotten, he became a staple member of the Smash cast and is one of Nintendo's more widely-marketed characters in general, to the point that his inclusion in the fourth game was heavily hyped and showcased even though he had been in the series from the start.
  • Charizard. Throughout all four games, it graduates from Poké Ball Pokémon, to a member of Pokémon Trainer's playable team, to a solo playable Pokémon, likely due to its status as one in its home series.
  • Ridley was one of the most requested playable characters ever since Melee. He started out as a background character in 64, appeared in the opening cutscene in Melee, became a boss character in Brawl, became a stage boss in Wii U, and then finally to a playable character in Ultimate!
• Breast Attack: The franchise has tried to avert this since Peach and Zelda debuted by having them and most girls who would come after them be grabbed by their hands compared to the more varied grab areas of the male characters but some when throwing said females could appear to be using his or her opponent's breast◊ as the holding area while grabbing on to them. Some throws would lead to the girls landing breast first on the ground also.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Inverted with All-Star Mode in 3DS/Wii U. The mode has the player fighting against every character in the game, including paid DLC. Thus, the more characters you buy, the harder All-Star mode and its associated challenges get. However, it's played straight in terms of scoring, since you get points for KOing those characters. It's also played straight with regard to challenges that involve collecting Mii outfits — DLC outfits count, so you can accomplish these objectives by spending money rather than playing the game if you want to.
• Bullet Time: Connecting with certain extremely powerful attacks will induce slowed time for dramatic effect. In 4, this was limited to Little Mac's KO Uppercut and Cloud's Finishing Touch, but Ultimate expands this to existing attacks like the famous Falcon Punch and adds a special background on hit, but only for one-on-one fights.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Dr. Mario, Mewtwo, and Roy were introduced in Melee, absent in Brawl, and returned in 3DS/Wii U (though Mewtwo and Roy are only available as DLC).
  • Lucas was originally absent from the roster of 3DS/Wii U after being in Brawl, but was later announced as DLC shortly after Mewtwo's was released.
  • Ultimate brings back every character who was ever playable in the series, including characters who had only appeared in a single installment, such as Young Link and Snake.
  • Ultimate brings back Scizor as a Poké Ball Pokémon after its absence from Brawl and 3DS/Wii U.
• Button Mashing: There are several techniques and moves that can involve mashing.
  • Grabs can be escaped quicker by mashing buttons and rolling the joystick (or D-pad on a Wiimote).
  • Some recovery moves, like Dr. Mario's Doctor Tornado or Ice Climbers' Squall Hammer will rise higher when the special move button is mashed.
  • Bayonetta's Final Smash will deal extra damage and instantly KO any highly damaged fighters caught in it if enough buttons are mashed during the cinematic portion.

C

• Calling Your Attacks: Several instances. See the Character sheet for details.
• Camera Abuse: Starting with Melee, characters that are knocked out-of-bounds through the top of the stage may bounce off the screen. 3DS/Wii U ups the ante by having characters defeated in this manner stick to the screen for a second before dropping off.
• Canon Discontinuity:
  • Even in an in-game archive that saw fit to include the Virtual Boy, you'll never find any reference to any of the CD-i games (Hotel Mario and The Legend Of Zelda C Di Games). ^note Quality aside, the games were created as licensed derivatives with no input from Nintendo's developers. Nintendo doesn't own the games or any original content in them.
  • For the Star Fox series, Command seems to have gone through a slight case of this. Brawl acknowledges that the game exists, but otherwise all the characters are seen with their pre-Command personalities and alignments; notably, Star Fox has not disbanded, Krystal is still a team member, and is still romantically involved with Fox (albeit under constant flirting attempts from Panther), and Peppy also remains with the team instead of being a Cornerian General. The Great Fox also has the same traditional appearance, as opposed to the more brick-shaped Great Fox II from Command.
  • While Brawl did have a sticker of Pit from Kid Icarus: Of Myths & Monsters, and Pit's redesign takes inspiration from the game (specifically his laurel crown), neither version of 3DS/Wii U directly represents or mentions the game. It wasn't released in Japan.invoked
• Canon Identifier: Characters who could be renamed in their home games are normally given one of these for easy understanding. This mainly applies to Robin, Corrin (whose names, gender, and appearances can be customized beforehand), Joker (his official codename within the Phantom Thieves is used in lieu of any of the names given from other sources, like Akira Kurusu or Ren Amamiya) and Hero (while his default appearance is that of the Luminary from Dragon Quest XI, he is replaced by other Dragon Quest protagonists for palette swaps; "Hero" mainly refers to their designation as such in their home series). Subverted with the Pokémon Trainer, who is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, despite both the male and female trainers having rough canon names like Red and Leaf.
• Canon Welding: Kid Icarus: Uprising, Fire Emblem Fates, and Bayonetta 2 have done this with Smash and vice-versa. In both cases, the crossover canon appearances seem to shed some light on the true nature of the Smash characters, showing that they share some or all memories with their canon counterparts. Uprising has Pit and Palutena refer to Pit's Brawl appearance in Uprising and then directly referencing the events of both games in SSB4, with Dark Pit having joined Viridi after the conclusion of Uprising — implying that the Kid Icarus cast, at least, are their canon selves. The Switch port of Bayonetta 2 does the same with a letter from Rodin talking about the "all-star fight club" that Bayonetta is part of if a Smash amiibo is scanned. Fire Emblem Fates shows that the characters are Alternate Universe versions of their canon counterparts^note however, seeing as Fire Emblem itself has its share of alternate universes, it's unclear if a single universe counts as the "real" one and that, despite coming to life from trophies, they appear and act the same as regular human beings if they travel to universes other than the Smash one.
• Cap: The 3DS/Wii U games have a limit to the number of Mii Fighters you can make, which is about 89 total characters making thirty rows in the customization screen.
• Cast Herd:
  • Melee's All-Star Matches are grouped in Mario characters (Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Peach, and Bowser), realistically-designed characters (Samus, Link, Zelda, Captain Falcon, Fox), cutesy characters (Kirby, Pikachu, Ness, and Ice Climbers), the more unique secret characters (Marth, Luigi, Jigglypuff, Mewtwo, and Mr. Game & Watch), and the clone characters (Dr. Mario, Falco, Pichu, Young Link, Roy, and Ganondorf). One additional "All-Star" Match restricts you to Ness and has you fight characters known for travelling through space (Samus, Kirby, Fox, Captain Falcon, and Falco).
  • Brawl's All-Star Event Battles group the characters in the default veteran characters from the N64 game (Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, and Pikachu), most of the default Brawl newcomers (Wario, Meta Knight, Pit, Zero Suit Samus, Olimar, Lucas, Diddy Kong, and the Pokémon Trainer), the N64 secret characters (Luigi, Captain Falcon, Ness, and Jigglypuff), the returning Melee cast (Bowser, Peach, Zelda, Ice Climbers, Marth, Mr. Game & Watch, Falco, and Ganondorf), and the rest of the Brawl newcomers (King Dedede, Ike, Lucario, R.O.B., Toon Link, Snake, Sonic, and Wolf). The first Co-op All-Star Event Battle groups the rivals and villains (Bowser, Wario, Ganondorf, Meta Knight, King Dedede, and Wolf). The second and last Co-op All-Star Event Battle decides heck with it and throws everyone at you (with Samus variably appearing as either herself or Zero Suit Samus, and ALL 3 of Pokémon Trainer's mons must be fought).
  • All-Star Battles in the Wii U version's Event Mode groups the cast members similiarly to Brawl: The newcomers are fought in New Challengers 1 (Rosalina & Luma, Wii Fit Trainer, Little Mac, Villager, Duck Hunt, Bowser Jr., and Lucina) and New Challengers 2 (Shulk, Greninja, PAC-MAN, Mega Man, Robin, Palutena, and Dark Pit). The default veterans from the N64 game (Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, and Pikachu) are fought in All-Star Battle: Regulars, the most iconic Melee veterans (Bowser, Peach, Zelda, Sheik, Marth, Mr. Game & Watch, Falco, and Ganondorf) are fought in All-Star Battle: Melee, and the most iconic Brawl veterans (Pit, Charizard, Zero Suit Samus, Wario, Diddy Kong, Meta Knight, King Dedede, Olimar, and Lucario) are fought in All-Star Battle: Brawl. All-Star Battle: Secret pits you up against the secret four from the original game and other well-known secret veterans from Melee and Brawl (Ness, Luigi, Captain Falcon, Jigglypuff, Dr. Mario, Toon Link, R.O.B., and Sonic). In Co-Op, Final Battle Team-Up pits you against many of the playable antagonists and rivals of the heroes + dark versions of two heroes (The dark alts of Link and Samus, Meta Knight, Dark Pit, Ganondorf, King Dedede, and Bowser) on Final Destination, while The Ultimate Battle pits you against everyone, like in the previous game's True All-Star Battle: It further groups the characters according to the clones first, then the ones who were unlockables in the 3DS version, then the third-party characters, and finally the starters of the 3DS version. The characters within those groups are grouped further according to the newcomers first, then the veterans of Brawl, Melee, and finally the original 64 game.
  • The second-to-last event match in both Brawl and Wii U pit you against the three evil kings (Bowser, Ganondorf and King Dedede), and the final event pits you against the company mascots (Sonic, Snake, and Giant Mario in Brawl, and Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-Man, and Mario in Wii U).
  • For Classic mode in Brawl: the stages are grouped together by series as well. In order, it goes as such: Zelda, Yoshi or Donkey Kong (Mario spin-off titles), Pokémon, Fire Emblem and Earthbound (formerly Japanese-exclusive RPGs), Target Smash, Kirby, Metroid and Pikmin (space-themed series), Star Fox and F-Zero (same reason), Mario, Pit, R.O.B., Game & Watch, Ice Climbers (classic Nintendo characters), Sonic and Snake (third-party characters) or sometimes Wario (someone had to be there in case Snake and Sonic hadn't been unlocked yet...), Target Smash, Free For All vs. 3 random opponents and then the final battle with Master (and possibly Crazy) Hand.
  • As noted above, the All-Star mode in Brawl going in order of the character's series' (or add-on's) Japanese premiere (going from Mr. Game & Watch to one or two Olimars, depending on if you are playing solo or co-op.)
  • In the Subspace Emissary, characters formed pairs or trios going through the story. Mario/Pit, Kirby/Princess (Peach or Zelda, depending on whom you save), Samus/Pikachu, Lucas/Pokémon Trainer, Meta Knight/Marth/Ike, Meta Knight/Lucario/Snake, Fox/Diddy/Falco, etc.
  • All-Star Mode in the 3DS/Wii U installments group the characters by their year of origin: 1980-1984 (Mr. Game & Watch, Pac-Man, Mario, Donkey Kong, Luigi, and Little Mac), 1984-1986 (Duck Hunt, R.O.B., Peach, Bowser, Link, Zelda, and Samus), 1986-1990 (Pit, Palutena, Mega Man, Marth, Dr. Mario, Yoshi, and Captain Falcon), 1991-1993 (Sonic, Kirby, King Dedede, Wario, Fox, Falco, and Meta Knight), 1994-1998 (Ness, Diddy Kong, Pikachu, Charizard, Jigglypuff, Sheik, and Ganondorf), 2001-2006 (Villager, Olimar, Bowser Jr., Toon Link, Zero Suit Samus, Ike, and Lucario), and finally 2007-2013 (Rosalina, Wii Fit Trainer, Shulk, Dark Pit, Robin, Lucina, and Greninja). In the 3DS game, you fight from oldest to newest, while you do the reverse in the Wii U version. DLC characters are slotted into their place in the timeline as they're downloaded (Ryu in 1986-1990, Mewtwo and Cloud in 1994-1998, Lucas and Roy in 2001-2006, and lastly, Bayonetta and Corrin in 2007-2015).
  • With Ultimate, since All-Star Mode is no longer its own mode and now part of the Mob Smash mode, you fight everyone on a Battlefield-form stage in order of their first appearance, similar to 3DS. In order, you go through the 1980 characters (Mr. Game & Watch, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Mario, Luigi, Little Mac, Duck Hunt, Ice Climbers, R.O.B., Peach, Bowser, Link, Zelda, Samus, Ridley, Simon, Pit, Palutena, Snake, Ryu, Ken, Mega Man and Daisy), the 1990 characters (Marth, Dr. Mario, Captain Falcon, Yoshi, Sonic, Kirby, King Dedede, Wario, Fox, Falco, Meta Knight, Richter, Ness, Diddy Kong, King K. Rool, Pokemon Trainer with Charizard/Ivysaur/Squirtle, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Mewtwo, Cloud, Wolf, Young Link, Sheik, Ganondorf and Pichu), the 2000 characters (Villager, Olimar, Roy, Bowser Jr., Toon Link, Zero Suit Samus, Ike, Dark Samus, Lucas, Lucario, Rosalina and Luma, Wii Fit Trainer and Bayonetta) and the 2010 characters (Shulk, Dark Pit, Robin, Chrom, Lucina, Isabelle, Greninja, Inkling, Corrin and Incineroar). Similar to 3DS/Wii U, the DLC characters are added in order of their first appearance as well (Piranha Plant and Hero^note Hero was originally placed with the 2010 characters based on the Luminary's debut game. However, in a later update, they were moved to the 1980 characters to be in line with Erdrick's debut game with the 1980 characters, Terry, Kazuya, Sephiroth, and Banjo & Kazooie with the 1990 characters, Sora with the 2000 characters, and Steve, Joker, Min Min, Pyra & Mythra, and Byleth with the 2010 characters).
• Cel Shading: 3DS features outlines around characters to help them stand out on the handheld's screen (which can be customized to be thin or off). Additionally, team battles feature colored outlines, allowing players to choose any color pallete they want for their character while still being able to tell who's on what team.
• Character Customization:
  • A big selling point of both versions of the fourth game. Every character has access to variants of each of their four special moves, adding an element of strategy to competitive play. Palutena and the Mii Fighters, however, have access to entirely different moves. In addition to that, pieces of equipment can be equipped to each character, changing up their stats such as power, speed, or even how powerful certain attacks will be. Fortunately, custom movesets cannot be used in With Anyone mode in online.
  • The 3DS exclusive mode Smash Run runs with this trope, as similar to City Trial mode from Kirby Air Ride, the objective is to pimp out your character (so to speak) with various powerups and even abilities as fast as you can before duking it out in one of several events/matches.
• Characters Dropping Like Flies:
  • In Subspace Emissary, once the remaining Smashers confront Tabuu, he kills them all by unleashing his Off-Waves.
  • The gameplay in World of Light starts proper with everyone but Kirby dead thanks to Galeem.
• Chest Monster:
  • The Mimicuties from Kid Icarus: Uprising appear in 3DS' Smash Run. In World of Light in Ultimate, the Mimicutie Spirit is found mimicking a treasure chest.
  • Mimics can take the place of real treasure chests on Yggdrasil's Altar. Killing them results in getting an item.
• Cherry Tapping:
  • As you'd expect from a fighting game, you can finish off your opponents with even the weakest attacks in Stamina mode. All characters have unique animations for being finished this way.
  • In standard battles, you can still do this by hitting the opponent while they're trying to get back to the stage. This is often called "gimping," and it works best if you can interrupt the opponent's jump. In fact, some characters (such as Little Mac) are particularly vulnerable to this.
• Chromatic Arrangement: The four players' colors (first four starting from Smash 4) are red, blue, yellow and green.
• Close-Call Haircut: A variant in Mega Man's introduction video. When he forms his Metal Blades and throws them, they come close enough to Mario's face that he loses coins.
• Color-Coded Characters: It's always been subtly there in instruction booklets since 64, but officially codified in 3DS/Wii U. Every character has a specific color that appears as their background on the website, amiibo packaging, promotional posters, and other official marketing material. Most match the character's appearance (Marth is a light blue) or color code in their home series (Donkey Kong is yellow), but some are more random (Samus is a dark blue). Ultimate continues it with previously cut characters and its newcomers getting their own as well.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • In Wii U, the previously-generic impact launch graphics are colored depending on who scored the hit, making it easier to tell who scored in the event of a KO.
  • The 3DS version of SSB4 is represented by a red flame on the Smash symbol (matching the red "3" on the 3DS' logo), while the Wii U version decorates it with a blue flame instead (matching the blue "U" on the Wii U's logo). Anything that refers to both versions sees the symbol with a red & blue flame.
• Color-Coded Multiplayer: Player 1 is red, Player 2 is blue, Player 3 is yellow, and Player 4 is green. Computer Players are gray. Team battles use red, blue, and green. 8-Player Smash in the fourth installment added Player 5 as orange, Player 6 as cyan, Player 7 as purple, and Player 8 as slate black, as well as adding in yellow for team battles. Ultmate respectively changes player 7 and 8's color to pink and purple.
• Comeback Mechanic:
  • The Pity Smash, which allows free use of a Final Smash for someone who has been KOed multiple times in a match without having KOed anyone.
  • Lucario does more damage and can hit in wider areas the more damage it takes without getting KOed.
  • In SSB4 and Ultimate, every character gains a boost to their knockback dealt when their damage is at very high percentages.
• Commercial Switcheroo: Ultimate was revealed with what at first seems to be a repeat of the original Splatoon trailer.
  • A good number of Smash's reveal trailers can fall under this — at first appearing to simply be a trailer for a respective series' game (especially with third-party characters) until either other characters show up or the Smash logo makes its appearance.
• Competitive Balance: At a competitive level, Smash games tend to be fairly imbalanced, with only a handful of characters] [[HighTierScrappy/SuperSmashBros considered viable in high-level play.
  • Equipment badges in 3DS/Wii U work in a cycle — buffing offense nerfs defense, increased defense means decreased speed, and more speed means less offense.
  • Every character also gets two custom moves for each special. Most have a stronger slower version and a weaker faster version of the original. "Stronger" moves usually mean a larger hitbox, more damage/launching power, with bonus effects like fire or super armor. "Faster" moves tend to have shorter start-up and cool-down and more range/distance traveled, with bonus effects like wind or multiple hits.
  • Shulk's Monado Arts are designed around this concept:
    • Jump allows him to jump higher, but he takes more damage.
    • Speed makes him faster, but he does less damage and gets less air from his jumps.
    • Shield makes him much heavier and take less damage, but he also becomes slower and does less damage himself.
    • Buster and Smash make him do more damage with less knockback and more knockback with less damage, respectively. Shulk also takes slightly more damage using Buster and is himself easier to launch in Smash.
• Competitive Multiplayer: The main draw of the series. Battles can be waged in a Free-For-All manner (up to four players) or via Team Battle (2-vs-2, 2-vs-1, 3-vs-1, or 2-vs-1-vs-1). Wii U has an 8-player mode with a limited set of stages, in free-for-all or with up to four teams. Ultimate makes it a normal function instead of a mode and every stage is now compatible with having 8 characters on them.
• Composite Character: Characters take attributes from several of their respective games, but this gets complicated with Zelda characters considering their timeline.
  • In 64 and Melee, Link was mostly composed of Adult Link and Young Link (boomerang) from Ocarina of Time, along with Zelda II: The Adventure of Link's downward and upward midair strikes. In Brawl, his design is mostly The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Link, but appears in a tornado like The Legend of Zelda Link, and travels with Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (or possibly the Wiimote cursor). The 4th game still uses the Link from Twilight Princess, but he now ends up channeling his Skyward Sword look into him due to everyone's brighter colors compared to Brawl, and he also has a costume based on Fierce Deity Link from Majora's Mask. However, his Ultimate appearance is explicitly modified to be his Breath of the Wild incarnation, changing much of his moveset to match.
  • Young Link is also a composite of Adult and Young Link from Ocarina of Time since he has the Deku Shield and smaller versions of Adult Link's gear, instead of the gear he used in Majora's Mask.
  • Zelda uses spells that are based off of Link's spells in Ocarina of Time. And in Brawl, she uses her Twilight Princess model but can still transform into Sheik from Ocarina of Time. Sakurai stated that Sheik's design was recycled from a potential Twilight Princess appearance. In Wii U/3DS, Sheik is split from her, but she's still a combination of the Twilight Princess Zelda (appearance), Ocarina Link (spells), and Phantom Zelda from Spirit Tracks (a new special attack). Ultimate changes her to her A Link to the Past design (with elements from A Link Between Worlds), but otherwise retains the same moveset from Wii U/3DS''.
  • Speaking of Sheik, her design in Ultimate is a composite of her original appearance and the Sheikah armor from Breath of the Wild, a game where she doesn't directly appear.
  • Ganondorf in Ultimate uses his updated Ocarina of Time appearance (Used in the 3DS remake) but also uses the same sword that was in Melee which was from the 2000 Spaceworld tech demo.
  • Mr. Game and Watch is a composite of no fewer than 20 generic Game & Watch stick figure characters.
  • Most of Kirby's attacks are based off of his copy abilities from his home series. Most of them are derived from the Fighter copy ability, but some, like Final Cutter or Hammer, are from other abilities. Meta Knight uses some copy abilities as well, but doesn't use as many.
  • A good deal of Marth (and Lucina), Roy, and Ike's attacks are drawn from animations of other Fire Emblem classes that they normally can't do in their own game. Similarly, Robin appears as their default class from Fire Emblem: Awakening, Tactician. Just like in Awakening, Robin uses swords and magic tomes. Unlike Awakening, though, Robin is able to use Nosferatu, which Tacticians can't. In addition to this, while in their home series Robin would only be able to use a maximum of five different types of attack, in Wii U/3DS, they're capable of far more.
  • Ness and Lucas also have attacks from other characters in their games, though Sakurai states that those characters trained them in preparation for participating in Smash Bros. Additionally, Ultimate includes Paula and Poo assisting Ness, and Kumatora and Boney assisting Lucas, during their respective Final Smashes.
  • Even though the Pokémon Trainers are based off of their Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen (Generation 3) designs and own the Generation 1 starters, everything written about them is phrased as ambiguously as possible, meaning they could be anyone that's ever played a Pokémon game and have no real identity.
  • In general, the Pokémon universe depicted in Smash is a hybrid of the games and the anime. Misty's Melee trophy uses her original anime outfit instead of the game's swimsuit, Pokémon use Pokémon Speak instead of their in-game cries, Lucario acts like Sir Aaron's Lucario from Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, Mewtwo has the personality it had in the Japanese Pokémon: The First Movie, etc.^ExplanationThis is most likely because the anime was the only fully animated and voiced incarnation of the franchise when Smash 64 was released, and alternate interpretations were only made long after the release of Brawl. Pokémon Trainer was the first character not from the anime to be depicted in the series; in the same game, the playable Charizard was given an original, more realistic animal voice performed by its usual anime voice actor (similar to Bowser). The Pokémon elements in 3DS/Wii U are more faithful to the games than ever before (although the newer Pokémon games themselves draw elements of the anime), but Smash Bros. mentions the anime and movies directly for the first time in several trophy descriptions, which all but confirms the "hybrid universe" nature of the Pokémon elements.
  • Pokémon isn't alone in drawing from its Animated Adaptation and not just its games, though it does so to a greater extent than any other franchise. The Kirby elements also draw from their respective anime. Meta Knight has his Japanese voice actor from the anime, his sword is named Galaxia just like in the show (as opposed to Master, the name given in Amazing Mirror), and Dedede's design in 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate is also inspired by the series; apart from that, Meta Knight is dubbed in English by Eric Newsome rather than Eric Stuart (albeit with a similar accent), and Dedede produces unintelligible penguin-like noises provided by Sakurai himself rather than speaking in his anime voice. Likewise, Marth is voiced in Japanese by Hikaru Midorikawa, who originally voiced him in the Fire Emblem OVA.
  • For the Star Fox series, everything seems to be a composite. In Brawl, the characters have their Star Fox Command design (with cues from Star Fox 64 and Star Fox: Assault), but they enter the stage in their Star Fox: Assault-style ships. The Landmaster tank is a blend of 64 and Assault style. The Lylat Cruise stage features a battle between Assault-style Cornerian forces and Androssian/Pirate forces in one section and a dogfight between the Star Fox and Star Wolf teams in their 64-style fighters with the 64-style Great Fox in the middle of it. The returning Corneria stage from Melee is also completely based off of Star Fox 64. To complete the composite, Andross appears in his polyhedral Star Fox form. In Wii U, Lylat Cruise is unchanged, including using the Assault voice actors and personalities. Simultaneously, Orbital Gate Assault uses Star Fox 64 3D's voice actors and characterization, despite the scenario coming directly from Assault. Krystal isn't even present at all, nor is Star Wolf. Ultimate even tops a notch by now using Star Fox Zero outfits for Fox and Falco
  • The Villager is a composite of all the player characters from the Animal Crossing series (specifically, their designs are based on their "stubby" Wild World and City Folk appearances, but have the title of Mayor in New Leaf) and the character from Balloon Fight, as well as the Miis as portrayed in Wii Sports.
  • Solid Snake is based off his Sons of Liberty incarnation, with the facial hair of Naked Snake/Big Boss from Snake Eater. He relies on his classic CQB style from all the pre-Snake Eater games, but uses all sorts of explosive weapons from all Metal Gear games. Shadow Moses Island is based off its appearances in the first Solid game and Guns of the Patriots (acting as Foreshadowing for the latter). Ultimate also features him using Covering Fire as his new Final Smash, a tactic used by Venom Snake in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
  • Palutena's moveset consists of abilities and power-ups used by Pit in Kid Icarus: Uprising. The ones shown in her trailer include Heavenly Light, Explosive Flame, Warp, Rocket Jump, Reflect, Auto-Reticle, Jump Glide, Counter, Super-Speed, Angelic Missile, Celestial Fireworks, Lightweight, and for her Final Smash, Black Hole and Mega Laser. Though this is a lesser example, as in Uprising, she was the one granting Pit these powers (as she points out in the aforementioned trailer).
  • "Duck Hunt" combines the characters from Duck Hunt with elements from other Zapper games, such as Wild Gunman and Hogan's Alley.
  • Magicant is a mixture of its EarthBound Beginnings/Mother 1 and EarthBound/Mother 2 incarnations (featuring the pink-seashells-on-pink-clouds appearance from the former with various references to the latter, such as Dungeon Man and shots of the game periodically appearing in the background).
  • Mega Man uses Robot Master weapons from all the numbered games except Mega Man 5, Mega Man 10, and Mega Man & Bass. He also gets his Mega Upper attack from Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
  • They know where you are in invisible mode, and the situation of the battlefield during Interface Screws. They also know where all the items are, even when they appear off-screen. If you're fighting a one-on-one fight with a CPU character and it suddenly disengages and run away, chances are there's something on the other side of the map it really wants.
  • It's much easier for a CPU character to get back in the ring without falling.
  • Figure Players in 3DS and Wii U keep all their customized abilities and stat boosts even when custom characters are turned off.
  • In Wii U's Classic Mode only, AI characters in the second half will always have access to custom moves even if the player turned them off.
• The Computer Shall Taunt You: The AI will often taunt after KOing you.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: In single-player game modes (especially Classic Mode in Melee and Brawl), the more enemies the player has to fight, the weaker they will be. For example, while a battle against a lone Donkey Kong would be rather long and dragged out, ten of them in a row can even be OHKO'd depending on the character and/or attack you use. Only the Cruel Multi-Man modes avert this, with numerous tough enemies one after another.
• Console Cameo:
  • A black Nintendo DS Lite can be seen inside a present in one of Brawl's Trophy Hoard backgrounds.
  • Melee's Collection features a few Nintendo consoles on the shelf in the background. These include a GameCube, a Nintendo 64, a Game Boy, a Game Boy Advance, and a Game Boy Color. There's also a Famicom and Super Famicom in the Japanese version, which are replaced with an NES and an SNES respectively in every other version. There's also a Virtual Boy in the Japanese version.
  • A giant R.O.B. statue can be seen in the background of Brawl's Port Town Aero Dive stage, just like in F-Zero GX.
  • A GameCube trophy is obtainable in Melee. "Rumor has it that Super Smash Bros. Melee is a software title for this wondrous device."
• Continuing is Painful: In the fourth game's Classic Mode, accepting a Continue when you lose takes away some of your prize money, a few of your earned rewards (from 1 prize at difficulty 2.0 up to 5 at 9.0), and automatically lowers the difficulty by 0.5. This last part is particularly infuriating for anyone going for the Challenge for beating Classic on 9.0, because a single Game Over anywhere in your run (including Master Core) means you must start over from the beginning. Additionally, unlike previous games, there is no benefit to getting a Game Over, since the player always has two stock.^note In previous games, if the player got a game over, they would restart with the amount of lives they started the run with, allowing one to replenish their lives.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Using Palutena's Guidance on Mr. Game and Watch results in Pit briefly mistaking him for a Shadow Bug, a nod to the Subspace Emissary of Brawl where according to the Subspace Army's backstory, Shadow Bugs were extracted from Mr. Game and Watch in order to form said army.
  • Likewise, using it on Mario has Palutena outright state that Mario was his first ally in the fight against the Subspace Army.
  • In the Punch-Out!! stage in Wii U and Ultimate, R.O.B.'s nickname is "The Last of His Kind". In the Subspace Emissary, he was the only R.O.B. left at the end of the game.
  • Ultimate numbers non-Echo Fighters in order of seniority within the series, which contains a ton of references to past games. The original eight default characters are ordered by the first game's character select screen, with the four secret characters following in the same order. The default Melee newcomers are ordered based on that game's opening, which notably means Sheik is listed before Zelda. The first Brawl newcomers listed are from the E3 2006 trailer, ending with Snake, while the last ones are Toon Link and Wolf, last-minute additions who also don't feature in the Subspace Emissary plot at all. Lastly, the fourth game's characters are listed based on their official reveal, including the DLC characters, before the Ultimate newcomers are listed.
• Continuity Porn: Smash is this for Nintendo as a whole in the form of a fighting game, particularly Brawl.
• Convection, Schmonvection:
  • Falling into the lava or acid (or being hit by erupting lava streams on Norfair) damages you, but being near it is A-OK.
  • In Brawl, Lylat Cruise is a platform in space that, throughout the background loop, enters Corneria's atmosphere with no ill effects. In a hidden conversation, the Star Fox characters make a Lampshade Hanging about it.
• Cool vs. Awesome: Pretty much the essence of the series, as it pits all manner of video game characters together and makes them fight each other.
• Co-Op Multiplayer:
  • Pioneered with the release of Brawl. All-Star Mode, Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary, Events, and the various Stadium modes (Target Smash!!, Home-Run Contest, Multi-Man Brawl, and Boss Battles) all feature solo or co-op compatibility. There are even Events (and by extension, Notices) tailored towards co-op gameplay. In a unique case, Classic Mode is the only mode in Brawl that restricts play to just one player, even though all the activities it contains (Versus Mode matches and Target Smash!!) possess co-op compatibility, evident in the aforementioned co-op modes. However, Wii U fixed that by making Classic Mode 2-player compatible and Ultimate keeps it that way as well.
  • Although the design of Training Mode is geared towards single-player gameplay on the surface, Player 2 can also participate if Player 1 sets the "Enemy" option in the Start menu to Control. This enables human controlling of one of the computer players by Player 2.
  • In all of the installments, Versus Mode also counts as this if Team Battles is activated and 2 or 3 players are on the same team.
• Cosmetic Award: The various trophies in-game in Melee, Brawl and 3DS/Wii U and the Fighter Spirits in Ultimate.
• Counter-Attack: A small handful of down specials put characters into a "counter stance", where they glow white slightly and take a defensive stance. If they are hit at this time, they unleash a counterattack. If they aren't, then the stance ends and they can't move for a second, making them helpless. Also, grabs won't trigger counterattacks.
• Country Matters: Notably averted in 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate, as the announcer takes great care to pronounce "Duck Hunt" veeeery slowly and with careful enunciation.
• The Cover Changes the Meaning:
  • The Brawl cover of "Unfounded Revenge" is significantly more lighthearted and cutesy than its original incarnation, which was a theme associated with powerful Pigmask bosses.
  • Similarly, the cover of "Stickerbush Symphony" turns a slow and serene song into an energetic, yet still lightly orchestrated, battle theme. This is the case for a lot of other songs in the series.
  • Metal Gear's famous "Game Over" tune is used here as a fanfare for whenever Snake wins a multiplayer match.
• Credits Medley:
  • The ending credits theme for The Subspace Emissary in Brawl is a mix of the Super Smash Bros. credits theme, Melee's menu and opening theme, and the Brawl main theme.
  • The fourth game continues the trend, as the credits for Classic and All-Star mode, much like the above medley feature snippets of Melee's menu and opening theme, as well as both the main themes of Brawl and itself.
• Crippling Overspecialization:
  • Some of the characters are more optimized towards different styles of close combat, which gives them a unique advantage at the cost of having no range attack.
  • Zelda is a Glass Cannon whose magic powers let her hit like a hammer and get back onto the stage easily, but is slow on the draw and light as a feather.
  • Sheik is fast on her movement and attacks, but lacks strength and knockback. Her platform recovery is poor in comparison to Zelda.
  • Little Mac dominates on the ground but suffers incredibly at fighting in the air. The One-Hit Knockout Punch loses power if it's used while airborne (as do his special moves in general — even his Rising Uppercut, his recovery move, lifts him higher if initiated from the ground), and his platform recovery is the worst out of all the characters.
  • Shulk's neutral special lets him cycle through statuses that all have their own overspecialization.
    • Jump increases his jump height but lowers his defense.
    • Speed lets him run faster but he deals less damage.
    • Shield increases his defense but lowers his speed and damage.
    • Buster increases his damage but lowers his defense and ability to KO.
    • Smash increases his launch ability but lowers his damage and makes him more vulnerable to being launched himself.
  • Meta Knight's sword strikes are instantaneous with high knockback. Unfortunately, his reach and attack power are both point-blank and pitiful.
  • The legendary sword of Ragnell gives Ike both high attack power and knockback, allowing him to KO opponents at medium-low percentages. However, his slow movement makes him susceptible to interruptions. Ike is also very susceptible to semi-spike attacks due to his problematic platform recovery.
  • The introduction of 8-Player Smash in 3DS/Wii U has revealed some characters to be excellent in 8-Player Free-for-alls while others are simply hard-pressed to stay in the lead. Characters with Smash Attacks that are slow but have good power and reach (Charizard, Ike, and Shulk) can rack up a lot of damage and KOs when they get in the middle of the crowd and time their attacks right.
  • Wario's normal Smash Attacks are powerful but have terribly short range.
  • Using Olimar requires considerable patience, as the reach on his aerial and smash attacks are noticeably terrible. His Normal Side Smash, where a Pikmin does a bodyslam attack, stands out as a glaring weakness, as the Pikmin takes several seconds to return to his side and can even fall off the stage if it doesn't land on solid ground. The Pikmin themselves also require several seconds to fully blossom in order to reach their maximum attack power.
• Critical Failure: Jigglypuff is the only character that can self-destruct if its shield gets broken, which was an intentional design flaw to balance out its advantages.
• Crosshair Aware:
  • The Dragoon item and the Halberd's laser, as well as Snake's Final Smash in Brawl, Zero Suit Samus's Final Smash in 3DS/Wii U and Pit's Final Smash in Ultimate.
  • Duck Hunt uses them to make it obvious that the hunter's attacking alongside them.
• Crossover: The series' entire concept. As of 3DS/Wii U, there has been roughly 20+ different franchises represented throughout the 15 years, and that's just the playable roster. Assist trophies, trophies, and cameos push the limits of this trope. Ultimate takes this up to eleven, with roughly 30 different franchises represented by 80 playable characters ^note counting all of the Pokemon Trainer's Pokemon as one and the six [DLC] characters, and at least 130 more game franchises represented by the assist trophies, stages, music, and spirits from over 40 years worth of gaming history.
• Crowd Chant: In every game, at random times during a match (such as if you KO multiple opponents in quick succession), an unseen audience will cheer certain characters. Usually, this is just the character's name said over and over again (such as, "Mario! Mario! Mario!"), but for some characters, this is more specific. For example, Chrom's is "Chrom, Chrom, he's our man! If he can't do it, no one can!", King K. Rool's is "Kremling Krew!", Wolf's is just howling, Donkey Kong's is "DK! Donkey Kong!", and Dark Pit's is "Pittoo! Pitto! Pitto!".
• Cute Giant:
  • The series often invokes this with giant versions of small characters. Giant Yoshi was an especially memorable case of this.
  • Jigglypuff's Final Smash causes it to get absolutely huge in Brawl. A glitch that messes with a lot of Final Smashes can cause it to stay that way.
  • Doshin the Giant, though his game never made it to North America, did have a trophy in Melee.
• Cuteness Proximity: Mei Ling squees in Snake's Codec for Pikachu while talking about it, as does Viridi in the Palutena's Guidance for the same character.
• Cycle of Hurting: In 3DS/Wii U, when Meowth appears from a Poké Ball, it is possible for a character's hitbox to get caught into and overlap with Meowth, which results in a massive amount of damage-over-time because the coins are preventing the victim from getting unstuck and coming into contact with the Pokémon itself is causing continuous damage.
  • Pray that you never end up in a 2-on-1 against King K. Rool and Ridley in Ultimate, as they can and will dunk on you endlessly.

D

• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • The 3DS version's default button setting has the L Button as Grab, and R as shield. This is problematic to those who played with the Gamecube controller who used the Z button to grab (which is above the R button) and the L button to shield. This can easily be changed, though.
  • In Melee, the Z button (right bumper) is your Grab button while the right trigger is your shield. In Wii U, this is reversed when playing with the Gamepad, as the right bumper is now your shield and the right trigger is now your grab.
  • It's easy to forget that Charizard's Rock Smash, a fairly useful move in Brawl and even better in 3DS/Wii U, changed commands between the two games and use Flare Blitz by mistake.
  • Wavedashing was a very advanced technique in Melee, done by air dodging while moving forwards and landing. What happens if you air dodge then land in 4? You get a lot of landing lag, that's what.
  • Within Melee, the C-stick is used to do quick smash attacks and aerials in Vs. Mode, but in 1P modes it controls the camera instead.
  • The default controls for the Classic Controller Pro and Pro Controller in Brawl and Wii U assign the buttons based on their names rather than their relative positions on the controller, which can trip up people used to the GameCube controller. For instance, the shield buttons are L and R and the grab buttons are ZL and ZR, despite the fact that on the Classic and Pro Controllers, the L and R buttons are in front of the Z buttons, while on the GameCube controller, L and R are behind the (single) Z button. This was changed for Ultimate, with the side effect of confusing people who had gotten used to the other layout. Fortunately, the controls are customizable in all of these games.
• Darker and Edgier: With more detailed and more realistic graphics, a surprisingly dramatic story mode, and more violent attacks, Brawl is definitely qualified for this trope compared to the other entries in the series. The game after it somewhat reversed this by injecting more color, replacing some moves (e.g. Cook Kirby with a BFS that makes rainbow trails), and having a lighter theme. Ultimate is between the two, lighter than Brawl but darker than 3DS/Wii U. The series as a whole tends to be more gritty and realistic than the games the characters hail from. Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Diddy Kong are the most prominent examples of this, with the former having more bestial and ferocious roars rather than the gruff but still recognizable voice he has in his home series, and the latter two sounding more like actual primates instead of the goofy voices the Donkey Kong Country series gives them.
• Dead Character Walking:
  • By a certain glitch in Stamina mode in Brawl and Wii U, any character that transforms for their Final Smash (i.e. Bowser, Wario, Charizard, Lucario, and Little Mac) can become "zombies" where they can still be controlled and beat other players at 0 HP. Most characters can still win, but Wario cannot win at all after using this glitch.
  • Master Hand, in 3DS, can continue fighting at 0 HP if you attack him for exactly the amount of damage as he has HP remaining. Any sort of damage after that, however, will defeat him.
• Deader than Dead: In Melee and Brawl, when characters are defeated, they simply revert back into their trophy forms and can be brought back to life with outside help. At the end of Melee's Adventure Mode, Bowser comes back as Giga Bowser this way, but defeating him a second time makes his trophy explode into dust.
• Deadly Force Field: Fox, Falco and Wolf's down-B move is Reflector, which will reflect ranged attacks and knock around anyone close to them.
• Deadly Ringer: Mr. Game and Watch has a bell that he rings for two of his taunts and also uses as a bludgeoning weapon. It originates from the alarm feature on the "Wide Screen" and "Multi Screen" Game & Watch systems.
• Deal with the Devil: Referenced by the "Devil's Pact" power in Smash Run, which sets your damage to 300% in exchange for temporarily giving all of your stats a massive boost.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Tapping A to punch (which is usually a character's fastest unassisted attack, at least in terms of startup, and practically always has the shortest total execution time). It's also the fan's specialty (which easily beats the jab by a country mile).
• Death or Glory Attack:
  • Luigi's Super Jump Punch; if it lands a critical hit, it is an almost literally 100% guaranteed KO. If it misses or lands a glancing blow, Luigi is wide open.
  • Any move with a long startup time (like Captain Falcon's Falcon Punch and Ganondorf's Warlock Punch and Volcano Kick) is a downplayed example of this, as unless your opponent is completely incapacitated, they will probably have more than enough time to hit you with a jab or tilt (but they probably won't have enough time to use something that will really hurt). However, if your opponent has a Counter-Attack move...
  • Jigglypuff's Rest is by far the most extreme example, having stupidly good KO power (being able to KO characters with as little as 25% of damage in Melee and 50% of damage in 3DS/Wii U), but making Jigglypuff fall fast asleep and become completely and utterly defenseless for several seconds after execution, whether it hits or not. Also, it has a laughably tiny hitbox, so if your positioning is just a little bit off when using it... well, let's just say that, given a half-competent opponent, you will be hit with the strongest move in your opponent's arsenal (enjoy your imminent reverse Warlock Punch to the face). In fact, even if you do score a KO, your opponent might respawn in time to swat you while you're helpless (though probably not with a very strong attack).
• Decomposite Character: The fourth game and onwards makes Samus/Zero Suit Samus and Zelda/Sheik into individual characters, rather than allowing them to transform from one another as before. This falls in line with how fans perceived the characters in the first place, as many Smash players had a preference for one character's form over the other.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: The Yellow Devil on Wily Castle unleashes a massive, growing explosion following its defeat in a similar fashion to the Smart Bomb. If you dealt the killing blow, the explosion harms your opponents while doing nothing to you.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • On the Pyrosphere stage in Wii U, Ridley shows up. Initially, he is hostile to all the players, but if one player damages him enough, he'll start fighting on that particular player's side. Interestingly enough, the player that befriended Ridley can still attack him, and even finish him off for a point towards their score.
  • In Wii U's Classic Mode, any character that the player has KO'd previously can be chosen as a teammate in team battles, even rivals and intruders, though intruders lose their giant/metal status.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Pichu and Mewtwo were both playable characters in Melee, but were demoted to trophies in Brawl.
  • In 3DS, many of the former fighters in the series' previous entries were also given this treatment. Lampshaded in Pokémon Trainer's trophy description.
  • Mr. Resetti is demoted from Assist Trophy status to a background cameo in Wii U's Town and City stage.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • It's possible for Mega Man to be either fought in metal form in Classic mode (like all the other fighters) or he can pick up the Metal Box to turn into Metal Mega Man. However, being a robot, Mega Man is already made of metal.
  • The switch that changes a stage to its Final Destination form and back can be toggled on the Final Destination, even though it'll have no effect either way. Same goes for toggling a Battlefield-form on either form of the Battlefield in Ultimate.
  • Little Mac can be shrunken by a Poison Mushroom, turning him into Mini Little Mac.
  • The Omega forms of Battlefield and Big Battlefield are both exactly the same, which makes sense given the fact that the latter stage is essentially a bigger version of the former stage.
  • There's an event in Wii U called "Duck Hunt!" in which you play as Duck Hunt, from the Duck Hunt universe, and play Duck Hunt on the Duck Hunt stage against... Falcos.
• Depending on the Writer: The Smash invitation letters are either designated to specific characters (Villager and Steve/Alex get theirs through the mail while Pyra says she got invited when showing her invite to Rex) or can be obtained by anyone (Joker's trailer has him steal one, Terry's has multiple SNK characters attempt to grab a flying Smash letter before Terry nabs it when it finally lands, and Min Min's has various ARMS characters fighting for a chance to grab one before she snatches it and defeats the final two characters standing).
• Developer's Foresight:
  • If you pit the Star Fox characters against each other in Brawl, 3DS/Wii U, or Ultimate, their usual victory lines change into more personal ones. In the latter, the Kid Icarus characters also have lines against each other, as does Robin against Lucina, and Lucina against Marth and Ike.
  • In the Spirit Tracks stage of 3DS and Ultimate, a version of Toon Link is usually the one driving the train. But if someone is playing as either Link or Toon Link (or Young Link in Ultimate), Alfonzo will be substituted in instead. Also, King Dedede won't show up in the background of Dream Land 64 if he's one of the combatants.
  • The game is rendered in 3D but plays in 2D. Moves that take advantage of the third dimension, such as the sidestep, tend to make the character invincible while side-stepping, meaning the positioning of the sidestep itself is mostly meaningless. Despite this, the hitboxes still operate in 3D, which makes a difference in rare situations, such as with a couple characters that lose their invincibility before they have completely returned from their sidestep.
  • The Palutena's Guidance Easter Egg in Wii U and Ultimate (which works somewhat like Snake's Codec Conversation Easter Egg) accounts for the fact that the alternate costumes of certain characters changes them into entirely different characters and adjusts the dialogue accordingly. Against Cloud, there is even a special line just for a Stamina battle ^note During this one, they talk about his Finishing Touch Limit Break, which has high kill power but deals only 1%. Its uselessness in Stamina mode is then noted by Pit.
  • In Ultimate, Fox and Wolf have unique lines for using their Final Smashes on each other.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Since Palutena and Rosalina are playable, it's also possible for them to be knocked out. Master Core, too, since Master Hand is described as the "source of creation in the Smash Bros. universe" in his trophy. Bayonetta can qualify depending on who you ask, considering an Umbra Witch's ability to distort time and casually summon demons to fight is no small feat either.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Some characters are easy to pick up and play. Others... require a bit more finesse.
  • From the first game, Ness is the defining example. His highly nonstandard moveset is powerful and great for catching players off guard, but also very unwieldy, especially the recovery move. It isn't uncommon for an inexperienced Ness player to die from flubbing a PK Thunder recovery more than anything else. Physics engine revamps in the later games make it easier to pull off, though he still ends up screwed by narrow pits.
  • From Melee, the Ice Climbers. The sheer power of Popo and Nana relies on their tandem attacks, which can easily rack up damage and KOs if done right, and this is without getting into the "separation attack" stuff.^note It is possible to separate the Climbers with some fast fingerwork, allowing the player to attack from two places at once, which is a whole other level of the trope. So naturally, this is balanced out by having the NPC Climber able to be KO'd; a solo Ice Climber isn't anywhere near as effective, and his/her usually amazing recovery becomes useless. Ice Climbers players have to take great care to keep both Popo and Nana in play.
  • From Brawl, Lucas. While he doesn't have Ness' crippling Achilles' Heel^note he has the Rope Snake, which lets him tether-grab platform edges and is thus made quite difficult to KO, he suffers from a horrible case of Skill Gate Characters: his high-damaging moves are very slow, his fast moves are very weak, and he doesn't have many in-betweens. Playing him effectively means peppering the enemy with ranged moves while keeping them as far away from you as possible, which is something that the game physics usually work against, though his quirky moveset makes it fully possible. Good Lucas players are rare, but quite dangerous. Also in this game are Olimar, who is almost helpless without his Pikmin, which he must pull from the ground and can be killed, and each color has its own weaknesses and strengths; and Pokémon Trainer, for whom mastery requires three times the effort of other characters because he is effectively three characters who rotate in and out of battle. Only one person is known to use Pokémon Trainer in competitions, and his learning curve is so steep that most Game Mods separate his three Pokémon into separate characters. To a lesser extent, there's also Sonic. Everything about him is lightning-fast and requires the player to keep up with him.
  • From 3DS/Wii U, Rosalina and Luma. Basically the Ice Climbers' "separation" tactic given form, a lot of Rosalina's versatility comes from her and the Luma being able to attack separately; this alone makes her a lot more complicated than the rest of the cast. Her moveset is also quite strange, relying more on nullifying and redirecting enemy attacks than retaliating. She comes with a steep learning curve for sure, but many people feel she has the potential to be a Game-Breaker. There is also Mega Man, who is the most projectile-oriented character to date: not only are most of his special attacks projectiles, he also creates projectiles through 3 of his aerials, his neutral, his strong side tilt, and his side smash attack. He's a long-range combatant in a game series that encourages up-close fighting. His up tilt, the Mega Upper, is also unlike any other such move in the game, since it sends him into the air, but it can only be used on the ground and thus it can't be used as a recovery move. You also can't control Mega Man's trajectory when he recovers from it, unlike every other move in the game that sends the user into the air.
  • There's Ryu in 3DS/Wii U, who plays much like a traditional fighting game character in a game whose engine isn't quite designed for that sort of thing. Same goes for Ken and Terry in Ultimate.
  • As far as items go, the Home-Run Bat qualifies. Its forward smash attack takes longer than most attacks to come out, but when it connects, it's an almost guaranteed One-Hit KO.
  • Puff Up, Jigglypuff's Final Smash, causes it to become stationary for several seconds while it expands to cover most of the stage and has a limited attack range after a fixed amount of time has passed. Putting the character in the middle will not KO anybody (unless the stage is really small), and savvy players will dodge at the right moment. Instead, good use of Puff Up is about choosing your targets and predicting what they'll do several seconds from then — not an easy task. In a similar vein, use of Jigglypuff's Down-B attack Rest — one of the most devastating attacks in the game — leaves you motionless for about five seconds after using it... whether you hit another player or not. Pulling off that move without making yourself an easy KO target not only requires proper timing, but also some knowledge of your target's play style.
  • Some Final Smashes in general require more skill and/or timing to use than others. Transformation or AoE smashes have no contact requirement, but (usually) still require some player input after activation in order to deal damage. Contact Smashes will activate through a mock attack that drags all tagged players into an animation. Activating the latter, however, can be difficult, as savvy players will evade the Final Smash user or lure them into their own (long-ranged) attacks.
  • The Kirby amiibo can copy the neutral-B attacks like any other Kirby players. The most optimal way to train amiibo is to fight it using the same fighter as the amiibo. How, then, do you train Kirby amiibo to use Copy Abilities the way you want them to use it? Simple: Play as another character, then use the neutral-B the way you want them to use it. The Kirby will then pick up how you would use the copy ability and will then attempt to mimic it.
  • amiibo fighters will pick up how you handle stage hazards and the like and will attempt to mimic those as well. This is useful to, for example, train it so that it will attempt to get Ridley on their side on the Pyrosphere stage, be on the most optimal place on the screen (in your point of view) within scrolling stages like Pac-Land, avoid the gaze of 5-Volt on the Gamer stage, play Duck Hunt while fighting opponents, etc.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: 3DS/Wii U doesn't have a story mode because people kept putting all of Brawl's cutscenes on YouTube. Sakurai reasoned that it didn't make any kind of business sense to ever make another one since people who only care about the story have no reason to buy the game. Instead, it took advantage of the same web video services by making videos introducing new characters for pre-release hype.
• Digitized Sprites: The first game made heavy use of sprites to economize on cartridge memory. Even now, sprites are still used for relatively minor things like food items, smash coins, and even special effects. Despite appearances, this is subverted for Mr. Game & Watch, who is actually a stiffly-animated 3D model given a "flat" effect to resemble a Game & Watch character.
• Distaff Counterpart:
  • Lucina serves as a Distaff Counterpart for Marth, being his Moveset Clone.
  • Robin, Wii Fit Trainer, Villager, Corrin, Inkling and Byleth can be played as either gender. In Ultimate, there are additional female options for Pikachu and Pokémon Trainer and one for Pichu.
  • Bowser Jr. can be replaced by Wendy O. Koopa.
• Ditto Fighter:
  • A variation: To choose a fighter randomly in tournament mode in Melee, you pick Ditto.
  • In 3DS/Wii U's Classic Mode, this is one of Master Core's forms if you play on a hard enough intensity (appropriate enough, it's named "Master Shadow").
  • Ditto himself is a Pokemon that can appear in the Pokeballs in Ultimate. They take on the form of whoever summoned them and randomly attacks before disappearing.
• Door-Closes Ending: The first game had a variation on this. After defeating Master Hand in 1P Mode, the camera zooms out to reveal the room from the title sequence, followed by the screen going black to the sound of a door shutting. Cue credits.
• Double-Edged Buff:
  • Shulk's neutral special is Monado Arts, which are five different status effects that give him a buff with an added weakness. The Jump Monado increases Shulk's jump height while making him take more damage, the Speed Monado increases his walk speed while making him deal less damage, the Shield Monado decreases the knockback that he receives while also decreasing his air height and speed, the Buster Monado increases the damage he deals, while also increasing the damage that he receives, and the Smash Monado increases the knockback he deals while decreasing the amount of damage that he deals. Kirby can also copy Shulk's neutral special, which also gives him access to the same buffs.
  • In Super Smash Bros For Nintendo 3 D Sand Wii U, one of Palutena's alternate Down Specials is Lightweight, which, like in her own game, increases her movement speed in exchange for increasing her damage intake.
• Double Jump: All characters can do this; some have even more than 2 jumps, and most up specials count as jumps.
• Downloadable Content:
  • Melee had an event in Japan where players could take their memory cards to stores and the employees would put two normally unobtainable trophies on the save file. These trophies are still on the American and PAL versions of the game, and are fully translated, but there is no way to get them without hacking. The trophies are "Unmasked Samus" and "Mario & Yoshi".
  • 3DS/Wii U introduced DLC to the series proper, adding in several new characters, stages, trophies, and Mii Fighter costumes. Ultimate continues this.
• Dream Match Game: Ultimate brings back all previous characters and almost all stages.
• Dualvertisement:
  • In general, Smash Bros. is this for Nintendo; not only a love letter to existing fans, but a way to make people interested in the games involved in the franchise. Characters like Roy and Greninja were included to promote Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade and Pokémon X and Y specifically. Similarly, Masterpieces in Brawl and Wii U offer playable demos of some of the most iconic games featured in Smash with a direct link to the eShop to buy the full version for Virtual Console.
  • In the buildup to 3DS/Wii U, as many characters as possible were used to commemorate the release of games in their home franchise. Luigi coincided with Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (and The Year of Luigi in general), Toon Link with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, Sonic with Sonic Lost World, Diddy Kong for Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and so on. Interestingly, Princess Peach debuted on the day The Wonderful 101 was released, but got a special image holding up Toad with Mario and Luigi beside them on the release date of Super Mario 3D World.
  • This has the added effect of unintentionally promoting games for non-Nintendo consoles, mainly games that have appeared on Sony's PlayStation family. Snake and his home stage Shadow Moses Island had a lot of Foreshadowing for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, a PS3 exclusive released months after Brawl. Ryu was announced during the early promotion of Street Fighter V, a PS4 exclusive. Cloud was announced some time after the reveal of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, which was announced to be initially exclusive to the PS4.
  • One Japanese ad for 3DS features Mario and company squaring off with Mii Fighter versions of the members of AKB48.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole:
  • Those who don't know the localization differences between the Japanese version of Earthbound 1994 and the US version won't know that the Octopus statues from the Magicant stage are supposed to be the Japanese equivalent to the Pencil statues.
  • The fact that Duck Hunt is known as Duck Hunt Duo in Europe makes little sense once it becomes apparent that the character is actually a trio, unlike what their name would imply.
• Dueling Player Characters: In the Subspace Emissary, Mario and Pit face off against Link and Yoshi, after one of the teams mistakes the other for having just killed one of the princesses. Which one is in control of the player depends on which princess was saved earlier.
• Dump Stat: When customization is on, for modes vs computer players, speed is the dump stat. Running on the ground quickly and high lateral mobility in the air are less of an asset than normal when fighting computers. Therefore, most "vs. CPU" setups will use two pieces of attack equipment to buff attack, and one piece of defense equipment to cover the loss of defense from the attack equipment, or another setup that doesn't involve speed equipment.

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