Super Smash Bros Ultimate / Tropes G To O

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G

• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • In early versions of the game, if you were to have one player-controlled Villager and one player-controlled Isabelle play catch with the shot from Isabelle's side-aerial slingshot with their respective Pocket moves, the game would freeze and crash to the main Switch menu after a few throws. Presumably, it results from the game getting the two's respective slingshot projectiles confused and borking itself as a result, as it doesn't seem to affect any other projectile, nor does the glitch occur with two Villagers or Isabelles doing the same thing.
  • The game will also crash if you have Yoshi land the final blow of a two-player Stamina battle with his grab. Presumably, this is due to the game not knowing what to do with the KO'd player who is still stuck in Yoshi's mouth. Version 2.0.0 fixed this bug.
  • Another game-crashing bug can only be performed through ridiculously specific circumstances: If a Mii Swordfighter with Gale Stab as their Side Special uses said side special directly towards Duck Hunt during a specific frame of time while the latter has a Gunman out on the field, the game will freeze. The catch is that the glitch doesn't seem to occur unless the Mii Swordfighter's other special moves are set to only specific combinations while still containing Gale Slash as the side-special. The reason for why this glitch occurs is unknown.
  • Finishing a match in Classic Mode with Joker's Final Smash will cause the game to softlock, as the developers seemingly didn't account for transitioning to the Classic Mode results screen from Joker's unique way of ending a match. This one got fixed in 3.0.1.
  • Steve/Alex debuted with enough odd bugs to fill a minecart (to the point that Patch 9.0.0., the patch that added them in, received two additional patches just to get rid of the majority of them), among them being a game-crashing bug involving mining on rotating pieces on custom stages. Another highly-specific glitch involves Steve attacking another Steve/Alex with a Hammer while they are being attacked by Zoroark, causing the other player to get permanently stuck in mid-air. If the player manages to summon Zoroark again while player 2 is stuck, the game will crash the moment Zoroark tries to attack the frozen player.
• Game Lobby: The game lets players host a lobby for up to 8 players with a determined ruleset. Ready/active players have their icons placed within the fighting ring, waiting players stand on the queue to the right, and people who only want to spectate can sit on the bleachers to the left. The problems with Ultimate's lobby system is that changing characters or lobby music kicks you out of the queue and you can't change rulesets without creating a new lobby.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • The Wii Fit trainer's up smash, Tree Pose, gives her brief invincibility frames; when she uses it right before getting hit by Galeem's beam, she lasts a little longer than Villager and Duck Hunt.
  • Being in the water in this installment causes damage to characters who can't swim (Sonic), or are harmed by water (Charizard, the Inklings, Incineroar) in their home series.
  • Fighters possessed by Spirits both look like and act like the characters they're being possessed by; see Mythology Gag for an extensive list of them.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Despite the fact that Kirby was never caught by Galeem and subsequently used as a base for Puppet Fighters like everyone else, there are still Spirit Battles with Kirby Puppet Fighters in World of Light. When asked about this, Sakurai gave a Hand Wave that Galeem is actually creating Kirby puppet fighters based off his analysis of him.
  • World of Light makes no concessions for Min Min, Pyra, or Mythra (previously only in the game as Spirits) becoming playable in the mode, so it's possible for them to end up fighting themselves during their NPC Spirit Battles. They can even equip their own spirits.
  • Dismissing Spirits In-Universe is supposed to be sending them back to their own game-worlds. But you can also dismiss characters like Primid and Sandbag, who are from Smash itself and thus already "home".
  • Although the spirits are the actual characters (while no implication was given to trophies in previous games), you can have more than one of the same. In fact, some spirits are of the same person (such as standard Waluigi and Mario Strikers Waluigi) or even the playable characters and Assist characters.
• Gate Guardian: In the adventure mode's Final World, the paths leading directly to Galeem and Dharkon are blocked off by what are effectively the final spirit battles in the game. Fittingly, the spirits are of characters with enormous power. Galeem is protected by the spirit of Arceus - a Pokémon that created the entire universe, and that is powerful enough to both create or completely overwhelm multiple Legendary Pokémon at the same time, as well as render all attacks against it completely worthless by changing to any type it wants. Unsurprisingly, its signature attack lets it scattershot beams of light like meteors. Meanwhile, Dharkon is guarded by Madama Butterfly, a massive demon dwelling in Purgatorio who is the source of all of Bayonetta's power. Just summoning part of her limbs gives Bayonetta the largest Smash Attacks in the game, and Madama Butterfly's power is so great that Masahiro Sakurai himself speculated it could let Bayonetta evade Galeem's initial attack, if not for it striking Purgatorio as well.
• Gender-Inclusive Writing: The new Palutena's Guidances for Corrin and Pokémon Trainer are written in a gender-neutral way, and are the same whether you play as the male or female versions of the character.
• Geo Effects: Steve's unique gameplay style requires him to mine resources from the stage itself and what items you get are dependent on what materials make up said stage. For example, mining on Corneria, which takes place above the spaceship Great Fox, will almost always result in large quantities of iron, which can be converted into durable blocks and weapons. Conversely, a place like Kongo Jungle that entirely consists of wooden platforms will only hand out weak, basic wood. This gameplay aspect is averted in the Omega and Battlefield variations, where every material type is accessible in a preset order, keeping things fair.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Any Spirit who "prefers to avoid conflict" will run away from you and let their allies do the fighting for them.
• Gigantic Moon: Simon and Richter's reveal trailer ends on a shot of Dracula's Castle silhouetted against a full moon that, in typical Castlevania fashion, is so big that it looks like it could be on an imminent collision course for the earth. The in-game Dracula's Castle stage has a crescent moon that isn't quite as big, but it's still much bigger than would be realistic.
• Glass Cannon:
  • One ability you can train in the Dojo is Demon Style, which massively increases offense but heavily lowers defense on a certain type of spirit. It's also generally considered the best fighting style out of the bunch. Fittingly, it works best on Akuma's Spirit due to him already being a Glass Cannon (he has the highest attack out of every spirit, while having below average defense for a Legendary spirit).
  • There's also Hades, who has Trade-Off Attack (which makes you start with 30% or makes you lose 30HP in Stamina Battles, but increases attack power to obscene levels), an absurdly high attack stat (third-highest in the game) and very low defense for a Legendary Spirit. With Hades, you can do a lot of damage very quickly, even against other legendary spirits, but you die especially quickly.
  • The I-Tetromino has attack stat on par with Hades and Akuma, but the defence stat is only in the 2000s being incredibly low for an Ace spirit. It's best to use Akuma over it as the I-Tetromino falls too much into Crippling Overspecialization.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom:
  • Every single match starts off with silhouettes of the characters with a glint in their eyes before switching over to their character portraits.
  • In the Fighting Fire with Fire trailer, we see Incineroar's eyes appear from the backstage while Ken is busy fighting Little Mac.
  • Galeem's Puppet fighters in World of Light have ominous red glowing eyes, while Dharkon's Puppet fighters have purple eyes.
• God and Satan Are Both Jerks: Galeem and Dharkon are two diametrically opposed beings composed respectively of pure light and darkness, both of whose agendas amount to them being universal threats to the fighters.
• Godzilla Threshold: In World of Light, heroes and villains, no matter how hated, perform an Enemy Mine against the common foe, Galeem. On top of that, achieving the True Ending has the villains doing so; the fighters have become so powerful that Galeem and Dharkon, begrudgingly, team up to take them down, while still trying to kill each other. Even just before the final battle, Galeem and Dharkon are exhausting so many resources to fight each other that they barely have any left to deal with the fighters. After defeating a single puppet fighter of Master Hand and Crazy Hand in the final world, Galeem and Dharkon are forced to send the ORIGINALS after them. This gives the fighters the chance to release them from the control of Galeem and Dharkon, allowing Master Hand and Crazy Hand to destroy the barrier separating the two entities, and allowing Master Hand to utterly decimate the bulk of the remaining puppet fighters.
• Going Commando: Thanks to some...intrusive digging, Krystal◊'s model has been found to not wear underwear under her clothes.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny: When summoned from a Pokéball, Xerneas will turn its summoner gold with its Geomancy move and bestow the same power boost.
• Gold–Silver–Copper Standard: Gold coins are worth 1, Silver coins are 1/2, while Copper coins are 1/10.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: Spirits, taking over the role of trophies in the previous games. There's several ways to find them; most spirits have to be battled in either World of Light or the lucky-dip Spirit Board, several can only be purchased in the World of Light shops, a few can only be gotten be releasing spirits and using the cores they leave to summon different ones (which then means you have to get the spirits you released again), some are earned by leveling specific spirits to 99 so they can be enhanced into a new form, and a select few are locked behind Challenges that need to be completed before you earn them and have them start appearing normally. Spirits can also be snagged from the Vault shop, and received as rewards in modes like Classic Mode, Home-Run Contest, and Online Tourney. A special category of Spirits, Fighter Spirits, can only be gotten via Classic Mode or the shop in the Vault; these can't be equipped, and instead represent the fighters themselves. Ultimate also has regularly-occurring events that introduce more spirits to the game, which last for a few days at a time; while the events are limited-time, the spirits eventually get added to the base game a few months later. Additionally, there's the Partner Pikachu and Partner Eevee spirits and Tockles spirit, which were exclusive to Old Save Bonuses of their respective games, but they were made obtainable through normal means in updates (2.0.0 for the former, and 6.0.0, only fightable on Hero's Spirit Board, for the latter). As of the Cuphead event in 7.0.0, there are 1,401 unique Spirits.
• Gradual Regeneration:
  • The Healing Sprout item constantly heals off your damage as long as you are holding it. However, it can be thrown, and it can be transferred to other fighters on contact or knocked off if you take enough damage or are thrown.
  • Some Support Spirits give the "Autoheal" Skill, which heals you for a small amount of damage every 5 seconds. The "Great Autoheal" Ability exclusive to Celebi does the same, but heals in much greater amounts.
  • Madama Butterfly from Bayonetta gives the unique Ability "Poison Heals", which inverts the effects of the Poison status effect, Poison Floors, and poison clouds, causing them to rapidly heal off damage. While it costs three slots, this Ability can make you effectively invincible in certain fights.
• Grandfather Clause: Nothing new for the series, but Ultimate adds some new ones where tradition is carried out despite being out-of-place.
  • Luigi, Dr. Mario, Falco, Wolf, Pichu, Young Link, Ganondorf, Toon Link, and Roy are still distinct enough characters separate from the ones that they were initially based off of in their Smash Bros. debut^note Mario, Fox, Pikachu, Link, Captain Falcon, and Marth, respectively, even though Echo Fighters have been introduced in this game. Due to Divergent Character Evolution, they're all considered too distinct to be considered Echoes.
  • Pokémon Trainer was the only character in the roster to maintain the Stance System of transformations, after For 3DS/Wii U got rid of them by making Zelda/Sheik and Samus/Zero Suit Samus separate characters while taking out the Trainer in that game and making Charizard his own fully developed fighter. Because everyone is back, including the Trainer alongside Squirtle and Ivysaur, they get to retain the Stance System after it had been discarded, while kicking Charizard back into being part of the Trainer's set rather than his own character (throwing out Rock Smash in the process). But unlike the two examples given above, Pokémon Trainer conceptually is about using each monster to cover each other's weaknesses rather than being separate characters in a single slot (you can still stick to one Pokémon if you want to, though). As Pyra & Mythra are a transforming fighter, however, they prove that this kind of fighter is not gone for good.
  • Chrom is now a playable fighter as an echo of Roy instead of just being relegated to Robin's Final Smash. Emphasis on "just," because for some reason he's still part of Robin's Final Smash.
  • Lyn still has her somewhat deep voice from Brawl, provided by Lani Minella, even though Fire Emblem Heroes introduces a new, much younger sounding voice for her, provided by Wendee Lee, and other classic Fire Emblem characters such as Marth, Roy, and Ike were updated to use their Heroes voices in Smash.
  • The music track "Athletic Theme - Super Mario World" is a Yoshi series song despite all other Super Mario World tracks being Mario series songs because the stage it debuted on, Yoshi's Island (Melee), is a Yoshi series level that traditionally uses this track.
  • Melee's All-Star Rest Area song is still classified as a Smash series track due to only being used in the original-to-Smash Rest Area, despite being a remix of the Kirby's Dream Land song "Float Islands".
  • For an advertising example, the image that serves as a main advertisement features every base game third party franchise... except for Castlevania, due to being announced after the original trailer. Even more strange with the substantial amount of content the series has compared to others, including a boss.
• Grand Finale: Fighter #82, Sora, was the last character revealed for the game, with his trailer even calling back to the game's first teaser.
• Gratuitous English: F-Zero Medley, a new remix done by Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, is filled to the brim with lyrics like that. And yes, it sounds amazing.
• Greek Chorus: While no new stages with similar functions were added, all previous functions return. Palutena's Guidance adds new conversations for the base roster's newcomers, as well as the DLC roster from the previous game and veterans absent from the previous game. Some conversations from the previous game are also edited, while others have been completely revamped (DLC characters added to Ultimate itself, save for Piranha Plant, only get the same generic "Who is this?" response present in the previous game). This isn't the case of Snake's conversations, due to the passing of Roy Campbell, meaning that attempting to perform a call for information about a character who wasn't in Brawl won't work.
• Green Boy Color: The Dream Land stage based on Kirby, previously debuted in the 3DS version of the fourth game, makes a return; once again, it features all its landscapes in the format of a Game Boy with a filter colored green.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Banjo and Kazooie bring the Breegull Bash — smashing the enemy with Kazooie — as a powerful smash attack. Like in the source material, this is done to Kazooie's dismay.
• Guest Fighter:
  • Not only do all 7 previous third-party characters (Snake, Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Ryu, Cloud, Bayonetta) return, they are joined by Simon and Richter Belmont from Castlevania, and Ryu's echo Ken Masters.
  • Several other non-playable guests appear: new Assist Trophies include Alucard from Castlevania, Bomberman, the Rathalos from Monster Hunter, Akira from Virtua Fighter, Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog, Zero and Dr. Wily (in his Wily Capsule) from Mega Man, Rodin from Bayonetta, Guile from Street Fighter, and Shovel Knight, and even Shantae, Risky Boots, and Rayman get to make appearances as Spirits.
  • Two third-party characters also serve as bosses: Dracula from Castlevania and the aforementioned Rathalos.
  • The third-party characters added to the game as part of the Fighters Pass DLC are Joker (the main protagonist of Persona 5), the Hero from Dragon Quest XI (canonically named as the Luminary, and joined by Erdrick from Dragon Quest III, Solo from Dragon Quest IV and Eight from Dragon Quest VIII as alternate costumes), the eponymous duo from Banjo-Kazooie, and Terry Bogard (who hails from the Fatal Fury series).
  • The third-party characters added to the game as part of the Fighters Pass Vol. 2 are Steve (from Minecraft, and joined by Alex, Zombie and Enderman as alternate costumes), Sephiroth (the Big Bad of Final Fantasy VII, and serving as that game's second playable character after Cloud), Kazuya Mishima (the Villain Protagonist of Tekken), and Sora (the protagonist of the Kingdom Hearts series).
• Guide Dang It!:
  • How to unlock Richter in World of Light. You need to clear all the purple monsters from the Dracula's Castle sublevel, with very little indication beyond the star next to the dungeon icon on the Dark World map that the purple monsters are anything but a puzzle roadblock.
  • To unlock Chrom in World of Light, you have to check an inconspicuous chest after you've already opened it. One owl statue does hint at this, but this is the only time you're ever able to interact with something after its initial purpose.
  • The path to Mewtwo is a little less obtuse but still so. In the Mysterious Dimension, one of the quiz questions is "Who among the spirits can Kirby not inhale?" This is the only question with two right answers; Scarfy and Whispy Woods. However, the former takes you another segment of the map (ultimately leading to King K. Rool), while the latter takes you to Mewtwo.
  • Several Spirits can only be obtained by purchasing them at shops, however, other Spirits are only found by completing certain challenges. Which challenge contains said Spirit isn't disclosed or hinted during the game.
  • The existence of Elite-only Battle Arenas. It's not told to the player anywhere in the game or any of the trailers, and is only quietly unlocked as the very last Arena type once at least one of your characters is in Elite. Most players are completely unaware of them.
• Guns Akimbo: Joker uses dual handguns for his neutral special move. Interestingly, he appears to be firing a shot from one pistol, holstering it, drawing the other pistol, firing a shot, and then holstering that one in rapid succession for as long as the player holds the button, rather than holding and firing two guns at once.

H

• Half the Man He Used to Be: Sephiroth's reveal trailer opens with him one-shotting Galeem this way with his sword.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: World of Light can have some very frustrating spirit battles (an infamous one being Pauline); however, for the most part the bosses are a lot easier, except for Ganon, Dracula, and the True Final Boss.
• Hard Mode Perks: Crazy Hand will team up with Master Hand on difficulty 7.0 and higher in some of the Classic Mode routes.
• Haunted Castle: Dracula's Castle from the Castlevania series is a new stage. Various Gothic Horror monsters such as The Creature, a Werewolf, and Death will pop into the darkly lit level, with Dracula himself occasionally appearing. In World of Light, it also appears as one of the sub-areas, with the layout and placement of Spirits directly mirroring the levels and enemy placements of the very first Castlevania.
• Head Smashes Screen: Incineroar defeats Ken by sending him flying into a jumbotron screen in the former's trailer. Before that, Ken did the same thing to Little Mac.
• Heel–Face Turn: Defeating the true Master Hand and Crazy Hand during The Final Battle restores them to normal, where they unite to assist the heroes break the barrier between Galeem and Dharkon. Master Hand even helps out by plowing his way through an army of puppet fighters.
• Helicopter Pack: K. Rool brings back his helicopter backpack from Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, and uses it as his recovery move.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Used in Sephiroth's reveal trailer. It opens with the assembled fighters attempting to fight back against Galeem, the Big Bad from the game's story mode. However, just as it's about to launch a final attack, it suddenly gets sliced in half. The monster disintegrates, revealing Sephiroth to be its killer; he then assaults the fighters, going after Cloud in particular.
• Holy Burns Evil: Downplayed when Richter and Simon show up. There, Holy burns everything without discretion. The flames that come from a shattered vial of holy water are perfectly effective against Pit, an angel, and gain no special advantage against the demon-summoning, angel-slaughtering witch Bayonetta. Even the Belmonts themselves can be roasted by holy water tossed by another Belmont, or caught and returned by a rival.
• Holy Water: Serves as the Down special for both Simon and Richter. Notably, it hurts everyone, including both other instances of Simon and Richter and angelic and divine characters like Pit and Palutena, regardless of the character's morality.
• Hope Spot: Galeem gets utterly annihilated by Sephiroth during his reveal trailer...only for the ex-SOLDIER to immediately gun after the rest of the roster afterwards.
• Hope Springs Eternal: Essentially the theme to the lyrics of Lifelight, which shows in World of Light; the Smashers may have been wiped out by Galeem, but there's still hope of them being saved and getting back up for round two.
• Human-Focused Adaptation: This is the case of Sora's appearance in the game. The focus is put squarely on the original characters (who are all human), with the animalistic characters not appearing in the stage, Spirit Board, or Final Smash included with him.
• Human Shield: Unlike in previous games, Toad is willingly serving as Peach's counterattack measure. So does Blue Toad as Daisy's.
• Hyperspeed Escape: Kirby manages to survive the attack at the start of the World of Light by virtue of pushing his Warp Star to the absolute limits of its speed, eventually causing himself to temporarily blink out of existence and send Kirby to the new world.

I

• Iconic Item: An envelope with a red wax seal of the Smash logo on it, originally created for the Smash 4 reveal to tease the Villager's inclusion, got a huge following in the Smash fanbase after that trailer. As such, it appears in a lot of marketing for the game as new fighters get introduced— Isabelle got an identical envelope in her reveal trailer, it was used for the Wham Shot to show that Joker was in Smash, all the SNK characters in Terry Bogard's trailer try and fail to grab it before Terry himself picks it up, Sothis tosses one at Byleth as she tells them to join Smash, it's used to "hide" fighters that haven't yet been revealed as part of the Fighters Pass, and it was used as the background for the announcement that there will be more fighters after the Fighters Pass concludes.
• Idiosyncratic Wipes: A staple of World of Light.
  • Normal Spirit battles have darkness converge in the middle of the screen before bursting out to cover it. Bosses have darkness creep in from four directions on the screen, meeting in the middle. Fighters have darkness in a diagonal Smash logo, before it spreads to cover the screen.
  • Galeem's Spirit battles have a shining light appear from the top left corner of the screen. Dharkon's Spirit battles have darkness dispersing from the screen.
• I Know Madden Kombat: One of the new items is called the Beastball, a seemingly innocuous baseball that, when thrown, goes into flames the farther it travels and teleports mid-flight to align with a target. The player can find creative ways into throwing the item to unsuspecting foes.
• Immune to Flinching: The Slow Super Armor ability on a handful of Ace Support Spirits gives its user flinch immunity and resilience to knockback up to a limit in exchange for making you move as slow as molasses and virtually incapable of jumping. Its upgraded counterpart, found exclusively on the Legend Support Spirit Gold Mario, is simply known as Super Armor, which gives all of the benefits of Slow Super Armor without the "slow" part.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: World of Light has you open chests in the world map to obtain coins, spirit points, and spirits.
• Infernal Background: Sephiroth's victory screen is unique in that it depicts him standing among flames, in reference to the Nibelheim Incident of his own game.
• Infinity +1 Sword: You get the Galeem and Dharkon spirits by getting the Golden Ending. These have the highest stats out of any spirit and unlike Akuma or Deoxys, they're not Glass Cannons, having equal offense and defense stats, are neutral type and have effects that allow them to do extra damage against enemies in World of Light (though at the cost of taking extra damage from them) depending on the realm you're in^note Galeem does extra damage to and takes extra damage from Dark Realm foes, while Dharkon does the same to Light Realm ones. They don't come with any support slots, but that isn't really necessary because of how strong they are.
• Interesting Situation Duel: Players can use Spirits for special conditions that aren't normally possible within the regular customization options. One such example is a Loftwing giving whoever equips it a constant gust of wind.
• Interface Screw:
  • A new item is the Ramblin' Evil Mushroom, an enemy from EarthBound. Players who get hit by this will have their left/right controls reversed.
  • Some Spirit battles involve flipping your horizontal controls or turning the screen upside down. Both of these can be countered by certain Support Spirits.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Averted with the character select screen, which begins with only the original eight Veteran characters from the original game. Since the selection screen grows in size as you unlock characters, in addition to allowing the player to "merge" echoes and their originals into the same slot, it is hard to see how many are actually remaining.
  • In "World of Light", players who diligently full clear every area may notice that by the time they reach Galeem, they've still only found a bit more than half of the playable cast. Turns out, Galeem's just a Disc-One Final Boss. In turn, cleaning up both the Light and Dark Realms will still leave you missing Dark Samus, Roy, Palutena, and Bayonetta when you reach Dharkon in the latter area, because those four are in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Invincibility Power-Up: Banjo & Kazooie's Wonderwing special attack allows them to charge forward and suffer no damage for the attack's duration. As a trade-off, they can only use this attack five times per stock, and their supply of Golden Feathers needed to use the attack will not replenish unless they are KO'd.
• Irony: Back in the Wii U version of Smash 4, Viridi said it wouldn't make sense for Chrom to be a playable fighter because he'd be a Moveset Clone of Ike, with Palutena mentioning he doesn't have an Aether recovery like he does. In Ultimate, the Aether recovery is the only thing he copied from Ike, and he retains his own version of Aether as a Final Smash on top of that. Also, while Chrom is a clone (specifically an Echo Fighter), he isn't one to Ike but to Roy, who was conceived as a clone of Marth in Melee.
• It's Been Done: One of Pit's fourth-wall breaking conversations with Palutena and Viridi has him wondering if he could make his arrows more effective by strapping bombs to them. Viridi comments "Real original, Pit!" Though she doesn't say so explicitly, she's likely thinking of Link, who has been doing that for years.

J

• Jaw Drop:
  • DK and Diddy do this in the reveal trailer for King K. Rool when Dedede removes his disguise.
  • In Banjo’s reveal trailer, DK, Diddy, and King K. Rool do this when the Duck Hunt Duo remove their disguises.
• Joke Character:
  • Among spirits, the weakest one is, fittingly-enough, Dan, whose power level is only around 400 at level 1 and has a trait that starts the player with 30% damage with no benefit to make up for it (unlike Trade-Off Abilities). He's actually one in a collection of Primary Spirits who have that trait, which forces you to start every fight at a disadvantage if you use them, unless you are Lucario or are equipped with a Rage Blaster.
  • The Buzz Buzz Spirit fight pits you against an ultra-tiny Mr. Game & Watch who starts at 300% damage. It dies in one hit.
• "Just Frame" Bonus: Activate the shield just as you're about to be hit and it'll block the damage without reducing any shield strength.
• Just Toying with Them: In the reveal trailer for Sephiroth, the eponymous villain is shown utterly curb-stomping the rest of the roster in a rather casual manner, as if he feels they're Not Worth Killing. He even teases Mario by almost skewering him on Masamune, only to reveal that he's just suspending him by his overall strap. It's only when Cloud shows up that Sephiroth starts taking the battle seriously, complete with going into his signature One-Winged Angel form.

K

• Kaizo Trap: The zoom in that flashes red is said in-game to either be a signal on when the battle is over or when someone almost ends the battle. Whenever it's the latter, the receiving end still has a chance to turn the tides in their favor while their opponent might be caught off guard, especially if they don't know if the last hit would have KO'd.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Dharkon's entrance into the story is opened with him attempting to capitalize on Galeem's defeat at the hands of the fighters, initially trouncing Galeem's Master Hand army before Galeem is forced to pull a hasty retreat to recover. In both bad endings, the surviving entity takes the opportunity to finish off their opponent after they are defeated. In the True Final Boss fight, even though they're supposed to be on a truce, neither entity can resist taking a free shot at the other when they get stunned.
• Kill It with Water: Characters that have a weakness to water will gradualy take damage if they enter any bodies of water.
• Kingmaker Scenario: * Subverted at the end of World of Light. The player can choose to either destroy Dharkon and thus allow Galeem to bathe the world in light, or destroy Galeem and allow Dharkon to shroud the world in darkness. The third option which leads to the Golden Ending? Destroy both at once.
• Kubrik Stare: The Tournament menu has Mario giving one to the player.

L

• Lampshade Hanging: In Byleth's reveal trailer for the game, Sothis references the common complaint of 'too many swordfighters', and that Byleth would just be yet another to add to that list- right off the tail end of him getting beaten down by Link, Hero and Cloud.
  Sothis: So you've returned. And sooner than expected, I see. Too many swordsmen, are there? And you? You wield the sword as well? What will you do?!
• Last Lousy Point:
  • Trying to register every single Spirit can turn into a game of luck towards the end, due to the randomized nature of Spirit appearances outside of Adventure Mode meaning you will have to constantly cycle the Spirit Board and Shops just to acquire/summon the last few that you need. And there are spirits locked away as an Old Save Bonus from other games played on the Switch.
  • There is an entire page in Challenges dedicated to Online. Nevermind the fact that you need to pay for Nintendo Switch Online to actually go online in the first place, many of the Challenges there are ridiculously grindy and/or luck-based, especially the ones that involve playing 200 Quickplay matches and defeating 10 players with a higher GSP than you. Fortunately, none of them have exclusive spirits, costumes, or music locked behind them, and none of them are no-hammer challenges.
  • World of Light has a few of its own:
    • To find Chrom, you must open a treasure chest in the Lost Woods portion of the Sacred Land and then use it again to jump inside and warp to his location. No other chest in the game has this special property.
    • To get Richter, you have to utilize all the available cannonballs in order to defeat all of the ghosts on the Dracula's Castle map before he will appear.
    • While not as apparent at first, both of the two bad endings count towards 100% Completion, which means fighting both Galeem and Dharkon individually on the Final Battle map.
• Last Stand: The "World of Light" Adventure Mode starts with all of our heroes (and villains) doing this against Galeem and his army of Master Hands. It failed utterly, though not for lack of bravery.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • Many of the spirits reference certain plot points from their games of origin, but the most blatant examples are the ones that can be enhanced. A lot of these spirits can be enhanced into a form that spoils a major plot twist in their original game.
  • The reveal trailer for The Hero briefly shows Dharkon, the other antagonist of World of Light, at the beginning.
  • Northern Cave, based on The Very Definitely Final Dungeon of Final Fantasy VII, plays through an abridged version of the events that happen at the end of the game. Sakurai's presentation of Sephiroth has him explaining what exactly happened in the end of the game, with him giving a spoiler warning before pointing out that he is talking about a 20-year old game and that he isn't sure that the events will play out the same in the remake.
  • The Sans costume for Mii Gunner spoils a fair bit about Undertale, namely having a Gaster Blaster in place of the Arm Cannon and coming packaged with Megalovania, Sans' battle theme from the No Mercy route, as a BGM track. Even the reveal trailer spoils the fact that it's possible to fight Sans in his game.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Palutena's Guidance returns and is updated for Ultimate's base roster, with her and Viridi informing Pit about the characters. Unfortunately, with the exception of Piranha Plant, Palutena is Locked Out of the Loop for any DLC character, like she is in 4.
  • Snake's Codec sequence returns from Brawl. Unfortunately, it's not updated for Ultimate, and is only focused on characters featured in Brawl as if they are still in that entry.
• Lethal Joke Character: Compared to its flawed debut in Melee, Pichu has been notably buffed. On one hand, it's is still the lightest character the game, still has bad range, and still damages itself, now with even more moves giving recoil. However, the recoil doesn't do as much damage, Pichu's mobility and recovery have improved, and a lot of its attacks are quite powerful. Combine that with the rage mechanic — which makes a character stronger the more damage they take — and Pichu's biggest weakness is at least partially converted into a strength. It was, on the whole, re-worked from a Joke Character into a Glass Cannon. It helps that Pikachu is a whole lot better in Ultimate than Melee.
• Lethal Lava Land: The game brings back Brinstar Depths, Norfair, Castle Siege and the Dark Emperor's stage, and also features the Molten Fortress sub-area in World of Light. In the latter, the characters have to navigate across ramparts built upon a sea of lava, and to this end they have to press switches in order to activate bridges that allow them to reach new parts while they make their way to the whereabouts of Giga Bowser, the lurking boss.
• Let's You and Him Fight: One attack Galeem and Dharkon can use is to temporarily leave the battlefield and sic two puppet fighters on you which eventually explode. Funnily enough, you can Invoke this yourself if you fight both bosses at the same time. They'll perform this attack at the same time, but both Light and Dark puppet fighters often prioritize each other rather than you, meaning all you have to do is just wait until all of them explode after beating each other up.
• Level 1 Music Represents:
  • Simon and Richter's character trailers use remixes of the level 1 themes from their respective debut games ("Vampire Killer" from Castlevania and "Divine Bloodlines" from Castlevania: Rondo of Blood), and their Classic Mode credits themes are the same from their second games ("Bloody Tears"/"Monster Dance" from Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and "Dracula's Castle" from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night). A large proportion of the other featured Castlevania songs are also introductory area themes ("Cross Your Heart" from Haunted Castle, "Awake" from Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, "Jet Black Incursion" from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, etc.).
  • The trailer that introduced the eponymous duo of Banjo-Kazooie featured a new remix of the theme for Spiral Mountain, the opening area of every game in that series.
• Level Editor: While the game didn't initially launch with a custom stage editor, it was introduced in the Version 3.0 update. The major addition to the creator compared to previous installments is the ability to design the background and the foreground.
• Level in the Clouds: In addition to bringing back Skyworld and Magicant as part of its base content, the game also adds the Cloud Sea of Alrest as part of its DLC lineup. Unlike in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (where the setting was part of a full-fledged Floating Continent), here the stage takes place exclusively aboard Azurda (a.k.a. Gramps) who is soaring the cloudy skies, so the combatants must keep an eye on their positions to avoid falling down (especially because Azurda sometimes moves his head and neck).
• Life Drain: A very rare Support Spirit Ability is "Lifesteal", which gives you the ability to restore damage when striking an enemy. An Adventure Skill also gives you a chance to heal when connecting with Smash Attacks. Some enemy Spirits also have this ability.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • Isabelle's trailer was this compared to previous newcomer reveals. As opposed to Ominous Latin Chanting and characters dying, Isabelle's involves a typical day at work before getting her letter.
  • The Fighters Pass 2 trailers as a whole have been lighter than the originals, making little to no connection to World of Light. Up until Sephiroth was revealed, that is.
• Light Is Good: Sora's Guest Fighter trailer reflects his affinity with this trope, as the light from his Keyblade is what allows all the other Smash characters to live again after the extinguising of the flaming Smash logo froze them into trophies. It serves as a direct contrast to the game's Big Bad Galeem, whose own light brought an end to the fighters' lives.
• Light Is Not Good: In addition to the Adventure Mode being entitled "World of Light", the villain, Galeem, takes the form of a ball of light surrounded by wings, uses giant beams of light to disintegrate the fighters, and has a name that itself is a corruption of the word "gleam".
• Limit Break: Instead of breaking a randomly-spawning Smash Ball, players have the option to build up their own Final Smash Meter to activate a weaker version of their Final Smash, akin to how supers in traditional fighting games are performed. No two Final Smashes can be activated at the same time, however.
• Limited Animation: Like Mr. Game and Watch, Steve has this replicated in-game, since a lot of his attacks are very choppy to reference the style used in Minecraft.
• Lonely Piano Piece: One of the songs in the game is a piano solo of Lifelight.
• Long Bus Trip: The 5 cut Brawl veterans (Ice Climbers, Snake, Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Wolf) had to wait 10 whole years to return to the cast. And the two cut Melee veterans (Pichu and Young Link), who some had believed would be gone for good, had to wait 17 years in total.
• Long List: Viridi rattles off the names of nearly every type of Piranha Plant in its entry for Palutena's Guidance. It takes a while:
  Viridi: You got your basic Piranha Plants, your Fire Piranha Plants, Ptooies, Nipper Plants, Nipper Spores, Munchers, Jumping Piranhas, Wild Ptooie Piranhas, Propeller Piranhas, Naval Piranhas, Chewies, Megasmilax, Piranha Pests, Piranha Sprouts, Frost Piranhas, Putrid Piranhas, Proto Piranhas, Piranhabons, Piranha Beans, Mom Piranhas, Small Piranhas, Elasto-Piranhas, Piranha Planets, Bungee Piranhas, Big Bungee Piranhas, Ghosts, Nipper Dandelions, Spiny Piranhas, Dino Piranhas, Fire Stalking Piranhas, Piranha Plorps, River Piranhas, Big Piranhas, Stalking Piranhas, Big Fire Piranhas, Prickly Piranhas, Peewee Piranhas, Inky Piranhas, Gold Piranhas, Bone Piranhas, Big Bone Piranhas, Piranha Pods, Piranha Creepers, Nipper Spore Patches, Paper Fire Piranhas, Poison Piranhas, Big Poison Piranhas, Upside-Down Piranhas, Petey Piranha, Paper Petey Piranha, Petea Piranha—
  Pit: Whoa!
  Viridi: I haven't even started on all the minor variations!
  Palutena: Enough, Viridi! I never wanna hear the word "piranha" ever again.
  Pit: I guess that means I'm not getting any fighting tips. Thanks, Viridi.
• Long Song, Short Scene: There are several songs which can't be played in stages and are only able to be played in the Sound Test or Arena lobbies, such as the original opening to Melee with the ingame sound effects removed for the first time, Melee, Brawl, and For 3DS/Wii U's All-Star Rest Area songs, Brawl's Trophy Gallery, and Street Fighter's Player Select B (although Player Select A is used in World of Light's World Tour).
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Ultimate normally inflicts a damage penalty on short hop aerial attacks, but Peach and Daisy can bypass it by floating, allowing them to use aerial attacks at full power while staying close to the ground. This is intentional, as one of their tips mentions this trait.
  • Usually, in order for a character to reach Elite Smash and fight other Elite Smashers, they need to have a high enough GSP to break out of Quickplay. Nothing is stopping you from unlocking Elite Smash with one character, joining/creating an Elite-only Battle Arena, and then choosing one of your non-Elite characters, since Arenas don't actually check your characters' GSP levels.
• Lord British Postulate: Like in Smash 4, certain characters can be hurt but not flinched or knocked back during their Final Smash, namely Lucario, Charizard, and Little Mac (who transform into Mega Lucario, Mega Charizard X, and Giga Mac, respectively).
• Lost in Translation:
  • During the World of Light campaign, you eventually come across the spirit of Andross, who is represented by Ganondorf in battle. The connection makes more sense in Japanese, where the former is named "Andorf".
  • Players familiar with the English versions of the game might be confused as to why Banjo and Kazooie's home stage, Spiral Mountain, rotates the way it does. As it turns out, this is because the area's Japanese name is クルクル山 (Kurukuru Yama), which can translate as either "Coiling Mountain" or "Spinning Mountain" depending on the context.
• The Lost Woods: Not only does the game bring back the forest stages based on Pikmin from Brawl and 4 respectively, but also showcases the trope-naming Lost Woods from The Legend of Zelda as one of the three areas of the corrupted Golden Realm region in the Dark World segment of World of Light. The map shows a dense, foreboding forest whose layout and paths can get very confusing, and it'll be important to follow the signposts' instructions to avoid getting lost (there's also a chest hiding a path to where Chrom can be fought and recruited). The light world's map also has some forested areas (including one that houses the Jungle Japes from Donkey Kong Country), but they're relatively more upbeat and pristine.
• Ludicrous Precision: This game measures damage percentages to an extra decimal point. Previous games (i.e. every game except for the original) did this as part of background damage calculation, but this is the first time it's been shown to the player.

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• Macrogame: While some elements of the Adventure Mode such as fighters and skill points only transfer through New Game Plus, all playthroughs have persistent access to acquired spirits and spirit points, as they are part of the game's main save file. This also means that spirits earned in the Spirit Board and Classic Mode are always available as well, even on a brand new World of Light file. This includes Master Spirits that run facilities, as well as spirits used for Broken Bridge paths.
• Made of Indestructium: Despite the fact that Galeem's beams of light easily penetrate practically every other means of conventional defense, both mundane and magical, Link's Hylian Shield is able to deflect some of the beams. Link himself is only consumed when the beams push him back too much for him to maintain his balance.
• Magikarp Power:
  • Some Spirits, such as Boo and Groudon, need to level up to level 99 to be enhanced. Their enhanced forms are stronger versions with a special effect, but they are reset to level one again.
  • The most extreme example is Alm and Celica. When you first get the Spirit (which is them as small children), its power level is only around 700, which is among the weakest spirits you can get. Once leveled, they can be enhanced and become adults. Their power level can be around 8000 once leveled up to level 99 again. Best of all, they're a neutral spirit with three slots and provide a back shield when equipped, making them one of the most versatile spirits in the game that can be used as the player's primary spirit in almost any situation.
  • Zygarde is notable for being the only Novice spirit that becomes a Legend when it is enhanced (from its 50% Form into its Complete Form).
• Marathon Level:
  • The Mysterious Dimension is by far the biggest sub-area in World of Light. Numerous unlockable characters and spirits are found here, and it also includes Pop Quiz areas that reward the player with additional goodies if the questions are answered correctly. It also has its own boss at the end (Marx).
  • The True Final Boss fight takes the form of a three-stage gauntlet, starting with a long autoscrolling platforming section with mook fights in between, followed by a Boss Rush against all six bosses, and then the actual Dual Boss fight itself against Galeem and Dharkon. While Checkpoint Starvation is averted due to the game letting you continue from the current phase if you lose all three of your characters, in order to get the Challenge for clearing the final battle without being KO'd, you have to do the entire thing in one sitting without getting KO'd at any point or else the run will be invalidated. That also means continues are useless.
• Meaningful Background Event: The cutscene which shows Galeem and Dharkon defeated at the same time takes place at sunset, essentially the midpoint between light and dark.
• Meaningful Echo: The main theme, Lifelight, at various points repeats "Colors weave into a spire of flame" throughout it. And it's what happens after Galeem and Dharkon are defeated, all the spirits form a spire that traverses through the cosmos as their worlds get restored.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Galeem is a light-themed villain whose name sounds a lot like the word "gleam" (as in, to shine brightly). Similarly, his Japanese name, Kiira, sounds like the onomatopoeia for twinkling (kirakira) and also sounds a lot like "killer".
  • For the other Big Bad, Dharkon his name sounds like "darken", which means making something darker. Though unlike Galeem, his Japanese name, Darz, doesn't seem to mean much of anything.
• Meet Your Early-Installment Weirdness: Pikachu and Link are part of the Original 12 and have gone through both Art Evolution and moveset changes in all of the games. In comparison, Pichu and Young Link have had little changes since they last appeared in Melee, making them the closest things you have to Melee versions of the characters they were based on in this game. Young Link is notable in that he's the same Link that appeared in 64 and Melee except shorter, whereas this Link is based on his Breath of the Wild incarnation. To drive this further, his intro is Link's intro from 64.
• Megamix Game: Although the sheer volume of fighters already qualifies Ultimate as a Dream Match Game, it has plenty of returning content besides fighters, such as stages and game modes (including two that didn't make it into the initial release but were added later via updates). Lastly, in addition to featuring new bosses for the Classic and Adventure Modes, it also brings back some of the bosses that appeared in prior games, namely Giga Bowser (Melee), Galleom (Brawl), most stage bosses from 3DS/Wii U, and obviously the Hands. Masahiro Sakurai has admitted in one of the game's live presentations that a future Smash game is very unlikely to invoke this trope, and thus sees Ultimate as a once-in-a-lifetime exception worth enjoying.
• Mêlée à Trois: While on paper, the final boss is the heroes vs Galeem and Dharkon with the two in an Enemy Mine, the two are undoubtedly trying as hard to kill one another as they are to kill the heroes, to the point of actively attacking the other, so it's closer to the heroes vs Galeem vs Dharkon.
• Merged Reality:
  • The overworld of World of Light takes place in a land where several locations from existing franchises and original areas have been mushed together. For example, you can leave Lumiose City from the south and end up in a neighbouring city made out of Nintendo video game consoles.
  • Dharkon's realm consists of a mixture of various locations and terrains, albeit with nearly every inch of the region ravaged and scarred.
• Mighty Glacier:
  • Certain Ace Support Spirits bestow the ability Slow Super Armor, which slows mobility to a crawl and burdens your jumping capacity, but gives you permanent resilience to flinching and launching to a limit. This allows you to turn any character into an effective tank who can pump out their strongest attacks with sheer impunity without fear of interruption.
  • Zelgius evolves into the Legend Primary Spirit "Black Knight" upon reaching Lv. 99. Upon doing so, he gains a unique ability called Armor Knight that slightly reduces movement speed in exchange for slightly boosting Attack and providing a huge bonus to Defense. Incidentally, the Black Knight has two Support Slots, which allows you to stack it with Supports such as Slow Super Armor.
  • Kraid's Dojo teaches the appropriately-named "Tank Style", which enhances a Primary Spirit's Attack and Defense at the expense of practically all of its other mobility-related attributes.
• Mini-Boss: While no miniboss is present in Classic Mode, they're plentiful in Adventure Mode (World of Light). Namely, they're the main playable characters who are now under the influence of Galeem or Dharkon, and their fights stand out for not having any gimmicks or caveats; defeating them allows you to recruit them (defeating the copies who are playing Spirit roles doesn't count, as the rewards you get in those fights are the Spirits themselves only; thus, they're standard Smash fights with Spirit-based gimmicks).
• Mini-Game Credits: A simple Shoot 'Em Up game, with a meter at the bottom with a few markers; each marker reached adds another treasure to your rewards. Like in Brawl, the story mode still has its own traditional credits scene upon completion.
• Missing Reflection: Alucard appears as an assist trophy. He doesn't appear on the Wii Fit Studio stage, which has a giant mirror that reflects fighters, items and off course, assist trophies.
• Mission Control: The respective characters monitoring the fights of Fox, Snake and Pit are brought back from previous games.
• Money for Nothing: Defied. While no longer needed to play Classic Mode, coins are earned somewhat sparingly (even a perfect, 9.9 run in Classic with a Ticket will barely get you 1000), allow you to purchase items for the Spirit Board without limit, and allows access the easiest way to get Legendary spirits (which cost 15000 coins) in the Shop. There are also two currencies in Ultimate; coins and a second type specific to Spirit mode, which have a wider range of uses^note buying items in shops, summoning Spirits, upgrading Spirits, but are also easier to get hold to compensate^note Spirits can be dismissed for some money, then their cores sold for more, items can be sold, and of course you get them via Spirit battles; coins, on the other hand, are won exclusively through battles of any sort. In short, you always have something to spend money on.
• Money Is Experience Points: Spirit Points are a currency exclusive to Story Mode, and are primarily used to upgrade Spirits, but can also be used to buy items and more Spirits.
• Monochromatic Impact Shot:
  • In the reveal trailer for Ridley, he kills both Mario and Mega Man, with the visceral impacts highlighted by a two-color, red and black depiction.
  • Joker's Final Smash turns the screen red when it lands, leaving the background red, and the characters take the opponent (and subsequently, the opponent) black, until Joker re-appears at the end of the move. This was inspired by the effect that sometimes plays in his source game.
• Mons: Basically what Spirits are. They can be levelled up and have their stats increased, do various jobs like being sent on missions to retrieve items, trained in certain styles, and some can even evolve, or rather enhanced, to become even more powerful.
• Mood Whiplash: The World of Light opening cinematic depicts the Smash characters' struggle against a new and unknown overwhelming force, with some valiantly fighting against the beams or desperately fleeing for their lives. This is interwoven with various other shots such as Captain Falcon trying to jump into the Blue Falcon, Wii Fit Trainer doing yoga poses while Duck Hunt and Villager panic aimlessly, and Snake trying to hide in his cardboard box before being disintegrated.
• Morphic Resonance: Of a sort. In Spirit Battles, the Spirits appear to take over puppet fighters that greatly resemble their former shape. They also chose alts, sizes, and other factors to accommodate this.
• Motif Merger: The floor in King of Fighters Stadium has the "KOF" logo in the center, but replaces the O with the Smash logo. The field in the background is emblazoned with Smash's logo, while the letters "KOF" are written down the vertical line inside it.
• Motifs: There appears to be some sort of connection to the concept of "reversal", given that there is a version of one of its trailers that plays backwards, the World of Light's Japanese title has significance if the words are reversed, and the latter half of Final Destination's theme is the game's theme song played backwards.
• Moveset Clone:
  • Now clones are formally called "Echo Fighters". They refer to characters who, like Dark Pit, Lucina, and Dr. Mario in the previous title, are only balanced against the fighter they are based from instead of the whole roster, and are mostly the same, with animations being altered first, then some moves and attributes. However, clones that are fundamentally different from their base, including Dr. Mario himself in this version don't qualify. Echo Fighters can also be stacked into the same slot on the character select screen as the character they're based on if the player so chooses. Lucina and Dark Pit were retroactively given the Echo designation, while later adding in Dark Samus, Daisy, Chrom, Richter and Ken. That said, how much they actually differ can vary:
    • Dark Samus, Daisy and Richter (Echoes to Samus, Peach and Simon respectively) are nearly the same save for cosmetic changes and very, very minor tweaks to a few attributes. Dark Samus has slightly faster rolls and bigger shields due to floating instead of staying on the ground, and Richter's Holy Water deals Aura damage to contrast Simon's fire to differ how it reacts to explosives, but are identical otherwise.
    • Dark Pit still retains the differences with regards to his bow and Electroshock specials in addition to his original Final Smash.
    • Lucina and Chrom have balanced swords which lack the sweet/sourspot mechanic of Marth and Roy. Chrom has a few more distinctions, such as his Soaring Slash recovery being more akin to Ike's Aether than Roy's Blazer or even Marth and Lucina's Dolphin Slash, and his Final Smash being unique as well.
    • Ken boasts the most number of changes for an Echo to differentiate himself from Ryu, very fitting given his role as the Trope Codifier. To put it short, his entire fighting style trades Ryu's powerful single-strike and heavy knockback KO options for multi-hitting attacks that specialize more in racking up damage than going for early kills, and two of his signature Super Combos - the Shinryuken and Shippu Jinraikyaku - replace Ryu's Shinkuu Hadouken and Shin Shoryuken for his Final Smash.
  • Outside the Echo Fighter category, newcomer Isabelle from Animal Crossing has a number of moves, both normal and special, that are notably similar to Villager's. However, where she differs from Villager, she tends to differ greatly.
• Multi-Melee Master: Sothis invoked this trope when Byleth was revealed to be the fifth DLC Fighters Pass character, giving him/her the signature Heroes' Relics of the House Leaders (Areadbhar, a lance, Aymr, an axe and Failnaught, a bow) to use alongside the Sword of the Creator, making it so that Byleth is not just another sword wielder.
• Multiple Endings:
  • Ending 1: Achieved if Galeem's forces take over completely during The Final Battle (by defeating too many of Dharkon's forces) or the heroes challenge and defeat Dharkon. Dharkon collapses, completely overwhelmed, and he is finished off by Galeem. As Dharkon dies, Galeem enacts his final plan, engulfing the remainder of the universe in light.
  • Ending 2: Achieved if Dharkon's forces take over completely during The Final Battle (by defeating too many of Galeem's forces) or the heroes challenge and defeat Galeem. Galeem is overwhelmed and left in a weakened state, allowing Dharkon to consume and destroy him. Mario collapses as Dharkon devours the universe in eternal darkness.
  • True Ending: Achieved if none of the above conditions are met and Galeem and Dharkon are challenged and defeated together. With both entities dead, they collapse into the ocean, whereupon they release a wave of energy that frees the remaining Spirits. The freed Spirits make their way home to the real world, coming together in a spire of light as they return.
• Musical Nod: The main theme of the game, though it doesn't have any direct melody lifted from any game before, has similarities to Melee's opening theme and menu theme, and 3DS/Wii U's main theme, with how the score progresses through the notes and how the A section transitions to the B section, as shown here. Notably, the transition between the two sections in the "Challenger Approaching" trailer occurs when Zelda appears with Sheik being there later, as a call back to Melee's opening, where Sheik appears when the transition happens with Zelda being in the background afterwards.
• Musical Spoiler: A meta one for the reveal of the eighth DLC fighter. Shortly after Galeem gets cut in half and the halves fall out of the sky and the Fake Master Hands start vanishing, the song "Advent: One-Winged Angel" (yes, that one) starts playing and zooms onto a black speck in the sky that was behind Galeem, immediately giving away the identity of the star of Challenger Pack 8, revealing it to be none other than the Trope Namer for One-Winged Angel himself, Sephiroth.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Downplayed in World of Light. At the start of the game, you will be forced to choose between recruiting Marth, Sheik, or Villager. Picking one of them causes a Master Hand to block the paths to the other two, forcing you to take the open path and clear the way before you can recruit the others. You can do this by going the long way to the other side of the barrier, or defeat a boss and break all the barriers at the same time.
• Mythology Gag: Has its own page.

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• Narrow Annihilation Escape: The opening of the World of Light story mode shows the entire universe being destroyed by Galeem, with the only one who is shown to have survived the cataclysm being Kirby, who only just manages to temporarily blink out of the line of fire by pushing his Warp Star to its absolute limit. The DLC characters^note Piranha Plant, Joker, the four Heroes, Banjo & Kazooie, Terry, Byleth, Min-Min, Steve/Alex/Zombie/Enderman, Sephiroth, Pyra and Mythra, Kazuya, and Sora also seemingly survive the disaster, given how they are immediately made available to the player in the mode after freeing ten fighters from Galeem, but the game does not offer an in-universe explanation for their survival nor whether or not they were actually captured by Galeem themselves before joining the party.
• Nerf: In previous games, only a couple Assist Trophies could be KO'd. The majority of them are now susceptible to being damaged and defeated (including some you wouldn't expect to be vulnerable).
• Never Say "Die":
  • The characters atomized by Galeem at the beginning of World of Light were just "turned back into trophies", not killed, according to official descriptions.
  • The game changes Richter Belmont's iconic line from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night from "Die, monster! You do not belong in this world!" to something that removes the references to death.
  Richter: Begone! You do not belong in this world, monster!
• Never Trust a Trailer: The E3 2019 trailer revealing Hero used the orchestral versions of the Dragon Quest Overture and the overworld theme from Dragon Quest III, implying that they'd be used in Ultimate itself. In-game, however, only the MIDI versions of those themes are heard, and only a brief snippet of the Overture is heard in Hero's victory fanfare.
• New Game Plus: A Clear Save in Adventure Mode can be used to start a New Game+, which carries over all previously-unlocked Fighters, and all Skill Tree progress and Skill Spheres. All Spirits and bosses also reappear in a New Game+, allowing you to get duplicates of them.
• New Work, Recycled Graphics: Ultimate, according to Sakurai, was built using many assets from the previous game in order to save on development time and resources, which allowed them to bring back every character from the series' history. He states that if they had started from scratch, only a third of the fighters would be available.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The last act of World of Light has both villains at high strength, but too distracted fighting each other to consume the world. Both bad endings involve the fighters tilting the balance away from one of the villains and then defeating them, leaving the other free to complete their plan.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In contrast to the bad endings (caused by Nice Job Breaking It, Hero), the good ending is the result of this. The True Final Boss fight is against both villains at once. The two can't stand one another at all and are so busy fighting one another it gives the heroes a chance to stop them. Furthermore, in the True Final Boss, the two might be in an Enemy Mine, but aren't Friendly Fireproof and will actively attack one another if the other is stunned. Galeem and Dharkon's hatred of one another makes things way easier for the heroes.
• No-Damage Run: There is a challenge to beat the True Final Boss with no K.Os. Naturally, unless you decide to do the fight on Easy Mode, it's a difficult challenge to do. Unlocking it gives you the Mew support spirit. You also get some additional points in Classic Mode if you get a perfect on a section, which would give you a very high 'Nice Play' score.
• Non-Action Guy: The Master Spirits are special spirits that communicate with you and fight for your cause their own way via selling you things, taking your spirits on expeditions and teaching them battle styles rather than directly helping you in a fight.
• Non-Damaging Status Infliction Attack: The Gust Bellows, a pickup item that blasts gale-force winds at your opponents. It doesn't do any damage but can blow them right off the platform.
• Non-Elemental: The Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors triangle has Attack, Shield, and Grab spirits... and Neutral Spirits off to the side. Thus, they aren't super-effective against any of the other types, nor are they resisted by them.
• Non-Standard Game Over: World of Light has two bad endings which double as non-standard Game Overs, since they just kick you out of the mode without triggering the credits: during the final stretch of the game, if you defeat either Galeem or Dharkon alone, the other will finish off his nemesis and destroy the world with light or darkness, respectively.
• No OSHA Compliance: In this this video, Polygon's Brian David Gilbert determined that the game would owe OSHA $17,034,078 in fines for 1,317 violations across the game's 100+ stages. The only stage with no violations is Boxing Ring.
• No Points for Neutrality: Inverted in World of Light. refusing to pick a side between Galeem and Dharkon results in the Golden Ending, since it means you can take both out at once.
• Nostalgia Level:
  • A lot more than in previous games — in fact, most of the stages are returning older ones. Unlike 3DS/Wii U, Ultimate features Melee stages not featured in Brawl. For the first time in the series, the majority of older stages feature updated graphics and textures to bring them up to modern standards, in the vein of Mario Kart 8; the exceptions are the stages from Super Smash Bros. 64, which retain their original looks, except for Mushroom Kingdom, which was given a makeover to make it look even more retro, as its textures and background are now taken directly from the original Super Mario Bros..
  • Jigglypuff's Classic Mode route "All Original, All 64" is themed to the original Super Smash Bros. You fight the Original Eight on their 64-era home stages ^note except for Samus and Fox, who get paired with Yoshi and Kirby respectively due to Planet Zebes and Sector Z being absent, and Round Six is against the four unlockable characters with 64's Final Destination theme playing. The final battle is against a giant Donkey Kong on Kongo Jungle, mimicking a similar fight in the original game's 1P mode.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • We only see brief flashes of Ridley's tail, claws, and wings in his reveal trailer as he violently murders Mario and Mega Man, before finally revealing himself to Samus.
  • In Adventure Mode, when you're about to face the boss of a sub-level (represented on the map as a vortex with glowing eyes), any music stops and you're just left looking at a vague silhouette of the boss that awaits. No power-level... just question marks and that unsettling silence. Even if you know who you're going to be fighting, the effect still can give you chills. The exceptions are the Hands, Galeem, Dharkon, and Rathalos, the latter of which appears in-person in his sub-level unlike any other sub-level boss.
• Notice This: World of Light is very unsubtle about showing when something on the adventure map changes, and obstacles that can be conquered with a Spirit that you own are highlighted by a ring of light.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: While Spirits are essentially the formless remains of characters who didn't survive Galeem's initial onslaught, they can still help via powering up the surviving fighters while some retain their characteristics enough to interact with the environment such as driving trains, blowing up boulders, fixing bridges and many more.

O

• Obvious Rule Patch:
  • Not long after the launch of the game, players discovered that attaching a level 99 Akuma spirit to Captain Olimar resulted in the single-most broken character combination in the entire game. Any smash attack from his red, blue, or purple Pikmin would result in a One-Hit Kill on all enemies that weren't part of a stamina battle (and if they survived the first hit, they wouldn't survive the 2nd.) The 2.0.0 patch nerfed the bug with Olimar so this was no longer possible on anything but weaker enemies or anyone too close to the edge of the map.
  • A few Spirit Battles against opponents who didn't like moving, when on a stage with walkoff blast zones, could easily be won in earlier versions by just running into them to push them off the screen. Eventually, these particular foes were changed so that they actually make an effort to recover.
  • Non-gameplay example: Chrom originally had the generic Fire Emblem victory theme shared with Marth, Roy, and Ike, even though the other Awakening characters (Lucina and Robin) has "Id (Purpose)" as theirs. Version 3.0.0 changed it so that Chrom had the same theme as them.
• Oculothorax: One of the major bosses in World of Light is Dharkon. He looks like a giant, corrupted version of the Feyesh from Brawl, but without the fish-based features.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • In King K. Rool's reveal trailer, upon seeing that King K. Rool's finally returned, Donkey Kong and Diddy's eyes pop through the window.
  • In the opening "World of Light" cutscene, Shulk gets a vision of everyone getting struck down and he knows there's nothing he can do.
  • When a Final Smash is activated, any nearby fighters can be seen with such an expression before the attack is unleashed.
  • Most characters will give off panicked or frightened expressions upon whiffing a grab, with the implication being that they've realized that they're wide open for an attack. Even the normally straight-faced Ridley will sport a comical, surprised grimace upon missing his side-special.
• Old Save Bonus:
  • Figure Player data stored on amiibo can be transferred from 3DS/Wii U to Ultimate. While Figure Players can only carry over a portion of their levels and memories and lose all of their stats, you will also receive either a random Spirit, currency, or snack in conjunction with the revised Figure Player data. A quirk of this system is that Young Link figures are read as Link in 3DS/Wii U. Therefore, Link FPs from the older games that happen to be saved to Young Link figures are converted into Young Link FPs, that get the bonus even though Young Link was not in the previous games. (Similarly, but more logically, Charizard FPs are converted into full Pokémon Trainer FPs.)
  • If your Switch has save data for Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, you will automatically receive a Partner Pikachu or Partner Eevee Spirit.
  • Data from Dragon Quest XI or its demo granted a Tockles spirit.
  • Having data for the Nintendo Switch version of Persona 5 Strikers will earn you a Sophia spirit,
  • Ghost N' Goblins: Ressurection would gift an Arthur spirit.
  • A Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin save file grants a spirit from that game.
  • With the release of Kingdom Hearts's Sora, having a Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory save grants the use of an additional song on the Hollow Bastion stage.
• One-Hit Kill: While attacks and items that have high enough knockback that a Ring Out is almost certain have been around since the original game, Ultimate expands on the ability previously seen in For 3DS / WiiU to straight-up obliterate your enemies in certain conditions (usually a high damage percentage), such as the Death's Scythe item, various new Final Smashes, and Mimikyu's grab.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Several past stages have been renamed to avoid confusion with similarly-named stages. Some examples are "Yoshi's Island" renamed to "Super Happy Tree", "Kongo Jungle" renamed to "Kongo Falls," and "Mario Circuit" renamed to "Figure-8 Circuit". Averted with Melee and Brawl's versions of Yoshi's Island, which are both named that, but the former additionally has "(Melee)" in its name. There's also an interesting aversion in the form of "Mute City (SNES)", though the Melee version of the stage is not part of the initial roster.
  • For the number of characters, there's only one case of this on the roster itself. Two Roys are playable in the game — the swordsman and the Koopa.
  • Aversions occur in the form of spirits: A single character can have multiple spirits, so long they represent an alter-ego or different version. For example, you can have the spirit of Kaptain K. Rool empowering... King K. Rool. Even more egregious is Min Min, Pyra, and Mythra as fighters, being empowered by Min Min, Pyra, and Mythra as Spirits.
• One-Winged Angel:
  • Just like in Melee, defeating Bowser at the end of Mario's and Captain Falcon's Classic Mode causes him to transform into Giga Bowser and challenge you to a second fight.
  • Upon reducing his health to zero, Dracula will transform into his monster form from Rondo of Blood, starting the next phase of the fight.
  • Like Bowser, Ganondorf appears onscreen briefly before transforming into Ganon, though the only scenario in which defeating Ganondorf directly leads to the Ganon fight is Zelda's Classic Mode.
  • The Trope Namer himself, Sephiroth, transforms into Safer Sephiroth for his Final Smash.
• On-Site Procurement: This concept is referenced in Snake's Classic Mode path, under the title 'Weapons and Equipment OSP'. Here, the player is pitted against various fighters that use projectiles and explosive weaponry as part of their movesets, and projectile weapons and bomb items spawn in during these matches as well.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Galeem and Dharkon completely loathe one another and will take any opportunity presented to try to kill the other. Dharkon's entrance to the story is attempting to capitalize on the fighters defeating and wounding Galeem to try and kill his nemesis, and Galeem comes back into it trying to return the favor when Dharkon is beaten. Both bad endings are one of them taking advantage of the other losing first to kill them and take over themselves. This works against them in the boss fight with both of them at once, as despite technically being in an Enemy Mine, the moment one of them is stunned, the other will promptly deal a massive blow to them, inadvertently helping the fighters.
• Orchestral Bombing: Final Destination, natch. The endboss music from World of Light also qualifies: Galeem's theme is fast-paced with high-pitched choir vocals, while Dharkon's theme is slower, foreboding, and has a more bass choir (in addition to some electric guitars). Their shared theme for the True Final Boss fight strikes a balance between the two with a medium-paced tempo and both male and female choirs.
• Order Is Not Good: In World of Light, Galeem wants to bring the universe under his control, by eviscerating everyone and everything. However, as seen later, his counterpart Dharkon isn't any better.
• Order vs. Chaos: Ultimately, this is what the two main villains of World of Light represent. Galeem is a being of light who wants to bring his own form of order to the world, while Dharkon is a being of darkness who simply wants to commit genocide and plunge the world into shadow.
• Out of the Frying Pan: In one character trailer, the cast of Smash Bros. is badly hurt and defenseless against Galeem. Just before he finishes them off for good, Galeem is sliced clean in half, ending the tyranny of the Lord of Light. Unfortunately, the one who killed him was Sephiroth, who descends to the battlefield to fight the heroes himself.
• Outside-Context Problem: There's Galeem (and later, Dharkon) from World of Light. Shows up from out of nowhere with an army of Master Hands, and proceeds to obliterate everyone and everything in sight, sans Kirby who manages to escape on his Warp Star. The rest of the mode consists of Kirby rescuing and rounding up the other fighters to take the fight to it.
• Oxygen Meter: The game expands on this by having certain characters — namely Sonic, Inkling, Incineroar and Charizard — outright take damage from being in the water on top of the meter itself, and are constantly seen in their "drowning" animation when swimming.