Super Smash Bros. 4 - 50 to 55 / Characters

This page lists the fighters introduced in the Smash Direct and in E3 2014 trailers from Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. This includes Dark Pit, who would later be remarketed as an Echo Fighter in the next installment.

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50 – Greninja (Gekkouga)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/greninjassbu.png

Master of Stealth /
The Unpredictable Ninja Pokémon

^{3DS/Wii U}

Voiced by: Yuji Ueda (Japanese), Billy Bob Thompson (English), Frederic Clau (French), Benedikt Gutjan (German)

GRENINJA MAKES A SPLASH!

Home Series: Pokémon

Debut: Pokémon X and Y [3DS], 2013

Creator: Game Freak

Publisher: Nintendo

Playable in: 3DS/Wii U, Ultimate

Specials: Water Shuriken, Shadow Sneak, Hydro Pump, Subs titute

Final Smash: Secret Ninja Attack

"Gre. Nin."

The Ninja Pokémon and final evolution of Froakie, the water starter of the Kalos region. Greninja is a sneaky, creepy, and highly skilled humanoid frog ninja boasting the Water/Dark type. It is able to confound opponents with its blinding speed and agility and slice them with compressed water. It's also known in more recent years for being one of the most powerful Pokémon that Ash Ketchum has ever owned. In Ultimate, its Final Smash has been updated to have it transform into Ash-Greninja.

Greninja is certainly unusual when it comes to Pokémon characters, having more of a theme to its moveset thanks to its ninja motif. It excels in attacking from the shadows, teleporting behind enemies with Shadow Sneak and surprising them with Substitute, as well as using Hydro Pump to give it an extra edge in terms of versatility. It's easy to KO like similar ninja characters, but its water attacks easily make it worth the effort.

See Pokémon: Generation VI - Chespin to Hawlucha for more information on the character in his origin series.

Adaptational Villainy:
- A Conquest poll in ''Smash 4'' titled "All Round Bad Guys"◊ classifies it as a bad guy, pairing it with Bowser, Ganondorf, and Wario. In its home series, Pokémon are implied to be just as good or evil as their trainers, but never explicitly evil by their own volition. It is, however, classified as a Dark type, which is called Evil type in Japan^note.
- Another Conquest poll called "Triple Threat" pairs it with the same villains (minus Bowser) once again. Justified this time, as the Conquest in question is about a Pokémon being paired up with fighters with aspects that matches the Pokémon.^note Greninja's secondary typing, Dark, is called "Evil type" in Japan, hence why it's paired up with some villains.
Adaptational Wimp: In its home series, Greninja's Dark type renders it completely immune to any Psychic-Type moves^notebarring the Miracle Eye effect. Here, it can be affected by them as any other fighter. The most notable ones are from Mewtwo's moveset: Confusion and especially its Final Smash, Psystrike.
Ambiguous Gender: Has a male voice, but its gender isn't otherwise hinted or stated outright in 3DS/Wii U. However, the event Greninja based on this one for the Pokémon games is fixed to be male, as is the anime Greninja and the special "Battle Bond" Greninja in Pokemon Sun/Moon which the Ultimate version gets its Super Mode from.
Badass Adorable: Not to the same extent as Pikachu or Jigglypuff, but despite its ninja skills and intimidating manner, it's a somewhat cute frog with a more cartoonish design and voice than the other "serious" Pokémon (Mewtwo, Lucario, and Charizard).
Badass Arm-Fold: Done in one of its victory poses, as well as when standing with the other fighters in the Japanese Mii Fighter commercial.
Bash Brothers: Lucario seems to be paired up with Greninja at times. At one gameplay footage in its trailer, the amphibian is seen interacting with Lucario not by engaging in battle but through idle animations as if they're examining one another. In the opening to World of Light, Greninja and Lucario are once again seen together and are one of the many fighters to take action and retaliate against Galeem's power rather than retreating, but just like the others, their efforts were highly in vain.
Battle Intro: Emerges from a Pokéball, then strikes a ninja pose.
Boring, but Practical: Its down aerial is a stall-then-fall that propels it at least the height of its double jump if it connects — easily spammable and well-suited to avoiding damage. Pretty much the only enemy that won't fall to rapid, well-aimed use of this is Master Fortress.
Canon Immigrant:
- This Greninja transforms into Ash-Greninja, a form that debuted in the XYZ anime as an exclusive form for Ash's Greninja, for its Final Smash in Ultimate. This is somewhat of a technicality, as Ash-Greninja had already immigrated to the games as an event Pokémon for Sun/Moon. Also in Ultimate, its water katanas from 3DS/Wii U are replaced with water kunai, which were originally used by Ash's Greninja in the anime. That being said, just as Mewtwo takes aspects from Pokémon: The First Movie and Lucario takes aspects from Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, this is likely not meant to indicate that this particular Greninja is Ash's.
- On a move-based level, the water katanas Greninja uses in 3DS/Wii U are shown being used by the Greninja in Pokémon Detective Pikachu.
Casting a Shadow: Shadow Sneak, as a Ghost-type move, is literally this, as Greninja generates a shadow and then teleports to it. As a Dark-type ninja, shadows seem to be an entire part of its motif; its reveal trailer is even labeled "Challenger from the Shadows".
Charged Attack: Water Shuriken, a projectile. It deals more damage and is larger the longer it's charged, but it also moves much slower and has less range.
Combat Pragmatist: As a Dark-type Pokémon, and a ninja besides, underhanded techniques are to be expected. For instance, in its trailer, Greninja sends a charged-up Water Shuriken right at both Mario's and Charizard's faces while they're in the middle of fighting each other, and in gameplay, it can trick enemies into attacking a Substitute doll or a log before immediately striking back.
Composite Character: Retroactively. Similar to Pikachu, its voice and mannerisms are identical to Ash's Greninja. However, a Pokémon distribution event has confirmed that (as of 3DS/Wii U) this Greninja's ability as Protean, its Hidden Ability, while Ash's Greninja has Battle Bond, which allows it to attain a Super Mode as confirmed via Pokémon Sun and Moon. As of Ultimate, it's taken on more aspects of the anime Greninja, including the Battle Bond ability, and using the same water kunai that Ash's Greninja wielded when using Cut (replacing the water katana it used in 3DS/Wii U), possibly implying that the Protean of the event version has been retconned and replaced.
Confusion Fu: It's called the "Unpredictable Ninja" in the Boxing Ring stage for a good reason. Most of Greninja's attacks are fast and wild, and combined with its excellent mobility, a good Greninja player can be absurdly difficult to predict. Its Shadow Sneak and Substitute specials especially emphasize this aspect.
Counter-Attack: Its down special, Substitute. If timed correctly, Greninja will suddenly disappear and leaves a Substitute Doll (or a literal log) behind, reappearing to attack whoever triggered the Substitute at high speed. Whoever is controlling Greninja can even change the angle of where it attacks.
Dark Is Not Evil: It's a Dark-type Pokémon with a shadow motif, but is no more malicious than its Pokémon castmates, whose closest thing to a "villain" is the pure Psychic-type Mewtwo. It's famously a Pokémon that Ash had on his main team back in Kalos, with a bond between them strong enough to achieve a legendary Super Form, which is referenced in Ultimate when it turns into Ash-Greninja before performing its Final Smash.
Difficult, but Awesome: Greninja is meant to be played in a Confusion Fu way, and some of its moves can be difficult to land properly, or otherwise leave it wide open if it fails, which can spell doom to Greninja because of its lighter weight. With enough practice and finesse, a Greninja player can be a fast and hard hitter that will always force an opponent to be on their toes. Its playstyle is even described as such by Sakurai's Miiverse post! To quote:
"Greninja's sophisticated moves are extremely fun to use once you get used to how it controls!"
Dual Wielding: With ninja swords during its Smash attacks. Ninja swords made out of water.^note These were replaced with water kunai in Ultimate.
Dub Name Change: In Japan, it is called Gekkouga, as it is in Pokémon X and Y. As well, it's Amphinobi in France and Quajutsu in Germany, and as such, is one of the few characters to have dubbed voice acting in those languages due to its Pokémon Speak.
Elemental Weapon: Uses ninja swords and shuriken made of water.
Evil Sounds Deep: While only an "Evil-type" Pokémon in Japan, Greninja's voice is the deep and guttural Gollum-like voice from the anime. This makes it sound quite a bit more creepy than its pre-evolutions (who, granted, still had the Gollum voice in the anime, but less deep).
Flash Step: Its side special move, Shadow Sneak, which allows it to disappear and reappear in another part of the stage.
Foreshadowing: During the Nintendo Direct that contained its trailer, Sakurai at one point was replaced with a Substitute doll, which was later shown in the end of the presentation as one of Greninja's attacks.
Fragile Speedster: Greninja's very fast, but light and easily KOed.
Frog Ninja: Duh. It's inspired by the 19th century Japanese epic poem Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari. Greninja itself is even the trope image!
Full Moon Silhouette: Its Final Smash has Greninja wailing on its victim as silhouettes in front of a gigantic moon.
Fuuma Shuriken: In its intro video, Greninja's Water Shuriken is of equal size to Mario. In-game, it can create one by charging up its Water Shuriken, and manifests a large one on its back in Ash-Greninja form.
Hand Seals: Greninja does these in some of its animations, emphasizing its ninja side.
Having a Blast: Exploding Attack is one of his various customizable Down + B attacks in 3DS/Wii U, as it starts with him disappearing into thin air similar to Substitute, but rather than reappearing with a directional kick as a Counter-Attack, Greninja respawns himself with a fiery destructive bang.
Hitbox Dissonance: Greninja's hurtbox extends above his head, so some attacks that clearly shouldn't hit it will register.
Home Stage:
- 3DS/Wii U: All stages from its series.^note
- Ultimate: Kalos Pokémon League.
Idle Animation:
- It stands upright and swipes its arms outward.
- It assumes a ninjutsu pose with its hands clasped.
Katanas Are Just Better: It uses katanas made of water for a few of its attacks.
- Averted as of Ultimate, as these were changed to water kunai, similar to Ash's Greninja when it uses Cut.
Leitmotif: The Pokémon X and Y Trainer Battle theme, which it shares with the other fully evolved mons in 4, and has all on its own in Ultimate.
Limit Break: In Ultimate, its Final Smash was changed to transforming into Ash-Greninja.
Making a Splash: It's right there in the title card. It uses water to create weapons and recover.
Mon: A Ninja Pokémon, and the final evolution of one of the three starters players can choose for Pokémon X and Y.
McNinja: Greninja is native to the Kalos region, which is modeled after France.
Nerf: The 1.0.4 patch nerf for 3DS increased the lag on his Up-Smash and Water Shuriken; decreased the power of Hydro Pump and removed the ability to use Shadow Sneak to cancel landing lag.
Ninja Log: It uses the move Substitute to use either a large doll or an actual log to do this.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: It's a humanoid ninja frog that creates functional ninja weapons out of compressed water.
Ninja Run: Its run cycle is done this way.
Not Completely Useless: The down taunt is surprisingly effective on Assault mode.
Overly-Long Tongue: That scarf around its neck is actually its tongue.
Palette Swap: Its Shiny form (black with a red tongue) from its home series is one, although altered to make its belly beige instead of black.
Pokémon Speak: As per the norm for playable Pokémon that aren't monstrous or telepathic. Unlike Pikachu and Jigglypuff, most of Greninja's utterances are rather terse, with many of them serving as grunts or Kiais rather than "speech". It even pants in Pokémon Speak ("Gre! Gre! Gre!..."). Amusingly, some of its cries have it utter "Ninja!", which is similar to the weird practice of representing Pokémon cries in text in later games as a single English word thematically appropriate to the Pokémon (whether part of their name or otherwise).
Power Creep, Power Seep:
- Mat Block. In the Pokémon games, Greninja uses a pulled-up mat as a shield that protects Greninja and its partner on Doubles and Triples from damaging moves. Here, Greninja goes up a notch and uses said pulled-up mat as a launcher for its Final Smash.
- Water Shuriken and Shadow Sneak are very weak attacks in the Pokémon games, while in Smash, they are both decently powerful and deal enough knockback that they can KO opponents reliably.
- Hydro Pump is one of Greninja's most powerful attacks, but in Smash it's not nearly as powerful or visually impressive. That said, it is one of the best recovery attacks in the game and can push opponents very far without causing them to flinch with a direct hit from the water stream. Take a look.
Power Palms: It fires water from the palms of its hands to recover and to taunt. Presumably, this is how it makes water katana, kunai and shuriken as well.
Practical Taunt: Its down taunt does damage and launches targets upward if they are hit by the water fountains. Amusingly, it has a sweetspot with exactly enough knockback to send the Miis on Assault mode from the ground directly to the upper blast line.
Recurring Element: The third bipedal Glass Cannon Pokémon newcomer with a chargeable projectile for its neutral special.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Appears as a wrestling partner for Incineroar in its Classic Mode. Their motif evokes this as the two contrast each other: Greninja is more of a fast, sneaky attacker who is also more on the collected side, whereas Incineroar is a slow but strong attacker who is also bombastic. And of course, one is blue and the other is red.
Ret-Canon: The water katanas used in Greninja's Smash attacks in 3DS/Wii U would later show up in the official live-action Pokémon film, Pokémon Detective Pikachu.
Retcon: The Greninja in 3DS/Wii U was said to have Protean as its ability. Ultimate clearly changed that to Battle Bond, as seen in its Final Smash.
Scarf of Asskicking: Well, that's actually its tongue, but it evokes the imagery.
Secret Character: For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 9 hours and 30 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Donkey Kong or anyone in his unlock tree six times, or find and defeat it in World of Light.
Stock Ninja Weaponry: Downplayed. While Greninja is based off of a ninja, only a few of its moves involve ninja weapons. These are its Smash attacks and forward aerial, which use a water katana (replaced with water kunai as of Ultimate), and its Water Shuriken neutral special.
Teleport Spam: It can teleport around its opponents to attack them from behind. Its Final Smash involves teleporting around its opponent while slashing them multiple times.
Terse Talker: Most of Greninja's Pokémon Speak consists of one or two sharp syllables of its name instead of "sentences", compared to Pikachu's or Jigglypuff's sound bites.
Three-Point Landing: Greninja's official artwork in 3DS/Wii U dons this pose. A similar pose is used as its standard idle pose.
Vocal Dissonance: The English dub gives Greninja a deeper, more growly version of Froakie's squeaky, nasally and childish English voice from Pokémon: The Series, which makes it sound more cartoonish and whimsical than Mewtwo, Lucario, and Charizard. Its Japanese voice is very similar, but sounds slightly more adultlike.

Mii Fighters in General

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/miifightersssbu.png

(L-R: Mii Gunner, Mii Brawler, Mii Swordfighter)

^{3DS/Wii U}

Male Voice Options: Yuji Kishi (Type 1), Takashi Ohara (Type 3), Ryōtarō Okiayu, (Type 5), Michihiko Hagi (Type 7), Hideo Ishikawa (Type 9), Kiyoyuki Yanada (Type 11)

Female Voice Options: Umeka Shoji (Type 2 and 12), Ayumi Fujimura (Type 4), Makiko Ohmoto (Type 6), Minami Takayama (Type 8), Kimiko Saito (Type 10)

Home Series: Nintendo Hardware / Super Smash Bros.

Debut:

Miis: Wii console, 2006

Miis in game: Wii Sports [Wii], 2006

As Mii Fighters: Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U [3DS/Wii U], 2014

Creator: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Playable in: 3DS/Wii U, Ultimate

"Now, by using a Mii Fighter, anyone can join the battle!"

— Masahiro Sakurai

Nintendo's customizable avatars, a staple since the days of the Wii, can now fight alongside the other Nintendo icons with movesets created specifically for Super Smash Bros.. They come in three varieties with their own movesets: Brawler, Swordfighter, and Gunner. Their customization factor not only allows a player the chance to fight with their own unique moveset, but also several other unique match-ups to occur, such as fighting with Abraham Lincoln, Elijah Wood, Ice-T, and Nintendo staff such as Reggie Fils-Aime and the late Satoru Iwata. This is further made possible with the downloadable Mii Costumes based on other fan-favorite Nintendo and third-party characters. In short: go nuts!

Art Evolution: In Ultimate, they're given more realistic proportions.
Badass in a Nice Suit: One of the Mii costumes that's available to all the Mii fighters is a business suit, unlike the fancy suit available to Mii Gunners, this suit is always black, while the tie takes the color of the Mii's clothes.
Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The Miis depicted in the official art and the Classic Mode and All Star trophies in 3DS/Wii U, Ultimate instead has two brunets, one brown haired and one black haired, and a blond.
Canon Name: As a bit of trivia, the Miis depicted in the official art and the Classic Mode and All-Star trophies in 3DS/Wii U are MiiFighter for the Brawler, Ken for the Swordfighter◊, and Sophia for the Gunner.◊ They sometimes appeared in official Pic of the Days and trailers in other classes, however. Of course, this has no bearing on the Miis players create on their own system.
- The Miis used in official art and spirits that the player can unlock through World of Light in Ultimate also have names of their own, courtesy of Mii data found in the coding. Translated from Japanese, the Brawler is named Kakuto F, the Swordfighter is named Kenjutsu, and the Gunner is named Shagekio.
Character Customization: Not only can any Mii from the console be used to fight with, but they also can be personalized with several clothing options. In addition, each Mii class has 3 different options for each of their special attacks.
Chest Insignia: The default Mii outfits (pictured at right) have "Mii"-logo belt buckles, and some of the other options sport the Smash Bros. logo.
Chromatic Arrangement: By their default designs. Vaguely invoked as Brawler is Red, Swordfighter is Blue, and Gunner was initially Orange. More squarely invoked in Ultimate, where Gunner has been updated to Yellow.
Cosplay: Miis are able to wear headgear based on various Nintendo characters. Later DLC included entire outfits themed to various characters both first party ones like Link, Samus and Captain Falcon, and third party ones like Proto Man, Heihachi Mishima and Lloyd Irving.
Competitive Balance: In 4, depending on the size and weight of the Mii, they can range from Fragile Speedsters to Mighty Glaciers. Their classes are also balanced against each other ranging from the fastest and most powerful (Mii Brawler) to the biggest range and most versatile tools (Mii Gunner).
Digital Avatar: You can play as yourself, or as anyone, really.
Ditto Fighter: Partially. Some of their attacks are taken directly from other fighters. Some are obvious, like the Gunners taking from Samus and Fox, and the Swordfighters taking from Link and the Fire Emblem cast. But at the same time, some are surprising, like the Gunners borrowing from Zelda and Ness.
Downloadable Content: Additional outfits for Miis are offered as downloadables. Since they are purely cosmetic, they are much cheaper than DLC characters. The Smash Bros. website offers downloadable content of a different sort: QR codes for official Miis of the characters represented by DLC costumes. And of note, there are several Mii Costumes that aren't exclusive to Brawlers, Swordfighters, or Gunners:
- 3DS/Wii U DLC:
  - Wave 1 gives out a Super Smash Bros. T-shirt and Majora's Mask as wearable Headgear.
  - Wave 2 gives a hat based on the Inklings' squid form from Splatoon.
  - Wave 3 gives out hoodies with the Smash logo on them.
  - Wave 4 provides Business Suits, allowing you to fight even as video game executives. You could even play as Masahiro Sakurai himself, if you wanted.
  - Wave 5 provides hats based on the Chocobo from Final Fantasy.
- Ultimate DLC:
  - Wave 1 gives out hats based on Teddie from Persona 4 and Morgana from Persona 5.
  - Wave 2 adds a hat based on the Slime enemy from Dragon Quest.
  - Wave 5 adds a hat based on the Rabbids.
  - Wave 8 brings back the Chocobo hat.
  - Wave 9 adds a hat based the Felynes from Monster Hunter.
  - Wave 11 caps off the DLC with an Octoling wig and a Judd hat.
"Eureka!" Moment: As expected of a series with worldwide critical acclaim and sales, Sakurai has had millions of character requests from fans over the years, and naturally not everyone can get their way in regards to who actually gets in or not. Sakurai's solution to this headache of a problem? Let fans play as their own custom-made Miis and give them custom movesets as well as choose from three fighter archetypes, and release DLC costumes of other characters like Mega Man X and Heihachi Mishima.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": A mild aversion. Back in 3DS/Wii U, the characters are simply called "Mii" when selected and are taking up a single space in the character select screen. In Ultimate, however, they now occupy separate slots and are specifically called "Mii Brawler", "Mii Swordfighter" and "Mii Gunner".
The Faceless: In Ultimate, the image used for a Mii Fighter in the pre-battle loading screen is the default image of the fighter archetype with their face blanked out.
Fanservice Pack: As a side-effect of the realistic proportions Mii Fighters received in Ultimate, females now have a noticeable bust to them.
Featureless Protagonist: Miis are avatars of the player, or just anyone the player can think of really, so they are not given much of a personality.
Foreshadowing: On a meta level pre-release. They were given the generic Smash Bros. emblem instead of a specific Mii emblem or the Find Mii crown emblem from the Find Mii stage. Later, they were revealed to be this game's Small Fry Corps.
Gameplay and Story Integration: Depending on the size of the Mii in the first place, such as height and weight, this will affect their gameplay statistics, either making them a Mighty Glacier, Jack of All Trades, or a Fragile Speedster. However, this is no longer the case in Ultimate for balancing reasons.
Gendered Outfit: Female Miis have skirts added to several of their custom outfits, such as the Standard Outfits and Wild West Wear. However, there are gendered outfits that don't follow this rule, such as the SSB T-shirt (males have a shirt with off-centered lines resembling the Smash logo, blue-green pants and dull red shoes, while females have the Smash logo on the front of the shirt and "999%" on the back, blue pants with a few holes, and bright red shoes), Cat Suit (which changes breeds based on the Miis' gender), Mecha Suit (which is green for males and yellow for females), and Business Suit (males have an unbuttoned suit and a necktie, while females button the bottom and leave the top half open).
Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Obviously not a rule with the fighters themselves, due to their customizable nature, but that's what the official art is showing.
Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Whatever name you give them that can fit into ten letters, and it doesn't even have to match the Mii's actual name. Although the announcer exclusively calls them "Mii" upon a victory.
Heroic Mime: In 3DS/Wii U, they aren't voice acted, in order to fit with as many characters as possible. Ultimate subverts this by allowing you to choose from several voices for them, bringing Miis more in line with their portrayal in other games like Mario Kart Wii, though you can still leave them voiceless if you want.
Leitmotif: The Find Mii / Find Mii II Medley plays on their shared character trailer in Ultimate's site. Also, while each Mii class is found separately in World of Light, all of them are fought with the 3DS/Wii U rendition of the Final Destination theme.
Multi-Mook Melee: These guys are the primary opponents in 3DS/Wii U's Multi-Man Smash, marking the first time the mode's main opponents are also playable characters.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: Billed as a major draw of the Mii Fighter — they can be customized to resemble any real-life or fictional character, from Satoru Iwata and Reggie Fils-Aime to Abraham Lincoln (LINCOLN GETS SWORN IN!), Elijah Wood (ELIJAH WOOD LIKE TO BATTLE!), Ice-T (ICE-T POURS IT ON!) or Shinya Arino (replacing Ice-T in the Japanese Digital Event: SHINYA ARINO JOINS THE BATTLE!◊), or even members of the J-Pop Group AKB48. Naturally, with this wide-open potential, the creators had the precaution to ban the Mii Fighter in at least the anonymous avenue of online play.
Original Generation: The Mii Fighters are technically this, being the first playable characters who bear the Smash series' symbol, due to being customizable characters (and also the series' new Fighting ____ Team) instead of taking moves from their own brand of games. When you think of their original concept as all-purpose Digital Avatars that adapt their abilities to the games they appear in, instead of being proper characters, this makes sense. Lampshaded by Sakurai, stating that they were "almost not Miis anymore."
Promoted to Playable: In Brawl, they're only used as Nintendo WFC avatars◊. Now, they actually fight on the battlefield.
- Doubly so if you consider their role in Multi-Man/Mob Smash. 3DS/Wii U marks the first time the Fighting ____ Team can be playable outside of hacking.
Progressively Prettier: Their redesign in Ultimate made them more anatomically-correct.
Purely Aesthetic Gender: The gender doesn't make a difference during fights. It's the preference of the player.
Saved for the Sequel: Miis were actually planned for Brawl, but Sakurai and his team didn't really know how to best use a unique approach to a fighting character at the time.
Shotoclone: Invoked and enforced — the Miis' special movesets (and their standard ones to an extent) are based off of other characters in some way. This includes each Mii even having options for projectiles and a jumping attack (an uppercut in the case of the Brawler and the Gunner, a jumping slash in the case of the Swordfighter).
Stance System: The main gimmick the Miis have among other characters is their entirely different special moves available through character customization, with 12 unique options to choose from, 3 for each slot. Unlike other characters, the Miis' custom moves are also available from the start. With them, you can change their playstyle depending on your tastes. Each of their moves is listed below in their separate categories.
Suddenly Voiced: After being The Voiceless in 3DS/Wii U, their voices can be customized in Ultimate.
Super-Deformed: In 3DS/Wii U, the Miis had a slightly chibi appearance with a head that's noticeably large in comparison to their bodies. Ultimate gives them more natural proportions.
A Taste of Power: Unlike other characters (except for Palutena), in 3DS/Wii U, all of their special moves are available from the start. This is to let you customize your own fighter, and also gives you a preview of what you can expect from the rest of the cast.
Troll: Because of the vast creation potential Miis have, many people were concerned online fights against anyone would have inappropriate or downright offensive Miis running around. However, these concerns were put to rest because Miis were later confirmed to be restricted to offline and when playing with friends. The restriction also does not, however, apply to the online tournament modes, many of which do indeed allow the use of Mii Fighters. Ultimate gets rid of this restriction altogether but bans any offensive Mii posted on the Shared Content mode.
Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Actively possible with the Mii Fighters, since you can, have, for example, Hank Hill Vs. Peter Griffin Vs. Shrek Vs. Goku. Or, if going by Mii Costumes specifically: Yu Narukami Vs. Sans Vs. Cuphead Vs. Travis Touchdown Vs. Geno Vs. Dante Vs. Dragonborn Vs. Doom Slayer.
Virtual Paper Doll:
- Aside from the Mii creator in 3DS/Wii U, Mii Fighters can be given different outfits, such as Tron Lines-laden bodysuits, football helmets, and cowboy hats.
- True to Sakurai's claim that the Mii Fighters are in the game to allow popularly requested non-video game characters or characters they'd never get the rights to into the game, a great deal of the costume pieces are genericized bits of costumes from famous characters. Just three examples: items based on Luffy's straw hat, Naruto's Forehead Protector, and Alucard's suit are all wearable.
- New sets of hats and outfits are also available as Downloadable Content.
The Voiceless: They don't have any voice clips in 3DS/Wii U. Averted in Ultimate.
Wholesome Crossdresser: There's nothing stopping you having a male Mii dress like Lip or Ashley, or having a female Mii dress as Chrom or Link.

51 – Mii Brawler

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/miibrawlerssbu.png

The Brawler of Many Faces

^{3DS/Wii U}

Final Smash: Omega Blitz

The Brawler is an expert in martial arts, using primarily punches and kicks. They are the strongest and fastest of the three classes, but also have the worst range.

Armor-Piercing Attack: The Head-On Assault attack was greatly buffed in Ultimate to where a powerful downward slam of their skulls are able to demolish a fighter's shield if all hits connect.
Badass Biker: One of the possible costumes (and also serves as a possible Shout-Out to Paul Phoenix).
Bare-Fisted Monk: Fights using their fists and feet.
Battle Intro: Lands on the ground in an explosion, then does attacks towards the camera.
Charged Attack: Two of their special moves.
- Ultimate Uppercut, one of their neutral special options. It's a Shoryuken-style punch that has a blue glow and minimal strength when uncharged, but becomes an absurdly deadly move with a pink and purple glow when fully charged. The charge can be stored. The fully charged punch also has super armor when released.
- Burning Dropkick, one of their side special options, was also this in 3DS/Wii U; the move could be charged for more distance, speed and power, but unlike Ultimate Uppercut, the charge can't be stored. Averted in Ultimate, where the move can't be charged anymore.
Close-Range Combatant: The Mii Brawler has better speed and power than the other two classes, and their attacks are faster as well. Their main flaw is a lack of solid range options compared to the other two classes and, compared to the other two classes, they are the least versatile class as well, with almost all of their specials being designed for big attacks and/or approaching the opponent.
Counter-Attack: Counter Throw, their new down special option in Ultimate. The Mii braces themselves for an attack; if hit on their upper body, they grab and throw the target behind them with extreme force. The counter frames last less than other counters, but the attack recovers faster.
Cute Kitten: A costume available for the Brawler are catsuits.
Dash Attack: While already having a traditional one, their side special move Onslaught is this too. The Mii rushes forward, knee-first, then repeatedly kicks the opponent before uppercutting them into oblivion. Ultimate gives the move a new animation where they now mix punches and kicks and end with a flip kick instead, and the move is stronger but decays on power with each use, causing the Mii to need to wait for the move to recover from use (signified by a purple glow on their shoe/foot).
Death from Above: Two of their special moves.
- Headache Maker, one of their special move options in 3DS/Wii U. The Mii jumps and swings their fists down. It's a very powerful meteor smash if it connects, but it's very risky to use otherwise.
- Soaring Axe Kick, their up special move (for both games). The Mii jumps while kicking, then comes down with a powerful axe kick that powerfully meteor smashes the target. In Ultimate, the move was buffed so that the descent part must be manually inputted, and it offers more upwards distance, now making it a respectable vertical recovery move.
Diving Kick: Feint Jump, one of their down special options. The Mii leaps into the air overhead some distance, then descends while divekicking when the special button is pressed again. The move is very similar to Zero Suit Samus' Flip Kick, but lacks the meteor effect in 3DS/Wii U; it wasn't until Ultimate when the descending part would dunk an opponent if the Mii collides with them.
Downloadable Content:
- 3DS/Wii U DLC:
  - Wave 1 gives the Brawler a Cat Suit to wear, just in case you're a big fan of Meow-Meow Mario.
  - Wave 2 provides outfits based on Jacky Bryant and Akira Yuki from Virtua Fighter, and Heihachi Mishima from Tekken.
  - Wave 3 releases outfits based on King K. Rool and the Flying Man.
  - Wave 4 sends outfits based on Toad and Captain Falcon, making the latter's helmet unlocked by default as well.
  - Wave 6 gives out a costume based on Knuckles the Echidna, as well as futuristic Bionic Armor.
- Ultimate DLC:
  - Wave 1 brings back the Knuckles the Echidna costume.
  - Wave 2 features a costume based on the Martial Artist class from Dragon Quest III.
  - Wave 3 features a costume based on the Team Rocket grunts.
  - Wave 4 brings back the Akira and Jacky costumes, as well as adding Ryo Sakazaki and Iori Yagami from The King of Fighters
  - Wave 6 brings back the Heihachi costume and introduces Ninjara and Callie as options.
  - Wave 7 introduces costumes based on the Creeper and Pig as well as Bomberman, who changes color depending on your Mii.
  - Wave 8 adds a costume based on Tifa Lockhart.
  - Wave 10 gives us a costume based on Shantae.
Everything's Cuter with Kittens: 3DS/Wii U's DLC adds a full-on catsuit with a respective hat, not unlike that of Super Mario 3D World. It's an unlockable costume in Ultimate, instead.
Ground Pound: Head-On Assault has them quickly head downwards from the air head-first.
Home Stage:
- 3DS/Wii U: Battlefield in both versions.
- Ultimate: Find Mii in Ultimate's website, their fight in World of Light though takes place in Final Destination.
Hurricane Kick: Helicopter Kick, one of their up special moves. It's a series of spinning kicks as the Mii ascends in the air, with the concluding kick having tremendous power. Distance wise, it has the best horizontal distance, but its vertical distance is awful.
Idle Animation:
- They quickly perform a series of four fighting stances.
- They briefly assume an open-palm stance.
I Know Madden Kombat: Shot Put, their neutral special move. Their only projectile option, the Mii throws a shot put in an arc, which bounces across the floor if it lands, but keeps going through the air as long as it remains in play.
Irony: Mii Brawler has costumes based off of three characters from ARMS, who are all long range fighters while the Brawler lacks any.
Lightning Bruiser: The Mii Brawler is much stronger and faster than the other two classes, balanced out by its lack of range and, in Ultimate, its lower weight.
Limit Break: Omega Blitz, a rush of attacks in the air that acts the same way as Omnislash and Great Aether.
Meteor Move: Their down air attack and Headache Maker (which are double-axe handle punches), Soaring Axe Kick's descent kick and Head-On Assault in the air as the Mii comes down. Meanwhile, the end of their Final Smash has them send down their opponent back to the playing field.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
- Their Final Smash is similar to Ike's, Robin's, and Greninja's, in which they knock the opponent into the air and unleash a barrage of blows that would not be out-of-place in Dragon Ball Z, before knocking the opponent back down onto the stage.
- Even disregarding the aforementioned Final Smash, the Mii Brawler breathes this trope, as many of their attacks involve brutally beating the tar out of their opponents, such as their Helicopter Kick, Onslaught, Foot Flurry, and even their jab turns into something similar to Fox's or Captain Falcon's.
Powered Armor: One of the Brawler's costumes is a mechanical exoskeleton, in a similar vein to Power Loaders from the Alien movie series. It's even yellow for female Brawlers!
Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Many of their moves are comprised of this.
- Their neutral combo attack can lead to a rapid flurry of punches, ending with a kick. They're the only Mii Fighter with an infinite jab.
- Flashing Mach Punch, one of their neutral special options in Ultimate, is a series of twenty-two rapid punches that end with an uppercut to launch the opponent up. Now, who else did this attack before...?
- Piston Punch, one of their up special options in 3DS/Wii U, consists of several rising punches on which the last one deals immense knockback. It was so strong, the move had to be nerfed once.
- Lastly, a rare kick example of this is Foot Flurry, one of their down special options in 3DS/Wii U; the Mii rushes forward while kicking repeatedly, ending with a spinning inward kick.
Retraux: Akira's costume is deliberately blocky, emulating the graphics of the original Virtua Fighter game.
Shoryuken: Two of their special moves.
- Ultimate Uppercut, one of their neutral special options in 3DS/Wii U, is a chargeable version of the famous dragon punch. With Super Armor on the charged version to boot!
- Thrusting Uppercut, which replaces Piston Punch as their new up special option in Ultimate, consists of a jumping uppercut on which the Mii changes hands for the final hit. Distance-wise, it's the most flexible recovery option for the Mii, but it lacks some power.
Stance System:
- Their neutral special options are Shot Put, Ultimate Uppercut (in 3DS/Wii U)/Flashing Mach Punch (in Ultimate), and Exploding Side Kick.
- Their side special options are Onslaught, Burning Dropkick, and Headache Maker (in 3DS/Wii U)/Suplex (in Ultimate).
- Their up special options are Soaring Axe Kick, Helicopter Kick, and Piston Punch (in 3DS/Wii U)/Thrusting Uppercut (in Ultimate).
- Lastly, their down special options are Head-On Assault, Feint Jump, and Foot Flurry (in 3DS/Wii U)/Counter Throw (in Ultimate).
Stylistic Suck: In a nod to Akira's early days, the downloadable Akira costume for the Mii Brawler in 3DS/Wii U is blocky and jagged instead of the smoother models used for every other outfit.
Use Your Head: Head-On Assault, their down special move. The Mii plummets straight down, head-first and lands on the ground with high power. On the ground, the Mii jumps before going down. In 3DS/Wii U, this move could bury an opponent; no longer the case as of Ultimate, sending opponents flying high instead.
Wall Jump: They're the first of two Mii classes who can do this.
Weaponized Ball: Neutral special number one is Shot Put. It has the Mii throwing a shot put that hits anyone in the way.
Wreathed in Flames: Two of their special moves.
- Exploding Side Kick, one of their neutral special options. It's a Falcon Punch clone move, but involves the Mii performing a side kick instead of punching. Notably, it has Super Armor, unlike Captain Falcon's signature move, but is weaker.
- Burning Dropkick, one of their side special options. The Mii charges fiery energy and then fires themselves forward to dropkick the opponent. Distance-wise, it's the best of their side specials, but it's a little impractical outside of recovery purposes since it's slow to charge for max power.
Wrestler in All of Us:
- Suplex, their new side special option in Ultimate. The Mii rushes forward, grasps the opponent and flips them, then performs a jumping suplex that deals huge damage on landing. The move can't KO for its sake and is laggy after the throw, though, so it's better used for crowd control, racking up damage, or in Doubles play to set up a teammate's Finishing Move. If used in the air, the Mii and the opponent plummet straight towards the ground, so it can potentially be used as a form of sacrificial KO if used offstage.
- Burning Dropkick, one of their side special options, also counts since it's... well, a dropkick.

52 – Mii Swordfighter

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/miiswordfighterssbu.png

The Swordfighter of Many Faces

^{3DS/Wii U}

Final Smash: Final Edge

The Swordfighter wields a sword to slash the opponent, and they can also wield a few projectiles. They are in between the Brawler and Gunner in terms of speed, power, and range.

All Swords Are the Same: They get a wide variety of swords from broadswords, katanas, laser blades, cutlasses, sticks, The Master Sword, Alondite (the twin of Ragnell), and even Dunban's Anti-Mechon Glaive, but they all act the same.
Attack Reflector: Reversal Slash, one of their down special options. It works like Mario's cape, reflecting projectiles and flipping around foes, but with a rainbow slash instead of a cloth.
Battle Intro: Appears in a tornado before unsheathing their sword.
Black Knight: One of the DLC costumes available in 3DS/Wii U is of the Black Knight from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. It's an unlockable costume in Ultimate.
Blow You Away: Gale Strike, their neutral special move. The Mii spins and slashes forward to create a tornado that lifts opponents up, leaving them vulnerable for a hit.
Charged Attack: Four of their special moves.
- Blurring Blade, one of their neutral special options. The Mii does a series of stabs that end with a last, more powerful stab (in 3DS/Wii U)/an upward, flaming blade swing (in Ultimate). As the trope implies, it can be charged, increasing the damage it deals and the last hit's power.
- Airborne Assault, their side special move, was also this in 3DS/Wii U. The attack could be charged for increased damage and significantly increased distance. Averted in Ultimate, where it can no longer be charged.
- Slash Launcher, another of their side special options, can be charged for extra power and distance as well.
- Hero's Spin, one of their up special options, can be charged on the ground for a significant power boost (much like Link's version).
Cool Sword: The Mii Swordfighter fights using a sword, with each outfit wielding a different sword that fits a theme. Some of the DLC costumes adds specific ones such as the Master Sword from The Legend of Zelda, the Z-Saber from Mega Man X, the Anti-Mechon Glaive from Xenoblade Chronicles 1, and the Falchion from Fire Emblem: Awakening.
Counter-Attack: Blade Counter, their down special move. Fitting for its name, the Mii braces for impact; if an attack connects during the counter frames, they will retaliate with a huge, powerful slash. Uniquely in Ultimate, the move sends opponents up instead of in front of them.
Dash Attack: While already having a traditional one, their up special option in Skyward Slash Dash is this. The Mii will rush in a given direction while slashing repeteadly, launching any opponent on the final hit. It offers the most recovery trajectory options, but leaves the Mii the most open of all three up special options.
Downloadable Content:
- 3DS/Wii U DLC:
  - Wave 1 gives the Swordfighter outfits based on Dunban from Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and the Link shown in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. They're also given a Monkey Suit, with the sword being replaced by a wooden stick.
  - Wave 2 provides an outfit based on Zero.
  - Wave 3 gives out the looks for Chrom, the Black Knight, and Lloyd Irving.
  - Wave 4 reveals an outfit based on Viridi, as well as the Hunter's Armor and Rathalos Armor from Monster Hunter.
  - Wave 6 releases the outfits of Takamaru, Ashley, and Gil.
- Ultimate DLC:
  - Purchasing the first Fighters Pass includes a bonus costume based on Rex.
  - Wave 1 introduces costumes based on Makoto Yuki from Persona 3 and Yu Narukami from Persona 4.
  - Wave 2 provides outfits based on Veronica from Dragon Quest XI and Erdrick's Armor from Dragon Quest III.
  - Wave 3 provides outfits for Zero from Mega Man X once again as well as Goemon from Ganbare Goemon.
  - Wave 4 provides an outfit of Nakoruru from Samurai Shodown.
  - Wave 5 introduces a costume based on Altaïr from the Assassin's Creed series.
  - Purchasing the Fighters Pass Vol. 2 gives a bonus costume based on Link's Ancient Armor set from Breath of the Wild.
  - Wave 7 brings back the Gil costume and introduces Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes and the Diamond Armor from Minecraft.
  - Wave 8 adds a costume based on Aerith Gainsborough.
  - Wave 9 brings back the Hunter's Equipment and the Rathalos Equipment, and introduces a costume based on Arthur from Ghosts 'n Goblins.
  - Wave 10 brings back the Lloyd costume and introduces costumes based on the Dragonborn from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Dante from the Devil May Cry series.
Dressed to Plunder: They have a very fancy pirate captain costume complete with a cutlass in 3DS/Wii U. The look can be completed with one of the two pirate hats.
Dual Wielding: While Lloyd Irving is famous for doing this in his home series, his Mii costume doesn't. The Mii has both swords with them, but they only use one here. The trailer has a Mii wearing the costume using the beam sword, which is held in the free hand, as a call back to Lloyd's dual wielding.
Dub Name Change: It's written as "Swordfighter" in the NTSC version and "Sword Fighter" in the PAL version.
Everything's Better with Samurai: An outfit option for Swordfighters in 3DS/Wii U.
Gratuitous Ninja: Another outfit option for Swordfighters. Also counts when using the Yiga clan and Goemon sets.
Foe-Tossing Charge: Power Thrust, one of their down special options. On the ground, the Mii points their blade forward and advances a good distance, stabbing any opponent on their way. In the air, they rush downward instead of forward, and landing with the move will also send nearby opponents flying.
Home Stage:
- 3DS/Wii U: Battlefield in both versions.
- Ultimate: Find Mii in Ultimate's website, their fight in World of Light though takes place in Final Destination.
Iaijutsu Practitioner: Slash Launcher (Gale Stab in Ultimate), one of their side special options. The Mii puts their blade back and charges energy, then rushes forward when released. They slash (in 3DS/Wii U)/stab (in Ultimate) any opponent they collide with, hence their name.
Idle Animation:
- They raise their sword skyward.
- They look from side to side.
Improbable Weapon User: Certain costumes replace the sword with something else, like a wooden stick with the monkey suit, a paintbrush with the Vince costume, or a broom for the maid outfit.
Jack of All Stats: Faster and stronger than the Gunner, but not as strong or as fast as the Brawler. They also have better melee options than the former and better ranged options than the latter. Their custom specials also tend to give them options that make them more versatile close-range fighters than the Mii Brawler (albeit with slightly slower frame data), while still losing out on the sheer versatility of the Mii Gunner.
Katanas Are Just Better: The Samurai and Ninja outfits both turn the sword into one of these. There's also Dunban's Mechon armor-piercing katana included with his respective outfit.
Knight in Shining Armor: The Plate Armor outfit.
Laser Blade: The Neon Suit gives them this sword, as does the SSB T-Shirt and Hoodie outfits. Zero's outfit comes with a copy of his signature Z-Saber, as well.
Limit Break: Final Edge, which sends various shock waves at a direction.
Meaningful Name: The Mii Swordfighter shown in artworks for 3DS/Wii U has a Canon Name: Ken, which means "sword" in Japanese.
Rings of Death: Chakram, one of their side special options. The Mii throws a sharp chakram, which can be angled up or down and behaves differently depending on how you input the attack. A normal input will make the ring move slowly and deal multiple hits (and in Ultimate, boomerang back a little), whereas a Smash input makes it travel fast and deal a single powerful hit.
Rolling Attack: Airborne Assault, their side special move. The Mii rushes forward while spinning; colliding with an opponent triggers the attack and sends them flying. The attack leaves them wide open while preparing it or if the opponent blocks it. Worse, the opponent can dodge it and, if you're near an edge, you can completely send yourself over it with absolutely no way to recover. A single misfire and it's into the void for you. In 3DS/Wii U, the attack could be charged for extra power and distance, but Ultimate gives the move more power and distance, as well as the ability to move afterwards, at the cost of charging.
Spin Attack: Hero's Spin, one of their up special options. It is functionally identical to Link's own Spin Attack: it can be charged on the ground for a more brutal hit, and will send the Mii up in the air if used there.
Stance System:
- Their neutral special options are Gale Strike^note, Shuriken of Light, and Blurring Blade^note.
- Their side special options are Airborne Assault, Slash Launcher^note, and Chakram.
- Their up special options are Stone Scabbard^note, Skyward Slash Dash^note, and Hero's Spin.
- Lastly, their down special options are Blade Counter, Reversal Slash^note, and Power Thrust.
Stock Ninja Weaponry: Shuriken of Light, one of their neutral special options. They throw... well, a shuriken made of light (Hard Light while we're at it), forward. It travels some distance in front of them; the longer it takes for the shuriken to hit, the more damage it deals.
Sword Beam: Their Final Smash consists of a rush of several in a row.
Sword Plant: Stone Scabbard, their up special move. It's an arcing recovery that involves leaping in the air in a jumping slash, then plunging back down with a downward thrust that will meteor smash anyone unlucky to be below them. Ultimate buffs this move by making the leap even higher.
Tron Lines: Two of their outfits feature them. One is the "Neon Suit", a black bodysuit with glowing lines, another is the "Cybernetic Suit", armor with glowing lines. In the case of the Neon Suit, the glowing lines take the color of the Mii's clothes, while the Cybernetic Suit features cyan lines and uses the color of the Mii's clothes for the main color of the armor.

53 – Mii Gunner

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/miigunnerssbu.png

The Gunner of Many Faces

^{3DS/Wii U}

Final Smash: Full Blast

The Gunner is a projectile expert, wielding a mysterious Arm Cannon that has many kinds of bullets and missiles that can be used to attack from afar. They are the slowest and weakest of the three classes, but have the best range by far.

Arm Cannon: The Mii Gunner fights using this, and the cannon changes with each outfit. The bear suit has a strange interpretation where its arm cannon is a honeypot attached to its paw. Pit and Palutena lampshade this by remarking on their weapon's similarity to that of Samus and Mega Man. Some of the costumes change this when appropriate, such as the Inkling outfit, which features handheld Splattershots. The Isabelle and K.K. Slider outfits have them wielding a party popper and a guitar, respectively.
Attack Drones: The Mii Gunner uses these as part of their Final Smash, Full Blast.
Attack Reflector: Echo Reflector, their down special move. The Mii deploys an energy field that bounces back projectiles with more speed and power. In 3DS/Wii U, the move's appearance is that of an hexagon in a similar vein to Fox's (though purple-colored instead, while Ultimate makes the move a force field generated by planting the gun into the floor.
Badass in a Nice Suit: One of their outfits, the Fancy Suit, makes them into this.
Battle Intro: Appears in an orb of energy, then aims their weapon at the screen.
Bears Are Bad News: One of the costumes for the Gunner is a bear suit. Its "gun" is a honeypot attached to its paw.
Charged Attack: Charge Blast, their neutral special move. It works like Samus' Charge Shot: The Mii charges up a sphere of electric energy, then fires it forwards if the charge is released. The charge can be stored.
- Grenade Launch, one of their neutral special options, was also this: charging it would result in additional distance and speed for the thrown grenade. Averted in Ultimate, where it can no longer be charged and ithe Mii instead does it aesthetically, which increases the move's startup.
- Stealth Burst, one of their side special options, is also this: the longer the button is held before releasing it, the stronger the explosion.
Death from Above: Lunar Launch, their up special move. See Rocket Jump below.
Downloadable Content:
- 3DS/Wii U DLC:
  - Wave 1 gives the Mii Gunner outfits based off of Proto Man and X.
  - Wave 2 reveals outfits based on Isabelle, MegaMan.EXE, and the Inklings.
  - Wave 3 provides an outfit based on Samus's Power Armor, also making the helmet unlocked by default, and a free update gives an outfit based on K.K. Slider. There's also a Bear Suit with the arm cannon turned into a honey pot.
  - Wave 4 only provides the Gunner with a Fox outfit.
  - Wave 5, thanks to Cloud's inclusion, also provides a Geno costume.
  - Wave 6 provides an outfit based on Miles "Tails" Prower.
- Ultimate DLC:
  - Wave 1 brings back the Tails costume.
  - Wave 3 introduces Sans from Undertale and brings back the Proto Man costume.
  - Wave 5 adds Mega Man X, MegaMan.EXE, and Cuphead (complete with Finger Gun conversion).
  - Wave 6 provides new costumes for Marie and Vault Boy.
  - Wave 8 brings back the Geno costume and adds one based on Barret Wallace.
  - Wave 11's final addition to the DLC is a costume based on the Doom Slayer.
Dragon Knight: One of the unique armors for Gunner is a scaled armor that turns the Arm Cannon into a dragon's head.
Dramatic Gun Cock: One of their taunts has them cock their Arm Cannon in this manner.
Energy Absorption: Absorbing Vortex, one of their down special options. It functions exactly like Ness's PSI Magnet: the Mii creates a force field that absorbs energy projectiles, healing them for each projectile absorbed.
Grenade Launcher: One of their neutral special options. The Mii launches grenades in an arc that explode on contact with an enemy or the ground. In 3DS/Wii U, it can be charged to lob them farther, though with no power increase. Ultimate averts the move's ability to charge and increases its startup, but gives the thrown grenade a distance comparable to a medium-charged grenade.
Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: The default Brawler and Swordfigher Miis are both male, whereas the default Gunner tends to be female.
Having a Blast: Stealth Burst, one of their side special options. The Mii fires a shining burst of energy that can be charged for more distance and power. When the button is released, the burst of energy explodes harshly. As its name implies, it starts to disappear as it travels distance, but Ultimate makes it so that it's always visible regardless of charge.
Home Stage:
- 3DS/Wii U: Battlefield in both versions.
- Ultimate: Find Mii in Ultimate's website, their fight in World of Light though takes place in Tortimer Island.
Homing Projectile: Gunner Missile, one of their side special options. It works essentially like Samus' Missile; inputting the attack normally results in one of these, but inputting the move like a Smash attack makes the Mii fire a big, straight travelling missile, thus subverting the trope (for that version).
Idle Animation:
- They drop their gun and raise it to their side.
- They raise their gun, then release it while looking away.
Improbable Weapon User: Some of their costumes use strange objects in lieu of the arm cannon. Isabelle's costume uses a party popper, K.K. Slider's has a guitar, the business suit has a briefcase, and the bear suit uses a pot of honey.
Jet Pack: Arm Rocket, one of their up special options. See Rocket Jump below.
Limit Break: Full Blast, a huge beam accompanied to two smaller ones, functionally identical to Zero Laser.
Long-Range Fighter: The Mii Gunner has weaker attacks compared to the other classes, but has the best range of the three.
Mighty Glacier: Upgraded from a Squishy Wizard in 3DS/Wii U to this in Ultimate. They're still slow, but their damage and weight have been heavily improved, without sacrificing their tremendous range and good recovery. As a bit of trivia, this makes the default Gunner the first woman since 64 to be classified as a heavyweight.^note
Mythology Gag: Palutena's Guidance states that the Mii Gunner's weapon utilizes a motion-control trigger, referencing the motion gimmick of the Wii remote, befitting of the Miis console of origin. Viridi responds by saying that it's revolutionary, referencing the Wii's original codename being "revolution".
Not the Intended Use: Like Fox and Ness, Mii Gunner's Echo Reflector and Absorbing Vortex produce small, quick, weak hitboxes on activation. Since their knockback doesn't scale, they can be used to prep the opponent for a combo.
Playing with Fire: Most of the Gunner's attacks use fire as their primary element.
- The most notable of these attacks is Flame Pillar, their side special move. The Mii shoots a flame blast that explodes into a flame when it hits the ground. In Ultimate, it now hits several times with increased power, which is akin to Ness's PK Fire and Robin's Arcfire.
Powered Armor: One of their alternate costumes. DLC adds Samus's.
Ray Gun: Laser Blaze, one of their neutral special options. The Mii fires a laser ray from their cannon, which can be rapid-fired like Fox and Falco's own blasters for more damage. It's good for creating space between the Mii and the opponent.
Revolvers Are Just Better: The Wild West Wear has the Gunner's Arm Cannon resemble a giant revolver. Purely cosmetic though.
Robe and Wizard Hat: Gunners get the Mage Robe outfit (with the hat separate and available to all Mii classes).
Rocket Jump: All three of the Mii Gunner's up special moves involve using their arm cannons to propel themselves through the air in different ways.
- Lunar Launch, their default option, is the most traditional rocket jump of the three, and mixes this trope and Death from Above. The Mii fires a burst of fire that propels them a huge distance upwards, hence its name. On contact with the ground, the burst of fire explodes. It offers the best vertical recovery distance of their up specials, but the least horizontal one.
- Cannon Uppercut, one of their alternate options in 3DS/Wii U, mixes this trope and Shoryuken. The Mii propels themselves some distance upwards, punching above them with their free hand. It has the most power of their recovery options, but the least distance. The initial burst meteor smashes opponents right below the Mii.
  - Cannon Jump Kick replaces the former move in Ultimate; though while it no longer involves a dragon punch, it still involves a rocket jump.
- Finally, Arm Rocket, their last up special alternate option, mixes this trope and Jet Pack. It is a more controllable recovery move that allows the Gunner to alter their trajectory before flight. Ultimate further buffs this move by making it more akin to Diddy Kong's Rocketbarrel Boost, by letting the Mii alter the trajectory mid-flight.
Shoryuken: Their up special, Cannon Uppercut, is this in 3DS/Wii U. See Rocket Jump above.
- Averted in Ultimate, where this move is replaced by Cannon Jump Kick.
Shock and Awe: The Mii Gunner's Charge Blast creates an electric effect upon hitting an opponent. Also, the Gunner's Final Smash is essentially a powerful electric laser.
Squishy Wizard: In a sense: They are statistically the weakest and the slowest of the three Mii Fighter classes, but make up for it with their range and their versatile repertoire of tools, projectiles or otherwise, that give them a tactical bent and, if played correctly, gives this class the best control of the battlefield out of the three.
Stance System:
- Their neutral special options are Charge Blast, Laser Blaze, and Grenade Launch.
- Their side special options are Flame Pillar, Stealth Burst, and Gunner Missile.
- Their up special options are Lunar Launch, Cannon Uppercut (in 3DS/Wii U)/Cannon Jump Kick (in Ultimate), and Arm Rocket.
- Lastly, their down special options are Echo Reflector, Bomb Drop, and Absorbing Vortex.
Steampunk: An alternate outfit either unlocked with a condition (3DS/Wii U) or as a random drop (Ultimate).
Stuff Blowing Up: Many of their attacks are explosive since they consist of explosives or fire bursts.
Throw Down the Bomblet: A decent amount of their specials involve explosives, to the point where it’s possible to create a loadout of only explosive specials.
- Grenade Launcher, one of their neutral special options, shoots a grenade.
- Gunner Missile, one of their side special options, shoots both guided and powerful missiles.
- Lastly, there's Bomb Drop, one of their down special options, which plays this trope a bit more straight. The Mii drops a bomb in front of and below them that takes a while to explode. In Ultimate, the explosion can be manually triggered by pressing the button again, and the bombs have a longer fuse.
Wall Jump: They're the second of two Mii classes who can do this.
Wave-Motion Gun: The Mii Gunner's Final Smash involves hitting opponents with a large laser-like Samus' Zero Laser, but with Options added.

54 – Palutena

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/palutenassbu_9.png

Goddess of Light

^{3DS/Wii U}

Voiced by: Aya Hisakawa (Japanese), Brandy Kopp (English)

PALUTENA ALIGHTS!

Home Series: Kid Icarus

Debut: Kid Icarus [NES], 1986

Creator: Nintendo, TOSE

Publisher: Nintendo

Playable in: 3DS/Wii U, Ultimate
Specials: (Default) Autoreticle, Reflect Barrier (3DS/Wii U), Explosive Flame (Ultimate), Warp, Counter^note
Final Smash: Black Hole Laser

"Oh, I'm not here to save you, Pit. I'm here for a little, uh... divine intervention."

The Goddess of Light and ruler of Skyworld. Palutena goes to great lengths to protect her people, and those who dwell on the surface lands below. She's benevolent, kind, playful, and a massive troll towards Pit, but still gives him advice and provides him with the Power of Flight when it's needed. She definitely shows off the power of a god here, what with her impressive array of customizable combat techniques.

After first appearing in Pit’s Final Smash and an early story cutscene in Brawl, Palutena made her debut as a playable character in 3DS/Wii U. Despite being a goddess, her moveset was surprisingly underwhelming; she had slow attacks, but many of them had impressive range to balance it out. She was mainly used to show off the game's exclusive Custom Special feature. Her base specials weren't anything special, but she could be given different specials based on the various powers she bestows upon Pit throughout Uprising.

When Ultimate dropped the mechanic, her moveset was streamlined to be more effective from the start, combining her Counter with her Reflect Barrier and making Explosive Flame her permanent side special. Her offensive game was also greatly improved, turning her from a fighter tailored to long-range combat into a more versatile fighter, making her truly live up to her name as the Goddess of Light.

She also has a fairly vast repository of knowledge of the other fighters, which she isn't afraid to share with Pit to help him in battle.

See Kid Icarus: Protagonists and Allies for more information on the character in her origin series.

11th-Hour Ranger: She's one of the last four characters to join you in World of Light in Ultimate, being found in The Final Battle and requiring you to beat and unlock Dark Samus in order to get to her.
Always Accurate Attack: Her neutral special move, Autoreticle. She takes aim and, if she detects an opponent within range, she locks on them with a reticle and fires three projectiles at that location. Subverted, however, in that the attack can miss as long as the opponent moves after getting locked on. The move becomes harder to avoid in Ultimate, though, where the shots are faster and the detection window is longer, making it much more accurate.
Anti-Air: Her strong up attack, her up smash and, in 3DS/Wii U, her second custom down special move, Celestial Fireworks.
Area of Effect: As demonstrated by these◊ pictures◊, some of her moves place an emphasis on this, and failure to hit with them leaves you wide open.
- In 3DS/Wii U, the biggest example of this trope as a standalone move is her second custom neutral special move, Heavenly Light. It hits multiple times and has huge vertical range, but the damage it inflicts is flinchless and it has little horizontal range.
- Her smash attacks also fit this trope. Her side and down smash make use of her ethereal wings by flapping them, with both attacks having good horizontal range and creating windboxes that push the opponent away if they don't hit. Meanwhile, her up smash conjures a tall pillar of vaporizing light that has very long vertical range.
Art Evolution: Palutena's current design debuted in Brawl, appearing as an NPC and during Pit's Final Smash, although her face was slightly more stern- and wise-looking than her current depictions, apart from the one Subspace Emissary cutscene that she appeared in. The fourth game gives her a cuter, softer face, darker green hair (more apparent during gameplay than in artwork), and a more prominent red trim on her dress.
Art Shift: The non-gameplay bits of her trailer are done in anime style. These portions were animated by SHAFT, who also animated the Palutena's Revolting Dinner short to promote Kid Icarus: Uprising.
Ascended Extra: Went from playing a role in Pit's Final Smash and making a small appearance in the Subspace Emissary in Brawl to a full-fledged fighter.
Assist Character: She was this in Brawl, sending the Centurions to aid Pit in his Final Smash.
Attack Reflector: Reflect Barrier, her default side^notein 3DS/Wii U/down^notein Ultimate special move. She summons an energy barrier that bounces projectiles back with increased power and speed, and pushes opponents back a little. In 3DS/Wii U, it even has a small hitbox on her shield. As of Ultimate, it shares the spot with her Counter, activating in the same way her Counter would if it detects a projectile.
Authority Equals Asskicking: She's the Goddess of Light, and the leader of the forces of Skyworld. And she finally gets to kick some major ass here, without the influence of the Chaos Kin.
Badass Adorable: Downplayed, but she's still a powerful goddess appearing as a beautiful young woman, with an Endearingly Dorky personality to boot.
Badass Bookworm: Apart from being a playable character, she runs the Palutena's Guidance Easter Egg on the Palutena's Temple stage. If Pit presses the down taunt button for a single frame, he'll call for help to Palutena (although sometimes Viridi will appear on her stead, or intervene during the guidance), and she'll provide Pit with useful information about (one of) the character(s) he's currently facing, be it in-universe canon or Smash-related... unless she's in the battle.
Balance Buff: Many of the changes in the transition from 3DS/Wii U to Ultimate improved her lacking offensive game, sped up her slow attack speed and reduced her heavy ending lag. Her special moveset was also turned up several notches, and Reflect Barrier and Counter were also merged into a singular down special to make room for a new side special in Explosive Flame. Her range and mobility, two strengths from the previous game, were also improved.
Battle Intro: Walks out of a golden door onto the battlefield. The door is similar to the kind one would find on her temple.
Beauty Equals Goodness: The Goddess of Light takes the form of a very beautiful woman. However, her Guidance conversation about Bayonetta in Ultimate implies that this is a case of A Form You Are Comfortable With.
Big Damn Heroes: Parodied in her reveal trailer, where it shows her rescuing Pit from Link after the latter bests him in battle. You'd think she would help Pit fight The Hero Chosen by the Gods, except... she just sends him flying away with help of the Power of Flight to fight Link herself.
Boring, but Practical: Her default specials in 3DS/Wii U aren't as flashy or strong as her custom moves, but they're still work as a defensive moveset. Reflect Barrier and Counter let her repel enemy attacks, Autoreticle is a ranged damage dealer that keeps the pressure on, and Warp is the least predictable of her recoveries.
Bowdlerization: In the Japanese version of 3DS/Wii U, her dress was lengthened in version 1.0.6 in accordance with CERO's rules against panty shots in A-rated games. The censored dress carried over to all versions of Ultimate.
Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: In 3DS/Wii U, Palutena's side special was Reflect Barrier and her down special was Counter. In Ultimate, her down special is both; it spawns the correct move depending on whether she is is struck by a physical attack or a projectile/item during her counter frames. This also makes way for her new side special being Explosive Flame.
Calling Your Attacks: She commonly calls out the names of her special attacks, as well as her side and down smash attacks.
Casual Danger Dialogue: Another carried trait in the reveal trailer, as she casually chats with Pit while showcasing her skills to the other Smash combatants. She can do the same by activating Palutena's Guidance, if Pit uses a smash taunt on Palutena's Temple.
Combo Platter Powers: Palutena uses the abundance of Powers that she afforded to Pit in Kid Icarus: Uprising, making up her special moveset and their custom variants in 3DS/Wii U.
Composite Character: Palutena is unique in 3DS/Wii U in the sense that, instead of combining multiple characters, it combines different permutations of the same character, due to her custom special moves. Ultimate compensates for the removal of them by rolling some of Palutena's vast array of special moves into each other, by combining Reflect Barrier with Counter and assigning Explosive Flame to her side special.
Confusion Fu: In 3DS/Wii U, if character customization is allowed, Palutena's diverse array of custom moves can make her very unpredictable during a fight, as she can be anything from a long-distance defensive fighter to a Lightning Bruiser who can chase foes from anywhere on-screen.
Counter-Attack: Her down special move, Counter. Palutena hides behind her shield, and if struck, she retaliates back with a staff thrust that creates a burst of magic, striking the opponent with it and dealing increased damage in proportion to the move that hit her. As of Ultimate, it shares the spot with her Reflect Barrier, but will still activate if she's struck by a regular attack.
Crosshair Aware: Her special move, Autoreticle, has a reticle appearing on the screen.
Curtains Match the Window: Palutena has green eyes that match with her long green hair.
Dash Attack: She already has a traditional one as part of her fighter kit, but in 3DS/Wii U, she also gains one in her custom side special move, Super-Speed. It involves her rushing forward at a high speed, which increases over time (enough to at one point let her outrun Sonic), ramming onto any enemy that makes contact with her. She can cancel it into a jump, her up smash or her traditional dash attack. It has a small cooldown period though, denoted by her shield glowing blue when it's available once again.
Deadpan Snarker: Yet another carryover trait from Kid Icarus: Uprising. She's a bit snarkier in this game than in Uprising, which is mostly seen towards Pit and Dark Pit in her reveal trailer...
Palutena: (Dark Pit lands behind her) Dark Pit... you just dropped in to crash my party?
Dark Pit: (smirks) Uh-huh.
- ...as well as in Palutena's Guidance.
  Viridi: Look, Daisy is a totally different person from Peach! [...] Plus, her symbol is a daisy. Pretty cool to have a symbol that's also your name.
  Pit: Yeah, but have you ever seen Peach and Daisy in the same place at the same time?
  Palutena: Pit, if you had a symbol, it would be in the shape of an armpit.
Deflector Shields: Her Reflect Barrier. See Attack Reflector above.
Difficult, but Awesome:
- In 3DS/Wii U, her default special moveset has both a reflector and a counterattack, meaning that a good Palutena player has a potential way to negate any enemy attack. Her attacks also have impressive range behind them. However, her weight is below-average and she's fairly sluggish in all of her attacks, including her close-range ones (the only exception being her aerial attacks). While most of her smash attacks have pretty solid range and power, she's also left with very punishing ending lag if she misses. Additionally, all of her special moves are overshadowed by other characters' versions of that kind of move. As a result of these weaknesses, she is very susceptible to pressure, and any slip-up has the potential to be incredibly costly.
- In Ultimate, many of the changes she went during the transition have improved her lacking offensive game, her special moveset and her move speed, and she retains many of the strengths she had in 3DS/Wii U, notably her defensive game and impressive range. However, her weaknesses from the previous game are retained as well, namely her below average attack speed, ending lag issues and susceptibility to combos and pressure, so she must still play carefully. This time around, she plays more properly like a Long-Range Fighter with Lightning Bruiser qualities.
The Dragon: She is found guarding the true Master Hand in The Final Battle, and both serve as co-dragons to Galeem.
Eldritch Abomination: Bayonetta's entry in Palutena's Guidance implies that this is what Palutena really looks like and that her humanoid form is a case of A Form You Are Comfortable With. Same goes for Viridi.
11th-Hour Ranger: No matter the unlock method, she is (bar one exception) one of the last characters to unlock in Ultimate.
- She's the last character found in Kirby's Classic Mode unlock tree.
- She's the last character you face in timed unlock battles.
- She's also one of the last four characters to join you in World of Light, being found in The Final Battle and requiring you to beat and unlock Dark Samus in order to get to her.
Fashionable Asymmetry: Besides wearing two different kinds of bracers, she only wears a stocking on her left leg, her dress has a slit on her left side and her left sandal is accompanied by a leg wrap. Meanwhile, she leaves the other leg below her dress bare, only wearing an anklet.
Fatal Fireworks: Her second custom down special move, Celestial Fireworks. Palutena conjures a firework in front of her that explodes above her after a short delay, as it trapping opponents inside of it and launching them away. While it works best as an Anti-Air (as pointed out by one of the tips), it also renders her invincible before firing it, so it can be used as an alternative to her Counter.
Female Angel, Male Demon: For 3DS/Wii U, there are a few event matches that have her go up against Ganondorf (either as the playable character or as an opponent). There's at least one co-op event match where she's paired with him to fight against intruders from another dimension (a horde of Mr. Game and Watches). The game even lampshades the unlikeliness of the situation. Bayonetta's illustration also pits them against each other. As counterparts, Ganondorf may represent Hades, or on the flipside, Palutena may represent Hylia.
Foil: To Bayonetta. Both are powerful female characters that use magic on their movesets one way or another and are on the heroic side, and were captured by Galeem and Dharkon to do their bidding, but they're still different like day and night. Palutena is a goddess and a heroine, Bayonetta is a god-slayer and an anti-heroine. Palutena has a predominantly white, light motif to her, Bayonetta has a predominantly black, dark motif to her. Palutena uses white magic to conjure her moves, Bayonetta uses Umbra (dark) Magic to conjure hers. Palutena is gadflyish and a Nice Girl who's benevolent to most people, Bayonetta is a certified Deadpan Snarker and it can take a bit of time to actually see her true colors.
Final Boss: A giant version of her is the final boss of Bayonetta's Classic Mode in Ultimate as a stand-in for Jubileus. May also double as Bayonetta finally making good on her promise of targeting Palutena next in her announcement trailer for 3DS/Wii U. Additionally, no matter how you choose to unlock her, Palutena will always be one of the last characters to be unlocked. She's the last fighter in Kirby's Classic mode unlock column, the final opponent in timed encounters, and found in the final realm in World of Light.
Flash Step: Her Warp lets her teleport a good distance and even provides a brief window of intangibility. Her dodges also make her disappear from the screen for a split second.
A Form You Are Comfortable With: Discussed in Palutena's Guidance about Bayonetta. Pit points out that the angels Bayonetta fights aren't nice angels like him. Viridi cuts in and mentions that angels and goddesses can look like anything they want to and that Palutena's true form doesn't look like what we're seeing. Palutena smugly says that Viridi doesn't either, and they both laugh while Pit is creeped out.
Fragile Speedster: During the effects of Lightweight. Like in Kid Icarus: Uprising, using it increases her movement speed significantly, but also increases the damage she takes.
God in Human Form: Palutena, the Goddess of Light, takes on the form of a tall, very beautiful human woman, the thing she protects.
God of Good: Palutena is Pit's boss and a Goddess of Light.
The Grappler: Downplayed, in that it's not the whole focus of her playstyle, but Palutena has an extremely powerful grab that's very easy to abuse: it has great range, comes out fast, and it can lead into combos or kills at reasonable percents. To date, it's one of the very few grabs in Smash history that needed to be nerfed through patches.
Hair Flip: Her down taunt is this.
Palutena: Ready when you are.
Holy Halo: Like in Kid Icarus: Uprising, Palutena has a unique winged, sky blue halo that appears behind her head when performing certain attacks, notably her up smash, up air, and her special moves. It also appears during her up and down taunts.
Holy Hand Grenade: Being a goddess, her moveset is appropriately composed of "holy" attacks; in this case, light.
Home Stage:
- 3DS/Wii U: All stages from her series.^note
- Ultimate: Skyworld in Ultimate's website, though both her normal unlock and World of Light fights happen in Palutena's Temple.
Hot Goddess: Yes, definitely. Her trailer emphasizes this through shots of her hips and chest. Due to the different aesthetics from Kid Icarus: Uprising, her curves are also more noticeable in her in-game model compared to Uprising.
Idle Animation:
- She taps her staff on the ground, briefly displaying her halo.
- She holds her staff and shield in front of her torso, briefly displaying her halo.
Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Palutena fights while wearing her tiara and fancy dress.
King of All Cosmos: The Goddess of Light and leader of her realm; also a certified troll that enjoys messing with Pit.
Lady and Knight: The lady to Pit's knight.
Lady of War: Shows a very composed stance in the battlefield, which also carries over to her attacks. Palutena is based on Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, law, and just warfare after all, so it's not really surprising. While she has graceful movements, her playful and trollish personality makes for a bit of a subversion.
Large Ham: Just like in Uprising, she's quite the show-off, as can be seen from her taunts and her behavior in her reveal trailer. She also has exaggerated (and adorable) KO screams.
Late-Arrival Spoiler: She and Pit casually mention their fight while she was under the Chaos Kin's control during her reveal trailer, spoiling a big twist in Uprising.
Leitmotif:
- The first Boss Battle theme from Uprising plays through most of her debut trailer.
- Destroyed Skyworld also plays during her debut trailer, when Palutena steps in to battle Link. The Wii U remix plays in her Ultimate character trailer, Challenger's Approach/World of Light battles, and Classic Mode credits. Since the theme was associated with Palutena in Uprising and is used in both of her Smash trailers, it may even be considered a Bootstrapped Leitmotif.
Light 'em Up: A majority of her moves are appropriately light-based. The biggest example of this, however, is her up smash: she conjures a tall, vertical pillar of vaporizing light to send her opponents enemies up and away.
Light Is Good: The Goddess of Light and Big Good of her home series.
Lightning Bruiser: Tried to be this in 3DS/Wii U: she was fast, her moves were catered towards defense (whether by providing range or invincibility frames), and she had a powerful throw game, but terrible default specials, sluggish attack speed, and a tall hurtbox made her fail to stand out, as seen in Master of None below. Her Ultimate incarnation fits the mold much better, having multiple assorted attributes that make her versatile, strong, fast, and tough to kill, while retaining some of her old flaws for balance.
Limit Break: Her Final Smash, Black Hole Laser. Likely a huge Mythology Gag to a popular multiplayer strategy in Kid Icarus: Uprising, consisting of using the Black Hole Power to suck people in, followed by a Mega Laser to inflict massive damage while they're stuck.
Long-Range Fighter: Most of her moveset is, in part, tailored towards this. Many of her attacks are a bit slow on execution, but have long range and are guaranteed to hit opponents at a distance. However, her close-quarter moves aren't fast either. You'll need to land a hit with the best of your abilities, as missing an attack will leave you wide open.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Her dash attack and back air attack both use her shield. These attacks are notable because her upper body and shielded arm are invincible, so if the shield clashes with another attack, Palutena will take no damage and continue with her attack while the offender will stop. It even works on counters!
Male Gaze: Her reveal trailer has some notable close-ups of her hips and chest during the anime segment.
Master of None: In 3DS/Wii U, by default, Palutena has a fairly undesirable mix of attributes: while her mobility is pretty fast, she's tall, has-below average weight, and has sluggish attacks, some of which aren't that powerful, have a below-average damage output, have hitboxes that do not match their trails and/or are positioned unfavorably and, in some cases, all three! Her special attacks are also weaker and laggier in comparison to others of their kind, since every character has a better reflector (damage-wise) and counterattack (knockback-wise) than her. It appears to be enforced, as her gimmick lies in her access to 12 special moves to choose from; she has to rely on whichever special moves are chosen for her to adapt to the situation. Overall, however, her lacking attributes and slow attacks make her quite the Squishy Wizard.
Mechanically Unusual Fighter: In 3DS/Wii U. She has 12 unique special moves, with three custom variants per special. See Stance System below.
Ms. Fanservice: Has been increasingly becoming this since Uprising. Not only does her reveal trailer feature some flattering close-ups of her hips and chest, but she also has a taunt◊ where she spins around her staff with one leg in the air, kind of reminiscent of a pole dance. And to top it all off, her back throw is perfectly-designed to provide Panty Shot opportunities (and unlike Peach, Zelda, and Rosalina, the underside of her dress is not concealed from the camera!)
My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Palutena's Powers are so numerous that her special moveset can't accommodate them all, thus she gets a unique niche among the cast; unlike regular characters whose specials are merely tweaked, Palutena functions more like the Mii Fighters in that her specials can be switched with radically different moves. Of course, this means that in the With Anyone online mode, her moves can't be switched and she must make do with her standard moveset.
No Flow in CGI: Palutena has much longer hair than any of the other female characters, and also wears it loose. As such, her hair is animated more like a cape rather than other characters' hair such as Lucina's.
Not Completely Useless: In 3DS/Wii U, her custom neutral special, Heavenly Light, is notorious for being virtually useless offensively, as it deals no knockback or flinching, it deals very weak damage over a period of three seconds, and its high endlag makes it extremely punishable. However, it is very strong for one thing: its massive Area of Effect makes it one of the absolute best moves to use in Trophy Rush.
Only Sane Woman: When she's not snarking or being a troll in her Guidance conversations, she comes across as the wisest and most level-headed character of the four, in comparison to the easily distracted and dorky Pit, the childish Viridi, and the rarely-appearing but aggressive Dark Pit.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Doesn't crack a single joke during Bayonetta's reveal trailer; this witch kills angels for a living and slayed gods on her games. Also snaps at Viridi for not remaining silent on her Guidance about Piranha Plant.
Palette Swap: Her dress can change to Viridi's, Pandora's, Hades's, and Medusa's colors.
Perpetual Smiler: She smiles during many of her animations, whether it be a serene smile or a smug grin. Especially present in Ultimate.
Physical Goddess: She's the Goddess of Light that gives Pit his power and protects humans. She doesn't get to show off the full extent of her abilities (such as being able to disintegrate or curse her enemies) for Competitive Balance reasons, so she can still be defeated by any other combatant.
Playing with Fire: Explosive Flame, her custom neutral^notein 3DS/Wii U/side^notein Ultimate special move. Palutena conjures a pinpoint, spherical explosion in front of her a set distance away, which traps opponents inside and launches them away after it ends. In Ultimate, it has close and far variations, depending on whether you input the move as a tilt or smash attack.
Power Floats: Whilst Palutena doesn't float everywhere like Rosalina does, her running animation consists of her floating forwards at a high speed.
- Played straight, however, with her first custom up special move, Jump Glide. Palutena jumps into the air, floating for a moment and enabling her to grab the stage's ledge or cancel the glide into a move. However, if she gets hit during the move, she can't use it again until she lands, which can result in a death sentence off-stage.
Power Gives You Wings: Palutena can form ethereal wings out of holy light during her side and down smash attacks, and during her up taunt.
- Her side and down smash attacks involve her flapping her wings in front of her^noteside smash/on either side^notedown smash to attack. Scoring a hit with the tips of the wings deals less damage and knockback than with the bulk of the wings. They also create windboxes that can push the opponent away if they don't hit them.
Promoted to Playable: First appears in the background of Pit's Final Smash in Brawl, as well as making a minor appearance in Subspace Emissary.
Rage Breaking Point: Towards Viridi in Palutena's Guidance about Piranha Plant. After Viridi comments on the various types of them at an annoyingly fast speed, Palutena snaps at her and declares she never wants to hear the word "Piranha" ever again, resulting in Pit not getting fighting tips on it.
Really 700 Years Old: While she is young by goddess standards (around her early twenties in human years), she's still millions of years old.
Rocket Jump: One of her custom up special moves. Palutena creates an explosion at her feet while ascending a short distance upwards. Unusually for this trope, it doesn't inflict self-harm to her. She quotes this trope verbatim as well while using the move.
Secret Character: For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 10 hours and 30 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Kirby or anyone in his unlock tree eight times, or find and defeat her in World of Light. Notably, she appears near the end of all three unlock methods; she's the last character unlocked through Vs. Mode time, she's the final character in the unlock tree of Kirby, and her unlocking battle is one of the final ones in the last area of World of Light.
Senseless Sacrifice: She tries to buy Pit and Dark Pit time to escape in World of Light using her Reflect Barrier. The barrier does absolutely nothing to protect her, and when she goes down, the Pits lose the ability to fly and plummet into the path of the beams. Bonus points for selflessness, though.
Shield Bash: Her dash attack and back aerial involving her swing her shield rather than her staff. Her upper body is invulnerable for a bit during the animations, so it can block attacks.
Shown Their Work: Well, more like Made Their Work. Since Super Smash Bros.' creator also made Kid Icarus: Uprising, he took great care to make sure Palutena's Powers function as similarly as possible in both games.
- Of particular note is the choice of Black Hole and Mega Laser for her Final Smash. These two Powers were a popular choice in Kid Icarus Uprising's multiplayer modes. Black Hole would be used to hold other players in one spot, and then be followed up with Mega Laser (or Explosive Flame in some cases) to deal heavy damage to the enemy team.
The Smart Guy: Shares her knowledge of the Smash fighters with Pit during his Palutena's Guidance taunts.
Staff of Authority: Wields a staff as big as she is, a good fit for the ruler of her land. Like in Uprising, this is her weapon, as most of her attacks involve using her staff to whack opponents with it, conjure any kind of magic, and sometimes both at the same time.
Stance System: In 3DS/Wii U, Palutena's main unique gimmick among other characters is her entirely different special moves available through character customization, with 12 unique options to choose from, 3 for each slot. Unlike other characters, her custom moves are also available from the start, as with the Miis. With them, she can change her playstyle entirely, going from a Long-Range Fighter, to a Lightning Bruiser, and so on.
- Her neutral special options are Autoreticle, Explosive Flame and Heavenly Light.
- Her side special options are Reflect Barrier, Angelic Missile and Super Speed.
- Her up special options are Warp, Jump Glide and Rocket Jump.
- Lastly, her down special options are Counter, Lightweight and Celestial Fireworks.
  - As a standalone move, Lightweight is also the biggest example of this trope; even if it's more of a Status Buff in practice, she switches between being a Fragile Speedster, then the opposite of that and then her normal self before she can use it again.
Status Buff: Her first custom down special move, Lightweight. It temporarily^noteroughly 12 seconds turns Palutena into a Fragile Speedster by significantly improving her movement speed, but makes her take increased damage from attacks in return. After the buff ends, her movement speed is reduced significantly (though for a shorter time^notefive seconds), and she must wait for another five seconds after the debuff ends. This is often considered to be Palutena's best move in 3DS/Wii U, as while she becomes more fragile, it allows her moves to combo and flow much better into the other, which also turns her into a Lightning Bruiser of some sort.
Super-Speed: Her custom moves, Super Speed and Lightweight, which grant Palutena huge boosts of speed. The former functions like a dash attack, while the latter is a temporary Status Buff.
Sword and Sorcerer: The sorcerer to Pit's Sword. While he uses his weapons from Kid Icarus: Uprising, she uses the Powers she bestowed upon him.
A Taste of Power: Unlike other characters, all of Palutena's custom moves are unlocked from the start in 3DS/Wii U, giving you a preview of what you can expect from the rest of the cast.
The Tease: It was apparent in Uprising, so it's apparent here. Many of her moves show off her features, her trailer shows off some brief close-ups on her hips and chest, and one of her taunts has her twirl around her staff with one leg in the air, almost like a pole dance.
Teleportation: Her up special move, Warp. Palutena disappears for a short time and reappears a good distance away, depending on which direction you input (upwards by default). She is intangible during the move, except before disappearing/when she reappears.
Teleport Spam:
- Warp can be used to perform an advanced technique called ledge canceling, which could allow for an effective means of both evasion and covering ground. To the point she can do stuff like this.
- In a milder example, she disappears briefly during her sidestep and roll dodges, only having a split second of visibility to show which direction she dodged to.
Troll: If her reveal trailer didn't sell you out after looking at the way she treats Pit, Link and Dark Pit, you should see her on action in Palutena's Guidance, and when she wins a fight!
Palutena: Too bad for you./Poor little Pittoo!
Tsurime Eyes: Present in her reveal trailer◊ which, fittingly enough, highlights her trollish and trickster nature. This is less present in the game, where she has Tareme Eyes (at least compared to other realistic fighters like Sheik, Samus and Bayonetta).
Use Your Head: Her first custom side special move, Angelic Missile. After a brief delay, Palutena charges horizontally forward while enveloped in red energy, and stopping if she hits an enemy. It acts similarly to Luigi's Green Missile and Pikachu's Skull Bash, except it can't be charged.
Unrealistic Black Hole: The first part of her Final Smash, Black Hole Laser. A Power available in Uprising, Palutena summons a black hole that traps opponents nearby or inside of it, setting them up for...
Wave-Motion Gun: ...the second part of her Final Smash, appropriately named (you guessed it) the Mega Laser. Another Power available in Uprising, she fires a huge laser in the direction of the black hole she summoned, blasting any unfortunate opponent in its way. Characters not trapped by the black hole can get hit by it, too, provided they're on the laser's way.
Wind from Beneath My Wings: Her side and down smash, both of which make use of her ethereal wings by flapping them, create small windboxes that push the opponent away if they don't hit them. This makes them safer to use at a distance since the wind can mess up an opponent's punishing move or recovery attempt.
Worthy Opponent: She takes an interest in another goddess of light's chosen hero in her debut trailer, enough to come fight him herself. She speaks similarly about the rest of the cast.
Your Size May Vary: She is noticeably taller than Pit in Kid Icarus canon (who reaches down to her chest), but in Smash she's been downscaled to be around the other female fighters in terms of height. In contrast, Pit now reaches down to her shoulders.
Yin-Yang Bomb: Her Final Smash, Black Hole Laser. Black Hole acts the Yin, while Mega Laser acts as the Yang.

28ε – Dark Pit (Black Pit)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/darkpitssbu.png

Dark-Winged Doppelgänger

^{3DS/Wii U}

Voiced by: Minami Takayama (Japanese), Antony Del Rio (English)

Home Series: Kid Icarus

Debut: Kid Icarus: Uprising [3DS], 2012

Creator: Project Sora

Publisher: Nintendo

Playable in: 3DS/Wii U, Ultimate
Specials: Silver Bow, Electroshock Arm, Power of Flight, Guardian Orbitars
Final Smash: Dark Pit Staff

"Can't help but feel sorry for ya!"

The not-really-evil counterpart of Pit from Kid Icarus Uprising. Dark Pit (or Pittoo if you really wanna tick him off) was created when Pandora used the Mirror of Truth with the intention of getting her own Pit to serve her needs, but for reasons speculated but never outright said, ^note Dark Pit was loyal to nobody but himself, attacking both Pit and Pandora, and spending most of the rest of the story fighting Pit or helping him fight the Underworld Army, seemingly at random.

He first appeared as a "fallen angel" Palette Swap of Pit before being made into an actual character. As such, Dark Pit plays like a direct Moveset Clone of his light counterpart, technically being the first proper Echo Fighter to be revealed due to his appearance in Palutena's trailer. Since the events of Uprising, he joined up with the Goddess of Nature Viridi, as their interests coincided with one another.

In comparison to his counterpart, Dark Pit has harder-hitting specials: his Silver Bow deals more damage, as does his Electroshock Arm. In exchange for this extra power, his Bow has a narrower firing range than Pit's, and his Arm doesn't travel as far, although its vertical range edges Pit's out.

See Kid Icarus: Protagonists and Allies for more information on the character in his origin series.

Adaptation Dye-Job: For Kid Icarus: Uprising, the arrows of light that are launched from the Silver Bow that Pit used in the game were colored green. In 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate, the coloration of Dark Pit's arrows from his own Silver Bow are changed to a dark shade of purple.
Adaptational Villainy:
- Despite initially starting off as an opponent to Pit and even being created by Pandora's Mirror of Truth, he is otherwise unaffiliated with any of the important affiliates in Kid Icarus: Uprising and even becomes a recurring ally of him later on. Despite this, he appears as an opponent in the Wii U's Big Bad Ensemble-based Co-Op Event Match Final Battle Team-Up, which has him teaming up with Big Bads of several other series such as Bowser and Ganondorf to battle the player.
- The cross-promotional Splatfest the game had with Splatoon 2 also puts him on the villain team.
- Possibly Justified as Palutena's Guidance reveals he has started working for Virdi, who is no longer on a truce with Pit and Palutena since Hades is out of the picture (albeit very chummy with the two, regardless).
Ambiguous Situation: Though 3DS/Wii U claims that he now works for Viridi in his Palutena's Guidance, and the Lightnng Chariot is also in Viridi's possession, Ultimate has him and Pit both being granted flight by Palutena in the World of Light intro, and the Lightning Chariot is in Pit's possession as his Final Smash. The only indicator of Dark Pit still working for Viridi is his Palutena's Guidance recycled from 3DS/Wii U.
Bash Brothers: In the Palutena's Guidance conversation for the Ice Climbers, Palutena suggests the idea of Pit and Dark Pit pairing up the same way.
Battle Intro: Descends from purple beams of darkness.
Blood Knight: He's way more aggressive than Pit; Pit may be arrogant in battle, but it's not to the extremes that Dark Pit goes to.
Boring, but Practical: Somewhat. While Pit's 3DS/Wii U Final Smash involves him shooting multiple arrows of light and light pillars from the sky, it still takes a while to KO the opponent. By contrast, Dark Pit just shoots one purple beam from his Dark Pit Staff and he's done. However, it's still much easier to mess up.
Bring It: One of his taunts has him beckon his opponents with one of his blades.
Canon Welding: In a twist for the series, there's some deliberate intrigue in his entry for the Palutena's Guidance that leads directly off of Kid Icarus: Uprising: Dark Pit now officially works for Viridi, and they have pulled an Enemy Mine on Pit and Palutena.
Calling Your Attacks: Dark Pit will occasionally shout electroshock! whenever he uses his Electroshock Arm.
Charged Attack: His Bow can be briefly charged for more damage and speed, same as Pit's. Compared to Pit's, it deals more damage but it's harder to control the arrows.
Dark Is Not Evil: He was made from the dark side of Pit's heart, but apparently even the darkest side isn't terribly so, instead just manifesting as mountains of snark and a refusal to serve anyone but himself.
Death or Glory Attack: Dark Pit's side special, the Electroshock, launches at a nice 45 degree angle, has super armor, and can kill really early compared to Pit's Upperdash (which launches staight up). The trade off for that power is that Dark Pit is very vulnerable if he misses or his opponent has their shield up.
Decomposite Character: He was inspired by Pit's Fallen Angel Palette Swap in Brawl, and in 3DS/Wii U becomes his own character despite being a Moveset Clone.
Divergent Character Evolution: Like Lucina, Dark Pit was originally supposed to just be a palette swap of Pit. He was later given different properties from Pit like a side special variant, more powerful but harder to control arrows, and his own Final Smash.
Dragon with an Agenda: His Palutena's Guidance conversation reveals that he's working for Viridi, but only because "their interests overlap" for the moment.
Dub Name Change: He's referred to as "Black Pit" in the original Japanese version of the game.
Early-Bird Cameo: Before getting officially revealed as a playable character himself, Dark Pit has a cameo at the very end of Palutena's trailer.
Embarrassing Nickname: Pittoo; a tongue-in-cheek nickname given to him in Uprising. He really doesn't like it. Here in Smash, the crowd cheers for him by chanting "Pittoo! Pittoo!", and Palutena mocks him with it after defeating him.
Palutena: Poor little Pittoo.
Enemy Mine: In his featured "Palutena's Guidance" conversation, Viridi reveals that after the events of Kid Icarus: Uprising, she and Dark Pit set aside their differences and he joined the Forces of Nature.
Foreshadowing: He appeared at the end of Palutena's reveal trailer, released long before he was confirmed as playable. She even asks him if he "dropped in to crash her party" which he affirms. He also appears in the background of Palutena's art featuring her, Pit, and Link.
Force and Finesse: Pit and Dark Pit's neutral specials have differing functions and assets on how they prefer to use their respective long-range weapons. Pit's Palutena Bow can be freely aimed in various arc patterns as well as being able to loop around enemies, which can allow specific mind-games from the versatility and accuracy of his projectile as the stun from his attack can provide ways for him to get the jump on his foes. Dark Pit's Silver Bow on the other hand, is hardly maneuverable, has less range, and can be rather tedious to aim its trajectory due to the stiffness of the projectile. The upside of this drawback is that his Silver Bow arrows are a lot stronger and can be used to KO at higher percentages.
Home Stage:
- 3DS/Wii U: All stages from his series.^note
- Ultimate: Reset Bomb Forest.
Irony: Dark Pit became a separate playable character from Pit because their Final Smashes wouldn’t fit each other. However, Pit’s new Final Smash has also been used by Dark Pit, thus defeating the original purpose of separating the two.
- The Silver Bow in Kid Icarus: Uprising according to it's in-game description, is described to have a dynamically high firing range as well as a distinctive homing ability. For Dark Pit's case, his own projectiles doesn't maintain a decent way to fully aim the trajectory.
Jack of All Stats: Much like the character he originated from, Dark Pit has a well-balanced moveset that gives him a wide array of attack options.
Leitmotif: He has his own theme from Uprising. It also plays as his victory fanfare, unlike Pit and Palutena.
Limit Break: He shoots an energy beam out of his Dark Pit Staff. Anyone hit with this beam is knocked out in one hit.
Martial Arts Staff: Contrary to what his artwork shows, his staff is not his real signature weapon. That honor goes to the Silver Bow that he uses for most of his moveset, which is a prototype of the Palutena Bow (Pit's signature weapon). The Dark Pit Staff is one of the weapons he can use for his randomized encounters with Pit in Chapter 9 of Kid Icarus: Uprising, but the Silver Bow is used for his boss fight in that chapter and remains his weapon of choice afterwards.
Moveset Clone: He shares most of his attacks and animations with Pit, but unlike other clones is almost identical to him. The only differences between his and Pit's moveset is that Dark Pit's neutral special arrows are slower, harder to control, and deal more damage, his side special knocks foes away at a 45° angle instead of sending them straight up like Pit's, and in Smash 4 his strong side attack has less knockback. He has a unique Final Smash, however, which uses his Dark Pit Staff to perform a sniping move similar to Zelda and Sheik's Light Arrow. He's also the first clone to literally be a clone of the character he shares moves with.
Mythology Gag: One of his costumes is supposedly a reference to Magnus, hence the tanned skin and the red accents on his tunic like the red tattoos Magnus has on his arms.
Palette Swap: Coming full circle, he's got a palette giving him a white tunic like Pit's.
Purple Is Powerful: His Silver Bow arrows are blackish-purple in color while possessing relatively higher knockback as well as having greater attack strength compared to Pit's.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Has red tinted pupils within his Tsurime Eyes, has all of Pit's powers (although his slightly varies), and he has a brooding and disdainful personality to match.
The Rival: To Pit, carrying over from his home series. Even after they fought together for a time, he's still intent on proving that he's superior to Pit.
Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: His official art from 3DS/Wii U has him pointing his staff in this direction.
Secret Character:
- For 3DS: Beat Classic Mode with 3 different characters, or play 50 matches in Smash.
- For Wii U: Clear All-Star Mode on Normal difficulty or higher, or play 40 matches in Smash.
- For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 8 hours and 50 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Samus or anyone in her unlock tree eight times, or find and defeat him in World of Light.
Shadow Archetype: While Pit fights to help others and is loyal to Palutena, Dark Pit fights for himself and has no loyalties to anybody, though in his Palutena's Guidance, we find out that he's currently working for Viridi.
Shock and Awe: Uses an Electroshock Arm for his Side Special instead of Pit's Upperdash Arm.
Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: He's the only 3DS/Wii U newcomer that doesn't have his own trailer or title splash. Instead, he makes an appearance in The Stinger of Palutena's trailer.
Trash Talk: All his taunts have him spout it. Also happens if he beats Pit one-on-one:
"Where's your goddess now?"
Tsurime Eyes: One of his features that distinguishes his appearance from Pit besides colour.

55 – Pac-Man

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pacmanssbu.png

The Yellow Bane of Ghosts /
Ghost Gobbler

^{3DS/Wii U}

PAC-MAN HUNGERS FOR BATTLE!

Home Series: Pac-Man

Debut: Pac-Man [Arcade], 1980

Nintendo debut: Pac-Man [NES], 1984

Creator: Namco

Publisher: Bandai Namco

Playable in: 3DS/Wii U, Ultimate

Specials: Bonus Fruit, Power Pellet, Pac-Jump, Fire Hydrant

Final Smash: Super Pac-Man

Namco's classic mascot character and arguably the first true mascot of gaming itself. While Pac-Man's character and motivation have changed throughout the years, he's usually a dot-munching yellow ball who fights off the ever-persistent Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde by eating a Power Pellet. Pac draws from his arcade days, summoning sprites from other Namco games to help him in battle and even assuming his original simplistic form.

As a fighter, the Pacster is able to use these various references to further increase his range and versatility. His Bonus Fruit in particular gives him a wide variety of projectiles to utilize at any given time, and his Fire Hydrant can be used to push foes back, while also capable of being launched like another projectile. In addition, while the Pac-Jump can be easily thwarted if not careful, his Power Pellet gives him an extra, more horizontal recovery option. In the right hands, Pac-Man can be capable of some extremely high-level combos that'll send his opponents straight to the Game Over screen.

See the Pac-Man character page for more information on the character in his origin series.

Adaptational Badass:
- Granted, Pac-Man's always had no problem throwing down where it counts; however, rather than simply a rubbery, agile, and courageous member of his kind, here he's able to summon elements across the board from Namco's old (and some not-as-old) hits, some as attacks and others as taunts.
- Considering his last attempt as a fighter where he relied on a Mini-Mecha to do his fighting, he's now showing how capable he really can be in unarmed combat.
Airplane Arms: He runs in this style in his dash animation, in the same way as Sonic and Mega Man.
Arc Number: 7650. It's the maximum amount of points in his Final Smash, shows up during one of his victory screens, and is the gimmick of one of his Event Matches. It's also Japanese wordplay on Namco's name.
Artificial Stupidity:
- In 3DS/Wii U, the AI has a rather unfortunate habit of misusing his recovery move. In most situations where it would be possible for him to recover back to the stage, a CPU player ends up falling to their death because it only uses the trampoline once instead of the maximum three jumps.
- CPU Pac-Men typically only use the first or last Bonus Fruit (cherry or key), and only use others if they get interrupted mid-charge. They also rarely ever launch the Fire Hydrant, and typically only hit it by accident when trying to attack any enemies near it.
Assist Character: Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde show up in his smash attacks; respectively, on his forward, up, and down (for both Pinky and Clyde) smashes. A Galaxian also shows up in his Bonus Fruit special.
Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: His Final Smash has him transform into Super Pac-Man.
Awesome, but Impractical: Pac-Man has one of the strongest pummels in the game, his down-throw is great at racking up damage, and his back-throw makes a pretty good kill move. However, all of this falls under this trope due to his very unusual grab. He sends out a Galaga beam that has a very misleading hitbox and leaves him wide-open if you miss with it. This is no longer an issue in Ultimate, because it's now much faster and has a better hitbox.
Badass Adorable: Just look at him cheerfully resting in the grass kicking his feet right before he curbstomps you multiple times in the air in quick succession.
Balance Buff: In Ultimate, Pac-Man's grab is buffed to bring it in line with other characters' grabs. In this outing, it comes out and returns (if whiffed) faster, and its several small hitboxes are exchanged for one long hitbox to fix the deadzone problem.
Battle Intro: Appears in his sprite form, does a chomp, then jumps into his main form.
Beware the Nice Ones: You'll probably start to have second thoughts about his smile from what his fighting prowess has in store for you.
Beware the Silly Ones: He recovers with a rubber band-like trampoline, morphs into a yellow ball to attack with chomps and bounce around while rolling, tosses all kinds of fruit and random objects as projectiles, and drops fire hydrants either for damage or just to wash anyone away from him. He may not look dangerous from that big agape smile of his, but when it comes to fighting his enemies he can be spectacularly effective on the battlefield in the hands of skilled Pac-Man players.
Bold Inflation: His official name is actually PACMAN in Japanese, and PAC-MAN in all other languages.
Boring, but Practical: The plain ol' Fire Hydrant seems pretty lackluster compared to its custom replacements, but it's actually among one of vanilla Pac-Man's best mindgame moves. The water can push you towards enemies (or enemies towards you) while you charge a Smash attack, allowing you to hit with them from halfway across the map. The hydrant is also a very powerful projectile if sent flying, which a properly-aimed back-aerial from Pac-Man accomplishes nicely, as does throwing a Key at it — the latter is especially devastating if the enemy is right next to the hydrant, as he'll be hit with both the key and the hydrant for massive damage.
The Cameo: Pac-Man's Up Taunt has him summoning characters from various Namco franchises.
Charged Attack: Bonus Fruit, where Pac-Man charges a projectile that takes the shape of the point-giving Bonus Fruits from his home game. Unlike some charged attacks which just provide weaker versions of the same move, Bonus Fruit's charge levels are completely different moves with their own behaviors and effects.
- The Cherry bounces once (twice in 3DS/Wii U) and is fairly weak.
- The Strawberry bounces twice (thrice in 3DS/Wii U) and is only slightly stronger than the Cherry.
- The Orange flies straight with no regard for gravity and has good speed. It knocks opponents at a semi-spike angle.
- The Apple bounces twice (four times in 3DS/Wii U) and knocks opponents straight upwards. It's always thrown at a diagonal angle, making it easy to throw offstage at people.
- The Melon moves slowly in a slight arc, with the trade-off being that it's the second strongest Bonus Fruit.
- The Galaxian flies in a loop before continuing forward at an angle, of which there are several options it can pick from. It can also hit multiple times.
- The Bell moves on a strange arc, going up in a curved path and then dropping straight downwards. When it hits an enemy, it paralyzes them, leaving them open to a follow-up attack.
- The Key is the strongest Bonus Fruit of them all. It deals high damage, high knockback, moves incredibly fast in a straight line when thrown, and can pierce through enemies.
Cephalothorax: Possibly one of the first video game characters (if not the first) to have this design, as he's a spherical yellow... thing with Rubber-Hose Limbs, and of course, a giant mouth for chomping.
Composite Character: Switches between his Pac-Man World appearance and the old pizza-with-a-slice-missing ball form. He also has attacks that invoke elements from other retro Namco games, such as Galaga's alien Tractor Beam and Mappy's springboard.
Confusion Fu:
- The Bonus Fruit special can come out as eight possible projectiles; cherries, strawberry, orange, apple, melon, Galaxian, bell, and key, charged in that order. Each one has different properties, movements, and effects, such as the orange moving straight at decent speed and knocking enemies at a semi-spike angle, the bell causing stun while flying in a strange arc, and the key doing big damage and flying scarily fast. This is taken up a notch with the custom specials for Bonus Fruit, which alter the flight paths of every single projectile.
- The Fire Hydrant is this, intentionally and not. Its weird windbox can let Pac burst across the stage in a very short time, and its water can be used to push Pac and his various fruits in several unpredictable ways. When being used as a projectile, the hydrant can be launched on dozens of different trajectories, including backwards depending on the move used or the timing of the hit.
Death Glare: Sports this look during his side smash, down smash, after using his dash attack, and his back aerial in Ultimate. You know he's not playing around when he's not smiling for those attacks.
Difficult, but Awesome: The Bell form of the Bonus Fruit flies on an extremely strange trajectory, making it hard to hit with. However, if it does hit, the enemy gets paralyzed (with the length depending on their damage percentage), opening them up to a free follow-up attack.
Enemy Mine: His smash attacks involve summoning the Ghosts to attack opponents, perhaps as a nod to the 2013 cartoon, where they're allies.
Extreme Omnivore: His dash attack, side special, and down throw all have him transform into his classic mouth self and start chomping away, with his Final Smash scaling that up even further.
- His Final Smash allows him to eat items but unlike Kirby and Wario they cannot heal him upon consumption and just like most of his games, he also earns points thereafter.
Fight Dracula: His Classic Mode route in Ultimate culminates in him fighting against the Castlevania series's version of Dracula.
Fighting Clown: Some of his attacks include throwing fire hydrants, grabbing people with alien beams, and turning into a chomping ball.
Goroawase Number: 7650 (pronounced "na-mu-ko" in Japanese) appears in Pac-Man's Final Smash if he eats enough enemies, as well as in one of his victory poses.
Guest Fighter: As another third party character in Smash; the fourth third-party fighter invited to brawl in the franchise, as well as being the first Bandai Namco fighter.
Heel–Face Revolving Door: While Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde appear as allies in some of Pac's attacks, they also appear as Assist Trophies summonable by anyone else, and as stage hazards in Pac-Man's 3DS stage.
Heroic Mime: Like Mega Man, he makes old school sound effects instead of vocalizations.
Hitbox Dissonance: One of the main reasons Pac-Man's grab was so bad in 3DS/Wii U is because of this. While the animation for his grab is a smooth and steady deployment of Boss Galaga's tractor beam, the hitboxes for the grab are only active for 3 small pockets of frames; 12 to 14, 22 to 24, and 32 to 39. Said hitboxes also do not encompass the entire tractor beam, but rather only cover the outermost end of it. This results in a grab that people can literally run through with the right timing. Ultimate fixes this by making the grab have one long hitbox that covers the entire tractor beam instead, which is active from frames 12 to 33.
Hoist by His Own Petard: His main weakness is that his special moves can backfire on him. His Bonus Fruit can be caught by the opponent (although in Ultimate, it can only be regrabbed once), which prevents him from spawning another one. His Power Pellet can be attacked, cutting the move off early, and opponents can grab the Power Pellet to heal if they're fast enough. Pac-Jump's trampoline can be used by other players to lower its number of uses, which can leave Pac with a trampoline that won't bounce him at all. His Fire Hydrant in particular is infamous for being knocked straight back into him, which never ends well for Pac since it's his strongest projectile move.
Home Stage:
- 3DS/Wii U: Pac-Maze in 3DS and Pac-Land in Wii U.
- Ultimate: Pac-Land.
Idle Animation:
- He looks at the ground and scratches his head with a surprised expression.
- He performs a thumbs up while winking.
Immune to Flinching: Pac-Man's side special, Power Pellet, gives him super armor upon eating the titular pellet, but it's very brief, lasting for 8 frames total.
Irony: For his grab he uses a Tractor Beam from Galaga. In his first 3D game, Pac-Man World, Professor Pac, a member of the Pac-Family, got kidnapped via UFO and the boss Pac-Man faces in the Space level is King Galaxian.
Jack of All Stats: Pac-Man has an above average mix of speed, damage, and recovery options and a versatile moveset that's prepared for any situation. His primary weakness is that all of his specials can be used against him by the opponent in some way.
Leitmotif: PAC-MAN'S PARK / BLOCK PLAZA.
Limit Break: Transforms into Super Pac-Man, who appears as a giant sprite to munch on Pac-Man's opponents.
Making a Splash: Pac-Man's Fire Hydrant sprays water at regular intervals, pushing things away. This can be used by Pac himself to charge an attack or grab while moving, or by throwing his fruits into it to give them a burst of speed or alter their trajectory.
Mascot: For Bandai Namco Entertainment (who helped develop 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate), and, to a lesser extent than Mario, gaming in general. In fact, he's officially Shigeru Miyamoto's favorite video game character.
Mythology Gag:
- Pac-Man's animations are largely based on the way he moved in Pac-Land, including his walking animation, where he oddly faces the screen while walking instead of looking forwards. One of his victory poses also calls back to how levels ended in that game.
- His pose in his 3DS/Wii U artwork and one of his idle animations has him doing the winking thumbs-up pose he makes in the artwork on the sides of his arcade cabinet, which also appeared in the intro sequence of Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures and is used as artwork in Pac-Man World.
- The part in his trailer where Mario, Sonic, and Mega Man chase him offscreen, only for him to chase them in the other direction as Super Pac-Man is a reference to the cutscenes from the older Pac-Man games where the Ghosts did the same thing to him.
- Pac-Man eats a Power Pellet and a Super Pellet to become Super Pac-Man, and the Final Smash uses that game's mechanics for movement and attacking (Super Pac-Man can clip through walls and has a speed increase, but ghosts still must be "scared" to be eaten).
- His up aerial is a flip kick, which was one of his attacks in Pac-Man World 2.
- In stock battles, his lives underneath his portrait resemble his life count in the original Pac-Man. Additionally, the colored bar that appears below each of his stocks when using an alternate costume looks similar to the maze walls of the game.
Not the Intended Use:
- The Pac-Jump trampoline is meant to be Pac-Man's recovery, but it can also be used as a very annoying obstacle to navigate around; leaving it between Pac-Man and your opponent forces them to jump, and touching it while it's red leaves the user in freefall, a trait which can be easily exploited in Ultimate since it's possible for enemies to damage the trampoline. Pac-Man is also the only one who can attack by bouncing off of his trampoline; anyone else who tries (including an opposing Pac-Man) will simply jump upwards and be left wide open. The Meteor Trampoline custom is even meaner, spiking (or if it's on the ground, burying) the victim if it's red. In Ultimate, the trampoline's new hurtbox also allows it to be an incredibly effective wall against large or predictable projectiles like Charge Shot or Sun Salutation.
- When Pac-Man uses Power Pellet, the ability for the enemy to hit the Power Pellet is meant to be a way to gimp him and cut off the more powerful part of the attack. In practice, since the Power Pellet can still be hit before the attacking portion begins, savvy players can just throw out a Power Pellet in front of them, let its hurtbox take the brunt of a beefy projectile, and heal a little bit for it, too. Since the Power Pellet can still block projectiles when it lies on the ground after it's hit, it can also be used against strings of projectiles.
Older Than They Think: Invoked in his intro video. The video specifically points out that Mr. Game & Watch and Pac-Man were created in 1980. Mario and Donkey Kong wouldn't hit the scene until 1981. This makes Pac-Man by far the oldest third-party fighter in series history, and the second oldest overall.^note
Painfully Slow Projectile: The Melon form of the Bonus Fruit moves so slowly that you can run up to it and pick it up in midair. It can then be used for all kinds of janky setups after doing so.
Palette Swap: Averted. Pac-Man's alternate costumes consist entirely of added accessories like leg warmers and arm socks, but his body remains its classic yellow color in all of them at Namco's insistence, not wanting to make their mascot "unrecognizable" in their words.
Perpetual Smiler: In 3DS/Wii U, he nearly always has a gleeful grin on his face, even while drowning. The only times he drops his smile is whenever he's hurt, and after being slightly baffled by Mr. Game & Watch in his trailer. Slightly changed in Ultimate.
Pie-Eyed: Pac's eyes are coincidentally shaped just like himself, although his eyes seem to be egg-shaped Pac-Man eyes instead of looking circular.
Playing with Fire: One of the custom options for his fire hydrant, called the On-Fire Hydrant, has the hydrant shoot fire instead.
The Points Mean Nothing: In Pac-Man's Final Smash, he gets points for eating enemies. 3DS/Wii U does have an Event Match where he needs to get the maximum number of points (7650), and Ultimate has a Challenge to get the same score with his Final Smash, but outside of that, they're just there for show.
Primary-Color Champion: Yellow with red shoes. To drive the point home, his reveal trailer opens with footage of his fellow company mascots and primary color champions, Mario (red), Sonic, and Mega Man (blue).
Retraux:
- His appearance is the well-known anthropomorphic one he had before the more detailed look he has beginning with Pac-Man Party and the Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures cartoon.^note Furthermore, he can also turn into his iconic faceless chomping ball self and become a giant, 2D version of that like in Pac-Man's first intermission, Super Pac-Man, and Pac-Man Battle Royale. Finally, his ability to use objects from other Namco games traces back to Pac & Pal (also known as Pac-Man and Chomp-Chomp). Funny enough, the main reason Pac-Man wasn't in Brawl was because Sakurai (at the time) said he couldn't come up with a moveset involving the classic "missing pizza slice" shaped form.
- His official promotional artwork shows Mario, Peach, Bowser, Samus, Link, Donkey Kong, Sonic, Kirby, and Mega Man in their original appearances.
- His up taunt has him display a random retro sprite from Namco's history, complete with accompanying sound byte. There's quite a large number he can choose from.
- Ultimate adds Heihachi and The Prince of All Cosmos to his up-Taunt. They appear as 8-bit sprites despite debuting in 3D games.
Saved for the Sequel: Shigeru Miyamoto suggested Pac-Man as a playable character in Brawl, but Sakurai at the time didn't know how to make a moveset using only his wedge-shaped form.
Secret Character: For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 8 hours, beat Classic Mode with Kirby or anyone in his unlock tree three times, or find and defeat him in World of Light.
Shapeshifter: Pac-Man's default form is the one with arms and legs, seen in games like Pac-Man World and Pac-Land. However, he can transform into a three-dimensional rendition of his original wedge form for certain attacks, and his Final Smash has him turn into a large 2D version of his wedge form as well.
Shoryuken: His up tilt was replaced by jabbing upward with his fist in Ultimate, although he doesn't remotely spin around after doing the move but hops instead.
Shout-Out: He uses and summons elements from several Namco games in both attacks and taunts. These games include retro ones such as Galaxian, Mappy, and Dig Dug, and even more recent ones like Taiko no Tatsujin, Tekken, and Katamari Damacy.
Shown Their Work: There are a lot of references to more obscure Pac-Man arcade games. For example, the music in the reveal trailer is actually from Pac-Mania, an isometric take on the maze concept. And while Pac's 3DS home stage is based on the iconic neon-blue maze, his Wii U and Ultimate stage is based on Pac-Land, a prototypical arcade platformer.
Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: When Pac-Man is charging Bonus Fruit, each level has a different sound effect during it, allowing players to tell what they have by listening.
Stuff Blowing Up: Dire Hydrant, one of the custom options for his fire hydrant, has it explode on contact.
Stylistic Suck: Some of his moves evoke 8-bit characters and animations.
Theme Naming: His down specials in 3DS/Wii U — Fire Hydrant, On-Fire Hydrant, and Dire Hydrant.
This Is Gonna Suck: Should Pac-Man's grab miss in Ultimate, his expression unlike most cartoonish characters isn't of surprise of fear, but of disappointment and resignation.
Tractor Beam: His grab utilizes Boss Galaga's tractor beam to reach out a nice distance from himself.
Trap Master: Pac-Man's Fire Hydrant and Pac-Jump trampoline allow him enough stage control to be considered a zoner. The hydrant sits on the stage and spits water on an interval, enabling unpredictable usages of Bonus Fruit from a distance. The hydrant can be dealt with in various ways, whether that be attacking it, going around it, rolling through it, or ignoring it, each with their own benefits, weaknesses, and potential punishments. The trampoline lets Pac-Man force enemies to jump if they want to approach him, which can cripple people with air attacks that are weak or have a long startup, and cause characters with low air speed to either do a weak approach or hang back entirely.
Use Your Head: Uses this to attack for his up tilt in 3DS/Wii U and bops his spherical head into his enemy with his pummel.
The Voiceless: Never speaks, instead making various noises from classic Namco arcade titles, including his famous "Wakkawakkawakkawakka" chomping sound.
Wall Jump: Pac-Man has this ability (seemingly based on how he could do it in Pac-Man World 3), aiding his already strong recovery abilities.
Weapons That Suck: His Enticing Power Pellet acts similar to that of a swirling vortex that'll draw in fighters who're closer to his extremely short trail of dots, although his chomps will deal rather high damage to the opponent after he consumes the Power Pellet.
Who You Gonna Call?: His modus operandi of eating ghosts is referenced in his Boxing Ring titles, and his Classic Mode route in Ultimate culminates in him fighting Dracula from Castlevania.
Wrap Around: Comes into effect as Super Pac-Man in another Mythology Gag for Pac-Man's home series. During his Final Smash, the ring out boundaries become ways for Pac-Man to warp instantaneously to the other side of the stage to surprise opponents.

Characters / Super Smash Bros. 4 - 50 to 55

Voiced by: Yuji Ueda (Japanese), Billy Bob Thompson (English), Frederic Clau (French), Benedikt Gutjan (German)

Male Voice Options: Yuji Kishi (Type 1), Takashi Ohara (Type 3), Ryōtarō Okiayu, (Type 5), Michihiko Hagi (Type 7), Hideo Ishikawa (Type 9), Kiyoyuki Yanada (Type 11)

Female Voice Options: Umeka Shoji (Type 2 and 12), Ayumi Fujimura (Type 4), Makiko Ohmoto (Type 6), Minami Takayama (Type 8), Kimiko Saito (Type 10)

Voiced by: Aya Hisakawa (Japanese), Brandy Kopp (English)

Voiced by: Minami Takayama (Japanese), Antony Del Rio (English)

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Characters / Super Smash Bros. 4 - 50 to 55

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Voiced by: Yuji Ueda (Japanese), Billy Bob Thompson (English), Frederic Clau (French), Benedikt Gutjan (German)

Male Voice Options: Yuji Kishi (Type 1), Takashi Ohara (Type 3), Ryōtarō Okiayu, (Type 5), Michihiko Hagi (Type 7), Hideo Ishikawa (Type 9), Kiyoyuki Yanada (Type 11)

Female Voice Options: Umeka Shoji (Type 2 and 12), Ayumi Fujimura (Type 4), Makiko Ohmoto (Type 6), Minami Takayama (Type 8), Kimiko Saito (Type 10)

Voiced by: Aya Hisakawa (Japanese), Brandy Kopp (English)

Voiced by: Minami Takayama (Japanese), Antony Del Rio (English)

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