Super Smash Bros. Melee - 23 to 26 / Characters

This page lists the unlockable fighters from Super Smash Bros. Melee that require over 500 matches to unlock.

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23 – Ganondorf

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

The King of Darkness /
The King of Evil

^{3DS/Wii U}

^Brawl

^Melee

Voiced by: Takashi Nagasako (Melee, Ultimate), Hironori Miyata (Brawl, 3DS/Wii U)

Home Series: The Legend of Zelda

Debut:

As Ganon: The Legend of Zelda NES], 1986

First mentioned Ganondorf: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past [SNES], 1991

First physical apprearance as Ganondorf, from Melee and Ultimate: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time [N64], 1998

Ganondorf from Brawl and 3DS/Wii U debuts in: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess [GameCube/Wii], 2006

Creator: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Playable in: Melee, Brawl, 3DS/Wii U, Ultimate
Specials: Warlock Punch, Gerudo Dragon (Melee), Flame Choke (Brawl onwards), Dark Dive, Wizard's Foot
Final Smash: Ganon^note

"Sorya!"

The legendary Gerudo, immortal Great King of Evil and reincarnation of the Demon King Demise's hatred for Hylia and her chosen hero, Ganondorf Dragmire is the eternal nemesis of Link and Zelda across many of their incarnations, constantly waging war against them and the Kingdom of Hyrule over the course of millennia. He's cheated death on several occasions, successfully conquered Hyrule and other realms, and even killed the Hero of Time in one timeline. He is the second villain to become playable in Smash.

Although he's had many different styles of combat over the years in both human and pig form, here he opts for a hand-to-hand combat style initially derived from Captain Falcon before becoming more and more distinct over time. Ganondorf is one of the slowest characters in the series in terms of both movement and attack speed, but makes up for it with an immense level of power like any heavyweight would. Playing Ganondorf can be tricky, but, given the opportunity, is very suitable for devastating punishments. Ultimate further adds to his versatility by finally letting him wield a sword, providing a lot more range to his smash attacks than he had previously.

Melee uses the Ocarina of Time design, specifically one recycled from a 2000 SpaceWorld demo. Brawl uses his Twilight Princess design, which 3DS/Wii U updates. Ultimate returns to the Ocarina of Time design, this time much closer to his future self from said game, which also gives him the sword from the SpaceWorld demo.

See The Legend of Zelda: The Triforce Wielders for more information on the character in his origin series.

Achilles' Heel: In contrast to other members of the Heavyweight pantheon such as Bowser, King K. Rool and King Dedede, he lacks any ranged option whatsoever, making him particularly vulnerable to Hit-and-Run Tactics.
Adaptational Modesty: Ultimate's version of Ganondorf doesn't wear as tight clothing as he does in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Melee, which results in him not having a bulge and his thighs looking smaller and less defined.
Adaptational Skill: While he does use some hand-to-hand attacks in his home series, the Super Smash Bros. series makes punching and kicking his go-to fighting style instead of his canonical preference for magical energy attacks and bladed weapons.
Adaptational Wimp: A downplayed variation since he's still extremely powerful, but by virtue of sharing most of his moveset with Captain Falcon, this incarnation lacks most of the abilities his other incarnations possess, such as his energy balls, flight, weight-triggered earthquakes, and, until Ultimate gave him his sword for his smash attacks, his swordplay.
Alternate Self: Technically, his appearances in Brawl and 3DS/Wii U is this to his appearances in Melee and Ultimate, coming from the same timeline as Brawl's Adult Link and Zelda, while his Melee and Ultimate counterpart comes from the same timeline as Toon Link (albeit at a much earlier point) and the Adult Link from 64 and Melee.
Amazing Technicolor Population: His skin is a sinister-looking greyish-green color. He's the only humanoid character to have this. His alternate costumes in 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate can make him blue.
Arch-Enemy: To Link, obviously.
Art Evolution: In Melee, his model was based on his appearance from the SpaceWorld 2000 tech demo duel, which itself is based off of his appearance in Ocarina of Time, combining his pre-time skip cape design and hair with his post-time skip cape length, and giving him a sword. In Brawl, he was updated to his Twilight Princess design, which he retains in the fourth title, with the addition of the glowing wound from the Sword of the Six Sages and having a torn cape. Ultimate uses a modernized take on his Ocarina of Time appearance, now including embellishments not present in Melee (spiked shoulder and knee armor, Gerudo patterns on his chestpiece).
The Artifact: Ganondorf was a last-minute addition to Melee and only made it in because he was a highly requested character who had a similar body build to an existing playable character (in this case Captain Falcon), which made it convenient to make him a clone of Captain Falcon. Sakurai has stated that both he and his team are loath to change characters in a way which alienates fans of them in previous games, so Ganondorf is now built from the ground up to be a Captain Falcon semi/clone in newer titles, entirely due to the fact that it was a quick fix to meet deadlines in Melee. He was decloned a decent amount in Brawl to make him a semi-clone and was given very different custom moves from Captain Falcon to differentiate them farther in Smash 4, then in Ultimate, he now finally uses his sword in his standard moveset (all three of his Smash attacks) in order to appease demand for him to do so, alongside a couple new other moves and animations to set him further apart.
Awesome, but Impractical: Ganondorf is extremely strong and his weight makes him hard to KO, but his lack of speed makes him easy to avoid, while several of his attacks leave him vulnerable to retaliation if they don't connect. His Warlock Punch and up tilt attack exemplify this more than anything else; the former involves Ganondorf charging his fist to unleash a mighty punch that sends opponents flying and covered in dark flames, while the latter involves charging his leg in a midair split, before violently crashing it into the ground in a large explosion. Both attacks can KO at ridiculously low percents, but are also some of the slowest attacks in Melee and Brawl, being nearly impossible to land on a opponent who isn't incapacitated or distracted. Warlock Blade averts this by giving Warlock Punch much better range, being able to break full shields if it strikes with the tip, and finally allowing Ganondorf to use the Sword of the Six Sages in battle. Ultimate nixes customs, but gives the damaging part of Warlock Punch more active frames and increases the duration of his super armor; coupled with the sheer amount of shield damage that he does, he can sometimes actually land it. His up-tilt, despite its vacuum effect and greatly improved startup time, also still qualifies as this, as it does not have super armor and is still virtually impossible to land on competent opponents outside of shield breaks.
Badass Cape: It has been part of his design since Ocarina of Time.
Baritone of Strength: His voice is fairly deep, especially in Ultimate, and he fittingly wields the Trifoce of Power.
Battle Intro: Walks out of some kind of dark-magic portal.
Beard of Evil: In Brawl and 3DS/Wii U, he has his beard from Twilight Princess.
BFS:
- While he didn't actually wield it, Ganondorf holds the two-handed sword he was seen wielding in the SpaceWorld tech demo in some artwork for Melee, and he flourishes it in one of his victory animations in said game. In Ultimate, he uses this sword for his Smash attacks.
- In Brawl, he pulls out the Sword of the Six Sages, examines it, then puts it away as a taunt, presumably due to his personal dislike for the blade^note. Sakurai even posted an ironic comment on the old Smash Bros Dojo website regarding this. However, one of his Warlock Punch variants in 3DS/Wii U has him wield this sword, attacking with a thrust. It has better range and deals greater shield damage than Warlock Punch at the cost of some power.
- As part of the semi-revamp in Ultimate, when Ganondorf transforms into Ganon, he wields his giant twin swords from Ocarina of Time in his Final Smash. He delivers a quick slash to stun opponents before charging forward. The boss version of Ganon has a varied moveset utilizing them, even performing a version of Link's signature Spin Attack. He also uses his SpaceWorld sword in his new smashes.
Black Knight: Subverted. In Brawl and 3DS/Wii U, Ganondorf has his heavy black armor and imposing nature from Twilight Princess, but he's an evil king rather than a chivalrous knight, and he deviates a bit more from this trope than in canon, since he rarely uses his sword.
Butt-Monkey: The Brawl DOJO website was mean to Ganondorf, joking that he pants while running (as if he was out of shape) and making fun of him for not using his sword in battle. The 3DS/Wii U site continues the trend by showing a screenshot where Ganondorf is jogging away from Toon Link, Villager, and Ness◊, though it at least shows him off using his sword (in a duel with Link) in another screenshot. Even in Ultimate, he's often seen being beat up by other fighters in many images and promotional videos.
Canon Foreigner: His design from Melee, including the sword he wields, doesn't originate from an actual Zelda game, but from a 2000 tech demo for the GameCube shown at SpaceWorld. Though it closely resembles his Ocarina of Time design, there are some subtle differences, such as having a grey cape instead of a red one, as well as the aforementioned sword. His Ultimate adheres to the Ocarina of Time look even more, but he still keeps the sword, including actually using it in battle this time.
Casting a Shadow: Many of his attacks give off darkness effects.
Character Exaggeration: Contrary to popular belief, Ganondorf does use some hand-to-hand moves in his home series. However, they generally don't function as anything more than a mix-up with his usual style of using magic blasts from a distance or skewering enemies with a trident or sword. Here, hand-to-hand combat is almost the entirety of his move set. 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate alike tried to step away from this by giving him sword attacks, but overall, Ganondorf's playstyle functions as the reverse of his canon fighting style: using sword attacks to mix up his main brawling style, as opposed to using brawling attacks to mix up his main swordfighting style.
Choke Holds: As part of Divergent Character Evolution, he gets one in Brawl as his side special. If done on the ground, he lifts the opponent up in a villainous choke and they then explode in dark energy and fall to the floor.
Co-Dragons: In Subspace Emissary, he and Bowser serve as this under Master Hand, (and by extension Tabuu), with Ganondorf remotely controlling the R.O.B.s and other mechanisms and Bowser commanding the Koopa Troop as well as going out onto the battlefield himself.
Composite Character: In Ultimate, he has his updated Ocarina of Time design, but uses the sword from the 2000 Spaceworld tech demo and Melee as well as his physical moves from the latter game, both of which never appeared in the game proper. It also combines elements from his pre-Time Skip self (short hair, white sclerae) with his post-Time Skip self (cape, earrings and forehead gem). He also still has some of his combat moves from Twilight Princess.
Cool Sword:
- In Melee, he holds a massive rounded-tip greatsword from SpaceWorld 2000 demo in some artwork and one victory animation, but otherwise doesn't use it. In Ultimate, he finally uses this sword in his Smash attacks.
- Starting from Brawl, he carries the Sword of the Six Sages — the gigantic white sword that the six Sages tried to execute him with in Twilight Princess. He only takes it out as a taunt in Brawl, but 3DS/Wii U allows him to use it as a custom neutral special.
Crippling Overspecialization: In Brawl and 3DS/Wii U, Ganon has some of the strongest attacks and best punishes in the game, but that's the only thing he's good at. He otherwise suffers from very poor mobility, lacking recovery and a lack of anti-projectile options. These problems still exist in Ultimate, but he also received a slew of quality-of-life buffs and some devastating new smashes.
Cuteness Proximity: In Pikachu's All-Star Congratulations screen cap, the King of Evil can be seen hugging the lovable rodent like a teddy bear with a look of absolute wonder on his face.◊
Damn You, Muscle Memory!: His up tilt is designed to exploit this. A slow, charged attack is typically something you should shield against, but this move is strong enough that it breaks shields nigh-instantly, leaving the victim stunned and helpless for a painful follow-up attack. The same attack may invoke this trope against its user as well, as tilts are usually meant for somewhat time-sensitive situations, while this one is slower than his up smash.
Dark Is Evil: "A great evil walks the Earth, Ganondorf has been unlocked."
Death or Glory Attack: His Warlock Punch and his explosive up tilts are some of the slowest attacks of the whole series, leaving Ganondorf wide open for punishment. If they manage to strike, however, they'll hurt as much as you'd expect from the bearer of the Triforce of Power. 3DS/Wii U tones this down a bit by giving super armor to his Warlock Punch, making it harder to stop it, but it's become much weaker if not reversed, while his up tilt gets massive range and the ability to instantly break shields.
Divergent Character Evolution: Ganondorf started as a slower but more powerful clone of Captain Falcon in Melee, with a couple unique moves and some of his moves having a darkness or electric hit effect. Then he was decloned a decent amount in Brawl, where he gained a new side special (Flame Choke), a completely different Final Smash from Captain Falcon (Beast Ganon), a few new unique standard moves (his forward tilt, down tilt, up smash, and up throw), and he received new animations for general actions (dashing, rolling, etc.) and altered animations for some of his other moves to better reflect his canon appearances (jab, up tilt, down smash, forward throw, neutral aerial, down aerial, and the rest of his special moves, with Dark Dive also getting some altered functioning in being given a unique uppercut hitbox), overall leaving him a Falcon semi-clone. 3DS/Wii U gives him custom move variants completely different from Captain Falcon's as well, including a version of Warlock Punch performed with his sword; however he received no non-balance adjustments to his standard moves and default specials except for some slightly altered animation on Dark Dive and Falcon getting a couple function/animation changes to his moveset, and Ganon actually been slightly recloned, with his neutral aerial and down aerial now functioning almost exactly like Captain Falcon's (though the former has no set knockback and a strong hitbox on the foot). He would further diverge from Captain Falcon in Ultimate where all his smash attacks now use his sword, and he gained a couple new moves and animations elsewhere.
Dragon with an Agenda: Fittingly given his reputation, he betrays Bowser in Subspace Emissary and attempts to do the same to Master Hand.
Elemental Punch: His attacks are often imbued with darkness or electricity depending on the attack. His custom neutral special Warlock Thrust is perhaps the closest to this, creating a dark-elemental blast whenever he punches.
Enemy Mine: Even he pulls one in the Subspace Emissary, and it was prompted by Link and Zelda, his life-long enemies. In World of Light, while he wasn't seen in the intro standing alongside other heroes and villains against Galeem (though he likely was there given the circumstances), he is also one of the fighters whose awakening is mandatory to progress the story.
Evil Laugh: Done in taunts and victory poses. He gives a particularly creepy one at one point in the Subspace Emissary.
Evil Overlord: The Great King of Evil, ladies and gentlemen.
Evil Redhead: The King of Evil, anyone? He and his surrogate mothers are pretty much the reason why the Gerudo have such a bad reputation.
Evil Sorcerer: He is said to have powerful magic in his trophy descriptions, but does not seem to be doing much with it besides enhancing his ability to punch and kick.
Evil Sounds Deep:
- Downplayed in Melee. His voice clips are unaltered, which results in a higher-pitched voice compared to Ocarina of Time, though it's still plenty sinister.
- His Brawl and 3DS/Wii U also downplay this, though his Twilight Princess incarnation shows that his voice can be just as deep if he isn't shouting.
- Finally played straight in Ultimate, where his voice sounds much more akin to how it did in Ocarina of Time.
Evil Sounds Raspy:
- As per his Twilight Princess incarnation, Ganondorf's voice in Brawl and 3DS/Wii U is positively coarse, emphasizing how bestial he's become in Twilight Princess.
- Ultimate strikes a fine balance between his Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess incarnations, being just as sinisterly guttural as it is deep.
Facepalm of Doom: His Flame Choke often results in this or an actual choke depending on the character.
Female Angel, Male Demon: In Wii U, there are a few event matches that have him go up against Palutena (either as the playable character or as an opponent). There's at least one co-op event match where he's paired with her to fight against intruders from another dimension (a horde of Mr. Game and Watches) and the game even lampshades the unlikeliness of the situation. In Bayonetta's artwork, Ganondorf is shown opposite Palutena in the Mirrored Confrontation Shot.
Foreshadowing: Melee's intro showed his Triforce-embedded hand alongside Link and Zelda's, hinting that he's a playable character.
Full-Boar Action: Beast Ganon is a giant demonic boar in his Twilight Princess appearance. The Ocarina of Time Ganon in Ultimate is more of a Pig Man in line with most portrayals of Beast Ganon.
Gameplay and Story Integration: As RelaxAlax speculates, his design as a heavy, punish-based character can stem from his overall character. Not only is his power focus a nod to the Triforce piece he wields, like The Chessmaster of a personification of pure evil he is, you need to isolate and exploit your opponent's weakness and playstyle, and upon them falling into your trap, throw them around, stomp them into their demise, and show them true fear.
Glass Cannon: In Ultimate, he has many fast moves that makes it easy for him to deal a lot of damage fast, and has quite a few strong attacks that can kill at low percents. Unfortunately, he has one of the worst recoveries in the game, and he has trouble approaching his opponents.
Genius Bruiser: Ganondorf is renowned as one of Nintendo's strongest and smartest villains, and it shows here in Subspace Emissary. For a sorcerer from a pseudo-medieval world, he's awfully comfortable and skilled with high-tech gadgetry.
Grandfather Clause: He's normally a weapon wielder in his home series, but he has a preference towards Good Old Fisticuffs here due to starting off as a Captain Falcon clone. Gradual Divergent Character Evolution aside, he mostly sticks to his original design as a Captain Falcon clone (but has diverged enough to be considered his own character, instead of an Echo Fighter).
The Heavy: Alongside the Ancient Minister, he's the one who does most of the work during Subspace Emissary, having direct control over the R.O.B.s and piloting a ship that fires off Subspace Bombs, with him ultimately being subservient to Master Hand (or so he thinks).
Heroic Build: He's no hero, but he has an extremely muscular build, which is more obvious in Melee and Ultimate due to his tighter costume. Brawl and 3DS/Wii U tones this down somewhat, as he's quite a bit bulkier and he swaps his leotard for thick clothes and heavy armor.
Hijacked by Ganon: Ironically enough, zig-zagged for The Subspace Emissary. At first, it seems like he's behind everything in the plot before Master Hand is revealed to be giving him orders. Then it's played straight when he betrays Bowser and turns him into a trophy with a Dark Cannon, planning to betray Master Hand afterwards. Finally, it's revealed that Master Hand was being controlled by Tabuu, who turns Ganondorf into a trophy. In other words, the man who named this trope ended up getting doubly hijacked, and only hijacking once.
Hitbox Dissonance: For whatever reason, his down aerial is able to hit foes who are in front of him. Also, his side tilt attack can hit people who are behind him.
Home Stage:
- Melee: Final Destination, where he's fought in his unlock fight and his All-Star Match event. In All-Star Mode, his stage is Brinstar Depths.
- Brawl: Both debuting stages from his series^note.
- 3DS/Wii U: All stages from his series.^note
- Ultimate: Bridge of Eldin.
Humans by Any Other Name: Apart from the Pointy Ears and being a One-Gender Race, Gerudo are virtually indistinguishable from real-life humans.
Hunk: Ganondorf is a handsome, muscular older man; he's almost this trope in Melee, but his huge nose makes him look somewhat goblin-like. In Brawl and 3DS/Wii U, he looks like a dark-skinned, red-haired Arnold Schwarzenegger, with a more traditionally handsome face but a slightly bulkier build. And in Ultimate, he manages to pull off a slightly younger version of the trope with more relaxed features than what he had in Melee which, combined with his flashier fighting style and more obviously pompous personality, makes him one of the most handsome and charming depictions of the villain yet. It also serves to contrast Link's youthful and slender (but still masculine) Bishōnen looks.
Idle Animation:
- He puts his hands together, then brings one over his head in a circular motion.
- He crosses his arms and looks away.
Immune to Bullets: More-or-less vaguely implied during Snake's secretive Codec conversation with Otacon where Snake outright asks the latter if modern weaponry is completely effective against Ganondorf. Otacon blatantly insists that since every fighter is either armed with swords and/or fighting other opponents completely unarmed with punches and kicks, Snake's own gadgetry is "capable" of defeating him.
Immune to Flinching: 3DS/Wii U adds super armor to the startup of Warlock Punch and Warlock Blade, as long as he starts the move on the ground and doesn't reverse the move. The 1.1.3 update extended the duration of the super armor frames on the nonreversed variations, and gave super armor to his reverse Warlock Punch and reverse Warlock Blade, though he still doesn't have any armor if he starts the move in the air. Ultimate increases the duration of Warlock Punch's super armor.
In a Single Bound: In a Cutscene Power to the Max distinction. He catches Tabuu restraining Master Hand with dozens of glowing chains after greeting him. He attempted to help out the glove and tried to openly attack Tabuu where he impressively leaps off the very cliff he was just standing on, just high enough to almost reach him, only to get sent hurtling backwards by his power and accidentally becomes a trophy after breaking the chains Master Hand was formally tangled in. Humorously, in gameplay, Ganondorf's jumps... are nowhere near as great given his status as being one of the heaviest characters in the series.
Irony:
- The game where Ganondorf's infamous largely-unused sword comes from (Twilight Princess) is the first canon Zelda game where he uses the Warlock Punch (or at least a derivative).
- The first time Ganondorf has used a sword in his base moveset was in the game where he took his look from Ocarina Of Time, the only game where his human form doesn't use a sword.
- A victory pose and render from Melee show Ganondorf with the Spaceworld sword, but he doesn't use it in his moveset. Ultimate gives him sword smash attacks, but neither his render nor any victory pose show him with it.
Killing Intent: While talking to Otacon, Snake remarks that Ganondorf has a "murderous vibe" and questions if modern weaponry would even work on him.
Knight of Cerebus: Ganondorf is the only one of the Subspace Emissary villains originating from out of Super Smash Bros. to be completely devoid of humorous elements. It helps that he is portrayed as the living embodiment of evil in the Zelda games. In particular, the scene where he overrides the Ancient Minister's control over the R.O.B.s to make them detonate the Subspace bombs is a contender for the darkest part of the game.
Kung-Fu Wizard: Despite being an incredibly powerful sorcerer, his fighting style is designed to mimic Captain Falcon's.
Large and in Charge: The largest, tallest and heaviest human character in the series.
Legacy Character: The only Zelda character to avert this trope. The Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess portrayals of Ganondorf are the same person, only a few centuries apart. In his series, Ganondorf/Ganon usually averts this as well, typically being the same individual resurrected rather than reincarnated like Link and Zelda, barring The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, where Ganon is a reincarnation after the previous Ganondorf's death in Twilight Princess.
- Ganondorf himself is this to Demon King Demise, being the manifestation of his endless hatred towards Hylia/Zelda and Link.
Leitmotif: Multiple in Brawl. Hidden Mountain & Forest as his unlock theme (which plays in Ganon's Dark World in A Link to the Past), and Gerudo Valley (the theme for his homeland in Ocarina of Time) as his unique credits theme. His theme from his home series plays as a bridge in the Song of Storms Medley as well. 3DS takes the Gerudo Valley connection a step further by actually having Ganondorf unlocked on the stage of the same name, usually accompanied by a remix of its theme. Ultimate meanwhile uses his spot as an Ocarina of Time character and plays the Ocarina of Time Medley for his character trailer, though all other moments in the game (unlock battles, credits) he is associated with a remix of Death Mountain from the original NES game.
Limit Break: For his Final Smash, he turns into Beast Ganon, roars, and rushes forward. In Brawl and 3DS/Wii U, Ganon was based on his Twilight Princess appearance, while in Ultimate, he's based on his Ocarina of Time appearance.
Magic Knight: A variation; while Ganondorf doesn't use any non-physical spells here, he uses dark and electric magic to enhance most of his physical attacks.
The Man Behind the Man: To Bowser, Wario, and the Ancient Minister. And Master Hand is the man behind him, and Tabuu is the man behind Master Hand.
Megaton Punch: Warlock Punch is so strong that it's actually a better option for Ganondorf in the Home-Run Contest than the Home-Run Bat.
Meteor Move: His down air (which is the strongest meteor smash in all games it's appeared in).
Mighty Glacier: Always one of the slowest, heaviest, and strongest characters. Slightly downplayed in that most of his actual attacks come out surprisingly quickly without any sacrifice in power, but played entirely straight regarding his overall movement speed and lack of safe, non-situational approach options, plus a few moves like his Volcano Kick and Warlock Punch, which are among the slowest and hardest-hitting moves in the game. In Ultimate, he occupies the "big, slow, bulky heavy hitter" pantheon with Bowser, Dedede, and K. Rool, and of those, he is the most straightforward; Bowser has his armor and throw game, Dedede has his zoning, recovery, and options for punishing overly defensive players, and K. Rool has Confusion Fu and Jack of All Stats, while Ganondorf just hits absurdly hard even by heavyweight standards and can turn basically any hit into a lead thanks to his brutal edgeguarding and ability to smash shields in only a few hits.
Mirror Boss: In World of Light, you unlock Ganondorf right before you are able to fight Ganon, meaning the player can have Ganondorf fight himself even on a first playthrough. Downplayed in that Ganon's moveset is much different than the playable Ganondorf aside from his Final Smash.
Moveset Clone: In Melee, he is a straight clone of Captain Falcon, being slower and more powerful, but with a couple different standard moves (mainly Falcon's famous Knee Smash being swapped out for a powerful arching overhead punch). He still cribs off Falcon in Brawl as a semi-clone, having only 3/4 specials in common, though he does have a new side special and a unique Final Smash, different animations for general actions and some moves (such as the Warlock Punch being more of a backhand than a straight punch), some of the moves they share got altered in their functioning (Dark Dive now ends in an uppercut that deals damage), and he gained a few different standard moves (like his forward tilt being his kick from Twilight Princess). He's the same as his Brawl incarnation in 3DS/Wii U, but all of his custom move variants are different from the good captain's. In Ultimate, however, he's finally picked up his sword for his smash attacks and was given a couple other new standard moves and animations to diverge him further; oddly, while all of his Falcon-based animations have been changed, his new Smash attacks are actually copied from other heavy sword wielders: his Forward Smash and Up Smash come from Ike and his Down Smash from Cloud.
Muscles Are Meaningful: An archetypical example — he's extremely bulky and muscular, extremely strong, and extremely slow.
Mythology Gag:
- His Melee design and his sword only appeared in a tech demo, not in any actual games, although his overall design in the demo and Melee was a composite of his two Ocarina of Time designs.
- While completely coincidental, his official number 23, goes back to Ocarina of Time where a Deku Scrub in the first dungeon of the game gives Link a hint towards confronting the dungeon's boss, "Twenty-Three is Number One!". Considering the conditions that the Great Deku Tree was in, of course one of his minions would say his praises on Ganondorf. His first boss battle also has the time signature of 23/16.
Nerf: In Brawl, Ganondorf was slowed down immensely, with many key attacks weakened or nerfed in other ways, and his great power now being only slightly above average. This was later fixed in 3DS/Wii U and its balance patches, where he is a bit faster (though still slow) and hits much harder.
Non-Indicative Name: Post-Melee, the Warlock Punch is more of a magically-charged backfist than a punch.
Offhand Backhand: The post-Melee Warlock Punch, when reversed, has this idea (since you punch behind you, and it looks more like a backfist than a punch)
The One Guy: His trophies and Palutena's Guidance note how the Gerudo only have one man born to them every century, with him becoming king because of it.
Viridi: Really?! They get one man, and he turns out to be Ganondorf?! Ugh, talk about bad luck.
One-Winged Angel: His Final Smash transforms him into his Ganon form. He uses the bestial form of Ganon from Twilight Princess in Brawl and 3DS/Wii U, and swaps this out for the more humanoid Ganon from Ocarina of Time in Ultimate.
Ornamental Weapon: In Melee and Brawl, Ganon only ever uses his sword for one victory pose and one taunt. It's actually a holdover from his old moveset, which was going to incorporate the sword, but it was cut short and thus he received Captain Falcon's moveset. Sakurai mocks him on the Smash Bros. Dojo blog for not using it. This stopped in 3DS/Wii U. While it's not a part of his standard moveset, it's used in one of the Warlock Punch variants. Ultimate further steps away from this by giving him his sword in his Smash attacks.
Our Demons Are Different: His home series calls him a demon frequently, particularly when he goes One-Winged Angel. This is something Smash references by calling his Final Smash in Ultimate "Demon King Ganon".
Out-of-Character Moment:
- In Wii U, he claps to his opponent when defeated. It's funnier if the winner happens to be Link or Zelda.
- In Brawl and 3DS/Wii U, his poses and voice clips make him seem more boisterous and hammy than he does in Twilight Princess, where he was The Stoic. This is coincidentally similar to his Ocarina of Time personality, which some of his taunts and victory poses continue to be based on.
Palette Swap: In Brawl, he has one that resembles his Ocarina of Time colors, and by extension, his appearance in Melee. Several games also give him at least one with blue skin, resembling his original appearance as Beast Ganon in his home series.
Pig Man: His Final Smash in Ultimate is his transformation from Ocarina of Time — a demon that resembles a mix between a humanoid pig and a minotaur.
Power Creep, Power Seep: In his home franchise, Ganon is canonically nearly invincible, only able to be killed by sacred weapons like the Master Sword, the Silver Arrows or the Bow of Light and barely even harmed by anything else. He took a direct stab wound from a different holy sword and it only slowed him down for a few seconds, and it takes the power of gods, sages, and interdimensional portals combined to seal him away. Here, he fights on par with everyone else, from other super powered fantasy and sci-fi characters, to muggle kids that throw household items at people, to even people from his own universe without the Master Sword like Young Link and Sheik.
Purple Is Powerful: The Demon King's Warlock Punch and Wizard's Foot are some of his most devastating Special Moves, as both of those attacks are packed with staggering KO strength, and they're also heavily cloaked with a menacing and shadowy purple aura enhanced with dark magical energy.
Puzzle Boss: As noted under the link below in Shown Their Work, fighting against him is basically a fighting game version of his series boss battles, as an incredibly strong beast that leaves weak points due to his slowness.
Really 700 Years Old: He's at least over 100 years old in Brawl and 3DS/Wii U, but merely looks middle-aged (around 50 years old if the Twilight Princess strategy guide is anything to go by) due to the Triforce of Power preventing him from aging.
Red and Black and Evil All Over: Red hair, black armor, dark skin, and one of the most evil playable characters in the series.
Ret-Canon: While Ganondorf's Warlock Punch and Flame Choke are original to Smash, he's used the moves (or variants thereof) twice in the Zelda series: Twilight Princess has him use a move similar to the Flame Choke to kill a sage; while Hyrule Warriors gives him the Brawl version of the punch as part of his moveset, and gives him more Smash-like hand-to-hand moves if he uses his Trident moveset.
Reverse Grip: Stabs opponents with the Sword of the Six Sages in a reverse grip in one of his alternate Neutral Specials in 3DS/Wii U. He also uses this with his greatsword in his down smash attack in Ultimate.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: He's the King of the Gerudo, and is a warlord-turned-demon who seeks to conquer Hyrule and obtain the Triforce.
Secret Character: In Melee, Brawl, 3DS, and Ultimate. He became part of the starting roster in Wii U. He becomes playable after the following conditions are met:
- For Melee: Beat Event Match 29: "Triforce Gathering", or fight in 600 VS. Battles.
- For Brawl: Have him join you in The Subspace Emissary by rescuing the trophified Link and Zelda in "Subspace (Part II)" and clearing the level, beat Classic Mode with either Link or Zelda on Hard difficulty or higher, or fight in 200 brawls.
- For 3DS: Beat Classic Mode on intensity 5.0 or higher as Link/Zelda, or play 80 matches in Smash.
- For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 6 hours and 30 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Yoshi or anyone in his unlock tree four times, or find and defeat him in World of Light.
Shock and Awe: Some of his attacks use electricity.
Shoryuken: As of Brawl, Dark Dive and all of its custom variants, which have Ganondorf leap in the air and end the move with an uppercut, unlike with Falcon Dive. Dark Fists is probably the best example, as it purely consists of two powerful uppercuts that hit on the way up. Even before that, before he was made into a semi-clone, his Gerudo Dragon, in Melee, was basically Captain Falcon's Raptor Boost, but with dark magic instead of fire.
Shown Their Work: Despite the fact that Ganondorf isn't primarily a hand-to-hand combatant in the Zelda series, many of his move animations were overhauled in Brawl to reflect the various hand-to-hand moves he used in Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Additionally, his side smash animation while wielding a melee item (which includes the Beam Sword, but with exception of the Homerun Bat) from Brawl and onwards is near-identical to one of his sword moves from Twilight Princess, meaning that Sakurai did manage to implement Ganondorf's sword proficiency into the Smash incarnation of the character (albeit in an unorthodox way).
Signature Move: Five of them: Warlock Punch, his up strong attack (known as "Volcano Kick" in Melee), Flame Choke, his down aerial and his forward smash in Ultimate. The first two are Ganon's most famously Awesome, but Impractical and "disrespectful" moves (much like the character himself), while the third is the most unique out of his special moves and, similar to the first two, can be used for a Difficult, but Awesome One-Hit KO in some circumstances. The fourth is infamously the most powerful Meteor Smash in the series. His forward smash is a bit too infamous for killing very early and for its large reach, as well as the cry Ganondorf shouts while using it.
Silver Fox: His white-haired palette swap makes him into this, and he's already quite handsome and imposing despite his physical and chronological age.
Skill Gate Characters: Ganondorf's playstyle revolves around looking for openings in the foe's play and punishing them. As such, imperfect players will get punished hard by the Great King of Evil, but he can't keep up at the highest levels of play where players make very few mistakes.
Sore Loser: His losing animation looks outright pissed in Ultimate, with a face full of regret and disbelief; in contrast to all the other games he appeared in where he was a Graceful Loser. This fits as this version of him was rather arrogant and had yet to be defeated until the end of Ocarina of Time.
Soundtrack Dissonance: His leitmotif in Melee is the Zelda main theme, which is a heroic-sounding piece more strongly associated with Link. Brawl corrected this by instead giving him A Link to the Past's Death Mountain theme (when unlocking him) and Ocarina of Time's Gerudo Valley theme (during his Character Roll Call), both of which are related to Ganon in some way. Ultimate would also give him the original Death Mountain theme, which served as his theme in said game.
The Starscream: In the Subspace Emissary, Ganondorf planned to backstab Master Hand at the right opportunity. When he learns that Master Hand is actually being manipulated by Tabuu, he tries to fight Tabuu instead, and also frees Master Hand in the process.
Stout Strength: In Brawl and 3DS/Wii U. Ganondorf is one of the most muscular characters in the series, but unlike the athletic Captain Falcon, he has an older and more weightlifter-like build with a bit of body fat, which is obvious by comparing his similarly-built Ocarina of Time skin from Hyrule Warriors to his Melee model.^note This is even reflected in their fighting styles, with Falcon fighting more like an athlete (fast and hard-hitting) and Ganondorf fighting more like a weightlifter (extremely slow but even more hard-hitting), and the Brawl website acknowledged that his "bitter and tough" attacks were designed with this stoutness and weight in mind.
Super-Strength: The Warlock Punch is unmistakably one of the strongest moves in the series, as it can absolutely KO anyone so early that not even the heaviest of fighters may survive from it. However, there's a viable chance that if the Warlock Punch is reversed, it can potentially KO any opponent at 16%.
Suicide Attack: If Flame Choke hits a target in the air, Ganondorf will tackle them to the ground. If used over a pit, both players will get KO'd.
Supernatural Martial Arts: He fights with magic-boosted punches and kicks. The taunt where he draws his sword makes the blade pulse with dark magic, but his attacks with it are not magical in nature.
Sword and Fist: While still primarily a melee fighter in Ultimate, some of his regular attacks now use a sword.
Sword Plant: For one of his major victory poses in Melee where he's shown powerfully swinging his BFS around, before placing it in front of himself in a dominant fashion. His official art render in Melee is also extremely similar to the aforementioned pose as well.
This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: His Warlock Punch is incredibly powerful, but the extremely long start-up lag and ending lag makes it extremely difficult to use without god-like prediction (or breaking the enemy's shield first). However, it is hands-down the best move a character can have in Home Run Contest. After doing an extreme amount of damage to the sandbag and finishing it off with one of these, the sandbag will be launched into next week.
Tin Tyrant: Wears an impressive suit of Vader-like black armor in Brawl and 3DS/Wii U, minus the helmet.
Token Minority: In Melee, he was the only non-white humanoid fighter in the series, being olive-skinned, from a vaguely Middle Eastern culture, where most other humans are implicitly American or some variety of fantasy European. Downplayed as time went on, Brawl added the Pokémon Trainer, who is instead implicitly Japanese (originating from the Japan-based Kanto region), and 3DS/Wii U added Ryu, who is explicitly so. Ultimate later added the 3/4ths Japanese Ken Masters, the fully Japanese Ren Amamiya, aka Joker, the Chinese Min Min, and the Japanese Kazuya. The Mii Fighters can also be made any ethnicity that the player chooses.
Top-Heavy Guy: In Ultimate, he has a buff, muscular torso and arms of a complementing size, but his legs look comparatively skinnier. It's more noticeable if you compare him with other muscular fighters like Captain Falcon or Simon Belmont.
Truer to the Text: After his appearance in Melee, steps have been taken to bring his portrayal closer to his canon self without alienating the fans of his initial Smash portrayal:
- Downplayed in Brawl. After entirely using Captain Falcon's quick, skillful animations in Melee, some of his moves are revamped to be rigid and brutal in Brawl inspired by his final boss fight in Twilight Princess. Also, several of his newer animations are directly inspired by his moves in the series: for example, the forward tilt is taken from a kick in Twilight Princess, his neutral jab is an open-palm strike version of a stab he did in Twilight Princess, and his new Flame Choke is similar to his Neck Lift against Link and Tetra in Wind Waker. However, he still retains many of Falcon's animations, and he neither uses his sword nor his magic beyond enhancing his punches and kicks.
- Ganondorf's portrayal in 3DS/Wii U doesn't change much from Brawl, though a few steps were still taken to make him more faithful to canon. First, he gains the glowing chest wound from Twilight Princess. Second, his Dark Dive's grab animation is updated so that it looks like he casts magic on the foe. Finally, he actually gets to use his sword in combat, albeit as a custom variant of his Warlock Punch.
- His semi-revamp in Ultimate has this on two levels. First, while he returns to the Ocarina of Time design as was done in Melee, it replaces the brown cape from the 2000 SpaceWorld demo with the red cape he actually wore in Ocarina of Time. Second, while he still primarily uses his fistfighting alongside his semi-cloned moves from Captain Falcon, he finally uses his sword for his Smash Attacks, helping reconcile the Smash portrayal with his canon swordfighter portrayal. He also replaces his Out-of-Character Moment Graceful Loser animation with a disgusted one that makes more sense for him.
Unskilled, but Strong: He doesn't really have much in the way of finesse, preferring to throw wild haymakers and such, and his sword attacks in Ultimate are wide, unrefined swings.
Vocal Dissonance:
- Ganondorf's voice clips in Melee sound faster and much higher-pitched than in Ocarina of Time. This is justified in a meta-sense, since the game manually applied his voice clips a filter that resulted in his iconic deep voice.
- His voice is slightly higher-pitched and raspier in Brawl and 3DS/Wii U, which while not completely unfitting for the character, can also be a bit jarring. This is also justified given his change in voice actors and him being a different incarnation of the character.
Vocal Evolution: Takashi Nagasako's performance as Ganondorf is much deeper and more guttural in Ultimate, sounding much closer than he did in Ocarina of Time.
Voice Grunting: Only utters wordless vocalizations, similar to Link. His dialogue in the Zelda series is entirely conveyed through written text, which is absent here.
What You Are in the Dark: He's the King of Evil, yes... but he won't be senselessly evil when it's not in his own self-interest. At the end of the Subspace Emissary, he has a perfect opportunity to defeat Zelda and Link when they turn their backs, and even starts charging up a Warlock Punch, considering it. He ultimately decides he needs their help to destroy Tabuu instead.
The Worf Effect: Gets the "honor" of being the first fighter to be brutally beaten by Kazuya, who then proceeds to toss his lifeless body into a volcanic pit.
- Even though he's an otherworldly and magically powerful villainous Gerudo, even he never stood a chance against Tabuu the first time around. Upon witnessing Master Hand being held captive, his attempt to confront him was useless as he was only reduced to a lifeless trophy.
Wrestler in All of Us: If his Flame Choke is used in the air, he slams his victim downwards in a chokeslam that'd make The Undertaker proud.
Your Size May Vary: He is much smaller◊ in Melee and Brawl than in The Legend of Zelda. In Brawl and 3DS/Wii U, he's also a little bit stouter than his towering character model in Twilight Princess, with this build carrying over to the non-canon Hyrule Warriors.

24 – Mewtwo

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

A Legend Reawakens

^{3DS/Wii U}

^Melee

Voiced by: Masachika Ichimura (Melee), Keiji Fujiwara (3DS/Wii U, Ultimate)

MEWTWO STRIKES BACK!

Home Series: Pokémon

Debut: Pokémon Red and Blue [Game Boy], 1996

Creator: Game Freak

Publisher: Nintendo

Playable in: Melee, 3DS/Wii U (DLC), Ultimate

"Why am I here?" (translated from Japanese)

The Genetic Pokémon and one of the original Legendaries, created to be the most powerful Pokémon of all. Mewtwo is a man-made clone of the mythical Pokémon, Mew, who has mastery of psychic power that is nearly unrivaled. However, it rebelled against its creators, destroyed the very lab it was made in, and flew off to parts unknown. It often hides in caves, waiting for Pokémon Trainers who have proved themselves worthy.

In Smash, Mewtwo's psychic prowess makes it quite the formidable opponent. Its attacks generally come out quick and can cover a wide range, and several of its special attacks enable it to play its opponents like a fiddle. However, due to the levitation Mewtwo requires to move as fast as it does, it's incredibly light and can get KO'd rather easily, meaning a careless maneuver can lead to its downfall. It also holds the honor of being the first DLC character, returning for the fourth installment after a lengthy absence.

Special Moves^{Click to show}

See Pokémon: Mew Duo for more information on the character in their origin series.

Adaptational Badass: Not Mewtwo itself, but its Disable move. In the main Pokémon games, Disable's only function is to make the opponent unable to use a certain move for a few turns. Here, not only does the move actually do damage, but it momentarily stuns the opponent, leaving them open to further attacks.
Adaptational Villainy:
- Even though Mewtwo in the Pokémon games is a savage Blood Knight, it doesn't do anything particularly villainous. Even in terms of the anime's Mewtwo, it was more of an Anti-Villain and later pulled a Heel–Face Turn toward the end of the film, even becoming a protagonist in its next appearance. However, Event 51: The Showdown, the final Event Match in Melee, has Mewtwo fighting the player alongside the far less-ambiguously evil Ganondorf and Giga Bowser. Justified in that Melee had a lack of playable antagonists outside of the aforementioned two, and Mewtwo was the only other character^note to have played an antagonistic role before. When the Event Match returned in Brawl and Wii U, Mewtwo's role was replaced with King Dedede^note due to its absence in both games^note.
- In Ultimate, it has been paired up with the villains in some Classic Mode routes^note and the Spirit battle for Satoru from Card Hero alongside Bowser and Ridley. Downplayed in the latter case as they're supposed to represent the various monsters from that series rather than actually being a true Villain Team-Up.
Adaptational Wimp: Is a relatively low-tier character in Smash, able to be defeated by the likes of Pichu and Jigglypuff despite canonically being one of the most powerful beings in the Pokémon universe (at least among the ones who aren't straight-up creator gods).
Art Evolution: It had a monstrous, inhuman stature in Melee to match its Generation I artwork. In 3DS/Wii U, it's considerably more humanoid, with a smaller head, a more sunken-in face, a smaller chest, and an upright posture to match modern artworks and models, though it's also given more angular eyes and flatter ears similar to its first anime appearance.
The Artifact:
- In 3DS/Wii U, Mewtwo continues to be portrayed based on Pokémon: The First Movie, despite the Mewtwo from that movie not having made an anime appearance since 2001 and two other animated Mewtwo characters having appeared later. This is justified via the Grandfather Clause, and came full circle when that Mewtwo returned in Mewtwo Strikes Back—Evolution, a remake of The First Movie.
- When it returned in 3DS/Wii U and Ultimate, Mewtwo continued to have Non-Dubbed Grunts in Western language versions of the games, despite the introduction of another talking Pokémon (Lucario) with fully dubbed dialogue. In Ultimate, this was carried over to the Hero, who similarly has some dialogue in Japanese that is replaced with Non-Dubbed Grunts by the same voice actress.
- Mewtwo still has Teleport as its Up Special despite it being unable to learn the move since the Gen I games where it was a TM (which didn't return in later games, nor was it added to Mewtwo's learnset).
Attack Reflector: Confusion reflects projectiles, but in Melee, they remain under the user's ownership and thus don't do damage. This is fixed in 3DS/Wii U. It's not very effective against Galeem's beams, though.
Awesome, but Impractical: Its moves may be awkward and ineffective, but the animations are awesome. For example, its dash attack with the Beam Sword in Melee has the sword spinning in front of it. The hammer also swings horizontally instead of vertically due to telekinesis.
Badass Adorable: Becomes slightly Mew-like for its Final Smash, but is no less dangerous or creepy than in its default form.
Badass Arm-Fold: Part of many of its poses both in battle and after victory. It even pulls it off while wielding items, balancing on a ledge, and sleeping in 3DS/Wii U (and also while crashing on the screen, but that's significantly less dignified).
Balance Buff: Balance patches for 3DS/Wii U greatly improved its speed and offensive potential while giving it slightly more endurance.
Battle Intro: One of the few Pokémon to not emerge from a Pokéball, Mewtwo opts to simply teleport onto the field. Fittingly, Mewtwo was never canonically captured, only briefly restrained by Giovanni.
Blood Knight: In keeping with its canon portrayal, its trophies across the series note its ruthless and savage nature in battle.
The Bus Came Back: After being absent from Brawl, Mewtwo comes back in 3DS/Wii U as Downloadable Content. This can also count as a return of the specific Mewtwo character from Pokémon: The First Movie, as it hadn't made a single appearance in any media since Mewtwo Returns and Melee itself in 2001 (barring a remake of its source film in 2019) until an episode of Pokémon Journeys: The Series in 2020.
Casting a Shadow: Shadow Ball and many of Mewtwo's other moves are dark-themed, using a dark purple aura. This is ironic, considering that it's weak to these sort of moves in its home series.
Character Exaggeration: In Mewtwo's home series, it is considered a Glass Cannon only when compared to other Olympus Mons, and it is a Lightning Bruiser otherwise. In Smash, Mewtwo is one of the lightest characters.
Charged Attack: Shadow Ball, a storable projectile with impressive K.O. potential when fully charged.
The Comically Serious:
- Mewtwo's DLC trailer for 3DS/Wii U depicts it in situations too ridiculous for its normally serious look, such has having a blue Pikmin smacking it without a reaction, attacking a Goldeen, riding on a Gogoat while shooting a blaster like a cowboy, being snuck up on by Ness with a Master Ball, and getting jumped upon by a tiny Greninja.
- Mewtwo interacting with the game's more surreal elements (such as Warp Stars, the Special Flag, the Living Room stage, etc.) tends to border on this simply because of its serious demeanor. Since it's from a more cartoonish series, it even makes a cartoonish sound when tripping, even though Meta Knight and the far less serious Palutena don't.
Composite Character: Its portrayal in all three of its appearances is primarily based on the Japanese version of Pokémon: The First Movie. 3DS/Wii U add some elements from the second Mewtwo from Pokémon: Genesect and the Legend Awakened, such as the ability to Mega Evolve into Mega Mewtwo Y as well as the Boxing Ring title of "The Legend Reawakened".
Demoted to Extra: Reduced to a trophy in Brawl, though it was closer to being finished than any of the other scrapped characters. As of 3DS/Wii U, it is only a trophy in the initial release, but eventually became available as Downloadable Content.
Difficult, but Awesome: Melee Mewtwo has very little KO potential outside of his throws, and getting opponents up to the required damage threshold is a chore with its unforgiving hitbox and light weight, but once the right percent is reached, a quick grab is all you need to finish them off. 3DS/Wii U gave its other moves a lot more bite so as not to rely on the throws so much, and significantly faster mobility, but it was made even lighter to compensate. Effectively using Mewtwo involves a lot of baiting, knowing when to fall back or apply pressure, and knowing how to spot weaknesses in an opponent's offensive or defensive game and exploit them. The result is a character who can turn even the smallest mistake into a lost stock, but is also frustratingly difficult to pin down or catch off guard and seems to have an answer for everything, befitting for a Psychic-type.
- Special mention goes to its Disable special. It's hard to hit with due to its short range and requiring the opponent to be physically facing Mewtwo, but if it connects, it leaves the recipient stunned just long enough for Mewtwo to fully charge a Smash Attack right in front of them, earning a KO at low damage levels.
Divergent Character Evolution: A minor example. 3DS/Wii U differentiates Shadow Ball from Lucario's Aura Sphere by taking away Shadow Ball's ability to do damage while charging.
Downloadable Content: In 3DS/Wii U. Available for free on April 15, 2015, for those who registered both versions by March 31, 2015, and also released as paid DLC for anyone else a couple of weeks later (April 28, 2015).
Evil Laugh: In its taunt and English victory poses.
Final Boss: In Ultimate, it's the last opponent fought in Mega Man's Classic Mode, serving as a stand-in for Dr. Wily's Alien form. Further helping the reference is the fact that it's immediately fought after Dr. Mario, the stand-in for Wily himself, is defeated.
Foreshadowing: One of Mewtwo's Shadow Balls can be seen striking Donkey Kong in Melee's opening.
Fragile Speedster: Its mobility was greatly increased in 3DS/Wii U at the cost of it becoming a lighter character than in Melee, to the point where only Jigglypuff is lighter than it. This gets downplayed slightly after patches 1.1.3 and 1.1.5. which not only gave Mewtwo a massive buff in speed ^note, but also upped its weight slightly.
Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: In its own Palutena's Guidance in Ultimate, Viridi expresses outrage at Mewtwo's existence for this very reason, stating that she'll never forgive humans for creating it and viewing it as an affront to nature that ought to be destroyed immediately.
Glass Cannon: It hits very hard in both its appearances (especially later versions of 3DS/Wii U), having large hitboxes for many of its wild and unpredictable moves, many powerful throws in Melee, and several of its moves given KO potential in 3DS/Wii U. The catch is that, like Rosalina, Mewtwo is a tall target whose own powers make it very light, to the point where what is a rather heavyset Pokémon in its home series (269 pounds/122 kg) is the second lightest character in 3DS/Wii U.
Hitbox Dissonance: In 3DS/Wii U, some of its attacks will not register point-blank hits despite the animations clearly making contact with the target. Some of those hitboxes were corrected via updates.
Idle Animation:
- It brings its hands to its chest, then spreads them.
- It raises its hand in a beckoning gesture.
Home Stage:
- Melee: Pokémon Stadium and Final Destination, though the latter is used more in single player modes. In All-Star Mode, its stage is Battlefield.
- 3DS/Wii U: All stages from its series.^note
- Ultimate: Unova Pokémon League on Ultimate's website, though both his normal unlock and World of Light fights happen in Spear Pillar.
Kamehame Hadoken: Its Shadow Ball is a Hadoken-like projectile; and its Final Smash, Psystrike, has Mewtwo firing a huge Hadoken-like sphere that causes a Your Head Asplode effect.
Large and in Charge: It's the tallest playable Pokémon at an official height of 6'7", and also has a rather haughty attitude, as shown by its Japanese quotes and its anime appearance.
Last Lousy Point: It takes a whopping 700 melees, or 20 hours worth of them to unlock it in Melee. It's commonplace to just plug in four controllers and leave a match running for five hours to meet the requirement.
Leitmotif:
- Poké Floats, a medley of battle music from Red and Blue in Melee.
- In 3DS/Wii U, Victory Road from Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire is used in its reveal trailer. Interestingly enough, this was Lucario's unlock theme in Brawl. It's used again in its Ultimate character trailer. Ironically, Mewtwo isn't even in the games where the theme comes from!^note
Limit Break: Mewtwo Mega Evolves into Mega Mewtwo Y and blasts the opposition with its powerful Psystrike.
Meteor Move: Down aerial, which was heavily buffed in 3DS/Wii U.
Mind over Matter: Its telekinetic lift. Also, it never comes into contact with any of the items it picks up, nor does it touch the ground while moving around.
Missing Backblast: Averted, Mewtwo is one of the only characters who does follow the rule: Shadow Ball has significant recoil when it's fully-charged, and it worsens if fired in mid-air. An ignorant Mewtwo player can easily fling themselves right off the stage. A clever Mewtwo player can fling themselves onto the stage instead, or remove themselves from danger or set an opponent up for a whiff that they can punish.
Mythology Gag:
- Mewtwo's render for its return in 3DS/Wii U uses the same pose◊ as the one used in Melee — after more than a decade of Art Evolution, of course.
- Its tagline, "Mewtwo Strikes Back", is the subtitle for Pokémon: The First Movie and the title of its remake.
- Its trailer briefly shows Mewtwo facing a Genesect. A Mewtwo fought a squad of Genesect in Pokémon: Genesect and the Legend Awakened referring to Mega Mewtwo Y's pre-release name as Mewtwo's Awakened Forme. Its Boxing Ring tagline, "A Legend Reawakens" alludes to both its return in Smash, the Mega Mewtwo Y form as a Final Smash and the movie.
- One of its palette swaps in 3DS/Wii U gives it the same color scheme as Shadow Lugia, which coincidentally came before the reveal of Pokkén Tournament's Shadow Mewtwo a few months later.
Mon: The Genetic Pokémon.
Mundane Utility: Mewtwo uses its psychic powers to... hold and use items without using its hands. This includes items like the Hammer (where it'll weave the item back and forth using psychic powers instead of wailing it like the other characters), guns, etc. The only exception to this, however, is when specifically holding the item is necessary in order to use the item (like Assist Trophies and Special Flags).
No Biological Sex: Technically genderless, but has a masculine voice and personality. The Japanese version of the fourth game also refers to it with masculine pronouns in its pre-DLC trophy description.
Not the Intended Use: Shadow Ball's monstrous recoil comes across as a detriment at first, but it's actually a very handy dodge tool for a character as light as Mewtwo. The backblast can easily put you out of range of the enemy in case the Shadow Ball misses, or it can simply work as a panic-dodge if you're caught in a bad position. In fact, the mid-air recoil is so strong that you can make the Final Destination loop with it, using it to snipe an enemy that's recovering low while hurling yourself to safety on the other side of the arena.
Olympus Mons: Though man-made, Mewtwo is one of the original Legendary Pokémon, and one of the most powerful of them all.
Palette Swap: In 3DS/Wii U, it receives a costume based on Shadow Lugia, as well as a vibrant blue palette based on its appearance in the sprite-based games.
- The green/turquoise color it has in Melee and 3DS/Wii U is seemingly based off of its shiny color variant.
Perpetual Frowner: Mewtwo's constantly scowling. 3DS/Wii U adds to it with Mewtwo's more humanoid looks and a more visible mouth.
Power Creep, Power Seep: In its home series, it's so powerful that it's banned from the battle facilities and most official tournaments. In Melee, its low weight and large size making staying alive difficult, while in 3DS/Wii U, it's very potent but fairer to face than in its home series, and in Ultimate, its nerfs have made it less effective than in the previous game, but its core ability to control the pace of a match, bait and punish mistakes, and take even the smallest of weak points in offense or defense and gouge giant holes in them has not been massively diminished.
Power Echoes: The genetic Pokémon has a voice with a constant echo behind it.
Power Floats: It floats when moving around and using certain abilities, to the point that in Melee if it's sufficiently damaged, it walks up ledges instead of climbing them. Still, very appropriate for a powerful Psychic Pokémon.
Pstandard Psychic Pstance: It usually doesn't bother with it, but when it picks up a hammer in Melee, it puts its hands on its head. 3DS/Wii U changes it to a Badass Arm-Fold instead.
Purple Is Powerful: Tends to utilize a lot of purple colored attacks. Its smash attacks emit bursts of purple energy, the Shadow Ball is a blackish purple Energy Ball, which is one of its best moves and a great projectile when its fully charged. It's also one of the most powerful Legendary Pokemon in existence.
Psychic Powers: It uses its psychic powers in battle.
Psychic Strangle: Mewtwo uses this maneuver as its grab, telekinetically seizing the foe by their throat.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Gets sinister red eyes as Mega Mewtwo Y. Bonus points in that this is the first portrayal of Mega Mewtwo Y outside of the main series games to be depicted with the ruthless Blood Knight personality that Mewtwo is known for.
Saved for the Sequel:
- Like Bowser, King Dedede, and Marth, it was meant to be in 64, but the lack of time and budget prevented it from happening. It was introduced instead in Melee.
- It was slated to be a player character for Brawl, according to unused resources in the game's data. It eventually returned for 3DS/Wii U as Downloadable Content.
Secret Character:
- For Melee: Play a total of 20 hours on VS. Mode, or fight in 700 VS. Matches.
- For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 9 hours and 50 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Fox or anyone in his unlock tree eight times, or find and defeat it in World of Light.
Shock and Awe: Its pummel and neutral aerial attacks create an electrical effect.
Sore Loser: One of the few characters to not applaud or otherwise show respect to the winning player on the results screen, crossing its arms indignantly instead.
Squishy Wizard: Mewtwo specializes in powerful psychic/supernatural attacks, most notably its Shadow Ball projectile and its status-effect-causing Confusion and Disable. It fits this trope due to its very light weight making it easy to KO, as explained under Glass Cannon above.
Super Mode: It uses its Mega Mewtwo Y form in its Final Smash. Unlike Charizard and Lucario's, it's not controllable, and it only transforms to fire off a powerful Psystrike.
Tail Slap: In many flavors!
- Forward tilt has Mewtwo swing its tail at waist level, which can be angled.
- Down tilt has it spin and sweep its tail along the floor (hence the move's name, Tail Sweep).
- Up tilt and up air have it backflip and tail swing.
- Back aerial has it swing its tail behind it.
- Down throw has Mewtwo throw the enemy to the ground and smack them with its tail.
- Both its front and back knocked-down attacks have Mewtwo spin to swing its tail around, and its ledge getup attack is another tail swipe.
Ultimate Lifeform: Mewtwo was created to be the world's strongest Pokémon, and it certainly shows.

Dr. Fuji: We dreamed of creating the world's most powerful Pokémon... and we succeeded.

Vocal Evolution: Masachika Ichimura's performance as Mewtwo in Melee is quite a bit raspier and creepier-sounding than in Pokémon: The First Movie. This continues into Keiji Fujiwara's performance in 3DS/Wii U.
Vocal Dissonance: This Mewtwo keeps its deep male voice inspired by the Japanese version of the anime, but Mega Evolves into the smaller, more frail and somewhat cute Mega Mewtwo Y, which originally seemed to be a Distaff Counterpart of sorts to the big, bulky Mega Mewtwo X (especially considering its appearance in Pokémon: Genesect and the Legend Awakened). Though of course "vocal" is a bit of a misnomer here, considering it speaks telepathically.
Voice Grunting: In non-Japanese versions of both of its appearances. In stark contrast to the very talkative Lucario, it only has wordless vocalizations, despite its ability to speak in the Japanese versions as well as all versions of the anime (which its portrayal is mostly based on).
Wall Jump: Can do this in the fourth game and Ultimate.
You Fool!: One of its possible victory quotes in the Japanese versions directs this quote to its opponents.
Your Head Asplode: The Smash rendition of Psystrike gives it this effect.

25 – Roy

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

The Young Lion

^{3DS/Wii U}

^Melee

Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (Japanese), Ray Chase (English, Ultimate)

ROY SEALS THE DEAL!

Home Series: Fire Emblem

Debut: Super Smash Bros. Melee [GameCube], 2001 (Early-Bird Cameo); Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade [Game Boy Advance], 2002 (in home series)

Creator: Intelligent Systems

Publisher: Nintendo

Playable in: Melee, 3DS/Wii U (DLC), Ultimate

"Failure is not an option!"

The main character of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, a game that would be released soon after Melee. He was put in the game so fans could get excited about the new game. The son of Eliwood from the prequel, Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, Roy was called in to take his place due to illness. He's led the armies of Pherae and defeated a corrupted divine dragon at the ripe age of fifteen.

The Young Lion made his Smash debut alongside Marth as a way of promoting his then unreleased game, accidentally making his first appearance outside his series due to a delay. Back then, he started off as a direct clone of Marth, except with a flaming sword. After being absent since his debut in Melee, he returns as DLC for 3DS/Wii U with a slightly different set of skills.

As is currently the case, Roy still plays a lot like Marth, but with the inverse of Marth's tipper mechanic; the titular Binding Blade does more damage the closer he is to an opponent. As a result, Roy is more tailored to getting up close for attacks. His offensive capabilities have also been greatly buffed while Roy retains his previous iteration's speed, overall making him a rushdown type of character that plays differently enough from Marth to not be considered an Echo Fighter.

Special Moves^{Click to show}

See Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade - Playable Characters for more information on the character in his origin series.

11th-Hour Ranger: In Ultimate, he's one of the last four characters to join you in the World of Light adventure, being found in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
Adaptational Badass: In his own game, he was a scared teenager forced into war at worst, and Marth with red hair at best, and he's widely considered one of the least powerful Lords in the franchise. Here, he's much more a Fiery Redhead than that would suggest, and, after his rework, he's one of the biggest Gorillas of all the Fire Emblem characters.
Adaptation Dye-Job: In his own game, Roy's hair is red-orange, but in Melee, it is a dark auburn color instead. The later Smash games do give him a similar hair color from his appearances from Awakening and Heroes.
Adaptation Personality Change: Roy's quotes aren't that off from what he would actually say in canon, but he seemingly acts oddly Hot-Blooded in battle, which some Japanese fans were quick to note. This could possibly be why the fandom often turns him into something more resembling an inversion of his canon self, a mistake even Sakurai himself made during Melee's development due to Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade not having been released at the time. Roy still shows some of these hotblooded traits in 3DS/Wii U since Sakurai decided to roll with it, but it's a little more subdued.
Ascended Meme: In the time leading to his return, Roy was essentially known as the guy who had his identity stolen by a turtle. In both his reveal trailer and his profile pictures, he's shown to be quite hostile towards Roy Koopa, and later material such as a Challenge reward and his Classic Mode ending in Ultimate continue to play with their relationship.
Art Evolution: The jump from Melee to 3DS/Wii U brought some changes to his design inspired by his appearance in Fire Emblem: Awakening, including smaller eyes, his shirt, cape, and gloves directly, and the general style of his boots.
Awesome, but Impractical: Roy's neutral special move, Flare Blade, is both played straight and averted, depending on the game:
- In Melee, while it boasts a monstrous 50 damage at maximum charge as well as being a potential One-Hit KO, the charge-up takes a ridiculously long time to max out, and the attack happens almost immediately after maxing out, making waiting for the opponent to get in position not an option (and this is providing said target doesn't just belt you during the charge).
- While a lot of this holds true in 3DS/Wii U, the move was buffed in numerous ways. Lower charges kill earlier, making it even better for edgeguarding, but the move is also nearly lag-less, allowing skilled Roys to use the move as bait and countering opponents who think they can punish it.
Battle Intro: Warps in using warp magic, then pulls his sword from the ground.
Bilingual Bonus: In Melee and 3DS/Wii U, Roy was left un-dubbed internationally. Averted in Ultimate, which gave him the voice codified by Fire Emblem Heroes.
Breakout Character: In two different fashions, no less.
- In development, Roy and his fellow Fire Emblem fighter Marth were almost cut from the non-Japanese versions of Melee, under the belief that Western players would not recognize or appreciate them, as there had never been a Fire Emblem game in English. Playtesters convinced the developers to leave them in due to their unique designs and movesets that appealed to players anyway regardless of whether their origins were known. In doing so, the two of them gained such renown that their popularity was a direct factor in Nintendo's decision to localize future Fire Emblem titles, leading to an explosive worldwide growth of popularity for the series.
- However, The Binding Blade, Roy's game, was never released overseas itself, and even among those who have played it, the game is generally cited as one of the weakest in the series, and Roy himself is considered one of the weakest Lords in the entire franchise^note. Nonetheless, Smash has made Roy extremely popular for reasons even beyond drawing worldwide attention to Fire Emblem. He frequently rates highly in Melee popularity contests, and popular demand was cited to be why he came back for 3DS/Wii U. Many people even play The Binding Blade just to learn more about Roy himself.
The Bus Came Back: After missing Brawl, he returns as DLC in 3DS/Wii U.
The Cameo: Marth has a palette swap based on him in 3DS/Wii U, minus the red hair. This became not so much of a cameo after returning as DLC.
Characterization Marches On: Since Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade was developed concurrently with Melee Sakurai only had his visual design on which to base his characterization, which led Sakurai to make Roy a Hot-Blooded Fiery Redhead to contrast him with Marth. Sakurai later observed that Roy's character ended up being very similar to Marth's.
Charged Attack: Flare Blade, similar to Marth's Shield Breaker. Fully charged, it is a One-Hit KO, deals recoil damage, and causes an explosion. It retains its old design in 3DS/Wii U as a vertical slash, unlike Marth's, which was changed to a lunging stab.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Cut after Melee. However, he returns as DLC in 3DS/Wii U.
Close-Range Combatant: Same as most of the other Fire Emblem sword wielders. Roy however is a special case in that damage and knockback are at their highest at the base of his sword, requiring players to really get in the face of their opponent.
Cool Sword: He wields the Binding Blade, a legendary weapon that can generate fire for certain attacks.
Counter-Attack: Like Marth, he also has Counter, but unlike Marth, Roy's has always had a multiplier based on the strength of the attack he's countering (1.5x in Melee, 1.35x afterwards), and the multiplier ended up becoming the basis for most other counters in the roster. Additionally, in his trailer for 3DS/Wii U, there's a quick gag wherein Roy counters Ike countering Marth countering Robin.
Death or Glory Attack: His Flare Blade takes a long time to charge up and leaves Roy wide open. However, it's a One-Hit Kill when hit at full charge, and it's still a very strong move before reaching full charge. It's easy to stop, but it's still on your best interests to not be on the receiving end.
Decomposite Character: While Roy was cut after Melee, different assets of his would be given to Fire Emblem characters in later games before he himself returned as DLC for 3DS/Wii U; Ike was given a move mechanically similar to his neutral special move, while Lucina inherited his status as a Moveset Clone of Marth, to the point that she's an Echo Fighter and he's not come Ultimate.
Demoted to Extra: While the others were reduced to trophies, he was nothing more than a sticker and unused playable data in Brawl, and all there was for him in the initial release of 3DS/Wii U was a Marth costume based on him. He returns in his full glory as DLC, however.
Divergent Character Evolution: Applied to some extent in 3DS/Wii U. For instance, his Flare Blade remains a vertical slash like in Melee while Marth's Shield Breaker has been a thrust since Brawl. Most of his normal attacks were given unique animations as well, converting him into a semi-clone of Marth. In Ultimate, they become even more different in the way they can rotate their Neutral B: Marth can angle it while Roy can turn it around.
Dub Name Change: Not Roy himself, but his sword and original game were originally referred to as the Sword of Seals in Melee. By Brawl, they began calling the game "The Binding Blade," but confusingly continued to refer to the sword itself as the Sword of Seals in trophies, until Palutena's Guidance in Ultimate began calling it the Binding Blade.
Early-Bird Cameo: His home game The Binding Blade came out after his debut in Melee.
Elemental Weapon: The Binding Blade can wreathe itself in fire when Roy uses it to attack.
Flaming Sword: His Binding Blade can power itself up with fire to deliver more devastating blows than normal. This is true for all of his special attacks and, from Ultimate onward, his down air attack.
Force and Finesse: From 3DS/Wii U onward, he is the Force to Marth's Finesse. Marth's attacks are more graceful due to wielding his Falchion (a longsword) with one hand; by contrast, Roy often uses both hands or wields in Reverse Grip his Binding Blade (which looks close to a broadsword).
Fragile Speedster: In Melee. Despite the common casual perception that Roy is a Mighty Glacier, he is a Fragile Speedster in actual practice; Roy possesses fast dashing speed, with the fourth-fastest falling speed in the game, which gives him rather impressive mobility and attack speed despite the high ending lag of his attacks. However, he takes hits very badly, as his falling speed makes him combo bait, while not being extreme enough to give him exceptional vertical endurance like the spacies, and he is very light with arguably the worst recovery in the game, leading to him dying extremely early to horizontal hits.
Grandfather Clause: Just like Marth, Roy speaks Japanese despite both his cameo at the end of Blazing Sword (the first international Fire Emblem title) and his DLC appearance in Fire Emblem: Awakening being released in the West. His reveal trailer has his Japanese dialogue subtitled, while Lucina and Robin were properly given their English battle voice clips in the same trailer. In Ultimate, he finally speaks English.
Heroic Build: Not quite to the same degree as Ike, but his Art Evolution made him considerably beefier and manlier than he was both in Melee and his original game.
He's All Grown Up: Roy was one of the youngest Lords in his home series at fifteen years old, which is reflected in his Melee appearance, where he has noticeably lanky teenager proportions compared to Marth and most of the other human characters. His redesign from 3DS/Wii U, however, appears older (he's now taller than Marth). That said, Ultimate indicates that he's still supposed to be fifteen.
Home Stage:
- Melee: Due to a lack of stages from his series, he receives Temple in his unlock fight and All-Star Match event, and Final Destination in All-Star Mode
- 3DS/Wii U: All stages from his series.^note
- Ultimate: Castle Siege.
Idle Animation:
- He pumps his fist in front of his head.
- He traces the surface of the Binding Blade with his fingers.
Impossibly Cool Clothes: In 3DS/Wii U, as a result of combining his original armor with his Mercenary armor from Fire Emblem: Awakening.
Kid-Appeal Character: In Melee, Roy's spiky red hair, flaming sword, and Hot-Blooded vocals made him an instantly popular choice among younger players of the game, especially compared to the more feminine and graceful Marth.
Kid Hero: He's 15, hence his title, "The Young Lion".
Lightning Bruiser: In 3DS/Wii U, where Roy falls even faster relative to the cast, his walking/dashing speed were farther improved, his recovery and weight was significantly improved, and a number of his formerly lackluster moves hit drastically harder, giving him a much wider range in kill moves than he had in Melee. He was still a rather lackluster character though, given his general lack of safety, his sword sweetspot still not being strong enough to make up for the still very weak sourspot in its outer half, and the game's engine limiting his combo potential. Ultimate however would ramp up Roy's bruiser qualitities farther by making his moves' sweetspot hit even harder, make his moves a lot safer, and the universal changes to Ultimate significantly benefitted his combo and general advantage potential, making him finally the good character that countless casuals perceived him to be back in Melee.
Leitmotif:
- In Melee, it's Fire Emblem, a medley of the recruitment theme and main Fire Emblem theme which he shares with Marth.
- In 3DS/Wii U, Winning Road - Roy's Hope, (the only theme from his own game) plays when he first appears in his reveal trailer. Attack, his father's battle theme, is also prominently featured.
- In Ultimate, it's Beyond the Distant Skies, his theme from his home game.
Limit Break: Critical Hit, a powerful sword strike. Unlike Marth's and Lucina's, Roy's starts slow with a damaging fiery blade behind him before swinging his sword forward powerfully. As a tradeoff for not being a One-Hit Kill like Marth's and Lucina's, it's much easier to hit targets with it, and it's impossible to accidentally self-destruct with it.
Meteor Move: A sweetspotted down aerial (though it's just about unusable in Melee), and the third hit of his Double Edge Dance aimed upwards in Melee.
Moveset Clone: Played straight in Melee where only a few of his and Marth's moves had slight differences, such as Flare Blade having a longer charge time than Shield Breaker, and Blazer being slower than Dolphin Slash. The biggest difference between them was that all of his attacks hit harder at the base of his sword, rather than at the tip. Later, after not returning in Brawl, he finally returned as DLC in 3DS/Wii U and was (like most of the Melee clones) subjected to Divergent Character Evolution and ascended to semiclone status, making him different enough that he is not considered an Echo Fighter in Ultimate. Hilariously enough, Roy would get his own Moveset Clone in the form of Chrom in Ultimate.
Mythology Gag:
- Like Mewtwo, Roy's render in 3DS/Wii U is reminiscent to his pose◊ in Melee, but updated to the current graphical style.
- His version of the "Critical Hit" Final Smash starts with Roy performing his actual Critical Hit animation with the Binding Blade from his home game as well. Enemies directly behind him will be dragged into the attack by his swipe as well, making it a little harder to avoid than Marth or Lucina's in some cases.
- His reveal trailer shows him fighting Captain Falcon together with Lyn, one of his possible canon mothers. His trailer for Ultimate has the same effect except he's fighting against Kirby.
- Similar to Lucina, Roy's palette swaps include the color schemes of some other characters from the world he hails from (in his case, Elibe); namely Alen, Lance, Marcus, Eliwood, Perceval, Cecilia, and Bors.
- His boxing ring title is his post game Red Baron title from his home series.
- The symbol on his cape◊ in 3DS/Wii U onward is Elibe's Fire Emblem◊ seen briefly during the intro of The Binding Blade.
Pretty Boy: Not quite there with Marth, but Roy's still a pretty handsome young guy. It's played with from 3DS/Wii U onward, as Roy now has quite the Heroic Build and sharper face, but otherwise retains his handsome appearance from Melee.
One-Steve Limit: Averted. Not to be confused with Roy Koopa, who appears in 3DS/Wii U as an alternate of Bowser Jr., alongside the other Koopalings. Things got even weirder when he was brought back as DLC in 3DS/Wii U, making it the first time in Smash Bros. history where two playable characters share the same name. Lampshaded in his reveal trailer, where one of the first things he does is knock out the other Roy. The announcer does have different clips when announcing each of them, with the one for Fire Emblem Roy said in a heroic tone, and the one for Roy Koopa in a more villainous one.
Playing with Fire: The Binding Blade produces fire when swung.
Red Oni: To Marth's blue, see Adaptation Personality Change above.
Reverse Grip: Some of his moves in 3DS/Wii U, such as his Blazer, have new animations that feature him swinging his sword this way. This is also reflected in his character portrait for Ultimate, as seen above.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Heir to the throne of Pherae, and a swordfighter who's not afraid to get his hands dirty.
Secret Character:
- In Melee: Clear Classic Mode or Adventure Mode with Marth without continuing, or fight in 900 VS. Battles.
- In Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 4 hours and 40 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Mario or anyone in his unlock tree six times, or find and defeat him in World of Light.
Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Since 3DS/Wii U, he has been usually portrayed as one to Roy Koopa, due to them sharing the same name.
Stealth Pun: "Seals the Deal". To those not in the know, one of his sword's names before Ultimate was the Sword of Seals.
Suddenly Voiced: Or rather, Suddenly Voiced in English, starting in Ultimate, while he only spoke Japanese in Melee and 3DS/Wii U, along with Marth.
Sword Plant: His stage entrance animation has him drawing his sword from where it had been planted in the ground, presumably from wherever he was warping in.
Younger Than They Look: Cast your eyes back up at that picture of his Ultimate design and remember he's supposed to be fifteen. Even Pit expresses surprise at this during Palutena's Guidance. It should be noted, however, that his Melee design averts this trope, as he looks like a lanky teenager.

26 – Mr. Game & Watch

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

Master of Two Dimensions

^{3DS/Wii U}

^Brawl

^Melee

Home Series: Game & Watch

Debut: Ball [Game & Watch], 1980

Creator: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Playable in: Melee, Brawl, 3DS/Wii U, Ultimate

The epitome of old school, Mr. Game & Watch is not a distinct previously-existing character, but rather a conglomeration of various different characters that appeared in the myriad Game & Watch games. Still, he can be considered the first successful digital character in Nintendo history, predating even Mario. He's even older than Pac-Man, making him the oldest video game character in the entire roster.

This 8-bit relic is definitely more than he initially appears; despite being rather light, he maintains a wide range of fast offensive options based on the many games he takes inspiration from. From keeping opponents at bay with sausages, to biting foes with turtles, to even resorting to basic RNG with his Judge attack, there's no shortage to what Mr. Game & Watch is capable of.

Special Moves^{Click to show}

Adaptational Badass: The characters in the Game & Watch games were usually normal people put into various situations. In Smash, Mr. Game & Watch is depicted as a Humanoid Abomination of sorts that pulls various items out of nowhere to fight with.
Art Evolution: In 3DS/Wii U, he was redrawn to generally be less rigid, with new, quirkier animations more closely matching the original LCD cels. Ultimate has Mr. Game & Watch completely change his appearance in some of his attacks to more accurately resemble the game the attack came from.
The Artifact: His battle portrait in Ultimate is of him doing his "Flagman" pose in his base form, which is now impossible to do ingame due to his animations being updated to match their origin games.
Bait-and-Switch: Many new players will be wondering who he could be and what he could look like when they get his Challenger Approaching screen...only to realize that he is a silhouette!
Battle Intro: Moves along a group of Game & Watch LCD frames from the background to the battleground. The colors of these frames didn't match the alternate colors of Mr. Game & Watch until 3DS/Wii U.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: In the Subspace Emissary, Game & Watch has no concept of right or wrong. He defects to the heroes' side just because Peach gave him her parasol.
Bowdlerize:
- In Ultimate, his animations have been changed to look more closely like the actual Game & Watch games they are representing. His forward smash, however, is slightly changed from the original "Fire Attack," removing the feather on his head. The feather was in pre-release builds, but this was changed due to complaints about it being a Native American stereotype from a 38-year-old game. Incidentally, by doing so, it became a reference to the Game & Watch Gallery 4 rerelease of "Fire Attack" 22 years later which had also removed the feather out of cultural sensitivity.
- In Brawl, his down taunt looked like he was Flipping the Bird, so it was changed in Smash 4.
Canon Immigrant: The concept of Mr. Game and Watch being his own character was incorporated into the final Game & Watch Gallery game, where he presents the unlockable rewards alongside Mario in his only speaking role.
Cartoon Bomb: His new forward air in Ultimate has him drop one of these.
Combat Tentacles: His main form of attack during his Final Smash, during which he transforms into a giant version of the titular character from Octopus and floats around the stage to whack opponents with his tentacles. Ultimate changes the attack to a simple charge forward as the Octopus and grabs anyone in the tentacles' path to drag them past the blast lines.
Composite Character: The Game & Watch characters did not have consistent appearances nor were they confirmed to be the same characters every time, so Mr. Game & Watch functions as an amalgamation of many Game & Watch elements. His character model is mostly based on the falling civilians in "Fire", but his moves come from many other Game & Watch games. Ultimate takes this further by having him completely transform into the characters from their respective games: eyes, mouth, and all.
Catching Some Z's: If put to sleep, Mr. Game & Watch will have Zs flashing above his head.
Confusion Fu: His animations don't telegraph a lot of his attacks. Additionally, his "Judge" attack has random power, knockback, and sometimes other effects, based on a scale of one to nine. One is practically Scratch Damage, while nine is a One-Hit KO under normal circumstances. On top of all that, the food items launched from his frying pan when he uses his Chef special have erratic flight patterns.
Death or Glory Attack: Extreme Judge makes all of his Judge attacks either 1s (which do little damage and damage self) or 9s (One-Hit KO).
Energy Absorption: He can absorb energy attacks with his Oil Panic special - if he absorbs three, he then can use it as an attack that does the damage of the three absorbed attacks combined. In terms of raw percentage, this potentially can be the most powerful attack in the game that is not a counter or a final smash. ^note
Eyeless Face: A rare, non-creepy example, which comes justified as he completely lacks other features. In Ultimate, some of his animations do give him eyes to match their original appearances.
Fighting Clown: Smacking people with whatever you can get your hands on is passable, but it crosses into ridiculous extremes when you can weaponize stuff like juggling, turtles, fishbowls and food flipped out of a frying pan.
Final Boss: Melee's All-Star Mode concludes with a throwdown against 25 Mr. Game & Watches, and his unlock method always made him the last to be revealed no matter what, requiring all 24 of the other characters.
Flat Characterinvoked: Pun notwithstanding, given that he's a character pulled from a series of simplistic LCD handhelds, he doesn't have much of a personality. The little he gets in Brawl's cinematics labels him as a True Neutral at best.
- Ultimate slightly downplays this by giving him far more expressive sprites. If the many smiling or energetic forms he takes in these attacks are to be believed, he seems to enjoy fighting, or at least takes it seriously.
Glass Cannon: He is one of the lightest characters in the entire series, beaten only by Pichu in Melee, Jigglypuff in Brawl, Jigglypuff and Mewtwo in 3DS/Wii U and Jigglypuff and Pichu in Ultimate; but has powerful aerials, some of the strongest smash attacks, and two special moves that can potentially KO someone at 0%. And due to a developer oversight in Melee, he's the only character that is unable to fully use L-Canceling, which is one of the most important techniques in the meta.
Hammerspace: Where he gets his "weapons" from.
Heal Thy Self: Judge 7 produces apples, which heal him when picked up. Ultimate has three of them dropped.
Hitbox Dissonance: When he's ducking, he is near impossible to hit or grab. There's a lot of things that look like they should hit him, but don't.
Home Stage:
- Melee: Flat Zone.
- Brawl: Flat Zone 2.
- 3DS/Wii U: Flat Zone 2 in 3DS, Flat Zone X in Wii U.
- Ultimate: Flat Zone X.
Humanoid Abomination: It is suggested that he is composed of some primordial substance that can be created to make anything—for this reason, his body was used to create the Subspace Army. He is a 2-dimensional character in a 3-D world. He doesn't move like other characters do, instead jerkily twitching from one sprite to another. He has no understanding of good or evil, which is why he helped produce the Subspace Army and why he betrayed them to join the heroes.
An Ice Person: Judge 8 freezes those it hits solid.
Idle Animation:
- He jumps in place.
- He looks behind himself.
Improbable Weapon User: He can smash people up using a fish bowl, a racing flag, and a turtle. Just to name a few.
Leitmotif: Flat Zone in Melee, updated to Flat Zone 2 as of Brawl and used ever since.
Lethal Joke Character: Sort of. Continuing the tradition of Jigglypuff in 64, the most difficult character to unlock is... who knows? However, underestimating whatever he is will prove an undoing, for as he is equipped to the brim with unusual weapons.
Limit Break: Turns into the Octopus from the Game & Watch game of the same name. Mostly attacks by extending his tentacles. Ultimate changes the attack into a powerful charging strike, not unlike Ganondorf's Final Smash.
Limited Animation: A signature trait of the character is his extremely choppy animations, acting as a nod to the LCD movement of the original Game & Watches. Due to such, it can be tougher to telegraph his attacks compared to others; he doesn't fluidly attack like every other character, he simply "twitches" from one sprite to the next.
Meteor Move: His down aerial knocks opponents downward with the initial hit.
Monster Progenitor: Tabuu uses an unknown substance Game & Watch produces to create the endless Shadow Bugs that make up Tabuu's Subspace Army.
Nerf: Between Brawl and 3DS/Wii U. The ability to cancel momentum by using Oil Panic is gone, his range and damage have been severely reduced, and Oil Panic got another damage cap reduction. While he is still very competent in that he has much more mobility now and some of his weaker moves have been made useful, Brawl players might find him difficult to readjust to.
Non-Standard Character Design: He's the only character to be rendered flat on stages where every other character is fully rendered in 3D.
One-Hit KO:
- If you get a "9" when using Judge, it will result in one of these even at ridiculously low percentages. For reference, in Brawl, it will succeed on the heaviest targets if they have at least 13% damage.
- Oil Panic as well which can KO you at 0%. Be careful not to use energy-based attacks at him or especially explosives as your day will go sour.
One-Winged Angel: His Final Smash turns him into a giant octopus.
Painted CGI: Despite appearances, Game & Watch is not a sprite. He is a 3D model that is completely flattened on its Z-axis, has a prominent outline, and is mostly unaffected by lighting. Combined with his deliberately primitive animations (being around one frame per second), it looks identical to a sprite from his own games.
Paper People: Referencing his LCD cell origins, he's completely flat.
Random Effect Spell: His side special move, Judge, has one of 9 outcomes based on whatever number displays when used:
- 1 does 2% damage and inflicts no hitstun while also hurting Game & Watch for 12%. It also plays the Koopa shell "bloop" noise.
- 2 does 4% with a tiny amount of knockback. Starting with Brawl, it also has a 20% chance of making the opponent trip.
- 3 does 6% and launches the enemy in the direction of Game & Watch. It also does significant damage to shields and plays the Fan item's slap sound on hit, befitting a fellow Armor-Piercing Attack.
- 4 does 8% with a slash effect and launches the opponent diagonally upwards.
- 5 does 4 electrical hits that chain into each other and do 3% each.
- 6 does 12% with a fire effect and launches at a semispike angle.
- 7 does 14% and drops a healing item if an enemy is hit. This item is random in Melee, but was changed to always be an apple in Brawl and For 3DS/Wii U, and three apples in Ultimate.
- 8 does 4% (in Melee) and 9% (in following games) and freezes the opponent while also launching them upward with set knockback.
- 9 does 32% with massive knockback and plays the same "PING" noise as the Home-Run Bat (plus the bell noise from his taunts, starting with Brawl).
Reference Overdosed: Just about every one of his animations is taken from a specific Game & Watch game. This video covers all the animations in Brawl.
Ret-Canon: His Melee design was officially used in Game & Watch Gallery 4, released a year after Melee.
Retraux: He is designed to resemble the extremely choppy animations of the old LCD Game & Watch units.
The Savage Indian: His forward smash attack, Fire Attack, has Game & Watch attacking with a torch. Like all of his other attacks, Ultimate redesigned its appearance to more closely resemble the game it's referencing, resulting in it originally having a Native American feather, but this was later removed due to its racist implications.
Secret Character: You have to unlock him in Melee, Brawl, 3DS/Wii U, and Ultimate. Much like Falco, he's unlockable in every game he's appeared in. He becomes playable after the following conditions are met:
- For Melee: Beat Classic Mode, Adventure Mode, or Target Test with all other characters; or fight in 1,000 VS. Battles.
- For Brawl: Have him join you in The Subspace Emissary by clearing "Battleship Halberd Bridge", beat Target Test with 30 characters on any difficulty, or fight in 250 brawls.
- For 3DS: Beat Classic Mode with 10 different characters or play 90 matches in Smash.
- For Wii U: Beat Classic Mode with 5 different characters or play 80 matches in Smash.
- For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 8 hours and 30 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Pikachu or anyone in his unlock tree six times, or find and defeat him in World of Light.
Self-Damaging Attack Backfire: The worst outcome of his Judge attack not only inflicts pitiful Scratch Damage, but also hurts Mr. Game & Watch himself for 12%.
Spam Attack: Uses Stanley the Bugman's gas sprayer from Donkey Kong 3 as his standard A attack.
Tentacled Terror: Turns into a giant LCD octopus for his Final Smash.
Unexpected Character: Invoked; Sakurai added Mr. Game & Watch to Smash because he thought such a character would be outside most people's expectations.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: His moveset references and conjures objects from various Game & Watch games, and for his Final Smash, he turns into the titular Octopus. Ultimate takes the idea to its logical extreme and has him transform into the game sprite for many of his moves, instead of imitating their animations in his base form.
Wall of Weapons: Or rather, Random Objects. All attacks but his Final Smash involve an object of some kind, including a chair (side tilt), flags, (up tilt), a manhole (down tilt), a diver's helmet (up smash), hammers (down smash), and fish leaping out of a fishbowl (neutral aerial from Brawl onward).
Warm-Up Boss: He's faced first in Brawl's All-Star Mode, thanks to characters going by chronological order of their series. A combination of his lightness (which All-Star mode amplifies), the smallness of his stage, and the fact that he appears alone make this a very easy first encounter.
Wolfpack Boss: His fight in Melee's All-Star mode is a battle against 25 of him, with all of them being much easier to launch.

Characters / Super Smash Bros. Melee - 23 to 26
aka: Super Smash Bros Ganondorf

Voiced by: Takashi Nagasako (Melee, Ultimate), Hironori Miyata (Brawl, 3DS/Wii U)

Voiced by: Masachika Ichimura (Melee), Keiji Fujiwara (3DS/Wii U, Ultimate)

Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (Japanese), Ray Chase (English, Ultimate)

Alternative Title(s): Super Smash Bros Ganondorf

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Characters / Super Smash Bros. Melee - 23 to 26 aka: Super Smash Bros Ganondorf

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Voiced by: Takashi Nagasako (Melee, Ultimate), Hironori Miyata (Brawl, 3DS/Wii U)

Voiced by: Masachika Ichimura (Melee), Keiji Fujiwara (3DS/Wii U, Ultimate)

Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (Japanese), Ray Chase (English, Ultimate)

Alternative Title(s): Super Smash Bros Ganondorf

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Characters / Super Smash Bros. Melee - 23 to 26
aka: Super Smash Bros Ganondorf