Super Smash Bros Ultimate / Tropes P to Z

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Tropes A-B HERE!

Tropes C-F HERE!

Tropes G-O HERE!

Tropes P-Z HERE!

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P

• Palette Swap: Every character is given 8 slots for alternative appearances. Most of them are simple recolors, while others are more elaborate alternate costumes^note Most of which have their own distinct Fighter Spirit from the default appearance, including different genders for characters that have them (like the Inklings, the Pokémon Trainer, and the Fire Emblem Avatars), and even entirely separate characters like Alph and the Koopalings.
• Patchwork Map: The World of Light map can only be described as a mishmash of random Nintendo elements and videogame settings woven together. You have your jungle right next to a military base and a foggy forest that happens to have a power plant in it, just as an example. The most baffling thing, however, is the retro Cyberspace maze found to the east of the map, in-between a beach town and a mountain settlement.
• Permanently Missable Content: A late-game region of Adventure Mode, the Mysterious Dimension, blocks the player with quiz questions that describe a particular Spirit. If you choose and defeat the right Spirit on the first try, a treasure chest will appear on the route forward. Answer a question wrong and its treasure will never appear... at least not within the same Adventure file. Downplayed in that the chests only contain caches of Spirit Points and snacks, which are easy enough to acquire anyway, and are not required for 100% completion.
• Personal Hate Before Common Goals: Galeem and Dharkon, the two Eldritch Abominations that have taken over the world and threaten to destroy it, are ultimately possible to defeat only because they hate each other's guts. The last segment of World of Light requires the player to systematically take down their last remaining puppets, making sure never to tip the balance far enough that one of them can overwhelm the other and move on to the rest of the world. Only after all that will the two team up to fight the player together, and even then, they're not Friendly Fireproof, and in fact, if one gets stunned, the other will actively attack them.
• Pirates vs. Ninjas: Ridley and King K. Rool (the former a Space Pirate, the latter having appeared as "Kaptain K. Rool" in Diddy's Kong Quest), who can fight against Greninja and the ninja-esque Sheik.
• Platform-Activated Ability:
  • One of the moves Banjo and Kazooie can perform references the use of Shock Spring Pads to jump higher, being effectively how they use their signature Up + B Smash attack. The pad gives them an extra boost for the jump (and it's more effective the longer the move is charged), and the pad can also cause a small amount of damage to anyone placed below it as it falls down. A clever player can even use the pad to gimp an opponent who tries to prevent falling on a pit.
  • In the Spring Stadium stage, there are orange-colored platforms with arrow signs at the edges and one hovering in the center. By default, these platforms don't do anything and nothing special can be done while standing on them; but from time to time, they'll be powered up by the stage and colored green while shimmering. If a character jumps while standing on the platforms during this state, they'll gain a boost that not only makes them jump higher but also imbue them with a tackle that causes damage to any opponent who touches them during the jump. If that opponent already took too much prior damage, they can be potentially KO'ed with the jumping character's tackle.
• Play as a Boss: Near the end of the "World of Light" mode, the player gets to control Master Hand while fighting off waves of Puppet Fighters.
• Poison Mushroom: In addition to the returning Trope Namer, Ultimate introduces the Fake Smash Ball, which releases a devastating explosion when it's broken. Compared to a real Smash Ball, the Fake Smash Ball has a thicker horizontal line and a thinner vertical line.
• Pop Quiz: The primary gimmick of the Mysterious Dimension in the Dark Realm is asking the player questions like "Which spirit is the King of Twilight?" or "Which of these is Chrom's little sister?" Fighting the right spirit will allow you to proceed through the map. There are additional questions that don't lead to the boss but to other fighters.
• Post-Final Boss: A few characters' Classic Mode routes have them facing the big boss monster with a HP bar as the penultimate fight, before the Final Round with a normal Smash character. In particular, Bowser fights Rathalos in Round 6 and Mario, later Metal Mario in the Final Round, and Mega Man fights Galleom in Round 6 and Dr. Mario, then Mewtwo (representing the final battle of Mega Man 2) in the Final Round.
• Power at a Price: A certain type of Spirit Ability forces you to start at 30% damage, but gives you permanent stat bonuses. However, if you play as Lucario, you can utilize that 30% as extra starting power as well.
• Power Creep, Power Seep:
  • It comes from the first two newcomers to the game. On one hand, you have the Inklings, humanoid squid kids who in their home series only fight with weapons that shoot ink in what basically amounts to a professional sport. The other one is Ridley, Samus' nemesis, a feared space pirate who also happens to be a huge space dragon/pterodactyl hybrid that can shrug off dozens of missiles to the face. He still can be beaten by the aforementioned squid kids. Additionally, one of the first Echo Fighters revealed was Dark Samus, who loses most of the crazy Phazon-powered tricks she demonstrated in her home series and instead ends up with the usual array of lasers and missiles that Samus favors.
  • Simon Belmont and Isabelle. The former is a vampire slayer who regularly hunts and kills world-ending entities, has fought against and defeated Dracula himself, and fights using a chain whip, holy water, an axe, and a cross while his Final Smash is a Holy Hand Grenade. The latter is an adorable, clumsy anthropomorphic dog who comes from a peaceful and non-confrontational series, in her home games is just a secretary with no actual combat skills, while she "fights" using pom-poms, a flower pot, a fishing pole, a bucket of normal water, and her Final Smash is her commissioning a house that blows up. The vampire slayer can be beaten by the dog secretary without a problem, and both can be beaten by Piranha Plant, an ordinary Mook in its home series who doesn't have anything but a mouth full of sharp teeth, thorny leaves and its flower pot/pipe. Incidentally, in spite of Simon's arsenal, he received a boost of his own: his holy water, in his own games, could only be used on evil beings, but in Smash Bros., everyone is vulnerable to it, including paragons of good like Mario and Link, characters with animal-like intelligence and no sense of right or wrong like some Pokémon and Mr. Game & Watch, actual gods like Palutena and Rosalina, and even other Simons.
  • Ultimate made the former Joke Character Pichu into an Adaptational Badass, and outshines his evolved form Pikachu in certain categories. While he still hurts himself from his attacks, Pichu is more nimble, and his attacks have insane KO power for their weight. In the home games, and in all other media including Melee, Pikachu has far superior stats across the board as the bigger and better version that all Pichu aspire to be.
  • A variant occurs with the Spirits in Ultimate. They're divided into four power levels, Novice (1-Star), Advanced (2-Star), Ace (3-Star) and Legend (4-Star), and many don't quite correspond to the character's power level in their home series ^note How more well known the character is appears to be the more important deciding factor. For example, Julius, the Big Bad and Final Boss of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War is a powerful mage with Heroic Lineage possessed by a god... and he's a 1-Star. Sakura, a White Mage who can't fight until promotion, is a 3-Star. Pauline, a character with no fighting ability in her home series, is not only a 4-Star spirit, but possibly the most infamous That One Level of the single-player.
  • This can be felt even amongst Spirits of the same rank, depending on their power and skills. Hades and Medusa, both from Kid Icarus: Uprising, appear as 4-Star spirits. In their original game, Hades is Medusa's superior who revived her from a bunch of souls and killed her easily in the final battle, despite him having already taken plenty of damage. In Ultimate, not only Medusa has more spirit power, but her skill to turn the player giant when equipped is widely considered better than Hades's of turning the player into a Glass Cannon.
  • Even Dan Hibiki, the poster child for Joke Character, of all people, is victim of this. He's the weakest spirit in the game, a 1-Star with the lowest spirit power and giving the player 30% damage with no benefit. However, it is a fact that Dan can at least fight a bit. The 1-Star spirit that is 2nd place to him in terms of weakness is Alm & Celica... as children. When they were barely able to pick a weapon. And give no negative effects when equipped. They can also be Enhanced. Knowing Dan, however, this is likely intentional.
• Power Levels:
  • Global Smash Power returns from the previous game. As before, GSP is the measure of how many players you have outscored: a GSP rating of 5000, for example, means that you have a higher score than 4999 other players. GSP is used to determine matchmaking with other players in Quickplay.
  • "Team Power" is the level of strength a Spirit grants your character when equipped, and can be increased as they level up.
• Power Up Letdown:
  • Some particularly weak Spirits such as Buzz Buzz have the innate ability of starting you off at 30% damage with no benefits.
  • In past games, Mew, Jirachi, and Celebi dropped rare collectible items like trophies, stickers, and CDs, but otherwise did nothing. In Ultimate, Mew does nothing since none of these items exist, so as far as Poké Balls go it ultimately comes off as a bogus summon.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The Northern Cave stage adapts the elements of the ending of Final Fantasy VII, including the clash between the decending Meteor and Holy. However in the original game Meteor was on a collision course with Midgar, while Ultimate changes it to being outside of the Northern Cave.
• Pre-Final Boss: Happens at the end of certain character routes in Classic Mode. Mega Man faces Dr. Mario and then Mewtwo one right after the other. Pikachu and the Pokémon Trainer battle Mewtwo as well, but it is followed by Master Hand. And Hero faces Robin and then a giant Charizard immediately after.
• Press X to Die: One of the spells the Dragon Quest Hero can cast is Kamikazee. It is possible to cast this spell even if you're down to your last stock.
• Pretender Diss:
  • King K. Rool's reveal trailer opens with King Dedede pranking Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong into thinking the big croc is outside their house. Cue the actual King K. Rool smacking Dedede offscreen.
  • The November 2018 Smash Direct has Kirby use Stone to turn into a Thwomp and fall on Snake, only to then be on the receiving end of an actual Thwomp.
  • Banjo & Kazooie's entire opening in their reveal trailer throws back to the aforementioned trailer for King K. Rool; this time, the latter's relaxing with the Kongs, and the prankster is Duck Hunt, pretending to be the iconic bear and bird duo. Cue the actual Banjo & Kazooie falling out of the sky and landing on the dog and duck.
• Production Foreshadowing:
  • The Vampire Killer trailer featured Luigi using a new version of the Poltergust which could also fire plungers. Later, the 9/13/18 Nintendo Direct revealed Luigi's Mansion 3, which also features the same Poltergust model and the plunger ability.
  • The grappling hook that Joker uses in his up-special was later revealed to be a new game mechanic in Persona 5 Royal less than a week after his DLC launched.
• Prolonged Video Game Sequel:
  • World of Light, compared to the already extensive Subspace Emissary from Brawl. It's an utterly massive Smash/board game hybrid that can take hours to complete, but it allows you to unlock characters and Spirits along the way.
  • Ultimate is also noteworthy in that, while the base game has 69 characters, only a paltry eight are available upon first play. While a handful of characters are available immediately as paid DLC, the other 61 can only be unlocked through play, which isn't a speedy process. While this delighted some fans, others were chagrined that their favorite characters required quite a bit of grinding to unlock, even in the best-case scenario.
• Promoted to Playable:
  • This is the first time Ridley and Dark Samus have been playable under any circumstances, both for Smash (Ridley appeared as a trophy and briefly in the intro cutscene in Melee, as a boss in both his standard and Meta forms in Brawl, and as a boss-like stage hazard in the Wii U version of the fourth game; Dark Samus appeared as a trophy in Brawl and as an Assist Trophy in for 3DS/Wii U) and their own series (where they only appeared as bosses).
  • Both Chrom and Isabelle used to be NPCs, the former as part of Robin's Final Smash, the latter as an Assist Trophy, and both as eventual DLC Mii costumes as well. Both are now playable fighters.
  • Ultimate is also the first time a Piranha Plant is playable in any game.
  • If you are on the path to the Golden Ending in Adventure Mode, you get to take control of Master Hand for one fight.
  • ARMS, which only had Spirits, Mii Fighter costumes, and an Assist Trophy in the base game, later got a more explicit representation with a fully-playable character as Downloadable Content in the Fighters Pass Vol. 2 (and coming along with a dedicated stage, several music tracks and more Spirits). The chosen character in Min-Min, who was a spirit in the base game beforehand. This phenomenon was later repeated with Xenoblade Chronicles 2, thanks to the addition of Pyra and Mythra as a collective DLC character (both were present at first as Spirits in the base game).
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: Besides bringing back the characters that had gendered alternate forms in the previous game (Bowser Jr., the Villager, the Wii Fit Trainer, Robin, and Corrin), Ultimate adds female skin options to the returning characters Pikachu and the Pokémon Trainer, as well as the newcomers Inkling, Byleth, and Steve (defaulting to male, male, female, male, and male, respectively). In all cases, the gendered alts play exactly the same as the default avatars or characters.
• Purple Is the New Black: In Adventure Mode, Dharkon, Galeem's dark-themed counterpart, is mostly composed of black, purple, and magenta. His puppet fighters also have purple eyes with darker-colored scleras, in contrast to the red eyes associated with Galeem's. In the Final Battle map, his side of the background is mostly purple and black, while Galeem's is in a much bigger variety of light colors.

R

• Race Lift:
  • Villager's seventh and eighth costumes are now dark-skinned, based on the tanning mechanism from New Leaf. This was a late-development change, as they still had their pale skin from Smash 4 in the E3 demo and promotional videos.
  • Pokémon Trainer's fourth male and fourth female costumes both have light brown skin, reflecting one of the skin color options in the sixth and seventh generation games which their respective costumes are based on.
• Ramen Slurp: In Min Min's reveal trailer, Captain Falcon slurps his bowl of ramen to the point where it reaches an over-the-top level. Min Min herself also indulges in a bowl at the end of the trailer.
• Random Power Ranking: The star ranking Spirits have can seem rather arbitrary. Popular characters or ones who are known to be very powerful in their home canon can be classified as Aces or Legends as expected, but so can otherwise unknowns or muggles, and other popular figures (like Jill Valentine or the Fire Flower) are only Novice spirits. Which spirits are Primaries and which are Supports also seems to have no real pattern, as a number of generic mooks like Goombas and Slimes are Primary spirits whereas actual main characters and extremely powerful supporting cast members are relegated to Support status.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Donkey Kong's Final Smash is Jungle Rush, which makes him deliver a torrent of punches like in Jungle Beat. Little Mac's Final Smash (Giga Mac Rush) deos the same thing.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Dharkon's color scheme is this trope combined with Purple Is the New Black, and he is one of the most dangerous villains in the Smash franchise.
• Redemption Demotion: Some spirits grant different abilities when equipped than they employ during their spirit battles. For instance, equipping Mermaid increases the power of Water and Ice attacks, which can be disappointing to anyone expecting her to gradually heal damage like during her battle.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Incineroar and Greninja team up during some of Incineroar's Classic Mode stages, and they're as spot-on an example for this trope as you can get. The former's a red-furred pro wrestling tiger who loves to showboat with strong, hard-hitting moves and the latter's a blue-skinned ninja frog with a cool head who favors quick and sneaky attacks.
• Reflective Eyes: Used in the reveal trailer for the game, where a flaming Smash logo is reflecting in the Inkling girl's eyes.
• Replay Mode: One of the new things added in Version 8.0.0 is an option in Collection to replay the Spirit Battle for any spirits you've collected, with a new system for Scoring Points in place that scores you based on how much easier you made the battle for yourself, reducing it in various ways based on whether you used Spirits, Styles, Spirit Board Items, and such (every fight has a maximum possible score which is equal to the Spirit's power times 100, which is earned for winning with no spirits or Board items). This additionally allows you to replay battles that are exclusive to World of Light, such as Geno, Yuga, Landia, and M. Bison, without needing to play through a file to reach them again.
• Resting Recovery: The Healing Field item creates a small area that heals anyone standing inside of it.
• Retraux
  • Stages originating from the first game are designed to look like they were ripped straight from a Nintendo 64 with some minor touch-ups. This includes using sprites for some map features and retaining the somewhat blocky stage geometry.
  • Terry's reveal trailer sources animation from several Neo Geo games, depicting spritework of various SNK characters trying and failing to grab the Smash invitation until Terry finally picks it up. It only switches to something modern for the ending when the camera zooms in on Terry striking a pose, with him switching from his sprite form to his Smash model.
  • The new remix of "Tiger! Tiger!" sounds like something straight out of a retro arcade game like Gradius or TwinBee.
• Ring Menu: The game added the ability to select Shulk's Monado Arts through a ring menu by holding the special button, though the old method of repeatedly tapping the button to cycle through Arts is still available.
• Rise to the Challenge: The first leg of the True Final Boss battle is a vertical autoscrolling platformer that constantly scrolls upward. A certain Challenge requires you to clear this segment as Ganondorf without being KO'd.
• Role-Reversal Boss: World of Light contains a segment where you play as Master Hand, the most prominent recurring boss in the series.
• RPG Elements:
  • You can equip Spirits that level up as you fight and can even evolve into stronger spirits. You can also equip support Spirits to give you support abilities similar to equipping a customizable weapon or armor.
  • There's a skill tree in Adventure Mode that lets you boost the power of your attacks and provide other benefits.
  • The Hero has gameplay elements borrowed from his home series. His special attacks are reliant on a Mana Meter and won't work if he lacks MP (which, thankfully, he can recover from landing normal attacks), and one of his specials pulls up a menu with a selection of powerful spells, similar to the RPGs' turn-based battles.
• Running Gag:
  • During online announcements, Sakurai frequently states that he's about to talk about a new fighter... except it's one you've recently learned about, like the Inkling or Richter.
  • Nearly every character reveal trailer has someone getting killed, or at the very least injured:
    • In Ridley's reveal trailer, Ridley impales Mega Man on his tail and crushes Mario's head in his hands.
    • Simon and Richter's trailer has Luigi getting sliced by Death's scythe.
    • In King K. Rool's trailer, he swipes King Dedede away.
    • In Ken and Incineroar's trailer, the former combos Little Mac and sends him crashing into the Boxing Ring's monitor. Later, Incineroar does the same thing to Ken.
    • Hero's reveal trailer has Link getting beaten up by Dharkon possessed clones of Meta Knight and Marth, only for the Luminary to launch the two away. Likewise, the Luminary is launched away in turn by Snake, Robin and Ganondorf.
    • Banjo & Kazooie's trailer has them drop-kicking Duck Hunt, while at the end of the trailer, King K. Rool gets sent flying by their Final Smash, falls to the ground with an Impact Silhouette, and gets trapped under a rock.
    • In Terry's trailer, Geese Howard jumps off his tower in an attempt to grab the invitation, only for him to miss and plummet to his death.
    • Byleth's trailer has him getting consumed by Solon's forbidden spell of Zahras, nearly identical to how the scene plays out in Three Houses, being imprisoned in an endless dark void, never to return... at least until Sothis intervenes.
    • In Steve's trailer, he traps Mario inside of a Minecraft cave with a Creeper, which then explodes right next to him.
    • In Sephiroth's trailer, GALEEM gets hit with this when he gets bisected vertically... and then "One Winged Angel" starts playing as the culprit makes himself known...
    • Kazuya's is probably the most gruesome, tossing Ganondorf, Captain Falcon, Pit, Min-Min, and Marth's lifeless corpses off a cliff. He also tries to dump Kirby off, but thankfully, he flies away safely.
  • Trailers and screenshots from the website have a recurring theme of Villager stealing from King K. Rool, usually his crown.
• Running on All Fours: In his home series, King K. Rool stands upright at all times. He does the same when translated to Smash, except for his running animation, where he moves like a real crocodile.

S

• Sad Battle Music: While some songs count, none stand out more than the remix of the ending theme of Tekken 7, "Aloneness". While far more triumphant than the original song, it still has the hint of sadness the original had. Fittingly, it's the last song to be given a remix.
• Sadistic Choice: You're presented with one near the end of World of Light: Stop Dharkon, and Galeem makes everything his plaything for eternity. Stop Galeem, and Dharkon destroys everything. Or you could take them both on at the exact same time...
• The Savage Indian: Mr. Game and Watch's forward smash attack has him attacking with a torch. Like all of Mr. G&W's other attacks, Ultimate redesigned its appearance to more closely resemble the game it's referencing, in this case Fire Attack. As a result it originally had a Native American feather, but this was later removed due to stereotyping.
• Scenery Porn: Many of the classic Smash stages have been given a fresh HD makeover, so expect a lot of gorgeous backgrounds to accompany your brawls. Some notable standouts include the sprawling cityscape of Fourside, the naturally beautiful mountains of Corneria, and the sunny beach and hills of the Great Bay.
• Schizophrenic Difficulty: Challenges in World of Light aren't laid out with any particular eye for consistency. At any point, you could find a 9000-point Ace or five-digit Legend surrounded by 2000-point chaff. Fortunately, there's nothing stopping you from coming back later with a better spirit of your own to even the odds, and unless that fight was there specifically to blockade something, there's always a way around.
• School Setting Simulation: As part of Byleth's DLC pack, the game features Garreg Mach Monastery of Fire Emblem: Three Houses fame. Per its source material, it is a large academy located in a neutral intersection between three regions, conceived to train students who hail from them in the art of combat. In this game, the stage periodically transports all presents fighters to a different part of the building: The Marketplace (also your default location when the fight starts), the Reception Hall, the Bridge and the Cathedral.
• Schrödinger's Player Character: Like in the endgame of The Subspace Emissary in Brawl, it is assumed that the journey through the settings of World of Light is being undertaken by all characters you've freed along the way, even if you're only playing as one character at a time (or multiple, in the case of the endgame).
• Secret Character: The game brings the trope to a new level by making most of its roster unlockable; the starting roster is the same as in the first game, with the addition of Mii Fighters if you decide to create them. The characters have been made easier and quicker to unlock to compensate: a more traditional way of a preset unlock tree by playing Classic Mode, simply play enough versus matches, or find and defeat them in the game's Adventure Mode: World of Light.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • In King K. Rool and Banjo's trailers, Donkey Kong watches a montage of various Nintendo protagonists facing off against their rivals before switching off his TV and yawning.
  • In the Nov. 1, 2018 Smash Direct, after discussing plans to develop DLC fighters through to early 2020, Sakurai is shown sitting silently for a couple seconds before wondering aloud if he'll ever get to take a break.
• Senseless Sacrifice: In the World of Light trailer, Palutena tries to buy Pit and Dark Pit some time to escape Galeem's unsurvivable attack by throwing up a barrier of light. The barrier does nothing to protect her and she's taken down in a single hit. Unfortunately, the two Pits cannot fly without her aid, and so they fall to their doom the moment she's gone.
• Sequel Non-Entity: The game was designed to avert this trope. One of the game's taglines is "Everyone is Here!" and they mean it.
• Sequence Breaking: This is essentially encouraged due to the existence of the Spirit Board. There is more than one way to bypass an obstacle in a given area in Adventure Mode; for example, going through Adventure Mode normally will typically result in you hunting and acquiring Hal Emmerich to open the door to the underground laboratory, but other Spirits that are good with computers, like Megaman.EXE or Susie, can do it as well. Rocks may block your path, but any Spirit that is associated with using bomb-based weaponry can destroy it, which encompasses Spirits such as Bomb Man and Bomberman. Lip, Kammy Koopa, and Viridi can all force mushrooms to grow large enough to be walked on, granting access to Olimar. Due to the multifaceted approach to getting rid of obstacles and the fact that the Spirit Board allows you to acquire Spirits early and/or unrelated to Adventure Mode, Spirits you obtain from the Spirit Board can potentially be used to get rid of obstacles earlier than the game expects.
• Sequential Boss:
  • The Final Rounds of certain Classic Mode routes pit you against multiple opponents in a row to invoke this trope. Mario and Captain Falcon must defeat Bowser, who then comes back as Giga Bowser; similarly, when Zelda defeats Ganondorf, he then transforms into Ganon. Bowser himself has the tables turned on him when Mario comes back from defeat as Metal Mario, without even a loading screen like the previous examples. And Kazuya faces a clone of himself (standing in for Heihachi), who then comes back in Metal form.
  • Dracula, who has two phases. The iconic humanoid vampire form in the first (only his head can receive damage), and then his beastly form in the second.
• Serial Escalation:
  • Ultimate brings out every fighter from past installments, introduces a few new fighters on top of that, contains over 100 stages, and has 800 tracks (900 if you include things like fanfare and menu music) from each series.
  • "World of Light" also does this compared to "Subspace Emissary". Tabuu had Master Hand under his control, and was able to destroy the world single-handedly. Galeem has a whole army of Master Hands, and manages to destroy the entire galaxy.
• Seven Is Nana: The partner Ice Climber, who in the default outfit will be Nana, has an internal AI level of 77. This is slightly higher than the internal level of a CPU player set to level 8 in the player select menu, suggesting it was chosen more as a pun on Nana's name than from any kind of balance consideration.
• Shaped Like Itself: Battlefield has a Battlefield Form. Unsurprisingly, it's exactly the same as its normal form.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The two bad endings of the World of Light story end as such if you don't meet the conditions to face both of the big bads at once by the end of the game: If you defeat just one of the two villains at the end of the game (whether by just facing one of them or letting one side take too much foothold on the final map), the one who survived will violently finish off the defeated one and then take out the heroes (and the rest of the universe) for good (Galeem using his light attack on the heroes once again, this time making sure not to miss anybody, Dharkon drowning the universe in darkness, killing everyone in the process).
• Shot-for-Shot Remake: The reveal trailer for Sephiroth's introduction as a DLC character lovingly recreates several moments from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.
• Shout-Out:
  • Fans noted that Xander Mobus' narration for the overview was reminiscent of All Might in My Hero Academia. He didn't exactly deny that it was intentional.
  • Among Pac-Man's many references he can pull up with one of his taunts are 8-bit versions of Prince of All Cosmos and Heihachi.
  • During Ryu's entry on Palutena's Guidance, Viridi references his adventures in Marvel vs. Capcom without mentioning the game's title by simply stating "super heroes".
  • Luigi's Classic Mode involves fights against scary characters or characters with scary or creepy alternate costumes. One fight is against a bunch of Miis with costumes, the first three of which consist of one with devil horns, one with a mask, and a witch.
  • A Tip about Toon Link's Down Aerial mentions that if you try to dunk someone with it, you're gonna have a bad time.
  • During Joker's presentation after the speaker details Joker's special moves, he then notes that they aren't even their final forms.
  • During the presentation detailing the Dragon Quest Hero, Sakurai outright mentioned the King of Braves due to Arusu's voice actor.
  • One of Banjo & Kazooie's color palettes involves a purple winged creature alongside a mammal with blue pants. This is more than likely a nod to Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon, which are often considered sibling series from different developers, and even cross promote.
  • In Sakurai's presentation on Min Min, he says that if you look up Spring Man online (at least in Japan), you're more likely to find images of a character from "a certain manga", referencing the character of the same name from Kinnikuman.
  • The end of the full trailer for Sora involves both him and Mario shaking hands with the Smash logo in the background, a reference to the iconic title screen of X-Men vs. Street Fighter with Ryu and Cyclops. It makes a lot of sense considering both Marvel and Kingdom Hearts are Disney properties, both Disney and Capcom have a long history of working together (including both companies' works now being featured in this very game), and the framing of the handshake is meant to mark a historic crossover.
• Show, Don't Tell: Beyond the first cutscene, most of "World of Light"'s plot is told in the way the map is changed and revealed.
• Sidelined Protagonist Crossover:
  • The one character from Undertale that appears as a Mii Costume is Sans, a major NPC and final boss of the Genocide route. The protagonist is absent and represented by Animal Crossing Villagers in the trailer.
  • A notable aversion is four of the Heroes of Dragon Quest appearing as one character, but Sakurai has gone on record as saying he was willing to add a Slime as a character if Square Enix turned down the Hero (this is because none of the other crossover collaborations with Dragon Quest had featured any of the protagonists).
  • In Ultimate, Min Min is the playable character representing ARMS over Spring Man, who is more or less the Series Mascot of that game and appears as a non-playable Assist Character. This was by request from ARMS producer Kosuke Yabuki, for whom Min Min is the Creator's Favorite and who considers ARMS to have an Ensemble Cast instead of a designed protagonist.
  • In Ultimate, the character chosen to represent Fallout as a Mii Costume is Vault Boy, an in- and out-of-universe fictional mascot and game interface element. This has to do with the design of all of Fallout's protagonists being entirely up to the player's discretion (to the point that Fallout lore explicitly avoids canonizing any protagonist character design aspect).
  • For Ultimate, Pyra and Mythra were chosen to represent Xenoblade Chronicles 2 instead of that game's protagonist, Rex (who nonetheless shows up as part of their Final Smashes and in many of their miscellaneous animations). Although the girls are a vital part of their source game's plot and Rex's most frequent partners, so it's fair enough. And this case, Rex was the original planned fighter with Pyra/Mythra tagging along, but having both characters involved would have been too taxing for the game.
• Sinister Scythe: Death's Scythe is a new striking item that instantly KOs high-damaged opponents without sending them to the blast line.
• Sinister Subway: Mementos is a stage here. It's a corrupted version of the Shibuya subway formed as a single Palace for the general public, where walls periodically change the layout and trains speed by, potentially serving as a hazard.
• Situational Damage Attack:
  • One of the new items is a gun called the Rage Blaster, where its attacks are stronger when the user is more damaged.
  • The Staff from Kid Icarus: Uprising fires a beam that does more damage the further it travels before hitting a target.
  • From the Fire Emblem series is a sword called the Killing Edge. Based on its increased Critical Hit probability in its home games, here it can deal twice the damage only when the sword is glowing.
  • Death's Scythe from Castlevania can One-Hit KO opponents without them even being knocked past the stage boundaries, but only if their damage is high enough.
  • Hero's Metal Slash can One-Hit KO metallic foes.
• Skill Scores and Perks: "World of Light" has a grid for learning new Skills that looks a little similar to the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. Skill Spheres earned from clearing Adventure Mode battles can be spent on the Skill Tree to unlock a variety of upgrades and powers that apply regardless of the equipped Spirits. Such abilities include boosting the power of your Tilts or Neutrals to giving you a second mid-air jump, giving you a second Final Smash right after using one, or giving you Immune to Flinching while charging Smash Attacks.
• Slasher Smile: Due to the more wider variety of expressions a character can have in battle, the villainous characters like Ganondorf, Ridley, and Wolf may sport one in any of their animations. King K. Rool is a special case, as he has one constantly, but it's not apparent immediately.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: In addition to bringing back the Summit, the game also has the Winter palette of the Minecraft DLC stage, though the snow is cosmetic and is as removable as any breakable terrain in the warm palette.
• So Last Season: In Simon's trailer, Corrin tries to hit him from across the stage with his forward smash (the longest-ranged non-projectile attack in Smash 4) and comes up short. Simon retaliates with his whip and connects. Then, in the November 1, 2018 Direct, Spring Man does the same thing to Simon to demonstrate the strength Assist Trophies can bring to the battle. Again, during Byleth's reveal trailer, the female version does the same thing to showcase the Areadbhar's range.
• Sole Survivor: The only character to survive Galeem's onslaught in "World of Light"'s intro cutscene is Kirby.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • Because music tracks from miscellaneous series only play on stages without playable characters^note In addition to the Summit and Duck Hunt stages, it is possible to have humorous stage-and-music combinations such as an epic RPG battle theme playing in a living room with cute puppies or a peppy J-Pop song playing in the lair of an evil demon dragon.
  • Some spirit battles have characters where the music playing in the background isn't the character's actual theme. That said, the dissonance is downplayed, as these battles tend to have themes that evoke the feeling of those characters, if not their literal themes. For instance, Dimentio's battle doesn't have his theme, "The Ultimate Show", but does use a battle theme from later in the series, Paper Mario: Color Splash; along the same lines, the Shovel Knight spirits tend to use songs from Mega Man, as Shovel Knight's soundtrack was composed as an homage to that series.
  • Averted in regards to the music from Minecraft series. It was stated in the demonstration video the original game's relaxing BGMs wouldn't really fit in a fast-paced brawler^note Although this tweet implies there are other circumstances regarding why the original Minecraft music couldn't be used beyond "too relaxing", the franchise's music selections instead come from the spin-off games Minecraft Earth and Minecraft Dungeons.
• Spell My Name With An S: The Stage 2 theme from Castlevania, usually spelt "Stalker," is spelled "Starker" in this game.
• Spike Balls of Doom: The Piranha Plant is shown to be able to spit Ptooie-based Spike Balls out as part of its neutral special move.
• Standard Female Grab Area: Zig-Zagged. Female characters (as well as male characters that share animations with them, such as male Miis, Male Villagers, Inkling boys, and even Marth) are much more likely to be grabbed by the arm, while other characters are more likely to be grabbed by the neck or the chest. In some cases (such as Lucina), this is highly downplayed, with a defensive posture implying that they reached out an arm to try and block when they got grabbed (which is also the case for a few male characters, such as Ryu), but for some characters (such as Peach, Isabelle, and, interestingly, Bayonetta), it's played much straighter, with them being simply held by the wrist with the rest of their body being at arm's length. However, there are a few exceptions such as Samus, who actually gets grabbed by the chest, and female Robin, who simply gets grabbed by the neck. Also all examples could be seen as Downplayed since grabs can be escaped by button-mashing. However, having "thrash to escape" as the only option (and putting its level of incapacitation on the exact same level as grabs that take the form of a Neck Lift) means that it's still an example.
• Stealth Pun:
  • There are many characters in the game that aren't in the game physically, but rather take the bodies of the fighters. Basically, they aren't present in the game, but they are there in "spirit", which is what they're called in-game.
  • The new remix of "Crocodile Cacophony" contains a few bars from the game's opening theme, which is titled "K. Rool Returns"; an apt descriptor of his appearance in Ultimate after a decade of absence.
  • Not so much in the Japanese version, but for English speakers, it could take a bit for the GaoGaiGar reference in Hero's showcase video to sink in, as the Japanese words for "brave" and "hero" are said the same (yuusha).
  • The reveal trailer for Banjo & Kazooie starts off almost exactly the same as the King K. Rool trailer, which shows off images of various heroic characters with their rivals, with the second including DK and K. Rool. While at first it just seems like a fun Call-Back, Banjo's trailer still fits the theme, as the duo are currently owned by Microsoft, a "rival" to Nintendo.
  • In the opening cutscene of World of Light, Galeem absorbs his army of Master Hands so that he can shoot his instant-death light beams. You could say that "many hands make light work".
• Stone Wall:
  • Fully leveled up, the Absolutely Safe Capsule provides 10,000 additional defense power and no additional offensive power.
  • Any primary spirit can be nudged towards by going to the dojo with the "Brick Wall" style, which greatly increases defense and decreases offense. Combine with a fully leveled Absolutely Safe Capsule, and many attacks on you will do less than 1% damage, though your own attacks won't be too powerful either.
• Story-Breaker Power: Galeem can completely bathe an entire galaxy in light, enough to destroy the bodies of all the characters who become the game's Spirits and turn most of the playable roster in to vessels used to make puppet fighters. The only thing preventing him from immediately taking over the entire Smash universe is Kirby pushing his Warp Star to its absolute limit, leaving him as the Sole Survivor.
• Strong and Skilled: Legend spirits are incredibly powerful, and there a couple that have 3 slots such as Soma Cruz, Isaac, Rodin the Infinite One, and Master Driver Rex.
• Stylistic Suck: The Minecraft characters all have the stiff, jerky Limited Animation from the original game, which contrasts with the smooth and detailed animations of everyone else (aside from Mr. Game & Watch).
• Suddenly Voiced: Princess Zelda mostly. Along with Fox, Marth, and Pit, she is given a voiced line in the opening cutscene for the "World of Light" Adventure mode, as opposed to being a Silent Protagonist like in Brawl's Subspace Emissary mode. While all four were voiced in their own games, this marks the first time that Zelda has spoken in Smash at all, and serves as the first time that an incarnation of Zelda other than that from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has had spoken dialogue.
• Sudden Name Change: Some tracks from Melee, which were named after the stage they played on, have had their names changed to match the songs they're based upon due to the new allowment of all songs to be played on a corresponding series stage. For example, the Fountain of Dreams track is now named "Gourmet Race (Melee)", while the Corneria track is renamed "Star Fox Medley".
• Suicide Attack: The Dragon Quest move Kamikazee reprises this role in Hero's appearance, where it KOs Hero himself to inflict massive damage on all nearby enemies. Just don't use it on your last stock.
• Super Mode: Downplayed. Transformation-type Final Smashes were reworked to function like super-attacks rather than transformations. The closest to a functioning super mode in this game is Joker summoning Arsene, powering up his attacks temporarily.
• Super Move Portrait Attack:
  • When a character initiates a Final Smash, it is accompanied by their portrait appearing on the side of the screen.
  • When Joker summons Arsene while standing still and it's a one-on-one battle or everyone else is a CPU, one appears on the screen.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: When a fighter successfully pulls off a perfect shield (releasing the shield as soon as an attack connects), their eyes flash yellow for a second.
• Suspender Snag: Mario gets his overalls strap hooked on Sephiroth's Masamune in his reveal trailer as part of a Bait-and-Switch gag.
• Swap Fighter: While Shiek, Zelda, Samus, and Zero Suit Samus remain as separate characters after ditching their swap mechanics in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, the Pokémon Trainer returns with their original swap mechanic between Charizard, Squirtle, and Ivysaur intact. On top of that, Pyra and Mythra are added as part of the second fighters pass and they fight by shifting between one another.
• Switch-Out Move: The game brings back Pokémon Trrainer, who is once again capable of switching their current Pokémon (the previously-dual characters remain separate, like in Smash 4), and also introduces Pyra and Mythra. Unlike other duos, the Aegis mostly play identically, but Pyra is stronger but slower while Mythra is faster but weaker, and they have different special moves and properties among their normal attacks. They can switch between each other with their Down Special.
• Sword Beam: Ultimate is the first game in the Smash Bros franchise to reference Link's history with sword beams and allows the Breath Of the Wild incarnation of Link to shoot a sword beam when he does his forward smash attack at 0% damage (or full stamina).
• Symbolic Blood: Joker appears as a Guest Fighter is a more family-friendly game like this than Persona 5, so when using All-Out as his Final Smash, the enemies instead shoot sparkling stars; much less violent, but still similar to the original blood.

T

• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Primary Spirits are divided into four types: Attack, Grab, Shield, and Neutral. Attack beats Grab, Grab beats Shield, and Shield beats Attack, while Neutral has no advantages or disadvantages. Fans of Pokémon will note that the colors each type is associated with match the Fire-Grass-Water triangle in that series; the colors also follow the same order as in Fire Emblem Heroes and Eternal Darkness.
• Tagline: "Everyone is Here!"
• Take a Third Option: If you beat Galeem in the final battle, Dharkon instantly capitalizes to take down his nemesis and consume the universe in darkness. If Dharkon is defeated, Galeem finishes him off and engulfs everything in light. So how can the heroes win? Take on both at once and kill them both at the same time.
• Take That, Audience!: Not necessarily an active insult, but Sakurai's remarks in Terry's video presentation about preferring fun characters over relevancy and younger generation players not necessarily understanding his use of fighting game lingo did feel like he was definitely aware of the less than enthusiastic reaction the character received in the West.
• Taking the Bullet: One of the changes to Peach's moveset is that during her neutral special, Toad now willingly stands between her and the incoming attack. The same applies to Blue Toad, who is protecting Daisy the same way.
• Talking in Your Sleep: Richter will occasionally mumble "Dracula..." if he's put to sleep by Jigglypuff.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Galeem and Dharkon in World of Light tolerate each other at best during their Dual Boss fight, and have no problems taking a swing at each other.
• Teleport Spam:
  • One of the many Pokémon one can summon from the Poké Ball is Abra, which will float over to opponents and spam Teleport, taking nearby fighters with it and potentially offstage.
  • Master Hand, Crazy Hand, Marx, Galeem, and Dharkon all have moves where they rapidly teleport themselves several times.
• Temporary Online Content: To celebrate Sephiroth's inclusion, players were able to play a limited-time event called the Sephiroth Challenge, pitting them against a unique boss version of Sephiroth on the Northern Cave stage. It was available December 17-22nd, 2020 and players who completed the challenge were able to unlock Sephiroth and his stage before his official release on December 22nd. It is still possible to play if the player did not update to version 10.1.0 (the update that unlocks Sephiroth for everyone else).
• Tempting Fate: In the opening for World of Light, the entire roster (barring the DLC characters) is staring down an army of Master Hands and an angelic-looking thing named Galeem. Marth estimates they outnumber the heroes ten to one, while Zelda adds that this is no time for fear. Then Pit goes, "We'll win this! I know we will!" Cue the ultimate Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: Almost all, if not all, the soundtrack that does not originate from other games (including its predecessors) has Lifelight. Including Menu, Battlefield, Mob Smash, Results, the Mii Fighters victory theme and many others. In a 2023 video for his Youtube channel, Masahiro Sakurai commented that this was done on purpose, in order to convey different emotions depending on the current context while keeping a memorable melody.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: When giving yourself a huge spirit advantage it's more often than not that a single smash attack is enough to send them flying off the screen. But you can up the ante more than needed by using a more powerful special move.... And that's only the tip of the iceberg in how much overkill you can induce with spirits for both you and your opponent. Add on to that the Custom Balance system and certain assists and items and Training Mode reveals you can induce far more damage than even the maximum amount of damage % an opponent can reach. At max with certain combinations, you can inflict over 16,600% damage in a single hit, or an even more whopping over 59,000% damage in an entire special move. as seen here.
• This Banana is Armed: This game introduces a new item called the banana gun. It looks like an ordinary banana, but it fires a single, powerful bullet before turning into a banana peel.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Viridi's never been a fan of humans, but she gets especially outraged when she learns that Mewtwo was created through genetic experimentation and swears to never forgive them.
• Throne Room Throwdown: The Boss Battle against Dracula begins as the dark prince throws his wine cup and leaves his throne to confront the character who has arrived to challenged him. This happens in both Classic Mode and World of Light.
• Title Theme Drop: The main theme is used during the Final Battle when the player is making their ascent to the last area.
• Token Good Teammate: In Spirit Battle where you're given a CPU ally, (usually as a We Cannot Go On Without You scenario as you have to act as their bodyguard) they're actually puppet fighters on your side as shown by their eyes in Story Mode.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Peach (and Daisy)'s Toads function the exact same in Ultimate as in previous installments, but now appear more confident. Whereas they looked like they were being used as human shields in prior games, they jump out to protect their Princess instead. They're also now a part of their Princess' throw animation.
  • In previous games, Master Hand and Crazy Hand were relatively predictable opponents that didn't do much more than flick, slap, and punch you around. They also only had three moves that they joined forces to pull off which are laughably easy to avoid. In Ultimate, both hands gain a wide array of powers both individually and together, thus making their Classic Mode fights go from a moderately difficult battle to an absolute nightmare to complete without dying even once.
• Trailers Always Spoil: This line was zigzagged several times in the pre-release promotional cycle.
  • It was averted entirely with the massive "Everyone is Here" mural, which was constantly updated with each new character announcement, shuffling around the positions of previous characters in the meantime. As a result, it was a lost cause trying to use it to predict newcomers.
  • It was also averted with certain character reveal trailers; some of them, including Isabelle's and Joker's, did not open with the Smash logo when they were first broadcast, hiding their nature as character announcements for this game until The Reveal was dropped at the trailer's climax.
  • It was played straight when the August 8, 2018 Direct revealed Monster Hunter's Rathalos and Castlevania's Dracula, showing them being fought in arenas that had no place on the website's Stages section and were not referenced anywhere else, implying that the game would have proper boss fights akin to Brawl's Subspace Emissary mode.
  • On a related note, the developers technically averted this some more in the same Direct by showing the main menu but blurring out the big green option. However, eagle-eyed fans were able to figure out its name (if not its details) "Spirits" long before it was officially revealed in the last Direct.
  • Certain stage names in pre-release demos hinted at possible future inclusions. For instance, Kongo Jungle from Melee was renamed to Kongo Falls, making many fans realize that the 64 Kongo Jungle was returning.
• Transformation Sequence: For her debut trailer, Min Min undergoes a transformation to claim the Smash invitation from her rivals, swapping out her ramen chef uniform for her fighting gear.
• True Final Boss: Unless you make a concerted effort to avoid that fate, your final defeat of Galeem or Dharkon on The Final Battle map will simply lead to the other one wiping out all of existence instead. To reach the true ending, you need to prevent either Galeem or Dharkon's forces from completely overwhelming the other side on The Final Battle map. If you pull things off right, you'll free Master Hand and Crazy Hand from Galeem and Dharkon's control and play as Master Hand in a Mob Smash to clear the way to the true final gauntlet, which consists of a Rise to the Challenge platforming segment, a Boss Rush, and the true final battle with both Galeem and Dharkon at once.
• Turns Red: Once Galeem gets down to less than half-health, his core erupts with light like it's a star about to go supernova, and once Dharkon gets down to less than half-health, his eye changes color, turning the sclera from a bright blue to a deep red, his iris from yellow to a bluish-lavender, and his pupil changing to the color of his sclera as if it's bloodshot.

U

• Understatement: One of the loading screen tips states that Star Fox 2, Wolf's debut game, got delayed "a bit". "A bit" in this case being 20 years.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay:
  • Some characters whose actual in-universe abilities are unsuitable for real combat (or who can't go toe-to-toe with cosmic beings) end up not doing much of anything against Galeem's onslaught, such as the Inklings (who try to hide in ink and fail miserably), Snake (who tries to hide in a box, to no avail), Wii Fit Trainer (who ineffectively does yoga poses), and the Villager (who simply panics). The Duck Hunt Dog, being just a normal dog, also panics and freezes while the duck tries fruitlessly to carry him to safety.
  • During the final battle in World of Light, Dharkon and Galeem are going all-out against each other with their remaining forces; if you focus on one of them too much, the other will use the opportunity to catch everyone off-guard and kill them.
  • Galeem one-shots all life in the universe...but the attack used to do so requires both the sacrifice of his entire present army for power and 20 seconds of uninterrupted charge time. As such, he only ever gets the chance to use it once between the fighters not giving him the prep time for it and having to use his army to fight Dharkon's. Unlike Tabuu, he can't even use a watered down version in his boss fights. Dharkon's ending implies he has a similar attack with the same drawback.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: The Minigame Credits in Classic Mode has you riding a Respawn Platform while armed with a Super Scope, shooting at the names in the credits for the chance to earn bonus items.
• Unexplained Recovery: World of Light offers no in-universe explanation for the presence of the DLC characters and why they aren't ever shown being under or being released from Galeem's or Dharkon's control. It's up to the player over whether they somehow managed to weather out Galeem's initial onslaught like Kirby, were indeed vaporized and captured and were simply rescued off-screen, just showed up out of complete nowhere, or whatever other explanation one might come up with. It's especially notable in the cases of Min Min, Pyra, and Mythra as all three were previously shown to be Spirits, only to show back up alive and well to help everybody else. Hero and Sephiroth's reveal trailers don't help the case, as they showcase DLC characters as part of the events of World of Light.
• Unrealistic Black Hole: The appropriately-named Black Hole item sucks everything — items, enemies, projectiles, etc. — into its center. Only the player who activated the item is immune from this. Trying to knock away a person being sucked into the black hole will only have them be pulled back.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • Akuma has bar-none the best Attack stat of any Spirit in the game, with respectable Defense. However, he lacks both a Primary Ability and Support Slots to compensate for his high raw power.
  • Galeem and Dharkon's Spirits have zero Support Slots and Abilities that are only effective in Adventure Mode. However, what they lack in flexibility and utility, they make up for in sheer power, sporting a whopping 13,000+ Power rating, higher than any other Spirit.
• Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Incineroar does this after connecting with a powerful attack. It's appropriate since it's based on a wrestling heel.

V

• Vampire Vords: Pit briefly puts on a mock Bela Lugosi accent when asking if Alucard wants to drink his blood.
• Vanilla Unit: In The World of Light, the player must collect spirits that they can equip to power up their fighters. They come in two kinds: primary spirits, which boost stats and have slots to equip secondary spirits to, which have bonus effects such as starting battles with a certain item equipped. Some primary spirits have no slots, but they have higher stats to compensate.
• Variable Mix: When playing on the New Donk City Hall stage, the various members of the New Donk City Players, as well as Mayor Pauline, float in on platforms. Touching them will activate that member's instrument, including Pauline's singing voice, in "Jump Up, Super Star!" or the band's cover of the famous Super Mario Bros. Ground Theme, if either of those songs are playing.
• Versus Character Splash: Before each battle, a dramatic display of each fighter in the bout is thrown up as the loading screen, complete with glinting eyes and smoldering embers.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: World of Light has the Final Battle, a war between darkness and light that the player must keep balanced. If not...
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Certain spirit battles can be a fountain of this. For example, you can fight Sigurd with a character that has a fire attack (such as Roy, Zelda, or especially Robin) and potentially reenact his Plotline Death at the hands of Arvis. Or if you want to feel like a real dastard, you can fight Sigurd and Seliph together and KO them both the same way.
• Video Game Perversity Potential: The 3.0 update added a Level Editor. Without hesitation, the internet being what it is, immediately started creating the most audacious levels imaginable.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show:
  • The Smash Bros games are known for their lightheartedness and chaotic fun that even the bad guys get to join. Then there's Galeem, an Eldritch Abomination that manages to destroy all but one character in its vicinity, making it more threatening than Tabuu (who was already very powerful, considering what they did), and Dharkon, who looks even more terrifying than Galeem.
  • Ridley and Sephiroth are portrayed within the game and without as much more dire and serious threats than the other playable villains. This is made clearest in their Establishing Character Moments in their reveal trailers. Ridley's trailer is staged like a science ficture horror movie; he "kills" Mario offscreen and Mega Man onscreen, then taunts Samus with Mario's hat after revealing himself. His attacks have far more savage and brutal-looking animations than almost any other fighter in the game, featuring a reference to his Cutscene Power to the Max attack from Brawl where he grinds Samus along a wall and a potential impalement in his down special, and his damage output is among the highest of any character, giving the overall impression that you're fighting for your life. Sephiroth, meanwhile, is introduced by cleaving Galeem in half and proceeding to wipe the floor with the rest of the cast, including a scene where he appears to impale Mario through the chest with the Masamune. If he wins a match, his results screen is set against a flaming backdrop reminiscent of the Nibelheim Incident—and adding to the solemn atmosphere, nothing more than the sounds of fire is heard after his victory fanfare.
• Villain Team-Up: Found in the true final battle in World of Light, as both Galeem and Dharkon will team up to defeat the fighters, but also subverted as their attacks hurt each other and, if one gets stunned, the other will gladly hit it while it's down for massive damage.

W

• Wall Jump: Every character who got the ability to jump between walls in previous games returns, and here Joker (added via DLC) can do it as well.
• Weapon of X-Slaying:
  • The Assist Killer ability is given by a handful of Legend Supports, which specifically boosts damage dealt to Assist Trophies.
  • The Metal Killer Ability, given from both Support Spirits and the Skill Tree, boosts damage inflicted to Metal characters.
  • Giant Killer from Support Spirits boosts damage against Giant characters.
  • Galeem's unique Ability, Bane of Darkness, boosts damage against any Dharkon-aligned Spirits and Fighters in Adventure Mode. Likewise, Dharkon's Ability, Bane of Light, boosts damage against any Spirit or Fighter possessed by Galeem.
• Wham Line:
  • The E3 2018 trailer, which immediately follows Snake's return:
    EVERYONE IS HERE!
  • In the final moments before release, the audience of The Game Awards saw one last surprise from a somewhat unexpected source:
    Morgana: We've been invited... invited to steal the greatest treasure of all! (Joker brandishes an envelope with Smash's signature logo stamped on the wax seal)
• Wham Shot:
  • The teaser trailer at the end of the Nintendo Direct on March 2018 is a big one for fans of the Smash Bros series. It starts out like the first Splatoon trailer with Inkling Boy and Inkling Girl playing Turf Wars in an all-white environment before it goes dark. Inkling Girl turns around and sees in Stunned Silence what appears to be fire, but the reflection in her eye becomes a clear view of the iconic Super Smash Bros. logo, revealing that Smash is coming to Nintendo Switch, and heavily hinting that Inkling is the first new character to join the roster.
  • The first Fighters Pass DLC character is revealed in the style of its game, which leads to fans being caught completely off guard when Joker shows off his Smash invitation.
  • The character count trailer mostly showed the expected returning characters from 4, the possibly-in-jeopardy-due-to-being-third-party characters Ryu, Cloud, and Sonic, previously-confirmed newcomer Inkling, the expected return of the Ice Climbers, the surprise return of the Pokémon Trainer (and by extent, Squirtle and Ivysaur)... and then the music cuts out, and Snake, a character nobody thought was coming back after his absence from 4, disengages his camouflage. Then further returning characters were revealed, such as Pichu, Young Link, and Wolf, to truly show that "Everyone is here".
  • The entire roster on a cliff, overlooking a new enemy called Galeem flanked by an army of Master Hands. Then, Galeem unleashes beams of light that disintegrate most of the roster, except Kirby.
  • After Galeem's defeat, the sky cracks open to reveal Dharkon with an army of Crazy Hands in tow.
  • After freeing the true Master Hand and Crazy Hand, the next match starts to reveal that, for the first time in the franchise (barring unofficial methods), you're playing as the big white glove himself.
  • The final DLC character is revealed when Mario throws a tiny flame into the air, transforming it into the shape of a Keyblade. With a zoom-in on a Mickey Mouse head.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Zig-zagged with the fate of Luigi in the Simon/Richter reveal trailer. After being reaped by Death, his ghost is never shown re-entering his body (Carmilla scares him just as he's trying to do so, and the last we see or hear of him is his scream from the exterior of Dracula's castle). Nintendo UK's twitter tried to assure fans that Luigi was okay, but some remain skeptical.
  • A number of stage cameos (most notably on KoF Stadium) and Mii Costumes lack corresponding Spirits, leaving the question of the fates of those characters.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The reveal trailers for King K. Rool and Banjo-Kazooie play the exact same way. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong wake up and see someone familiar out the window. The character outside turns out to be impersonated by another character who laughs about it, only for the character they impersonated to attack them in retribution. K. Rool does this to King Dedede and Banjo & Kazooie does this to Duck Hunt.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: This game's remix of Gangplank Galleon unexpectedly has a rap verse snuck into it, turning the theme into something of a Villain Song for King K. Rool. Also doubles as Indecipherable Lyrics.
• The Worf Barrage:
  • In Sephiroth's reveal trailer, Cloud caps off his duel with him by using his Omnislash Ver. 5 limit break, which has killed Sephiroth before...but it prompts the latter to transform into his Safer form.
  • Sakurai used Captain Falcon's Falcon Punch of memetic legend in Byleth and Kazuya's gameplay trailers to demonstrate that their respective super-armored attacks can plow right through it.
• The Worf Effect: Several character reveal trailers have newcomers show up to beat an established fighter.
  • Ridley impales Mega Man with his tail and punctures Mario's neck.
  • Simon Belmont banishes Death after the reaper kills Luigi with a single swing of his scythe.
  • Soon after, Richter saves his wounded ancestor from one of Dracula's fireballs.
  • K. Rool wallops Dedede for impersonating him and gets a flabbergasted Eye Pop from his old nemeses.
  • Happens twice in the last base reveal: Ken beats up Little Mac... and then faces the same fate from Incineroar.
  • In "World of Light", everyone but Kirby gets Worfed, Kirby only escaping thanks to the Warp Star's warping abilities.
  • Piranha Plant leaves Luigi and multiple Yoshis rendered dizzy. When Mario attempts to confront it, Piranha Plant swiftly dodges the attack and slams Mario off-screen.
  • The fact that even Tabuu is found as a Spirit in "World of Light" seems to indicate that not even he and his minions were any match for Galeem. Master Core's various phases can also be found as Spirits, implying Galeem can overpower him too.
  • Link gets tired up trying to fend off Dharkon's copies of Marth and Meta Knight, but Eleven rides in on horseback to save him from the sticky situation.
  • Later, when Eleven himself gets knocked out by three other copied fighters, the other Heroes of Dragon Quest (Eight, Solo, and Arusu) step in to back him up.
  • Banjo and Kazooie literally stomp the Duck Hunt duo and bury K. Rool under a big rock in a king-shaped hole in the ground.
  • Kid Cobra and Twintelle are easily defeated when Min Min decides to show up to grab the Smash invitation.
  • Happens to Galeem in Sephiroth's reveal trailer, wherein Sephiroth cleanly cleaves Galeem in half like it was nothing before fighting the Smash roster.
  • Kazuya in his trailer beats Ganondorf, Captain Falcon, Pit, Min Min and Marth badly off-screen before throwing them to a volcano.
• World-Healing Wave: Killing Galeem and Dharkon at the same time unleashes one. After that, every single spirit goes up in a spire of flame to return to the real world as they wanted.
• World of Chaos: The world Galeem creates after atomizing the universe is a utopian, organized world filled with normal-looking things you'd expect to see such as forests, cities, oceans, glaciers, and jungles amongst other things. The world that Dharkon creates on the other hand? Not so much. The Dark Realm is a messed up, chaotic dimension where the landscape is completely mangled and littered with giant gears, ruined buildings, and other nonsensical architecture with bright unnatural colors illuminating the place. The Mysterious Dimension takes this up to eleven, as the subworld is nothing more than a random mishmash of destroyed objects from other games. This includes cherry blossom trees, airplanes, warp pipes, a pirate ship, bubbles, and train tracks, all of which circle around a gigantic black hole.
• World-Wrecking Wave: Killing either Galeem or Dharkon in the final map allows the other one to unleash one of these to obliterate the fighters (and their rival) and conquer everything.
• Writing Around Trademarks
  • When discussing Ryu, Viridi mentions that he's fought "superheroes" before. This is referencing his appearances in the Marvel vs. Capcom series without actually mentioning any Marvel characters.
  • In an example that doesn't have to do with copyright or trademarks, new ESRB rules went into effect in 2020 that banned M-rated games from being promoted alongside non-M rated games. This prevented promotional material for Ultimate from naming M-rated games, which Nintendo got around by replacing the "Super Smash Bros. × <game title>" template that marks the introduction of a new franchise to Smash with "Super Smash Bros. × <character name>", with the character name styled like the logo of the series. Some notable affectees of this rule include Mii Costumes for Altair and Doom Slayer.
  • One of Sora's battles in his Classic Mode route has him fighting Cloud inside the Coliseum, which is a Mythology Gag to a boss fight in Kingdom Hearts. The stage is standing in for the Olympus Coliseum without directly referencing Hercules.

Y

• Yellow/Purple Contrast: A subtle example can be found in World of Light, where after being defeated, Galeem and Dharkon crash into the ocean and explode in yellow and purple respectively.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Happens twice in World of Light. It seems like you've defeated Galeem, and you are right. However, the sky cracks open to reveal Galeem's counterpart Dharkon and his army of Crazy Hands, meaning that your adventure is far from over. Then, after you defeat Dharkon, a new rift appears and now you have to prevent light and darkness from overthrowing each other.
• Your Size May Vary: Bowser noticeably shrinks between normal gameplay and the No Contest screen, being nearly as tall as Peach, rather than a foot-plus higher than her. Likewise, Bayonetta noticeably grows during the same transition, going from shorter than Ganondorf to outgrow him.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Death rends poor Luigi's soul from his body in Simon's trailer. Luckily for Luigi, Simon wasn't having any of it.

Z

• Zero-Effort Boss: A few spirit battles in the game are ridiculously easy, often to reflect the fact the character represented by those spirits is a One-Hit-Point Wonder in their origin game:
  • Shedinja is a Stamina Battle where the opponent has only 1 HP and a brief period of invincibility at the beginning of the fight. Even the weakest jab can take it out as soon as its invincibility wears off, and even if you let it attack, you have enough HP to survive and land that one hit regardless of what it hits you with. However, its invincibility does renew itself constantly, so you need good timing to land that one hit you need.
  • True to the source game, Buzz Buzz is defeated by literally swatting him away (he's a really tiny Mr.G&W who starts with 300% damage).
  • Child Alm and Celica are two Villagers who do nothing but try to run away. You're given two full minutes to catch up to them and pummel them into oblivion.

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