Characters / Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 64 to 69

^{Inkling Boy}

Voiced by: Yuki Tsujii

Hailing from the ultra-distant future in the realm of Splatoon, Inklings are a race of anthropomorphic squid that can shapeshift between humanoid and cephalopod forms, utilizing their ink for various purposes within the sport of Turf Wars, striving to be the "freshest" amongst their peers. They were the first newcomers to be confirmed for Ultimate, first shown in the game’s announcement teaser at the end of the March 8, 2018 Nintendo Direct.

Inkling's fighting style revolves around dousing their opponents in their colorful ink, which increases any damage they sustain. Many of their attacks deplete ink from their tanks, and if they run dry, their attacks will lose most of their power. By pressing the special attack button while shielding, however, they can refill their tank. Inklings that can keep their opponents doused in ink while maintaining their limited supply will come out on top!

• Action Fashionista: Inklings are highly into fashion as much as they are into battles. That's why their Palette Swap choices are not recolors of the original clothing. It's simply not fresh enough for them.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Unlike their games of origin, submerging the Inklings in water does not immediately kill them, though, just like everyone else, they will still drown if they stay in the water long enough. They will also take damage for as long as they're submerged, so they aren't completely immune to water.
  • Due to Turf War rules, they are typically restricted to one weapon set per match. Here, they can use a Blaster, Roller, Inkbrush and Slosher alongside their standard Splattershot, as well as fighting in a more physical manner such as hitting opponents with the Splattershot itself.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: If they lose, their end screen animation is cheerfully clapping with a massive grin on their face. This is in opposition to the games, especially the first one, where most losing animations involve making a massive scene out of it or showing obvious disappointment towards the camera.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Inklings don't actually have to be on Ink to refill their ammo. Unlike their home series, standing on Ink of a different color doesn't hurt or slow them, and it will fade over time.
  • Despite being an ink attack, they don't need any ink in their tank to use their recovery move.
• Ascended Extra: Went from a DLC Mii costume and a trophy in 3DS/Wii U to a fully-playable fighter.
• Ascended Meme: Their Boxing Ring title references the infamous "You're a kid now, you're a squid now" commercial for the first Splatoon game.
• Badass Adorable: incredibly cute kids that can turn into cute squids, and vice-versa, but all of them can get very competitive, as their Turf Wars can attest to, and some of them (such as Agent 3, who's playable through the yellow alternate costume) are also capable of taking out entire armies of Octarians in their home series. Now that they're in Smash, they get to compete for this trope alongside the likes of Kirby, Pikachu, Pichu, Jigglypuff, the MOTHER duo and Isabelle.
• Battle Aura: If you look closely when they're ready to unleash a Final Smash, you can see flame-like ink emitting from their heads identical to their home series when their Special Weapon is charged, which is fitting as their Final Smash is a Killer Wail from the first game.
• Battle Intro: Falls from the sky in squid form and splashes some ink before changing to kid form and pulling out their Splattershot.
• BFG: The Blaster is as big as they are!
• Bioluminescence Is Cool: They have purple glowing spots on the underside of their tentacles which render them visible in the dark.
• Book Ends: The first trailer revealing Smash Ultimate ended with the Inklings gazing in awe of of the flaming Smash logo, said logo reflecting in the Inkling girl's eyes. 3 years later, the final trailer revealing Sora starts with a now petrified Inkling girl still staring at the fading logo.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each Palette Swap has its own ink color associated with it, so you can tell whose ink is whose, even in an all-Inkling 8-Player Smash.
• Covered in Gunge: Their attacks can cause this, which also serves as a Damage-Increasing Debuff.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: Inklings can temporarily coat their opponents in ink, which increases the damage they take.
• Difficult, but Awesome: While playing as an Inkling, managing your ink supply and refilling it whenever possible is essential for performing well. However, once that hurdle is jumped, an Inkling has access to both incredible attack power and a variety of moves geared for any situation.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Like the Villagers, the Inklings are named after what they are rather than who.
• Funny Octopus: Squid variant. Inklings are a hybrid of squid and kid, and they're downright adorable as all get out.
• Glass Cannon: Inkling can move relatively fast, has many punishing attacks, and can actively increase their damage output by coating the enemy in ink. However, their ink isn't limitless and can run out quickly, meaning that they can leave themselves much more open to attacks than most other characters. Their weight is also slightly below average due to them being kids who are far lighter than full-grown adults.
• Goo It Up: Inkling uses paint for this purpose, firing it off as viscous globs and sticky flooring that slows down opponents.
• Graceful Loser: In a stark contrast to their behavior in their home games, losing Inklings will applaud quite enthusiastically for the match's winner, which is rather adorable.
• Gun Fu: They're natural experts at wielding numerous ink-based weaponry that they use in competitions while having some of the best speed and aerial combat that goes with it.
• The Gunslinger: The Inklings are armed with the Splattershot watergun, which functions like an ink-firing machine gun.
• Home Stage: Ultimate: Moray Towers.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: They use a large variety of weapons that they pull out of nowhere.
• Idle Animation:
  • They turn and look away.
  • They hoist the Splattershot with one hand and places the other on their hip.
• I Know Madden Kombat: Most of their attacks are based around Turf Wars, a sport in their home series.
• Improbable Weapon User: Some of the weapons they use are quite odd, such as giant paint rollers and buckets full of ink.
• In a Single Bound: The Super Jump technique, originally used as a way to quickly reach teammates by leaping to their location, serves as their Up Special.
• It Works Better with Bullets: A gameplay element requires them to stock up on ink frequently, otherwise most of their attacks will suffer in power or won't work at all.
• Jaw Drop: In their reveal trailer, the Girl opens her mouth in awe upon seeing the signature emblem of Smash Bros. blazing in front of her.
• Kid Hero: They're called squidkids and not squidadults for a reason, and have saved the Great Zapfish at least twice.
• Kill It with Water: Inklings won't die immediately upon falling into water; however, they will take steady damage when submerged.
• Leitmotif: Splattack! from the first Splatoon game.
• Limit Break: Killer Wail, a large, aimable soundwave, trapping the opponents and damaging them over time. Unlike other Wave-Motion Gun-style Final Smashes, the Inkling is controllable while it's firing, and can throw or smack any enemies that did dodge the attack back into it... but is also vulnerable during the attack's duration.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Much like their home game, the Inklings need ink to use their weapons, which is recharged by shielding and pressing the Special button. Unlike Splatoon, this can be done anywhere, not just on Ink, which fades during matches in Smash, though a pool of ink will appear as part of the animation.
• Meteor Move: Can land a mighty thrust with their Splattershot for their down aerial. The attack itself is pretty strong, even without the enemy coated in ink.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The start of their reveal trailer is an updated version of the initial reveal trailer for the first Splatoon game, showing the Boy and Girl fighting each other and demonstrating their abilities in a blank white space until they're interrupted by the Smash Bros. crew.
  • Many of the Inkling's animations are based directly on those in the first game. For example, their entrance animation is the same as when Agent 3 enters a stage in the first Splatoon's story mode, while their victory animations (such as twirling their Slosher like a basketball) are taken directly from the Slosher winning animation from that first installment as well.
  • While the Inklings themselves are primarily based on those from the first Splatoon game, their home stage, Moray Towers, takes more inspiration from Splatoon 2, such as with Judd and Lil' Judd's appearance in the background.
  • Their ink's ability to lower the defense of whoever is covered in it and the Roller's ability to cover the ground in ink and slow down enemies who walk on it is similar to how, in the original Splatoon games, standing in enemy ink both slows down and slowly damages you.
• No Name Given: The Inklings are not given any real names. The only one of them with a properly established identity is Agent 3, and even then she's still referred as "Inkling" with the rest of her playable kind.
• Orange/Blue Contrast: By default, the Girl is colored orange and the Boy is colored blue, and they are often shown to be at odds with each other.
• Palette Swap: Rather than just swap colors for the Girl and Boy, each palette is an Inkling that was used for the first game's promotional materials.
  • Orange Girl: Wearing the White Tee and Pink Trainers.
  • Blue Boy: Wearing the Zink Layered LS and Purple Hi-Horses. Together with the Orange Girl, they're referencing the original game's box art◊ (just without the headwear).
  • Yellow Girl: Agent 3 as she appeared in 1, wearing the Hero Suit.
  • Pink Girl: A tan girl wearing a Takoroka Mesh, Black Squideye shirt, and White Kicks, referencing this promo render◊ for the first Splatoon.
  • Purple Girl: A girl wearing the full amiibo School Gear.
  • Green Boy: A dark-skinned boy wearing a Skull Bandana with an Armor Jacket Replica and Moto Boots, referencing this design◊ for the Grim Range Blaster weapon.
  • Aqua Boy: A boy wearing Black Arrowbands, a Baby Jelly shirt, and Blue Slip-Ons, referencing another promo render◊ from Splatoon 1.
  • Purple Boy: A boy with a Skate Helmet, an Octo Tee, and Octoling Boots. This design is the odd one out; he's wearing clothes from the game, but this particular clothing combination can't be traced to any specific promotional art and hasn't officially been shown combined together.
• Pistol-Whipping: They have a lot of melee attacks utilizing their Splattershot including swinging it in a downward swipe for their side tilt, striking beside them for their back aerial, and a downwards strike for their down aerial.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: Like in their series of origin, there's the option to pick between both male and female Inklings, but this doesn't change gameplay at all.
• Secret Character: For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 40 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Samus or anyone in her unlock tree once, or find and defeat them in World of Light.
• Shapeshifter: Per the source material, Inklings are seen shifting between their humanoid "kid" forms and their cartoony "squid" forms.
• Smug Smiler: Their official render and some of their taunts have them look pretty cocky.
• Stealth Pun: Agent 3, fittingly, is listed as the third color option for the Inklings.
• Sticky Situation: Downplayed. The trail left behind by their paint rollers slow down anyone walking on it.
• Super Drowning Skills: While they're just as capable as swimming as every other Smash character, their "swimming" animation evokes this; it's a replication of the "struggling to stay afloat" animation from the games caused by entering water.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: The Splat Bombs serve as their Down Special, and how far they're thrown is determined by how long the attack is charged.
• Unorthodox Reload: Since Inkling runs on a limited ink tank, he/she must refill it regularly to power a good chunk of their moveset. This can be done by pressing the Shield button and the Special button simultaneously, which causes the Inkling to transform into a Squid and hide in his/her ink, quickly recharging the ink tank in the process. Unlike their home series, Ink fades after being shot and thus they aren't required to actually be on their own ink, or any ink at all (the animation accounts for this, creating ink for them to swim in).
• Walking Arsenal: Unlike in their home series, the Inklings are not limited to one weapon at a time. Here, they use a variety of weapon types, including...
  • Splattershot: A watergun that fires ink at a rapid rate, used in most of their basic attacks as well as their Standard Special.
  • Inkbrush: A giant paintbrush, used in their Side Smash.
  • Slosher: A bucket full of ink, used in their Down Smash.
  • Splat Bombs: Small pyramid-shaped grenades full of ink, used in their Down Special.
  • Splat Roller: A giant paint roller, used in their Side Special.
  • Blaster: A gun modeled after custom cars that fires blasts of ink in a fireworks pattern, used in their Up Smash.
• Wave-Motion Gun: The Killer Wail, a giant megaphone that blasts out a huge soundwave of pure destruction (and ink), serves as the Inklings' Final Smash.
• Wolverine Publicity: In both this game and their home series, Inklings can have their genders and appearances customized. But as is also the case both here and there, the female orange-haired Inkling is the default design used both in-game and in promotional materials. The male Inkling does at least fare better than the gender opposite counterparts of other characters, appearing in some trailers and cutscenes alongside the female Inkling.

^{Meta Ridley}

The Arch-Enemy of Samus, a high-ranking leader of the Space Pirates, and a major antagonist of the Metroid series. Ridley is tied to Samus' past and has done battle with her on multiple occasions, coming back from the brink of death each time until his final demise on Zebes. Even so, his legacy lives on in the form of clones, ensuring that he will always pose a threat to the bounty hunter.

He has had multiple appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series as a large boss prior to being Promoted to Playable in Ultimate; for those, see this page. He also comes with his cyborg Meta-Ridley form from the Metroid Prime Trilogy.

In Ultimate, Ridley is a powerhouse that can wreak havoc on his enemies with vicious slashes and bites, grabs, his Plasma Breath, and the deadly Skewer attack: with the right spacing, it can inflict catastrophic damage upon his foes. Of course, being a powerhouse also comes with some sluggish movement, and messing up his timing can lead to him getting comboed into oblivion. Skilled Ridley players can keep aware of his weaknesses, and utilize his strengths to dominate their opponents.

• Adaptational Heroism: He's arguably the most brutal villain in the cast (at least until Sephiroth came along), but in World of Light, he fights with everyone (including Samus) to stop Galeem.
• Arch-Enemy: To Samus, being the murderer of her parents. His reveal trailer subtly emphasizes this, as he goes out of his way to taunt Samus after taking out Mega Man and Mario. Notably, his Final Smash has him destroy her gunship regardless on if she's fighting or not in that battle.
• Armor Is Useless: One of his alternate costumes is his armored, cybernetic Meta Ridley form from the Metroid Prime Trilogy. Unlike in those games, however, it has no effect on his defense or abilities in Ultimate.
• Ascended Extra: In no small part due to his popularity with fans, he has had greater prominence in each consecutive game. He started as a background cameo of the Planet Zebes stage in the original game, gained a cameo in the intro to Melee (plus a trophy, which would appear in every game except 3DS afterward), was fought twice as a boss in Brawl, became a stage hazard/assist in Wii U, and eventually became a fully playable character in Ultimate.
• Ascended Meme:
  • His splash tagline reads: "Hits the Big Time!", a reference to the "Ridley is too big" memes circulating around his size, often being a joke on why he wasn't included in previous titles. Even with his size obviously toned down, his hurtbox is still the biggest in the game.
  • His Palutena's Guidance chat also opens with Pit shouting "RIDLEY CONFIRMED!" in reference to the above.
• Attack the Mouth: While Ridley's neutral special move, Plasma Breath, is charging, his mouth is left vulnerable to enemy attacks. A direct blow to it will cause the attack to literally blow up in Ridley's face and inflict massive damage on him. This is a reference to his most common weak point in the Metroid games (though he has had others, the mouth is the most consistently occurring one).
• Ax-Crazy: Downplayed. The developers seemingly made the point of emphasizing Ridley's viciousness and cruelty relative to the rest of the cast, and his love for pain is shown all through his moveset (which is so far the most violent across all characters in any game), his trailer, and even one of his win animations. However, as supplementary material for Metroid and his reveal trailer readily point out, Ridley is still a highly sapient being with astounding cunning and intelligence.
• Barehanded Blade Block: In the "More Fighters, More Battles, More Fun" commercial, Ridley blocks Pit's dual blades with each hand.
• Battle Intro: Swoops onto the battlefield and roars.
• Beating A Dead Player: One of his win animations has him apparently ripping his opponent apart even after they're dead, then looking at the camera with a Slasher Smile.^note He's actually tearing the ground (visible in a Team Battle victory), but the way the camera shows it makes it a convincing view.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: A good number of his attacks involve whacking and stabbing people with his tail, with one involving him holding it in-hand like a spear. Notably, all of these attacks are sweetspotted on the bladed tip of the tail.
• Bloodless Carnage: His Skewer is undoubtedly the most violent attack in the Smash Bros. series and it's no less painful to look at, considering that he impales them with his dagger-like tail. Though given the rating of this game, none of them are seen with visible wounds, or bleeding for that matter.
• Body Horror: The extent of the injuries that required his transformation into Meta Ridley can be seen by the fact that his wings and tail were replaced entirely and the back of his cranium is shorter.
• Blood Knight: No surprise, seen as how he seems to relish the blood and carnage he leaves in his and the Space Pirates' wake, which spells freedom of combating and killing spree to the other fighters of the series. The victory animation of him seemingly maiming whatever unfortunate sap that crossed paths with him, and his murderous gaze at the camera is a huge giveaway that he enjoyed it... very, very much.
• Breakout Character: His prominence has slowly increased as Smash has gone on, before finally culminating in becoming a playable character in Ultimate, most likely because he was a very popular character request. It reflected in his home series as well. While Ridley was already popular, his increased prominence in Smash has effectively caused him to supplant Mother Brain as Samus' archenemy.
• Breath Weapon: Similar to Bowser and Charizard, he has a fire-breathing attack called Plasma Breath (his neutral special), although his are fireballs that move in a wave-pattern and travel on the ground like in his first appearance. His Final Smash, Plasma Scream, launches his opponent against Samus' ship in space, and follows it up by breathing a massive beam of energy that causes the ship to explode.
• Charged Attack: In addition to his Smash attacks, Ridley's Plasma Breath can be charged to deal additional damage.
• Combat Parkour: Ridley is surprisingly very agile despite his size. He somersaults with ease and has great air mobility and aerial attacks. Even in one of his taunts and two victory poses, he shows off his nimbleness.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • He's described as one of the most brutal fighters, utilizing tactics that, while not dirty per se, are certainly more vicious and unsportsmanlike than other fighters' moves, such as scraping opponents across the floor and being perfectly content with impaling others just to win.
  • This also extends to his reveal trailer, where he picks off Mega Man and Mario before ambushing Samus. Mega Man's arsenal would make him the second biggest threat to Ridley, and while Mario might have been a better choice to pick off last due to being the most vulnerable target, Ridley chose to take him out in order to get under the skin of his hated adversary, Samus.
• Comedic Sociopathy: In accordance with his established personality in the manga, Ridley is still as brutal as ever, but now shows off his dark and sadistic sense of "humor" about his bloodlust, twirling Mario's dropped hat on his claw à la Super Mario Odyssey, with a visible smirk.
• The Comically Serious: Don't let his ferocious look fool you — just like other menacing characters in the game, he has no problems reacting hilariously with stuff like Superspicy Curry. Or even wielding a Hammer in some hilarious fashion.◊
• Composite Character: His design in Ultimate is an amalgamation of various Ridley designs throughout the franchise. It helps well with his different size in that regard. Elements that stand out include:
  • His default size is based upon his Early Installment Character-Design Difference in the original Metroid. This is understandable given his normally enormous size in most subsequent games.
  • His default color scheme and rugged appearance is based on his appearance in Super Metroid. His more humanoid proportions are also somewhat reminiscent of his appearance on Super Metroid's American boxart◊.
  • His idle stance is based upon his position in flight in Zero Mission.
  • His wing membranes and skin texture; the smaller spikes on his head, elbows and legs, along with the size and shape of his head crest and feet are elements embellished from his clone in Other M.
  • His slightly more humanoid proportions closely resembles that of his appearance in Samus Returns, having smaller hands and feet than usual.
  • While Meta Ridley has always had exposed skin on his head and limbs (this is more obvious in Brawl than in Metroid Prime), its purple color is much more brightly saturated now, which is reminiscent of Proteus Ridley's appearance in Samus Returns.
• Continuity Cavalcade: His Palutena's Guidance references his many appearances and forms in the Metroid series, including his first appearance, the time he kidnapped the Baby Metroid, Meta and Omega Ridley, Neo-Ridley, Little Birdie aka Ridley's clone, and the Ridley Robot.
• Continuity Nod: In his reveal trailer, Ridley tries to grab Pikachu, but is thwarted by a Metroid. This continues a trend of having the two challenge each other, as seen with Pikachu's battle with Ridley back in Brawl's story mode and Ridley's ominous approach towards Pikachu in the Smash Direct that announced his appearance in Wii U.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Ridley's raw damage output and combo potential are insane, but this comes at the cost of defensive skills, making his oversized hitbox both a blessing and a curse. If the opponent can get into his attacks, Ridley is ridiculously easy to combo. His low weight relative to his sheer size means this can lead to extremely fast KOs since he can't just survive like similarly sized fighters. He also has a dearth of reliable and/or safe KO moves, and his safe moves don't deal much knockback until the opponent is at an unreasonably high damage level.
• Cyborg: His cybernetic Meta Ridley incarnation from the Metroid Prime series appears as an alternate costume.
• Darkness Equals Death: The wicked space dragon unexpectedly makes short work out of both Mario and Mega Man with the location being in an empty and darkened passageway, where Samus has been escorting the two of them in his Dynamic Entry trailer. While Samus is left (partially) unscathed, the latter two have been brutally slaughtered, as Mario's cap is just lying on the ground, whereas Mega Man is nowhere else to be seen, although its probably best NOT to know what Ridley actually did with his body right after he impaled the super fighting robot.
• Dark Reprise: His victory theme is the Item Acquisition theme from the Metroid series played in a minor key rather than the major key it's usually in. He shares this with Dark Samus.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • His down special, Skewer, is a slow tail stab that must hit with the tip of the tail to maximize its potential. Connecting with a sourspot (i.e. anywhere but the tip) will deal insignificant damage and knockback, and missing outright will leave Ridley wide open. If used properly, however, it deals 50% (among the biggest percentage boosts of any attack ever, including Final Smashes — tied with Roy's Flare Blade, which also falls into this trope). That's on top of the Focus Attack-esque crumple state that the opponent gets forced into, giving Ridley a golden opportunity to capitalize on.
  • This also describes Ridley in general: a good Ridley can rack up enormous damage off of a single mistake with his powerful, long-range attacks, but if he makes the wrong move, he'll be the one getting brutalized thanks to having the biggest hurtbox in the game and only weighing as much as Ike or Snake.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Ridley is an alien dragon, but his design resembles a pterosaur with arms, giving him the six limbs of a traditional dragon rather than the wyvern-like layout of real-life pterosaurs. He's also fought in Yoshi's Classic Mode route, "Jurassic Journey".
• Dragons Are Demonic: A Giger-esque alien dragon whose backstory, design and behavior all scream pure evil.
• The Dreaded: His debut trailer demonstrates why he is Samus' greatest enemy. First, he quickly and silently dispatches a super fighting robot and a turtle dragon-stomping plumber without being detected. The lack of footstep sounds behind her makes Samus realize something is wrong, so she calms herself before turning her cannon around. When Ridley attacks from below, Samus' eyes are filled with horror as her visor reflects her arch-nemesis and its monstrous size. Then, after taunting her by twirling Mario's hat on his finger with a visible Psychotic Smirk, it cuts to gameplay footage of Ridley brutally destroying nearly every other fighter, culminating with him throwing Samus into her own Gunship and then blowing it up with his fiery breath. Note that it takes all of that for Samus to find the courage and face off against Ridley at the end of the trailer.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He shows up as background character in 64, which was released about twenty years before his playable debut.
• Enemy Mine: Like the other villains, he teams up with the heroes to oppose Galeem. This is notably the first time he's worked with the heroes under any circumstances.
• Establishing Character Moment: In his trailer, after quickly and brutally dispatching Mega Man and Mario with ease, when it comes time to show himself to Samus, he twirls Mario's hat around his index finger while smiling. This gives those unfamiliar with him a good gist of his intelligence and sadistic personality.
• Evil Is Bigger: He rivals Ganondorf, Dark Samus, and Sephiroth as the most genuinely evil playable character in a Super Smash Bros. game, and he rivals Bowser and King K. Rool as the biggest.
• Evil Is Visceral: Several layers of his muscles are fully exposed such as the cracks underneath his eyes, and around his pelvis area. If that's not enough he's so lithe and bony it almost looks like his ribcage is seemingly visible. While it isn't fully nauseating to look at, it is indeed unsettling nonetheless which is another example of just to show how gruesomely detailed and rigid he is compared to the other characters.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Given that he impaled Mega Man and what seemed to be crushing Mario's skull in his debut trailer...
• Final Boss: A giant Ridley, accompanied by a pair of Endermen, are the last opponents in Steve's Classic Mode. Obviously he serves as a stand-in for Minecraft's final boss, the Ender Dragon.
• Fireballs: His neutral special move, Plasma Breath. Ridley will breath a fireball that moves in a wave-like pattern, similar to the first game. He can charge the move to fire more of them, up to five. They're good for edgeguarding offstage opponents or confirming into Ridley's deadly dash attack if the last one of four or five hits. However, Ridley can be struck on his mouth by any move to cancel this move; this will noticeably damage him instead.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Due to being a fast flying creature, his bone and muscle structure is lightweight compared to other large creatures. This puts him near the middle of the cast in terms of weight, despite having a huge model.
• Genius Bruiser: He's voracious, cold-blooded, sadistic, and a vicious menacing space dragon who'll murder any victim he comes across. However, he's exceptionally a lot more intelligent than he appears to be as he's Large and in Charge who leads an army of Space Pirates, and a major example of this trait is in his introductory trailer, where he stealthily ends Mega Man really quickly by impaling the robot's body with his sharpened tail since spikes are essentially a One-Hit Kill to Mega Man in his series.
• Glass Cannon: Is this relative to other characters with large bodies like Bowser and K. Rool. Ridley hits hard like the extra-large fighter he is, which is combined with a faster moveset than other heavies and with excellent aerial combat options, as well as a command grab to mix things up and a unique down special that, if sweetspotted, could spell death for nearly anyone it hits. Unfortunately, size doesn't always mean mass, since Ridley's weight is closer to that of normal-sized heavyweights like R.O.B. or Ike than his plus-sized contemporaries like King K. Rool or Bowser, which, combined with the fact that his hurtbox is the largest out of every character, leaves Ridley very vulnerable to all sorts of pressure.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: He has glowing yellow eyes like he does in Metroid. It's especially apparent in his reveal trailer, where the eyes are among just a few sources of light in that room.
  • In gameplay, when the camera is further away in stages that are dark, his eyes seem to slightly glow.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: No surprise here, Ridley is evil all the way down, with his purple bat/demon wings complete with Spikes of Villainy. He can also use them as surprisingly effective weapons to hit his opponent with.
• Goomba Stomp: Done as his down aerial, where he plummets with both feet downward. It has a sweetspot on its clean hit, which meteor smashes opponents.
• Grapple Move: His side special, Space Pirate Rush. Ridley flies forwards with an outstretched hand and, if he grabs the opponent, he falls to the floor with them. He then drags them across the floor indefinitely, unless the victim wiggles out of it, Ridley cancels it, he reaches the end of the platform or a wall, or if he enters the blast zone; to prevent him from abusing it for easy suicide/cheese kills on stages with walkoffs, he will be KOed first when he reaches the blast zone. The grab can be canceled anytime to release the opponent prematurely. If he's in the air before hitting the floor, he will fall with the opponent in his clutch, which can set up a Suicide Attack (unless of course, Ridley cancels the grab first).
• Hero Killer: Having disposed of both Mario and Mega Man in his trailer with relative ease, the gameplay footage later adds to his body count with Pit, Fox, and Sonic all being tossed out of the ring and Link getting impaled.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Many of Ridley's special moves can be turned against him.
  • If Ridley charges up his Plasma Breath and gets hit on the mouth while charging, the attack will blow up in Ridley's face and damage him instead.
  • Using his Space Pirate Rush on a walkoff stage will kill Ridley and leave his victim alive if he's close enough to the blast zone. And by close enough, that means nearly a quarter or more of most walkoffs.
• Home Stage: Ultimate: Brinstar in Ultimate's website, their fight in World of Light though takes place in Brinstar Depths, and their normal unlock battle takes place in Norfair.
• Idle Animation:
  • He looks upwards while shaking himself off.
  • He brings a claw to his chin in a contemplative gesture.
• I Shall Taunt You: The demonic space dragon is absolutely not above making a spiteful gesture. After crushing Mario's skull like a fleshy watermelon, he bursts through the metallic bridge to not only surprise Samus with shock, but he even takes the opportunity to catch the plumber's famous cap and have it twirl around his extended claw. All of that just to show off how needlessly cruel he can be, likely as another way to get under Samus' skin.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: His down special, Skewer, specializes on this. By perfectly demonstrating his preferred way of killing people, he crouches briefly and then jams his tail forward. Hitting with the sourspot does little and won't budge opponents an inch, but hitting with the bladed tip will cause them to take 50% on top of crumpling them into the floor vulnerable. This move is even the very way he dispatches Mega Man in his debut trailer, as well as how he flat-out KO's Link without even launching him (though that scene was displaying the game's Stamina mode).
• Informed Attribute: Finally averted. This is the first video game depiction of Ridley to freely showcase the intelligent and cruel personality that supplementary materials always claimed he possessed.
• It Can Think: While supplementary materials from his home series, as well as his Melee and Brawl trophies, always indicated he was intelligent, it rarely showed. His depiction in Ultimate shows off his intelligence much more clearly, to the point his trailer shows him twirling Mario's hat around his finger in front of Samus after having very quickly and quietly dispatched him and Mega Man, in a manner that is him unquestionably taunting her. One of his idle animations also has him caress his chin, as if thinking.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Ridley taunts Samus over blindsiding and defeating Mega Man and Mario with relative ease by picking up and twirling the latter's dropped hat on one claw, all the while sporting a sadistic Psychotic Smirk.
  • By ripping through her Gunship with a fiery Wave-Motion Gun, his Final Smash always ensures he will take down Samus in some form — even if she's not fighting in the same battle as Ridley.
• Lean and Mean: In contrast to the buff Other M design previously used as the Pyrosphere stage hazard in Wii U, this Ridley goes back to the thin, skeleton-like look he has had in most Metroid games. This is also in contrast to his fellow large heavyweights, which look like they have the mass to go with their size.
• Leitmotif: His reveal trailer features "Vs. Ridley", Brawl's Rotten Rock & Roll remix of his original battle theme from Super Metroid. His character trailer uses a new, rock-based remix of said theme.
• Limit Break: His Final Smash, Plasma Scream, has him knock his opponent into Samus' Gunship as it's flying, before blasting the hell out of both them and it with a fiery mouth beam. If that's not enough, anyone who is damaged to 100% or more by the end of the cinematic is instantly KO'd, then and there. After the cinematic is over, you can see the Gunship crashing in the background.
• Man Bites Man: A few of his moves are comprised of bites, like his neutral attack's regular third hit, or his dash attack where he lunges and crunches opponents. Both are effectively powerful KO moves.
• Maniac Tongue: The demonic space dragon gets a kick out of the act of injecting his sharpened tail into his victims' torsos, all the while having his tongue spill out of his maw, emphasizing his bloodlust.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Basically a tall Xenomorph Xerox blended with a dosage of pterosaur features, giving him the body plan of a Western dragon.
• Mythology Gag:
  • His smaller size in Ultimate is in line with his Early-Installment Weirdness from the first Metroid.
  • His more sadistic personality as shown off in the trailer hearkens back to his more energetic and talkative personality from the 2002 Metroid manga.
  • Ridley's way of executing Mario is exactly how he crushed the heads of Samus' parents in Samus' hallucination of that same manga. Also from the manga, his impalement of Mega Man is similar to how he wounded Gray Voice.
  • His character art shown above has him in the exact same pose as Bowser's from 3DS/Wii U, except Ridley is facing the opposite direction. How fitting, since they're both giant, draconic arch enemies to their series' respective heroes.
  • In addition to his Meta Ridley costume, many of Ridley's Palette Swaps reference his various incarnations and color schemes from both how he appears in-game and different pieces of promotional artwork.
  • When Ridley breathes fireballs, they travel in a wave motion, which has not been seen since the original NES Metroid.
  • His standard stance has him bend his limbs in a similar way to his compressed appearances from the NES/SNES titles, which Sakurai implemented to keep him within the game's character size boundaries while still making him seem big.
  • His side special dragging opponents across the floor is a reference to a cutscene in Subspace Emissary where he picks Samus and scrapes her across the wall before getting hit by Pikachu's Thunder.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: His epithet in the Boxing Ring is "Cunning God of Death," a moniker he got in supplementary materials for Zero Mission in reference both to him being a Person of Mass Destruction and to his Joker Immunity.
• Narcissist: Viridi brings up the time Ridley built a robot replica of himself, calling him a narcissist for it. This was inspired by an interview with Metroid series co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto, who revealed that Ridley built Mecha Ridley to flaunt his image as a powerful weapon.
• Natural Weapon: His barbed tail. He even uses it like a spear in his forward tilt.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: An example who can be described by all four in the trope name: he takes out Mega Man and Mario with Ninja-like stealth, he's a Space Pirate, he cheats death like the undead through methods such as rapid healing and cloning, and his cybernetic Meta Ridley form is an alternate skin. On top of those four, he's also an alien dragon who resembles and acts like a xenomorph crossed with a pterosaur.
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: His sheer lack of visible muscle tone gruesomely emphasizes how incredibly gangly he is in appearance, with his arms themselves being almost as thin as his tail, but being thin doesn't stop from being a powerful enemy to virtually anyone he faces.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Ridley in Ultimate is incredibly detailed, even more so than the realistic characters (like Snake or Ryu) in either Ultimate or Brawl.
• The One Guy: The only playable Metroid character who is male, as well as not being any variant of Samus.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: It takes a threat like Galeem to convince Ridley to fight for the same cause as Samus.
• Our Dragons Are Different: He's a fire-breathing Western dragon from space with pteranodon-like features crossed with a Xenomorph Xerox. He's the fourth playable dragon in the series following Yoshi, Charizard and Corrin, but all are very different interpretations of the mythos.
• Palette Swap: Many of Ridley's alternate colors are references to his non-purple appearances throughout the Metroid series.
  • His red/orange palette references his artwork for Super Metroid.
  • His blue/violet palette references his Neo Ridley appearance in Metroid Fusion.
  • His green/red palette references his artwork for Metroid: Zero Mission.
  • His gold/blue palette references his golden statue (along with the other bosses) from both Zero Mission and Super Metroid.
  • His violet/green palette references his sprite in the original NES Metroid.
  • His silver/green Meta Ridley palette references the Ridley Robot in Zero Mission.
• Playing with Fire: His Plasma Breath shoots out a stream of fireballs from his mouth, and his forward smash is a short-ranged burst of fire similar to Mario's. His Final Smash, Plasma Scream, has him breathe an intense stream of plasma (the Metroid universe's equivalent to weaponized fire) on Samus' gunship.
• The Power of Hate: Possibly why his Final Smash focuses on him destroying Samus's Gunship; Ridley's relationship with Samus on his side doesn't go much deeper than his unbridled hate for her.
• Pragmatic Adaptation:
  • He's been significantly scaled down and his physical proportions have been heavily altered from his games and prior Smash appearances, to make him more viable as a playable character. And much like with Kirby, his unlimited flying abilities have been reduced to a few flaps for the sake of competitive balance.
  • The size of his wings is one of the few elements not taken from one of his in-game designs. Instead of the tiny wings of the earlier 2D games or the enormous wings of the 3D games and Samus Returns, Ridley instead has wings that are proportionally long but not wide, allowing him to look menacing at his scaled-down size without looking awkward or inducing massive Hitbox Dissonance.
• Primal Stance: He's almost always crouched down low to the ground, to where his claws are almost touching the floor. This is justified since this is, mechanically and tactically, to make him as small a target as possible; one of his taunts is merely him standing slightly more upright, and this alone demonstrates that he towers over most fighters in the game.
• Promoted to Playable: Ridley had a presence in almost every Smash prior. He went from a background character in the original game, to a cameo in Melee’s intro, to a two-time story boss in Brawl, to a stage boss in Wii U, and now he's finally playable in Ultimate. This also marks the first time he's ever been playable, period.
• Purple Is Powerful: His skin is predominantly purple like it is in most Metroid games, and he's a Lightning Bruiser who can deal the largest amount of damage of any character from the entire series. His down special, for example, can deal up to 60% damage(!) if executed correctly.
• Razor Wings: Uses his wings for his up aerial and Wing Blitz up special to damage enemies.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: A murderous, sadistic Space Dragon who is the leader of a band of Space Pirates.
• Sadist: His attacks are unusually brutal for the games, and during his reveal trailer he is shown taunting Samus right after impaling Mega Man and throwing Mario off a bridge. His gameplay demonstration also shows him stabbing Link in the gut, then curl up to sit there to watch him die (in a colorful explosion).
• Secret Character: For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 4 hours, beat Classic Mode with Yoshi or anyone in his unlock tree six times, or find and defeat him in World of Light.
• Sickening "Crunch!": In his reveal trailer, Mario's bones can be heard cracking as Ridley crushes his skull. Likewise, one of his taunts has him stand straight up with an audible crack in his bones.
• Slasher Smile: If you look very closely at the corners of his mouth during his "rip apart the dead opponent" victory animation, you'll notice him putting on a smile.
• Sore Loser: Ridley will applaud his opponents with slow and sullen Sarcastic Clapping if he loses a match.
• Space Pirates: He's the commander of the Space Pirates, whom Samus constantly butts heads with. His Classic Mode has him fighting against characters who pilot their own spaceships.
• Spikes of Villainy: He has some spikes on his wings and head, but his main one is the one on his giant stinger-like tail.
• Stealth Expert: Despite being a giant flying space dragon, Ridley is able to pick off Mario and Mega Man mere feet away from Samus without her realizing anything is afoot.
• Suicide Attack: Due to Space Pirate Rush's status as a command grab, using it offstage can potentially allow Ridley to drag his opponent to the lower blast line. Like most sacrificial KOs, it's Awesome, but Impractical unless you have stock advantage, since Ridley dies first this way, but no one says you can subvert this by throwing and bumping them into the stage first...
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: His Final Smash instantly KOs characters with high percentage, much like Bayonetta's, Zelda's, and Joker's Final Smashes.
• Tom the Dark Lord: A vicious, corpse-like alien dragon who dispatches his opponents in gruesome ways has the mundane name "Ridley."
• Unskilled, but Strong: Ridley's fighting style lacks anything resembling finesse and is every bit as savage and animalistic as one would expect from a Space Dragon. That said, his sheer speed and raw strength more than makes up for it and he uses acrobatics really, really well.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Sure, Smash Bros. is no stranger to dark and frightening villains such as Giga Bowser, Tabuu, and Master Core. However, Ridley's viciousness and cruelty helps him stand out among the colorful Nintendo cast, having a brutal and animalistic moveset that really emphasizes what a sadistic monster Ridley is. His reveal trailer, in particular, portrays him like a villain straight out of a horror film.
• Wham Shot: His reveal trailer has the shot of Ridley stabbing Mega Man with his trademark tail. To many, this is what gave away his inclusion in Ultimate, leading to many an "Oh, Crap!".
• Wing Shield: For whatever reason, Ridley braces his front with his wings which is strikingly redundant since there's a visible energy shield that covers the entirety of his body, something that all characters can do.
• Wipe the Floor with You:
  • His side special, Space Dragon Rush, does this to an opponent unfortunate enough to get hit by it, dragging them across the floor. It's also a Call-Back to his first appearance in the Subspace Emissary, where he slams Samus against the wall and drags her across it. A special note goes to the speed at which he does this. He is throttling the poor sap faster than Sonic's top running speed.
  • He also does this for his back throw, dragging his opponent's back on the floor before tossing them aside. It's harder to notice, though, given how quickly the animation plays out.
• Xenomorph Xerox: An aspect of his appearance since Super Metroid (particularly the long bladed tail), but this game makes it even more obvious thanks to the particular aspects they chose from various Ridley designs along with the extra detail in his skin. His reveal trailer plays it up with him viciously and stealthily picking off Mega Man and Mario not unlike the trope namers.
• Your Size May Vary: It's been stated multiple times in the past that Ridley was relegated to boss appearances in previous Smash games because his size wouldn't make for a practical fighter, and scaling him down wouldn't be true to his character. In Ultimate, he's still relatively big, but gets away with it by being hunched over most of the time. His brief appearance in King K. Rool's trailer is more in line with how he appears in his home series. It's even mocked in his Classic Mode credits picture, where he's so massive that he faces Rathalos on equal footing while a normal-size Yoshi frets in the foreground.

Voiced by: Hideo Ishikawa (Japanese), Keith Silverstein (English)

The legendary vampire hunter of the Castlevania series, Simon Belmont is a member of the illustrious Belmont clan, a family that uses the holy whip, the Vampire Killer, to hunt the evil armies of Dracula wherever they may lurk. Simon himself initially took up the mantle to save Wallachia and the world from Dracula's shadowy rule in the late 17th century, and when Simon later suffered a Dying Curse from his foe, he reassembled Dracula's body to destroy him again and break the curse. He's the second Konami fighter in Super Smash Bros. after Snake.

Simon has a wide array of options when it comes to fighting at range, from the long reach of his Vampire Killer whip (which gives him some of the longest-ranged Smash attacks of the cast) to multiple projectiles to assail enemies from afar, above, and below. At the same time, however, many of his attacks are slow, and his recovery options are lacking. Simon is at the top of his game when he can keep his opponents at arms length, both to take advantage of his powerful ranged abilities and to keep himself from having to recover in the first place.

• Adaptational Badass: He's always been identified and renowned as a legendary figure who's descended from a powerful family of hunters of the supernatural in his series, but in the world of Super Smash Bros., his abilities were given a substantial boost. In this series, he's capable of performing various attacks that his descendant, Richter Belmont, can deploy in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night by sharing other noticeable moves such as his Slide Kick, Uppercut, and Blade Dash in addition to using his Axe, Cross, and Holy Water. Other than using the Grand Cross in Castlevania: Judgment, Simon himself isn't completely restricted to pulling off Grand Cross ^note  Which is an Item Crash that Richter also has. that he utilizes as his powerful Limit Break.
• Ancestral Weapon: The Vampire Killer has been used by the Belmont Clan to defeat Dracula and his minions for generations. Here, it is used by both Simon and Richter.
• Barbarian Hero: Simon is almost an exact match for the trope description, taking cues from his appearance on the box art of the Castlevania games on NES and SNES.
• Battle Intro: Appears while surrounded by light, then swings his Vampire Killer along the ground.
• Big Damn Heroes: He used the Vampire Killer to wallop Death in the jaw right after the latter had reaped Luigi's soul.
• Building Swing: The Vampire Killer can latch onto ledges to let Simon hang from them, in a nod to its use in Super Castlevania IV and Castlevania: Bloodlines.
• Chain Pain: His Vampire Killer whip is in its Morning Star form, which is a long chain with a small mace ball at the end.
• Calling Your Attacks: Exclaims Grand Cross! during his Final Smash.
• Composite Character:
  • Sakurai notes that some of his moves are actually taken from Richter Belmont, his descendant, when talking about Richter's status as an Echo Fighter. Specifically, all the moves that give him mobility, like Tackle (his dash attack), Slide Jump (his down tilt), Somersault (his backwards jump), and Uppercut (his Up Special, called High Jump in his original series) all came from his Echo. His Final Smash, Grand Cross, is also from Richter, as the games featuring him do not have Item Crash.
  • His Vampire Killer whip combines the Level 3 ball and chain design of the original games with the Combat Cross handle from the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow universe.
• Crippling Overspecialization: His excellent range on his normals, heavy zoning pressure, and brutal sweetspotted hits are countered by the slow startups on all of his whip and projectile attacks, reliance on sweetspots to be effective, and tendency to fold easily under pressure. Get in his face and his effectiveness drops greatly.
• Darker and Edgier: As Sakurai notes in the Direct video that debuted him, Simon and the Castlevania series are a bit darker than much of the rest of the Smash roster. This is reflected in the Castlevania stage being a forbidding castle full of horrifying monsters, Simon having a relatively grounded and realistic design, and his Final Smash, where he traps his opponents in a coffin, hurls them into the air, and bombards them with holy crosses, being more like a Fatality than a Final Smash.
• Dash Attack: Notable in that his dash attack, a forward lunge while spinning his whip around like a pinwheel, is a move from Richter called the Tackle, as he cannot perform this move in his home games.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Much like his home series, if he misses an attack with his whip, he's highly vulnerable due to the lag in the attack, and the majority of his attacks have a much narrower reach compared to other characters, meaning Simon requires far more precision than most characters. However, the trade-off is having the longest range in terms of standard attacks when compared to the rest of the cast, even Corrin and Mega Man. To put it in perspective, the Vampire Killer's reach is the second longest out of all major melee weapons in Smash history, only beaten out by Byleth's Areadbhar.
• Diving Kick: His downward aerial is a downward kick called the Jump Kick. Neither he nor Richter can do this in their own games, only in their Intra-Franchise Crossover game appearance in Harmony of Despair.
• Double-Meaning Title: His and Richter's reveal trailer is titled "Vampire Killer," which refers to their profession and is also the proper name of the whip they wield. It's also the name of the main theme of the Castlevania series that plays during the trailer.
• Dramatic Unmask: Right after walloping Death in the jaw, Simon dramatically pulls off the hood he was wearing in the first half of his trailer to reveal himself.
• '80s Hair: He once again sports the 1980s mullet he had in the artwork of his debut games.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Prior to Ultimate, Simon in the original games had a basic moveset and wasn't able to use Item Crashes. Now, he can use Uppercut and Grand Cross.
• Epic Flail: His whip, the Vampire Killer, is actually a small spiked ball on the end of a long chain. In the Castlevania games, it starts off as a regular whip, but can be upgraded to resemble how it is depicted in Smash.
• Gigantic Moon: His Final Smash produces an unrealistically large full moon in the sky regardless of what stage the fight is on.
• Glass Cannon: On one hand, he has atrocious recovery options (either an Up-B with horrible range, or an extremely vulnerable Tether Recovery). On the other, his attacks are both damaging and ranged, and, as opposed to other Zoners in other fighters, he and Richter are combo monsters when played right.
• Guest Fighter: Hailing from the Castlevania series, Simon is the second Konami fighter, after Snake.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: An extremely handsome blond, is also very brave, courageous, and heroic. He saves Luigi from Death's clutches!
• Holy Burns Evil: Downplayed Trope. Like in his own games, Simon is equipped with crosses and holy water to combat Dracula's demonic forces, but to keep Simon from being the most situational character in the game, they do as much damage to angels as they do to dark magicians. A poorly timed toss of holy water can be intercepted by one of his opponents, who can then hurt Simon with the weapon, even if they're evil!
• Holy Hand Grenade: His Final Smash, Grand Cross, traps the victim in a coffin before launching them upwards and blasting them with cross-shaped bolts of energy. In the Castlevania series, this is an Item Crash, a super move that varies depending on the sub-weapon you have. Simon himself cannot perform one in his games, but Richter can.
• Holy Is Not Safe: His holy weapons can also hurt characters they shouldn't be able to hurt otherwise, like Pit and Villager.
• Home Stage: Ultimate: Dracula's Castle, also known as the titular Castlevania itself. It takes various cues from its appearances throughout the series, with bosses from its history making background cameos.
• Hunk: He has his retro appearance rather than the bishonen one from later games, giving him a muscular structure and handsome face.
• Icy Blue Eyes: His azure eyes complement his extremely serious personality quite effectively.
• Idle Animation:
  • He assumes a more upright stance with his hand on his hip. Similar to Richter's talking sprite from Symphony of the Night.
  • He pumps his fist behind himself.
• In the Hood: He starts off his reveal trailer dressed in one to protect himself from the rain and to conceal his identity to viewers.
• Jesus Taboo: He wields several Christian-themed weapons without Jesus or Christianity ever being explicitly mentioned. It's downplayed, as his Cross and Holy Water weapons are still referred to as such (in contrast to how the North American releases of the NES games called them Boomerang and Fire Water), while Sakurai referred to the Vampire Killer as a "holy whip" in the August 2018 Direct.
• Leitmotif:
  • "Vampire Killer", the theme of the first stage from the first Castlevania, accompanies his trailers. While there exists an 8-bit/rock hybrid mash-up that plays on his preview and in Sakurai's overview of him, his actual debut used the remix from Castlevania: Judgment.
  • His leitmotif in his home series, "Theme of Simon Belmont" is also featured in his stage's playlist, with two versions respectively taken from Super Castlevania IV and Castlevania: The Arcade.
• Limit Break: Grand Cross. It's a cinematic attack where Simon summons a coffin. Any enemies within range are sucked into the coffin, whereupon Simon grabs it with his whip, throws it into the air, and assaults it with a series of holy cross-shaped magic bolts. Fittingly, this is basically how the Cross Item Crash works in the main Castlevania series (minus the coffin trap), though like the moves he borrows from Richter, Simon could not perform these in his original games.
• Little "No": He may utter a small "Curses..." when KO'd.
• Long-Range Fighter: Simon's whip gives him a long range for his attacks, moreso than any other character, which is only augmented by his special moves. His directional whip input also destroys most enemy projectiles, which makes him an effective counter to other long-range fighters.
• Meteor Move: His lunging Diving Kick as his down aerial can potentially dunk enemies downward within the first 2 frames of the attack's hitbox. It is highly risky to use since the attack will make Simon plummet off the stage if it misses.
• Mighty Glacier: Much like in the classic Castlevania games, his slow speed and lagging when jumping and attacking often leaves him vulnerable, but this is balanced by the reach and strength of his attacks.
• Moveset Clone: Chronologically, Simon is technically this to Richter due to moves such as Uppercut and Grand Cross originating from him, despite the latter being noted as the Echo Fighter. Sakurai even lampshades this by stating that Simon also echoes Richter in a way and it's hard to say who is echoing who.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Much like other throwback characters like Pac-Man and Mega Man, almost all of his animations are recreations of his animations in early games. His walk is a characteristic strut inspired by the way he walked in his debut game, and like in that game as well, he tucks his legs up when he jumps. Even his idle stance calls back to the Belmonts' rather unusual posture in their original games.
  • Throwing a Holy Water to "cook" a chicken in his reveal trailer is a coy nod to his home game's penchant for Inexplicably Preserved Dungeon Meat.
  • His official render is his pose on the original Castlevania's box art, albeit turned 180 degrees and with the Vampire Killer still approaching the viewer.
  • His cracking Death in the face with his whip hearkens to the opening for Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, where Richter does the same for a skeletal mook.
  • One of his victory animations has him grabbing a Red Orb, after which he keeps on jumping and whipping at the same time, a trick you could do in the original game.
• Perpetual Frowner: He always has a dour look on his face, contrasting with his cheerier descendant Richter.
• Religious Bruiser: Simon wields several holy weapons, including several crucifix-themed attacks, to do battle with the forces of darkness.
• Retraux:
  • Much like Pac-Man and Mega Man. While Simon has received more recent redesigns over the years (such as Castlevania Chronicles, Castlevania: Judgment, and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate), his design in Ultimate is primarily based upon his classic NES design. This can be pushed even further with the Palette Swap that resembles his NES sprite.
  • His whip produces 8-bit sounds when hitting someone.
• Secret Character: For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 2 hours and 50 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Link or anyone in his unlock tree three times, or find and defeat him in World of Light.
• Shoryuken: The Uppercut special move. It is a move he borrowed from Richter, as he cannot do it in all of his starring appearances.
• Silly Walk: His well-known manly stroll from the 2D games, which is one of the most infamous walking cycles in video game history, is used for his default walk animation. And it's hilarious to look at in a 2.5D perspective. It's basically on par with Mega Man's walk animation, which is basically another infamous sprint from the 8-Bit era of video games.
• Skill Gate Characters: He has great range and disjointed hitboxes, zoning tools that can clutter up a screen like nothing, and extremely powerful Smashes that can KO from afar at very low percentages when sweetspotted, but his sluggish and awkward aerial movement, terrible recovery, frame vulnerability on most of his whip attacks, and vulnerability to sustained close-range pressure are all major issues that more skilled players will readily exploit.
• Slide Attack: One of the moves he got from Richter. He can further his slide attack with a leaping kick called Slide Jump.
• Trash Talk: If he defeats any "dark" characters, Simon may say "To darkness!" on his victory screen. Uniquely, this makes him the only character who has a win quote for characters outside of their home series.
• Token Human: The only human among the newcomers in Ultimate’s base roster that isn’t an Echo Fighter.
• Variable-Length Chain: After Death separates Luigi's soul from his body, he gets a brutal sock to the jaw by Simon's whip, it seemed like he was dozens of feet away from where he was standing. In gameplay the whip still has considerable range but nowhere near as long it was in his Big Damn Heroes reveal.
• The Worf Effect: One clip of gameplay from his debut trailer has him outrange Corrin's forward smash attack (which was the longest in 3DS/Wii U) with his own.

The Kong family's original Arch-Enemy and the Big Bad of the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy (as well as the cartoon of the same name, their Nintendo 64 successor, and five portable titles), King K. Rool is the demented leader of the band of crocodilians known as the Kremling Krew. Usually content with stealing their bananas/medals/Crystal Coconut, he's actually tried to go after the Kongs themselves on a few occasions. After being absent from games for nearly a decade, K. Rool makes his triumphant return as a playable character in Ultimate. He's also the third character included to be made by a non-Japanese developer, Rare, same as Diddy Kong.

K. Rool is a tanky bruiser who can rack up a lot of damage on his foes with his Blunderbuss and Crownerang to attack enemies in various ways. In addition, his pectoral armor can not only be used as a Counter-Attack, but can also No-Sell many attacks while he, himself, is attacking. Take care not to be too reliant on it, however; it will break if overused and leave K. Rool dizzied and vulnerable. If you manage to master the Kremling King's abilities to their fullest, this will surely be your finest hour.

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: He wears a crown (or a pirate hat when using his Blunderbuss), a cape, wristbands, and armor on his torso, but he's otherwise unclothed.
• Acrofatic: Never mind jumping and dodging (and he's an impressive jumper too, as seen in his original boss fight and reflected in his Up Throw), someone as fat as K. Rool shouldn't be able to run on all fours with that gigantic gold gut of his flopping around. It's noticeable that unlike Dedede, when he slaps his belly, it doesn't jiggle or wobble, suggesting that it might actually be more muscle than fat under there. Doubles as Truth in Television, as Real Life crocodiles are deceptively fast on land. And from a meta-viewpoint, his Up Special grants him a fantastic vertical mobility that's atypical of heavyweight characters.
• Adaptational Heroism: One of the many villains who joins forces with the rest of the cast to take down Galeem. He's also the only villain to appear in World of Light's opening cutscene aside from Bowser, who has demonstrated far more redeeming qualities than him.
• Adipose Rex: K. Rool is easily among the fattest of the Kremlings and as such, he's their leader. He's able to use his gut to his advantage as well.
• Anthropomorphic Zig-Zag: As opposed to him being very anthropomorphized in main game appearances, he's only mostly such here (while he walks and fights like a human, his only voiced line in his trailer was a roar, and his running animation has him on all fours).
• Arch-Enemy: The biggest recurring nemesis to Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. His reveal trailer even emphasizes this, starting by showing heroes who have a playable nemesis facing off against their respective enemy, and then ending with K. Rool performing a Punch Parry with DK and Diddy. And his Final Smash always involves him destroying DK Island even if he isn't up against the Kongs in that match. Hilariously enough, the Banjo-Kazooie trailer shows K. Rool sleeping on the floor of Donkey Kong's house, and neither he nor Diddy seem to mind.
• Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: Evokes this contrast with Donkey Kong. DK fights completely bare-handed, with nothing on his person but his humble tie. Meanwhile, K. Rool is decked out with his shiny gold crown, bracelets, and especially his belly armor. The contrast is especially noticeable when comparing their chests. DK's chest features nothing but his bare monkey muscle, while K. Rool has to protect his chest with round golden armor that highlights his obesity. This even comes into play in their movesets: K. Rool has more defensive options thanks to his equipment and odds-and-ends (Belly Super Armor, Gut Check counter, projectiles to keep opponents at a distance, etc.), but DK's superior speed, mobility, and combo ability makes him a more aggressive threat who is better at fighting up-close and personal, using nothing but his body to attack.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: The starting stomp of his Final Smash works even on opponents who try to shield it.
• Art Evolution: His design downplays the more vibrant colors on his trophy from the fourth entry, and instead gives him darker coloring much more in line with the Donkey Kong Country games, with his scales being more detailed and his underbelly having armor with a golden sheen over it.
• Ascended Extra: He was just a trophy in Melee, Brawl (also appearing as a sticker), and 3DS/Wii U (also appearing as a Mii costume), but finally became a playable character for Ultimate.
• Ax-Crazy: Oh yes. It's subtle, but King K. Rool is noticeably more deranged this time around. In addition to acquiring some new tics, he's much more aggressive and bestial compared to his home series, running on all fours like a wild animal, rather violently disposing of King Dedede, and looking a little too eager to fight DK and Diddy in his reveal trailer. And just as his Melee trophy lampshaded way back when, for his Final Smash, King K. Rool makes liberal use of the needlessly destructive Blast-o-Matic, laughing uncontrollably as he obliterates DK Island with his opponent(s) trapped on it.
• Badass Armfold: His entrance animation has him drop from the sky while in this pose, letting out an Evil Laugh.
• Badass Cape: Notably, it is a bit tattered at the edges in Smash, possibly in reference to his years of inactivity.
• Bait-and-Switch: Gloriously subverted in his reveal trailer, which shows what looks to be a silhouetted King K. Rool stomping towards Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong's hut... only for it to be King Dedede wearing a K. Rool costume. Then as Dedede is laughing at his own prank, the real K. Rool appears behind him and smacks him away.
• Battle Boomerang: His Crownerang Side Special. His crown will function like a boomerang when thrown, returning to his hand. However, it can be intercepted like the Boomerang item in 4 and land on the stage for anyone to grab, or be stolen by characters like Villager. It will eventually return to him, much like how R.O.B.'s Gyromite works.
• Battle Intro: Falls onto the battlefield with his arms folded, then laughs.
• Belly Flop Crushing:
  • His Dash Attack has him literally hurling his weight forwards with his stomach.
  • His Down Smash is a more direct example, featuring him belly flopping on the floor with his arms outstretched.
  • His Neutral Air where he puffs out his belly is functionally this when falling on the opponent. It's notable for its ability to tank hits from below with the inflated belly armor when used in this way.
  • His Up Smash has K. Rool hopping straight up, falling forward to the floor, and landing on his gut, ending up in a planking position not unlike one of Luigi's taunts. The actual belly flop can even Meteor Smash airborne opponents, though it is rather weak.
• Beware the Silly Ones: In spite of his comical antics and cartoonish design, in personality K. Rool is more comparable to the likes of Ganondorf or Ridley than to Bowser or Dedede — he's a borderline-insane Evil Overlord who relishes in his evilness and repeatedly escalates his attempts to exterminate the Kongs every time they beat him. His Final Smash, where he uses a Wave-Motion Gun to blow up Donkey Kong Island and his opponent with it, is canonically what he tried to do in Donkey Kong 64.
• BFG: His neutral special has him pull out his blunderbuss from DKC2 and fire cannonballs. The blunderbuss can also suck the cannonballs back like a vacuum.
• Bling of War: This incarnation of K. Rool, in addition to his Kevlard, wears gold-plated armor on his chest and stomach, as with his original appearance. Moves that make use of his stomach have super armor (and reduce the damage K. Rool takes while active as a bonus), but tanking too many consecutive hits with this will result in the armor cracking and K. Rool being stunned for a short while. K. Rool also has a counterattack with his belly, which functions in the standard fashion, negating received damage entirely if successful.
• Boxing Battler: His forward smash has him pull out a boxing glove like in DK64. The end of his trailer has both him and DK pulling out boxing gloves and performing a Punch Parry, their incredible strength causing a tremendous shockwave.
• The Bus Came Back: He'd been absent for at least ten years by the time this game came out, making this the first outing he's had in a while since Mario Super Sluggers back in 2008. It's even lampshaded in his reveal trailer; DK and Diddy are very surprised to see him again, in the flesh (or scales, in this case).
• Button Mashing: His Final Smash, which involves him using the Blast-o-Matic, has him keep hitting the trigger to shoot it.
• Cape Swish: Grandly performs one before pointing like in his artwork for one of his victory poses.
• Combat Pragmatist: Much like in the first Donkey Kong Country game, the end of his trailer has him Playing Possum and sneaking away while DK and Diddy are celebrating, only for K. Rool to stomp them into the ground with a surprise attack.
• Combo Breaker: Much like Luigi, King K. Rool's neutral air is effective for easing pressure, being a move with quick startup and a long hitbox that also uses some of his Belly Super Armor.
• Composite Character:
  • His design is based on his modern design, but also uses elements of his original Rare design, including the gold belly armor and detailed scales. In addition, while he has his classic asymmetrical eyes, he also has the "crazed eye twitch" of his cartoon incarnation on top of that.
  • His moveset uses gadgets from the various gimmicks he's adopted in the original Country trilogy and Donkey Kong 64; he has his crown toss from DKC, the blunderbuss from DKC2, the helicopter pack from DKC3, and boxing gloves from 64. His Final Smash, the Blast-o-Matic, is also from 64.
  • Crocodile Isle as depicted in his Final Smash has the same basic layout as the mechanical watercraft version from Donkey Kong 64 (most notably the presence of the Blast-o-Matic), but it also seems to be a regular land-based island like the original Crocodile Isle from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest.
• Confusion Fu: His niche in the "big, slow, bulky heavy hitter" milieu (Bowser, Ganondorf, and Dedede rounding it out); as a character whose core concept is "super-heavyweight who does things that super-heavyweights aren't supposed to be able to do", he is somewhere between this and Jack of All Stats, sporting a wide variety of options that can surprise people and provide answers to numerous scenarios.
• Cool Crown: One that functions as a boomerang weapon at that! Careful, though, as like R.O.B.'s Gyromite, it can be "bounced" away and be used as a regular throwing item by opponents. With the crown's strength, rebounding on hit, and K. Rool's large body, this can prove disastrous for the crocodile king should his opponent get their hands on it. It will eventually respawn back on his head given enough time and inactivity.
• Counter-Attack:
  • His down special move, Gut Check, has his belly glowing bright green. If an opponent attacks him in this state, he'll thrust his belly out and send them flying, and if a projectile hits him in this state, he'll reflect it; however, it only works on attacks from the front, his head and feet are still exposed to attack, and it has a short cooldown period after use like other counters. This is likely a reference to his boss fight in the original Donkey Kong Country, where the Kongs will take damage if they attempt to roll/cartwheel into his belly during his cannonball dropping attack.
  • Thanks to his belly-based Super Armor, many of his basic attacks can serve as this. If the opponent attempts to attack K. Rool's belly to interrupt one of these attacks, his belly armor will tank the blow (reducing damage in addition to negating knockback), and his opponent may find themselves eating K. Rool's attack for their trouble. However, repeated use of this belly armor in too short a time will leave K. Rool stunned.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Upon seeing him whip out the Blunderbuss, one would think that the original strategy of jamming it with its own cannonballs would still work. One case of Schmuck Bait later, and they would then find out that he has bypassed that design flaw. In fact, he's turned it into an advantage of his own now that he can pull the thrown cannonballs (and opponents) in and fire them back out.
• Enemy Mine: The World of Light intro shows him teamed up with the Kongs and, like Bowser, to confront Galeem.
• Evil Is Bigger: He is about the same size as Bowser, who K. Rool can be seen as an Expy to, making him large enough to play the bigger villain to Donkey Kong despite the latter's status as a superheavyweight in his own right.
• Evil Laugh: As can be seen in his entrance animation and Final Smash.
• Exposed Animal Bellybutton: Despite being a crocodile, he has a prominent outie belly button.
• Faster Than They Look: Despite being big and fat, he is surprisingly fast when it comes to stage movement. Even in the trailer, he is seemingly as quick as Donkey Kong on all fours.
• Fat and Proud: His side taunt has him giving his golden gut a hearty slap with an air of pride.
• Fat Bastard: He's Donkey Kong's Arch-Enemy, and he's got quite a gut on him. He even weaponizes it, both as a Dash Attack and as a counter move in the form of Gut Check. His neutral aerial also emphasizes his stomach to attack enemies.
• Friendly Enemy: Despite their heated battle earlier, Donkey and Diddy have no problem with letting K. Rool hang around in their hut in Banjo & Kazooie's reveal trailer. When Banjo & Kazooie actually show up, K. Rool also seems really happy to see them like Donkey and Diddy... Even though the trailer ends with him facing the same fate as Gruntilda.
• Furry Reminder:
  • His dash is a bestial four-legged run similar to what actual crocodiles are capable of, in stark contrast to the fact he stands upright.
  • Much like Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Bowser, and King Dedede, his vocalizations in Smash are more realistic-sounding animal sounds.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: In Banjo & Kazooie's reveal trailer, K. Rool is seen lounging inside the Kongs' house.
• Graceful Loser: If K. Rool doesn't win the fight, he's seen clapping excitedly, happy he just got such a fun fight.
• Green and Mean: A green crocodile whose name is a play on "cruel" for good reason.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: The Blunderbuss can suck in an opposing player and use them as ammo. His forward throw can also damage nearby fighters.
• Hammered into the Ground: His down tilt is a sumo-esque stomp that buries opponents, and his down throw piledrives his victim.
• Heel–Face Turn: Fighting alongside the Kongs in World of Light must have done a lot to further Kong and Kremling relations, since, as opposed to invading their home in his own trailer, he's lounging around DK's place in the Banjo-Kazooie trailer just like he's just another member of the DK Crew.
• Helicopter Blender: K. Rool's heli-pack has a hitbox on its propeller, giving him protection from opponents attacking from above.
• Helicopter Pack: His Up Special has him pull out his heli-pack from Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!.
• Home Stage: Ultimate: Kongo Falls in Ultimate's website, his fight in World of Light though takes place in Pirate Ship Depths, and his normal unlock battle takes place in Jungle Japes.
• Idle Animation:
  • He snaps his jaws a few times.
  • He pats his stomach while sticking his tongue out.
• Implacable Man: Most of his moves have Super Armor, which means he laughs off any hitstun that comes his way and smashes the sender off the screen like they didn't even hurt him at all. Not only that, but he has one of the best Up Special recoveries in the game, let alone amongst heavyweight characters. If you don't manage to smash him all the way into the blast zone, it's very likely that he will be back.
• Improvised Weapon: He can toss his crown as a projectile, which returns to him like a boomerang.
• Inconsistent Dub: The English version has the announcer say "King Kay Rool", distinctly saying the middle initial. The Japanese version instead pronounces the K. as if it's part of Rool^note his name is written in katakana as キングクルール, or "Kingu Kuruuru", without any pause indication, so the announcer says "King Cruel". And both of those are also different from the cartoon, where the characters say "King Kuh Rool".
• Inexplicably Tailless: Downplayed. While K. Rool does have a tail, it is much smaller than what you would expect from an anthropomorphic crocodile (especially considering his comparatively long tail in the Rare-developed Donkey Kong games), being little more than a nub, and difficult to notice given his girth.
• Jiggle Physics: It's very subtle, but during some moves and taunts, his belly jiggles.
• Kevlard: One of his moves is Gut Check, a counter move that consists of him simply using his gut to bounce back enemy attacks, including projectiles. He also has a diving belly flop with Super Armor. Even one of his taunts has him smack his belly to emphasize his toughness, and it has super armor! It does have its limits, however. Taking too many hits in a row will cause the armor on his chest to crack, stunning K. Rool and leaving him open for attacks.
• Kick the Dog: His Final Smash sends his victims to DK Isle, which he then blows up with his Blast-o-Matic device — even if Donkey Kong and his friends are not his opponents.
• Laughably Evil: Many of his animations and attacks are on the comedic side compared to most of the other villains.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Just before his official reveal trailer begins, his prodigious weight is so great that he shakes the screen even while Sakurai is still signing off from the Direct.
• Leitmotif: A new remix of "Gangplank Galleon", his boss theme from the original Donkey Kong Country, accompanies both his reveal and gameplay trailers. This remix also has lyrics, making it his Villain Song as well. A brief snippet of it also plays as his victory fanfare.
  • In addition, Ultimate also added a remix of Crocodile Cacophony, his theme from Donkey Kong Country 2.
• Limit Break: Blast-o-Matic. K. Rool makes a bum rush straight forward, and anyone hit by it is then caught in a cinematic where they are blown up alongside DK Isle via K. Rool's towering laser cannon.
• Mad Eye: Along with his golden gut, K. Rool's disturbingly bulging and veiny left eye with an enlarged iris are two of his most iconic traits — and, while his few post-Rare appearances inexplicably downplayed these traits to near-absence, Smash brings them good and back into focus just as during his heyday.
• Mad Scientist: He uses the propeller backpack he utilized as part of his Baron K. Roolenstein persona from Donkey Kong Country 3 (despite the rest of the costume not being present) and the Blast-o-Matic he helped design in Donkey Kong 64.
• Meaningful Name: King K. Rool = King Cruel
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: His solid gold tum-tum effectively acts as a second, passive shield. He has multiple attacks (and one taunt) that have super armor, and his counter is a versatile move that counters both melee and projectiles, all thanks to his Kevlard. That said, it has a limit, and, if it blocks too much, his gut can break and stun like a standard shield. Learning to keep it from breaking is key to his Stone Wall playstyle.
• Mighty Glacier: While K. Rool is somewhat sluggish on the whole (with a relatively slow run and very low air speed), he has very powerful attacks and is second only to Bowser in terms of weight. Notably, he avoids the Glass Cannon status of his fellow super-heavyweights thanks to his defensive options: he possesses Super Armor on many of his moves, allowing him to get an edge on speedier opponents; he has access to two solid projectiles to defend himself with or to set up combos; he has a Counter-Attack that, much like any other Counter-Attack^note except for Incineroar's Revenge, can (if timed properly) completely block most attacks without sacrificing the health of his shield and knock the opponent away for daring to hit him; and finally, his recovery move has fantastic vertical range (especially for a super-heavyweight), capable of saving K. Rool from the depths of the blast zone while also covering his head with a hitbox, making it difficult to interrupt.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Compared to other ways characters enter a battle, King K. Rool just lands on the stage upright with his arms crossed. It's a lot cooler than it sounds.
• Mythology Gag:
  • His entrance at the beginning of each match has him plop down on the stage while standing straight up, much like what he does at the start of his battle in the first Donkey Kong Country. His pose in this animation is also reminiscent the "Bash K. Rool" minigame in Donkey Konga, where he strikes a similar crossed-arms pose◊ whenever he emerges from a hole.
  • His title of "Kremling Commander" is a reference to his Victory Fakeout from Donkey Kong Country, where the "Kredits" list K. Rool as the Kommander.
  • In the opening of his character video, he walks into the camera while in the Pirate Ship stage. It references the Gangplank Galleon, his lair. It is the stage of his boss fight in Donkey Kong Country, which then becomes a world for Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest.
  • One of his attacks has him do a belly flop, referencing a similar move he does in his battle in Donkey Kong Land.
  • His Blunderbuss can suck up the cannonballs that are thrown back at him, which was how Diddy and Dixie damaged him in his role as the final boss of Donkey Kong Country 2. Except doing so no longer causes his Blunderbuss to malfunction, and he can even reuse the sucked-up cannonball. The sound effect used when a ball gets sucked back into the gun is even a slightly updated version of the one from that game.
  • When his Helicopter Pack Up-B starts to lose altitude, K. Rool fruitlessly flaps his hands in the exact same way he does in Donkey Kong Country 3 when his helicopter peters out after the Kongs land a hit on him.
  • His Final Smash is a recreation of the Game Over sequence of Donkey Kong 64, right down to him pushing the button multiple times. There's one major addition: in the original game, the game over sequence ended before the Blast-o-Matic actually fired. This isn't the case in Smash...
  • At the end of his trailer, K. Rool is Playing Possum, much like he did in the Victory Fakeout segment of Donkey Kong Country. He also comes back much bigger, referencing his usual size in the DKC games.
  • His reveal trailer shows him on the Pirate Ship stage while other characters jump on his head thrice, referencing his boss battle from Donkey Kong Country.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: He is an obese Kremling pirate and warlord with a Mad Eye, who desires to conquer Donkey Kong Island.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: In his reveal trailer, he completely forgoes any elaborate setups like stealing the Kongs' banana hoard or arriving in a big airship and simply attacks the Kongs at their home turf.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Enforced. Marth's Classic Mode in Ultimate has him face opponents who have been considered draconian like Charizard and Ridley, and K. Rool is part of this lineup despite never being labeled a dragon beforehand.
• Perpetual Smiler: His facial build combined with his mouth full of sharp teeth gives him a near perpetual Slasher Smile when he's in a neutral state.
• Pet the Dog: He roots for Banjo & Kazooie's arrival in their reveal trailer, along with the Kongs.
• Pirate: A recurring motif of his. It's represented through his Blunderbuss from Diddy's Kong Quest, with the matching pirate hat of his "Kaptain K. Rool" persona popping atop his head whenever he uses it. Furthermore, his theme song is "Gangplank Galleon," which originally played during the boss fight against him on the pirate ship of the same name and which starts off sounding like a typical sea shanty. And many of the clips and pictures of him show him on the Pirate Ship level based on the one from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
• Practical Taunt: Even one of his taunts (the one where he slaps his gut) has super armor frames.
• Precision-Guided Boomerang: Heavily downplayed. If K. Rool gets out of the path of his crown after he throws it, it will start to track his position, but it will quickly peter out; it will soon drop at the end of the returning arc and can be used as a throwable item.
• Pretender Diss: He knocks aside King Dedede after the latter dressed up as him to prank the Kongs.
• Promoted to Playable: His previous appearances in the Smash series were simply as a collectible trophy in Melee, Brawl, and 3DS/Wii U before being made playable in Ultimate. However, unlike the other villains debuting in this game, this isn't his first playable appearance, as he was previously playable in DK: King of Swing, Donkey Kong Barrel Blast, and Mario Super Sluggers, all as a secret character.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: An insane, savage, and ruthless crocodile with one of his eyes being red at that!
• Removed Achilles' Heel: Originally, his blunderbuss had a fatal flaw where if anyone manages to knock a cannonball back into it, it'll backfire and explode. Now? Attempting to exploit this flaw is the worst thing you could do, since K. Rool apparently fixed this so he can reuse shot cannonballs and even use other fighters.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: A big croc with a big cruel streak, including stealing the Kongs' banana hoard, torturing a tied-up Donkey Kong by shooting cannonballs at him at point-blank range, designing and building a robot that works by consuming the brainwaves of a captive^note specifically Donkey and Diddy Kong, Badnik-style, and developing an enormous laser cannon to obliterate DK Island out of revenge (which he succeeds in doing for his Final Smash), among other villainous misdeeds.
• Retcon: We see during his Final Smash that Crocodile Isle is surrounded by beach sand, when the island as a whole was a giant ship in the very game this scene was referencing.
• The Rival:
  • To Donkey Kong, naturally (and to Diddy, but to a lesser extent). The Rivals is even the title of his reveal trailer.
  • He's also depicted as one to Incineroar, who K. Rool tries to challenge in the former's reveal trailer. K. Rool appears as an opponent in Incineroar's Classic Route, and the two are even shown locking grips in the Classic Mode mural.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: If you count scheming against the Kongs as "something". He also does pirating and acts as a mad scientist and boxer on the side.
• Running Gag:
  • Villager will always steal something from him... and he gets away with it!
  • His crown is a popular target for thief characters in general, as Joker also steals it in the latter's gameplay trailer.
• Running on All Fours: His dashing animation, a primal contrast to his usual bipedal jogging. This was likely done to provide a more bestial take on his character, and make him even more of an Evil Counterpart to Donkey Kong, who runs in a similar fashion. In addition, having that large a frame on such stubby legs wouldn't be doing him any favors in the speed department if he just relied on his two feet.
• Screen Shake: Due to his monumental girth, his entrance even before his trailer starts is so great that it shakes the screen even as Sakurai is still signing off from the Nintendo Direct — though it's equally possible that might have been caused by King Dedede.
• Secret Character: For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 2 hours and 30 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Link or anyone in his unlock tree once, or find and defeat him in World of Light.
• Self-Deprecation: He smacks around Dedede during his trailer, who is voiced by Sakurai himself.
• Shockwave Stomp: K. Rool's down tilt is a sumo stomp with enough force to shake the screen. It has a sweetspot that buries any fighter caught in it.
• Shows Damage: King K. Rool's Belly Super Armor cracks as it takes damage, with the crack getting larger the more damage it takes.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Ultimate seems to give him one in Villager, who constantly steals his Cool Crown with Pocket and snatches bananas from his grasp, as seen in promotional material such as his reveal, character showcase trailer, and an image on the official website.
• Skill Gate Characters: K. Rool has a variety of strong attributes that makes him easy to use, including Super Armor, projectiles, a counter which also acts as a reflector, and many strong attacks that can kill at low percents. That being said, his weakness can be exploited by a large portion of the cast, provided they're not too aggressive.
• Stone Wall: He's the closest Smash has to this archetype as a playable character (aside from Shulk's Monado Shield). He's a Heavyweight who can take a lot of damage before being KO'd, and his specials are on the defensive side, with a counter that doubles as a reflector and two projectiles in his Crownerang and Blunderbuss to control space, the former featuring sturdy Super Armor (buffed in Ver. 8.0.0) that can laugh off attempts to interrupt the crown toss. On top of all this, his recovery is a flight-based up special that travels much further than most other super-heavyweights, and has a hitbox on the propeller to provide some protection from above unlike many similar Up-Specials like Pit's and Duck Hunt's. All these elements combined can make taking a stock from this croc a tall order.
• Stout Strength: As portly as he is, he can trade blows with Donkey Kong on equal footing. The end of his trailer has both him and DK pulling out boxing gloves and performing a Punch Parry, their incredible strength causing a tremendous shockwave. The Classic Mode banner also has K. Rool locking grips with Incineroar, who has the power to deal over 70% damage with a single lariat and KO fighters like Ken Masters with relative ease.
• Sumo Wrestling: As befitting of his weight class, K. Rool has a few sumo-esque moves, like open palm strikes and stomping attacks (and one of his taunts is a stereotypical sumo stomp).
• Super Armor:
  • King K. Rool has a form of Super Armor unique to him, dubbed "Belly Super Armor", which activates only during specific parts of certain moves; his forward tilt, up smash, down smash, dash attack, neutral air, down air, up air, and side taunt all use it. Unlike most Super Armor (which withstands attacks up to a certain damage percent, at which point they fail), this has a health limit, represented by the king's belly plate cracking. It can break and leave K. Rool vulnerable if the player relies on it too much, but it also regenerates when not using any moves that activate it.
  • K. Rool also has a more typical application of super armor during the startup of Crownerang. Version 8.0.0 notably buffed the threshold of damage this Super Armor can withstand, turning this attack into a much safer option and an effective tool for tanking light hits and projectiles to retaliate with his own.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: His Final Smash has him transport his opponents to DK Isle, where he opens fire on them with the Blast-o-Matic, which subsequently obliterates the island as well.
• Trademark Favorite Food: According to Viridi, K. Rool loves bananas.
• Unskilled, but Strong: One look at K. Rool's uncoordinated style and how certain moves such as his Up Smash, Dash attack, and Up Air lead to comically leaving himself open make it fairly clear that K. Rool has no idea what he's actually doing. Much like in his home series, all he really knows how to do is throw his weight around. Fortunately for him, he's got more than enough weight to spare in that regard, and he compliments this by lashing out as brutally as he can at whatever gets in close, particularly highlighted in the striking savagery in all four of his throws.
  • It's worth noting that Incineroar, who is at least as strong as K. Rool and also skilled enough to KO Ken Masters, is only mildly exasperated when challenged by K. Rool and others, further illustrating the lack of relative fighting skill.
• Use Your Head: Performs a powerful upwards headbutt for his Up Air and Up Smash.
• Wave-Motion Gun: His Final Smash has him destroying Donkey Kong Island with the Blast-o-Matic, a massive laser cannon modelled after him.
• Weaponized Headgear: He can toss his crown, which inexplicably comes back to him like a boomerang. If he doesn't intercept the crown on its return trip, it can fall to the ground and be weaponized by his opponent instead or disappear into the blast zone (respawning on the ground shortly afterwards), leaving him bald until he reclaims it.
• Weapons That Suck: The second part of his Blunderbuss special has it suck in projectiles or opponents, before firing them as another projectile either in front, above, or behind him. He can even suck the cannonball back up and refire it if it gets reflected back to him!
• Wipe the Floor with You: Does this for his Back Throw, dragging his foe on the floor before tossing them aside (it's similar to Ridley's Back Throw, though the dragging is more noticeable in this case).
• Wrestler in All of Us: His Up Throw has K. Rool perform an argentine backbreaker on his opponent. His Down Throw, meanwhile, is a powerbomb. That's on top of a number of his other moves being taken from Sumo Wrestling.
• Your Size May Vary: Like many of the other large villains, K. Rool has been significantly scaled down to reasonably fit within the playable Smash roster. In his source games, he's often at least twice the size of Donkey Kong, who himself is already one of the biggest characters in this cast, which is reflected in the animated portions of his reveal trailer for Ultimate, where he towers over Dedede and DK. During gameplay, he's more-or-less around the same size as them, K. Rool's rotund physique aside. This hasn't been the first time that he had been shrunken down to such a size, however, as the first Donkey Kong Land game had him at a similar size relative to DK. Results in a bit of an in-joke at the end of his trailer, where he leaves DK and Diddy, and comes back much larger.

A near-sighted yet very perky anthropomorphic Shih Tzu who was introduced in Animal Crossing: New Leaf and very quickly rose to become one of the series' most popular characters. She debuted as the mayor's secretary, essentially doing most of the government-related work while the mayor (i.e. Villager) lives out the usual villager life, occasionally asking them for certain decisions. She is responsible for enacting town edicts and building projects funded by the mayor, and even is the one keeping the village together while the mayor is away.

She joins Villager in Ultimate as the second Animal Crossing fighter right after deciding to take a break from her duties. She shares a few attacks with Villager, but several of her attacks and specials are completely different. She is the third character originally an Assist Trophy to be Promoted to Playable in the series, after Little Mac and Dark Samus.

In battle, Isabelle's offensive output isn't anything special. she does relatively miniscule damage in many places, and her knockback is next to nonexistent. However, like the Villager, she can pocket any item or projectile for later use, and has even greater versatility with her Fishing Rod and Lloid Trap specials. In short, beneath that lovable, adorable exterior is a surprisingly tricky fighter to compete with.

• Achievements in Ignorance: In trailers, the carnage she causes is generally depicted as being entirely accidental. She often looks extremely embarrassed after landing an attack on an opponent.
• Adaptational Badass: Like Villager, she comes from a peaceful and non-confrontational series. She started getting some taste of the action in 3DS/Wii U as an Assist Trophy, but was mostly involved from the sidelines by throwing fruit to whoever summoned her and worrying when they got hurt. In Ultimate, she's now directly duking it out with Nintendo's (and some third parties') more action-oriented heroes and villains.
• Arrow Catch: Similar to Villager, she can snag an implausible variety of projectiles out of the air and into her pocket, including actual arrows, missiles, bombs, and even lasers.
• Ascended Extra: Went from an Assist Trophy, Smash Tour trophy and Mii Fighter costume in the fourth game, to a full-fledged fighter in Ultimate.
• Badass Adorable: She's just as adorable, clumsy and perky as she was in her home game, but she can tango with the rest of them just fine.
• Badass Normal: She's just a secretary with no combat experience or supernatural powers, but just like Villager, she can use tools and actions from her home series to fight on equal ground with everyone else.
• Balloonacy: Much like Villager, her up special summons balloons to let her fly. They take the form of a balloon chair and the balloons themselves are shaped like bunny heads, much like some balloons are in the Animal Crossing games.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: She wears a shirt, vest, and skirt, but no shoes.
• Battle Intro: Walks out of Town Hall (which then vanishes) and cheers for the camera.
• Boring, but Practical: Her up air and down air has her hitting opponents with turnips like Villager, but with a significant difference. Villager randomly has 1, 2, or 3 turnips. Isabelle always attacks with 2 turnips allowing for a consistent damage output.
• Breakout Character: Despite only being introduced in the fourth game in her home series, she quickly became the face of it, which made her into a highly likely candidate as a fighter for Smash.
• Call-Back
  • She receives her invitation in the same way as how Villager got his — through the mail.
  • One of her attacks is using a party popper, the same "weapon" the Mii Gunner costume of her used previously.
• Can't You Read the Sign?: Used as a gag in her trailer where she whistles as a sign pops out from the ground, making a running Sonic halt. As a move, it's an up smash. The sign is the Do-Not-Enter Sign from New Leaf, which was a Public Works Project structure, referencing one of her duties in the game.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: One of Isabelle's attacks has her trip and drop a clay pot.
• Designated Girl Fight: Her Classic Mode route exclusively features female characters with the exceptions of the final boss and Popo. The Japanese name of the route is a pun on the idiom "one red flower in a field of green", or "the only woman in a group of men".
• Difficult, but Awesome: Both her Lloid Trap and Fishing Rod are this. The rocket is great at trapping unsuspected foes, but is somewhat easy to see, doesn't last for much time, and can be destroyed by certain projectiles, meaning that you have to choose the right moment to plant it and lure opponents. On the other hand, the fishing rod has unlimited combo potential, but it forces Isabelle to stay still while the fish hook is in the floor, meaning that if you fail to hit opponents with it, she is defenseless against attacks.
• Dub Name Change: Shizue in Japanese, Marie in French, Fuffi in Italian, Melinda in German, and Canela in Spanish.
• Fighting Clown: Similarly to Villager, her moveset involves using a lot of mundane objects and animations that look fairly goofy in action. She also benefits a lot from the facial animation changes in Ultimate, often pulling silly faces or grins during the action.
• Furry Reminder: She is shown to be sleeping on the ground curled up not unlike Fox or Wolf. Makes it even more hilarious when the trailer showed she was doing it in Living Room, the Nintendogs stage with a real poodle.
• Genki Girl: Isabelle always gives it everything she has, with energy to spare. When prompted to take a break from work, Isabelle refuses, saying that she really enjoys what she does with a big smile.
• Grapple Move: With a fishing rod, amusingly. While it cannot grab opponents out of their shield like other command grabs, any opponent who makes contact with the lure will find themselves hoisted away by Isabelle. This can be especially useful off-stage, where Isabelle can literally fish for kills.
• Home Stage: Ultimate: Smashville in Ultimate's website, her World of Light and normal unlock fights though both take place in Town and City.
• Idle Animation:
  • She stretches her shoulders.
  • She turns to look at her tail.
• Improbable Weapon User: She uses a variety of different objects in battle, such as party poppers and fishing rods. While Villager's look like they can reasonably be re-purposed as weapons, Isabelle's tools are more mundane yet no less effective.
• Joke Item: For her jab, she uses the almighty... squeaky hammer. A hit does 1% damage and it can't be used in any practical combo.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: She has the same Pocket special that Villager does, allowing her to collect and store most items and projectiles and throw them back.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the big panoramic artwork showing all the characters, Isabelle is placed right next to Cloud setting off a party popper. The same Nintendo Direct that revealed her also revealed that Cloud's debut game, Final Fantasy VII, would be brought to the Nintendo Switch.
• Leitmotif: The Wii U remix of "Tour" is used in her character trailer. It is played when playing mini-games in the Island Resort, a locale which debuted in New Leaf, which also is the game she debuted.
• Lighter and Softer: Compared to previous character reveal trailers, Isabelle's is much more adorable and tamer, since she's neither a villain nor from a series that deals with the supernatural and the undead. It's also the first to not feature a character getting killed or maimed in the non-gameplay footage.
• Limit Break: Dream Town Hall. Similar to Villager's, only instead of making a house, she commissions the Nooks to build the Town Hall building.
• Magic Skirt: Zig-Zagged. While she can jump around and get launched everywhere just fine, she still apparently has to use her paws to prevent her skirt from going up after using her up special.
• Making a Splash: Her down smash involves throwing a bucket of water at the opponent.
• Marilyn Maneuver: When falling through the air in helpless state (as in after using her up special), she holds her skirt down with an embarrassed look on her face.
• Master of None: Isabelle is viewed as more well-rounded than Stone Wall Villager, but she doesn't have many advantageous attributes that are not rendered moot by another, disadvantageous one. Her floatiness hinders her above-average ground mobility, her interesting specials all have very visible flaws that can be easily exploited and even her amazing recovery leaves her too defenseless.
• Moveset Clone: Downplayed; she shares some moves with Villager, such as her dash attack, most of her aerials, and some of her specials (including her Final Smash), but her proportions, animations and other moves are completely different, making her a semi-clone at most.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Much like her boss, Isabelle uses mundane, everyday objects to bring the pain.
• Palette Swap: Half of her alternate outfits have her wear her Winter Outfit instead of her default Summer Outfit. One of said alternates is even based on her twin brother Digby.
• Perpetual Smiler: She is almost always smiling no matter what she does, like her boss.
• Pom-Pom Girl: Her neutral aerial is attacking with pom-poms while seemingly making a dance.
• Precious Puppy: Not the first anthropomorphic canine in the cast, but definitely the cutest.
• Promoted to Playable: She was an Assist Trophy and a downloadable Mii Gunner costume in 3DS/Wii U, but she's a playable character here.
• Punny Name: Her name can be read as "is a belle" on top of referring to the bells she wears in her hair — this is even lampshaded by Palutena in Isabelle's Palutena's Guidance conversation. Her original Japanese name, Shizue, is a variation on "shih tzu," her dog breed.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: An anthropomorphosized shih tzu who's the mayor's secretary in a game about cute little animals; everything about her is cute, just look at her.
• Rod And Reel Repurposed: Her side special is aptly named Fishing Rod. She uses it to catch enemies and even as a tether recovery.
• Secret Character: For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 3 hours and 20 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Pikachu or anyone in his unlock tree five times, or find and defeat her in World of Light.
• The Smurfette Principle: She's the only female newcomer in Ultimate's base roster who's not an Echo Fighter (Daisy) or has a male counterpart as an alternative costume (Inkling).
• Speaking Simlish: How her dialogue in her reveal trailer is voiced; identical to how it sounds in her original games.
• Took a Level in Badass: Did you really think your secretary not only was willing to fight other people, but also be capable of doing so? She's grown a lot since her days as an Assist Trophy, throwing fruit at people and getting worried when others are getting hurt...
• Trap Master: A mild one. She can plant a seed that erupts into a Lloid rocket that flies vertically upward if enemies get near it.
• The Voiceless: She's mute during battle, which is very unlike her home series where she has full dialogue and a canon voice.
• Weak, but Skilled: While Isabelle's basic attributes are nothing to write home about (she's fairly light and has a slow running speed), her attacks are versatile and have high utility. In particular, her Fishing Rod serves as both a fearsome command grab move and a viable recovery option.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Her Fishing Rod drags the enemy close before flinging them away. But just as common is its use to drag them into Lloid Trap range.

Voiced by: Unshō Ishizuka (Japanese), Tyler Bunch (English, credited as H.D. Quinn), Frederic Clou (French)

The Heel Pokémon and final evolution of the Alola fire starter, Litten. Incineroar is a fiery bipedal tiger stylized to resemble a pro-wrestler. However, it isn't a Fighting-Type like Lucario, but a Dark-Type, like Greninja. It loves to show off to the crowds by taunting and posing after every successful move it makes. It has a tough persona, but this kitty also has a softer side and loves the attention it gets from children who think it's cool. Notable as the last revealed fighter for the base version of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as the youngest addition to the base roster by debut alone.

Big, mean, and with strength to spare, Incineroar's grapples are certain to put the pain to its opponents. Its Alolan Whip, in particular, can send opponents flying when used with proper timing. Combined with the strength boost granted from successful use of Revenge, Incineroar's specials will inflict devastating damage and send its foes flying into next week.

• Adaptational Villainy: One challenge board image◊ (and to a lesser extent, Luigi's Congratulations image◊ in Classic Mode) groups it with some of the playable villains in the game. In its home series, Incineroar is merely a Heel wrestler (in other words, a villain in-act only). Also, Pokémon are implied to be just as good or evil as their trainers, but never explicitly evil by their own volition. It is, however, classified as a Dark type, which is called Evil type in Japan^note Which itself is a massive misnomer, as it refers to the ruthless and dishonorable nature of their combat style. The actual presence of darkness-based attacks, such as Dark Pulse, does little to clear up the mistaken image.
• Adaptational Wimp: Like Greninja, Incineroar's Dark type should render it completely immune to any Psychic-Type moves ^note barring the Miracle Eye effect. Here, Incineroar can be affected by them like any other fighter. And so, Mewtwo can use Confusion and its Final Smash Psystrike against Incineroar without any problem.
• Alliterative Name: Its Final Smash is Max Malicious Moonsault.
• Ambiguous Gender: Like most of the Pokémon characters, its gender has not been confirmed.
• Attention Whore: Every time it successfully lands a Smash attack or Jab combo, Incineroar will gladly pose for the audience. Thankfully, it's also smart enough to break out of the posing in case a fighter revs up an attack.
• Battle Intro: Emerges from a Pokéball and strikes a pose for the audience.
• Belly Flop Crushing: Its down smash is slamming the ground with its body.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: In particular, they are actually part of its forehead stripe, thus connecting to a mask-like design.
• Bishōnen Line: True to its inspiration, Incineroar resembles a person in a tiger costume more than an actual tiger. Its pre-evolutions, Litten and Torracat, are more catlike by comparison.
• Blood Knight: Its depiction in Ultimate pretty much involves Incineroar living for the thrill of wrestling.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Comes with the territory of being a show-off Large Ham heel wrestler. It taunts after doing smash attacks or throwing, but these can be canceled.
• Cats Are Mean: Incineroar is a smug, confident cat who constantly taunts its enemies. Of course, as Kayfabe below shows, it's all an act.
• Cat Folk: A humanoid tiger.
• Character Tics: Incineroar makes a lot of "one" signs during its taunting.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Incineroar shows one of these smiles when it fires the (two-handed) Daybreak weapon.
• Close-Range Combatant: Incineroar relies on being up-close to its enemy to deal damage.
• Closest Thing We Got: Among other things, it stands in for Zavok in Sonic's Classic Mode, and Zangief in Ryu's. Another example is multiple mini-Incineroar acting as red Pikmin.
• Clothing Damage: It wore a big coat during its reveal trailer, which got destroyed due to the fire Incineroar was emitting.
• The Coats Are Off: In its debut trailer, Incineroar actually is shown wearing one before jumping down to Ken. The flames in its body burns off the coat before its title card appears.
• Combat Pragmatist: True to form, it's a Dark-type heel wrestler who relies on brutal attacks like performing a spinning double lariat with claws out, striking someone's throat, or even taunting enemies. It's a bit more downplayed in Ultimate unlike in its debut game, where it learns more notable moves.
• Counter-Attack: Revenge has it receive damage and return fire with a weak explosion. However, this makes its coat light up in flames, signifying that its next attack is powered up. If combined with a perfectly timed Alolan Whip, Incineroar can deal a whopping 76% damage. Unlike similar special moves, Incineroar receives (greatly reduced) damage from the attack, but isn't knocked back.
• Crowd Chant: Whenever it does a successful smash attack, the crowd cheers.
• Dark Is Not Evil: As with traditional Dark-type Pokémon, Incineroar isn't truly evil. In this case, "evil" is merely just a stage show.
• Death from Above: Its up special, Cross Chop, launches Incineroar upwards before performing a diving attack with its arms crossed and in flames, creating an explosion upon impact. Be careful, though, as careless use can send it falling.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • Incineroar's Alolan Whip side special has it throw its opponent against the ropes, from which it can perform one of two moves depending on how precise your timing is. Perform the move too early, and Incineroar will perform a Back Body Drop that deals moderate damage. Perform it too late, and the move will fail and Incineroar will take damage. Time it right, and Incineroar will perform a devastating Lariat that can potentially kill at higher damage percentages, with the added bonus of being able to perform the move in midair. When empowered by its Down Special, Revenge, a perfectly-timed Alolan Whip can potentially deal a ludicrous 76% damage, bringing the unfortunate target to either the perfect KO percentage or outright launching them offscreen with no hope for recovery.
  • Incineroar's aerials are one of its best assets in the game and some of the best aerials in general. With that said, Incineroar is a character who has difficulty recovering, so this comes at a price. If played well, the risky style of being airborne will pay off with powerful, high-priority attacks that have very little end lag.
  • In general, playing as Incineroar requires really getting in your opponent's face, since it completely lacks projectiles and its melee attacks don't have much reach. Closing the distance between you and your foe, however, will prove to be extremely difficult, by virtue of Incineroar being among the slowest characters in terms of movement speed. Once said distance is closed, however, Incineroar's solid attack speed and outright crazy damage potential (especially when Revenge is activated) means that it'll only take a few clean hits for your opponent to be sent to their doom.
• Dreamworks Face: In one of its victory animations, it makes this face towards the camera.
• Dub Name Change: Gaogaen in Japanese. Félinferno in French and Fuegro in German.
• Epic Fail: Depending on your timing, its side-special, Alolan Whip, will either do a powerful Lariat on perfect timing, a moderate Back-Body Drop on slightly-off timing, or the opponent will just hit Incineroar in the face with both being dealt paltry amounts of damage if the timing was completely off.
• Friend to All Children: Incineroar loves the adoration they get from children despite acting nonchalant in their presence. This is demonstrated on a screenshot on the website, where it plays with several Pikachu and Pichu. Even Palutena comments on how it is seemingly great with them.
• Grapple Move: Its Alolan Whip side special is a dashing command grab that requires a secondary input. The timing outcomes are as follows:
  • Perfect timing: Incineroar will clothesline the opponent with a powerful Lariat.
  • Slightly-off timing: Incineroar will slam the opponent with its back, sending them upwards.
  • Fail: The opponent will hit Incineroar in the face, with both being damaged a paltry amount.
• Grin of Audacity: It always sports one.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal:
  • Incineroar's torso resembles a sleeveless shirt, but its lower body is the same red color as its muzzle and arms, giving it a pantsless look. Its upper head region is black in color compared to its muzzle, making it look like a wrestler mask. The fact that it vaguely resembles a sports mascot also helps, seeing how a lot of sports mascots wear shirts but no pants.
  • Also taking this into account, it's technically the second of only three fighters to fit this trope, after Diddy Kong^note who is also pantsless and before Banjo^note who is shirtless.
  • However, the lighter stripes in its purple alternate costume give an impression that it's wearing shorts.
• Heroic Build: Incineroar is big and muscular. Thanks to Ultimate, it gained a more defined, muscular appearance on its body, albeit with thinner legs. In its idle animation, it will show off its upper body muscles by flexing.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Incineroar acts tough, selfish, and unfeeling, and is even said to ignore its trainer's commands on a whim; but deep inside, it feels happiness when it's fanned over by kids and young Pokémon. To wit, one promotional picture◊ features Incineroar surrounded by several Pikachu and Pichu with an enormous grin on its face.
• Home Stage: Ultimate: Spear Pillar in Ultimate's website and its fight in World of Light, its normal unlock battle though takes place in Boxing Ring.
• Hot-Blooded: Very much so. Eager to wrestle and prove its strength. Even Played for Laughs in the Challenge Board, where one of the image is Incineroar about to wrestle a train while it is in Revenge boost.
• Hunk: A human-sized tiger wrestler with a lot of muscle would certainly have to count.
• Idle Animation:
  • It assumes a strongman pose while flexing.
  • It Raises one arm and waves its hand with the other.
• I Shall Taunt You: Incineroar does a taunt (which can be canceled) whenever it performs certain successful attacks (like its dash attack, Smash attacks, or a complete chain of its neutral ground attack). It will also make an annoyed reaction when its Smash attacks miss. This makes it special because Incineroar is the only character who can taunt in online gameplay, as taunting there is disabled.
• Kayfabe: Much like many Dark type Pokémon, they're not truly dark or evil. In Incineroar's case, its heel persona is an act that it keeps up for the sake of its fans.
• Large Ham: Incineroar's animations involves it posing and flexing. Also it taunts after attacking, either being proud after landing a hit or grumbling after whiffing an attack.
• Leitmotif: It's the Pokémon Sun and Moon's "Battle at the Summit" theme, a theme that plays when you defend the champion title. Very fitting in that regard.
• Limit Break: Max Malicious Moonsault. An enhanced variation of Incineroar's Z-Move, it charges forward and grabs the closest fighter it can get its hands on. Incineroar then clobbers that opponent before bringing them down with an explosive slam, which can also damage nearby opponents after the cinematic ends.
• Loophole Abuse: The buttons for taunting are disabled in online (unless you are Kirby and has inhaled an ability). Incineroar, however, can still taunt as much as it would like due to being able to do so after attacking.
• Masked Luchador: Its build causes it to resemble a person wearing a tiger costume more than an actual tiger. The stripe and head fur color even accentuates the wrestler mask look. A definite Shout-Out to Tiger Mask.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: Incineroar plays the Heel in battle, but secretly loves the attention it gets from kids. As such, it's used to represent Dragaux and Ogerpon in their Spirit Battles because they share the trope.
• Mighty Glacier: Incineroar has the slowest running speed among the base roster and its air speed isn't much better, but its strong attacks (which can potentially be made even stronger via its Revenge move) are overwhelming to deal with once it manages to approach successfully. Fittingly enough, its throws are among the most powerful in the game, with its back throw being even stronger than Ness' (whose back throw already had high KO power).^note Incineroar's Back Throw is more powerful than Ness' in some respect. However, it launches opponents at at a 45 degree diagonal angle, while Ness' launches at a more horizontally. This means that Incineroar's back throw can only KO earlier than Ness' at the very edge of stages like Final Destination, while Ness' will generally KO earlier anywhere else on such a stage.
• My Instincts Are Showing: Played for Laughs. Incineroar tends to demonstrate more cat-like traits in this game. One scene in its reveal trailer has it chasing a Bombchu like a cat chasing a mouse and a screenshot on the official website has it playing with a Smoke Ball (since it looks like a ball of yarn).
• Mythology Gag:
  • One of its palettes references its previous evolutions, Litten and Torracat.
  • When performing Alolan Whip, if Incineroar's victim is hit out of the ring by another opponent (or time is slowed down for them) and thus misses his follow-up attack, he will react with a very familiar pose from a certain Team Skull leader.
  • One of their victory animations has it exaggerate its torso to a large size, which is identical to how they portray the move Bulk Up in the anime.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Incineroar is an extremely buff bipedal tiger wrestler that's also darkness-aligned thanks to its heel motif.
• No-Sell: Revenge consists of Incineroar performing a classic wrestling example of this, consisting of taking a hit head-on without flinching, while hyping the crowd up and making its next attack hit harder.
  • Its parry animation is literally using its pecs to push out the attack, as though it didn't need to guard at all.
• Not the Intended Use: While normally one would use a perfectly timed Alolan Whip for damage, the other two have their use. Missing gives Incineroar slightly more horizontal movement, meaning more recovery chance. Pressing early launches the enemy upward, which is quite useful for a Star KO if the attack is done up in the air.
• Palette Swap:
  • Unusual for a Pokémon in Smash, it actually has its shiny palette as an alternate color, albeit with a darker chest.
  • The purple color resembles Big the Cat, which may be intentional given that this specific palette is used for Big the Cat's Spirit Battle.
  • Its reversed color scheme is that of its pre-evolutions Litten and Torracat.
  • Its orange color scheme closely resembles a previous fire-type starter Infernape, most significantly due to having blue hands and feet.
  • Aarontimar also notes that each alt matches that of a known professional wrestler — both green and orange are based on Tiger Mask (with the former based on Mitsuharu Misawa specifically), the reverse red and black is The Great Muta, blue is from Último Dragón, purple is Rey Mysterio Jr., black is naturally Black Tiger, and its shiny scheme was originally based on Jushin Thunder Liger.
• Panthera Awesome: Incineroar is based on a tiger, and ups the awesome even more by being a wrestler.
• Playing with Fire: Its primary type, and the second fire-type Pokémon in Smash. Though downplayed, as its moveset is more about physical attacks rather than wielding fire against its opponents. In fact, aside from a weak burst of flame when Revenge activates, it has no Fire-type or fire-related moves at all, only Dark-type (Darkest Lariat, Throat Chop) and Fighting-type (Cross Chop, Revenge) moves. Likely done to make him unique from Charizard, who utilizes many Fire-type moves in its moveset with a couple of Flying-type moves.
• Pokémon Speak: Its cries are made up of parts of its name, as usual, but it's also more expressive than your usual Pokémon and has oddly human-like inflection at times that sounds like Voice Grunting.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Downplayed. In their home games, Incineroar is a Mighty Glacier that's notable for being slower than its prior evolutions. In Smash, while Incineroar does have the slowest walking and dashing speed in the base game, its attacks come out quickly compared to other heavyweights, and some of them have high priority to boot, edging it slightly into Lightning Bruiser territory.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: As wrestling partners in its Classic Mode, Incineroar is the Red Oni to Greninja's Blue. It is loud, brash, tough, and slow versus the calm, collected, sneaky, and fast amphibian Pokémon.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Incineroar has predominately red fur with a black head and upper muzzle (meant to resemble a wrestler mask), black shoulder spikes (meant to resemble ripped sleeves), black stripes all over its body, and has a "bad guy" persona to play up. The "evil" part of it also has been ramped up in a few cases compared to its other appearances, as it even appears in a few in-game screenshots with some of the playable villains (See Adaptational Villainy above).
• The Rival: Somehow, Ultimate is making King K. Rool its wrestling rival, as shown in the November 1 Direct's "Elite Smash" splash page and the Classic Mode banner.
• Secret Character: For Ultimate: Have a Cumulative Wait Time of 7 hours and 30 minutes, beat Classic Mode with Samus or anyone in her unlock tree four times, or find and defeat it in World of Light.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of its palette swaps is essentially a beefed-up version of Big the Cat. Of course, there's a Spirit Battle which features Big the Cat's Spirit possessing a giant Incineroar of that color.
  • One of the Challenge Board images is Incineroar running up towards the Spirit Train while under the effects of Revenge. Doesn't it remind you of a certain other character who could suplex trains?
  • Alolan Whip is of course named after Irish Whip, a wrestling move with the same technique and all.
  • The penultimate fight in Classic Mode is another Incineroar, just like how in Tiger Mask, the final wrestler is another tiger mask-wearing foe.
  • All of Incineroar's throws are based heavily on the Suplex Copy Ability in Kirby Super Star. The fact that the basic grab move is a dashing grab like Alolan Whip's dash grab is just the start.
• Strong and Skilled: Upon its debut, it immediately challenges and defeats Ken Masters — an extremely accomplished mixed martial artist — in battle, after the latter had already defeated Little Mac, an extremely skilled lightweight boxer. Both have gone up against opponents with more power and won through skill, suggesting Incineroar's skill was too great in addition to its power. Shortly thereafter, Incineroar is challenged by King K. Rool, among others, and is merely exasperated rather than perturbed. It is also shown in the Classic Mode mural directly clashing with K. Rool without much difficulty, indicating its extreme physical strength. Its strength is further supported by their Classic Route, in which it fights and overpowers the likes of Ganondorf, King K. Rool, Donkey Kong, and even another Incineroar back-to-back. As pointed out in its Palutena's Guidance, Incineroar mainly relies on brute force, but as a wrestler, its technique isn't sloppy either.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Incineroar has some black tufts of fur around its shoulders that gives it the impression of it having ripped sleeves. This is especially fitting as its torso is supposed to resemble a tank top.
• Spin Attack: Its neutral special Darkest Lariat is pretty much this. It can move around while doing so and has high priority, letting it easily interrupt other foes' attacks.
• Studio Audience: The series always has an invisible audience that cheers, gasps, and otherwise reacts appropriately, but Incineroar is the only character who directly calls upon them, and they respond equally as well.
• Super-Strength: Incineroar is shown locking arms with King K. Rool in the Classic Mode mural without much difficulty, and its own Classic route has it fight and overpower the likes of Ganondorf, K. Rool, and Donkey Kong, who are all known for their immense physical strength. Dialed up even further if it uses Revenge, which further powers up its next move, allowing its Alolan Whip Lariat to deal a massive 76% in a single blow — more than any other physical special attack in the game.
• Suplex Finisher: Naturally has one as its Back Throw, being based upon wrestling. In fact, it's on par with Ness' as one of the most powerful Back Throws in the game.
• Tag Team: Because its Classic Mode is themed around fighters challenging it in the ring, there are two fights themed around this trope, with the final fight being a Master Hand and Crazy Hand tag team. Its tag-team partner is always Greninja.
• Top-Heavy Guy: It has a big, upper body torso with huge arms whereas the legs are on the smaller side (although if one looks close enough, there's some semblance of muscle detail there too).
• Use Your Head:
  • It uses headbutts as a throw pummel and as an up tilt.
  • To finish its Final Smash, Incineroar dunks itself head-first to its victim before crashing back to the ring.
• Visual Pun: As Sakurai points out, this red-colored character's Darkest Lariat has it spinning like a cyclone: a Red Cyclone, if you will.
• Wreathed in Flames:
  • Upon activating Revenge, it gets covered in embers. It shows that its next attack becomes powerful.
  • When diving from Cross Chop, its arms gets covered in flames which then explode upon impact.
  • In its debut trailer, it generated flames from its body to burn off its coat.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Several of its special moves are inspired by wrestling moves such as Darkest Lariat and Max Malicious Moonsault. Even its normal moves have things like the Shining Wizard for its forward smash and a drop kick for its aerial forward. Its throws are more powerful than usual as well. Its style utilizes puroresu, the Japanese take of the American-based professional wrestling (similar to characters like R. Mika). One thing that defines this is despite its heel status, it is still cheered by the audience, as heels in puroresu operate in a slightly different way.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: After defeating Ken, Incineroar finds itself challenged by K. Rool, Bowser Jr., and Villager, the other boxers of the roster. An unimpressed Incineroar rolls its eyes in annoyance.