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Video Game / Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U

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Settle it...in SMASH!

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U are a pair of video games developed by Bandai Namco and Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo in 2014. As indicated by their titles, the games were released on the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U, respectively. The two are considered collectively by fans to be the fourth installment in the Super Smash Bros. series (and thus often referred to by fans as Smash 4), though series director Masahiro Sakurai considers them separate enough to be the fourth and fifth entries, respectively. It contains 58 characters (7 of which are DLC), 42 stages for the 3DS version (8 DLC), 55 stages for the Wii U version (9 DLC), 700+ trophies, a bevy of new modes such as Target Blast (replacing Break the Targets) and Special Orders, and Character Customization in the form of Mii Fighters. Despite the obvious gaps in power between the 3DS and Wii U, the two versions play identically.

For 3DS, released on October 3 (September 13 in Japan), is the first game in the series for a portable console. While it lacks the recurring Event Match modes found in its brother, it makes up for it with the exclusive Smash Run and the StreetPass-based StreetSmash. Its selection of trophies and stages also largely focus on representing games from portable consoles.

For Wii U, released in late November of 2014 (early December in Japan), is much beefier than its sibling. It comes with extra features for the shared modes, several entirely new ones like Master Orders, the ability to have 8-Player Smash games, harder Challenges, and the board game-esque Smash Tour mode.

Like Brawl, For 3DS/Wii U has characters from third-party companies, with Sonic returning from Brawl, Mega Man and Pac-Man debuting in the initial release, and Ryu, Cloud, and Bayonetta as DLC.

The game is also the first to headline Nintendo's amiibo line of figurines, with every playable character getting a figure.

Its website can be found here.

    open/close all folders 
    Playable Roster 

Nintendo Characters:

Note: Bold denotes unlockable characters. Italics denote unlockables in the 3DS version, but starters in the Wii U version.

Third-Party Characters:

    3DS Stages 
Note: Bold denotes unlockable stages.

Nintendo Stages:

Third-Party Stages:

    Wii U Stages 
Note: Bold denotes unlockable stages.

Nintendo Stages:

Third-Party Stages:

    Items 

This game provides examples of:

  • 1-Up: The game introduces the S-Flag item, which grants an extra life if used in a stock match (in a timed match, it grants one KO point instead). The catch is that you must hold it in a specific pose for a few seconds, during which you cannot perform any other actions, not even to cancel out of the pose, so unless you've managed to get your opponent(s) out of the way, you're likely asking to be sent to the blast lines instead.
  • 2½D: The main gimmicks of the Jungle Hijinx stage are the rocket barrels that launch fighters between two platforms in the foreground and background.
  • Abandon Ship: Referenced in Bowser Jr.'s up special, which is named after this trope and features Junior being launched out of his Junior Clown Car, which then explodes after a few seconds.
  • Acid Pool: The Master Fortress form of Master Core in the Wii U version is filled with these, and they're actually one of only two things in there that can cost you a life; the other being the acid-oozing walls. Touching either at 100% or higher results in an instant KO, though getting hit even at low percentages can be deadly due to the potential for you to get bounced between the pools and walls repeatedly like a ping-pong ball.
  • Adaptational Villainy: While Dark Pit in Kid Icarus: Uprising initially started off as an opponent to Pit and was even created by Pandora's Mirror of Truth, he is otherwise unaffiliated with any of the important affiliates in game and even becomes a recurring ally of him later on. In the Wii U version of Smash 4, he appears as an opponent in the Big-Bad Ensemble-based Co-Op Event Match Final Battle Team-Up, which has him teaming up with Big Bads of several other series.
  • A.I. Breaker:
    • The Corneria stage can lead to many hilarious suicides when a powerful item (such as a Laser sword or a Bullet Bill) spawns or is thrown by the player on the ship's cannon. High-level AI opponents will ignore you to grab the most powerful item in the area, and either miss the jump, fail to jump back on the ship proper, or be blasted out by the cannon firing.
    • While the AI in the previous Smash Bros. games made little to no effort to defend themselves while returning to the stage, this is no longer the case, and they'll use their inhuman reaction times to airdodge virtually everything you throw at them. Problem is, they place a higher priority on doing this then actually making it back to the stage, and can thus be fooled into dodging attacks until they've fallen too far to survive or at least forced into a position where interrupting their recovery move is easier.
    • Also, they are programmed to airdodge every time you input an attack, even if you are a mile away, and (in the case of charged attacks like Smash attacks) they never take into account if you released the attack or not, but instead they will act as if you had tried to hit them with a quick move. With proper timing, this will result in the CPU airdodging then coming straight into the attack, over and over. Similarly, if you charge a Side or Down Smash, they will also try to roll into you the moment you start charging, with predictably hilarious results.
  • The All-Seeing A.I.: Made possible with the amiibo figures that you can use. When Nintendo means that the amiibo learns from you, they mean that the amiibo can eventually know what your strategy is and counter them. This can even result in a Curb-Stomp Battle.
  • All Your Colors Combined: Mega Man's Final Smash, which has him summoning his counterparts from Mega Man X, Mega Man Legends, Mega Man Battle Network, and Mega Man Star Force to fire their Mega Busters in unison, each releasing a different colored beam.
  • All Your Powers Combined: Mega Man summons Mega Man X, MegaMan.EXE, Mega Man Volnutt, and Geo Stellar with Omega-Xis for his Final Smash, all five Mega Men firing their Mega Busters together. Ultimate later adds Proto Man and Bass to the mix.
  • Amazing Technicolor Battlefield:
    • The 3DS version more or less plays out like Brawl's, dropping the player in front of a galaxy. Then the player goes through a wormhole like in the previous games and ends in space, right before the earth itself. Then the glowing blue planet erupts, and when the light from the explosion clears, you're suddenly fighting over a sea — only this time, it's morning. Morning turns to evening, the stage moves into the sky/atmosphere, and finally travels through a second wormhole, placing you back at square one. The Wii U version is no less insane, with the sun and the earth in the background actually colliding into one another, followed by a change in scenery to a morning sky.
    • In Classic Mode, triggering the battle with Master Core causes the entire background to briefly blacken before the area becomes a violently fluctuating swirl of various colors (predominantly yellow, orange, red, and black in the 3DS version), only periodically turning dark blue/indigo (complete with the galaxy seen at Final Destination's usual first section in the background) for a few seconds at a time. In for Wii U, the colors alternate between what are mostly yellow and green hues and purple and blue ones, which actually makes it harder for the Swarm that makes up Master Core's forms to stand out. Upon reaching Master Core's true form, the area becomes a blinding vortex of blue, unlike in for 3DS.
  • Anachronism Stew:
    • In All-Star Mode, players fight each playable character in order (or in Wii U's case, reverse order) of their original games' release. However, some characters have alternate costumes that turn them into different characters that were introduced at different times, but this doesn't affect their placement in the stage, resulting in the Koopalings appearing much later in the timeline than they should in place of Bowser Jr. (logically, they'd appear in the 1986-1990 stage between Marth and Mega Man), and Alph appearing earlier than he should in place of Olimar (logically, he'd appear in the 2007-2015 stage between Lucina and Greninja).
    • Starfy's trophy originally stated that The Legendary Starfy was released for the Nintendo DS in 2002, two years before the DS's launch. note 
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: You can win or unlock outfits to customize your Mii with.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, unlocking all the secret characters through the "# of Versus Mode matches played" method is far more lenient than in Melee or Brawl, where you'll have all of the secret characters unlocked by 120 matches, with a secret challenger appearing every 10 matches until then. For comparison, unlocking all of Brawl's secret characters through Versus Mode matches alone would have taken 450 matches, while in Melee it would have taken 1000 matches to unlock everyone. Its Wii U counterpart is similar, only you need to do 100 matches instead of 120 (due to some characters already being unlocked by default).
    • In previous games, there was no indicator of how much ammo an item had, meaning you could leave yourself vulnerable by firing a weapon that was empty. Now, if players try to fire a weapon that's out of ammo, the character will automatically throw it instead (unless you are rapid-firing a Super Scope). However, this has the drawback of making it harder to throw the weapon at another player.
  • Anti-Rage Quitting: The game has rules that can disqualify you from playing online such as targeting a single player, idling, and disconnecting during a match. Players are banned for a minimum of 10 minutes and can go higher.
  • Art Attacker: Bowser Jr.'s Final Smash is him turning into Shadow Mario and obscuring most of the screen with an orange painted X, which damages opponents who make contact with it.
  • Artificial Brilliance:
    • The adaptive AI may have become somewhat of an ascended fanon, as the amiibo figures of the characters will learn when you and other players fight against them in-game. This leads to the ability to teach them certain strategies, typically the ones you use against them a lot. However, people have discovered a slight bit of cheating on the part of the FP; they deal increased knockback and gain immunity to knockback as they level up. That still doesn't stop them from absolutely kicking your ass with the same techniques you use. And it works well. Too well... In fact, some can get so good that one amiibo nearly won a tournament. Some have even established amiibo-only tournaments, like the AFC.
      AFC amiibos are skilled in many forms of martial arts, including wavedashing, boost-grabbing, ledge-cancelling, boomerang superjumps and other combat tactics.
    • Master Hand gains a new wind attack that'll push the fighters away from him. He'll try to use it if you happen to be off the platform on the other side of Master Hand in an attempt to hinder your attempts to recover.
  • Artificial Stupidity:
    • Without the 1.0.5 patch for 3DS (which implements the Wii U AI), if you face Giant King Dedede in Classic mode on his Kirby's Dream Land Game Boy stage, he might decide to roll away from you the instant the match starts, putting himself outside the blast line and resulting in a KO before the announcer is finished saying "Go".
    • Also in 3DS, while in All-Star Mode set on normal and facing Ganondorf on Magicant, it's possible to kill him by getting him to stand on the Dungeon Man that walks across the bottom of the stage. You do this by waiting for Dungeon Man to go underneath the left most platform, jumping onto Dungeon Man, waiting for Ganondorf to follow you, and then you jump off back to the platform. Ganondorf will remain on Dungeon Man as he slowly walks off-screen.
    • This video shows just how "competent" the Level 9 CPU AI is when the player does absolutely nothing.
    • Despite the learning functionality of amiibo, Donkey Kong's amiibo is notorious for never retaining anything you try to teach it. The most glaring problem is that he'll spam aerials, fail to land most of them, get punished for it, and continuing to spam and whiff them. This is how every other amiibo learns not to spam ineffective attacks, but not Donkey Kong for some reason.
  • Ascended Extra: Little Mac was an Assist Trophy in Brawl but he now joins the series as a playable fighter.
  • Ascended Meme:
    • A Metroid trophy in the 3DS game explains that Samus' Power Suit lets her roll up into a ball so that she doesn't have to crawl — more than likely a reference to the "y cant metroid crawl?" meme.
    • Collecting every piece of Mii Gear yields a message that says "Your body is ready!"
    • One of the randomized usernames you can get in Wii U is FILS-A-MEK, after the character in the video the Mega64 team made for Nintendo which announced their E3 2014 plans.
    • Another random name that can come up in Wii U is NOJOHNS, after a famous slang term used by the series' competitive community to mean "No excuses". Reggie Fils-Amie also used the phrase in one of the videos promoting the game.
    • After all the jokes about how "Roy" is in Smash 4, the very first thing Roy (from Fire Emblem) does in his character trailer... is attack Roy (Koopa).
  • Asset Actor:
    • In the solo event match "Mechanical Menace", Metal R.O.B. and Metal Mega Man stand in for Mechons aiding stage boss Metal Face.
    • In general, this game establishes Wrecking Crew as R.O.B.'s Home Stage, which is the closest match the game has for R.O.B.'s signature game Gyromite.
    • In the solo event match "The Falchion's Seal", Giant Charizard stands in for Grima as Robin and Chrom try to defeat him.
    • In the co-op event match "A Fairy Nice Trip", four differently-colored Kirbies stand in for Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde to interfere with the players' journey through Pac-Land.
  • Athletic Arena Level: Thanks to Little Mac's playable debut, both versions of the game introduce the Boxing Ring stage from the Punch-Out!! series; the catch is that the platform on which the ring's lights are suspended can be brought down to cause damage to any unlucky fighter who's right below. The 3DS version also features a stage set in Rainbow Road from Mario Kart 7 and another based on the SNES version of Mute City, while the Wii U version has a stage based on Mario Circuit from Mario Kart 8.
  • Autobots, Rock Out!: On top of a theme for the games' iteration of Final Destination, an original theme was composed specifically for the fight against Master Hand and Crazy Hand.
  • Background Music Override: Cloud's victory theme is the victory music from his home game. When he wins a match, this theme overrides the normal battle results track.
  • Back Stab: The game adds two characters with attacks that have bonus effects if done in the back: Robin's Nosferatu absorbs more damage from the enemy is they are caught from behind, and Shulk's Back Slash has increased power if it strikes his oponnent's back, just like in his home game.
  • Bait-and-Switch Boss: You'll initially just face the usual adversary of Master Hand at the end of Classic Mode. As you increase the intensity level, his unhinged counterpart Crazy Hand will eventually start tagging along, and the duo's HP will increase, which has been the norm since Melee. However, once you hit 5.1 intensity or higher, after you reduce their HP a little, they'll abruptly be replaced by Master Core, who bursts out of the former in a rather disturbing manner, while the latter inexplicably disintegrates.
  • Bait-and-Switch Comparison: When Pit does his special taunt against Kirby on Palutena's Temple:
    Viridi: Just keep whaling on him. Then we'll see who's stronger: that little puffball... or Kirby!
  • Bat Out of Hell: Bayonetta's ability to transform into bats (called Bat Within) is an alternate for her down special Counter-Attack, activated when she uses her down special too late, allowing her to avoid damage just like in the game, but won't always activate Witch Time. In Smash this is her only animal transformation to be featured in the game.
  • Battle Theme Music: The only new boss to have its own theme is Master Core, the True Final Boss of Classic Mode. The other new bosses, due to their default status as stage hazards (they only act as true bosses in the Event Matches as well as Smash Tour), simply use whatever music their stages they're currently playing.
  • Blackout Basement: If summoned via an Assist Trophy, Nightmare from Kirby's Adventure turns the whole stage dark for a brief period of time.
  • *Bleep*-dammit!: A visual example, Peach, Rosalina, and Zelda were censored underneath their dresses. Peach has her legs darkened significantly, Rosalina has no lower body except her feet, and Zelda's dress has a covering to not expose her pelvis area. However certain actions make Zelda's lower body clip through her legs completely bypassing the censorship.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation:
    • Bowser Jr.'s Final Smash is named "Shadow Mario Paint", as in "Shadow Mario's paint". In the Italian version, it was translated as "Mario Paint Ombra", as in "The Evil Doppelgänger of Mario Paint". The correct translation would have been "Vernice Mario Ombra".
    • The British version of the Wii U game makes a particularly frustrating mistake regarding the name of a particular Dolled-Up Installment. In previous games, as well as the American English translation of the Wii U version, the Lip's Stick item was correctly identified as originating from Panel de Pon. In the British version, it is instead listed as coming from its international adaptation, Tetris Attack, which featured Yoshi's Island characters instead. The eponymous Lip never appeared in Tetris Attack at all.
  • Boring, but Practical: There's a reason why the Footstool Jump saw its biggest use in this game; while it does no damage, it's a great linker for extending combos, and pays off in extending how much damage a character can do overall (since, in this game, you can't tech after being footstooled).
  • Borrowing from the Sister Series:
    • This game changes the difficulty setting in Classic Mode to use Intensity point, where raising (or lowering) the difficulty also increases the amount of Gold used to play the game, while also making rewards scale with Intensity, and using continues lowers the Intensity. This system is identical to the Fiend's Cauldron in Kid Icarus: Uprising.
    • Smash Run in the 3DS version is very similar to City Trial from Kirby Air Ride, another game directed by Sakurai. Both modes involve running around a small area to collect power-ups to prepare for a final randomized match or minigame.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: Some enemies in Smash Run can have challenges to defeat them giving you very high rewards. These enemies are Polar Bear, Bulborb, Reaper and Clubberskull and Bonkers.
  • Boss Rush: Like in Brawl, the final co-op Event Match consists of two players facing the game's entire playable roster, similar to All-Star Mode minus the breaks or recovery opportunities.
  • Bowdlerise:
  • The Bus Came Back:
    • Dr. Mario, Mewtwo, and Roy were introduced in Melee, absent in Brawl, and returned in 3DS/Wii U (though Mewtwo and Roy are only available as DLC).
    • Lucas was originally absent from the roster of 3DS/Wii U after being in Brawl, but was later announced as DLC shortly after Mewtwo was released.
  • Camera Abuse: In addition to retaining the instances when characters thrown off the top of the screen can bump into the camera on their way back down as well as the Nintendog messing with the screen. the ante is further upped with characters going splat against the TV screen.
  • Cap: You can only create up to 89 Mii fighters.
  • Catch and Return: One of Villager's abilities is to catch an enemy's projectile weapon (including thrown items, explosives, and even lasers and lightning), store it in his inventory and then fire it back later — even attacks that aren't strictly projectiles, like Charizard's flame.
  • Censor Shadow: This was applied to a majority of the trophies as well as the in-game character models. For example, Rosalina’s dress has a cosmic texture underneath.
  • Character Customization: One of the game's big new features is the ability to customize each fighter. You can use equipment to change a character's properties (attack, defense, and speed), give them special power-ups such as health regeneration, or swap between 3 different versions of each Special move (the base move and 2 different variations). Miis can also equip various items of clothing.
  • Cherry Tapping:
    • Greninja joins the fun with his Down Taunt, which does a 1% damage and has a tiny windbox that will only KO when far above any reasonable percentage. It's downplayed though, as this taunt somehow can OHKO the enemy bots in Multi-Man Melee mode, and it also has some kill confirm setups at around 100% damage into Up-Smash, though they're generally impractical at best.
    • When Robin uses a spell enough times, they casually toss their book to the side. The book can be picked up, though; it looks dainty and harmless, but if you chuck it at an opponent, it can kill them at high enough percentages. Meaning one can go a whole stock hammering an opponent with powerful spells, only to finish them off by throwing the empty book at them.
  • Chest Monster: Mimicuties from Kid Icarus: Uprising appear in the 3DS version of the game during Smash Run. Like in Uprising, they mimic chests that you can open to get stat boosts.
  • Clipped-Wing Angel: The True Final Boss is the Master Core, who doesn't appear on lower intensities, replaces Master Hand and Crazy Hand mid-battle, and has several forms, each more dangerous than the last. Except for the very last form: a motionless orb that does nothing except wait for you to blast it offscreen. If you take too long to kill it, it'll unleash a series of One-Hit Kill energy waves, but if you dodge those it just self-destructs.
  • Comeback Mechanic:
    • There's an additional comeback, called "rage", where the higher a character's damage percentage, the more knockback is added to all of their moves (although damage dealt is unaffected). For Lucario this stacks with its existing comeback power, making an injured Lucario a truly dangerous threat. Even on other characters, this could lead to extremely early KOs(Samus with rage could combo dash attack into up special for a KO at 0%, for example), and also indirectly buffed heavyweights and nerfed lightweights, since the former can nearly always survive long enough to abuse it, and the latter would often be on the receiving end of it. The mechanic was nerfed in the next installment.
    • Cloud and Little Mac both have a mechanic where after taking 100% damage, they can do more damaging special moves. Cloud's Limit Break increases all his special attacks power allowing him to gain super early kills and Little Mac gains an unblockable move that can do a One-Hit Kill. It's important to note that Cloud can charge it up himself though.
  • Console Cameo: In addition to featuring once again the Flat Zone stage (based on a Game & Watch) and ROB as a playable character, the 3DS version features a Kirby's Dream Land stage inside a Game Boy screen.
  • Continuing is Painful: In Classic Mode, accepting a Continue when you lose takes away some of your prize money, a few of your earned rewards (from 1 prize at difficulty 2.0 up to 5 at 9.0), and automatically lowers the difficulty by 0.5. This last part is particularly infuriating for anyone going for the Challenge for beating Classic on 9.0, because a single Game Over anywhere in your run (including Master Core) means you're totally screwed.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • In the Punch-Out!! stage in the Wii U version, R.O.B.'s nickname is "The Last of His Kind". In the Subspace Emissary, he was the only ROB left at the end of the game.
    • The Beetle item that "kidnaps" players caught actually takes the caught character away at different speeds depending on factors. For the females who are kidnapped often in their own franchises, Zelda, Peach, and Palutena, the beetle actually takes them away faster than their saviors or kidnappers (thus giving players less time to escape and making them more "kidnappable"), even other females who don't get such treatment in their own franchises are taken away slower.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Master Core is the True Final Boss of Classic Mode, being a monstrous transformation of Master Hand which is implied to be his full strength unleashed. Master Core's battle consists of multiple distinct phases, which is a first for the series. What makes it stand out from the previous games' final bosses is that, on top of being a very chaotic entity (even surpassing Crazy Hand in that sense), it has no definite form as it tends to change forms during battle. It also doesn't appear to be sapient either, unlike the other final bosses.
  • Counter-Attack:
    • Both versions add Greninja who uses Substitute, replacing himself with a doll or Ninja Log to take the damage, and attacking the enemy when he reappears.
    • Lucina has Marth's counter (being a Moveset Clone). Little Mac has a similar counter attack and so does Palutena.
    • Shulk's counter comes in the form of his Monado giving him a vision of the impending attack as a callback to his origin game; this has a very generous window to activate it, but decreases if it is spammed.
    • Mii Swordfighters can have a Fire Emblem style counter attack for their down special.
    • DLC character Corrin has a Counter as well, working similarly to Marth's but adding a Making a Splash effect.
    • DLC Character Bayonetta's down special, Witch Time, functions like a counter (Down-Special and Strength dependent on received attack), except instead of automatically dishing out damage, it instead slows down time, allowing Bayonetta to manually deal damage. Additional factors, such as enemy health percentage and if Witch Time was spammed (similar to Shulk), will affect the duration of Witch Time.
  • Crack in the Sky: The 3DS version has a passive version in the Magicant stage, where the sky opens up to show moments from the Mother series. Ultimate changes these visions from rips in the sky to being formed out of several squares.
  • Criss-Cross Attack: Greninja's final smash, Secret Ninja Attack, starts with him flipping a mat (a nod to his signature move, Mat Block). Enemies struck by that will be stunned and sent to the sky as Greninja appears from the shadows, striking the enemies from all directions before ending with a downward blow. Poké balls have a chance to summon Zoroark, which dashes around until it hits an opponent, at which point it slashes them and launches them to a point high above the center of the stage, then does the same as Greninja.
  • Damsel out of Distress: The Wii U version has an event match called "Enough With The Kidnapping" that is essentially the player doing this. It sees Peach battle against Bowser and Bowser Jr while a Boss Galaga that can only pick her up and take her away alongside Nabbit who can also kidnap Peach. Beating Bowser and his son implies Peach does this while losing (or being taken away by a hazard) implies she was kidnapped.
  • Deadly Dodging: The trailer for Little Mac has a scene where an attempt to attack Wii Fit Trainer in the air has her simply yoga-pose out of the way and then start doing push ups as Little Mac falls off the stage.
  • Death Dealer: Master Hand has an attack in which he deals some platforms that attempt to carry you off stage as if they were playing cards.
  • Decomposite Character: In Melee and Brawl, a few characters could switch between different forms: Zelda could transform into her alter-ego Sheik, Samus could lose her armor upon using a Final Smash and become Zero Suit Samus (and revert the process by using another), and the Pokémon Trainer could switch between Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard. As of the fourth game, the devs made a concerted effort to drop these mechanics due to the 3DS version's inability to handle them. As a result, Zelda, Sheik, Samus, and Zero Suit Samus are all separate characters and the Pokémon Trainer was replaced with just Charizard. Ultimate kept the female characters separate, but re-integrated Charizard into the Trainer and eventually added its own transforming character as DLC (Pyra, who can transform into Mythra).
  • Defeat Means Friendship:
    • On the Pyrosphere stage, the Other M version of Ridley may shows up. Initially, he is hostile to all the players, but if one player damages him enough, he'll start fighting on that particular player's side. Interestingly enough, the player that befriended Ridley can still attack him, and even finish him off for a point towards their score.
    • In For Wii U's Classic mode, any character that the player has KO'd previously can be chosen as a teammate in team battles, even rivals and intruders, though intruders lose their giant/metal status.
  • Deliberate Injury Gambit: Every fighter avails of a variant of this in the rage mechanic, which boosts damage and knockback output proportional to damage sustained by fighters. Lucario, in particular, retains his aforementioned aura mechanic on top of this, meaning that many Lucario players will count on taking damage from their opponents to empower their attacks.
  • Demographic-Dissonant Crossover: Despite having received a lower age rating by the ESRB than Melee and Brawl (and neither bringing back Snake nor having introduced any character from a majorly content-explicit franchise for its base roster), the game eventually one-upped its predecessors with the inclusion of the title character from Bayonetta as its final DLC character. Smash Bros. director Masahiro Sakurai admitted it was difficult to tone down a character so overtly sexual (and from such a drastically gory universe) in a way that still stayed true to their source material without affecting the game's own age rating.
  • Demoted to Extra:
    • When the game launched, Lucas was no longer playable and only showed up as a trophy. He came back eventually as DLC. The same subversion applies to Mewtwo.
    • Wolf also has a trophy, Fox got a palette based on him, and he still appears in the Lylat Cruise Smash Taunt.
    • The Pokémon Trainer, Squirtle, Ivysaur, and the Ice Climbers just got trophies.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • The Prince of Sablé Assist Trophy never unseathes or uses his sword, so you only ever see the hilt in gameplay, but the sword is in fact fully, accurately modeled to match the sword from his source game's concept art.◊
    • The 3DS version has the Spirit Train from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks as a stage, with Link operating it. But if either Link or Toon Link (as well as Young Link in Ultimate) is selected to fight, then Alfonzo will be driving the train.
    • The Dream Land 64 stage still has the "King Dedede sometimes floats by in the background" element that it had in both the original Super Smash Bros. and Melee, but unlike those two games, Dedede is playable now, and if he's selected to fight, that background element simply won't appear.
  • Difficulty by Region: In the European/Australian language versions, it's slightly easier to uncover 100% of the image in the credits due to there being more names.
  • Digital Piracy Is Evil: According to Sakurai, this game doesn't have a story mode because people kept putting all of Brawl's cutscenes on YouTube. Sakurai reasoned that it didn't make any kind of business sense to ever make another one since people who only care about the story have no reason to actually buy the game. Instead, it took advantage of the same web video services by making videos introducing new characters for pre-release hype.
  • Diminishing Returns for Balance: Positive values for attributes given by custom equipment give slightly diminished returns at higher amounts. For example, having an attack attribute of 100 grants a bit less than twice the extra damage of having an attack attribute of 50.
  • Ditto Fighter: One of Master Core's forms is the Master Shadow, a larger version of the player character, darkened to nearly a black silhouette and with black miasma emanating from it. Master Shadow gradually gets smaller and weaker as it takes damage, however.
  • Do Well, But Not Perfect: The Wii U version includes two instances where the challenge is to hit Sandbag between 500m and 505m; one can be done with any character, and the other must be done with R.O.B. Hit it 505.1m, a more impressive result? Too bad, you fail! These challenges require a whole lot of careful buildup and positioning to hit at the exact right amount of damage instead of just doing as much as possible.
  • Downloadable Content: The first installment of the series to feature this. Additional Mii costumes, stages, and new and returning characters were made available this way. For returning characters, there was Mewtwo, Lucas, and Roy; for new characters, there was Ryu (who also included the Suzaku Castle stage), Cloud (who also included the Midgar stage), Corrin, and Bayonetta (who also included the Umbra Clock Tower stage). The returning stages are three Nintendo 64 stages (Peach's Castle, Hyrule Castle, and Dream Land) and Pirate Ship from Brawl, while the remaining new ones are a stage based on Super Mario Maker and one based on Miiverse (for free via an update). Unlike the characters in the base game, DLC characters don't have custom moves and lack a proper "Palutena's Guidance" Easter Egg.
  • Dub-Induced Plot Hole:
    • In Wii U, Ridley can transform into Meta Ridley... but this is highly inconsistent with established Metroid canon, where Meta Ridley is a cybernetically-enhanced version of Ridley from the Metroid Prime Trilogy while this particular transformation is just his dark-skinned glowing form from Metroid: Other M. The reason why "Meta Ridley" is In Name Only is because it's actually a Dub Name Change: it wasn't originally Meta Ridley to begin with. The Japanese version of the 50-Fact Extravaganza names this form 黒リドリー, which translates more accurately to "Black Ridley" (note that Meta Ridley's actual Japanese name is メタリドリー). The connection to Meta Ridley is an addition made by the English translation despite having no basis in prior existing material.
    • Some of the Online Conquests can be this. For example, one titled "Zero Sum Game" involves fighters representing games with Zero in the title, with Fox and Falco representing Star Fox Zero, Samus and Zero Suit representing Metroid: Zero Mission, and a team up of Captain Falcon and Ryu representing F-Zero and Street Fighter Alpha. The final of these makes no sense unless one knows the Japanese title is Street Fighter Zero.
  • Dynamic Difficulty: The game borrows from Kid Icarus: Uprising the system of using currency to increase the single-player mode's difficulty level. The more coins the player wagers before beginning, the more difficult the battles, but the more valuable the prizes for victory. Losing causes the difficulty to be reduced by one half of a level, as well as costing some of the initial wager and a few prizes that had been won. Higher difficulties are required to face the True Final Boss, who takes on more forms depending on the difficulty level.
  • Dynamic Loading: While waiting for an online match, you beat up a shadowy clone of your character that gets significantly more capable as you fight it.
  • Easy-Mode Mockery:
    • When playing Classic Mode, you need to buy in with some coins to challenge any intensity over 2.0. However, the game also charges you if you lower the intensity below that value.
    • Using a Golden Hammer to automatically clear any of the Challenge panels will permanently mark that panel with a Hammer icon, as if to forever remind you that you never really beat it.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: The Wii U version has a stage based on Yoshi's Woolly World, which didn't see a release until mid-summer 2015 (or October for the US), compared to Smash's release in late November of 2014.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The Master Core. It's a chaotic entanglement of formless, sentient dark matter residing within Master Hand, that takes forms that can be vaguely likened to humans, scorpions, and swords (which themselves suffer disturbing amounts of Body Horror) before assuming the player's form. More shocking still, it blocks out its HP gauge with amorphous black masses. And in the Wii U version, after being whittled down to its final form, it turns into an literal fortress of dark matter before reverting to a form appearing similar to a Smash Ball (which is still capable of killing you).
  • Eldritch Location: In the Wii U version, Master Core turns into one of these, named 'Master Fortress', one it's in the brink of defeat when Classic Mode is played with Intensity 8.0 or higher.
  • Embedded Precursor: Like Brawl, the Wii U version features the ability to unlock several games from the various video game franchises represented. These are all timed demos, though, due to the existence of the Virtual Console, though frustratingly, not all demos were on the VC. With a little bit of modding, it is possible to play these games not as timed demos, but as full games.
  • Evil Knockoff: Unlike the previous Smash games, this one employs a twist. It introduces the Fighting Mii Team, weaker versions of the three playable Mii Fighter classes as the enemies for its Multi-Man Mode. Rather than simply reusing any Mii Fighter already created by the player, they appear copying any Mii that's been created in the system playing. In a more straight example, the True Final Boss of Classic Mode, Master Core, does this on one of his forms, becoming a larger and pitch black version of the player's character.
  • Evolving Title Screen: The title screen of the 3DS version has all the fighters in the game (except the Mii Fighters) scroll by on the touch screen, though the Secret Characters only show up when you unlock each of them.
  • Expy Coexistence: As the long-term face of the franchise, Mario's moveset design in Super Smash Bros. was conceptualised as something of a Shotoclone, although with a few liberties taken to transplant typical Shotoclone gameplay into a Platform Fighter. Eventually, the original Shoto, Ryu from Street Fighter, was introduced to the series in both versions of the fourth game as DLC, and his playstyle was of course far more faithful to the traditional Shoto archetype.
  • Family-Friendly Firearms: The titular protagonist of Bayonetta, showing up as a DLC character, gets to keep her firearms, but they're unrealistic and a pretty big part of her style. The Duck Hunt fighter can summon characters from Wild Gunman, but the Wild Gunman characters and their weapons are flat 2D NES sprites thus look even less realistic than Bayonetta's weapons.
  • Final Boss, New Dimension: The game takes it a step further, with the background of the final bosses in Classic Mode changing when Master Core enters the fray.
  • Free-Fall Fight: The Umbran Clock Tower stage, taken from Bayonetta, takes place on the face of a clock tower as it plummets endlessly towards the ground, similar to the opening stage of the game it hails from.
  • Full Moon Silhouette: Greninja's Final Smash, which has him wailing on his victim ninja-style as silhouettes in front of a gigantic moon.
  • Gang Up on the Human: In Smash Tour mode in Wii U, before the start of a battle, if a computer player chooses to use an item that negatively affects an enemy, it will almost always use it on you.
  • Go-Karting with Bowser: A literal example in Rosalina's trailer, which features the Mario characters already included in Smash racing on Rainbow Road before being interrupted by Kirby landing on the track. As such, Bowser is seen racing, but the trailer notably highlights the rivalry between Mario and Donkey Kong instead.
  • Golden Super Mode: The Golden Plains stage in the 3DS version has coins that can be collected by fighters. Collecting 100 coins makes the fighter golden for a period of time, increasing the knockback they deal and stopping them from flinching when attacked.
  • Gold Makes Everything Shiny: This concept is invoked in the Golden Plains stage (based on world 1 of New Super Mario Bros. 2) exclusive to the 3DS version. Fighters can collect coins on this stage, and acquiring 100 will turn them to gold and strengthen the knockback of their physical attacks.
  • Gratuitous Japanese: Cloud is legally mandated to speak exclusively in this, owing to a combination of union issues and contractual obligation (the only one allowed to voice him in English both is in a union and has to be credited in every appearance, but the Super Smash Bros. franchise is non-union, and there was a huge risk of the legal eagles swarming about if his voice were to be used under the conditions of his contract).
  • Greek Chorus: In the Wii U version, Snake's codec calls are replaced with Palutena's Guidance where, on the Palutena's Temple stage, Pit can contact characters from Kid Icarus: Uprising (and some other games) to converse about other fighters. Given the nature of the Kid Icarus setting, this would make it an almost literal Greek Chorus. Fighters added via Downloadable Content, however, do not have new calls recorded, Palutena shocked that she doesn't have any data on them and Viridi concluding that they're intruders from another dimension.
  • Green Boy Color: The "Dream Land" stage in the 3DS version, under the name "Dream Land GB", is a mashup of various levels from the original Kirby's Dream Land and has the classic green palette, the stage even being "played" inside a Game Boy. The Omega version of the stage gets rid of the Game Boy frame and of the "flatness", and is a true 2½D environment in monochromatic green.
  • Grenade Tag: Mega Man can do this with his Side Special, the Crash Bomber.
  • Guest Fighter: Sonic makes a return (but not Snake), and Mega Man and Pac-Man were added as new guest characters for the inital release. Post-release, Ryu from Street Fighter, Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII, and Bayonetta were added as Downloadable Content characters.
  • Hard Mode Perks: Playing on higher difficulties when doing Classic Mode, Master Orders, or Crazy Orders will increase the quality and quantity of your rewards for winning.
  • Home Stage: Thanks to Villager's introduction as a playable fighter, the Animal Crossing stage that debuted in Brawl now has someone to represent. Due to the stage catalogue changing wildly between both versions, one character may be represented by a stage in 3DS and another in Wii U (for example, Pac-Man has Pac-Maze in the former and Pac-Land in the latter; same goes for Pit and Palutena, who have Reset Bomb Forest in 3DS and Palutena's Temple in Wii U, though the latter version also brings back Skyworld from Brawl).
  • Hypocritical Humor: Palutena's Guidance in the Wii U version has this about Chrom not being in the roster. The hypocrisy comes in when you realize that there are characters who are almost-exact clones of the other fighters, including Chrom's daughter, Lucina, as well as Viridi's own champion, Dark Pit.
    Viridi: [to Chrom] No point in having characters that are carbon copies. Am I right?
  • Inexplicable Treasure Chests: In the 3DS version, you can find chests in Smash Run containing trophies, custom parts, and equipment.
  • Instant Armor: Bowser Jr. can launch out of his Clown Car and magically gain another one.
  • Instant Roast: In a character video for the Wii U version, Roy hits a taunting Falco with his Flare Blade. The blow KOs him, but the explosion masking this and a roast pheasant food item spawning where Falco was standing makes it look like he was cooked.
  • Interface Screw: Palkia returns from Brawl but as a Pokéball Pokémon, and retains its effect of flipping the stage upside down. Skull Kid does the same as an Assist Trophy. The Devil and Nintendog Assist Trophies reappear as well. In addition, the Nightmare trophy turns the whole screen black.
  • Intra-Franchise Crossover: A literal example is seen with the original Mega Man, because his Final Smash is a Combination Attack in which various other Blue Bombers (X, Rock Volnutt, MegaMan.EXE, and Mega Man/Omega-Xis) appear alongside him to fire a joint Charge Shot together.
  • Invincible Minor Minion: Smash Run mode in the 3DS version uses Ornes from Kid Icarus: Uprising, and they are every bit as unkillable (and lethal) as before.
  • Irony:
    • Lucina's alternate costumes all give her different hair colors to match the various female characters from Awakening. This is reminiscent of how the child characters in that game had hair colors determined by their non-fixed parent; however, only one of Lucina's hair colors is based on a woman that Chrom could marry (Sumia), and Lucina was actually the only child to have a fixed hair color herself.
    • Ryu of Street Fighter fame, poster boy of the traditional Fighting Game genre, joined the fray for this game as DLC. In Street Fighter (and other traditional fighting crossovers he's been in) he is one of the simplest characters to use, with basic but reliable special moves with the simplest inputs. In Smash, however, the abilities he carries over from his home series (classic input special moves, high Combo capability, and Lag Cancel among other things) combined with Smash's unique Platform Fighter mechanics make him one of the most execution-heavy characters and one of the most Mechanically Unusual Fighters in the series.
  • Jet Pack: The Rocket Belt from Pilotwings is featured here as a useable item.
  • Jungle Japes, in addition to the returning stages from Brawl, Wii U also has Jungle Hijinx, which allows the players to fight on two planes either in the foreground or background.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: This time, the Beam Sword takes the appearance of a laser katana.
  • Kung-Fu Sonic Boom: In the Robin trailer, Lucina quickly learns why she shouldn't have brought a sword to a fist fight against Captain Falcon. As the Captain parries her sword strike with a kick creating a shockwave that blows her back.◊
  • Ladder Physics: Characters climb up and down ladders really, really fast, faster than if you had leaped all the way to the top, assuming the ladder isn't leading to a platform out of your jump range. This quirk is a key way to quickly travel across the Wrecking Crew stage, which is vertically-oriented and heavy on ladders.
  • Last Lousy Point: One of the challenges is to get 300,000G. It's quite easy to get G by playing Classic, All-Star, or Smash Tour modes, as well as completing certain Event Matches and getting some of the other challenges... but by the time you find out about the challenge, you've probably spent most of the money you can earn on trophies, and to get the achievement, it's not enough to simply have earned 300,000G over the course of the game, you need to have that much available to spend at once.
  • Lethal Lava Land:
    • The Dark Emperor's stage from Find Mii in the 3DS version takes place in a rocky area erected upon a lava-flooded wasteland, though the volcanic aspect is cosmetic. The real threat is the Dark Emperor itself, appearing often as a stage boss.
    • In addition to bringing back Norfair from Brawl, the Wii U version also introduces a Metroid stage based on the lava-filled Pyrosphere from Metroid: Other M, where Ridley appears as a stage boss at one point.
  • Level Editor: The Wii U versions brings back this mode from Brawl, and expands the functionality by allowing players to draw the shape of the stages via the GamePad touchscreen, instead of placing blocks, although also is limited in what kind of features they have with 2 variations of each of the 4 given features (Springs, cannons, moving platforms and lava).
  • Level in the Clouds: The 3DS version has Magicant, of Mother fame, which is a surreal stage composed of pink-colored clouds on which some seashell-shaped houses are suspended. The landmass can be seen from the distance, and the sky is adorned with beautiful auroras colored green, purple and pink. At one point, a Flying Man will appear on the stage; if a character approaches one, it will support them by fighting the rivals.
  • Lighter and Softer: Both versions of the game skew more colorful and cartoonish designs than the three games before it, which grew increasingly dingier per installment.
  • Locomotive Level: One of the stages in For 3DS is the Spirit Train from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. You fight atop and in the cars of the speeding train as it occasionally gets attacked by Dark Trains and Armored Trains.
  • Logical Weakness: Little Mac is an absolute beast when fighting on the ground, as befitting his Boxing Battler status; but the fact that he's a boxer means that his air combat is subpar at best, being barely able to land a punch or jump back to the battlefield.
  • Lord British Postulate: Several characters in the game can be hurt, but not flinched or knocked back, during their Final Smash, namely Lucario, Charizard, and Little Mac (who transform into Mega Lucario, Mega Charizard X, and Giga Mac, respectively).
  • The Lost Woods: The 3DS version brings back Distant Planet from Brawl, while the Wii U version has Garden of Hope, a pristine forest based on the Pikmin 3 area of the same name. The latter is a large, wide-open biome where some Pikmin from the wild proceed to build a clay building, though a Peckish Aristocrab passes by and ends up wrecking it. Sometimes, a Bulborb roams nearby, becoming a threat for the fighters as well.
  • Made O' Gold: The Golden Plains stage the 3DS version draws from World 1 of this game. Coins are scattered around the stage, and, if a fighter collects 100 of them, they themselves will also be turned to gold, which grants them super armour and increases the knockback of their attacks.
  • Mechanically Unusual Fighter:
    • Rosalina and Luma are a simplified Puppet Fighter in comparison to the Ice Climbers, as Luma can only use standard attacks and Rosalina's side special. In exchange, Rosalina can manipulate where the Luma is by firing it out and calling it back with her neutral special. Furthermore, Luma is automatically KOed after taking a certain amount of damage, meaning that it doesn't even need to be launched off the screen to be removed from the fight. However, if Luma does get KOed, another one will appear after some time has passed.
    • Mega Man has several basic attacks replaced with projectiles in order to mimic the run-and-gun playstyle of his original games. And while all other characters that perform their standard attacks will stay in place or travel a short, fixed distance, this doesn't apply for Mega Man. He can walk forward while doing so. In turn, this means he doesn't have a proper forward tilt attack.
    • Wii Fit Trainer has a Status Buff move that increases their attack power, a special move, Sun Salutation, that will slightly decrease their percentage when fully charged, and an up smash that also functions as a dodge but is otherwise mostly normal.
    • Little Mac is a boxer, and so his power meter and focus on ground combat make him closer to a traditional fighting game character. While charging his forward smash, not tilting the directional stick, tilting upward, or tilting downward can cause him to perform up to 3 different smashes, which consists of a straight punch (not tilting), uppercut (upward), and body blow (downward). Other characters, like Mario and Ganondorf will only change the angle of their forward smash diagonally thanks to the tilting mechanic.
    • Robin's home game has Breakable Weapons, so their Levin Sword and large variety of tomes have limited uses before they have to recharge. Robin is also the only character to have "Smash" Air attacks. The Smash versions use the Levin Sword (and consume its uses) while the standard ones use Robin's Bronze Sword. Their standard attack can be very limited if used carelessly, because of the Breakable Weapons mechanic. 2 slashes with the Bronze Sword is the beginning of their standard attack, then it can end with a small explosion from the Arcfire tome or a multi-hit combo with the Elwind tome, depending on how the attack button was pressed. If both tomes ran out of power, all Robin can do are the 2 slashes. Also, multi-hit combos for every other character can be performed indefinitely, but keeping up Robin's Elwind combo will eventually drain the tome's power and he/she will automatically toss it aside.
    • The customizable specials for most characters are just slightly modified versions of their normal moveset, but Palutena and the Mii Fighters have entirely distinct special options (for example, Palutena's recovery can be a teleport, a gliding-descent jump, or an explosion boost), with the caveat that they are restricted to their base special set in online play just like everyone else. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate later scrapped customizable specials for the base roster, turning Palutena into a normal fighter, but Mii Fighters still have their customization intact and any sets can be used in online play.
    • Shulk has a Stance System composed of five sets of different combinations of buffs and debuffs. Once he selects a Monado Art, he can cancel it or let it run out naturally, but has to wait for a cooldown before he can select it again either way.
    • Bowser Jr. (and by extension, the Koopalings) has higher defense on the Clown Car than his body, making him the only character with "sweetspot" hurtboxes. On using his up special, he loses the car entirely and gains a new aerial move until the car respawns.
    • Duck Hunt's attacks don't always have to come from the duck and dog themselves, but also from the unseen hunter. The tin can may be used as a landmine, anti-air, anti-ledge, or as a suicide bomb. The clay pigeon does most of its damage when hit by the zapper, so deflecting or countering it is no big deal compared to other projectiles. And the Wild Gunmen can be used as both a projectile barrier and to punish charge-up moves (the opponent must either release the move early and waste it, get hit by the gunmen and waste it, roll out of the way to keep their charge (assuming that the move actually allows it) and risk either getting hit by the gunmen or being hit by a follow-up attack or shield to keep their charge and risk getting grabbed).
    • Ryu's (and later Ken's) specials can be used with their inputs from Street Fighter, which results in stronger versions. In addition, his Final Smash changes depending on his distance to an opponent (Shinku Hadoken at a distance, Shin Shoryuken up close), referencing his Ultra Combo Double from Ultra Street Fighter IV. He also has weak and strong attacks depending on how long the attack button is held and can even Lag Cancel into Combos, which no other character in Smash can do. Even his Jump Physics are uniquely abnormal, being relatively stiff with little ability to change direction in midair. In essence, Ryu, the archetype for the Fighting Game character, plays exactly like a Traditional Fighter transplanted into a Mascot Platform Fighter. He becomes unusual by not being unusual!
    • Cloud Strife has his Limit gauge, which fills as he takes damage. When it maxes out, his next special move will be enhanced for better damage, speed or maneuverability. He can also manually fill it as his down-B; if it's full, down-B performs Finishing Touch instead.
    • Bayonetta has a large focus on combos involving her special moves, and she also carries over the "Bullet Arts" mechanics from her home series, where she can fire bullets with no knockback if the player holds down the attack button after some attacks. Depending on when her opponent attacks her while dodging, Bayonetta will perform Bat Within, where she'll receive less damage, while avoid flinching and knockback. It isn't advised to initially double jump, then use her up special for a third jump for recovery, as it doesn't cover enough air. You'd actually need to use her up special first, then jump, then you can use her up special again. Bayonetta's forward aerial and forward tilt attacks both consist of 3 consecutive attacks, each attack happening on input as opposed to being automatic. Lastly, her up aerial and neutral aerial attacks will be extended if you hold down the attack button, which is coupled with the aforementioned "Bullet Arts" mechanic.
  • Mêlée à Trois: The Wii U version introduces 8-Player Smash (and that number changes depending on how many fighters above than 4 are). For team battles, the characters can be split into up to four teams.
  • Men Are the Expendable Gender: The Wii U version has an event match that plays the trope straight. You'll face off against Marth, Peach, and Zelda and you win by defeating Marth. Knocking out Peach or Zelda is an instant failure and the two princesses will always crowd around Marth to make your job that much harder.
  • Metal Slime: In the 3DS version, the version-exclusive Smash Run mode has several of these.
    • Iridescent Glint Beetles are rare, fast enemies that burrow underground after enough time has passed. Give them a good smack, and they'll drop lots of coins.
    • Sneaky Spirits move rather awkwardly, and can be hard to get a good hit on. If you can kill one, it drops a valuable star boost that raises all stats.
    • Souflees are extremely good at dodging attacks, and they move fast. Kill one, and it'll spit out a massive amount of stat boosts.
  • Minecart Madness: In the 3DS version, the Spirit Train stage has fighters duking it out while boarding the eponymous train, which is driving across the Forest Realm of Hyrule.
  • Mini-Boss: In the 3DS instalment, the Fighting Mii Team, while optional, are always on one of the penultimate paths before the final battle with Master Hand. In the Wii U instalment, the Fighting Mii Team is always fought right before Master Hand.
  • Mini-Game Credits: As the credits scroll, you can attack them with your character to knock them into the background, uncovering a picture of your character. You get a small amount of bonus gold depending on how much of the picture you uncover by the time the credits are done (1G for every 1% of the picture uncovered).
  • Missing Secret: Several challenges require you to beat Classic Mode at some minimum intensity, and all of them use the phrasing "X or higher", even the one that requires an intensity of 9.0. No, this doesn't mean there's a secret way to take the intensity even further; 9.0 really is the maximum.
  • Mission Control: Palutena and Viridi can give Pit advice about the characters he's fighting against in Palutena's Temple. Chrom weighs in when they discuss Robin.
  • Money for Nothing: A Defied Trope, in order to address the issue Brawl had. Money is required to play many solo modes, and to adjust Classic's difficulty.
  • Moveset Clone: Many of the previous games' clones are further differentiated in this game in relation to their original counterparts (or, in the case of Dr. Mario, kept the same because the original Mario had gone through a major overhaul himself in Brawl anyway), though two newcomers still play it straight:
    • Lucina, being a descendant and impersonator of Marth in her game, is almost identical to him, only lacking the sweetspot on the tip of her sword, allowing her to deal equal damage with every part of the blade.
    • Pit's literal clone Dark Pit has different properties on his Bow and Arm weapon attacks, as well as a different Final Smash, but is otherwise completely identical. A particularly odd example in that Dark Pit originated as an alternate color scheme for Pit in the previous Smash Bros. game, before being turned into an actual character who was then adapted back to Smash.
  • Multi-Platform: This became the first installment in the Smash series to be released for two different systems, namely the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U.
  • Necessary Drawback: Every piece of customization equipment also debuffs one of a character's stats, preventing you from abusing the system to make super fighters.
  • New Work, Recycled Graphics: Most of the models used for the trophies in both versions are just their in-game models ripped from their respective games. Very noticeable with the Wii U-exclusive trophies of the party members from Xenoblade Chronicles 1 who do not appear anywhere else in the game, whose faces are not as refined as Shulk or Dunban's in their trophies. It's possible that the replacement of Trophies with Spirits in Ultimate may have been due to the sheer artstyle clash caused by this alongside the sheer number of franchises, characters, and items represented.
  • Non-Damaging Status Infliction Attack: The Gust Bellows, a pickup item that blasts gale-force winds at your opponents. It doesn't do any damage but can blow them right off the platform.
  • Non-Indicative Name:
    • In the Event Match "Great Fox Defense", you are not actually defending the Great Fox. Instead, you are defending the Pleiades.
    • In "Robots vs. Dragons", the 2 opponents besides Ridley, aren't actually Dragons. (Although Mega Charizard X does make him a Dragon though and Yoshi's Final Smash is Super Dragon.)
  • Nostalgia Level:
    • 3DS features Dream Land and Mute City, Wii U features Pac-Land, and both games feature Duck Hunt.
    • For actual nostalgia levels, there are a whopping 30 stages from the first three games — 9 exclusive to the 3DS game, and 18 exclusive to the Wii U game. Unlike the previous games, the nostalgia levels are listed indiscriminately on the same page as the new ones, and are the only stages some franchises get.
      • Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS features Jungle Japes, Brinstar, and Corneria from Melee, and Mushroomy Kingdomnote , Yoshi's Island, Flat Zone 2, WarioWare Inc., Distant Planet, and Green Hill Zone from Brawl. Flat Zone 2 and WarioWare, Inc. need to be unlocked before you could play them. All except Mushroomy Kingdom are the only stages for their series in this game.
      • Super Smash Bros. for Wii U features Kongo Jungle from the first game, as well as Temple, Yoshi's Island, and Onett from Melee, and Delfino Plaza, Mario Circuit, Luigi's Mansion, 75 m, Bridge of Eldin, Pirate Ship, Norfair, Halberd, Lylat Cruise, Pokémon Stadium 2, Port Town Aero Dive, Castle Siege, Skyworld, and Smashville. Kongo Jungle, Pokémon Stadium 2, and Smashville need to be unlocked before you could play them, while Pirate Ship is exclusively DLC. Onett and Port Town Aero Dive are the only stages for Earthbound and F-Zero in this game.
      • Both games feature three N64 stages as DLC: Peach's Castle, Hyrule Castle, and Dream Land.
  • Obvious Rule Patch:
    • Starting from here, Star KOs and Screen KOs stop happening in the last five seconds of a match, to avoid the scenario of an assured win being turned into a tie because the match ended in the middle of the long animation and the final KO wasn't registered. The same installment also changed Screen KOs so that the character "sticks" on the screen first so that the animation lasts exactly as long as those of Star KOs, in the rare event that two fighters are both launched off the top at the same time on their last stock and which one loses first would not be determined by RNG.
    • The 3DS version has a "Conquest" mode, in which characters are divided into teams to which players can contribute points (about once per day for a week) by playing as those characters in online battles; if the team to which the player contributed the most points is the one that earned the most points overall at the end of the week, that player earns an in-game reward. Initially, the current percentages of points for each team were displayed on the menu; however, this led to most players simply choosing to contribute points to whichever team was already winning in order to get the reward, leading to very lopsided victories. To fix this, a patch was made to the game that hid the percentages for each conquest until it was over. Even later, it was further patched to give lesser rewards to contributors to the losing teams as well.
  • Old Save Bonus: Having a save file for New Super Mario Bros. U on your system will automatically unlock the Flying Squirrel Mario trophy.
  • One-Hit Kill:
    • Little Mac has a power meter located just above his damage gauge that fills as he takes and inflicts damage. Once it's full, his neutral Special turns into an uppercut that, in one single hit, will send anyone it hits flying into oblivion.
    • The Daybreak, a Wave-Motion Gun from Kid Icarus: Uprising's multiplayer, has this effect. Like in the original game, assembling all three pieces of the weapon and hitting someone with its powerful beam would guarantee a KO.
    • The Ornes from Kid Icarus: Uprising appear in Smash Run and can do this just by touching you (unless you happen to have temporary invincibility, but that won't save you for more than a few seconds). If you hear the background music suddenly take a more sinister turn, run.
    • The Clipped-Wing Angel final form of the Master Core has a five-ring version of Tabuu's Off Waves as its only attack. It only actually uses it if you take an unreasonable amount of time to destroy a completely motionless enemy, though, and if you manage to survive the attack it self-destructs.
  • Original Generation: The game introduces Master Core, the final Boss of the game's single player mode, which is spawned from Master Hand.
  • Palette Swap:
  • Party Game: Not the Wii U version as a whole, but the Smash Tour mode. It takes cues from the Mario Party series, as players move across a board and then fight in matches with unique rules and objectives (which stand in for the Mario Party minigames).
  • Patchwork Map: The Smash Run area in the 3DS version has the apparent goal of putting together as many typical Video Game Settings as it can into one floating island. The surface area alone, from left to right, has a forest, plains, desert, and snowy grounds all within walking distance of each other. Though this does help with quickly identifying where on the map you are, since it would be far more confusing even with the minimap if all locations looked alike.
  • Pause Scumming: The Classic Mode prizes in the 3DS version are determined by roulette. You can press the Home button to pause the entire game, and when you see that it's on the prize you want, you can simply hold down the A button before returning to the game to get it.
  • Pillar of Light: Pit's Three Sacred Treasures Final Smash ends with a series of light pillars in random locations across the battlefield.
  • Post-Final Boss: Master Core's final phase is a plain orb. That just sits there waiting for you to attack it until it has built up enough knock back to hit a blast line. Just don't idle or it unleashes a decently hard-to-dodge desperation attack that causes a sudden One-Hit Kill. After which, it blows itself up.
  • Power Creep, Power Seep:
    • The game brings Little Mac, while also kicking it up a notch by bringing two Physical Godesses as playable characters: Palutena, the Goddess of Light; and Rosalina, Mother of the Stars. With Little Mac, he's turned from a relatively weak but very determinate boxer, to a powerful Boxing Battler beast when fighting on the ground. Meanwhile, Palutena and Rosalina bring some impressive light and cosmic attacks to the fray, but they can be beaten by any other character, no problem. The DLC adds Bayonetta and Cloud Strife, both of whom have beaten enemies that wrecked solar systems.
    • In some kind of reverse example from the Sword of Seals, Robin's Bronze Sword is as strong as legendary weapons wielded by his fellow Fire Emblem reps, and can now use dark magic. On the other hand, he is the slowest character in the game despite having utterly overpowered stats in Awakening.
  • Production Foreshadowing:
    • The Wii U version features a stage and music from Yoshi's Woolly World, which would not be released until spring 2015 (whereas Smash came out in holiday 2014). In a Miiverse post revealing the stage, Sakurai noted that it had been added late in development.
    • In the game's final presentation, Bayonetta's official artwork depicted the fighters in a war between darkness and light. This ended up being one of the major themes in the sequel, and since we know Sakurai was already planning Ultimate by the time Bayonetta was released, this ended up being a glimpse at what was to come.
  • Progressive Instrumentation: In the Wii U version, the remix of "Escape" from Metroid starts with the original 8-bit chiptune, then gradually adds in a couple orchestral instruments every few bars. By the song's third loop, it's a full orchestra.
  • Promoted to Playable: The game sees Palutena and the dog and duck from Duck Hunt become playable after appearing as NPCs in their own series. Little Mac also became playable after being an Assist Trophy in Brawl.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: The game introduces the Villager, the Wii Fit Trainer, Robin, and Corrin. While their default genders are male, female, male, and male respectively, their opposite-sex counterparts are alternate skins. Both versions of the four of them play exactly alike, so it's up to personal preference which one to use. The same also goes for the Mii Fighters who, as customizable avatars, don't have a set gender, and are not stopped from using any of their available movesets regardless of gender. Bowser Jr. is partly an example as one of his Koopaling skins is Wendy. Again, this has no bearing on how they play.
  • Randomly Generated Levels: The game has the DLC "Super Mario Maker" stage based on the game of the same name, where the layout is random and continually changing (not only asset-wise but also graphics-wise, alternating between different 2D Mario games). It returns later in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as part of the base content.
  • Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Little Mac plays like this, hitting fast and hard.
  • Reformulated Game: Care was taken to make sure both versions of the game played the same and had the same character roster, though the restrictions of the less-powerful 3DS hardware meant certain characters had to be changed or, in the case of the Ice Climbers, cut entirely. Outside of this, each game has exclusive stages and secondary game modes (3DS has Smash Run; Wii U has Smash Tour, Master and Crazy Orders and Event Matches), with the Wii U version also supporting up to eight players and having a Level Editor. While fans and critics consider both games to collectively be Super Smash Bros. 4, director Masahiro Sakurai views for Nintendo 3DS and for Wii U as separate installments (the fourth and fifth, respectively).
  • Retraux: The Duck Hunt stage is designed to look just like the original NES game of the same name. This includes having the game's original HUD and employing camera trickery to make the it look like the stage is made up of old-school sprites.
  • Reverse Grip: In comparison to his debuting appearance in Melee, Roy was changed to hold his sword in reverse grip for many of his attacks, in an attempt to declone him (and eventually declone his Echo Fighter Chrom indirectly in Ultimate) and make his Sword of Seals look heavier than Marth and Lucina's Falchions.
  • Ride the Rainbow: The iconic Rainbow Road from the Mario Kart series (specifically the Mario Kart 7 version) makes this trope possible as it appears as a stage in the 3DS version.
  • Rotten Rock & Roll: Bowser, his son and the Koopalings have a special victory fanfare, which is a rock rendition of the other Mario characters' fanfare.
  • Secret Character: 12 in the 3DS version and 8 in the Wii U one (and which characters are hidden also varies between versions). Each character can be unlocked through a specific method, though the alternative of unveiling them by playing VS matches still remains (it's also much more lenient than in Melee and Brawl, as you only need to play 120 matches at most in the 3DS version and 100 in the Wii U one to unlock them all). Notably, before the release of the Wii U version, it was mentioned during a special presentation that Sakurai's original plan was to have all characters available from the start, but ultimately felt that it would have made the games less fun that way.
  • Sequel Non-Entity: Even in comparison to Brawl (which itself had its share of controversial character omissions), both versions of this game went all over the place in this department. In the base game, Mewtwo and Roy were once again absent as was Lucas, but all three were added as DLC. Pichu and Young Link stayed absent. New removals included Squirtle & Ivysaur (with only Charizard going alone), Wolf, Ice Climbers (due to the 3DS unable to handle multiple Ice Climbers on screen) and Snake (due to Konami refusing to license him out).
  • Sequential Boss: Master Core, an amorphous mass of black matter that emerges from Master Hand at higher difficulty levels. The number of forms you fight through also depends on the difficulty, including in order; Master Giant, a large humanoid form; Master Beast, a quadruped dragon/scorpion hybrid; Master Edges, five swords attacking at once; and Master Shadow, a Mirror Match. And finally a Zero-Effort Boss of the core itself. For the Wii U version, Master Core has one additional form (penultimate order-wise) that can only be fought at the highest difficulty levels: Master Fortress, an Eldritch Location Colossus Climb.
  • Serial Escalation: Between both versions (3DS and Wii U), the game blows its predecessors out of the water in several regards (with the only drawback being the absence of a dedicated Adventure Mode like in Melee and Brawl), and the Downloadable Content would further increase the number of stages and characters. However, it's less readily apparent when the versions are viewed separately, since Sakurai and his team needed to make many concessions in order to make things work (especially the technologically challenged 3DS version).
  • Shared Life-Meter: Master Hand and Crazy Hand share their stamina, which wasn't true in the previous games (and isn't true in Ultimate either).
  • Shifting Sand Land: The 3DS version features the bridge area of the desert-themed Gerudo Valley, of The Legend of Zelda fame. The Twinrova sisters pop up occasionally, either burning the left half of the stage or freezing the right half.
  • Shout-Out: Ryu's gimmick —a pressure-dependant light/heavy attack mechanic— is a reference to the first Street Fighter arcade cabinets, which had tunable-by-pressure kick/punch buttons.
  • Shown Their Work:
    • The game features Mega Man as a playable character, and you can tell that the animators have put a lot of effort◊ into making his animations match those of his classic sprites.
      • In Mega Man's debut trailer, there are brief cuts to a screen inside Mega Man's head showing silhouettes of different Robot Masters he's defeated. All of the Robot Masters shown are in the same poses as their official art, and Guts Man is even shown with a Light number rather than a Wily number, due to being created by Dr. Light rather than Dr. Wily.
      • Mega Man's Final Smash involves summoning alternate-continuity versions of himself, all of which fire a laser with their left arm...except for MegaMan.EXE, who fires with his right arm, like in his original game.
        In particular, this reflects the handedness they seemed to show in their original series, where most actually had Ambidextrous Sprites but were usually facing to the right. Most of the Mega Men shoot with the hand farthest from the screen, which when facing right is their left hand; EXE alone shoots with his near (right) hand in his source series.
      • Whenever Mega Man uses an attack that requires both Mega Busters at once, he stops to vent excess heat to prevent them from overheating, previously noted in Super Adventure Rockman. This is especially notable since said game was never exported, and shunned and declared non-canon by Keiji Inafune.
    • This video analysis does a pretty good job showcasing the small nuances put into Little Mac's design and moveset for Smash for 3DS/Wii U to make him believable as a fighter. It goes into why Little Mac has a poor air game, why he uses certain kinds of punches, and even the reasoning behind his idle and dashing animations. Sakurai definitely did his homework.
  • Sidelined Protagonist Crossover:
    • Some games ignore the trainers in place of having you control Pokémon themselves. Super Smash Bros. Brawl included Pokémon Trainer, who is based on the original protagonist Red from Pokémon Red and Blue. However, he was replaced with Charizard in Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Charizard was one of his three Pokémon in Brawl, along with Squirtle and Ivysaur. They all returned for Ultimate, together with the trainer's Distaff Counterpart.
    • Downplayed for Duck Hunt. The Dog was a NPC, while the ducks were the closest thing the games had to enemies. But the actual "main character" is the offscreen hunter who shoots during certain attacks.
    • Chrom, the main character for Fire Emblem: Awakening, was absent in favor of the Avatar character, Robin, and his Daughter Lucina, something their trailer lampshades. However he does appear as Robin's Final Smash and a Costume for Mii Fighters. Subverted as Chrom turns out to be a Decoy Protagonist to Robin.
  • Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: invoked Wii U lampshades this trope with the Li'l Oinks trophy, whose description gets excited about the varieties of said pigs you can possibly get from eggs, before reminding you that there's still the adventure that makes up the main game and that you shouldn't get too distracted and forget it.
  • Songs in the Key of Panic: When fighting on Street Fighter's Suzaku Castle while one of the non-remixed themes is playing, the music becomes more urgent when a match is about to end (usually because 30 seconds remain on the clock or two fighters remain and one is on their last stock), much like it did in Street Fighter II.
  • Space Zone: Mario Galaxy takes place on the surface of a small planet and the gravity and blast lines are curved to match the planet's surface.
  • Spring Jump: In addition to Sonic's spring move, the game also has Mega Man's Rush Coil and Pac-Man's Pac-Jump. All of them make use of actual springs to justify the third jump with Up + B.
  • Steel Ear Drums: Though usually played straight with most characters, there's a notable aversion. Duck Hunt — a master of projectiles, one prominent one being an explosive can be fired at and kept in the air by an offscreen marksman — will duck and cover if a shot is fired too close to them, leaving them momentarily vulnerable.
  • Sticky Bomb: Mega Man's side special, Crash Bomb, works almost exactly like the Gooey Bomb item, except that it's fired in a straight line rather than thrown. Like the other sticky bombs, these can turn on Mega Man if the player's not careful.
  • Summon Magic: Zelda, having lost her ability to transform into Sheik, gains a move where she summons a Phantom from The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. It's quite versatile, as it can deliver a strong attack and even take hits for Zelda.
  • Super Title 64 Advance: The titles for both games have the name of the console/handheld platform the game is released on.
  • Switch-Out Move: Due to technical difficulties concerning the 3DS version, and the Wii U one being affected due to Sakurai's intent to keep the character roster the same in both, the trope is averted. Zelda and Sheik no longer swap between each other and are now fully separate characters, same case with Samus and Zero Suit Samus. The Pokémon Trainer is also absent altogether, as are Squirtly and Ivysaur, leaving Charizard as a standalone solo fighter. In all cases except Samus (whose transformation occured via a Final Smash), the Down + B move is now given to new moves, while Zero Suit Samus now receives a Final Smash based on a gunship ability from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
  • Tagline: "Settle it in Smash!"
  • Think of the Censors!: Throughout development of the game, Palutena and a Wonder Pink trophy had to be censored multiple times before they were given the green light by CERO, and a Tharja trophy was outright axed. It happened again when Bayonetta was added as DLC (though her case is a little more understandable). Sakurai made it clear in an interview that he was none too pleased with CERO, calling their policies "juvenile".
    Sakurai: Underwear is just a piece of fabric. If you’re more worried about something trivial like whether you can see some cloth than whether a game includes firearms, you clearly ought to get your priorities in order.
  • Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy: This is the best thing you can do with gun items in a fight once they run out of ammo. This game even has you automatically throw your gun if you try to shoot it when it's out of ammo (previous games required you to use the grab input to get rid of gun items).
  • Too Awesome to Use: The Golden Hammer conundrum returns. In the 3DS version, you can get up to nine Golden Hammers, but only 3 are usable on each page (there are 3 pages of 35 challenges and Golden Hammers can only be used on the same page it was unlocked on). The Wii U version only gives you 5 hammers on a single page of 140 challenges. Just like Brawl, there are a few exceptionally difficult challenges that you can't use hammers on (both games have a challenge of beating classic at Intensity 9.0 without losing a stock. Naturally, neither one can be hammered).
  • Too Much Information: Happens during Wario's episode of Palutena's Guidance in the Wii U version. While she does try to be helpful in describing his attacks, the conversation invariably ventures towards his fartillery. Pit is disturbed.
    "...This job is really the worst sometimes."
  • Traintop Battle: In the 3DS version, the Spirit Tracks stage pits the Smash fights this way. While it is one of the constantly moving and changing stages featured in Smash Bros., the fighters do battle on the Spirit Train from the game the stage is based on and it's constantly changing train cars that it pulls throughout the fight.
  • True Final Boss: Killing Master Hand and Crazy Hand at the end of Classic Mode at an intensity level of at least 5.0 will cause Master Hand to reveal his One-Winged Angel form, the shadowy mass known as Master Core that takes on multiple forms with higher intensities adding more forms. At 5.0 you fight Master Edges (an array of swords) and Master Shadow (a Mirror Boss). 6.0 adds Master Beast (a scorpion-like beast), 7.0 adds Master Giant (a giant humanoid figure), and 8.0 adds Master Fortress (a Womb Level, exclusive to the Wii U version). Once all the forms are dead you have a time limit to smash the Master Core itself off the screen before it kills you in one hit.
  • A Twinkle in the Sky: Starting in this game, it will stop occurring during the last seconds of a match, to avoid the scenario where an assured victory turns into a tie because the match ended before the long animation finished playing out.
  • Variable Mix: In the 3DS version, several stages' soundtracks change depending on what's going on in the game (including a return of the Yoshi's Island one):
    • The Paper Mario stage's music changes between a remix of the Grassland and Airship themes from Paper Mario: Sticker Star with Rogueport's theme from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door in between, depending on which form the stage is currently in.
    • The 3D Land stage's music goes from the main theme of Super Mario 3D Land to the beach theme from the same game when it changes to beach form. When the stage is about to change back to grassland form, the music begins speeding up before going back to the first song. The stage's alternate music track does this as well, but like Summit's music, it's a single audio track that only matches up by coincidence.
    • The Reset Bomb Fortress stage features a remix of Viridi's theme from Kid Icarus: Uprising. The music is timed to the transitions in the stage. It's worth noting that this is the only music track in the entire Super Smash Bros. series that halts when the game is paused, so the music doesn't desync from the events onscreen.
  • Version-Exclusive Content: The game has the same roster of fighters between its console and portable versions, but some stages differ between the two and each features different game modes as well (e.g. sidescrolling-beat-em-up-style Smash Run on the 3DS vs. board-game-style Smash Tour on the Wii U). Both games also have different trophies to collect, with 3DS featuring trophies from Nintendo's handheld games while Wii U had trophies from home console games and the retro masterpieces collections. The Wii U version also supports up to eight simultaneous fighters (instead of four) and features a Level Editor.
  • Video Game Perversity Potential: A stage was added as a free DLC for the Wii U version called "Miiverse". This stage is similar to Battlefield, but until Miiverse itself was shut down in late 2017, sometimes Miiverse posts would appear supporting the characters in the match... which naturally included crudely-drawn penises or scrawled obscenity, especially if someone was playing as Zero Suit Samus or Donkey Kong.
  • Villain Team-Up: Several Event Matches have this:
    • The Original Heavyweights has Mario face off against Bowser and Donkey Kong, two of his most well-known arch-nemeses.
    • A Fated Battle has Link battle against Ganondorf on the Castle Siege stage, in which the latter will be accompanied by 2 Dark Links if the stage transitions to its third form.
    • Beautification has Rosalina against 2 Bowsers and 2 Ganondorfs, in which she must use Lip's Stick on all of them.
    • Galactic Avenger has Samus facing off against her Dark Samus-inspired alternate costume and the Ridley stage boss, both antagonists of the Metroid series.
    • A Royal Errand has Marth and Robin trying to nab 500 coins from Wario and Bowser, both Mario antagonists.
    • Wrecking Bros. is an anti-hero example, having the Mario Bros. face off against Wario and King Dedede, both comedic anti-heroes of their series who originally started off as the main villains.
    • Sky Pirates is another anti-hero example (this time, the anti-heroes being playable), with Meta Knight and Dark Pit, both serious characters from otherwise light-hearted franchises who are often considered to be "darker versions" of the main protagonists, fighting against Captain Falcon and Falco.
    • Being the father-son duo they are, there are no less than five Event Matches that have Bowser and Bowser Jr. as a team: Enough with the Kidnapping, Family Ties, A Lurking Menace, Peach in Peril, and Solidarity.
    • The Final Battle, much like the Brawl Event Match of the same name, has the player face off against Bowser, King Dedede, and Ganondorf, all kings who are the main antagonists of their respective series.
    • Final Battle Team-Up has the two players face off against every playable antagonist in the gamenote , in addition to a few Dark Clones of some protagonists: Link in his Dark Link-inspired costume, Samus in her Dark Samus-inspired costume, Dark Pit, Meta Knight in his navy alternate costume, King Dedede, Ganondorf, and Bowser.
  • Wall Jump: More characters have the ability to do a wall jump, such as Greninja and Little Mac.
  • Well, This Is Not That Trope: Part of the Poison Mushroom trophy's description in both games.
    Becoming giant and looming over your foes is pretty great, yeah? Well, that won't happen if you get this mushroom.
  • Womb Level: Master Core in the Wii U version becomes one of these as Master Fortress. It's a gargantuan landmass covered in flesh, has Acid Pools and is protected by shadowy versions of pre-existing enemies. The player must go through a Colossus Climb inside Master Fortress to take out its glowing weak points to defeat it. The layout even resembles a digestive tract and as the player approaches one of its weak points a heartbeat sound is added to the soundtrack.
  • Writing Around Trademarks: Cloud from Final Fantasy VII was added to the game as DLC, though he came with very limited music tracks and overall content than others (initially though to be due to licensing issues with Square Enix, but later clarified to have happened due to the songs being legally tied to multiple companies across the world). This extended to his return in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as part of the base roster, though it was eventually rectified with the addition of Sephiroth as DLC in the latter game, who not only added more songs and a second FF stage, but also several new Spirits.
  • Your Mom: Bayonetta's up taunt has her utter her infamous remark from her source material: "If you need to learn how to talk to a lady, ask your mum."
  • Zero-Effort Boss: The final form of Master Core is just a glowing sphere. It never attacks and moves only to re-position itself at the center of the stage. The only way to lose here is to accidentally (or intentionally) walk off the ledge and fall past the stage boundaries. It does have a One-Hit Kill move that it uses if left idle for too long, but you won't ever see it unless you're trying to (and it dies immediately afterwards anyway).

 
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Palutena

Goddess of Light, protector of humanity and older sister-figure to Pit.

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Our Gods Are Different

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Palutena

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Alternative Title(s): Super Smash Bros 4, Super Smash Bros For Wii U, Super Smash Bros For Nintendo 3 DS

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Palutena

Goddess of Light, protector of humanity and older sister-figure to Pit.

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Palutena

Super Smash Bro...

Bayonetta Gets ...

Here Comes A Ne...

Cloud Storms In...

Mega Man Joins ...

Sonic in SSB4

Pac-Man Hungers...

Palutena

Greninja

Greninja

Greninja

Super Smash Bros 4

Super Smash Bro...