Super Smash Bros./YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


See also:

The Main games:

  • And the Fandom Rejoiced:
    • Any new character that was confirmed to be playable, especially Snake and Sonic. R.O.B. was the only exception, as he was a Replacement Scrappy to many fans' dream additions. He didn't stay hated for long, though.
    • "Cool, new Smash Brothers game. Wait, what's this, a new Metal Gear? What, they're discussing the game? What's that box doing on one of the stages? Oh... oh hell yeah."
    • A more subdued moment happened when it was revealed that the character-specific battle introductions from Super Smash Bros. came back for Brawl.
    • Brawl's Stage Builder.
    • New Smash Bros?! ON THE WII U AND 3DS?! Our bodies were not ready.

      For players who were burned by the previous games' lack of balance, especially Brawl, producer Sakurai has mentioned that he may involve the other members in his staff with Balance.

      Also, Sakurai's statement that Brawl won't be the only game in the series with third-party guest characters. The first ones Sakurai stated to be interested in? "Capcom characters". Hell. Yeah.
    • They stated that development for Smash Bros 4 would begin after Sakurai's then current project was finished. Now that Kid Icarus: Uprising has finished production...
    • When the Smash Bros trailer went up during E3 2013, fans were happy to see that the Villager from Animal Crossing is a newcomer, especially since Sakurai had gone back on a previous statement where he said that he would not add an Animal Crossing newcomer. But there was another newcomer which pumped a lot of people up as well... and that newcomer was MEGA MAN!
    • Rosalina getting in was this due to the fact that she was a rather popular Mario character, as well as relatively unexpected.
    • Fans were thrilled to see Little Mac in as well.
    • The April Nintendo Direct had a lot of this, what with Zero Suit Samus and Shiek getting their own character slots with new tricks up their sleeves, Charizard also flying solo, as well as Pokémon X and Y fan favorite starter Greninja being revealed as a newcomer. Sakurai has also revealed that battling online would be much better with entirely separate modes for playing for fun and competitively, as well as cracking down on rage-quitters, taunt-partiers, as well as other online miscreants.
    • A more minor one: NO MORE TRIPPING! Also, gameplay has been confirmed to be a blend of Brawl and Melee, leaving fans of both games rather content.
    • During the summer, Sakurai released a character trailer that seemed to be a reveal trailer for Fire Emblem Awakening hero Chrom... but instead revealed not one, not two, but THREE characters: Veteran Captain Falcon and Newcomers Lucina and Robin. Robin in particular got a lot of love due to his moveset relying on not just swordplay, but magic as well, which helps him standout amongst the series' sword-wielding characters.
    • E3 2014 gave us Mii Fighters, who put fan's fears to rest about how Miis would play by giving them three different play-styles: Gunner, Sword Fighter, and Brawler. The hilarious trailer showing Reggie Fils-Amie and Satoru Iwata duking it out probably helped as well. There was also the fact that fan favorite Kid Icarus character Palutena was revealed as well.
    • Later after them, there was Shulk's reveal who also got a lot of fan attention.
    • Among Mario RPG fans, many were thrilled to see the Paper Mario series finally get some representation... but soon went sour after finding out that it mainly represents the much aligned black sheep of the franchise, Sticker Star.
    • For fans of the Koopalings, it was pretty damn cool to find out that Bowser Jr. had all seven of them as his alternate costumes! Especially since they're recognized as their own characters despite sharing Bowser Jr.'s roster slot. This was also the case with Alph being an Olimar alt with four different pallete swaps as well.
    • New pallet swaps in general made a lot of fans happy: Link's Fierce Deity alt in general is considered a widely loved and heavily requested one.
    • Mewtwo has returned as DLC after his absence in Brawl was mourned! And for Mother 3 fans saddened by Lucas being left out of the fourth game, rejoice! For he is DLC!
    • And after missing the Brawl train, our boy Roy is back as well!
    • Speaking of DLC, Nintendo is holding a ballot where you can vote for any character that you want in the game... within reason, of course, so who knows who will end up as DLC down the road?!
    • Smash Bros has some pretty unexpected third parties that made fans flip their lids in excitement: specifically Ryu from Street Fighter and Cloud from Final Fantasy 7!
  • Base Breaker: Lucario has become this due to many Mewtwo fans accusing him of being a clone (Never mind that he certainly is not) as well as having plenty of fans.
    • Greninja as well for similar reasons, now with fans accusing Sakurai of intentionally tricking them into thinking Mewtwo was going to be revealed.
    • Jigglypuff is this for many, with some liking her for being a fun Lethal Joke Character and with others claiming her to be irrelevant and un-wanted.
    • Wii Fit Trainer. She's either hilarious and a fun-looking character, or a stupid idea and a waste of space.
    • Some people think Palutena looks fun to play, others think she has way too much focus put on her given that she has twelve fully unique customizable moves and that her resources could have gone to tweaking other characters. And plus, there's also the accusations that her unique custom moves are "Sakurai Bias".
    • Then there's Bowser Jr, a lot of fans find his Clown Car moveset unique and fun and are open to the idea of playable Koopaling alts, others think his inclusion gives the Super Mario Bros franchise too much representation, though others argue given that it's the flagship Nintendo series, that it deserves that much representation.
    • Duck Hunt. Hilariously awesome and original newcomer, or stupid addition who takes up a more deserving roster slot?
    • EVERYTHING about Ridley. Whether or not he deserves to be playable, if he could be unique and fun to play as, if he has any shot of making it as a playable character... the debates go on and on.
      • Speaking of Ridley, his confirmation as a stage hazard/ally in the Wii U version has caused people to go insane, with his detractors insulting, mocking, and laughing at those who want him playable with his fans getting incredibly fed up with him being non-playable yet again and reacting towards his detractors with hostility. Though of course, every Ridley-related argument would be a moot point when Ridley would eventually become Promoted to Playable in Ultimate, pleasing his huge fanbase and forcing his detractors to eat their words.
    • Does Kid Icarus Uprising deserve to get as much content as it does? Some argue that it does given that Uprising was developed with Smash Bros in mind which justifies Sakurai putting so much of it's content into the game. Others however argue that one game does not deserve to have such a staggering amount of content when series like Donkey Kong Country and Metroid have a lot less. Both sides make valid points, as well as a lot of name-calling and insults and all around unpleasant stuff.
  • Broken Base: Oh yeah. Name an aspect of the game. Any aspect. It's bound to be controversial as hell.
    • Does competitive Smash miss the point of the series' party game roots? Or is it a valid way to play the game?
    • Is the sheer amount of Fire Emblem characters present annoying and terrible, or awesome?
    • Is Sakurai bias a thing, or is he a scapegoat for Nintendo's mandates?
    • What's the ideal size the character roster should aim for? Humongous, and with every past fighter present? Or should the devs downsize and prioritize other aspects of the game?
    • Are Mii Fighter costumes of deconfirmed fighters an acceptable compromise, or an unintentional slap to the face?
  • Character Tiers: One of the leading causes of the Broken Base.
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
    • Abridged Arena Array: In tournament play, the neutral stage selection consists of static and very balanced stages. In contrast, counterpick stages are generally much less restrictive (eg. Pokémon Stadium and Rainbow Cruise).
    • Due to Unity Ruleset Committee (a group of American and Canadian Smash tournament organizers) banning Meta Knight from use in future tournaments, players who main Meta Knight are in an uproar. No, we don't need to explain any more than what's been said, thank you.
    • Not to mention, if you play with friends, you know they're just about always going to pick their favourite stages.
    • For Glory Mode in Smash Bros Wii U and 3DS serves to rectify this, as it makes it to where every stage has a Final Destination equivalent.
  • Contested Sequel: Brawl, for Sakurai going out of his way to make the game as mainstream accessible as possible, having slower paced action, easy stage recovery, highly nerfed characters mixed in with highly overpowered ones, little to no comboing (an essential part of fighting games in general), almost none of the advanced techniques in Melee (some of which actually originated in the N64 original), and TRIPPING.
  • Crack Pairing: Samus/Pikachu, a Moe Couplet latched on to tongue-in-cheek by the fanbase, referencing obsessive shippers and the amount of creepy fans Samus has acquired.
    • Marth/Roy, all the more so for how they don't even belong in the same universe. This one is shipped completely seriously to an incredible extent, complete with shitting all over Marth's canon love interest Caeda.
    • Little Mac/Samus became this due to their heights being compared in the former's reveal trailer.
    • Palutena/Lucina for a rather... intimate picture of the two available as one of Lucina's ten pictures under her profile on the Smash 4 Dojo website.
  • Creator's Pet: Frequent claims that Sakurai showed preferential treatment towards Kid Icarus: Uprising ran amok during the heyday of Smash 4, and it's hard not to see why. Veteran fighter Pit has had a more-or-less complete overhaul to his moveset while characters like Ganondorf and Samus who most fans felt could use one were left out in the cold. Palutena has twelve fully unique moves to herself while other non-Mii characters only had different versions of their Specials as custom moves. Dark Pit was introduced as his own fully-realized playable character instead of more popular clone character requests like Daisy, Dark Samus, Shadow the Hedgehog, or even Alph (Who was an alternate skin for Olimar). And that's just looking at the playable reps, Kid Icarus: Uprising is represented the most in items and Smash Run enemies, has a total of three different stages spanning both versions of the game, and Solid Snake's entertaining codecs were replaced with the more divisive Palutena's Guidance segments. Whether this is a good thing or bad thing was highly debated, but Smash Ultimate mostly put it to rest thanks to less focus being put on Kid Icarus Uprising while the large cast made Dark Pit's inclusion easier to swallow. Though of course, Snake getting no new codec messages for the post-Brawl newcomers while Palutena's Guidance continued to cover the newcomers prevented this reputation from dying entirely.
  • Crossover Ship: Given that this is one big Crossover, fans are bound to do this.
  • Demonic Spiders: Smash Run in Smash Bros. for 3DS has its fair share of these among the various enemies.
    • Mimicuties and Clubberskulls keep this status from Kid Icarus: Uprising, and are probably worse in this game thanks to the way it plays. Mimicuties rocket around the stage at Mach 10 while Clubberskulls have outrageous range and killing power, and both take a long time to kill. At least you can escape from Clubberskulls, Mimicuties will hunt your ass down.
    • Darknuts from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess are like in their home game, incredibly sturdy and hit hard, making wearing them down a chore like in their home game. Thankfully, they're close to dying when you get their armor off! ...but like in Twilight Princess, they become lightning quick and are still as strong as before. Oh Crap.
    • Cryogonal however went from a relatively easy Pokémon to dispatch in its home series to a nightmare of an enemy that will launch annoying screen-clearing ice beams that will freeze you solid, leaving you a sitting duck for other Smash Run enemies. Worse still, they love to snipe you from offscreen and give you little to no time to react.
    • Egg Robos are similar in that they specialize in being pains in the ASS who nail you with long-ranged lasers. They're a lot like Cryogonal, but way faster and prone to running away while assaulting you with annoying projectiles. If they appear in a group, you're in for a bad time.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Metroid isn't really much of a success in Japan and the amount of games produced for it is not much compared to other Nintendo series. Hell, it has had only one protagonist with consistent roles, hence why you only get to play as Samus. We do get, however, two instances of Samus (her regular self and Zero Suit Samus), three Metroid themed stages in Brawl, along with two appearances of Ridley in the Subspace Emissary (other than the optional battle with Ganondorf, no Zelda boss appears).
    • Captain Falcon.
    • Lucas is a minor one, due to introducing many fans to the cult classic Mother 3.
    • Villager became this for many due to the fact that he has a rather odd fighting style (Growing and cutting down trees, using a Gyroid like a rocket, using a bug net to trap opponents...), and the psychopathic Villager meme he spouted helps a lot.
    • Mega Man was requested for a long time, and his inclusion made a lot of people happy, especially due to Capcom more-or-less leaving him for dead.
    • Greninja is this Hate Dumb aside for being a Pokémon who is actually rather popular with fans already due to being a cool looking Pokémon and competitive powerhouse in his home series.
    • Palutena first came into prominence during her brief appearance in Brawl's Subspace Emissary mode, which led to a lot of fans requesting for her to be added in a future game. They got their wish in Smash 4, where her large arsenal of moves and funny reveal trailer won the hearts of many. Her being top-tier in Smash Ultimate certainly helped... at least, among those who don't consider her a Tier-Induced Scrappy.
    • Robin won a lot of love for being a breath of fresh air among the sword-wielding Fire Emblem reps in Smash 4's roster thanks to his/her magic-based fighting style that actually reflects on the series' resource conservation mechanics.
    • Bowser Jr. and Rosalina both pull this sort of status thanks to the fact that they not only have very fun playstyles (Rosalina being a puppet-based fighter with Bowser Jr. relying on his Clown Car's assortment of tricks)and the fact that they were quite unexpected to show up. Even better in Bowser Jr's case: all seven Koopalings are playable by proxy due to him possessing them as alts.
  • Even Better Sequel: Melee, regarding the original, with trophies, more controls, more characters, more stages, and a competitive scene.
    • Brawl is considered this to Melee, by some people anyway.
  • Fan Dumb: The "hurr-durr-Lucario-is-a-clone-of-Mewtwo" people base that off the fact that both of their neutral special moves involve making some sort of power ball. Other than that, Lucario and Mewtwo couldn't be any more different.
    • The Mewtwo Fan Dumb EXPLODED once Lucario was revealed to be returning to Smash Bros 4 to truly embarrassing levels, though thankfully it ceased once Mewtwo made the cut via DLC and returned for Ultimate.
    • The same could be said with Ashley's fanbase once she was revealed to be an Assist Trophy.
  • Goddamned Bats: Pretty much any Smash Run enemy can be this given the circumstances, but a few particular annoying ones stand out.
    • Koffings aren't going to kill you themselves. However if you get caught in their poisonous gas, be prepared to kiss a bunch of stat-gains goodbye! Worse, Koffings can leave you open for other enemies to brutalize.
    • Petlils are the same, only instead of lowering your stats, they put you to sleep.
    • Both Kritter variations can be pretty annoying to deal with if you're playing as a melee-based fighter, as they hit pretty fast with their attacks and can leave you taking damage for a while. Worse, they react pretty fast too!
    • Redeads are basically sturdier Petlils who paralyze you with their screams instead of putting you to sleep. Like with Petlil, you better hope you weren't immobilized in front of an Orne!
  • Good Bad Bugs:
    • Wavedashing. It's a physics exploit caused by air-dodging into the ground. Quite a few fans were upset when it was removed in Brawl.
    • There's a glitch in Melee that lets you, among other things, play as Master Hand, though it is prone to crashing. Note that this glitch went undiscovered for seven years.
    • An AI glitch in Melee will occasionally cause a giant Yoshi fought in Classic mode to jump off the edge of the stage as soon as the match begins, giving you the victory in under five seconds.
  • Hate Dumb: Lucario used to have one among Mewtwo fans due his perceived Replacement Scrappy status (Never mind the fact that Mewtwo was planned for Brawl) as well as his "clone" status (which he isn't). It became truly embarrassingly pathetic when he was revealed for Smash 4, but Mewtwo returning both as DLC and a part of Ultimate's starting roster led to Lucario's Hate Dumb dying out.
  • Hell Is That Noise: If you hear the tell-tale 8-Bit drone of an approaching Orne, Run. Like. HELL.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • There was a letter sent to Nintendo Power describing characters the writer would like to see in the game. One of the characters was Lucario. Nintendo Power sarcastically replied that it was a good character choice. Cue Brawl, and Lucario is a playable character.
    • The 2002 April Fools Day prank from Electronic Gaming Monthly claimed that Sonic and Tails were unlockable characters in Melee. Approximately 6 years later, Sonic becomes playable.
    • In a TV spot for Melee, the game is referred to as "one big brawl." Fast forward six years, and the next installment in the series is called Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
    • In Melee, the end of the Pit trophy's description asks "Will Pit ever fight again?". A couple years later, and Pit is announced for Brawl and gets his own game for the 3DS.
  • It Was His Sled: All of the unlockable characters in every game. Taken for granted by the inclusion of Sheik as a transformation of Zelda.
  • Memetic Badass: Captain Falcon. He has a devastating punch, (a meme in itself) a move where he hip thrusts you with enough force to flip off of you twice WHILE there are small explosions, and a move where he thrusts his knee out, and if you get hit by this knee, your character will look like he just got electrocuted and he/she will go flying. No wonder he's considered to be Chuck Norris's rival....
    • Roy's not falling too behind. After all, he IS our boy!
    • Villager became characterized as a homicidal maniac among the fanbase when he was revealed due to his never-changing facial expression in the heat of battle.
  • Memetic Mutation: "FALCON... PUNCH!" Or hell, anything that Captain Falcon says.
    • Whenever eager fans mistook Greninja's reveal trailer as setting up for Mewtwo, they got mad. Videos like these mocking their expectations were soon made.
  • Most Annoying Sound: Ness in Super Smash Bros.. Especially when taunt dashing. OKAY!OKAY!OKAY!OKAY!OKAY!OKAY!
    • Kirby's "Hiiii!" taunt can be this sometimes, although it's somehow a whole lot less irratating in Brawl than in the N64 version and Melee version.
    • Pikachu in general, but ESPECIALLY his taunt. "Pika-Pikaaa!" over and over.
    • YOU'RE TOO SLOW! C'MON STEP IT UP!
    • Pit's "HIYIYIYIYIYIYIYIYIYIYAH!" in Brawl, or hell, Pit in general. Thankfully, Anthony Del Rio's voicework in Smash 4 rectifies this.
  • One True Pairing: Snake/Samus in Brawl, as well as her and Little Mac in the next installment.
    • Villager and Wii Fit Trainer due to both of them being characterized as psychopaths by the fanbase.
  • Power-Up Letdown: If you get Goldeen from a Pokeball or in Smash 4: a Master Ball.
  • Real Women Never Wear Dresses: Peach is criticized for fighting with a frying pan as a weapon, saying that's too much of a stereotypical woman's weapon to be efficient (though she's been using frying pans to attack since Super Mario RPG.)
    • And as anyone who has ever lifted a frying pan or has been hit with one can tell you, it'd make a perfectly good weapon if it wasn't seen as such a joke.
  • Replacement Scrappy: Lucario is often accused as this for Mewtwo, despite the fact that both of them were going to appear in Brawl. Mewtwo is back as of Smash 4 anyway, making this a moot point.
    • Toon Link for Young Link, though that too would be a moot point as of Smash Ultimate.
  • The Scrappy: Pichu is an intentional example. Its electricity-based attacks damage itself.
    • Clone characters in general get this kind of reaction thanks to the fact that they play more-or-less identical to the fighter they are based off of, either overshadowing the original and making them arguably irrelevant, or are overshadowed themselves.
      • It seems that Smash 4's new clones get this treatment the most: Lucina is viewed as way too similar to Marth (just without his sword's sweet spot) to justify her own slot. Dr. Mario's status probably isn't helped by the fact that the Mario franchise has a lot of representatives in general this time around. Dark Pit however gets this status the most: as he is pretty much a Palette Swap of Pit that originated in Brawl before becoming his own character in Uprising whose moveset is considered to be the laziest out of any clone character's. His edgy personality in his own game also gets him a lot of scorn from the fans as well.
  • Scrappy Level / That One Sidequest: Cruel Melee/Brawl, along with Battlefield Fortress in Subspace Emissary & the Boss Battles in Brawl.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: Tripping in Brawl. Whenever a player breaks into a run, they may, by completely random chance, trip over and leave themselves vulnerable. The mechanic doesn't go away in Sudden Death. Even though tripping gives you invincibility frames, you could pretty much do the same thing but better with sidestepping.
    • Pokémon Trainer's stamina mechanic, which punishes you for trying to rely on one of the Mons by reducing your stats when you use a specific one for too long, which is rather hated because Ivysaur and Charizard are rather sub-par compared to Squirtle, and the long duration of switching makes quickly recovering Squirle impossible. Probably implemented to convey the theme of using the entire Pokémon team instead of relying on one member. This despite the fact that Sheik/Zelda never needed any handicap on multiple forms despite the fact that Zelda is similarly sub-par and Sheik is deadly in the metagame.
    • Another for Pokémon Trainer: Type effectiveness. The three pokémon are knocked back a little more/less by attacks of their respective weaknesses/resistances. This creates two problems: first, no other Pokémon is affected by this system, so Charizard (a Fire type) isn't strong against Lucario (a Steel type), Lucario (also a Fighting type) isn't strong against Jigglypuff (a Normal type), et cetera, making it a pointless detail. Second, considering this is is only based on fire-water-grass, this puts Ivysaur at a huge disadvantage because about half of the characters in Brawl have fire attacks, and it's too easy on Charizard because there are only 3 water attacks, one being from Kirby with Squirtle's ability.
    • Inverted by a couple removed Melee techniques, such as crouch canceling, wavedashing, l-canceling, light shielding (this one is justified by the controllers), and more.
  • Sequel Displacement: When Melee was young, a number of fans failed to realize that there was a game that came before it, despite the information being in Melee.
  • That One Boss: Tabuu. Also, Porky and Duon.
    • The Master Hand/Crazy Hand team-up in Brawl Classic mode can sometimes be this, because it's only able to be fought on hard mode or higher and one has to reach the last fight within 9 minutes or less.
  • That One Sidequest: The Meta-Ridley trophy, which requires the player to beat down Meta-Ridley until he's near death, wait for a trophy stand to appear (the fight is on a timer, by the way,) then throw it at Meta Ridley, jump off the Blue Falcon, catch the trophy in mid-air, and then get back on.
  • The Unexpected: No one expected Snake to appear in Brawl.
    • Ditto for Wii Fit Trainer in Smash 4. In fact, Sakurai included her in exactly because she would surprise everyone.
    • Villager was this due to Sakurai's previous statements on thinking that an Animal Crossing Fighter wouldn't fit in with Smash Bros.
    • Mega Man is a minor example: he was requested a lot for a future Smash game, but many were convinced that he'd never make it due to how poorly he's been treated by Capcom as of late.
    • Mr. Game & Watch in Melee as well as the Ice Climbers. Marth was this for American audiences, but Roy was this to everyone because his game wasn't even out then!
    • Speaking of un-expected Classic characters, it's hard to tell who, if anyone expected the cast of Duck Hunt of all characters to be made playable.
    • Rosalina and Bowser Jr. weren't exactly expected either thanks to the Mario part of the roster being seemingly large enough.
    • Both Lucina as well as Robin were more or less unexpected thanks to the fact that everybody thought Chrom was going to be the Fire Emblem newcomer.
  • They Just Didn't Care: After three games after playing more or less the same, Ganondorf's Smash Bros treatment absolutely reeks of this. While it's somewhat understandable that he'd be a Captain Falcon clone in Melee, him keeping his clone moveset in not one, but two more games is pretty much inexcusable thanks to the wide array of abilities he has in his home franchise.
  • Tier-Induced Scrappy: In the Melee competitive community, many from the east coast hate Jigglypuff because, aside from her trolling-potent appearance, her mixed offense/defense game is extremely hard to counter, and she has a very effective finishing move, which is, of all things, her falling asleep. This infamy has slightly died down as of late, but now, she's considered top-tier.
    • Little Mac is an odd example as he covers both High and Low versions of this trope: Little Mac's weaknesses are pretty glaring: stages with platforms give him trouble as he has a terrible air game and if is taken off the stage, there's not a whole lot he can do to get back on. On the high side, a good Little Mac player is almost impossible to beat as he's able to compensate for his weaknesses by ludicrous speed, great attacking power, and Super Armor to shrug off attacks like nothing.
    • Yoshi in Smash 4 is a straighter example: thanks to his super speed, great killing moves that are incredibly safe to pull off, ridiculous recovery, he's considered by many to be one of the best character in the game, though not up to Meta Knight levels of ridiculous.


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