99 Fun Facts About Super Smash Bros.

In Smash Ultimate's numbered roster, which character is fighter number 01?

Mario is number 01 because fighters are numbered in the order they joined the series, starting with the 1999 original's cast. Donkey Kong, number 02, comes from the same 1981 arcade game.

Instead of a health bar, how does Super Smash Bros. track how hurt a fighter is?

A rising percentage: the higher it climbs, the further each hit sends you flying. A standard match has no health to drain, so fights are won by launching rivals clean off the screen.

What was the working title of the Smash prototype, made before any Nintendo characters were in it?

Dragon King: The Fighting Game used plain placeholder fighters, and the crossover idea came later. Its designer kept the prototype and showed it running on YouTube in October 2022.

Which Nintendo figure first rejected the idea of its mascots fighting, then approved it after seeing a four-character demo?

Shigeru Miyamoto was against the crossover at first. The demo starring Mario, Donkey Kong, Samus and Fox was shown only once it was well balanced, and permission followed.

Which studio developed the original Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64?

HAL Laboratory needed a finished game quickly after its other Nintendo 64 projects were cancelled. The fighting prototype was picked because it would take less time than a rival pitch, and it reached Japan in January 1999.

How many playable fighters did the original 1999 Super Smash Bros. have?

12: eight were ready at the start and four had to be unlocked. Bowser and King Dedede were among those planned but cut, and both got in with later games.

Which of these was an unlockable, not a starting, fighter in the first Super Smash Bros.?

Ness, the EarthBound hero, only shows up once you clear the 1P Game on Normal with three lives or fewer and no continues. Even then you have to beat him in a duel on Dream Land to keep him.

Which future Nintendo president wrote the code for the prototype of the first Super Smash Bros.?

Satoru Iwata was leading another project, so he programmed the prototype at weekends. He also proposed the 'Bros.' in the title, to suggest friends settling a little disagreement rather than enemies.

Which giant glove is the classic final boss of Smash's single-player mode?

Master Hand, a floating right-hand glove, has been a boss in every Smash game since 1999, joined from the second game by the left-handed Crazy Hand. Ultimate finally lets you play as him, for one battle.

Which Melee newcomer hurts itself whenever it uses one of its own electric attacks?

Pichu takes recoil damage from its own electricity and is easy to launch, so it was treated as Melee's joke character. When it came back in Ultimate it was far stronger, and tournament players took it seriously.

Marth and Roy debuted in Melee representing which series that had not yet been released outside Japan?

Fire Emblem had never left Japan, and the team added Marth expecting he might be cut abroad. He and Roy stayed in, still speaking Japanese in every version, and the series began reaching the West soon after.

Sandbag made its debut as the punchbag of which Melee minigame?

Home-Run Contest gives you ten seconds to batter Sandbag before launching it as far as you can. Since Brawl the bag has also dropped into ordinary matches as an item.

Which single-player addition in Melee took players through side-scrolling Nintendo worlds?

Adventure opens with a dash to the flagpole in the Mushroom Kingdom. Later you hunt the Triforce through an underground maze, then race a 40-second countdown to escape the planet Zebes.

Which fan-made effort gave Melee rollback netcode and online play, extending its competitive life?

Project Slippi, led by a developer called Fizzi, added rollback netcode to Melee running on the Dolphin emulator. It landed in summer 2020, just as the pandemic shut in-person tournaments, and the scene moved online.

The 2013 crowdfunded documentary about the competitive Melee community was called what?

The Smash Brothers is a nine-part series by Travis 'Samox' Beauchamp, made for about $12,000 and free to watch on YouTube. It is credited with reviving interest in competitive Melee.

What happened when Melee was scheduled for the EVO 2013 fighting-game championship?

Nintendo tried to block the stream days before the event, then backed down after a fan backlash. Melee had earned its slot when its players gave about $95,000 to a breast cancer research drive.

The advanced Smash technique of air-dodging diagonally into the ground to slide is called what?

Wavedashing is no glitch: Melee lets an air dodge keep its momentum when it hits the floor, so the fighter slides while still free to attack. Nobody designed it as a move, yet it became the mark of expert play.

Which company did Sakurai found in 2005 after leaving the studio that made Kirby?

Sora Ltd. has only two permanent staff, him and his wife Michiko. It is less a studio than an agency, hiring him out as a freelance director to whichever company is building the game.

Which two characters became the Smash series' first third-party fighters in Brawl?

Snake and Sonic were both requested years earlier, during Melee: Metal Gear's Hideo Kojima asked for Snake and Sonic Team's Yuji Naka for Sonic. The game was too far along, so both waited for Brawl.

What was the name of Brawl's plot-driven side-scrolling story mode?

The Subspace Emissary tells its whole story with almost no spoken dialogue, only gestures and grunts. The plot was worked out with Kazushige Nojima, a scenario writer known for the Final Fantasy series.

Which item, introduced in Brawl, must be broken to unleash a character's ultimate attack?

The Smash Ball drifts around the stage and breaks once it has taken enough hits. Whoever lands the last one earns a Final Smash, a super move far stronger than any regular attack.

In Brawl, what did every fighter have a 1% chance of doing each time they began a dash?

Tripping over: a random pratfall that left the fighter wide open for a moment. Competitive players saw it as luck deciding matches, and random tripping was taken out of every Smash game that followed.

Which website did Sakurai run to teach players strategies and reveal Brawl's content day by day?

Smash Bros. Dojo!! posted every weekday from May 2007 to April 2008. Sakurai wrote it himself while directing the game, and he had a third job on Brawl too: he voiced King Dedede.

Which outside company co-developed the 3DS and Wii U Smash games and then Ultimate?

Bandai Namco Studios brought in staff from its own fighting series, Tekken and Soulcalibur, for the 3DS and Wii U games. Having the same team back let work on Ultimate get going far faster.

Which of these firsts belongs to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U?

First eight-player matches: the Wii U game's 8-Player Smash doubled the usual four fighters. The crowd came at a cost, as only certain stages could hold that many.

Which of these newcomers made their Smash debut in the 2014 games that came before Ultimate?

Wii Fit Trainer was unveiled at E3 2013 and fights with yoga poses and exercises lifted from her home game. The other three all had to wait for Ultimate.

Which Final Fantasy VII hero arrived as DLC for the 3DS and Wii U games?

Cloud Strife arrived in December 2015 because players kept asking for a Final Fantasy fighter, and he drew the most support of any. He brought the Limit Break gauge from his own game with him.

Which veteran fighter was dropped from the 3DS and Wii U games because the handheld could not cope?

Ice Climbers were planned and even ran on Wii U, but the team could not get the two-character pair working on the 3DS however hard it tried. They were cut from both versions and did not return until Ultimate.

Which fighter, absent since Melee, returned in 2015 as the first downloadable character in Smash history?

Mewtwo came back in April 2015, free at first to Club Nintendo members who had registered both the 3DS and Wii U versions. Everyone else could buy the fighter about two weeks later.

Which two beings are the antagonists of Ultimate's World of Light mode?

Galeem and Dharkon are at war with each other as well. Defeat only one and the survivor swallows the world in light or in darkness, so the true ending means beating both in the same final battle.

Which character was the final DLC fighter added to Ultimate, in October 2021?

Sora, the Kingdom Hearts hero, was the last fighter added, in October 2021. At his reveal the director said Sora had been the real winner of the fan ballot held back in 2015, six years earlier.

Which fighter opened Ultimate's first Fighters Pass?

Joker from Persona 5 was unveiled at The Game Awards in December 2018, the night before Ultimate even went on sale. Players then had to wait until the following April to get their hands on him.

Omega forms flatten every stage to match which one?

Final Destination is a single flat platform with no hazards, for players who want nothing but the fight. Every one of Ultimate's 103 launch stages has an Omega form cut to exactly the same size and shape.

What record had Ultimate set by 2025 with 36 million copies sold?

Best-selling fighting game in history: it passed Street Fighter II's long-standing record in 2019, within a year of release. On Switch, only Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons have sold more.

Which fighter joined Melee as a slower, heavier copy of Captain Falcon?

Ganondorf was never planned: the director was handed a model of him, his build matched Captain Falcon's and, above all, he was popular. His Warlock Punch is simply the Falcon Punch made slower and much harder-hitting.

Which Pokemon joined Pikachu in the first Smash because the team could build it from Kirby's model?

Jigglypuff is round like Kirby, so the team reused his model and many of his animations to save time. Clefairy was considered for the same spot, and the singing balloon has been in every Smash game since.

Which Brawl item works like a Poke Ball for characters from other series?

The Assist Trophy cracks open and a guest character fights at your side for a short while. It has also been a waiting room: Little Mac, Dark Samus and Isabelle were all helpers first and playable fighters later.

Which long-dormant NES hero was redesigned for Brawl, then starred in a 2012 sequel made by Smash's own director?

Pit had gone without a new game since 1991 when Brawl gave him a modern look. The fan interest that followed led to Kid Icarus: Uprising on the 3DS, which kept the Brawl design.

Who paid for the YouTube channel about making games that Sakurai launched in 2022?

His own money, unmonetised: the videos cost about 90 million yen to edit and translate, and he took no ad income at all. He called it volunteer work, an investment in making future games a little better.

Which 3DS-era feature let owners train custom fighters that learn from how they are beaten?

amiibo Figure Players fight on their own and are never yours to control. What each one learns is saved inside the toy figure itself, and the more it battles, the stronger it gets.

What is the title of Ultimate's vocal main theme?

Lifelight was written by Hideki Sakamoto, and it is more than an opening song. Its melody is the basis of most of Ultimate's original score, so it keeps coming back as you play.

In Ultimate's World of Light story, which fighter alone escapes the opening attack?

Kirby gets away on his Warp Star, a split second ahead of the beams of light that vaporise every other fighter. The player begins the story with him alone and has to win back the whole roster, battle by battle.

What collectible mechanic did Ultimate introduce to replace the trophies of earlier games?

Spirits are characters who lost their bodies in the story and now lend fighters their powers. Each is won by beating a stand-in, so Animal Crossing's shopkeeper Tom Nook is played by the Pokemon Incineroar.

What is Ultimate's mode called in which each character can be played only once?

Smashdown strikes every fighter off the menu once it has been used, whether it won or lost. A long session pushes everyone off their favourites and deep into the corners of the roster they never touch.

Which newcomer starred in the first teaser for Ultimate, in March 2018?

Inkling: the teaser closed a March 2018 Nintendo Direct and showed an Inkling girl with the Smash logo reflected in her eye. It gave no title, and the name Ultimate stayed secret until E3 that June.

Which fighter was Ultimate's first DLC, free to early registrants in January 2019?

Piranha Plant, a common enemy rather than a star, was chosen to add variety to the roster and was free to anyone who registered the game by the end of January 2019. It is the only DLC fighter outside both Fighters Passes.

Which ARMS character opened Ultimate's second Fighters Pass in June 2020?

Min Min was a three-month mystery: Nintendo said in March 2020 that an ARMS fighter was on the way, but not which one. She was finally named in a broadcast that June and released a week later.

Which Nintendo Labo kit gained limited Ultimate support in a May 2019 update?

The VR Kit: an update in May 2019 added a mode for Labo's cardboard goggles. You can look around the stage while computer-controlled fighters battle, or join in yourself, but never against friends.

Which Metroid villain, long dismissed as too big to be a fighter, finally joined the roster in Ultimate?

Ridley was requested for years, but in 2014 the director said a shrunken space dragon would no longer be Ridley. For Ultimate he gave in to the demand and redesigned the monster at a fighter's size.

Which cheery love song plays as costumed Nintendo mascots brawl in the first Smash Bros. TV ad?

"Happy Together" by The Turtles plays over the fight. The four mascot costumes were later reused for a live wrestling match staged to launch the game.

Slamfest '99, a live wrestling bout between costumed mascots, launched Smash Bros. in which US city?

Las Vegas hosted the fight at the MGM Grand Adventures theme park. It was streamed live on the web through RealPlayer and could be rewatched for months afterwards.

Which DLC fighter, who builds his own platforms, made Smash Ultimate's makers rework every stage?

Steve mines materials and places blocks wherever he likes, so every stage had to be reworked to cope. Talks about bringing Minecraft into the series had started roughly five years earlier.

Which Microsoft-owned duo joined Smash Ultimate in what Xbox's Phil Spencer called "an easy deal"?

Banjo & Kazooie were the second most requested characters in Nintendo's 2015 fan vote. Microsoft owns the bear and bird through its purchase of their creator, Rare.

Which Metal Gear creator asked for his own hero to join Smash Bros. Melee, too late to be added?

Hideo Kojima made the request to director Masahiro Sakurai himself. Melee, built in just 13 months, was already too far along to take another fighter.

The first Smash Bros. portrays its fighters as which kind of object that comes to life to fight?

Toy dolls that spring to life are how the box art and manual present the cast. Later games dropped the idea and gave players collectible trophies instead.

Nintendo re-released which older console's controller for the Wii U and Switch Smash Bros. games?

GameCube controllers got fresh production runs for both games, along with adapters to plug them in. The console's own best-seller was Melee, at more than seven million copies.

Overenthusiastic Smash Bros. players were reported to be breaking which part of their Nintendo 3DS?

The Circle Pad, the handheld's analog stick, was reported damaged by excessive play. The series' powerful smash attacks are triggered by flicking the stick quickly.

Which Zelda game's version of Link replaced the Twilight Princess design in Smash Bros. Ultimate?

Breath of the Wild supplied the new look. Ultimate was built from scratch with new assets, which let returning fighters be redrawn to match their most recent games.

Smash Bros. Brawl's main theme, written by a Final Fantasy composer, has lyrics in which language?

Latin lyrics run through the theme. They sing of rivals becoming companions and of the fame of the characters.

Which Smash Bros. rule set gives each player a set number of lives, the last one standing winning?

Stock matches end when only one player has lives left. In a Time match, by contrast, everyone keeps respawning and the most knockouts when the clock runs out wins.

Which tiebreaker settles a drawn Smash Bros. match by restarting every tied fighter at 300% damage?

Sudden Death puts every tied fighter on a single life at 300% damage. At that level almost any attack that connects is a one-hit knockout.

Which move goes straight through a shield in Smash Bros., punishing players who block too much?

A grab ignores a shield and leads to a throw in any of four directions. That gives the series a rock-paper-scissors triangle of attacking, shielding and grabbing.

What do Smash players call attacking an opponent knocked off stage to stop them getting back?

Edge-guarding works because a fighter knocked off stage has only midair jumps and a few special moves to get home. Stop the return and the opponent loses a life.

In Super Smash Bros., which symbol sits behind Link's damage meter to show the series he comes from?

The Triforce marks every Zelda fighter, just as a Poké Ball sits behind Pikachu's meter. The symbols have shown each fighter's home series since the first game.

Which mode new to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has each player choose three or five fighters instead of one?

Squad Strike can keep each round's winner in, tag-team style, or run as a best-of series of fixed matchups. Each player sets the squad's order in secret before the first fight.

Which Smash Bros. single-player mode challenges the player to defeat every fighter in the game?

All-Star Mode in Melee allowed a single life and just three healing items between battles to get through the whole cast. The mode itself had to be unlocked first.

Which online mode in the Wii U and 3DS Smash games offered item-free matches on flat stages only?

For Glory recorded every win and loss on a player's record. Its casual twin, For Fun, went the other way, with random stages and items switched on.

What did Smash Bros. Brawl call its timed playable demos of the older games its fighters came from?

Masterpieces sat beside Chronicle, a browsable list of the games Nintendo had made or published across its consoles. New entries appeared as related fighters and trophies were unlocked.

Which term names the unseen boundary around a Smash stage that knocks out any fighter crossing it?

Blast zone is the common name for each of the four lines hidden beyond the edges of the screen. A fighter knocked through the upper one gets a special send-off: a Star KO or a Screen KO.

Which Smash Bros. item is modelled on a bazooka-shaped light gun Nintendo really sold for the SNES?

Super Scope shots can be fired as small blasts or charged up for a far stronger one. The real accessory was wireless and shaped like a bazooka.

Which explosive Smash Bros. item gets up and starts walking around the stage if nobody picks it up?

Bob-omb is the one with two little legs and a wind-up key. Left alone, it stands up and paces back and forth on its platform, turning round at the edges, until it blows.

Smash's Hammer item, whose head sometimes flies off uselessly, comes from which 1981 arcade game?

Donkey Kong is the source, though the head never fell off there. Since Melee there has been a one-in-eight chance that it drops off, leaving the wielder swinging a bare handle.

Which odd little creature from EarthBound is a throwable Smash item prized for breaking shields?

Mr. Saturn does very little damage when thrown, but since Smash 4 it normally breaks a shield instantly. Left alone, it ambles around the stage pushing other items along.

Which Pokémon, released from a Poké Ball in Smash, just flops around the stage and hurts no one?

Goldeen can only flop about until it vanishes or falls off the stage. Its Splash is a joke on the Pokémon games, where the move does nothing at all and Goldeen cannot even learn it.

Which Smash stage, three platforms above a main one, names a form of every Ultimate stage?

Battlefield was the very first stage revealed for Ultimate. Every stage in that game can be switched to a Battlefield form that copies its triangle of platforms.

Which Smash Bros. Brawl stage is set inside a drawing and messaging app built into the Nintendo DS?

PictoChat starts as a blank page. Drawings then sketch themselves in and act as platforms and hazards, from a minecart on rails to a face that blows wind at the fighters.

Which Smash Bros. stage keeps transforming mid-match between fire, water, rock and grass versions?

Pokémon Stadium begins as a plain arena, then rebuilds itself at random into one of four layouts, each themed on a Pokémon type. A jumbotron in the background follows the fight.

Which giant one-eyed robot from the Mega Man games invades Smash Bros.' Wily Castle stage as a boss?

Yellow Devil can only be beaten by attacking its eye. Defeating it sets off a giant explosion that damages the other fighters.

Which Animal Crossing stage from Smash Bros. Brawl has K.K. Slider play on Saturday nights by the console's clock?

Smashville sets up a stage at 7:30 on Saturday evenings, and K.K. Slider plays from 8 until midnight. The rest of the week, the sky follows the real time of day.

Which Melee champion, nicknamed "The King of Smash", later competed on the reality show Survivor?

Ken Hoang finished fifth on Survivor: Gabon in 2008. Before that he was rated Melee's best player from 2003 to 2006 and won more than $50,000 at tournaments.

Which Mexican player won Ultimate at EVO 2019, then the largest Smash Bros. tournament ever held?

MkLeo lost in the round of 16, fought back through the losers' bracket and beat Tweek twice in the grand final. The prize was a little over $21,000.

What nickname did Smash fans give Melee's dominant Mango, Armada, Hungrybox, Mew2King and PPMD?

The Five Gods won nearly every major Melee tournament for years and rarely lost to anyone but each other. A win by Plup at Genesis 5 in 2018 was hailed as the end of the era.

Which website, created before Melee's release, became the online home of competitive Smash players?

Smashboards let scattered local scenes find each other. Competitive Melee grew from there through grassroots efforts, with no official support from Nintendo.

Which esports body's Melee circuit, begun in 2004, marked the Golden Age of competitive Smash?

Major League Gaming ended the circuit as Brawl arrived, and much of the scene's attention moved to the sequel. Competitive players then gradually drifted back to Melee.

Which catchphrase became a meme when commentators yelled it over a Smash Bros. Melee doubles match?

"Wombo Combo" rang out as two teammates landed a rapid string of hits that left their opponent unable to respond. The cry has since been reused in many parody montage videos.

Smash Bros. Melee won its slot at Evo 2013 when fans raised over $94,000 for which cause?

Breast cancer research was the beneficiary of a drive in which rival fan bases competed for the final slot. Skullgirls fans raised $78,000, fell short and were given a side tournament.

Which Smash Bros. Brawl fighter, picked by half the top eight at Apex 2012, was eventually banned?

Meta Knight was also chosen by 21 of the top 64 players at that event, three times as many as the next most used fighter. Organisers hoped a ban would make the game more balanced.

Which composer, famous for the Final Fantasy soundtracks, wrote the main theme of Smash Bros. Brawl?

Nobuo Uematsu wrote the theme, and Shogo Sakai arranged it. In all, 38 contracted composers worked on the game's music.

Which Japanese magazine gave the first Smash Bros. 31 out of 40 but awarded Brawl a perfect score?

Famitsu praised the depth of Brawl's single-player content and the unpredictability of its Final Smashes. The series' creator also wrote a weekly column for the magazine from 2003 to 2021.

Captain Falcon, in Smash since the first game, stars in which futuristic Nintendo racing series?

F-Zero gave him a racing machine but no fighting moves, so his moveset is almost entirely original to Smash. Since Brawl, his Final Smash has brought in his car, the Blue Falcon.

Which Final Fantasy villain could be unlocked early in Smash Ultimate by beating him as a boss?

Sephiroth arrived in December 2020, and the limited-time Sephiroth Challenge let players earn him a few days ahead of schedule. He was the third fighter of the second Fighters Pass.

Kazuya Mishima, added to Smash Ultimate in 2021, is a lead character of which 3D fighting series?

Tekken's own team marked the occasion with a commemorative piece of art. Kazuya arrived in June 2021 as the second-to-last fighter added to the game.

Whip-wielding Simon and Richter Belmont both joined Smash Ultimate as newcomers from which series?

Castlevania supplied two of the newcomers in Ultimate's base roster. Richter is Simon's Echo Fighter, borrowing his moveset and animations, whip included.

Which heavyweight Super Smash Bros. fighter is voiced by the series' own director, Masahiro Sakurai?

King Dedede is Sakurai's own creation, and the director had already voiced him in a Nintendo 64 platformer. He revealed the Smash role on the last day of Brawl's website updates.

Which Pokémon took the Smash Ultimate slot held open for a Sun and Moon creature not yet designed?

Incineroar was the only base-game fighter not chosen at the start of development, because the Pokémon had not been created yet. The team simply held a place open for it.

Which hero of the delayed Mother 3 was planned for Smash Bros. Melee but had to wait until Brawl?

Lucas was pencilled in while Mother 3 was still due on the Nintendo 64. When that version of the game was cancelled, the plan was dropped.

Which 1995 arcade game, a duel between assassins, is often cited as a forerunner of Smash Bros.?

The Outfoxies scattered weapons around stages full of hazards four years before Smash existed. Its arsenal ran from rocket launchers to pies and bowls of hot soup.

Which Final Fantasy writer helped Masahiro Sakurai plot the story mode of Smash Bros. Brawl?

Kazushige Nojima built the plotline jointly with Sakurai. The mode was meant to give the fighters more time in the spotlight and flesh out their characters.

Which voice actor announces every fighter's name in both Smash Bros. for Wii U and Ultimate?

Xander Mobus pulls double duty in Ultimate. Besides announcing, he reprises a lead role from Persona 5 for one of the DLC fighters.