50 Fun Facts About Super Smash Bros. Melee

In Melee's Home-Run Contest, what do players batter for ten seconds and then launch with a bat?

Sandbag flies farthest when struck with the very tip of the Home-Run Bat, a hit players call a tipper.

Which playable Melee fighter has no portrait of their own on the character select screen?

Sheik shares Zelda's slot and appears when Zelda transforms, which is why Melee's roster is counted as either 25 or 26 fighters.

Which Melee technique makes a character slide along the ground by air dodging diagonally into it?

Wavedash did not survive into the sequel: Brawl reworked air dodging so that it no longer carried momentum into a slide.

Which fighter joins Melee's Adventure Mode if stage one is beaten with the seconds ending in 2?

Luigi replaces Mario in the battle that follows, and once Adventure Mode is finished he challenges the player for a place on the roster.

In a Melee Sudden Death tiebreaker, what starts raining from the sky if nobody scores a quick KO?

Bob-ombs begin falling after about 20 seconds, and because every fighter restarts at 300% damage, a single blast usually settles the match.

Which Melee collectibles, called Figures in Japan, depict Nintendo characters and objects?

Trophies range from the playable fighters to obscure characters and items, including some from games that were only ever released in Japan.

Which Nintendo strategy series reached Western players only after Marth and Roy appeared in Melee?

Fire Emblem had never left Japan, and its two swordsmen were meant for the Japanese version only until they won fans during the North American localization.

Which flat Melee stage with no platforms hosts the closing boss fight of Classic Mode?

Final Destination was reserved for single-player boss fights in the first game; Melee was the first to let players pick it in versus matches.

Which Melee newcomer is the game's lightest fighter and takes damage from many of its own attacks?

Pichu takes recoil damage from its electric moves, even its recovery, so a careless player can push it into knockout range unaided.

Which internet meme was born from shouting commentators at a December 2008 Melee doubles match?

Wombo Combo was the cry as two teammates chained their attacks on one helpless opponent to win the game, and the clip later got its own mini documentary.

Which GameCube controller input gives Melee players a one-touch shortcut for smash attacks?

C-Stick smashes only work in versus matches: in Melee's single-player modes the same input just zooms the camera in and out.

Which character took Hungrybox to number one in Melee's rankings three years running, 2017 to 2019?

Jigglypuff became his main once he saw how effective its Rest move was, even though using it leaves the character immobile for several seconds.

Which Kirby creator directed Melee and later called it the sharpest game in the Smash series?

Masahiro Sakurai called Melee the biggest job he had led up to that point, and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto served as a co-producer.

Standard Melee tournament matches give each player four of what, alongside an eight-minute timer?

Stocks are the game's word for lives, and the community's standard rules pair four of them with items switched off entirely.

Which unlockable Melee challenge sends every fighter in the game against a player's single life?

All-Star Mode opens only once the full roster is unlocked, and it offers just three healing items for the entire run.

Which hidden Melee fighter is unlocked by logging 20 combined hours of versus matches?

Mewtwo's clock counts player-hours, so four friends on one console can meet the requirement in just five hours of play.

Melee's last unlockable fighter is a flat black figure from which early Nintendo handheld line?

Game & Watch handhelds first appeared in 1980, and their silhouette mascot joins the roster once a single-player mode has been cleared with all 24 other characters.

Which hero did Hideo Kojima ask to have added to Melee, a request that came too late in development?

Snake had to wait for the 2008 sequel, as did Sonic, whom Sega's Yuji Naka had separately asked to see in Melee.

Which Melee newcomer was added late in development as a slower, heavier clone of Captain Falcon?

Ganondorf got the slot for his popularity and because an existing model of him happened to match Captain Falcon's body type.

Which Japanese studio, the birthplace of Kirby, developed Super Smash Bros. Melee for Nintendo?

HAL Laboratory built the game in about 13 months, a stretch its director later called destructive, with no holidays and short weekends.

Which veteran fighter did Melee's team plan to replace with Lucas until Mother 3 was delayed?

Ness kept his place because Mother 3 slipped off schedule, and Lucas finally joined the series in the 2008 sequel.

Which Melee newcomer was picked to represent the NES era over Balloon Fight and Excitebike?

Ice Climbers won out over four other NES games, including Urban Champion and Clu Clu Land, whose heroes the team judged poor fits for a brawler.

Which Melee technique halves an aerial attack's landing lag with a well-timed shield button press?

L-canceling is read as either lag canceling or L button canceling, and the series' official website gave the trick a gentler name, smooth landing.

Among Melee players, what does DI stand for, the art of steering where a launched fighter flies?

Directional influence is officially called launch shuffling, and it works by holding a direction during the brief freeze as a hit connects.

Fox's Reflector move is better known among Melee players by which one-word nickname?

Shine hits on its very first frame and can be interrupted with a jump, letting skilled players repeat it or flow straight into another attack.

What do Melee players call a shield press timed just before a tumbling fighter hits a surface?

A tech lets the fighter spring up at once or roll aside, and a mistimed press is followed by a lockout that punishes button mashing.

Which early Melee champion, nicknamed the King of Smash, later competed on Survivor: Gabon?

Ken was widely considered the world's best player in the game's early years, had a signature Marth combo named after him, and finished fifth on the CBS reality show in 2008.

Which player nicknamed The Kid won Melee at back-to-back Evos and topped a 2021 all-time ranking?

Mango built his name on an aggressive, high-risk style with Falco and Fox, and his Evo titles came in 2013 and 2014.

Sweden's Armada, a two-time Evo champion, is rated the greatest Melee player of which character?

Peach was his main through three Genesis titles, and he stayed in the world's top two every year from 2013 until he left singles play in 2018.

Which fan-made tool gave Melee rollback netcode in 2020, making smooth online matches possible?

Slippi arrived just as the pandemic shut down in-person tournaments, and it later added ranked matches with a running online leaderboard.

Which Fox player was nicknamed God Slayer after becoming the first to beat all of Melee's Five Gods?

Leffen is Swedish, like the Five Gods' own Armada, and only one other player, Plup, has since matched the feat.

Japan's aMSa became the first player from Asia to win a Melee supermajor with which character?

Yoshi had never carried a player to a major Melee title until aMSa's 2022 breakthrough, and aMSa says the dinosaur has been his favourite character since childhood.

Melee won its slot at Evo 2013 after fans donated more than $94,000 to which cause?

Breast cancer research got the money, yet Nintendo of America then tried to block the event's Melee stream before backing down amid a community backlash.

Which esports organizer ran Melee on its Pro Circuit from 2004 to 2006, during its Golden Age?

Major League Gaming dropped Melee in 2007, though it went on sponsoring an underground series of events for one more year.

Which fan-made mod reworked Brawl to play more like Melee and grew a tournament scene of its own?

Project M started as an effort to make Falco handle the way he did in Melee and grew into a full overhaul that passed three million downloads.

Which Melee item, first seen in Ocarina of Time, makes a fighter run faster and jump much higher?

Bunny Hood lasts about twelve seconds, can be knocked off by a hard hit, and even boosts the extra midair jumps of floaty fighters like Kirby.

Which faceless enemies, modeled on Captain Falcon and Zelda, crowd Melee's Multi-Man modes?

Fighting Wire Frames borrow weakened versions of those two fighters' standard attacks and cannot use special moves, and they are light and easy to knock out.

A famous Melee glitch on the name entry screen lets players control which normally unplayable boss?

Master Hand answers only to the controller in port 3, and the game freezes if he tries his finger-walk attack with nobody to target.

Which Melee tactic means holding a ledge so that a recovering opponent has nothing to grab?

Edgehogging works because only one character can hold a ledge at a time, and the fourth game in the series removed it by letting fighters steal the edge.

Which towering boss debuted in Melee as the hidden last opponent of Adventure Mode?

Giga Bowser only appears if the last stage is reached within 18 minutes on Normal difficulty or higher, and beating him is worth 100,000 points.

Which character took Arizona's Axe to the Smash Summit 8 title in 2019, with Wizzrobe the runner-up?

Pikachu has no finer champion: Axe is widely considered the character's best Melee player of all time, and he ended that year ranked fourth in the world.

Which Melee veteran earned the nickname The Robot for his methodical play and command of frame data?

Mew2King tested the game himself to measure things like character weight, falling speed and knockback, then posted the figures online for other players to use.

Which infinite Melee grab, possible only for a two-character fighter, is named after a player?

Wobbling is named after Wobbles, who leaned on it for a strong result but did not discover it; he had picked it up from videos of Japanese players.

Which Melee tournament regulation bars a player from picking a stage they have already won on?

Dave's Stupid Rule is named after Scamp, a player from Melee's early years, and exists to stop anyone gaining an edge by replaying a favourite stage within a set.

In standard Melee singles rules, which stage is the lone counterpick beside the five starters?

Pokémon Stadium may only be picked by the loser of a game, while the five starters are narrowed down by taking turns striking stages before the first.

In Melee's Tournament Mode, which Pokémon's icon stands for a player who chose a random character?

Ditto suits the job as the Pokémon that copies whatever it faces, and the random fighter it stands for is redrawn before every match.

Which New Jersey tournament series landed an official Nintendo sponsorship for its record-breaking 2015 edition?

Apex drew 1,037 Melee entrants that year, a record until Evo passed it that summer, and Nintendo brought along a playable demo of Splatoon.

What do Melee players call a downward hit that, unlike a meteor smash, cannot be cancelled?

A spike sends its victim down at an angle just outside the window the game treats as a meteor smash, so the usual jump-out escape does not work.

Which magazine gave North American subscribers a free orchestral album of Melee music in 2003?

Nintendo Power's bonus disc holds no in-game tracks at all: it is a live concert of the arrangements played by the New Japan Philharmonic.

Which Melee tournament series called off its 2020 online event after a cease and desist from Nintendo?

The Big House had planned to run on fan-made netplay software, and the shutdown set the #FreeMelee hashtag trending on Twitter.