Smash Bros. DOJO!! updates (archive 3)

In 2007, up to the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Smash Bros. DOJO!!, the website dedicated to information about the game and hosted by the game's chief developer Masahiro Sakurai, underwent a redesign and proceeded to show pieces of new information about the game at a rate of once every weekday. Each update provided by Sakurai to the site is reworded and reposted here.

List of updates

This list of updates covers all updates posted from November 1 to January 31.

For updates posted from May 22 to July 31, see Smash Bros. DOJO!! updates (archive).

For updates posted from August 1 to October 31, see Smash Bros. DOJO!! updates (archive 2).

For the updates since the Japanese release, see Smash Bros. DOJO!! updates

November

• November 1: "Meta Knight: Final Smash" [1]: Meta Knight's Final Smash was identified as Galaxia Darkness: He swings his cape forward as if it's a grab move. If there's no one in front of him, the move and its Smash Ball is wasted. Any characters that get caught up by his cape get slashed strongly, and characters that weren't caught in the cape also get attacked, all the while shrouding the entire stage in darkness.

• November 2: "On-Screen Appearances" [2]: In the original Super Smash Bros., characters would appear onto the stage in their own unique methods in the 3-second countdown prior to the start of the match (Mario jumping out of a warp pipe, etc.). As this update revealed this cosmetic aspect makes a return in Brawl.

• November 5: "Fox's Misfortune" [3]: A video continuing the story of the video in the "Donkey Kong Makes His Stand" video: Fox McCloud and his Arwing have crashed near the Kong's jungle. When Diddy Kong arrives to investigate, suddenly out of the lake Rayquaza emerges and takes Diddy hostage. Fox suddenly appears from the Arwing, rescues Diddy, and drives Rayquaza off by reflecting its Energy Ball back at it with his Reflector.
• November 5: "Fire Emblem: Fire Emblem Theme" [4]: The first music file in a long while was posted, this time being the main Fire Emblem theme arranged by the same individuals behind the Super Smash Bros. Brawl main theme, and with new lyrics added. Sakurai actually posts the translated lyrics with this update.

• November 6: "Items from Previous Installments" [5]: This update revealed a lot of items from the two previous Super Smash Bros. games returning in generally unchanged form, which are the Beam Sword, Home-Run Bat, Fire Flower, Freezie, Party ball, Super Mushroom, Bob-omb, and Green Shell. The Beam Sword is light blue and can become very long with attacks, while each character's style of smashing swing with the bat is now unique to that character.

• November 7: "Gray Fox" [6]: The first Assist Trophy to be revealed for a third-party franchise in Brawl was Gray Fox (a.k.a. Frank Jaeger the Cyborg Ninja) from the Metal Gear series. He acts similar to Samurai Goroh and Lyn in sword-attack, but he slices repeatedly and the sword swings can reflect projectiles.
• November 7: "Grab and Throw" [7]: Another How To Play update illustrating basic Smash Bros. concepts, this time covering the concept of grabbing opponents and attacking and/or throwing them.

• November 8: "Lucas: Special Moves." [8]: All four of Lucas' special moves were revealed. His up, down, and forward Special moves are essentially the same PK Thunder, PK Fire, and PSI Magnet moves that Ness had previously, but with PK Fire being more powerful and shooting out its projectile horizontally. His new Standard Special move is PK Freeze, which is chargeable like Ness' PK Flash but sacrifices power for freezing capability. The update also shows the more psonic nature of Lucas' normal attacks, and his grab is a Rope Snake that's used as an item in the Mother games and as a tether recovery measure in this game.

• November 9: "Norfair" [9]: The Metroid stage previously seen during playtests at E for All was officially described in this update as Norfair, which is a similar lava-based stage as Smash 64's Planet Zebes and Melee's Brinstar.

• November 12: "Ike: Final Smash" [10]: Ike's Final Smash, Great Aether, was officially showcased. The motions are same as his Aether attack, but is larger, more powerful, and can affect more enemies.

• November 13: "Three Different Taunts" [11]: The taunting system was revealed to return, but with a new twist; each character now has three available taunts to them. They are achieved by pressing any of three directions on the D-pad for every control setup except the Wiimote + Nunchuk setup, in which case the controls are the following: The 1 button for the "up taunt", the 2 button for the "down taunt", and the 1 and 2 buttons simultaneously for the "side taunt". It was currently unknown how taunts are accessible with the Wiimote-only setup, as the d-pad is used for movement.

• November 14: "Handicap" [12]: The Handicap feature returned, albeit in a far different form: instead of controlling how much knockback the character deals and sustains, the handicap this time refers to how much damage the fighting character starts off with. A character can start off at 50% damage, and that character will reappear on the stage with that amount of damage already received each time they returns to the stage following getting KO'd.

• November 15: "Meta Knight: Special Moves" [13]: Meta Knight's four special moves, in spite of being showcased in a previous update, were explained in further detail. Mainly, his down special move Dimensional Cape allows him to move a short distance away elsewhere before he reappears, and his forward special move (which the site oddly now names "Drill Rush") can have its direction controlled as well.
• November 15: "Kirby: Meta Knight's Revenge" [14]: A music update that showcases Kirby music: a jazz-influenced medley of music heard in the Kirby Super Star subgame "Revenge of the Meta Knight". It would be available on the Battleship Halberd stage.

• November 16: "Spectator" [15]: Revealed that Brawl, like a lot of modern console games with online connectivity, would feature a "spectator mode" where players could watch matches being played by other players elsewhere, and could actually bet some coins on characters they think might win, similar to casino-style betting on live horse races. Prizes are usually more coins, but depending on how many players are involved in the match a successful bet could even yield further prizes, like stickers.

• November 19: "Ice Climbers: Final Smash" [16]: The Final Smash of the Ice Climbers was revealed as the Iceberg, which summons a titanic mountain-shaped iceberg from the bottom of the stage to impale through it, damaging opponents and making ledges not completely engulfed by the iceberg smaller and more slippery. It does not affect the Ice Climbers themselves.

• November 20: "Smart Bomb" [17]: The Smart Bomb was showcased. It is a throwable bomb that generates a huge spherical explosion like the Banzai Bills in Melee. But once in a while the bomb will fail to detonate; it is the same story with Electrode, also shown to return as a Poké Ball Pokémon in the update.
• November 20: "Training"[18]: The Training mode was revealed to return, featuring exactly the same functionality as the Training mode of Melee. One new item appeared to be a soccer ball.

• November 21: "Color Changes" [19]: Revealed the return of alternate colors for fighting characters, with each character having about six different colors this time. Alternate colors for several characters, such as Fire Mario, Yeti DK, Dark Link, Zelda as her colors were in Melee, and Fusion Samus, were shown.

• November 22: "Saki Amamiya" [20]: The character from the game Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Earth, Saki Amamiya, was confirmed as an assist trophy. With his unique armament called a Cannon Sword, he attacks with close-up sword slashes, jumps into the air, and shoots powerful projectiles.

• November 23: "Lucas: Final Smash" [21]: Lucas' Final Smash was revealed as the PK Starstorm, in which he calls down a vertical rain of large glowing meteorites to blast down through the stage. Avoiding this move seems very hard to achieve.
• November 23: "Charged Special Moves" [22]: This How To Play update covered the concept of some special moves being able to be charged up and unleashed at various points. Charged Special Moves included DK's Giant Punch, Link's Hero's Bow, Pikachu's Skull Bash, and Samus' Charge Shot.

• November 26: "Control" [23]: A Game Modes update that confirmed what a long-past update hinted at previously: that players can assign to their registered name their customized configurations for the four controller types, and it can be saved to the Wii Remote to carry controller setups to a different Wii system (detailed instructions included in the update itself). It also confirms that with the Wii Remote/Nunchuk setup, players can perform Smash attacks by shaking the Wii Remote itself in the appropriate directions.

• November 27: "Widescreen Support" [24]: Brawl, like most Wii titles, supports widescreen display. Whether the screen is at the 4:3 standard display (the default) or the 16:9 widescreen display (the alternative viewing mode introduced in this update) can be chosen easily in a menu screen. Sakurai noted that if a player's television has screen-size settings called Wide and Full, the Full option is the ideal option to use because there is a chance the image may be shifted toward the center of the screen on Wide.
• November 27: "Donkey Kong" [25]: A music file that was arranged by a musician prominent in Nintendo's past, Hirokazu Tanaka, who was not included as part of the list of musicians until now when he "secretly joined the fray". It is a markedly distinctive track that takes elements of the simple music from the original coin-op arcade game Donkey Kong.

• November 28: "Wario: Final Smash" [26]: Wario's Final Smash was identified as Wario-Man. He eats a bit of garlic and dons pink-colored superhero attire, and for a period of time his battling abilities in general are enhanced. His aerial attacks now give him flying capabilities, and his special moves are made more powerful in nature; of particular note his Wario Bike, which now becomes extremely powerful and so fast that Wario can easily end up zooming offscreen to a KO.

• November 29: "Events" [27]: The return of another single-player mode from Melee, Event Matches, which is a collection of special-situation Smash scenarios whose overall completion is one of Brawl's overall single-player goals. Each event this time has an image to help better identify it, and now each event can be played at three separate difficulty levels, each of which has a separate high score that can be recorded for it. Confirmed events were "Two Trouble Kings", "Pink Ball Repulsion", "Cleaning House in Skyworld", "Sleeping in the Eggs", and "Dark Link Duel".

• November 30: "Melee Stages" [28]: Confirmed that Brawl would feature some classic stages returning from Melee, much like how Melee had a few old stages from the original Super Smash Bros. The one stage mentioned and showcased is the Temple, which appears identical. In general, however, some aspects of the returning stages are modified, and in addition to their old background music returning some of the old stages would have new music arrangements for them, with a modification of the Temple music posted as a music file in the update.

December

• December 3: "Friend List" [29]: While the Wii itself included a function called Wii Friends, the player would register a separate list of Smash friends in Brawl itself. The update gave a general description of how to create such a list and how to set up and play online matches between friends on that list.

• December 4: "Returning Pokémon" [30]: Revealed a handful of Poké Ball Pokémon from the previous Smash Bros. games that would be making return appearances in Brawl. They are Staryu, Snorlax, Mew, Togepi, Bellossom, Wobbuffet, Entei, Suicune, Lugia, Ho-Oh, and Celebi. The extremely rare Mew and Celebi, in particular, have an added function; they will drop behind a present item like a CD before flying away.

• December 5: "The Battle for the Smash Ball" [31]: A How to Play update that used a story, more or less, to further explain additional elements and aspects to the Smash Ball and Final Smashes. The Smash Ball will be floating across the stage when it appears, and a character can only be able to use their Final Smash by breaking the ball with attacks, rather than grabbing it as was the previous belief. When the character has the telltale fiery aura around them, they can use the Final Smash by simply pressing the button for the Neutral Special move without any directional input. But if they are attacked, the Smash Ball may reappear out of the character for somebody else to break and acquire. The update also reveals a system called the Pity Final Smash, where in long matches where one player is losing a lot of lives/points they may return to the stage with the Final Smash aura on them already as a sort of "bonus chance". Finally, the Item Switch menu is confirmed to return, with Smash Balls being one of the items whose appearance rates can be turned off and on.
• December 5: "X: Tunnel Scene" [32]: This music file was one of reportedly a handful added to the game by Sakurai simply because he liked it and was not influenced by popular opinion to include it. The music itself comes from a Japan-only Game Boy game named X, and Sakurai confirmed there wouldn't be any stage based on X in Brawl; there would be songs playing on stages themed after certain games and franchises that hail from other games that are completely unrelated.

• December 6: "King Dedede: Final Smash" [33]: Revealed this time was the Waddle Dee Army Final Smash. King Dedede summons many Waddle Dees to swarm the stage with much faster movement than when he normally uses his forward special move, the Waddle Dee Toss, and dangerous spiky Gordos occasionally appear along the Waddle Dees as well.

• December 7: "With Anyone/Basic Brawl" [34]: Delved into the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection aspect of Brawl more deeply and comprehensively. One main point was that in the With Anyone mode (not the With Friends mode), when playing either the Basic Brawl mode or the Team Battle mode, if an online human opponent got disconnected, his character would be taken over by the CPU to prevent matches from ending abruptly without a conclusion. Another is that there was nothing restricting the player from fighting an opponent using a new character the player hasn't unlocked yet (and most characters in Brawl would be unlockable in the Subspace Emissary mode), so there could be "spoilers" involved in playing online (but Sakurai concedes that that most likely does not matter much given the nature of how information proliferates across the Internet). Finally, the character and stage selection screens (at least as they appeared during the E for All event) were officially showcased with images.

• December 10: "Bonsly" [35]: Official confirmation and explanation of Bonsly as a Poké Ball Pokémon. This creature walks around on the stage, and it can be picked up, carried around, and hurled as a throwing item. It packs quite a punch when it hits an enemy it is thrown at and may even KO an opponent who's only at 50% health, though it can be repelled by Fox's Reflector.

• December 11: "Rotation" [36]: Explained a multiplayer option called Rotation mode, which is essentially a mode that assists in allowing many players around a single Wii to play their time's worth in a tournament-like session, setting up a system where players can choose how many players there will be per match and how many total players there are. One main help of this mode had to do with auto-loading their controller preferences.

• December 12: "Option" [37]: This update, first of all, displayed Super Smash Bros. Brawl's main menu screen, which contains six parts/buttons: Group, Solo, Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, Vault, Options, and Data. Then the Options submenu was detailed, and that had seven segments: Screen (which is where the previously explained WideScreen/FullScreen feature is toggled), Deflicker (introduced, having the same functionality as the Deflicker option from Melee), Rumble (introduced, where players set rumble separately for GameCube and Wii controllers, and set these preferences to logged names), Controls (a previously explained submenu where controls can be configured for the player's logged name and saved to the Wii Remote), Sound (introduced, where players adjust the volume ratio between sound effects and music and can go into the Sound Test screen, which would now be available in Brawl from the very start and does not have to be unlocked like in Melee), My Music (a previously explained submenu where music occurrence rate for each stage can be edited), and Erase Data (where players can individually erase all their high scores, Brawl records, Adventure mode data, and Vault Data).
• December 12: "Ice Climber" [38]: A music file based on Ice Climber, this is a noticeably different arrangement of the music that was used for Melee. This song is notable in that it will change its frequency and tone in response to how the stage it will play on, The Summit, cracks and slides down hill.

• December 13: "Mario Circuit" [39]: The Mario Kart-themed stage seen in the Nintendo World 2006 trailer was finally officially showcased as Mario Circuit. Taking place at the elevated intersection of a Figure 8 track, the main thing totally new revealed about the stage was that fighters' attacks can KO the Shy Guys on the karts.

• December 14: "Stafy" [40]: A new Assist Trophy character, Stafy is a yellow five-sided star character that stars, in the Japan-only game series known as Densetsu no Stafy. He would do a spin-attack, but can be attacked unlike other Assist Trophies.
• December 14: "Waluigi" [41]: A second new Assist Trophy character, Waluigi from the Mario universe (not counted as part of the Wario universe, as some suspected) was hence confirmed not to be a playable character. He apparenty would embed a character in the ground with his merciless stomping attack (like DK's Headbutt), then will send the target flying with one of two finishing moves: A strong kick or his tennis racket.

• December 17: "Co-op Events" [42]: This revealed that the Event mode would be divided into two categories: One for scenarios to be played solo and one that accommodates two-player cooperative play. Confirmed Co-op events include Two Trouble Kings, Master the Pokémon Tag Battle, Fastest, Shortest, Sudden Death, and ALL MINE!. This also confirms the return of Coin matches, and that Target Smashes support cooperative play.

• December 18: "Frigate Orpheon" [43]: This is the second all-new stage confirmed for the Metroid universe. Frigate Orpheon is the space vessel that Samus infiltrates in the prologue sequence to Metroid Prime, taking place in the core chamber where Samus faces off against the Parasite Queen. It was not known if the Parasite Queen within its cylindrical shield would influence the action up front, but this is a stage that will flip itself upside-down when a warning siren blares after a while.
• December 18: "Mother: Porky's Theme" [44]: Music that is a remix of a song that plays in Mother 3 whenever the villainous Porky Minch's army, the Pigmasks, appears.

• December 19: "Team Healer" [45]: Team Battles were confirmed to return in Brawl, and this update introduced an item whose usage is only relevant to such battles: The Team Healer, which is basically a blue spherical item that can be thrown at a teammate during battle to recover their health meter. The amount of health recovered is proportional to how much damage they have already taken. This item can end up healing an opponent if it is thrown and connects with one.

• December 20: "Kirby: Special Moves" [46]: Official confirmation of Kirby's signature neutral special move, Inhale. Mainly, the update provides one image each for 18 of Kirby's hats, which covered almost all characters revealed for this game up to this point, including Squirtle, Meta Knight, and Snake, with the characters' hats not yet shown at this point being Ivysaur, Charizard, Ike, Lucas, and Sonic.

• December 21: "Subspace Emissary Movie" [47]: The first movie file posted on DOJO in a month and a half, this was simply a preview of what to expect in the Subspace Emissary.

• December 24: "Overalls Wario" [48]: Revealed that Wario is a character who comes in two base appearances, each with their own palette swaps: Wario in his WarioWare biker jacket and the "traditional" outfit of Wario outside those games. This is purely an aesthetic touch that does not affect gameplay. This is somewhat similar to how Peach has a Daisy costume that does not affect gameplay, but does introduce a few aesthetic changes.

• December 25: "Sonic: Final Smash" [49]: On this Christmas Day, two Sonic-related updates were provided. The first is Sonic's Final Smash, simply titled Super Sonic, which transforms the normal blue Sonic into his gold-colored Super form, giving him aerial fighting powers and drastically increased power and speed for a while.
• December 25: "Sonic the Hedgehog: Angel Island Zone" [50]: The second update was this music file based on the first stage music in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for Genesis. Also mentioned in the update is that Live and Learn, which was used for the Sonic Joins the Brawl Trailer, is going to be in the game as well.

• December 26: "Trophy Stands" [51]: Some trophies, namely trophies of enemies and bosses that appear in the Subspace Emissary mode, were mentioned to only be acquired through a unique means: by weakening them through attacks and then throwing a unique item called a Trophy Stand at them to convert them into trophies for the gallery. The update also confirmed that Rayquaza would be an actual boss that Fox and Diddy fight as a gameplay stage in the single-player mode, and that damaging Rayquaza to near-zero health but throwing a Trophy Stand at it instead of a KO punch would add its trophy to the collection in addition to defeating it. The player has to be lucky enough for a Trophy Stand to randomly appear when and where they want it, though. Finally, the update indicates that bosses can be battled repeatedly in the player's Subspace game file through certain circumstances, so missing out on capturing a boss's trophy the first time can be rectified at a later date.

• December 27: "Coin Launcher" [52]: Another game mode update that revealed more of the game's menu screen structure, this time taking a look into the Vault menu, which has five buttons: Trophy Gallery, Trophy Hoard, Coin Launcher, Sticker Album, and Sticker Center. The Coin Launcher, in particular, is detailed as Brawl's follow-up to Melee's Trophy Lottery, and while players still spend coins to try and get trophies, this time it is in more of a mini-game format. Basically, on a game table not unlike a pinball board, players shoot coins out of a launcher to try and shoot trophies sliding around, and they earn trophies by shooting them down with multiple coins. Interspersed with the trophies are "enemy formations", and defeating formations on the board with coin bullets will earn Sticker bonuses as well, and if a missile enemy is not shot down by the time it hits the coin launcher, the player takes damage to their overall coin total. The update also indicates that the amount of coins awarded from the various other modes increases proportionally to how many other players are playing on the game at the same time.

• December 28: "Dragoon" [53]: The last updates of 2007, these were accompanied by a notice that the next week DOJO would be taking a break from its routine update schedule and planned to resume posting updates the following week, starting January 7, 2008. This update detailed the second new item from the Kirby series, the Dragoon ultimate racing machine from Kirby Air Ride. This item is unique in that it only appears in pieces, one piece at a time randomly. Picking up a piece adds an image of that piece to the character's health meter portrait, and once all three pieces are gathered by that character, they can aim the Dragoon from off-screen, and then charge through where they aimed with force describable in terms of the Home-Run Bat. Like in Air Ride, characters can attack each other to force the other player to drop the piece they have; a character can also lose a piece by dying.
• December 28: "Share" [54]: A Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection update that delved further into how to set Internet settings so that one could receive screenshots and stages from friends and Nintendo. Although not explicitly stated, there appeared to be a limiting factor for how much one can send at a time, but it was never stated if these "points" have to be earned, or if a certain amount of points would be allotted each day.[55]

January

• January 7: "Melee Stages: Part 2" [56]: The first update of 2008. The previous Melee Stages update reintroduced Temple as a returning stage for Brawl; this one reintroduced five more, which are Melee's Yoshi's Island, Corneria, Onett, Brinstar, and Rainbow Ride (The last of which is apparently renamed). All these stages appear exactly as before.

• January 8: "STADIUM: Multi-Man Brawl" [57]: Confirmed the return of the Multi-Man Melee mode from Melee, renamed Multi-Man Brawl but otherwise keeping all six of the same submodes as before. Introduced as the Brawl counterparts to the Fighting Polygon Team and the Fighting Wire Frames are the Fighting Alloy Team, which are metallic in appearance and come in four colored and differently shaped varieties: Red Alloy, Blue Alloy, Yellow Alloy, and Green Alloy. This game mode also has a co-op Two Player-based version, and a Wi-Fi version called Team Multi-Man Brawl that was played With Friends.

• January 9: "Pikmin & Olimar" [58]: The first newcomer revealed in three months since King Dedede, Captain Olimar and the Pikmin from the Pikmin series would be a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, hereby establishing the Pikmin universe. While no specific fighting details were revealed yet, Olimar generally fights by first plucking up to five colors of Pikmin so that they may be his battling utilities (he cannot perform Smash attacks without them around).
• January 9: "Pikmin: World Map" [59]: This subsequent update is a posting of arranged Pikmin music. It is based on general world-map music.

• January 10: "Snake: Final Smash" [60]: Confirmed Snake's Final Smash to be the Grenade Launcher, which is very unique: A helicopter swoops in and Snake grabs onto a ladder, and is pulled away from the battlefield toward the camera so that the back of Snake's head is close-up and visible on the left side of the screen, and for a short period of time he can shoot up to two clips of six grenade rounds each onto the stage in front to do explosive damage. Snake returns to the stage from the sky afterwards.

• January 11: "Pikmin & Olimar: Special Moves" [61]: Details all four of Pikmin & Olimar's Special moves. His neutral special is the Pikmin Pluck, where he can pick up a Pikmin from the ground like Peach's turnip, and he can have six Pikmin with him at any one time and their colors are randomly chosen. Each Pikmin color has its own setup of unique traits. He uses them one at a time for his Side, Up, and Down special moves. His Side Special Move, the Pikmin Throw, which throws Pikmin forward so they may stick to an opponent like a Gooey Bomb and damage the opponent over time. His Up Special move is the Pikmin Chain, which uses Olimar's currently visible Pikmin connected together as a whip-chain to recover to the field via tether recovery. And his Down Special move is the Pikmin Order, which is only useful if some of a Pikmin & Olimar player's Pikmin are standing around idly on the battlefield, so that the Pikmin will rejoin Olimar. This make Olimar one of Brawl's most unique characters.

• January 14: "Challenges" [62]: Confirmed the existence of a feature similar to one seen in Kirby Air Ride: A tiled screen where requirements for various rewards throughout the game can be listed on each tile. The screen, called the Challenges screen, is all empty at first, but when the player earns something its tile is activated to signify their achievement. Then the two tiles adjacent on either side have their requirements for their mystery rewards revealed, helping guide the player collect everything in the game faster than general. (Through this screen, for example, after earning the "Frozen Hillside" music CD by conducting 10 Brawls on Battleship Halberd ten times, the player learns from the tile to the right of it that some sort of trophy can be awarded by completing the Pink Ball Repulsion event match. Then after beating that match to get that trophy, another tile on the screen has its unlock method revealed, and so on and so forth.) The player is also allotted on their game files several Golden Hammers to use on some tiles so that they will get the rewards of some challenges without having to fulfill the actual unlock requirements. (Not all tiles can be forced open with these hammers however.)

• January 15: "Distant Planet" [63]: A Pikmin stage was revealed, based on the planet that the Pikmin games takes place in, which Brawl identifies as Distant Planet. The stage has many elements to it, including numbered pellets that characters can pick up and throw into onions so that items appear, torrential rains that damage and/or hinder the brawl, and the appearance of gigantic Bulborbs to swallow fighters whole. Seemingly more noteworthy than the update itself, though, was the notice that the game's release date had been delayed yet again, this time set for March 9.

• January 16: "Sheik" [64]: Confirmed the return of Sheik from Melee as a playable character in Brawl, and one that Zelda transforms into using her Down Special move. Her detailed appearance is based on the one that was drafted up during the development of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, but otherwise has the same special moves and has her Final Smash named Light Arrow (though it has yet to be explained). Additionally, every characters profile had been updated with special attack data that lists the names of all special moves and Final Smash. Also of note is that Olimar's Final Smash, End of Day is listed.

• January 17: "Pikmin & Olimar: Final Smash" [65]: Pikmin & Olimar's Final Smash, the End of Day, was explained: Olimar jumps into his rocket, the Dolphin, and flies into the sky as nighttime falls onto the stage, and a bunch of wild beasts such as Bulborbs appear on the ground below to do heavy damage to the players below. It then crashes down and explodes, dealing knockback to anyone caught in the blast.

• January 18: "Sticker Power-ups" [66]: Reveald that the many stickers collected actually have a practical use in the Subspace Emissary mode (but not in normal Brawls). In a special sticker application screen, each of the playable characters is represented by a trophy base, and placing stickers on the undersides of each base makes that character more powerful, dependent on each sticker's individual effect (increasing damage of fire-based moves, for example). However, if more than one sticker with the same power-up is added, only the most potent sticker will take effect, rather than their effects accumulating together. Many stickers can be applied to one character at a time to make that character noticeably more powerful than before. Sakurai also noted that playing harder difficulties will result in obtaining more and rarer stickers, as well as the fact that getting a game over will result in the player losing half the stickers they collected in the stage.

• January 21: "Zelda: Final Smash" [67]: Detailed the Final Smash held by both Zelda and Sheik: The Light Arrow. Zelda or Sheik whips out a big bow that shoots out an immensely powerful light-based projectile that shoots across the stage horizontally. The characteristics of the attack are different depending on whether its user is Zelda or Sheik.

• January 22: "Manaphy" [68]: One of the "secret legendary" Pokémon from the most recent Fourth generation of games, Manaphy, was confirmed as a Poké Ball Pokémon. Unlike Mew and Celebi, it has one of the most unique effects seen in a Smash game: Using its Heart Swap move, two players will have control over their combatants swapped temporarily (as well as their damage meters), so now the player controls their opponent's character while he controls theirs. Players cannot cheat with this effect because self-destructing as their opponent will count as a point against them.
• January 22: "Iwata Asks" [69]: A Notices update where Sakurai provided a link to an interview by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata on the official Wii site that he was the subject of recently, on a feature named "Iwata asks". The feature is normally used to interview Nintendo employees, which Sakurai is not. The interview essentially gives insight into the development of Super Smash Bros. Brawl [70], but while it ends short, (it only covers the beginning stages of Brawl's development), volume 2 was added January 23 [71], volume 3 was added January 24 [72], volume 4 was added January 25 [73] and volume 5 was added January 28 [74].

• January 23: "Mushroomy Kingdom" [75]: A new stage revealed was Mushroomy Kingdom, which is quite unusual: It is a side-scrolling stage based on the layouts of World 1-1 and World 1-2 of the original Super Mario Bros., but with a much more detailed and dusty "ruin-like" aesthetic. When the stage is selected it will load either one or the other World, and the stage will slowly scroll forward so combatants will have to contend with platforms, pits, and breakable blocks along with each other.
• January 23: "Super Mario Bros.: Ground Theme" [76]: A music file by world-famous Koji Kondo, which is a piano-based remix of the classic Super Mario Bros. stage music. It will be one of the themes for Mushroomy Kingdom.

• January 24: "Test Battle: Tokyo vs. Kyoto" [77]: A video file showing a Wi-Fi Brawl match between a member of Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto and the development team's location in Tokyo. Interestingly, the video is different from the one on the Japanese site [78]. The English video showcases Mario, Link, Samus and Sonic fighting on Lylat Cruise, while the Japanese video showcases Snake, Ike, Kirby and Mario fighting at Delfino Plaza.

• January 25: "Masterpieces" [79]: Revealed that the Super Smash Bros. Brawl disc would include in a menu of the game called Masterpieces free trial versions of classic Nintendo titles that can be played on the Virtual Console offline. Games included were revealed to be Super Mario Bros., Ice Climber, The Legend of Zelda, Kid Icarus, Kirby's Adventure, Super Metroid, and Star Fox 64 as well as some others yet to be revealed. The full versions of all these games can be bought individually for Virtual Console at any time, but these Masterpieces are shortened demo versions that can be played any time and introduce the gameplay roots of many characters to Smash players. The Japanese site [80] also includes two other games, the first Fire Emblem game for the Super Famicom, and Earthbound.

• January 28: "Vault" [81]: Gave an overview of what the Vault submenu officially looks like. It has these buttons on it: Trophies and Stickers, the Stage Builder, the Sticker Album, the Challenges screen, the mode where the player views Replays, the Masterpieces mode, and a mode called Chronicle, which lets the player peruse past Nintendo titles somehow, and games in the Chronicle log are added based on stickers and trophies collected. "Some titles will not be displayed until the very end", quoted by Sakurai.

• January 29: "First Songs in My Music" [82]: This is a list of all the songs for stages in My Music that are available from the moment the game is first started up. From this point players add songs by collecting CDs.

• January 30: "Brawl" [83]: This update is the official description for the game's standard Brawl mode, which is pretty much just like the previous game's standard Melee mode. Minor details of important note include the fact that for Pokémon Trainer and Zelda/Sheik players can choose which form/character to start out as when beginning a match, but despite Zero Suit Samus being a transformation, it was not mentioned that they could start a match out as her, and a shot showing the game's complete list of items is provided, including a Deku Nut and the Hothead item. Also notable is the fact that crates were listed among the items in the Item Switch for the first time in the series.

• January 31: "A Notice About Future Updates" [84]: On this date, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was officially released in Japan. Most everything revealed about Brawl through DOJO updates for the past eight months until now was basic information about starter content on Brawl, but for two more months the site planned to update more with info about hidden characters and elements.
• January 31: "Game Mode Introduction Movie" [85]: A three-minute movie file was posted in an attempt to give a clear visual showcase of the many game modes that have been introduced on DOJO prior.