Multi-Man mode

Ness fights in the 100-Man Melee.

Multi-Man-Mode (組み手 Kumi-te, Group Combat) is a mode in Super Smash Bros. Melee as Multi-Man Melee, Super Smash Bros. Brawl as Multi-Man Brawl, and Super Smash Bros. 4 as Multi-Man Smash. This mode pits the player against multiple consecutive foes, challenging them to defeat as many of them as possible while under various pretenses. While the player has only one stock, the enemy team often has a low artificial intelligence level and lacks the ability to perform special moves or grab ledges, and usually have reduced values of varying properties that allow them to get knocked back easily. Multi-Man Melee is a single-player endeavor, whereas Multi-Man Brawl allows for two-player co-op locally or over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, and Multi-Man Smash allows for two-player co-op locally in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and up to four players locally in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.

Multi-Man mode originates from the 10th stage of the 1P Game in the original Super Smash Bros., where player must defeat 30 purple polyhedrons modeled after the original 12 characters, called the Fighting Polygons. These enemies lack the ability to grab or perform special moves, and have reduced weight, power, and tendency to shield or dodge attacks, depending on the difficulty. Later games vary in types of opponents: Melee challenges the player to defeat Fighting Wire Frames, Brawl challenges the player to defeat Fighting Alloy Team, and Smash 4 challenges the player to defeat the Mii Fighters. In Melee, players face up to five Wire Frames at once. In Brawl, player face up to five Alloys at once in both single-player and co-op modes. In Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, players face up to four Mii Fighters in single-player mode and three Mii Fighters at once in co-op mode, and in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U up to five Mii Fighters at once in single-player mode and four Mii Fighters at once in multiplayer mode.

List of Multi-Man Modes

Sonic fights in the 100-Man Brawl mode.

• 10-Man, which challenges the player to defeat ten opponents. This is the shortest of all Multi-Man challenges, usually taking between 10 and 20 seconds to complete for an amateur player, though world records are all within roughly 6 and 7 seconds.
• 100-Man, which challenges the player to defeat one hundred opponents. This usually takes a few minutes for players to clear, and can get quite difficult on higher difficulties, when the option exists. The final Wire Frame to be fought will always sustain noticeably less knockback than the others.
• 3-Minute, which challenges the player to defeat as many opponents as possible within 3 minutes.
• 15-Minute (Melee and Brawl only), which challenges the player to defeat as many opponents as possible within 15 minutes. Foes get stronger as time passes by. Despite the difficulty, simple strategies such as spamming a certain move or evading the opponents altogether will suffice.
• Endless, which challenges the player to defeat as many opponents as possible before being KO'd themselves. It has no time limit, nor does it have a knock-out limit, unlike other Multi-Man challenges, and as such can go on for an infinite amount of time.
• Cruel, which challenges the player to defeat as many opponents as possible, which now have high handicaps and increased aggressiveness, before being knocked out themselves. It is unarguably the most challenging Multi-Man challenge, as the opponents faced are immensely harder than those who appear in the other modes, and no items appear.
• Rival (SSB4 only), which challenges one player to defeat more opponents than their Rival (a clone of their character) before they are themselves defeated in an otherwise endless match. Rivals respawn after being KO'd. The player's final score is equal to the difference of number of opponents they and their Rival defeated.

Enemy teams

• Fighting Wire Frames (Melee), which are male and female wireframe humanoids. Male Wire Frames are based on Captain Falcon, while the Female Wire Frames are based on Zelda. They cannot charge smash attacks, and despite being based on Captain Falcon and Zelda, their attacks also have no fire, electric, or magic effects.
• Fighting Alloy Team (Brawl), which are metallic fighters based on four characters in the game. Red alloys are based on Captain Falcon, Blue Alloys are based on Zelda and Zero Suit Samus, Yellow Alloys are based on Mario, and Green Alloys are based on Kirby and Jigglypuff. Despite being based on Zelda, Blue Alloys lack magic and fire attack effects. They cannot grab items nor receive giant, tiny or flower status effects. Every 25th opponent fought is spawned as a character, and the final opponent is a palette swap of the player's character.
• Fighting Mii Team (SSB4) - composed of the three Mii Fighter variants with appearances culled from Miis saved on the player's console, or from pre-loaded/guest Miis if there aren't enough. Though they cannot attack each other, they are able to recover by footstool jumping off each other. Every 50th opponent fought is spawned as a giant character, and the final opponent in 100-Man Smash is a giant version of the player's character.

Items

For balancing reasons, certain items do not spawn in Multi-Man Melee and Multi-Man Brawl, and only a select few appear in Multi-Man Smash. Items do not spawn in Cruel mode.

• Multi-Man Melee - all items except for Hammers, Heart Containers, Food, and Containers (except for Capsules). Capsules are explosive and Poké Balls cannot spawn Legendary Pokémon.
• Multi-Man Brawl - all items except for Hammers, Heart Containers, Food, Golden Hammers, Dragoon Parts, Sandbag, Containers (except for Capsules), and Smash Balls. Capsules are explosive and Poké Balls cannot spawn Legendary Pokémon.
• Multi-Man Smash - in the following set order, these select items float by on a platform every 30 seconds: POW Blocks, Ray Guns, Smart Bombs and Killer Eyes.

Appearances in other modes

• In Super Smash Bros., Stage 11 of 1P Mode is a Multi-man match against a Fighting Polygon Team of 30; while this existed prior to the "Multi-Man" moniker, the term is applied retroactively to this scenario due to the similarity between the two modes.
• In Melee, the first part of the Battlefield stage in Melee's Adventure Mode is a Multi-Man match against fifteen Fighting Wire Frames.
• In Melee, the Event Match called Legendary Pokémon is a Multi-Man match with reduced gravity against four giant Fighting Wire Frames and a red Jigglypuff. Legendary Pokémon and Wobbuffet spawn from Poké Balls.
• In Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, a special Multi-Man match can occur as a final battle in Smash Run, where the Mii Fighters along with metal and giant metal versions of the player character appear.
• In Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, round 5 in Classic Mode is a Multi-Man match against ten opponents, either of a certain character or the Fighting Mii Team. Items spawn normally.
• In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, round 6 in Classic Mode is a Multi-Man match against a Fighting Mii Team of 20, with five appearing on-screen at a time. Items spawn normally.

Trivia

The Egg Lay glitch in Multiplayer Multi-Man Smash (3DS)

• Clearing 100-Man for the first time gives the player the opportunity to unlock a character; Falco in Melee and Brawl and Wario in Smash 4.
• The Fighting Mii Team cannot wear hats, nor change their facial expressions.
• Since the Fighting Mii Team has varied head shapes, when they get inflicted with the flower ailment, it sprouts from the their necks rather than their heads.
• Prior to version 1.0.4, a glitch in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS allowed players to use Egg Lay repeatedly to increase the size of giant opponents.
• Multi-man mode allows for more characters on-screen than are normally allowed under other circumstances. Melee and Super Smash Bros. for 3DS allow for 6 and Brawl caps at 7. In all these cases except Melee, one must be playing with a full compliment of human players to achieve these caps.
• The final boss of the eShop game Kirby Fighters Deluxe is Team DDD, which consists of up to 61 Mini Dededes, two medium-sized Combo Dededes, and King Dedede himself. This is one of the many instances of Kirby games borrowing elements from the Super Smash Bros. series.