Clone

In Melee, Mario and Dr. Mario's aerial attacks are
identical in animation, which is part of what makes them clones.

A clone (officially Echo Fighter (ダッシュファイター, Dash Fighter) for certain clones in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate) is a character whose moveset, animations, and general properties are mostly derived from another character, as opposed to being unique to them. All clones have some sort of gameplay difference from their parent character, ranging from different animations (such as with Daisy) to fully unique moves (such as with Chrom), but on the whole, they will generally be very similar to their parent, to the point where a casual player might play either in the same way, and even competitive players will often play both a clone and their parent character. However, this is not to say that playing a clone like their parent will be successful; Falco may be a clone of Fox in Super Smash Bros. Melee due to sharing all his attacks and animations, but as his movement attributes, hitboxes, frame data, and other move data are all altered, the usage of his moves and his optimal playstyle are significantly different.

Clones are a common inclusion in all types of fighting games, as it is significantly less expensive in time and resources to develop a character using another character as a base than it is to do everything from scratch, while still potentially forming a character with a distinct playstyle and fanbase. However, despite being much easier to create and thus resulting in a larger roster overall, fans that are ignorant of the development process are quick to show disdain for clones, perceiving them as stealing resources from potential unique characters.

The term "clone" can also be used to refer to individual moves, albeit is used for that purpose much less frequently. For example, Charizard's Flamethrower is a clone of Bowser's Fire Breath, as even though the characters are not related, they are the same type of move with identical function.

It is uncommon for clones to be starter characters; they are more likely to be unlockable characters. If a clone's parent is also unlockable, it is very likely for the clone to be unlocked after their parent.

Subtypes

The term "clone" does not by itself sufficiently describe how similar two characters are. Perhaps two characters share all but one attack, while another pair has only half of their attacks in common while still clearly being a derivative overall. As a result, there is a spectrum of terms to describe how much of a clone a character might be.

• A full clone (often shortened to just "clone") will have unique taunts and victory poses, may have unique attributes (such as being heavier or faster) or non-combat animations (such as running or jumping), may have some moves that function differently despite being conceptually the same as their parent character's, and maybe perhaps an entirely unique attack or two. Otherwise, they share nearly all moves and animations with their parent. Pichu since Melee and Lucina since Super Smash Bros. 4 are examples of full clones.
• A semi-clone has several unique attacks and animations of their own while retaining a significant amount from their parent, while often the cloned moves they retain have distinct functioning or altered animations. Falco since Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Roy since Smash 4 are examples of semi-clones.
• A pseudo-clone is, for the most part, their own unique character, but with enough moves or animations still copied from their parent that it would be inaccurate to say they are not cloned to some degree. Wolf since Brawl and Luigi since Ultimate are examples of pseudo-clones.

It is not uncommon for a cloned character to receive further differentiating changes in later games, thus making them less of a clone. Some use the term "Luigification" for when a character is separated from their parent and forms their own identity, as Luigi has done in both his home series and the Smash Bros. series. However, it is debatable at what point a character who was once a clone is no longer a clone, or even which specific category some characters may fall into. For example, Luigi's status as any type of clone post-Brawl was a subject of heavy debate before the term "pseudo-clone" was accepted.

Ultimate introduces the term "Echo Fighter" to refer to certain clones. The term is used to determine which characters are grouped together on the character selection screen when the corresponding menu option is enabled, and also forces such characters to share the same fighter numbers with an appended epsilon (ε). The Japanese term is "Dash Fighter", and uses the prime symbol (') instead of an epsilon. In Japanese, the prime symbol is pronounced "dash", hence the term "Dash Fighter"; in mathematics, the prime symbol is used to designate that something is derived from something else, such as x′ being derived from x. Otherwise, it is simply a term used by the developers to denote a character as being low-budget; as a result, it only loosely fits into the spectrum of clone terms used by the community to discuss the degree of similarity in the final result. For example, Dr. Mario is a full clone, while Ken is a semi-clone, but Ken is labeled as an Echo Fighter while Dr. Mario is not. However, Daisy, Richter, and Dark Samus, who have little gameplay-relevant differences from their parent character, are labeled as such. Notably, none of the clones who debuted prior to Smash 4 are labeled as an Echo Fighter.

Clones in Super Smash Bros.

Super Smash Bros. features one clone and one semi-clone. All four of the unlockable characters were created with the premise of reusing assets from the fighters in the starting roster, with the other two unlockable characters being unique, despite sharing some moves form their parents.

Clone	Parent	Category	Different moves	Attributes
Luigi	Mario	Full clone	Luigi's only unique attacks are his dash attack and down tilt, though his taunt is unique among the cast in that it has a hitbox.	Luigi's special moves all have different purposes: his Fireball's lack of gravity alters where it controls space and they are colored green, while his Super Jump Punch and Luigi Cyclone are both one-hit power moves rather than trapping combo moves. In general, Luigi is slower than Mario with fewer combos and an inferior ability to approach, but has a better recovery and more KO moves.
Jigglypuff	Kirby	Semi-clone	Jigglypuff's unique attacks include its up smash, down smash, back aerial, up aerial, forward throw, and all special moves. It should also be noted that Jigglypuff does not have a third infinite neutral attack like Kirby.	While the pair has historically not been seen by the casual fanbase as semi-clones in the same way that other characters are, Jigglypuff in its debut appearance shares many of Kirby's animations, moves, and properties (such as having six jumps).

Notes

• The Fighting Polygon Team is composed of identical clones of all 12 playable characters, though they cannot use special moves.
• The 1P Mode minibosses Giant Donkey Kong and Metal Mario are full clones of Donkey Kong and Mario respectively. Unlike in future games, where they are simply the base character with a Super Mushroom or Metal Box permanently active, these minibosses are coded to be separate characters.
• As mentioned before, the unlockable fighters were developed using assets borrowed from the base roster:
  • Jigglypuff and Luigi are clones of Kirby and Mario, respectively, with their differences as described above. Jigglypuff is the only semi-clone to not be from the same universe as Kirby.
  • Ness and Captain Falcon re-use assets from Mario and Samus, respectively. For Ness, his only similarities to Mario are his floor attacks. For Captain Falcon, he shares his dash attack, up tilt, down smash, neutral aerial, and floor attacks with Samus, but is vastly different otherwise.
    • Additionally, the Polygons of Luigi, Ness, and Captain Falcon are almost identical to those of their parent.
    • On a related note, Captain Falcon's moveset design shares many similarities to the fighters seen in the game's earliest prototype, suggesting the fighting style was re-purposed for his moveset when the game became Super Smash Bros.

Clones in Super Smash Bros. Melee

Originally, Masahiro Sakurai was going to include significantly fewer playable characters in Melee, with the planned roster being what it ended up minus the six clone newcomers (Dr. Mario, Pichu, Falco, Young Link, Ganondorf and Roy). However, with him knowing fans were expecting more characters while time was too constrictive to add any more, Sakurai decided to add the clones later in development to pad out the roster, as these characters would take a lot less time to develop than unique characters would (according to Sakurai, adding the six clones to Melee took less development time than adding a single unique newcomer would have). On the Japanese website, clones were referred to as model swap characters (モデル替えキャラ). Clones are marked on the character selection screen as recessed icons next to the fighters they are based on.

Luigi received many changes that distanced him from Mario considerably, changing him from a full clone into a semi-clone. On the other hand, Jigglypuff and Kirby both received changes significant enough that Jigglypuff is no longer considered even a pseudo-clone.

Clone	Parent	Category	Different moves	Attributes
Dr. Mario	Mario	Full clone	Dr. Mario's moves are all nearly identical in animation to Mario's and most function similarly, though his moves have altered frame data, he throws Megavitamins for his neutral special that act differently to Mario's Fireballs, as well as has a few more unique properties.	Dr. Mario has stronger attacks in general, with some of them having unique properties: his forward smash is an electrical attack without a sourspot but has less reach (on account of it lacking the explosion that Mario shoots for his), his forward aerial is a powerful vertical-launching finisher that cannot meteor smash, and his neutral aerial is a sex kick with its later hitboxes being stronger than its initial hitboxes (in addition to having a slightly different animation). Dr. Mario also cannot wall jump and has a worse recovery, due to Super Sheet stalling Dr. Mario in the air for a much shorter duration, Dr. Mario's Super Jump Punch having a single frame of intangibility instead of four frames, and Dr. Tornado's hitboxes having less reach and duration. Despite Dr. Mario's trophy describing him as "a tad slower" than Mario, the two have identical mobility stats, with the exception of Dr. Mario actually having slightly faster air speed, though all of Dr. Mario's aerials have higher landing lag.
Falco	Fox	Full clone	While most of Falco's entire moveset has different functioning from Fox's due to different knockback or properties, all of his moves are completely identical in concept and animation.	Falco is slightly bigger than Fox, making most of his moves have slightly larger range as a result (with the notable exception of his down tilt due to Falco's much shorter tail, and Reflector, which has a smaller hitbox). Falco has a slower walking speed, dashing speed, and jump squat, and a shorter dashdance, but a higher vertical jump height, as well as slightly heavier weight and faster falling speed. While Falco's moves all look the same as Fox's, many have different properties and therefore applications. For example, Fox uses his up smash and up aerial as his primary high-power KO moves, while Falco instead relies on his forward smash and down tilt. Fox's down aerial is a multi-hitting drill with weak knockback that deals more damage if all hits connect, and can combo at any percent, but can be escaped using SDI, whereas Falco's down aerial is a powerful single-hit spike that cannot be SDI'ed out of. As such, Fox's down aerial is more difficult to punish out of shield as a neutral opener, but is less reliable as a combo starter, while Falco's down aerial is a much more reliable combo starter and deadly edgeguarding tool. Fox's Blaster shoots faster and does not cause flinching, and is more suited for tacking on damage for free and forcing approaches, while Falco's (which he additionally fires with a different animation) shoots slower and causes flinching, and so is more suited for facilitating and interrupting approaches. Falco's side special, Falco Phantasm, travels a shorter distance than Fox's, but has faster startup and meteor smashes the opponent when it hits. Falco's up special, Fire Bird, charges faster and hits much harder, but covers significantly less distance than Fox's and has no hitbox while charging. Fox's Shine delivers set semi-spike knockback that facilitates waveshine combos at any percent on characters with a weight of 86 or higher, and makes a very potent edgeguarding tool; Falco's Shine deals more damage, delivers scaling vertical knockback, and is used for extremely potent vertical combos, especially on fastfallers, but loses its combo ability at higher percents, particularly vs. floatier characters. The lasers shot by Falco's back throw and up throw also produce knockback unlike Fox's; this causes opponents to launch in unpredictable directions, making them unreliable as combo starters, and Falco cannot chain grab or kill confirm with his up throw like Fox can.
Ganondorf	Captain Falcon	Full clone	Ganondorf has a single-hit neutral attack and a unique forward aerial, that is an arching overhand punch instead of a Knee smash. The rest of Ganondorf's moveset is cloned, though he is consistently much slower but stronger than Captain Falcon, most notably in his up tilt.	Ganondorf is significantly heavier and much more powerful than Captain Falcon, and all of his mobility stats are much slower, in particular his dashing speed, though most of his attacks do not lose too much speed. Ganondorf is additionally bigger than Falcon, giving his moves more reach in general, though some of his moves also have larger hitboxes. Functional differences in his moveset include his up tilt being a hail mary move that is one of the strongest moves in the game, in exchange for an absurd 81 frames of startup that also makes it the slowest move in the game, whereas Falcon's up tilt is a standard anti-air move with above-average horizontal knockback. Each of the two hits in Ganondorf's up smash are individually very powerful whereas the first hit of Falcon's is meant to link into the second stronger hit, a functioning difference that applies to their neutral aerial as well, though this functioning is reversed for their down smash. Ganondorf's forward smash launches vertically while Falcon's launches horizontally, a launch angle difference that also applies to their down smash. Ganondorf's up aerial has a late hitbox that semi-spikes opponents, which can be used as a deadly edgeguarding tool, while Falcon's up aerial lacks a late hitbox altogether. Aerial Gerudo Dragon does not meteor smash whereas aerial Raptor Boost does; conversely, aerial Wizard's Foot is a powerful spike while aerial Falcon Kick launches horizontally. Finally, many of Ganondorf's moves have different effects; his forward smash, Warlock Punch, Gerudo Dragon, and Wizard's Foot hit with the darkness effect while Falcon's variations hit with the flame effect; Ganondorf's up tilt hits with a flame effect while Falcon's has no special effect; and Ganondorf's jab, down aerial, and Dark Dive hit with an electric effect when Falcon's variations do not, while the inverse is applied to their forward aerials.
Luigi	Mario	Semi-clone	Luigi has a unique neutral attack final hit, up tilt, down tilt, dash attack, forward smash, forward aerial, and side special.	Luigi has a higher jump height, slower air speed, slower dashing speed, and much lower traction compared to Mario, with the lattermost notably giving Luigi a much farther wavedash. Luigi's down smash, neutral aerial, and down aerial look the same as Mario's, but function differently, as the former two launch vertically while Mario's launch horizontally; in particular, Luigi's neutral aerial is a much more effective combo starter. Luigi's down aerial is a strong single-hit move that can launch horizontally or meteor smash, whereas Mario's is a multi-hitting drill move with negligible knockback. Luigi's Super Jump Punch additionally goes straight up while Mario's travels diagonally, and Luigi Cyclone can move much farther across the ground, but requires being "charged" on the ground first in order to grant any height in the air, while Mario Tornado has no such restriction.
Pichu	Pikachu	Full clone	Pichu's only unique move is its up smash, though it has various other different properties; most notably, Pichu takes recoil damage from all of its electrical attacks.	Pichu moves slower than Pikachu with slower running speed, slower fast falling speed, and a shorter wavedash due to its higher traction, but all of its aerials have significantly less landing lag, making Pichu's aerials safer. Pichu is smaller which makes it harder to hit, but consequently its moves have less reach, often significantly so, especially those that involve Pichu's much shorter tail, and Pichu is much lighter, making it much easier to KO. Pichu's down smash is a single-hit move that launches at a semi-spike angle and has no electrical effect, while Pikachu's down smash is a multi-hitting electrical move that launches vertically. Pichu's up aerial have all of its hitboxes launch at an 80 degree angle, making it more reliable for comboing, but cannot semi-spike like Pikachu's and thus Pichu loses a very potent gimping tool. Pichu's special moves additionally have functional differences; Pichu's Skull Bash can be charged for longer, where it then travels much farther and becomes much more powerful; Agility is slower and has no hitboxes while dealing recoil damage to Pichu, but it can move in angles that Quick Attack cannot; and Pichu's Thunder is a multi-hitting move that can deal a lot more damage than Pikachu's but lacks the knockback to KO high up opponents off the top.
Roy	Marth	Full clone	Roy's neutral attack has only a single hit, while Marth's consists of two. The rest of his moveset is cloned from Marth's, though some of his moves possess the flame effect, and most notably, he has an inversed tipper mechanic, with Roy's moves having sweetspots at the hilt of his sword instead of at the tip.	While Marth's sweetspot is at the tip of his sword, Roy's is at the hilt, which affects almost his entire moveset and so enforces a different style of play. Roy is additionally slower than Marth in most aspects, with Roy having a slower walk, dash, jumpsquat, shorter jumps, and a shorter wavedash, on top of most of his moves having slower frame data. Roy does, however, notably fall faster and has higher gravity, giving him a faster SHFFL in exchange for making him more vulnerable to combos. Roy is also slightly smaller, giving his moves less reach, and he weighs slightly less in NTSC, which makes him slightly easier to KO horizontally, but he is light enough to get knocked down by Fox's Shine whereas Marth does not, making him less vulnerable to waveshine combos; however, Marth's weight was changed to match Roy's in PAL. When it comes to the functional differences of their moves, Roy's down tilt launches vertically and is thus more useful as a combo tool, whereas Marth's down tilt can more effectively edgeguard with its semi-spike knockback; Roy's up smash is a multi-hit move with no sourspots while Marth's hits once with the standard tipper mechanic intact; Flare Blade has an insubstantial shield damage bonus but can be charged for much longer and become immensely powerful; Blazer is a slower multi-hitting move with set knockback and Roy has some control of its trajectory in exchange for less recovery distance, while Dolphin Slash quickly hits once with considerable power and has no control over its trajectory; and Roy's Counter has a 1.5X damage multiplier with much higher knockback scaling, while Marth's deals a set 7% no matter what hitbox it counters, with higher base knockback but lower knockback scaling. Roy's up smash and all of his specials additionally hit with a flame effect, while none of Marth's moves do.
Young Link	Link	Full clone	Young Link's moves are all weaker than Link's, and his much smaller Kokiri Sword gives his sword moves significantly smaller hitboxes, but his entire moveset is otherwise the same as that of Link.	Young Link has a much faster dashing speed, faster jump squat, higher jumps, and a longer wavedash due to lower traction, but his much slower fast falling speed inhibits his ability to SHFFL as effectively as Link. Young Link can wall jump to give him an additional recovery option, but his shorter hookshot is less effective at Wall grappling than Link's. Young Link is additionally much smaller and lighter than Link, which makes him much more difficult to hit and combo, but makes his moves have even less reach and makes him much easier to KO. Some of Young Link's moves also function differently; the first hit of Young Link's forward smash is purely a setup hit for the strong second hit, whereas both hits of Link's forward smash are individually powerful; Young Link's down aerial possesses a sweetspot that is a very powerful meteor smash with a flame effect; Young Link's Fire Bow hits with more hitstun and has a flame effect, but Link's Bow can shoot arrows farther and be charged longer; Young Link's grounded Spin Attack is a multi-hit move capable of dealing more damage but with no viable KO power, while Link's is a strong single-hit move; and the explosion of Young Link's Bombs are multi-hitting with less damage-per-hit, unlike the explosions of Link's bombs that only hit once.

Notes

• As Luigi and Dr. Mario share a "parent" in Mario, it could be argued that they are technically semi-clones of each other.
• Giga Bowser is effectively a full clone of Bowser; he is omitted from the above list due to not being a playable character.
• The Fighting Wire Frames are both clones. The Male Wire Frame is cloned from Captain Falcon, and the Female Wire Frame is cloned from Zelda, though both Wire Frames lack special moves. Unlike the previous game's Polygons, they also have altered, though mostly worse movesets.
• Master Hand and Crazy Hand could be considered semi-clones, as they share most of their attacks while having some unique attacks and many unique animations. They would also undergo their own "Luigification" in subsequent games, as both would be given more unique moves and animations as the series went on.
• Coincidentally, all clones' head icons face the opposite direction as their parent's.
• While Jigglypuff is considered decloned enough in Melee to not even be labelled a pseudo-clone any more, remnants of it being based off of Kirby remain and so it cannot be said to be a completely unique character, with Jigglypuff still sharing a forward tilt, up tilt, down aerial, forward smash, and grab with Kirby. This remains true for all subsequent games, though their animations for these shared moves would become slightly more distinct in later games.
• Technically, Samus can be considered a "grandparent" to Ganondorf, since the latter is a clone of Captain Falcon, who was partially cloned off of Samus in the previous title. The two characters are so vastly different that they cannot be considered clones in any practical sense, but Ganondorf and Captain Falcon still share their floor attack, dash attack, and up tilt animations with Samus.
• Although Mr. Game & Watch has always been a unique character as opposed to a clone, he shared most of his attributes (except for his weight, air speed and air acceleration) with Mario in Melee, indicating he started development based off of Mario until being developed into his own unique character.
• Although Zelda is a unique character, many of her non-attack animations are derived from Peach, indicating she started development based off of Peach. They also have similar animations for their dash attacks and neutral aerials.

Clones in Super Smash Bros. Brawl

None of the newcomers in Brawl are full clones, though there are two new pseudo-clones and one new semi-clone. In addition, four out of the six full clones from Melee were cut, with the two that returned, Falco and Ganondorf, now becoming semi-clones. As a result, Brawl is the only Smash game with no full clones.

Clone	Parent	Category	Different moves	Attributes
Falco	Fox	Semi-clone	Falco has a different neutral attack, up tilt, forward smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, and up aerial. His down special has the same English name and concept, but is practically a different move with a completely different animation and functioning, as he now kicks his Reflector out instead of being able to hold it in place, functioning as a long-reaching transcendent disjointed move that can poke through opponent's moves in addition to reflecting, but loses any ability to work as a combo or disadvantage tool.	Falco keeps many of his other differences from Melee, such as which of his attacks are more powerful than Fox's, and keeps most of his differences in attributes, though he now has slightly faster air speed than Fox while also falling slower than Fox. Fox's back aerial got an altered animation and function, but is still similar to Falco's back aerial. Falco's moves have a few more new functional differences from Fox's; Falco's down throw launches at a different angle that allows it to effectively setup combos and chain grab into itself, while Fox's down throw launches at an even more vertical angle with much more knockback, serving as a throw to just put opponents in disadvantage; Fire Bird now has hitboxes during its charging phase, but is now a multi-hitting attack with much weaker knockback than the still single-hit Fire Fox; and Falco's Landmaster shoots weaker blasts than Fox's, but can fly up faster and much higher, allowing it to more effectively carry opponents off the top blast line. Then finally, Falco's Blaster now shoots blue lasers instead of red lasers to make it more visually distinct.
Ganondorf	Captain Falcon	Semi-clone	Ganondorf has a unique neutral attack, forward tilt, down tilt, up smash, forward aerial, up throw, side special, and Final Smash.	Ganondorf has a wide variety of new animations for general actions, and all of his remaining moves that are still conceptually the same as Falcon's have altered, stiffer animations to differentiate them from Falcon's equivalents. The most obvious examples of Ganondorf's shared moves with altered animations are his down aerial, Warlock Punch, Dark Dive, and Wizard's Foot. Dark Dive additionally now has an uppercut animation at the end of it, which has a corresponding hitbox to hit opponents without grabbing them, giving it a significant functional difference from Falcon Dive. Ganondorf however lost a functional difference, as his forward smash now launches at the same horizontal angle that Falcon's forward smash does. Ganondorf still maintains the same motif of being a slower but stronger semi-clone of Falcon, but it's even more exaggerated than it was in Melee, with most of Ganondorf's mobility stats being harshly nerfed, in addition to many of his moves being made even slower.
Lucas	Ness	Pseudo-clone	Lucas's only similar moves are his forward smash, up aerial, pummel, side special, up special, down special, and Final Smash. The rest of his moveset is unique, and even then his shared moves feature different properties.	Having mostly a unique moveset of his own, Lucas' similarity to Ness is primarily in his weight and skeleton being identical to Ness', while they both also uniquely suffer an additional 10 frames of grab release lag that no other character has, making them uniquely vulnerable to many grab releaese setups. However, Lucas's movement attributes are all faster than Ness' with the exception of a slower walking speed, and he has lower traction that makes it more difficult for him to punish out of shield. His special moves are fairly similar in animation and concept to Ness's, but with major functional differences; Lucas' PK Fire launches opponent away with moderate knockback while he also fires it with a different animation and cannot fire it diagonally when using it in the air, unlike Ness' PK Fire that can be fire diagonally in the air and still functions by trapping opponents within it; Lucas' PK Thunder does not dissipate when it hits opponents but produces negligible knockback on contact, and Lucas' PK Thunder 2 travels much farther but is a multi-hitting move with drastically weaker knockback than Ness' variation; and Lucas' holds his PSI Magnet outward in front of him instead of surrounding himself with it like Ness does with his PSI Magnet, while additionally producing a small hitbox with moderate knockback in front of him when he releases it. This is the only clone pair where the derived character is the starter and the parent is unlockable.
Luigi	Mario	Semi-clone	Luigi has a unique neutral attack final hit, up tilt, down tilt, dash attack, forward smash, forward aerial, down aerial, side special, down special, and Final Smash.	Mario's Mario Tornado changing from his down special to his down aerial, while his down special became F.L.U.D.D, is the main new difference between him and Luigi, giving them entirely different down specials and down aerials. Luigi can additionally now crawl, whereas Mario cannot. Luigi has been given some new animations and now has his own voice clips, rather than re-using a sped-up selection of Mario's, while a few of his remaining shared moves have had their animations altered to differentiate from Mario's, which include his forward tilt, down smash, up aerial, and pummel. Every other difference they had in Melee not already addressed here still applies.
Toon Link	Link	Semi-clone	Toon Link has a unique up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, forward throw, and back throw.	Toon Link retains many of the same differences from Link that Young Link had in Melee: he is smaller, lighter, faster in most aspects (with Link only having faster falling speed, fast falling speed, and gravity), is generally weaker, and can wall jump, while having having a forward smash that only launches on the second hit and a multi-hit grounded Spin Attack. In addition to having a handful of unique moves, several of Toon Link's shared moves have different functioning; Toon Link's dash attack launches opponents away at a semi-spike angle while Link's launches vertically; the first hit of Toon Link's down smash leads into the second stronger hit while both hits of Link's are individually powerful; Toon Link's down aerial is a stall-then-fall that meteor smashes while Link's down aerial has no momentum-altering properties; the arrows fired by Toon Link's Hero's Bow are much floatier and slower; Toon Links Boomerang travels much slower as well and does not have any windboxes like Link's Gale Boomerang; and Toon Link's Bombs function very similarly to Link's Bombs, but their explosion have a much more cartoonish appearance. Toon Link also has different animations for general actions, generally faster frame data on his moves, and much shorter reach on his attacks due to his much shorter sword. For one more odditity as a result of the cloning process, there is an error where Toon Link's forward throw is treated as a Foot attack like Link's even though it is a shoulder tackle.
Wolf	Fox	Pseudo-clone	Wolf's only similar moves are his back aerial, forward throw (which has a different animation but is functionally the exact same with its hitbox and frame data), grab, pummel, side special, down special, and Final Smash. His neutral special and up special follow the same theme as Fox's, but are so different that they are practically their own unique moves (which is reflected in those moves have distinctly different Japanese names from Fox's, being クローブラスター, Claw Blaster, and ウルフシュート, Wolf Shoot, respectively). The rest of Wolf's moveset is unique, and Wolf's attributes are significantly different.	Historically, Wolf's status has been very unclear and heavily debated ever since Brawl's release, until the adoption of the term "pseudo-clone". Like Lucas, his main similarity to his parent is similarly-themed special moves, but Wolf's are even more distinct; his Blaster is unique by only firing a single shot with a completely different animation, while the laser it fires is completely different in appearance from those shot by Fox's Blaster, and it has an attached bayonet to hit opponents with a melee hitbox; Wolf Flash hits with his body instead of producing damaging afterimages (in addition to the "afterimage" trail having different graphical effects), while Wolf additionally travels in a slight diagonal trajectory during it (which allows scarring), and is weak at the start but hits with a powerful hitbox at the end that either meteor smashes or semi-spikes opponents; Fire Wolf has a completely different animation and has no distinct "charging" phase, with the only functional similarity to Fire Fox being that the player can control which direction Fire Wolf travels in; Wolf's Reflector remains more similar to Fox's than his other specials, but has a distinctly different "shine" graphic, while possessing some functional difference in its much greater amount of intangibility that starts on frame 1, making it a much more effective disadvantage tool; and then Wolf's Landmaster has a difference appearance to match the Wolfen theme, while being much more powerful and more mobile than Fox's, in exchange for a much shorter duration. Despite the vast move differences, many of Wolf's non-combat animations (such as dodges, getups, and item actions) remain exactly identical to Fox's, even in cases where they do not connect properly into his other animations as a result.

Notes

• The Fighting Alloy Team are all clones: Red of Captain Falcon, Blue of Zelda, Yellow of Mario, and Green of Kirby (with Jigglypuff's forward, back, and up throws). Like their predecessors, they lack special moves.

Clones in Super Smash Bros. 4

Super Smash Bros. 4 re-introduces full clones, adding one such veteran and two such newcomers. These clones were originally developed as alternate costumes, but it was later decided to give them a difference in moveset, resulting in them being split into their own characters — as "even a small difference in abilities" requires a unique roster slot. There are no new semi-clones, and returning semi-clones were not given much in the way of new differences. Full clones are marked on the character selection screen by being listed outside of the rest of the characters from their series, near the third party characters.

Most clones and semi-clones share at least one custom move, though full clones have nearly every custom move in common.

Clone	Parent	Category	Different moves	Attributes
Dark Pit	Pit	Full clone	Dark Pit has a different Final Smash, though it is still cloned (from Zelda and Sheik, specifically). All of his attributes and nearly the rest of his moveset are completely identical.	Dark Pit was made into a clone because Sakurai did not like the idea of him using Pit's Three Sacred Treasures for his Final Smash. Another noticeable difference is his side special, Electroshock Arm, which deals electrical damage with stronger knockback while hitting opponents at a horizontal trajectory. Besides this, his other differences from Pit are extremely minimal; he has a smaller hitbox on his neutral attack's rapid jab finisher (which is due to only Pit's equivalent attack getting buffed in patch 1.1.0, which was never applied to Dark Pit's presumably by mistake), his forward tilt has significantly weaker base knockback, and the arrows fired from his neutral special travel with less control but are stronger and faster. Due to his extreme similarity to Pit, most tier lists do not even give him his own placing, instead having him share Pit's spot, including the Smash Back Room's Smash 4 tier list.
Dr. Mario	Mario	Full clone	Dr. Mario retains his down aerial and down special from Melee, which, due to changes to Mario since, are now incidentally different attacks. Dr. Mario additionally still fires Megavitamins for his neutral special.	Dr. Mario was made into a clone, instead of being turned into alternative costume for Mario, because Sakurai felt fans of his Melee incarnation would be disappointed to lose his uniqueness. Many of his moves lost their subtle functional differences, but some of the more notable ones retain their unique functioning; his forward smash is still an electrical move that's stronger with less reach, his neutral aerial retains the unique trait of being a sex kick whose later hitboxes are stronger than in its initial hitboxes, and his forward aerial is a very powerful vertical KO move instead of being a meteor smash. Dr. Mario now acts more truly to his original intention as a slower but stronger Mario; he has built-in equipment multipliers that significantly nerf his movement stats across the board, and his aerials retain their higher landing lag, but he also has equipment modifiers that give him an increased damage modifier to all of his moves. Dr. Mario has an additional new difference in that his up special now only hits once without spawning coins, but he has gained the ability to wall jump, removing a difference between him and Mario. Overall Dr. Mario remains very similar to Mario, with even his Final Smash and custom moves being all direct copies of Mario's (or Luigi's, in the case of Dr. Tornado's customs), though Doctor Finale fires two large Megavitamins instead of shooting a large fire blast.
Falco	Fox	Semi-clone	Falco has a different neutral attack, up tilt, forward smash, up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, up aerial, and down special.	Not much has changed for Falco; aside from getting a new up smash and back aerial (the latter of which was already different from Fox's), and up aerial's animation being significantly altered (with Falco flipping on the horizontal axis instead of the vertical axis, making it more obviously unique from Fox's up aerial), he retains his differences from Fox that he had in Brawl. Notably, while he shares no custom moves with Fox, he and Fox both have custom neutral specials that replicate the other's default. Overall, Falco is still a clear semi-clone, though slightly more distinct than he was in Brawl.
Ganondorf	Captain Falcon	Semi-clone	Ganondorf has a unique neutral attack, forward tilt, down tilt, up smash, forward aerial, up throw, side special, and Final Smash.	Ganondorf has not received any major changes that affect how much of a clone he is, though he did get a few minor animation- and functionality-related tweaks. Among their shared moves, his neutral aerial became functionally more similar to Falcon's neutral aerial, as now the first kick is a weak hit to link into the second stronger hit, instead of both kicks being individually powerful, but Falcon's up aerial now being a vertically launching juggle tool gives its distinct functionality from Ganondorf's up aerial that remains a very strong horizontally-launching move that can semi-spike. Ganondorf otherwise retains the differences he already had in Brawl. For a final note, Ganondorf notably shares no custom moves at all with Captain Falcon, so he can become substantially more distinct when customs are enabled.
Lucas	Ness	Pseudo-clone	Lucas' only similar moves are his forward smash, up aerial, pummel, side special, up special, down special, and Final Smash. The rest of his moveset is unique.	Lucas received no additional moves to distinguish himself from Ness. In fact, he now shares some non-attack animations with Ness despite having unique ones in Brawl, such as his Final Smash animation, dash ending animation, idle animation when holding items, and his clapping animation. In addition, all of Ness's special moves have custom variants that cause them to act like Lucas's (whereas Lucas, like all DLC characters, has no custom moves). Lucas otherwise retains all of his other differences from Ness that he had in Brawl.
Lucina	Marth	Full clone	Although Lucina's damage output and knockback are altered throughout her entire moveset thanks to lacking Marth's tipper, her entire moveset is otherwise largely identical to Marth's in frame data and animation.	Lucina was made into a clone because Sakurai decided to have her act as an easier-to-play version of Marth, with equal power across her sword instead of a sweetspot at the tip. Concurrently, all of Lucina's attacks deal damage somewhere between Marth's sweetspots and sourspots, giving her a more consistent playstyle. Despite lacking Marth's usual sweetspots, Lucina's up tilt has a timing-based sweetspot on the latter half of the slash, where it will do more damage but less knockback. However, aside from slightly different animations for Shield Breaker and Counter, and a few other minimal changes (such as being negligibly shorter, or a few of her moves not halting her horizontal momentum), she is completely identical to Marth in all other ways.
Luigi	Mario	Semi-clone	Luigi has a unique neutral attack final hit, up tilt, down tilt, dash attack, forward smash, forward aerial, down aerial, down throw, side special, down special, and Final Smash.	Luigi's jumps are animated differently, being a scuttle instead of a block-punch, and he has a different skidding animation when he stops dashing. He has a new down throw as well, where he Ground Pounds the opponent. He also does not share any customs with Mario, aside from one that makes his Fireballs act like Mario's default ones. The rest of Luigi's differences he already had in Brawl are retained.
Roy	Marth	Semi-clone	Roy has a unique neutral attack, forward tilt, up tilt, dash attack, forward smash, and down aerial. His neutral special is unchanged from Melee, although Marth's neutral special animation was significantly changed during Roy's absence, making it effectively a different move, while his up special is animated differently but functions as it did in Melee (except now having a proper finishing launching hit with above-average knockback). His Final Smash has the same name and concept as Marth's, but behaves differently.	Roy is the most decloned character in Smash 4, with several new moves, as well as having different animations on some of his remaining shared moves as a result of him holding his sword in a reverse grip, which include his up smash, forward aerial, back aerial, and up aerial, though the latter two have more subtle animation differences. Roy additionally moves faster than Marth in all aspects except with having slower walking speed, while additionally being heavier, having less reach as a result of his new attack animations that keeps his sword closer, and Roy is much stronger all-around than he was in Melee, though generally his sweetspots and sourspots are still weaker than Marth's equivalents. As a DLC character, he has no custom moves, but Marth's customs do not mimic his specials like Ness' do to Lucas.
Toon Link	Link	Semi-clone	Toon Link has a unique dash attack, up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, forward throw, and back throw.	Link being given a new dash attack makes Toon Link's a unique move, and Link's up aerial has a new animation to differentiate it from Toon Link's, though Toon Link himself has received no new substantial decloning changes. The two Links do not share many custom moves, and Toon Link retains the other differences he had in Brawl.

Notes

• As Luigi and Dr. Mario, as well as Lucina and Roy, share a common "parent" character in Mario and Marth respectively, both pairs can be argued as semi-clones of their respective counterparts.
• Many standard and special attacks of the Mii Fighters are based off existing characters. Several of the Mii Gunner's moves are similar to Samus' or Fox's (with a couple similar to Ness' and Robin's). Similarly, the Mii Swordfighter shares moves with the swordfighters (most predominantly Link and Ike), while the Mii Brawler shares moves with Mario, Little Mac, and Captain Falcon.
  • The Fighting Mii Team operates like Mii Fighters but lacks special moves, much like previous enemy teams.
• Despite Wolf being absent in this game, Fox's Fox Illusion has a custom variation that mimics Wolf's, even being named "Wolf Flash".
• Datamining has revealed that some of the newcomers started development as clones of veteran fighters before being reworked to be distinct fighters, with little traces of their initial cloning remain:
  • In the base game, Little Mac's animations for climbing off a ladder and being stunned are direct 1-to-1 matches to those of Captain Falcon, and even his back aerial is identical to Captain Falcon's conceptually; this evidence suggests that he started development using Falcon as a template before being reworked to the point he cannot be classified as any sort of clone.
  • Regarding the DLC fighters, datamining of character parameters in version 1.0.6 reveal that Ike was duplicated to create Cloud and Zero Suit Samus was duplicated to create Bayonetta, while datamining of version 1.0.8 revealed Ike was duplicated again to create Corrin. Datamining of subsequent versions shown remnants of their development into unique characters, as their parameters increasingly diverged with each version.

Clones in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

As stated above, Ultimate uses the term "Echo Fighter" to refer to certain clones based on development time. The term is only loosely related to how unique a character is, as some full clones are not marked as Echo Fighters despite their largely shared movesets, while Ken is marked as one despite being more distinct than some clones that aren't marked as Echo Fighters. Certain Echo Fighters are considered the same entity as their base fighter competitively; Daisy, Richter, and Dark Samus, due to their differences from their base fighters being competitively negligible; and Dark Pit, who does have notable moveset differences, but only in two attacks. On the character selection screen, Echo Fighters are positioned directly after their base fighter, and there exists an option to merge the portraits of the base fighter and the Echo Fighter in certain modes.

With Ultimate bringing back all veterans, every clone that was originally cut returns. However, most returning clones did not receive many new differences. In the transition from Smash 4 to Ultimate, however, Luigi and Ganondorf were both significantly decloned (with Luigi commonly being agreed to have become a pseudo-clone), and Link's new changes based off of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild subsequently decloned both of his counterparts to an extent.

Clone	Parent	Category	ɛ	Different moves	Attributes
Chrom	Roy	Full clone		Chrom has a unique up special mostly inspired by Ike's Aether, as well as a unique Final Smash. His attributes and the rest of his moveset is largely the same as Roy's, though without fire effects nor sweetspots.	Like Lucina, Chrom's main difference from his base fighter is the lack of a sweetspot, with his attacks being equally powerful across the blade. Other than this, however, Chrom's attacks are all fairly identical to Roy's, though his forward tilt moves him slightly forward, and Chrom's Counter has altered knockback, with it having less base knockback but greater knockback scaling than Roy's Counter. Some of Chrom's attack animations slightly differ from Roy's as well, as he does not hold his sword in a reverse grip for his neutral attack, forward tilt and up tilt, which consequently slightly changes the hitbox placements for these attacks.
Daisy	Peach	Full clone		Daisy's entire moveset is completely identical to Peach's, with her only gameplay difference being slightly altered hurtboxes as a result of her different idle and dashing animations.	Alongside the different idle and dashing animations, Daisy's attacks have some different aesthetic effects, namely she has flower-based visuals replacing Peach's heart-based visuals, and she has distinctly different facial animations. The differing animations she has alter her hurtbox placements marginally when she stands still or runs, but other than that, she has no gameplay differences whatsoever. Prior to Version 3.0.0, Daisy's Vegetable had higher base knockback but lower knockback scaling; as this was purposely changed to match Peach's version, it is clear that it was an error and Daisy was not intended to have any moveset differences from her at all.
Dark Pit	Pit	Full clone		Dark Pit has his own Final Smash. Aside from that, only his neutral special and side special have different properties.	Dark Pit's minor differences have been removed from all of his standard attacks, making him even more similar to Pit. His Final Smash is unchanged, though since Zelda and Sheik have both received new ones, it is unclear whether it is still a cloned move. Other than that, Dark Pit retains his two other differences from Smash 4.
Dark Samus	Samus	Full clone		Dark Samus's moveset is exactly like Samus's in every way except for elemental properties, slight animation differences, and minor hitbox placement changes.	Most of Dark Samus's properties and hitboxes are the same as Samus's, with the most major difference being that most flame attacks involving the Arm Cannon now hit with the electric effect. Dark Samus also has a large variety of unique non-attack animations, which does affect her hurtbox placement during many actions, and many of her moves (her dash attack, all smash attacks, her neutral special, and side special) have altered animations, which has subtle effects on their hitbox placement (such as allowing some moves to more effectively hit short or crouching characters, while Samus's equivalents are more difficult to high-profile over). Additionally, Dark Samus's rolls are faster, though she does not turn into a Morph Ball during them, and her shield is bigger. Overall, while the altered hitbox and hurtbox placements during several of Dark Samus's actions can marginally affect some matchups, these differences are not considered meaningful enough to differentiate the two in tier lists or matchup charts.
Dr. Mario	Mario	Full clone		Dr. Mario has a different down aerial, back throw, and down special.	Dr. Mario received a new back throw, and both he and Mario received new, differing animations for their functionally unaltered side specials. Dr. Mario also received a new down aerial, though this does not declone him any more than before because he already had a different one prior. He retains his external multipliers, which have been made slightly more extreme, and his traction is now slightly higher. Dr. Mario retains all his other differences from Smash 4, but overall he remains a close clone of Mario.
Falco	Fox	Semi-clone		Falco has a different neutral attack, up tilt, down tilt, forward smash, up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, up aerial, down throw, and down special.	Both Fox and Falco received the same new Final Smash, where Falco's variation just has a different cutscene and its finishing hit launches at a different angle. Other than Falco's new down throw, he did not get decloned any further, while retaining his other differences from Smash 4, overall still being a traditional semi-clone of Fox that has a fair share of both similar and unique attacks.
Ganondorf	Captain Falcon	Semi-clone		Ganondorf has a unique neutral attack, forward tilt, down tilt, forward smash, up smash, down smash, forward aerial, grab, pummel, forward throw, up throw, side special, and Final Smash.	Ganondorf received a new set of smash attacks involving his sword, making him now only share about half of his moveset with Captain Falcon (though Ganondorf's up smash is very similar to Ike's up smash and his down smash is very similar to Cloud's down smash). Ganondorf also received a new grab where he swipes with his left arm horizontally, along with a new pummel and forward throw to better suit his new holding animation. Ganondorf's general animations have been tweaked, and his remaining moves have generally had their animations unstiffen to reflect being reverted back to his younger Ocarina of Time appearance, most notably seen in his down aerial, while Falcon has also received some animation changes in addition to a new forward smash, though these changes do not impact their clone status. Ganondorf is overall the least cloned he has been in Smash, but is still a definitive semi-clone.
Isabelle	Villager	Semi-clone		Isabelle has a unique neutral attack, up tilt, forward smash, up smash, down smash, neutral aerial, side special, and down special.	Isabelle is faster, lighter, and floatier than Villager, but lacks the ability to wall jump. For additional functional differences in their shared moves, Isabelle's up aerial and down aerial always pull out two turnips, unlike Villager's equivalents that randomly pull between one to three turnips, but other than that their shared moves are functionally similar, with just some frame data and hitbox alterations. Sakurai has noted that Isabelle could not be made into an Echo Fighter of Villager due to her different body proportions, and him feeling that some of Villager's moves would be unsuitable for her.
Ken	Ryu	Semi-clone		Ken has a unique held far neutral attack, held forward tilt, forward smash, neutral aerial, up aerial, back throw, and Final Smashes. His special moves also have different properties or animations, and he has two entirely new moves only accessible via command inputs (the Nata Otoshi Geri and Oosoto Mawashi Geri), while losing access to the Shakunetsu Hadoken.	Ken is the only Echo Fighter that is a semi-clone rather than a full clone, with his various differences being primarily derived from Super Street Fighter II Turbo. As such, some of Ken's attacks involve fire, his Hadoken is a different shape, and his Focus Attack is a kick (slightly modifying its hitbox placement). Some of Ken's standard attacks, including his forward smash, neutral aerial, up aerial, and back throw, are different from Ryu's. Additionally, Ken has access to two unique "crazy kicks", command-input roundhouse kicks that can be canceled into his Inazuma Kick. His Heavy Shoryuken has a flame effect while hitting multiple times with high knockback on the finishing hit as opposed to hitting once, making it notably much more potent in the air than Ryu's Shoryuken, and his Tatsumaki Senpukyaku hits multiple times, repurposing it into a combo starter and extender. Ken also walks and runs slightly faster. However, he shares most of his non-attack animations with the character he is based on, like Dr. Mario and the other Echo Fighters, as well as his other attributes.
Lucas	Ness	Pseudo-clone		Lucas's only similar moves are his forward smash, pummel, side special, up special, down special, and his Final Smash. The rest of his moveset is unique, and even then, many of his shared moves have different properties.	With Ness getting a new up aerial, Lucas only shares three standard attacks with him. However, his special moves have not received any farther differentiating, he still shares non-attack animations, and his lesser attacks (floor and edge attacks) are identical, thus remaining a pseudo-clone.
Lucina	Marth	Full clone		Although Lucina's attacks all have altered damage and knockback values due to lacking Marth's tipper, her entire moveset is largely identical to Marth's in terms of frame data, animation, and functioning.	Aside from getting a few negligible changes making her marginally even more similar to Marth (such as now being as tall as Marth or several of her attacks now halting her momentum), Lucina is effectively unchanged, with the same differences from Marth as in Smash 4. Her damage output is still the average of Marth's tippered and non-tippered attacks, and her up tilt still features a timing-based sweetspot on the latter half of the swing that has more damage but less knockback.
Luigi	Mario	Pseudo-clone		Luigi's only shared moves are the his first two neutral attack hits, forward tilt, up tilt, up smash, down smash, neutral aerial, back aerial, up aerial, neutral special, and up special.	Luigi now has an extended grab utilizing the Poltergust, which also alters his pummel and most of his throws except for his down throw, which was already different from Mario's. He additionally has a new running animation, and his neutral aerial has a slightly different animation, while he retains his other differences among their shared moves from Smash 4. However, his up tilt has been changed to resemble Mario's, though that doesn't set him back enough to prevent him being now considered a pseudo-clone.
Mythra	Pyra	Semi-clone		Mythra has a unique neutral special, side special, up special, and Final Smash. Mythra also has access to her unique fighter ability, Foresight.	Uniquely for transformation characters, the two are semi-clones of each other. Pyra and Mythra share their standard attacks, but Mythra is much faster than Pyra in all aspects and her moves have faster frame data, but Pyra's moves in exchange are generally much more powerful with farther reach, while several of her shared moves have the flame effect whereas Mythra's do not. Farther functional differences of their standard moves include Mythra's neutral aerial being a weak multi-hitting move while Pyra's is a strong single-hit move, and Pyra's down aerial being able to meteor smash, whereas Mythra's cannot. Additionally, Mythra uses Foresight for her dodge while Pyra has no special mechanic of her own. Aside from Swap, Pyra and Mythra have entirely different special moves, including different Final Smashes, with Pyra's being Burning Sword and Mythra's being Sacred Arrow.
Pichu	Pikachu	Full clone		Pichu has a unique forward tilt, up smash, and neutral aerial, though it has various other differing properties, most notably its recoil damage from electrical attacks.	Pichu has a different neutral aerial due to Pikachu gaining a new one, and its new forward tilt is different, but the rest of its moveset is mostly the same as before, remaining cloned from Pikachu's. While Pichu still runs slower than Pikachu, it now has much faster falling speed, gravity, and air speed, making it considerably faster in the air. Pichu's electric attacks are additionally now generally stronger than Pikachu's, rather than Pichu's attacks all generally being weaker as before. For additional new differences, Pichu has completely different non-attack animations, most of its shared moves have slight animation tweaks to better compensate for Pichu's much stubbier proportions, and its back aerial is now an electric-hitting move, though Pichu has lost its functional differences in its down smash, up aerial, and down special, making those moves function much more similarly to Pikachu's equivalents. Pichu retains the other differences it had in Melee, and overall Pichu remains a fairly close clone to Pikachu.
Richter	Simon	Full clone		Simon and Richter are completely identical moveset-wise, with identical attack properties, frame data, and animations.	Aside from different taunts, the only gameplay difference Richter has is that his Holy Water uses the aura effect rather than the flame effect due to emitting blue flames, which is a very minor change—under tournament conditions, it only marginally affects his matchup with Olimar and characters with explosives. As such, the Belmonts are considered the same entity competitively, and so share the same spot on tier lists and matchup charts.
Roy	Marth	Semi-clone		Roy has a unique neutral attack, forward tilt, up tilt, dash attack, forward smash, down aerial, and neutral special. His Final Smash has the same name and concept as Marth's, but behaves differently.	Roy and Marth received the same new forward throws, and Flare Blade can change direction while Shield Breaker can be angled. This does not affect Roy's semi-clone status; he is still essentially a faster semi-clone of Marth whose sweetspot and sourspot placements are reversed, and he retains all other differences he had in Smash 4.
Toon Link	Link	Semi-clone		Toon Link has a unique third neutral attack, dash attack, forward smash, up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, grab, forward throw, back throw, down special, and Final Smash.	Toon Link has a new single-hit forward smash, but Link also received his own changes, losing his Clawshot in exchange for a standard grab, as well as gaining remote-controlled bombs for his down special and a new Final Smash in Ancient Bow and Arrow. Toon Link retains all other differences he had in Smash 4, however, this is not enough to push Toon Link out of semi-clone status, as he still shares a good chunk of his moveset.
Wolf	Fox	Pseudo-clone		Wolf's only similar moves are his neutral aerial, back aerial, grab, pummel, side special, down special, and Final Smash. His neutral special and up special follow the same theme as Fox's, but are so different that they are practically their own unique moves (which is reflected in those moves have distinctly different Japanese names from Fox's, being クローブラスター, Claw Blaster, and ウルフシュート, Wolf Shoot, respectively). The rest of Wolf's moveset is unique, and Wolf's attributes are significantly different.	Wolf's non-attack animations have been changed, including those that used to be directly copied from Fox, but many of them remain quite similar. In addition, he got the same Final Smash rework of having Landmaster replaced with an airstrike attack. Aesthetically, he also now holds a device in his hands to use his Reflector, just like Fox does. Wolf has also received a new forward smash and dash attack, while the functioning of some of his other moves have been altered, though these moves were already unique from Fox's variations. However, his neutral aerial was changed to a sex kick very similar to Fox's neutral aerial, and the animations for Fox's back aerial and Wolf's back aerial got changed to be similar to each other, removing two of his unique moves. For one more new functional change with his Reflector, its intangibility window has been significantly nerfed, but it now hits opponents away at an upward angle with increased knockback, giving it more distinct offensive use as a tool to setup combos, in contrast to Fox's that primarily serves as a gimping tool offensively. Finally, his forward throw, which already had a different animation but identical frame data, gained different frame data, fully making it a unique move. All other differences Wolf had in Brawl are retained, but overall he retains just enough similarities with Fox to still be considered a pseudo-clone.
Young Link	Link	Full clone		Young Link has a unique third neutral attack, dash attack, grab, down special, and Final Smash. Additionally, Young Link can perform a rapid jab, whereas Link can not.	Young Link did not receive many changes, effectively acting as a legacy version of the changed parent Link. For his attributes, Young Link retains his wall jump, faster running speed, and higher jumps, but now has faster falling speed, faster air speed and air acceleration, and faster frame data across the board, allowing him to more effectively act as a faster but weaker version of Link. The fire arrows from Young Link's neutral special additionally now launch vertically, making them a combo tool unlike Link's arrows, and Young Link's down aerial can no longer meteor smash but Link's down aerial now does. Young Link retains his other differences from Link that he had in Melee, and is overall more distinct, being around the line where his clone classification can be argued.

General notes

• The Fighting Mii Team from SSB4 returns in Mob Smash. Once again, they are clones of the Mii Fighters, but lack special moves.
• Like in Melee, Giga Bowser once again returns as a boss character distinct from Bowser that is coded similarly to a playable character. Due to substantial changes made to Bowser's moveset between Melee and Ultimate, as well as Giga Bowser's smaller and more limited moveset, Giga Bowser now appears to be a semi-clone of Bowser at most.
• In the Nintendo Direct of November 1, 2018, when Sakurai was talking about Ken, he humorously noted that Luigi (although now a pseudo-clone as of Ultimate) could be considered the original "echo fighter", as he was initially introduced as a simple palette swap of Mario in 1983's Mario Bros. Likewise, Luigi was originally a full clone of Mario in the original Super Smash Bros.
• Although Link now holds his sword and shield in his right and left hands to match Breath of the Wild, his animations are simply mirrored, which otherwise does not affect Young Link and Toon Link's clone status.
• Chrom can be considered as a semi-clone of Lucina, as their blades share the distinctive attribute of dealing equal damage throughout the blade, even though Chrom is based off Roy. Compared to Lucina, Chrom is faster, heavier and stronger, but jumps lower, falls faster, and has a much less safe recovery.
  • Likewise, Toon Link can be considered a semi-clone of Young Link, with both being smaller, lighter, faster, and weaker versions of Link. They both share unique traits that the primary Link does not possess, such as a tether grab, the ability to wall jump, standard bombs that explode on impact, a grounded Spin Attack that hits multiple times as opposed to once, and the use of Triforce Slash as a Final Smash. Compared to Young Link, Toon Link is faster, but many of his moves consistently are single-hit as opposed to multi-hit, generally having less damage racking potential in exchange for generally stronger knockback and KO potential, and his projectiles travel more slowly but can more effectively control space as a result.
• In World of Light, all Echo Fighters are affiliated with Dharkon, whereas their original fighters are all affiliated with Galeem.
• In Classic Mode, most clones are located in the same unlock column as the character they are based on, with the only exceptions being Roy, Chrom, and Ganondorf.
  • It should be noted that since Chrom shares his unlock column with Marth and Lucina, Roy is the only character whose moveset is derived from Marth to not share the same unlock column with him.

Datamine notes

Datamining reveals that several of the newcomers in Ultimate, similarly to Super Smash Bros. 4, started development as clones of veteran fighters before being reworked into distinct fighters, with small traces remaining leftover. This list does not cover Echo Fighters:

• Inkling shares multiple attributes with Mario despite otherwise not being a clone; these include traction, short hop height, double jump height, air speed, air acceleration, air friction, gravity, a similar double jump animation, and the ability to wall jump. This suggests that Mario was a template to create Inkling, similar to Mr. Game & Watch in Melee.
• Simon's animation for getting stunned is identical to Captain Falcon, despite not being a clone. This suggests that Captain Falcon was a template for Simon and was carried over to his Echo Fighter Richter during development.
• Ridley contains code for gliding despite the mechanic lying dormant in the codes for Ultimate; inspecting the code reveals it is identical to Charizard, who could glide back in Brawl, suggesting Charizard was a template for creating Ridley.
• Piranha Plant has files that are named identically after Bowser Jr., suggesting that Bowser Jr. was a template to create Piranha Plant.
• Hero shares several animations (heavy carry, battering item, home run swing, special flag, and dash attack) and passive shield ability with Link, suggesting Link was a template to create Hero.
• Min Min has leftover animations for an unused down special, a grounded and aerial variant of Captain Falcon's Falcon Kick; this suggests Captain Falcon was a template for Min Min, similar to Little Mac. Min Min's down aerial (a dive kick) animates similarly to the aerial version of Falcon Kick, just like how Little Mac's back aerial animates similarly to Falcon's back aerial, further suggesting this. The leftover animations go unused due to Min Min's down special changing only her right arm.

Trivia

• Jigglypuff and Ganondorf are the only characters to have been a type of clone of someone outside of their series.
  • Jigglypuff is so far the only character to go from a clone archetype to a character considered unique enough to not even qualify as a pseudo-clone.
• Metroid and Kid Icarus are the only series whose Echo Fighters were canonically born as clones. Coincidentally, their characters first debuted on the NES in 1986:
  • In the 100% ending of Metroid Prime, the eponymous villain stole Samus' Phazon Suit and was cybernetically resurrected as Dark Samus.
  • In Chapter 5 of Kid Icarus: Uprising, Dark Pit's creation was sabotaged after Pit shattered the Mirror of Truth, resulting in the doppleganger's neutrally aligned personality.
• Fire Emblem is the only series to have more than one Echo Fighter.
• Simon and Richter are the only pair of clones who are stated to have taken inspiration from each other, rather than one being explicitly developed before the other, with the pair sharing Simon's abilities from Super Castlevania IV and Richter's additional abilities from Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.
• Most of the clone groups are collectively given colloquial terms due to their significant similarity. Often all characters of a clone group are applicable to a subject at hand, such as describing how a particular combo works on them, or referring to who someone plays, as often players of these characters will play other characters of the clone group.
  • Fox, Falco, and Wolf are often referred to under the collective name of the "Spacies", sometimes unabbreviated as the "Space animals". The term originated in the early competitive days of Melee for Fox and Falco, being the first such collective clone group terminology to gain popular traction, and players of the later Smash games would embrace the term.
  • Marth and Lucina are often referred to by the portmanteau "Marcina". Similar terminology applies to "Chroy", for Roy and Chrom.
  • Peach and Daisy are also sometimes referred to by a portmanteau, "Paisy". "Princess" is another alternative, but this is uncommon due to it being applicable to other unrelated characters with the same title, most notably Zelda, who is not a clone.
  • Simon and Richter Belmont are simply referred to by their family name, "Belmont".
  • Ryu and Ken are often referred to as the "Shotos", the traditional FGC term for all Ryu-derived characters in the Street Fighter series.
  • Pikachu and Pichu are often referred to as the "Rats", which originated as a disparaging nickname for Pikachu in Smash 64 due to its long-standing status as that game's undisputed best character, and then was later adopted by Ultimate players to refer to both of them, often with similar negative connotations.
  • Ness and Lucas are often referred to as the "PK kids".
  • Pyra and Mythra, as a pair of both semi-clones and transformation characters, are either collectively referred to by the portmanteau "Pythra", or as the Aegis, their collective name in Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
  • To refer to Pit and Dark Pit, Samus and Dark Samus, or Link, Young Link, and Toon Link, the most common method is to pluralize the parent character's name; i.e., "Pits" and "Links".
  • Mario, Luigi, and Dr. Mario are often referred to under the collective term of the "Plumbers" or the "Mario Bros."; however, Mario and Dr. Mario specifically are sometimes also referred to as the "Marios", similarly to the aforementioned "Pits" and "Links", given that they are not only the same character in canon, but have much more in common with each other gameplay-wise than either of them does with Luigi.
• Masahiro Sakurai indirectly talked about the concept of clone characters in a YouTube video. He states that characters should be unique and distinct without being incongruent to the design philosophy of the game, as a roster of characters that mostly play the exact same would not be fun.