Event 51: The Showdown

Event 51 The Showdown
Official description	Giga Bowser, Mewtwo and Ganondorf unite!
Character(s) used	Choose (3 stock)
Opponent(s)	Ganondorf (3 stocks) Mewtwo (3 stocks) Giga Bowser (3 stocks)
Stage(s)	Final Destination
Music	Multi-Man Melee 2
Availability	Unlockable
For reward	Final Destination Final Destination trophy

The Showdown (ホントの最終決戦, REAL Final Battle) is the 51st and final event match of the 51 event matches in Super Smash Bros. Melee, unlocked upon clearing the previous 50 events. This event match gives the player a choice to play as any playable character before the match, like most Melee event matches. The match is a 3 stock match, and there are 3 opponents: Giga Bowser, Ganondorf, and Mewtwo. All three opponent characters are main antagonists from highly represented universes and share a darkness attack; Giga Bowser from the Super Smash Bros. universe (the gargantuan version of Bowser from the Mario universe), Ganondorf from the The Legend of Zelda universe, and Mewtwo from the Pokémon universe in Pokémon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back. The match takes place on Final Destination, which is unlocked after clearing this event.

Despite being the final event and arguably the most difficult under normal circumstances, the opponents themselves are weaker than usual; Ganondorf and Mewtwo are only level 5, while Giga Bowser is level 6 (and Giga Bowser's AI almost never shields). Additionally, they all deal decreased knockback (only a slight 5% decrease for Ganondorf and Mewtwo, but a large 35% decrease for Giga Bowser), and Giga Bowser also sustains 50% more knockback himself (despite the massive increase in knockback sustained, Giga Bowser still sustains less knockback than every regular playable character, just now slightly less than the heaviest characters). The event's difficulty comes from the player simply being overwhelmed, by the opponents controlling most of the stage, opposing hitboxes covering a large amount of the stage most of the time, and the player sustaining massive damage whenever caught by any of the opponents. Additionally, Giga Bowser's size gives him massive reach, enough to cover nearly half the stage, necessitating aerial approaches. This will leave the player heavily vulnerable to Ganondorf's frequent Dark Dives (who is also often behind Giga Bowser, leaving him usually safe from the player's aerial attacks, and making it easy for him to catch the player with the move), requiring a player to either hit him out of it with an aerial attack or dodge and punish. The lack of Friendly Fire also means that players cannot attempt to get the three to inflict damage to each other, with the exception of potential AI exploits. With there being three opponents controlling most of the stage, it can also be difficult to get items before the opponents do.

Similar to Multi-Man Melee, some items do not spawn in the event match due to being too powerful if the player grabs or uses them first, or making the event match too difficult if an opponent grabs or uses them first. These items are the Hammer, the Home-Run Bat, both Poison and Super Mushrooms, and Starman. Container items, with the exception of the Party Ball, also cannot appear. In addition, no healing items can spawn in the mode; as a result, Chansey, when spawned from a Poké Ball, will only be able to drop throwable eggs. However, Legendary Pokémon can still spawn from Poké Balls and Party Balls full of Bob-ombs can still appear.

Rewards

After beating this event, Final Destination is unlocked as a playable Versus Mode stage, as well as its corresponding trophy. A special notice is displayed if the event is cleared without losing a stock, saying "You cleared Event 51, The Showdown, with no falls!"

Trivia

• The final event match in Brawl, Event 41: The FINAL, Final Battle, is similar to this event match, with Giant Mario replacing Giga Bowser, and Sonic and Snake succeeding Ganondorf and Mewtwo. Both events are also fought on Final Destination.
  • In addition to this, both this event and Event 41 in Brawl share a Japanese name.
• This is the only Melee Event other than the first one to use the Multi-Man Melee 2 track. In this way, they may serve as 'bookends' to mark the first event (Event 1: Trouble King) and the final event (Event 51: The Showdown) of the game.
• Defeating Giga Bowser in Adventure is not required to unlock this event match. It is not strictly necessary to ever have faced Giga Bowser in Adventure before unlocking and playing this event. Whereareas most other events need to have their combatants unlocked or accessible first. To unlock this event, the player must unlock all the unlockable characters, have completed Classic, Adventure, and All Star at least once each (aside from Giga Bowser), and have completed all other 50 events.
• Coincidentally, Simon fights the same 3 opponents in this event in Round 5 of his Classic Mode route in Ultimate. The only two differences are that Simon fights all three opponents on the default form of Reset Bomb Forest rather than Final Destination, and Simon fights a normal playable Bowser instead, as Giga Bowser himself is only a standalone boss in Adventure Mode: World of Light and Mario & Captain Falcon's Classic Mode routes each.