Roy (SSBM)

Roy in Super Smash Bros. Melee
Universe	Fire Emblem
Availability	Unlockable
Tier	B (20)

“	While Roy's moves are well balanced, he's a little on the slow side, and doesn't excel at midair combat.	”
—Description from Roy's trophy.

Roy (ロイ, Roy) is a secret character in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Roy is a clone of Marth, with all of their moves having the same animations and most having similar functioning, although they do also have their differences in their fighting styles (primarily in the location of their sweet and sourspots). Like Marth, he is a hidden character, making Roy the only clone of an unlockable character.

Roy is currently ranked 20th on the tier list, in the B tier. Roy's upsides include a good approach due to one of the best SHFFLs in the game, as well as a good grab game, and among the best reaches in the game. However, Roy's flaws are significant, including poor flexibility in his comboing game, attacks that are difficult to properly land, generally possessing significantly laggy attacks, possessing few moves that can KO and only one of which (forward smash) that is an adequate finisher, and among the worst recoveries in the game while being a light character that is heavily susceptible to combos; as a result, Roy has significant KOing problems while being easy to KO himself, leading to numerous matchups hard countering him, especially against those who are higher-tiered than him.

How to Unlock

To unlock Roy, the player must complete either Classic or Adventure Mode as Marth without using a continue, or play 900 VS. matches.

Roy is fought on the Temple stage, with the track "Fire Emblem" playing.

Attributes

Overall, Roy doesn't fall into any specific archetype of characters; while having a slew of powerful attacks, Roy himself is rather nimble, with a relatively fast dash, a good dash dance and a very high falling speed. Roy, however, has a relatively poor air speed. A combination of a fast falling speed and a low traction gives Roy a decently lengthed wavedash.

Among Roy's primary strengths is his overall power in most of his ground based attacks. Roy's forward smash is a fast attack and is his primary KO move. Additionally, Roy has a rather powerful, if laggy down smash, and a up smash with multi-hit properties, decent knockback, and, when tipped, spike properties, though the lattermost property is rather situational. Roy's specials are also powerful; his Flare Blade is a deadly edgeguard tactic, almost guaranteeing a OHKO if fully or almost fully charged, his Double-Edge Dance naturally combos into itself and can act as a reliable finisher, and his Counter varies in power against other attacks. Against smash attacks, Roy's Counter can quickly become his most powerful move; its pseudo-semi-spike properties also makes it useful when the opponent's back is to the ledge.

Roy also has a decent ground-based approach. Despite his only average wavedash, Roy still has access to a disjointed hitbox with his Sword of Seals, as well as a rather fast dash in general. Additionally, a combination of low-lag, fast aerials and a very high falling speed gives Roy a fantastic SHFFL; Roy's SHFFL is among the best in the game due to its extreme speed, and it is potentially faster and stronger than even Marth's. Roy's down tilt also sends opponents directly upward, with decent hitstun, giving Roy a very good method to start combos. Additionally, while Roy's wavedash is not as long as Marth's, it can still aid his approach, aided by his disjointed hitbox and long grab range. As a result of his rather good approach, Roy has among the highest reaches in all the game, with only Marth having a superior reach.

Roy's grab game is also surprisingly good. Roy has the second highest grab range among characters who do not have extended grabs (such as Link), behind only Marth in this regard. His throws can easily chain into each other; their low knockback and high grab range allow Roy to decently tech chase and chain grab. His up throw, unusually, is also the second strongest in the game and can chain grab other fast fallers. Roy's grab game comprises a good deal of his edgeguard game. A common tactic is to force opponents off the stage with a down throw or forward throw and immediately intercept their recovery with a forward smash or Flare Blade.

Roy, however, has his primary flaw in his disjointed hitbox. Unlike Marth, who can safely attack opponents from a distance, Roy must go into incredibly close ranges to deliver strong damage and knockback, as the sweetspot on his sword is closer to the hilt than tip; while attacks can become incredibly powerful at this close of a range, this causes Roy to become very vulnerable, especially against characters with powerful close range attacks or grabs, such as Fox, Falco or Mewtwo. While Counter can potentially mitigate against physical attacks, it requires particularly good reads from the player to avoid punishment, and the attack is completely ineffective against grabs. Roy's sourspot is also unacceptably weak compared to Marth's; while Marth still has some KOing potential in his sourspotted attacks, Roy's sourspotted attacks have very poor knockback and damage in comparison. As a result of this very close sweetspot, Roy himself lacks a particularly reliable KO move; with the exception of his forward smash and potentially his down smash, Roy has few options to quickly KO others, and even with these two attacks, Roy needs to connect with them in close ranges in order for them to have any reasonable KOing power. Further compounding Roy's problems with KOing are his aerials; even when sweetspotted, none of these aerials can reliably KO under 200%, they require good setups in order to properly connect, and none of them can easily inflict damage in the first place. Roy also lacks any "quick" KO options; while Roy has two meteor smashes (the third hit of his "up" Double Edge Dance and his down air) and one spike (his tipped up smash), all three are highly situational, requiring particularly lucky or skilled setups in order to properly connect. Coupled with poor off-the-stage options as a result of high-lag aerials that are all of high risk off the edge and a poor recovery, Roy is almost completely dependent on attempting to rack up damage with short combos, culminating in a reliance on wavesmashing and edgeguarding to garner KOs.

Roy also has poor comboing ability, in stark contrast with Marth; Roy has slightly below average air speed like Marth, but Roy's sweetspot once again hurts him. Roy cannot move fast enough in the air to hit with the hilt of his blade, causing primarily tippered attacks, resulting in low hitstun and hitlag attacks, hurting Roy's comboing game. Roy himself, however, is easy to combo; like other fast falling characters, his high falling speed harms him by making him extremely vulnerable to chain-throws and potentially even the space animal slayer. Even with the fast falling speed, Roy's vertical survivability from the upper blast line is decidedly average, due to his lighter weight than characters such as Captain Falcon.

Roy, just like Marth, also has a non-stellar recovery, though his faster falling speed makes Roy's recovery one of the worst in all the game; adding to this, his high falling speed makes him extremely vulnerable to edgeguarding, as well as being easy to gimp. While Roy's Blazer is slightly more effective than Marth's Dolphin Slash, due to its greater horizontal distance, multi-hit properties that can aggravate edgeguarders, and its ability to be controlled to an extent, Roy still has the high ending lag in his Blazer; additionally, while Roy can still use Double Edge Dance to recover horizontally, it is not as effective as Marth's Dancing Blade again due to his higher falling speed.

Differences From Marth

Attributes

• Roy's sweetspot is placed at the hilt of his blade, meaning he fights at close range in order to be most efficient. Roy's sweetspot is larger than Marth's, but Marth can space the tipper sweetspot of his sword for maximum safety and damage.
• Overall, Roy's sourspot does far less knockback and damage than Marth's, and his sweetspots do somewhere in between the knockback and damage of Marth's sourspot and sweetspot, this was probably done because Roy's sweetspot is far larger than Marth's so players would supoosedly hit with it more often.
• Roy's dash speed is slower and his dash dance window is smaller.
• Roy falls significantly faster than Marth, which has a number of consequences. He is much easier to combo, has a much worse recovery, and is usually unable to go off-stage for edgeguards or gimps, hindering his ability to close out stocks at low percentages.
  • However, this also makes him take less vertical knockback than Marth, despite Marth remaining heavier than Roy, and makes his SHFFL faster than Marth's.
• Almost all of Roy's moves have hitboxes that come out slower, remain out for less frames, or stay out for the same period as Marth's but with slower animation speed (leading to unfortunate hitbox timing on moves like his dash attack). All of these moves contain far more lag at the end than Marth's
• Roy is lighter than Marth. It hinders his survivability slightly but makes him less susceptible to waveshine followups from Fox as he is knocked down by the shine.

Ground attacks

• His jab does not have a second hit and is slower, making it worse for edgeguarding characters with linear recoveries, such as Fox or Falco.
• His forward tilt and up tilt are significantly weaker than Marth's.
• Instead of having horizontal knockback, his down tilt has vertical knockback, which leads to many combo setups, especially on fast fallers. In exchange, this makes Roy's down tilt much less useful for neutral resets against the rest of the cast.
• His forward smash's sweetspot is much larger.
  • However, it is slightly slower and its sourspot is significantly weaker than Marth's sourspot, and, despite common belief, Roy's sweetspoted Forward Smash is very slightly weaker than Marth's sweetspoted Forward Smash (Although it is barely noticeable and is still fairly powerful.)
• Roy's up smash has multi-hit properties and doesn't have sourspots at the sides, making it easier to hit with. It can also Spike if it was hit with the tip on the first few frames (although, because of the timing for it to Spike this can be considered situational).
  • Although, it is still weaker than Marth's tipped Up Smash.

Aerial attacks

• All of Roy's aerials are weaker than Marth's in both knockback and damage.
• Roy's neutral aerial has a sourspot on the second hit.
• Roy's down aerial is very difficult to sweetspot with, and its sweetspot is a meteor smash instead of a spike (meaning it can be meteor cancelled).

Special moves

• Flare Blade is much stronger than Marth's Shield Breaker and can charge for a longer period.
  • It deals 10% recoil damage to Roy when fully charged.
• Blazer has multiple hits, can be angled forwards for better horizontal recovery, and has slightly less landing lag than Dolphin Slash, and Blazer's first hit has very strong set knockback which can kill floaty characters like Jigglypuff and Peach at 0% on certain stages.
  • However, it is significantly weaker and slightly slower than Dolphin Slash, and covers slightly less vertical distance.
• Roy's Counter does 1.5x the damage and knockback of the move countered, making it a powerful KO move when used against strong attacks (such as Captain Falcon's Falcon Punch, Ganondorf's Warlock Punch, or Bowser's Forward Smash).
• The window of time in which Roy can counter attack is much shorter than Marth's, and the move itself takes a slightly longer time to initiate.

Grabs and throws

• Roy's grab range is shorter (Although it is still very long).
• Roy's down throw knocks opponents at a slightly higher angle.
• All of Roy's throws deal 1% more damage than Marth's and do slightly more knockback.
  • This means his throws leave his opponent further from him hindering his tech chases and chain grabs.

Other

• Some of Roy's attacks have the flame effect.
• Roy's idle animation differs from Marth's.
• Roy's taunt is different.
• Roy's Counter pose is slightly different.

Moveset

For a gallery of Roy's hitboxes, see here.

Roy's aerial attacks

A demonstration of the spike hitbox of Roy's up smash.

All of Roy's attacks are at their strongest when they hit with the centre of the Sword of Seals; if an attack hits with both the sourspot and sweetspot hitboxes, then the sweetspot usually takes priority but sometimes sourspots do occur.

		Name	Damage	Description
Neutral attack			6% (base), 5% (middle), 3% (tip)	Similar to Marth's, he slashes in front of him. Roy, however, only slashes once, and at a slower rate than Marth. 3/5/6%.
Forward tilt			10% (middle) 12% (base), 7% (tip)	A slash in front, somewhat slower than his Neutral Attack, it takes more if extremely close to Roy. Can KO at high percentages or when the blast line is close by.
Up tilt			6-10% depending on time and position	Upwards slash, similar in appearance to neutral attack. Despite generally covering Roy's hurtboxes, it is less powerful and has less combo potential than Marth's.
Down tilt			12% (base), 10% (middle), 6% (tip)	A sword poke to the ground. Has longer hitstun than most of Roy's other attacks, and also sends opponents upward, making it a good combo starter overall. Its range and speed makes it a very favorable move to use for neutral game and spacing, as well as edgeguarding.
Dash attack			12% (base), 6% (tip)	Slashes in front of him. Like Marth's, can either send opponents in front of him, behind him, or above him. Because this move has a slower animation overall than Marth's, but the hitboxes are active for the same frames, the move starts before he even swings the sword and ends before it reaches halfway through his swing in front of him.
Forward smash			20% (base), 12% (tip)	Roy swings his sword in an arc in front of him. An attack very similar to Flare Blade, only one handed and leans forward more. It is rather fast, and is Roy's primary KO move.
Up smash			17%	A relatively quick sword thrust upwards with fire effects. Can actually spike if enemy is hit on the sword's tip during the start of the attack, though this is highly situational. This attack is a multi-hit attack and the last hit has decent vertical knockback, if enemy is hit at the base.
Down smash			21% (base, front), 14% (tip, front), 16% (base, back), 8% (tip, back)	Sweeps his sword on both his sides via an outward slash in front then an inward slash behind. A decent finisher, useful for vertical KOs, though there is rather high ending lag.
Neutral aerial			4% (hit 1), 8% (hit 2 base), 5% (hit 2 tip)	Two swipes around him via an inward slash then a full outward spin, with decent knockback and damage if sweetspotted.
Forward aerial			8% (base), 5% (tip)	Swipes sword in front of him with surprising range and tends to be a primary combo tool due to its speed and recovery.
Back aerial			9% (base), 6% (tip)	Turns around and swipes inward his sword, similar to his forward aerial in terms of usage and knockback. Like Marth's back aerial, this move turns Roy around.
Up aerial			9% (base), 6% (tip)	Swipes above outward while doing a delayed backflip. Meant to be a juggle tool, but is often subpar due to its low early knockback.
Down aerial			9% (base), 6% (tip)	Swipes below via an outward wide slash. While it acts as a meteor smash, it's rather weak and has nearly unrecoverable ending lag. The sweetspot is extremely tiny; the hilt is required to be touching (having Roy overlapping the opponent significantly), making the move more difficult to hit with than Jigglypuff's Rest.
Grab			—	5th longest grab range overall and the second longest non-tether grab.
Pummel			3%	Knees opponent.
Forward throw			5%	Grabs and pushes forward, tripping with the leg.
Back throw			5%	Pulls and extends leg simultaneously.
Up throw			5%	Thrusts opponent upwards. Can chain-grab the Space Animals at lower percentages. It is the second strongest up throw in the game.
Down throw			6%	Tosses the foe to the ground. Chain grab potential.
Forward roll Back roll Spot dodge Air dodge		—	—
Techs		—	—
Floor attack (front) Floor getups (front)			6%	Sweeps the tip of his sword on the ground front to back. Less range than floor attack from back.
Floor attack (back) Floor getups (back)			6%	Quick stab to the left followed by horizontal slash to the right.
Edge attack (fast) Edge getups (fast)			8% (sword), 6% (base)	Flips onto ledge with a quick downward diagonal slash from left to right.
Edge attack (slow) Edge getups (slow)			8% (sword), 6% (base)	Gets up and slashes.
Neutral special		Flare Blade	6% (uncharged) to 50% (fully charged)	An overhead slash similar to the forward smash, but can be charged for longer with more powerful results. This attack has transcendent priority.
Side special		Double Edge Dance		A sequence of sword maneuvers with several variations. All variations have transcendent priority.
Up special		Blazer	5% (first hit), 1% (the others), 13% (total)	Roy soars upwards with his flaming sword which has the ability to engulf enemies in flame. This move can be aimed by quickly pushing the control stick in a direction after the initial up special. It does more damage on heavy characters such as Ganondorf. Hits 5 times.
Down special		Counter	1.5x the damage of the countered move	Blocks and retaliates against incoming attacks.

Cheer

• PAL/NTSC-US: "Roy's our boy!"
• NTSC-JP: "Roy, Roy, Roy!"

In Competitive play

Matchups

Super Smash Bros. Melee Character Matchups

Avg.

Roy has a below-average matchup spread. According to the matchup chart, he has the 21st weighted total (tied with Yoshi). He counters only Pichu, soft counters two characters, and has two even matchups. On the disadvantageous side, he is soft countered by four characters, countered by twelve characters, and is hard countered by four. His poor comboing ability, awful recovery, and vulnerability to combos have resulted in him struggling against most of the cast, with his matchups against those who can exploit his latter two problems (like Sheik and Jigglypuff) being especially terrible. The need to get up close in order to hit with his blade's sweetspot has also been cited as a major problem, as he cannot strike from afar without losing a heavy load of power in his attacks; such a detrimental property gives him trouble against characters with more favorable hitbox placement (like Marth and Falco).

Notable players

See also: Category:Roy professionals (SSBM)

Active

•  Pyro
•  Sethlon

Inactive

•  Masashi
•  NEO
•  Ripple

Tier placement and history

On the current tier list, Roy ranks 20th, in the B tier. Roy as a competitive character has been ranked very low on most revisions of the tier list, with his highest rank being fifteenth on two separate occasions. Despite boasting some decent attacks and a good SHFFL, Roy has ranked low primarily because of his risky, unsafe approach, stemming from the poor sweetspot placement of his sword; Roy's physics also harmed his tier placing, as his high falling speed makes him easy to combo, creating poor synergy with his risky approach that favours close-ranged fighting, and it also causes his recovery to become considerably worse than most other characters. Roy's metagame also did not boast the potential creativity of other characters, especially Marth, owing to his over-reliance on his smash attacks; a lack of Roy mains have also prevented his metagame from potentially evolving, and most of Roy's previous mains have either become inactive in the tournament scene or have elected to use other, higher-tiered characters. Roy himself does not place well in tournaments, even in low tier tournaments, and arguably Roy's only notable representation in the current Melee metagame has been via Mew2King and PewPewU, who occasionally use him in games against lower-leveled players or in smaller-scale tournaments as a weaker substitute for their usual Marth.

The "Tier Wars" and comparison to Marth

Marth's and Roy's differences became the center of controversies on GameFAQs' tier list debates, specifically in 2003 and 2004, when the competitive scene was picking up. Marth players who generally supported the tier list claimed Marth had overall better attributes, in terms of speed, weight, and recovery capabilities. They also cited tournament results as proof for his superiority, with a multitude of professional Marth users such as Ken placing extremely high in major tournaments, while Roy lacked any such representation to back up the anti-tiers' arguments. Roy players who generally opposed the tier list, however, claimed that Roy's different attributes, such as his larger sweetspot in the center of his blade and general "superiority" in power, were enough to allow him to be as efficient of a character as Marth was; they also argued that professionals needed to learn how to use Roy as a different character from Marth in an attempt to disprove the tournament results.

Owing to the fact that these debates took place before extensive testing of Melee's engine, the debates were plagued by numerous inaccuracies that have since been disproven. The point about Marth's extra weight, for instance, is now considered moot; his extra weight is decidedly negligible, and can even be interpreted as a disadvantage, considering his extra weight makes him susceptible to Fox's shine combos, while Roy's lighter weight makes him immune to such combos. More importantly, pro-tiers made a common assumption that Marth is faster than Roy. While Marth indeed has a faster dashing speed, this claim is questionable, considering that Roy's SHFFL is faster than Marth's due to his falling speed and lower short hop. Similarly, some points brought up about Roy's viability are also now considered inaccurate. For instance, Roy's "superiority" in power has been disproven, as many of Marth's attacks, tipped and non-tipped, deal more knockback and damage than Roy's respective centered and non-centered strikes. The sweetspot in the hilt of the blade is now considered a disadvantage and one of the main reasons for Roy's poor tier placing; while Marth can attack from afar and still deal respectable damage, Roy cannot do so, lest his attacks hit with extremely low knockback; Roy's sourspot on the entire length of his blade, besides the hilt, is also much weaker than Marth's sourspot on the hilt of the Falchion.

Overall, the prime reason for Roy's named inferiority is precisely the one that anti-tiers tried to refute: Roy has too much trouble trying to KO his opponents. Marth has far more creative and flexible ways to string together moves, deal damage, KO, and edgeguard (especially due to his down aerial spike). Roy, however, lacks the same flexibility in his comboing and KOing games, and is instead heavily reliant on predictable and repetitive chaingrab and down tilt setups, with almost all of his viable combos ending in a forward smash. Roy's edgeguarding game is also considerably worse than Marth's; while Roy's down tilt is more useful for combos, it is not at all useful for intercepting the majority of recoveries (unlike Marth's). Additionally, Roy has a notoriously poor off-stage game due to his falling speed and ineffective aerials, which hinders his ability to perform gimps without SDing. The current metagame for Melee reflects these differences: Marth ranks in the S tier at 4th place and features numerous dedicated mains, while Roy ranks in the B tier at 20th, and has very few dedicated mains.

Perhaps in spite of his inferiority to Marth, Roy still has a notably large fanbase in the Melee community, partially stemming from his notable roles in some machinima. In an unofficial poll held by NinBuzz, Roy was actually voted the fifth favourite Melee character amongst viewers, gaining 9% of the vote.

In single-player modes

In Classic Mode

Roy's unused intro image.

Unusually, Roy does not appear at all in the Classic Mode when unlocked, neither as an ally, nor as an opponent; the reason for this is unknown. Despite this, Roy does have an introduction image for the "Now Loading..." screen between matches programmed into the disc.

In Adventure Mode

The Adventure Mode makes no concessions to Roy when he is unlocked. Like Marth, however, music associated with him can play in the Underground Maze stage.

In All-Star Mode

In All-Star Mode, Roy and his allies are fought on Final Destination, as Roy was not designated an official home stage. Final Destination has the unusual property of playing the Fire Emblem music track when accessed this way.

In Event Matches

Roy appears in two Event Matches:

• Event 46: Fire Emblem Pride: The player battles and must defeat a team of Marth and Roy in an untimed match in the Temple stage, with all three characters receiving 3 stock.
• Event 49: All-Star Match Deluxe: Roy is the fifth opponent fought in this series of staged battles. The selected character battles him on the Temple stage with a stock of 2 while Roy has 1. With a timer of four minutes, the player must defeat him and the other five characters one-by-one with the overall time and damage: Dr. Mario, Falco, Pichu, Young Link and Ganondorf.

Ending images

• 

  Classic Mode.

• 

  Adventure Mode.

• 

  All-Star Mode.

Japanese Translations

Roy speaks less than fellow Fire Emblem character Marth, only speaking in the Results screen.

Roy's three victory lines are:

• "苦しい戦いだった。", which translates to "It was a difficult fight."
• "真の戦いは、これからだ。", which translates to "The true fight is yet to come."
• "守るべきもののために、負けられない!", which translates to "For those whom I must protect, I will not lose!".

Trophy Descriptions

In addition to the normal trophy about Roy as a character, there are two trophies about him as a fighter, unlocked by completing the Adventure and All-Star modes respectively with Roy on any difficulty:

(Smash Red)

While Roy's moves are well balanced, he's a little on the slow side, and doesn't excel at midair combat. His blade, the Sword of Seals, gives him excellent reach, and makes his Double-Edge Dance slightly different than Marth's Dancing Blade. When it's fully charged, Roy's destructive Flare Blade delivers an instant KO.

• B: Flare Blade
• Smash B: Double-Edge Dance

(Smash Blue)

Roy's blade is different than Marth's; he does the most damage hitting with the center of his sword. So, a fearless advance into the arms of his foe is Roy's best bet. Blazer is a bit slower than Marth's Dolphin Slash, but it's still a mighty attack that sets anyone it strikes aflame. Roy's attack after using Counter differs slightly from Marth's.

• Up & B: Blazer
• Down & B: Counter

• 

  Classic

• 

  Adventure

• 

  All-Star

Alternate costumes

Roy's changeable clothing in Melee

Trivia

Closeup of Roy's sword, showing the text "HAL LABRATORY.INC"

• Roy does not feature a sheath during gameplay and his "Challenger Approaching" screen like Marth does; this is considered unusual, as Roy has a sheath in his victory poses, official art, character select portrait and all three of his trophies, as well as his unused Classic Mode introduction.
• Roy and Marth are the only two characters in Melee that speak Japanese, regardless of language settings.
• Roy and Marth are the only playable characters in Melee that don't have a stage representing their universe, though hacked data shows that one was planned.
  • In Melee's All-Star Mode, Roy is fought on Final Destination. In his two Event Match appearances and his unlock battle, he appears on Hyrule Temple.
• Roy with his Flare Blade, Mr. Game & Watch with his Judgement, and Pichu with most of its electric attacks are the only characters in Melee to have attacks that directly damage themselves. Kirby can also harm himself if he copies either Roy or Pichu.
• Along with Marth, Roy was originally going to be a character exclusive to the Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. Melee, but was kept in all versions on request of an employee at Nintendo of America. Because of their inclusion, American fans became interested in Fire Emblem, which sold in countries where the games in the series had not been released.
• Roy, Marth, and Peach are the only characters in Melee with a special move that can counter.
• Roy's appearance in Melee was the first time he appeared in any game, as his game was released after Melee.
  • This technically makes Roy the first ever playable Nintendo character to debut through the Super Smash Bros. series.
• Close examination of textures for the Sword of Seals shows that the text "HAL LABRATORY.INC" was included in the file. It is not known why the signature is there.
• All of Roy's sourspotted attacks make a punch/kick sound effect instead of a slashing sound effect.