Multi-Man mode

Ness fights in the 100-Man Melee.

Multi-Man mode (組み手 Kumi-te, Paired Karate Form) is a single-player mode that appears in Super Smash Bros. Melee (as Multi-Man Melee), Super Smash Bros. Brawl (as Multi-Man Brawl), and Super Smash Bros. 4 (as Multi-Man Smash). They challenge the player to defeat as many opponents as possible in a six-player battle, under various pretenses, before falling from the stage or self-destructing. The opponents vary between the three games; Melee challenges the player to defeat Fighting Wire Frames, Brawl challenges the player to defeat Fighting Alloys, and SSB4 challenges the player to defeat the Mii Fighters. During a Multi-Man Brawl, every 25th character spawned is a character, rather than an alloy. In Brawl, it is possible to play Multi-Man Brawls with up to two players, and the game's compatibility with the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection allowed one to play the mode online.

List of Multi-Man Melees and Brawls

Sonic fights in the 100-Man Brawl mode.

• 10-Man Melee and Brawl, which challenges the player to defeat ten opponents. This is the shortest of all Multi-Man Melees and Multi-Man Brawls, usually taking between 10 and 20 seconds to complete for an amateur player, though world records are all within roughly 6 and 7 seconds.
• 100-Man Melee and Brawl, which challenges the player to defeat one hundred opponents. This usually takes a few minutes for players to clear, and can get quite difficult on higher difficulties. In Melee, the last wire frame fought will always sustain noticeably less knockback than the others, and in Brawl, the last character fought is always a color change of the player's character. In both games, clearing 100-Man Melee/Brawl will give the player an opportunity to face Falco, where victory will result in unlocking the character. There are also some other challenges involving this mode.
• 3-Minute Melee and Brawl, which challenges the player to defeat as many opponents as possible within 3 minutes.
• 15-Minute Melee and Brawl, which challenges the player to defeat as many opponents as possible within 15 minutes. This is arguably one of the more difficult Multi-Man Melees and Brawls, though simple strategies such as spamming a certain move or evading the opponents altogether will suffice. Clearing 15-Minute Melee will result in unlocking the Kongo Jungle stage, which originally appeared in Super Smash Bros., while clearing 15-Minute Brawl unlocks the Green Alloy Trophy
• Endless Melee and Brawl, which challenges the player to defeat as many opponents as possible before being knocked out, themselves. It has no time limit, nor does it have a knock-out limit, unlike other Multi-Man Melees and Multi-Man Brawls, and as such can go on for an infinite amount of time. Defeating 50 and 100 enemies in Endless Brawl unlock the Mach Rider (Melee) CD and Yellow Alloy Trophy respectively.
• Cruel Melee and Brawl, which challenges the player to defeat as many opponents, with high handicaps and increased aggressiveness, as possible before being knocked out, their self. It is unarguably the most challenging Multi-Man Melees or Brawl, as the opponents faced are immensely harder than those who appear in the other modes, and no items appear. Defeating five opponents in Cruel Melee will result in unlocking the Mr. Resetti trophy. Defeating five opponents in Cruel Brawl will result in unlocking a trophy depicting the Red Alloy. Lastly, defeating ten opponents in Cruel Brawl will result in unlocking a sticker depicting Liquid Snake.

Items that don't appear in Multi-Man modes

Several items are disabled from appearing in Multi-Man modes due to being considered too overpowering or useful to the point where obtaining them can lead to earning high scores that are near impossible to beat otherwise:

• Dragoon
• Hammer
• Golden Hammer
• Recovery items (Food, Heart Container, Maxim Tomato)
• Poké Balls appear, but no legendary Pokémon will spawn from them
• Smash Ball

Some other items are also banned for less obvious reasons:

• Sandbag
• Container items (except Capsules)
• Lip's Stick (Wire Frames and Alloys are immune to the flower effect)

Many players dislike how items such as Bob-ombs are allowed, which can appear right where a high-damage player is attacking and end a match without warning.

Other Multi-Man scenarios

• The first part of the Battlefield stage in Melee's Adventure Mode is a match against fifteen Fighting Wire Frames.
• The Melee Event Match Legendary Pokémon is also sometimes dubbed a Multi-Man Melee, due to the goal of defeating several Fighting Wire Frames.
• Stage 11 of the 1P mode of Super Smash Bros. pits the player against a Fighting Polygon Team of 30; while the game existed prior to the "Multi-Man" moniker, the term is applied retroactively to this scenario due to the similarity between the two modes.

Trivia

• In cooperative Multi-Man Brawl, there can be up to 7 characters playing at a time. This is impossible in any other mode in the series outside of hacking.
• In the eShop game Kirby Fighters Deluxe, Team Dedede is the final boss. It consists of up to 61 small versions of King Dedede, two medium sized versions, and then a large King Dedede, modeled after Multi-Man Mode.