Young Link (SSBM)

Young Link in Super Smash Bros. Melee
Universe	The Legend of Zelda
Availability	Unlockable
Tier	B (15)

“	Young Link is lighter and faster than his older self, and his Kokiri sword packs less punch.	”
—Description from Young Link's trophy

Young Link (こどもリンク, Child Link) is a character in Super Smash Bros. Melee. He is a direct clone of Link, with some minor differences. Young Link was replaced with Toon Link in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

He ranks 15th on the tier list in the B tier, one place higher than Link. Young Link has a very good approach due to some low lag aerials, a great SHFFL and a good wavedash, as well as three projectiles. Young Link also is a potent comboer due to his projectiles, and can also edgeguard and space well. However, Young Link's primary flaw is that he has trouble KOing, due to the lack of an efficient quick KO move and having difficulty in hitting cleanly with his smash attacks (except his down smash). Additionally, like Link, Young Link has a slow and predictable recovery, though his ability to wall jump, bomb jump and use his hookshot give him some options. Young Link's recovery, however, is particularly disappointing for his weight class.

How to unlock

For players to unlock Young Link, the Classic or Adventure Mode has to be completed with ten characters, two of which have to be Link and Zelda/Sheik, characters from the Legend of Zelda series. Alternatively, the player can take part in 500 VS. matches.

When fought, Young Link appears on Great Bay, with Saria's Song playing in the background.

Attributes

As a fighter, Young Link appears as a lighter, weaker, and faster form of Link, and generally falls under the same archetype as a character, similar to characters such as Ness. Other properties of Young Link, however, are almost identical to those of Link. His airspeed and falling speed are identical to Link's, and he has only slightly lower traction, giving Young Link a slightly longer wavedash than Link. Unlike the latter, Young Link is a lightweight and gets sent farther than Adult Link. Young Link's primary asset is his range. His Kokiri Sword gives him a disjointed hitbox that can allow him to strike from a range, and his specials all give him access to a variety of projectiles that can cause damage and start combos from significant distances. Young Link's projectiles are surprisingly damaging, especially in comparison to Link's; his bombs catch opponents in the blast with multiple hits, allowing for combo potential, and both his boomerangs and Fire Arrows inflict more damage and hitstun than Link's, allowing for some dangerous combo starters against his opponents. Coupled with a long-ranged grapple, Young Link's range is among the highest in the game.

Additionally, Young Link has access to a surprisingly good approach game. In addition to his aforementioned range boons, Young Link's aerial approach is very good. Fast, low-lag aerials and a small short hop coupled with a high falling speed gives Young Link a very good SHFFL, and his high air speed can allow him to easily pursue enemies in the air. These traits also give Young Link a surprisingly good edgeguarding game; Young Link's recovery options are great as well, with a relatively high third jump and a wall-grapple to assist him, as well as the ability to wall-jump.

Young Link's KO options are varied and often different than those found on most other characters. Young Link's neutral aerial and down tilt are quite powerful, with the former having almost nonexistent ending lag when SHFFL'd. Additionally, Young Link's forward smash has the unusual property of being two hits: one with fixed knockback, and one with powerful vertical knockback, acting as a trap of sorts. One of Young Link's most reliable finishers is his dash attack, which can KO at as low as 95% on some characters, and is unusually fast.

Young Link's primary flaw, however, is his inability to easily and efficiently hit with his finishers. His neutral air requires him to be in the air first, and the remainder of his attacks can prove too awkward to hit with. His dash attack requires the first few frames to connect, and its ending lag can prove to be problematic; that and the inability to send the opponent upwards unless hit at a precise point of the sword and being a semi-spike, which characters (like Fox and Link) can tech out of. With proper use of DI, it's possible to avoid the second hit of Young Link's forward smash. Furthermore, Young Link's down aerial, which can act as one of the most powerful meteor smashes in the game, has a very small and situational sweetspot, significantly hindering its usefulness off the edge. His forward aerial is also among the weakest forward aerials to both combo and finish with, and his back aerial is significantly worse than his counterpart's.

Young Link's light weight makes him considerably easier to KO than other characters; this itself acts as a problem for Young Link due to his poor recovery in comparison to other characters of his weight class (such as Mewtwo or Jigglypuff).

Also, Young Link's hitboxes act much like Roy's hitboxes in that they are significantly weaker near the tip of Young Link's sword, especially in knockback, meaning that Young Link's approach and control must be with complete precision.

Young Link's Kokiri Sword, being made of wood, makes "smacking" sound effects when it connects for every attack except for Young Link's up throw and up special. Young Link's Deku Shield is also slightly less durable than Link's (higher-damage projectiles will phase through the shield).

Moveset

For a gallery of Young Link's hitboxes, see here.

Young Link's aerial attacks

		Name	Damage	Description
Neutral attack			3%	Same as Link's; two initial slashes, and then it can be either a single launching stab if the A Button is pressed just three times, or a barrage of stabs if it's pressed in quick sucession.
			2%
			5%
			1%
Forward tilt			12%	Brings sword down, in an axe-like fashion. Considerably faster than Link's.
Up tilt			8%	Swings in an arc above himself. Quick, leads into various air combos if the foe DIs wrong. Above average KO power beyond high damages, usually 120%+, but can KO faster than his up smash.
Down tilt			10%	Swipes sword whilst crouching. Can lead into various combos, though somewhat slow. Incredibly powerful meteor smash if used against a foe on the ledge; unlike Link's, the meteor smash hitbox is located on the tip of the sword, making it considerably more useful for edgeguarding.
Dash attack			10%	Slashes in front and slows down. Surprisingly powerful for a dash attack, and it has the unusual property of Young Link to charge forward. With the ability to KO starting at 95%, it is one of Young Link's most used finishers.
Forward smash			7% then 10%	Swings his sword in front once with low set knockback, and if the A Button is pressed again, he will do a much more powerful cleave to follow. The first hit easily chains into the second, though it can be DI'd out of. Very strong finisher, damage and knockback wise.
Up smash			13% (Total)	Does his up-tilt three times in a row. Hits all usually follow into each other with the final having the most knockback, though DI makes it an unreliable finishing attack. Fully charged is usually the toughest time to get all hits successfully connecting. The last hit has the unusual property of being able to send opponents to the left or right of him.
Down smash			13% (Front), 11% (Back)	Swipes sword to both sides.
Neutral aerial			6-12%	A standard "sex kick". Stronger than Link's.
Forward aerial			12% then 7%	Two sword swings in front. Some ending and startup lag.
Back aerial			7% then 6%	Two kicks to his behind. The last hit is hard to connect with unless the player is attempting to land the last hit without the first hit.
Up aerial			15%	Aims sword upwards. Not good for KO-ing, better at juggling.
Down aerial			14% (Initial), 17% (After), 21% (Meteor Smash), 8% (Bounce hit)	Very similar to Link's, thrusts his sword down with massive damage, knockback, ending lag, and duration, and makes Young Link bounce after hitting a foe. If the opponent is positioned above or to the side of Young Link, they will be meteor smashed powerfully at an angle. Because opponent must be positioned above or to the side of Young Link to meteor smash, it is fesible to edgeguard opponents from above or ending this attack after a combo. If the opponent is below Young Link, it results in considerable vertical knockback on the first hit, making it a great KO move. Second strongest meteor smash in Melee thanks to its immense base knockback and somewhat high knockback scaling (Ganondorf's down aerial gets stronger at higher percentages due to its even higher knockback scaling), and its one of the strongest meteors on grounded opponents in Melee. Though it is very difficult to meteor smash opponents on a soft platform, it is capable of Star KOing any grounded opponents (only if the characters are on the soft platform) under 150%.
Grab aerial		Hookshot	5%	Uses his hookshot. The attack has the unusual property of not suffering from the Stale Move Negation. With low damage, knockback and hitstun, as well as long lag, the move has relatively little use outside of being used for recovery, though its long range can potentially catch opponents off-guard, and it benefits from Young Link's small short hop. This move has transcendent priority.
Grab			—
Pummel			3%	Whacks the foe with the end of his sword's handle.
Forward throw			6%	Kicks foe forward. Can chaingrab against heavy foes, or can simply lead into a combo or follow-up attack.
Back throw			5%	Takes foe and kicks them to his back.
Up throw			7%	Takes foe and swings his sword in an arch above, launching to foe above. Can lead into various combos, or simply his up aerial. At high percentage it can lead to his down aerial's meteor smash (up to 200%) if timed correctly.
Down throw			6%	Suddenly grounds the foe and tackles them. This launches the foe temporarily in the air right in front of Young Link, and can lead into many combos, though being DI-able.
Forward roll Back roll Spot dodge Air dodge		—	—
Techs		—	—
Floor attack (front) Floor getups (front)			6% (Each Side)	Quickly swipes to both sides and picks himself up.
Floor attack (back) Floor getups (back)			6% (Each Side)	Quickly swipes to both sides and picks himself up.
Edge attack (fast) Edge getups (fast)			8%	Gets up and flips, thrusts out sword.
Edge attack (slow) Edge getups (slow)			8%	Climbs up slowly and sticks out his sword in a similar fashion to the third hit of his neutral attack.
Neutral special		Fire Bow	8% uncharged; 15% fully charged	Shoots flaming arrows that do not travel as far as Link's and do slightly less damage. It has more hitstun than the Hero's Bow.
Side special		Boomerang	7-18%; 1% (Return)	Throws the boomerang. Young Link's doesn't go as far as Link's does, but it does do more damage.
Up special		Spin Attack	13% (Total, Ground); 11% (Total; Air)	Hits 13 times on the ground, and 5 times in the air. This move has transcendent priority.
Down special		Bomb	12% (total)	Grabs a bomb to throw. His bombs hit 4 times.

Taunt

Young Link drinks his Lon-Lon milk, then wipes his lips. This is the longest taunt in the game.

Victory Theme

An orchestrated portion of the main theme from The Legend of Zelda series.

In Competitive play

Matchups

Super Smash Bros. Melee Character Matchups

Avg.

Notable players

See also: Category:Young Link professionals (SSBM)

Active

•  Axe
•  Laijin
•  SparkingZero

Inactive

•  Armada
•  Chip
•  ChuDat
•  Jash

In single-player modes

In Classic Mode

Young Link can appear in ordinary one-on-one matches, as an opponent or ally in team battles (paired up with either Link or Zelda), as a giant-sized opponent, or as an opponent in the metal fight. In these cases, Young Link either appears on Great Bay or Temple, with the exception of the metal battle. In all such instances, bar the metal fight, Saria's Song will play.

In Adventure Mode

The Adventure Mode makes no concessions to Young Link when he is unlocked.

In All-Star Mode

In All-Star Mode, Young Link and his allies are fought on the stage Jungle Japes, with Saria's Song playing, as the remainder of the Zelda stages are instead taken by Link and Zelda.

In Event Matches

Young Link is featured in the following event matches:

• Event 34: Seven Years: As Young Link, the player fights Link with 3 stock each on the Great Bay stage.
• Event 49: All-Star Match Deluxe: Young Link is the fourth opponent fought in this series of staged battles. The selected character battles him on the Great Bay stage with a stock of 2 while Young Link 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, Roy and Ganondorf.

Ending images

• YLinkClassicMode.jpg

  Classic Mode.

• YLinkAdventureMode.jpg

  Adventure Mode.

• YLinkAllStarMode.jpg

  All-Star mode.

Trophies

Young Link (Classic Mode, Trophy #287)
Link's younger incarnation is often considered to be the true Link: he was a young boy in the very first Legend of Zelda game, and he has appeared as a youth in most of the subsequent games. Since his debut on the original NES in 1987, Link's appearance has changed over and over again, each time adding to the mystique of his incomparable story.

• The Legend of Zelda

Young Link (Smash Red, Adventure Mode, Trophy #288)
Young Link is lighter and faster than his older self, and his Kokiri sword packs less punch. Even though his Boomerang has a shorter range, he has greater control over it. He's a smaller target, and while his Hookshot has less reach than older Link's, you can still use it in midair as a last ditch attempt to grab a ledge.

• B: Fire Bow
• Smash B: Boomerang

Young Link (Smash Blue, All-Star Mode, Trophy #289)
With a youthful spring in his step, Young Link can perform amazing wall-jumps. Once he hits a wall, tap the Control stick in the opposite direction to send him leaping upward; you can practice to your heart's content in Target Test. His Spin Attack can strike multiple times even on the ground, and although it's hard to discern, so do his Bombs.

• Up B: Spin Attack
• Down B: Bomb

Alternate costumes

Young Link's in-game alternate costumes in Melee

Trivia

A comparison of Link and Young Link's respective Hookshots.

• Link and Young Link's hookshot use the same model; as a result, it looks larger when Young Link uses it.
• Young Link appears in the background of Link's montage in the introduction to Melee, making him one of the five hidden characters, along with Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Mewtwo, and Pichu, to have some kind of involvement in the intro.
• Despite the Deku Shield's vulnerability to flames in Ocarina of Time, the Deku Shield is able to block fire projectiles in Melee.
• Young Link and Dr. Mario are currently the only clones in Melee who are ranked higher than their original characters on the tier list.
• Because of its length, Young Link's defeat cry does not properly terminate when he is KOed on the left, right, or bottom blast lines; similar behaviour occurs with Mr. Game & Watch.
• Young Link, Toon Link and Roy are the only swordfighters in Super Smash Bros whose swords consistently produce a punch/kick sound effect instead of a slashing sound effect for the majority of their attacks.