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, too useful, or increasing survival odds (to the point where obtaining them can lead to earning somewhat higher scores in a faster time and more easily than would otherwise be done), too difficult to make real use of, and/or too dangerous to the player should the opponents obtain it:

• Dragoon (Could be extremely difficult to complete before the Alloys do, if it gets completed at all. Also, the Alloys may not be capable of interacting with this properly (?), but would be a likely KO for the player if they did.)
• Hammer (Overly dangerous to the player if enemies get it, as well as too easy of KO's for the player; also the added danger of losing the Hammer Head making the player completely vulnerable and unable to recover.)
• Golden Hammer (Overly dangerous to the player if enemies get it, as well as overly easy KO's for the player; also the added danger of getting a Piko Piko Hammer making the player almost completely vulnerable and unable to recover.)
• Recovery items (Food, Heart Container, Maxim Tomato) (Healing is overall forbidden in any mode involving survival, for obvious reasons)
• Poké Balls appear, but no legendary Pokémon will spawn from them
• Smash Ball (Also, the Alloys have no Final Smash programmed, so may not safely interact with it)

Some other items are also banned for less obvious reasons:

• Sandbag (Possibly due to it's constant state as a movable barrier, adding protection to the player as well as hindering their own attacks)
• Container items (except Capsules) (Possibly due to their state as destructible barriers, similar to Sandbag)
• Lip's Stick (Wire Frames and Alloys are immune to the flower effect, so it may be removed due to overall uselessness)

Many players dislike how certain items (particularly explosive ones, such as Bob-ombs) are allowed, which can spawn right where a high-damage player is attacking and end a match with little warning. (Though only possible at item spawn areas)

• It may have been included as it is a natural part of the Smash games, using items and knowing how to deal with them. It may be expected that players attempting these modes already understand and accept items as part of natural play.

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.