identical in animation, which is part of what makes them clones.
A clone is a character whose moveset, animations, and general properties are mostly derived from another character, as opposed to being unique to them. All clones have some sort of gameplay difference compared to their parent — as they would otherwise be relegated to being an alternate costume instead — but on the whole, they will generally be very similar to their parent, to the point where a casual player might play either in the same way. However, this is not to say that playing a clone like their parent will be successful: Roy may be a clone of Marth in Melee due to sharing all his attacks and animations, but as his movements and hitboxes are all altered, his optimal playstyle is completely different.
Clones are a common inclusion in various fighting games, as it is significantly less expensive in time and resources to develop a character using another character as a base than it is to do everything from scratch, while still potentially forming a character of unique playstyle and fanbase. However, despite being easier to make and thus resulting in a larger roster overall, fans are quick to show disdain for clones, perceiving them as stealing resources from potential unique characters.
The term "clone" can also be used to refer to individual moves. For example, Charizard's Flamethrower is a clone of Bowser's Fire Breath, as even though the characters are not related, they are the same type of move with identical function.
It is uncommon for clones to be starter characters; they are more likely to be unlockable characters. If a clone's parent is also unlockable, it is very likely for the clone to be unlocked after their parent.
Subtypes
The term "clone" does not by itself sufficiently describe how similar two characters are. Perhaps two characters share all but one attack, while another pair has only half of their attacks in common while still clearly being a derivative overall. As a result, there is a spectrum of terms to describe how much of a clone a character might be.
- A full clone (often shortened to just "clone") will have unique taunts and victory poses[1], may have unique attributes (such as being heavier or faster) or non-combat animations (such as running or jumping), and perhaps a unique attack or two. Otherwise, they share effectively all moves and animations with their parent. Dr. Mario in Melee and Lucina in SSB4 are examples of full clones.
- A semi-clone has several unique attacks and animations of their own while retaining a significant amount from their parent. Luigi in Melee and Isabelle in Ultimate are examples of semi-clones.
- A pseudo-clone is for the most part their own unique character, but with enough moves or animations copied from their parent that it would be inaccurate to say they are not cloned to some degree. Wolf in Brawl is one of the few pseudo-clones.
It is not uncommon for a cloned character to receive further differentiating changes in later games, thus making them less of a clone. Some use the term Luigification for when a character is separated from their parent and forms their own identity, as Luigi has done in both his home series and the Smash Bros. series. However, it is generally very difficult to determine at what point a character who was once a clone is no longer a clone.
Ultimate introduces the term Echo Fighter to refer to certain clones. The term is used to determine which characters are grouped together on the character selection screen when the corresponding menu option is enabled, and also forces such characters to share the same fighter numbers with an appended epsilon (ε). Otherwise, it is simply a term used by the developers to denote a character as being low-budget; as a result, it does not fit into the spectrum of clone terms used by the community to discuss the degree of similarity in the final result. For example, Dr. Mario is a full clone, while Ken is a semi-clone, but Ken is labeled as an Echo Fighter while Dr. Mario is not.
The Japanese term for "Echo Fighter" is Dash Fighter (ダッシュファイター), and uses the prime symbol (') instead of an epsilon. In Japanese, the prime symbol is pronounced "dash," hence the term "Dash Fighter"; in mathematics, the prime symbol is used to designate that something is derived from something else, such as x′ being derived from x.
Clones in Super Smash Bros.
While all four of the unlockable characters were created with the premise of reusing some of the pre-existing characters' movements and models[2], two of them (Captain Falcon and Ness) are unique enough that they are not clones of their parents (Samus and Mario respectively), and mainly only copy from their skeletons rather than their movesets.
| Clone | Parent | Category | Different moves | Attributes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luigi | Mario | Full clone | Luigi's only unique attacks are his dash attack and down tilt, though his taunt is unique among the cast in that is has a hitbox. | Luigi's special moves all have different purposes: his Fireball's lack of gravity alters where it controls space, while his Super Jump Punch and Luigi Cyclone are both one-hit power moves rather than trapping combo moves. In general, Luigi is slower than Mario and has fewer combos and inferior approaching ability, but has a better recovery and more KO moves. |
| Jigglypuff | Kirby | Semi-clone | Jigglypuff's unique attacks include its up smash, back aerial, up aerial, forward throw, and all special moves. | While Jigglypuff shares many of Kirby's animations and properties (such as having six jumps), it is generally difficult to compare the two, as the pair are historically not seen as a semi-clone in the same way that other characters are. |
Notes
- The Fighting Polygon Team is composed of full clones of all 12 playable fighters, though they cannot use special moves.
Clones in Super Smash Bros. Melee
Originally, Masahiro Sakurai was going to include significantly fewer playable characters in Melee. However, with fans wanting more characters while time was constrictive, Sakurai decided to add clones later in development to pad out the roster, as these characters would take a lot less time to develop than unique characters. According to Pichu's page on the Japanese website, clones were known as model swap characters (モデル替えキャラ).[3]. Clones are marked on the character selection screen as recessed icons next to the fighters they are based on.
Luigi received many changes that distanced him from Mario considerably, changing him from a full clone into a semi-clone. On the other hand, Jigglypuff and Kirby both received changes significant enough that Jigglypuff is no longer considered any sort of clone.
| Clone | Parent | Category | Unique moves | Attributes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dr. Mario | Mario | Full clone | Dr. Mario's moves are all identical to Mario's, though he throws Megavitamins that act similarly to Mario’s fireballs, as well as a few more unique properties. | Dr. Mario has stronger attacks in general, with some of them having unique properties: his forward smash is an electrical attack without a sourspot, his forward aerial is a non-meteor powerful finisher, and his neutral aerial (which has a slightly different animation) is a sex kick with its strongest hit at the end instead of the beginning. Dr. Mario also cannot wall jump and has a worse recovery in general. Despite Dr. Mario's trophy describing him as "a tad slower" than Mario, the two have identical speed stats, with the exception of Dr. Mario's slightly faster air speed. |
| Falco | Fox | Full clone | While Falco's entire moveset has different functions from Fox's due to different knockback or properties, all of his moves are completely identical in concept and animation. | While Falco's moves all look the same as Fox's, they all have different properties and therefore applications. For example, Fox uses his up smash and up aerial as his main high-power KO moves, while Falco instead relies on his forward smash and down tilt. Fox's flinchless Blaster is ideal for tacking on damage for free, while Falco's (which has a different animation) can flinch and so is more suited for poking and interrupting approaches. The two both use their Reflector as the main focus in their strong combo games, but Fox's is a weak sideways hit that can also gimp, while Falco's knocks upwards and can loop into his single-hit down aerial. |
| Ganondorf | Captain Falcon | Full clone | Ganondorf has a single-hit neutral attack and a unique forward aerial. The rest of Ganondorf's moveset is cloned, though he is consistently much slower but stronger than Captain Falcon. | Ganondorf is significantly heavier and much more powerful than Captain Falcon, and while his movement is slower, most of his attacks do not lose too much speed. Almost all of Ganondorf's attacks are viable KO options and have some sort of property difference, such as aerial Wizard's Foot acting as a powerful spike. Most notably, Ganondorf's up tilt (the Volcano Kick) is the slowest-to-hit attack in the game and has correspondingly extreme power, whereas Falcon's up tilt is a simple attack not much different from other up tilts. |
| Luigi | Mario | Semi-clone | Luigi has a unique up tilt, down tilt, dash attack, forward smash, forward aerial, and side special. The final hit of his neutral combo is also different. | Luigi's Super Jump Punch no longer grants any horizontal distance. While his down smash, neutral aerial, and down aerial look the same as Mario's, they behave quite differently. |
| Pichu | Pikachu | Full clone | Pichu's only unique move is its up smash, though it has various other properties, most notably recoil damage from electrical attacks. | Pichu is generally faster and weaker than Pikachu, which is excaberated by its electric attacks inflicting self-damage. Most special moves have minor differences; Skull Bash is stronger and can be charged for longer, Agility covers more space than Quick Attack but deals no damage, and Thunder is a multi-hit move. |
| Roy | Marth | Full clone | Roy only has one part to his neutral attack. The rest of his moveset is cloned from Marth's, though with visible fire effects and an inversed tipper mechanic. | While Marth's sweetspot is at the tip of his sword, Roy's is at the hilt, which affects almost his entire moveset and so enforces a completely different style of play. Roy is also slower than Marth in most aspects. His up smash and up special are multi-hit moves, and his Counter does not deal fixed damage like Marth's. |
| Young Link | Link | Full clone | Young Link's moves are all weaker than Link's, but his entire moveset is otherwise the same as that of Link. | Young Link is a smaller, faster, and weaker character overall. He can wall jump, his grounded Spin Attack is a multi-hit move, his arrows are on fire, and his forward smash's first hit is purely a setup for the second hit rather than a launching move by itself. |
Notes
- Wario was initially considered as a clone for Mario during development. Ultimately, Dr. Mario was chosen instead.[4]
- As Luigi and Dr. Mario share a "parent" in Mario, it could be argued that they are technically semi-clones of each other.
- Giga Bowser is effectively a full clone of Bowser; he is omitted from the above list due to not being a playable character.
- The Male and Female Wire Frames are clones of Captain Falcon and Zelda, respectively, though without special moves. Unlike the previous game's Polygons, they also have weaker movesets.
- Master Hand and Crazy Hand could be considered semi-clones, as they share most of their attacks while having some unique attacks and many unique animations.
- Coincidentally, all clones' head icons face the opposite direction as their parent's.
Clones in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
None of the newcomers in Brawl are full clones, though there are new lesser clones. In addition, most of the clones from Melee were cut, with the two that returned (Falco and Ganondorf) now becoming semi-clones. As a result, there are no full clones in Brawl.
| Clone | Parent | Category | Different moves | Attributes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Falco | Fox | Semi-clone | Falco has a different neutral combo, up tilt, forward smash, neutral aerial, and forward aerial, while he also uses his down special differently. | Falco keeps many of his differences from Melee, such as which of his attacks are more powerful than Fox's, while gaining a few new ones alongside his changed attacks. Most notably, he kicks his Reflector out instead of holding it in place, which can trip opponents and extends its reach, but means he cannot hold it forever or use it as part of a combo engine. |
| Ganondorf | Captain Falcon | Semi-clone | Ganondorf has a unique neutral attack, forward tilt, down tilt, up smash, forward aerial, up throw, side special, and Final Smash. | Ganondorf's new Twilight Princess design gives him a wide variety of new animations, even for attacks that still mirror Falcon's. Flame Choke is the biggest change, giving him a new and mostly unique special move. Otherwise, Ganondorf remains slower and more powerful than Falcon. |
| Lucas | Ness | Pseudo-clone | Lucas's only similar moves are his dash attack, forward smash, up aerial, pummel, and special moves. The rest of his moveset is unique, and even then his shared moves feature different properties. | Having mostly a unique moveset of his own, Lucas's similarity to Ness is primarily in his weight and skeleton being identical to Ness's. However, Lucas jumps higher but runs slower than Ness. His special moves are fairly similar to Ness's, but with major functional differences, such as PK Thunder being a multi-hit attack. More importantly are his attributes; he has mostly the same physical properties as Ness, and both suffer from an additional 10 frames of grab release lag that no other character has. This is the only clone pair where the derived character is the starter and the parent is unlockable. |
| Luigi | Mario | Semi-clone | Luigi has a unique neutral combo third hit, up tilt, down tilt, dash attack, forward smash, down smash, forward aerial, down aerial, side special, down special, and Final Smash. | Mario's Mario Tornado changing from his down special to his down aerial is the main new difference between him and Luigi, in addition to Luigi being able to crawl. Luigi's down smash also has a new animation further distinguishing it from Mario's. Additionally, Luigi has been given some new animations and now has his own voice clips, rather than re-using a sped-up selection of Mario's. |
| Toon Link | Link | Semi-clone | Toon Link has a unique up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, forward throw, and back throw. | Toon Link retains many of the same differences from Link that Young Link had in Melee: he is smaller, faster, and weaker, can wall jump, and has a forward smash that only launches on the second hit, a more controllable Boomerang, and a multi-hit grounded Spin Attack. However, many of his standard attacks are now considerably different from Link's, making him a semi-clone instead of the full clone that Young Link was. As proof that Toon Link was derived from Link, there is an error where his forward throw is treated as a Foot attack like Link's even though it is a shoulder tackle. |
| Wolf | Fox | Pseudo-clone | Wolf's only similar moves are his forward throw, pummel, and all special moves (including his Final Smash). The rest of his moveset is unique, and even then, his shared moves all feature different properties. | Historically, Wolf's status has been very unclear and heavily debated ever since Brawl's release. Like Lucas, his main similarity to his parent is in his special moves; his Blaster is fairly unique by only firing a single shot and has a melee hitbox, and his side special hits with his body instead of producing damaging afterimages, but overall they are evidently all derivations of Fox's. The majority of his moveset is otherwise unique. In addition, the vast majority of Wolf's non-combat animations (such as dodges, getups, and item actions) remain exactly identical to Fox's, even in cases where they do not connect properly into his other animations as a result. |
Notes
- The Fighting Alloy Team are all clones: Red of Captain Falcon, Blue of Zelda, Yellow of Mario, and Green of Kirby (with Jigglypuff's forward, back, and up throws). Like their predecessors, they lack special moves.
Clones in Super Smash Bros. 4
Super Smash Bros. 4 re-introduces full clones, adding one such veteran and two such newcomers. These clones were originally developed as alternate costumes, but it was later decided to give them a difference in moveset, resulting in them being split into their own characters — as "even a small difference in abilities" requires a unique roster slot. There are no new semi-clones, and returning semi-clones were not given much in the way of new differences. Clones are marked on the character selection screen by being listed outside of the rest of the characters from their series.
Most clones and semi-clones share at least one custom move, though full clones have more custom moves in common.
| Clone | Parent | Category | Different moves | Attributes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dark Pit | Pit | Full clone | Dark Pit has his own Final Smash, though it is still cloned from another character(s) (Zelda and Sheik, specifically). The rest of his moveset is compltely identical, though his rapid jab finisher, forward tilt, neutral special, and side special all have different properties. | Dark Pit was made into a clone because Sakurai did not like the idea of him using Pit's Three Sacred Treasures for his Final Smash. Somewhat as a result, his other differences from Pit are extremely minimal — he has a smaller hitbox on his neutral attack rapid finisher (which is due to only Pit's equivalent attack getting buffed), his forward tilt deals weaker knockback, the arrows fired from his neutral special travel with less control but being stronger and faster, and his side special deals electrical damage with stronger knockback while hitting opponents at a horizontal trajectory. Due to his extreme similarity to Pit, most tier lists do not even give him his own placing, instead having him share Pit's spot. |
| Dr. Mario | Mario | Full clone | Dr. Mario retains his down aerial and down special from Melee, which, due to changes to Mario since, are now incidentally different attacks. Other still-cloned moves now have different properties, such as his up special. | Dr. Mario was made into a clone because Sakurai felt fans of his Melee incarnation would be disappointed to lose his uniquenesses. Concurrently, he retains most of his differences: while he can now wall jump (removing a difference), he now acts as a slower but stronger Mario due to built-in equipment multipliers, and his up special now only hits once without spawning coins. However, he is still very similar to Mario; his Final Smash and custom moves are all direct copies of Mario's (or Luigi's, in the case of Dr. Tornado). |
| Falco | Fox | Semi-clone | Falco has a different neutral combo, up tilt, forward smash, up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, up aerial, and down special. | Not much has changed for Falco; aside from his up smash and up aerial being slightly different, he retains most of his differences from Fox from the previous game. Notably, while he shares no custom moves with Fox, he and Fox both have custom neutral specials that replicate the other's default. |
| Ganondorf | Captain Falcon | Semi-clone | Ganondorf has a unique neutral attack, forward tilt, down tilt, up smash, forward aerial, up throw, side special, and Final Smash. | Ganondorf has not received any major changes that affect how much of a clone he is, though he did get a few minor animation- and functionality-related tweaks. His notably shares no custom moves at all with Captain Falcon. |
| Lucas | Ness | Pseudo-clone | Lucas's only similar moves are his forward smash, dash attack, up aerial, pummel, and special moves. The rest of his moveset is unique. | Lucas received no additional moves to distinguish himself from Ness. In fact, he now shares some non-attack animations with Ness despite having unique ones in Brawl, such as his Final Smash animation, dash ending animation, idle animation when holding items, and his clapping animation. In addition, all of Ness's special moves have custom variants that cause them to act like Lucas's (whereas Lucas, like all DLC characters, has no customs). |
| Lucina | Marth | Full clone | Although Lucina's damage output and knockback are altered throughout her entire moveset thanks to lacking Marth's tipper, her entire moveset is otherwise largely identical to Marth's in frame data and animation. | Lucina was made into a clone because Sakurai decided to have her act as an easier-to-play version of Marth, with equal power across her sword instead of a sweetspot at the tip. Concurrently, all of Lucina's attacks deal damage somewhere between Marth's sweetspots and sourspots, giving her a more aggresive and consistent playstyle. Despite lacking Marth's usual sweetspots, Lucina's up tilt has a timing-based sweetpsot on the latter half of the slash, where it will do more damage but less knockback. But aside from slightly different animations for Shield Breaker and Counter and a few other minimal changes (such as being slightly shorter, or a few of her moves not halting her horizontal momentum), she is completely identical to Marth in all other ways. |
| Luigi | Mario | Semi-clone | Luigi has a unique neutral combo, up tilt, down tilt, dash attack, forward smash, down smash, forward aerial, down aerial, down throw, side special, down special, and Final Smash. | Luigi's jumps are animated differently, being a scuttle instead of a block-punch. He has a new down throw as well, where he Ground Pounds the opponent. He also does not share any customs with Mario, aside from one that makes his Fireballs act like Mario's default ones. |
| Roy | Marth | Semi-clone | Roy has a unique neutral attack, forward tilt, up tilt, dash attack, forward smash, and down aerial. His Final Smash has the same name as Marth's, but behaves completely differently. | Roy is the most decloned character in SSB4, with several new moves as well as different animations on similar ones, largely involving him holding his sword in a reverse grip. While as a DLC character he has no custom moves, Marth's customs do not mimic his specials like Ness's do to Lucas. |
| Toon Link | Link | Semi-clone | Toon Link has a unique dash attack, up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, forward throw, and back throw. | Link being given a new dash attack makes Toon Link's more distinct, though Toon Link himself has received few decloning changes. The two Links do not share many custom moves. |
Notes
- As Luigi and Dr. Mario, as well as Lucina and Roy, share a common "parent" character in Mario and Marth respectively, both pairs can be argued as semi-clones of each other.
- Many standard and special attacks of the Mii Fighters are cloned moves from existing characters. Several of the Mii Gunner's moves are similar to Samus's or Fox's (with a couple similar to Ness's and Robin's). Similarly, the Mii Swordfighter shares moves with the swordfighters (specifically Link and Ike), while the Mii Brawler shares moves with Mario, Little Mac, and Captain Falcon.
- The Fighting Mii Team operates like Mii Fighters but lacks special moves, much like previous enemy teams.
- While Wolf is not present in this game, Fox's Fox Illusion has a custom variation that mimics Wolf's, even being named "Wolf Flash". Fox also has a Charge Blaster custom neutral special that only fires a single shot and a Twisting Fox custom up special that is a multi-hit move without fiery properties, which are also similar to Wolf's.
Clones in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
As stated above, Ultimate uses the term "Echo Fighter" to refer to certain clones based on development time. The term is not fully related to how unique a character is, as some full clones are not marked as Echo Fighters despite their similar movesets.
With Ultimate bringing back all veterans, every clone that was originally cut returns. However, most such clones did not receive many decloning changes.
| Clone | Parent | Category | Different moves | Attributes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chrom | Roy | Full clone | ε | Chrom has a unique up special mostly inspired by Ike's, as well as a unique Final Smash. The rest of his moveset is the same as Roy's, though without fire effects, and with altered damage and knockback outputs on all of his moves. | Like Lucina, Chrom is designed as an easy Roy, with his attacks being equally powerful across the blade. Other than this, however, Chrom's attacks are all fairly identical to Roy's, though his forward tilt moves him slightly forward. Chrom is the first "second-generation" clone, being cloned from a clone. |
| Daisy | Peach | Full clone | ε | Daisy's entire moveset is identical to Peach's; she has no discernable differences from Peach whatsoever. | Daisy has some unique non-combat animations such as standing and running, and many different aesthetics, but is otherwise completely identical to Peach in every possible way. The differing animations she has alter her hurtbox placements marginally, but not enough to change any matchups. |
| Dark Pit | Pit | Full clone | ε | Dark Pit has his own Final Smash. Aside from that, only his neutral and side specials have different properties. | Dark Pit's hitbox differences have been removed from his non-special attacks, making him even more similar to Pit. His Final Smash is unchanged, though since Zelda and Sheik have both received new ones, it can be argued whether it is still a cloned move. Other than that, Dark Pit retains his primary differences from SSB4. |
| Dark Samus | Samus | Full clone | ε | Dark Samus's moveset is exactly like Samus's in every way except for elemental properties and minor hitbox placements. | Most of Dark Samus's properties and hitboxes are the same as Samus's, with the most major difference being that most flame attacks are now electric ones. Dark Samus also has a large variety of unique non-attack animations, and most of her moves have altered animations, which has subtle effects on their hitbox placement (such as allowing some moves to hit shorter characters). Additionally, Dark Samus's rolls are faster, and her shield is bigger. |
| Dr. Mario | Mario | Full clone | Dr. Mario has a different down aerial, back throw, and down special. Several cloned moves also have different properties. | Aside from his new back throw, Dr. Mario is mostly unchanged, aside from both him and Mario receiving new, differing animations for their functionally-unaltered side specials. He retains his equipment multipliers, which have been made slightly more extreme. | |
| Falco | Fox | Semi-clone | Falco has a different neutral combo, up tilt, forward smash, up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, up aerial, down throw, and down special. | Both Fox and Falco received the same new Final Smash, so other than Falco's new down throw, he did not get any further decloning. | |
| Ganondorf | Captain Falcon | Semi-clone | Ganondorf has a unique neutral attack, forward tilt, down tilt, forward smash, up smash, down smash, forward aerial, pummel, forward throw, up throw, side special, and Final Smash. His shared moves, while sharing identical animations, have significantly different frame data, damage, and knockback that alters their functions. | Ganondorf received a new set of smash attacks involving his sword, so even though his Ocarina of Time design makes some of his attacks more similar to Falcon's, he is less like Falcon than ever before. However, his new up smash is similar to Ike's, and his new down smash resembles Cloud's. Falcon also received a slight change to his forward smash, meaning that even if Ganondorf had not received any changes, they would still only share their down smash. Also, Ganondord has new unique non-attack animations different from Falcon. | |
| Isabelle | Villager | Semi-clone | Isabelle has a unique neutral attack, up tilt, forward smash, up smash, down smash, neutral aerial, side special, and down special. Other various cloned moves, such as her dash attack, have minute property differences. | Isabelle is one of the two only new semi-clones in Ultimate, with her shared moves mostly being inspired by Villager rather than being copied from him. She is faster, lighter, and floatier than Villager, without the ability to wall jump. Sakurai has noted that Isabelle could not be made into an Echo Fighter of Villager due to her different body proportions, and him feeling that some of Villager's moves would be unsuitable for her. | |
| Ken | Ryu | Semi-clone | ε | Ken has uniqueness in his neutral attack, forward tilt, forward smash, neutral aerial, up aerial, back throw, and Final Smash. He also has two entirely new moves only accessible via command inputs. | Ken is the only Echo Fighter that is a semi-clone rather than a full clone (and one of the two only new semi-clones alongside Isabelle), with his various differences being taken from Super Street Fighter II Turbo. As such, some of Ken's attacks involve fire, his Hadoken is a different shape, and his Focus Attack is a kick (slightly modifying the placement of its hitbox). Some of Ken's standard attacks, including his forward smash, neutral aerial, and back throw, are different from Ryu's, most notably in the inclusion of his "crazy kicks," roundhouse kicks that can be canceled into his Inazuma Kick. His Heavy Shoryuken has a flame effect while hitting multiple times with high knockback as opposed to hitting once, and his Tatsumaki Senpukyaku hits multiple times, though having lower knockback compared to Ryu's. Ken also walks and runs slightly faster. However, he shares non-attack animations with the character he is based on, like the other Echo Fighters. |
| Lucas | Ness | Pseudo-clone | Lucas's only similar moves are his dash attack, forward smash, pummel, and special moves (including his Final Smash). The rest of his moveset is unique, and even then, many of his shared moves have different properties. | With Ness getting a new up aerial, they only share 3 normal attacks. However, his special moves are still relatively similar, he still shares non-attack animations, and his lesser attacks (floor and edge attacks) are perfectly identical. | |
| Lucina | Marth | Full clone | ε | Although Lucina's attacks all have altered damage and knockback values, her entire moveset is largely identical to Marth's in terms of frame data and animation. | Aside from getting a few minor changes making her even more similar to Marth (such as now being as tall as Marth or several of her attacks now halting her momentum), Lucina is effectively unchanged, with the same differences from Marth as in SSB4. Her damage output is still the average of Marth’s tippered and non-tippered attacks, and her up tilt still features a timing-based sweetspot on the latter half of the swing that has more damage but less knockback. |
| Luigi | Mario | Pseudo-clone | Luigi’s only similar moves are his forward tilt, up tilt, up smash, neutral aerial, back aerial, up aerial, neutral special, and up special. Even then, many of these moves have different properties or altered animations. | Luigi now has an extended grab, which alters his pummel and most of his throws except for his down throw as well. He also has a new running animation, and his forward tilt has an altered animation. However, his up tilt has been changed to slightly resemble Mario's. With all of his new moves and different non-attack animations, Luigi is arguably the least similar of any clone on this list. | |
| Pichu | Pikachu | Full clone | Pichu has a unique up smash and neutral aerial, though it has various other differing properties, most notably its recoil damage from electrical attacks. | Pichu has not changed much; it has a different neutral aerial due to Pikachu gaining a new one, but its new forward tilt is the same as Pikachu's, and the rest of its moveset is mostly the same as before. Also, Pichu has completely different non-attack animations. | |
| Richter | Simon | Full clone | ε | Simon and Richter are completely identical moveset-wise, even regarding particle effects. | The only difference Richter has is that his Holy Water is blue instead of red, and thus uses aura rather than flame for aesthetic purposes (though this leads to minor gameplay differences, and the attack does not apply Lucario's aura's damage mechanics). Unlike most clone pairs, Simon and Richter were designed alongside each other, taking inspiration from each other's home series abilities; Sakurai notes in the August 8, 2018 Nintendo Direct that they arguably echo each other. |
| Roy | Marth | Semi-clone | Roy has a unique neutral attack, forward tilt, up tilt, dash attack, forward smash, and down aerial. | Roy and Marth received the same new forward throws, and Flare Blade can change direction while Shield Breaker can be angled. As both moves were already different between the two characters, this does not affect Roy's semi-clone status. He is still a faster semi-clone of Marth whose sweetspot placements are reversed. | |
| Toon Link | Link | Semi-clone | Toon Link has a unique dash attack, forward smash, up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, grab, forward throw, back throw, and Final Smash. | Toon Link has a new one-part forward smash, but Link also received his own changes, most notably losing his Clawshot. Overall, however, Toon Link remains about the same character compared to Link. Also, Toon Link has different non-attack animations. | |
| Wolf | Fox | Pseudo-clone | Wolf's only similar moves are his dash attack, neutral aerial, forward throw, pummel, and all special moves. Even then, these moves all feature different properties. | While Wolf does not retain the wholesale unaltered reuse of Fox's non-attack animations, many of them remain quite similar. In addition, Wolf has received changes that make some of his attacks more like Fox's, specifically his dash attack and neutral aerial, and got the same Final Smash rework of having Landmaster replaced with an airstrike attack. Aesthetically, he also now holds a device in his hands to use his Reflector, just like Fox does. All other differences Wolf had in Brawl are retained. | |
| Young Link | Link | Full clone | Young Link has a unique dash attack, grab, and Final Smash. | Young Link did not receive many changes at all, effectively acting as a legacy version of the changed parent Link. As a result, he is still a faster and weaker Link with not many differences. However, since Link holds the Master Sword in his right hand now as opposed to his left, most of their animations are altered, though conceptually the same. Also, almost all of his non-attack animations are different. |
Notes
- In the Nintendo Direct of November 1, 2018, when Sakurai was talking about Ken, he noted that Luigi (although technically a pseudo-clone as of Ultimate) was the "original" echo fighter, as he was initially introduced as a simple palette swap of Mario in 1983's Mario Bros. Likewise, Luigi was originally a full clone of Mario in the first SSB.
- As Lucina and Chrom both share the same distinctive attribute of having their sword attacks deal equal damage throughout the blade while being based on Marth and his semi-clone Roy respectively, Chrom can be considered to be a semi-clone of Lucina. Compared to Lucina, Chrom is faster and stronger, but jumps lower, falls faster, and has a much less safe recovery (though he can meteor smash with his up special, making him more threatening offstage for both himself and his opponents).
- Likewise, Toon Link can be considered a semi-clone of Young Link, with both being lighter, faster, and weaker versions of Link. They both share unique traits that Link does not possess, such as a tether grab, the ability to wall jump, standard bombs that explode on impact, and the use of Triforce Slash as a Final Smash. Compared to Young Link, Toon Link is faster, but many of his moves consistently are single-hit as opposed to multi-hit, making them weaker overall.
Trivia
- Jigglypuff is so far the only character to go from a clone archetype to a completely unique character.
- Daisy is the first full clone to not have any gameplay differences from her base fighter at all.
- Mario, Link, and Marth are the only characters to have more than one clone of them.
- Jigglypuff and Ganondorf are the only characters to have been considered a type of clone of someone outside of their series.
- Not including the Fighting Alloy Team, Brawl is the only game to have no true playable full clones (excluding semi-clones).
- There is at least one Echo Fighter based upon a character introduced in each installment of Smash.
- Melee has the most, with three inspired fighters.
- Fire Emblem is the only series to have more than one Echo Fighter.
- Street Fighter and Castlevania are the only third-party series to have a clone or Echo Fighter.
- Because Marth and Lucina share the same physics and frame data with minimal functional differences between them in Super Smash Bros. 4, players occasionally refer to them simultaneously using the term Marcina.
- Simon and Richter Belmont are treated similarly in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, in that the term Belmont is often used when discussing both of them simultaneously.
- Several other Echo Fighter pairs are treated similarly, though only the base character is named in these cases. These pairs are Samus/Dark Samus, Peach/Daisy, and Pit/Dark Pit.