Super Smash Bros. (universe)

Super Smash Bros. (universe)
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Developer(s)	HAL Laboratory; Intelligent Systems; Sora Ltd.; Game Arts; Monolith Soft; Paon; Bandai Namco
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Designer(s)	Masahiro Sakurai
Genre(s)	Fighting
Console/platform of origin	Nintendo 64
First installment	Super Smash Bros. (1999)
Latest installment	Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018)

The Super Smash Bros. universe (大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ, Great Fray Smash Brothers) refers to the collection of characters, stages, and properties that are original to the Super Smash Bros. series. It is featured alongside other non-original licensed game characters and properties within Smash games. It is the universe of the Smash Bros. series in-and-of itself. The easily recognizable Super Smash Bros. logo represents both the series and universe.

Franchise description

Main article: Super Smash Bros. (series)

During 1998, Kirby series creator Masahiro Sakurai, working at Nintendo second-party developer HAL Laboratory, pursued an incidental interest in making a fighting game for four players. From the outset, he did not have any ideas and used exceedingly basic character designs. When he presented the concept to his superior, Satoru Iwata - then the president of HAL Laboratory - Iwata helped Sakurai find ways to make the game original since many fighting games did not sell well, and Sakurai's first idea was to insert a wide variety of popular characters from different Nintendo franchises and have them fight in a crossover. Sakurai knew he would not receive permission to do this by asking, and therefore secretly created a prototype of the Nintendo 64 fighter in advance and only informed his superiors of it after carefully balancing his first four character inclusions: Mario, Donkey Kong, Samus Aran, and Fox McCloud. Fortunately, the idea was later approved, and Sakurai developed the game, Super Smash Bros., as a low-budget crossover fighter that was intended to be released exclusively in Japan. The finished product's nearly-unique spin on free-roaming, multi-directional fighting on two-dimensional platform-filled planes is said to have been inspired by an obscure 1994 arcade fighting game by Namco titled The Outfoxies.

Super Smash Bros. was released in Japan on January 21, 1999, and despite little promotion, the game was a surprise and breakout hit, ultimately selling nearly 2 million copies domestically and selling nearly 3 million copies in the United States after the logical decision was made to localize the game for international release. The game received mostly positive reviews and was praised both for being the most original fighting game on the market and for its simple-to-learn, accessible, and responsive multiplayer, with the primary focus of criticism being its lack of single-player content. It can easily be guessed that the game owed much of its popularity and success to its mix of fan-favorite aesthetics, characters, and music, with the most notable franchise represented being Pokémon, which had recently reached the height of its initial explosion of worldwide popularity.

Following the success of Super Smash Bros., Sakurai became the head of production for a sequel that was intended as a borderline launch title for the next Nintendo system, the GameCube. The game was in intensive development for 13 months and was considered by Sakurai to be the biggest project he had ever led up to that point, and Sakurai described his lifestyle during this period as "destructive", with no holidays and short weekends. Unlike the first game, which was an experimental venture, Sakurai felt great pressure to deliver a quality sequel that would undoubtedly be regarded as the system's undisputed killer app. Another priority for the development was that the game would exhibit an enormous graphical advancement beyond the Nintendo 64, and to this end, the game's opening FMV was developed by HAL in conjunction with three separate graphic houses in Tokyo. The game was released shortly after the GameCube's launch in both Japan and the United States near the end of 2001 as Super Smash Bros. Melee, and received critical acclaim as both a strong fundamental improvement and a massive expansion of content over its predecessor. The game became the best-selling GameCube game, with more than seven million copies sold worldwide. By this point, the series' relevance as a potent advertisement vehicle for all of Nintendo's IPs represented within it, past and present, was apparent; the representation of two characters from the then-Japan-exclusive Fire Emblem series, who were nearly cut out from international versions of Melee, prompted Nintendo's future decision to release almost all subsequent installments of the series worldwide.

During what became a seven-year hiatus for the Smash Bros. series, Sakurai left HAL Laboratory in 2003 to start his own company, Sora Ltd., so that he could create games separately from the sequel-heavy schedules of HAL. Meanwhile, Satoru Iwata succeeded Hiroshi Yamauchi as Nintendo's fourth president in 2002. At a pre-E3 2005 press conference, Iwata announced that the next installment of Super Smash Bros. was soon to be in development for its next console and would be a launch title that utilized the console's Wi-Fi based online capabilities. The announcement came as a surprise to Sakurai because he was not informed of Nintendo's intent to release another Smash Bros. game, and was only asked after the conference by Iwata to again serve as director; Sakurai agreed, and development of the third game began in October 2005. What followed was a development project handled by roughly 100 individuals working full time. The game was officially showcased at the E3 2006 conference as Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but its actual release dates, set for early 2008, were well over a year after the Wii console's launch. Prior to release, among the most noteworthy and publicized inclusions in the game were a vastly redesigned Pit, representing a revival of the long-dormant Kid Icarus series, and the first-ever inclusions of third-party characters in the series: Snake from Metal Gear, which rumor claims series director Hideo Kojima had asked to be included in Melee, and Sonic from his respective series, satisfying a long-awaited crossover with historical rival mascot Mario. Brawl had also encouraged an enormous amount of pre-release hype and speculation by regularly posting blog updates fivedays a week, detailing new features, characters, and other elements of the game on the official website, the "Smash Bros. DOJO!!", for over eight months straight.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl was critically and commercially successful upon release, garnering praise for its new focus on improved single-player content, an expanded and more varied cast, and one of the largest video game soundtracks in history, and became the fastest-selling game in Nintendo of America's history and a seller of over 10 million units total. However, the game also drew reviewer criticism for long loading times and a laggy online experience. Multiplayer aspects were controversial among the established player-base (such as the competitive circles of which had long been accustomed to the gameplay styles of Melee) for a comparatively slower pace and scale of gravity, the removal of some advanced movement and attack mechanics, and a much heavier slant towards defensive gameplay. Most universally disliked was the game's inclusion of tripping, a non-negotiable element of randomized chance that could easily dictate the outcome of a competitive match in a manner that rewarded luck over skill. In an interview two-and-a-half years after the release of Brawl, Sakurai revealed that he himself retrospectively considered Melee to be "the sharpest game in the series."

Immediately after Sakurai employed his redesign of the Kid Icarus series' aesthetic in the 3DS title Kid Icarus: Uprising, released in March 2012, he announced the beginning of development of the fourth installment in the Smash Bros. series, which would be a joint venture between Sora and Namco Bandai Games and would be co-directed with Yoshito Higuchi, who had previously directed and produced several games in Namco's Tales series. The first showcase of the project took place at the Nintendo Direct presentation preceding E3 2013, where it was shown that the series would, for the first time, develop and release a pair of titles simultaneously for separate platforms: Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Prior to the showcase, Sakurai indicated that the games would receive a different development approach for measuring competitive character balance, and after the showcase, Sakurai confirmed the removal of randomized tripping while dashing.

Soon after the release of the Nintendo Switch console, Sakurai started work on the next game in the series. His goal was to "make the impossible possible," by including all characters from the past games. When he announced his intentions to the boardroom of directors, the room fell silent. In March of 2018, a teaser trailer was released in the middle of a Nintendo Direct presentation, featuring the male and female Inklings. The game was formally announced as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate during E3 of the same year, showcasing all the previous fighters and the "Everyone Is Here" tagline, and revealing that Namco Bandai would again be the co-developer. The game was shown to have an increased focus on competitive play, while keeping it accessible for newcomers as well. During a Smash Direct showcase in October, Sakurai announced that trophies were quite tricky to program, and so they were being removed in favor of Spirits, equippable items that augmented fighters, similar to stickers and equipment in the previous games. Spirits were also confirmed to be replacing Event matches, by augmenting opponents in ways similar to the depicted character, and the focus of the returning adventure mode. Ultimate ended up becoming one of the best-selling games in the series, becoming the fastest selling Nintendo game.

The Super Smash Bros. series is a large departure from the traditional fighting game formula, where two characters trade and block each other's blows until one's health meter is reduced to zero; knock-outs in these games are strictly achieved by sending opponents hurtling away far enough off the stage with powerful attacks that they cannot avoid coming into contact with one of the four "out of bounds" screen borders surrounding the stage. Instead of a life bar that decreases, each character has a percentage-based damage meter that raises each time they are hit by an attack, which translates into all subsequent attacks incurred by that character sending them away farther than before. Every character is designed and intended to feel and play uniquely from the rest in terms of the different moves and movements they are capable of, among many other things about them, and when a character is sent flying away from the stage horizontally, they have the opportunity to return to the stage without falling off into the abyss below the stage with both a mid-air double jump and a special move that constitutes a third jump. Many options are available to diversify casual play, such as items that may be picked up and used, selectable stages that may feature their own dynamic hazards in their designs and layouts, and a large variety of different modes and settings for customizing matches.

Many players and groups in the competitive playerbase and community for the series choose to play each game with very specific settings and disallow much of the available content in order to minimize luck as a factor. This leads to developed metagames for each installment where top-tier players, often playing for prizes and prestige under accepted professional rulesets defined by players that organize Smash Bros.-centered tournaments around the world, and regularly use precise skill and exploit game physics in order to compete. Like many games that allow for competitive play, such as Pokémon, each character in each game's cast of playable characters is graded by the community on how much inherently "better" or "worse" it is in comparison to other characters in competitive environments, and these "tier lists" spawn much community debate of their own. A further point of contention is the practice of creating and distributing unofficial modifications that fix perceived flaws and degenerate aspects with the core game design and character balance. However, the most publicized mod for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Project M, has since been featured alongside the official games themselves at national video gaming tournaments and events.

Every game adds new franchises, either published by Nintendo or involved with a third-party company closely associated with the history of Nintendo as a company, that may be represented with at least one playable fighter, and may additionally be represented with stages, items, and collectibles themed after that franchise. Meanwhile, existing franchises and modes receive new and expanded content with each additional installment of Smash:

Super Smash Bros. (1999), for the Nintendo 64, introduces the Mario franchise and designates two of its recurring characters, Donkey Kong and Yoshi, as representatives of their own respective "subfranchises". It also represents The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, Star Fox, and Pokémon as primary franchises from the outset, and unlockable characters additionally represent the F-Zero series and EarthBound. The game features 12 playable characters total, and for each character, single-player content includes both a target-smashing stage and a platforming stage that may be completed for setting time records.

Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001), for the GameCube, introduces representation for the 1984 NES game Ice Climber as an example of a defunct "retro" franchise, and unlockable characters introduce representatives of the formerly-Japan-exclusive Fire Emblem series and the historically-significant Game & Watch handheld line. A total of 25 character choices on the select screen effectively allows a total of 26 playable characters in the game, due to the interchangeable characters Sheik and Zelda. A vast amount of new content is debuted, such as special modes and scenarios and an overarching collection aspect in the form of hundreds of trophies that may be earned and viewed at any time, complete with descriptions and a selection of games the basis for the trophy appeared in.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008), for the Wii, adds Wario and identifies him as from another subset of the Mario universe, while debuting a massive redesign of Pit and the Kid Icarus series and featuring the recent Pikmin series as well. Unlockable characters introduce the first representatives of third-party franchises in the series, Solid Snake from Konami's Metal Gear franchise and Sonic the Hedgehog from SEGA's series of the same name, and also recognize the historically-significant R.O.B. peripheral and give it a playable role. A total of 35 character choices on the select screen allows for a total of 39 playable characters in the game, and every character has an all-new "super attack" called a Final Smash that is typically made unavailable in competitive play. In addition to more of everything, such as another collection aspect in the form of Stickers, the game introduces a lengthy single player adventure mode titled The Subspace Emissary, which is the first instance of a Smash Bros. game telling a complete crossover narrative with its extensive cast.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U (2014) is the first instance of the series releasing two separate versions of the game for different platforms on the 3DS and Wii U, and there are content differences between versions such as stages. New franchises that have primary representation are Animal Crossing, which previously received a great deal of content in Brawl but no playable representative, the Wii Fit line of fitness hardware and software, Punch-Out!!, Monolith Soft's Xenoblade series, the well-known NES classic, Duck Hunt, the third-party Mega Man franchise by Capcom, and the third-party Pac-Man franchise by Namco. Furthermore, the Mii avatars that became available for use in Nintendo hardware and software in 2006 with the release of the Wii are playable as characters representative of the Smash series. After the game's release, additional downloadable content became available and brought back Mewtwo and Roy from Melee, as well as Lucas from Brawl. In addition, three more third-party franchises joined the series, including Capcom's Street Fighter, SEGA & PlatinumGames' Bayonetta and in a move that shocked the gaming industry, Square Enix's flagship series, Final Fantasy. The 3DS version was released on September 13, 2014 (Japan), October 2, 2014 (Germany (stores only)), October 3, 2014 (Americas and Europe), and October 4, 2014 (Australia), while the Wii U version released on November 21, 2014 in the Americas, November 28, 2014 in Europe, November 29, 2014 in Australia, and December 6, 2014 in Japan.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018) is a title for the Nintendo Switch. This game features all previous veterans and also added the Splatoon and Konami's Castlevania universes to the list of universes with playable characters, including - for the first time ever in any Nintendo game - Ridley from the Metroid series; for the first time after a decade-long absence, King K. Rool from the Donkey Kong Country series, Isabelle - who previously appeared in the last game as an Assist Trophy - from Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and Incineroar from 2016's Pokémon Sun & Moon as playable fighters. In addition, fighters who were previously known as clones were now given the new official name of echo fighters, with Mario's Princess Daisy,Chrom from Fire Emblem Awakening, Ryu's rival and best friend Ken Masters from Street Fighter and fellow Metroid villain, Dark Samus being added to the roster as Echo Fighters of Peach, Roy, Ryu, and Samus, respectively. It will also have five DLC fighters featured as part of the Fighters Pass, with a separate sixth character in the form of a generic Piranha Plant from the Mario franchise. At the 2018 Game Awards, Joker from the smash hit JRPG Persona 5 was announced to be the first new downloadable challenger in the Fighter Pass, to be followed up at E3 2019 with the announcements of the Hero in their many incarnations from the Dragon Quest series (with 4 in particular being playable) and Rare's legendary bird & bear duo, Banjo & Kazooie. At the September Direct, it was revealed that not only would SNK's unofficial mascot, Terry Bogard from Fatal Fury and King of Fighters join the battle as the 4th challenger pack in the Pass but also that more individual DLC fighters beyond the pass were now in development. The game launched worldwide on December 7, 2018.

In Super Smash Bros.

The first game in the series, Super Smash Bros., can be said to feature much more than a standard universe's worth of content based on the universe introduced in the game itself, compared even to the Mario universe - despite its lack of a playable character or a stage selectable in multiplayer.

Boss

Master Hand: A giant floating right-hand glove and the narrator, this entity is described as the imaginary link between the real world and the Smash Bros. tournaments and can be considered the be-all, end-all host of the series. He features a voice that is heard calling out the names of fighters on the character select screen, as well as calling the status of matches before, during, and after matches, so he can be considered the narrator of the series as well, sharing his voice actor with said announcer in order to drive that point home. He functions as the "final boss" of the game in that the final match of the single-player mode pits the player's character against Master Hand in a 1-on-1 duel. He fights with a variety of unique movements and motions, and instead of a percentage meter, he carries a "traditional" health meter that lowers when taking damage from opponents. Reducing it to zero will defeat him and end the 1P Game in success for the player.

Team Characters

Fighting Polygon Team: The "generic fighter grunts" of the game; these are purple, untextured, blocky entities whose shapes and motions are modeled vaguely after the proper fighters in the game. They appear only in the game's single-player mode in two stages: The Race to the Finish stage, in which three of them are obstacles in the player's path to the finish, and in the subsequent Fighting Polygon Team stage, where the player must battle a total of 30 of them as easy-to-KO opponents in a match similar to the Multi-Man Melee/Brawl/Smash of later games. There are twelve varieties of Fighting Polygons, just as there are twelve distinctive fighters in the game.

Stages

The first Smash game features a lot of environments thematically original to the game itself, and none of these are selectable in the game's multiplayer mode (hacking aside); they are only available as single player content. The following stages would work as multiplayer stages if they were available in the multiplayer mode:

Meta Crystal: A small and simple stage consisting of a big platform with a small platform above it, this is the single-player stage where the battle against Metal Mario takes place. It is based on the part of Hazy Maze Cave from Super Mario 64 where Mario would find the Green ! Switch.

Battlefield: As with Final Destination above, Battlefield is not referred to as such yet, but rather is known as "Duel Zone" or "Fighting Polygon Stage" in-game. Likewise, it has the same four-platform layout as later Battlefield stages and serves the same purpose, as the home to the Fighting Polygon Team in the penultimate single-player battle.

Final Destination: Known as "Master Hand's Residence" in-game, this prototypical Final Destination otherwise serves the same purpose as its successors in later games. It is a flat, featureless platform laid against a space background and is where the player fights Master Hand in the final battle of the game's 1P Game.

The following stages are more "mini-game"-centric stages featured as single-player content:

Break the Targets!: Twelve separate maze-like stages are accessible as single-player Target Test challenges in the Target Test mode. There is one stage for each character, and it is specifically constructed to test the character's ability to attack all ten targets in the stage as fast as possible in the time limit. The character will be required to go through his or her respective Target Test stage early in the game's main single-player mode.

Board the Platforms!: Likewise, twelve separate maze-like stages are accessible as single-player Board the Platform challenges in the Board the Platform mode. There is one stage for each character, and it is specifically constructed to test the character's ability to jump onto all ten yellow platforms in the stage as fast as possible in the time limit. The character will be required to go through his respective Board the Platform stage later on in the game's main single-player mode.

Race to the Finish!: This five-story stage is a single-player mini-game where the character must race from the upper left to the lower right of the stage and reach the end as fast as possible within the time limit, while avoiding obstacles such as floating bumpers, rolling bombs, and three computer-controlled Fighting Polygon opponents.

Items

A large proportion of the game's items are original to the game itself.

Beam Sword: A powerful energy sword, this bludgeoning weapon carries sound effects similar to a Lightsaber in the Star Wars movie franchise in the Japanese version of the game, but they was changed for the U.S. release, possibly to avoid copyright trouble.

Home-Run Bat: This bludgeoning item is the most potentially deadly offensive measure in the game; while normally featuring unremarkable power with standard attacks, a Smash attack with the Bat carries so much knockback that it often causes a one-hit KO to the target, regardless of how healthy the opponent is. Some consider it a property native to the EarthBound franchise, but Melee's Trophy Gallery identifies the bat as having made its first game appearance in the original Smash and not EarthBound.

Fan: The polar opposite to the Home-Run Bat and the Hammer, the Fan is weak enough that picking it up may be considered a handicap. While it can attack extremely quickly, it does tiny damage and offers no knockback, so it is not considered a helpful item.

Bumper: A unique item not seen in the sequel (but spiritually replaced by the Flipper), the thrown Bumper creates an obstacle on the ground that knocks back any opponent that touches it. The bumper, in response, slides in the opposite direction. If another opponent gets in its way, the process repeats. The Bumper returned in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and all subsequent games.

Ray Gun: This item is the standard projectile weapon, firing laser beams that do good knockback. Melee describes it as having originated in this game, contrary to the popular belief that it originates from the Star Fox universe.

Crate: One of the game's four item containment units, the crate is by far the biggest. It is a giant wooden box with the Smash symbol on it, and it can be picked up, carried, and hurled at opponents as a projectile. When it crashes into the ground, it splinters and up to three items contained inside can appear.

Barrel: Another item that can contain items within, the Barrel is somewhat less large and may contain fewer items than the Crate, but as a hurled weapon, it can roll on its side before breaking. Some consider it a property native to the Donkey Kong franchise, but Melee's Trophy Gallery identifies the barrel as having made its first game appearance in the original Smash and not Donkey Kong. It is not to be confused with Melee's Barrel Cannon item.

Capsule: This pill-shaped item contains a single item inside. It can be thrown as a fast projectile.

Egg: This is a white egg that acts just like a Capsule. Some consider it a property native to the Pokémon franchise, especially considering that Eggs are scattered about by the appearance of the Pokémon Chansey, but Melee's Trophy Gallery identifies the Egg as having made its first game appearance in the original Smash and not Pokémon. All four of the game's item-containment units have a chance that they contain an explosive rather than an item, so these units can sometimes be used as Bob-ombs.

Music

These are the main musical tracks unique to the game found within the Sound Test:

1: The music heard during the game's opening cinema movie, this is fast-paced music interspersed with parts of track 45.
2: Low-key music heard during the How to Play segment.
3: Very discrete music heard in the Characters and VS Records sub-menus.
4: Extremely discrete "music" heard on the game's main menu screen.
25: This music plays on the match complete screen after one of the 10 character victory fanfare tracks plays for the winning character.
28: Low-key music heard while playing the Training mode.
32: Climactic battle music heard in the final battle against Master Hand.
33: Music heard on any of the Break the Targets, the Board the Platforms stages and Race to the Finish stage.
35: Discrete, low key music played at the score display screen following the Master Hand battle.
38: Synthesized battle music heard on the battle against the Fighting Polygon Team.
39: Heavy techno music that plays when battling Metal Mario in Single-player mode.
45: An original composition that is one of the main themes of both the game and the overall Smash Bros. series. It is heard throughout the ending credits.

There are also many short pieces counted as "music" heard in response to in-game occurrences. These tracks original to the game itself include 29, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, and 44.

In Super Smash Bros. Melee

The sequel to Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee, is noted for being an immensely larger game than its predecessor. The number of original properties featured in the game is seemingly increased proportionally.

Bosses

Like in the previous game, none of the game's characters aren't considered true "characters" in that they aren't selectable for play (without hacking, anyway). These all make specific appearances as single-player opponents.

Master Hand: The "master of ceremonies" and "narrator" of the series returns in Melee as a "final boss" enemy like before, but it is no longer the only one. With a slightly redesigned look and some new moves, Master Hand is otherwise not much different as a final boss of the game's "Classic" (Single-Player) Mode, though he can perform some two-on-one moves with his newly introduced "twin", Crazy Hand.

Crazy Hand: The "twin brother" of Master Hand, Crazy Hand is a left hand and is a "hidden boss" in the game. It is described as the embodiment of a child who derives pleasure from destroying his creations, as opposed to Master Hand's will to play around. In the final bout of Classic mode on Normal, Hard, or Very Hard difficulty, when Master Hand has had over half of his hit points depleted, Crazy Hand will erratically enter the battle and join the fight against the player, making it a tougher two-on-one battle. Crazy Hand features at least three of his own unique attacks, and the two Hands will occasionally perform a special two-hand super attack together. If the player can beat both enemies in the match, the Crazy Hand KO bonus will be awarded. Both Hands can also be fought at Event 50: Final Destination Match.

Giga Bowser: One of the most sensational entities in the Smash Bros. series, this colossus of a fighter is a gargantuan, power up version of the Mario character Bowser, himself the heftiest fighter in the standard Melee roster. Giga Bowser, whose body is proportionally different to Bowser, has larger horns, and a manic expression on his face, is a hidden final boss in the game's Adventure Mode. At Normal difficulty or above, if the player gets to the final battle against Giant Bowser and defeats him in under 18 minutes, he will "revive" as Giga Bowser to rematch the player; defeating him will yield the Giga Bowser KO bonus and the Giga Bowser trophy. Giga Bowser receives an enormous handicap in his Adventure Mode appearance; he also appears in Event 51: The Showdown, with less of a handicap.