Giant Punch

Giant Punch
	; Giant Punch in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
User	Donkey Kong
Universe	Donkey Kong

Giant Punch (ジャイアントパンチ, Giant Punch) is Donkey Kong's neutral special move.

Overview

By pressing the special move button, Donkey Kong will start swinging his arm around, automatically charging a wind-up punch that, when thrown, causes great damage and knockback if it hits, especially when fully or nearly-fully charged.

For every time that Donkey Kong swings his fist, the charge advances to its next stage, entailing an increase in the damage of the punch. After any one of these swings, the charge can be cancelled and stored to be continued later: by pressing the shield button while charging, Donkey Kong will shield, and moving the control stick left or right will cause him to roll. If Donkey Kong suffers knockback while charging, he will invariably lose all of his charge.

At any time while Donkey Kong is swinging his fist around, the button can be pressed again to deliver the blow. If the button is not pressed, then after ten swings, Donkey Kong will drop his fist and his head will begin to smoke, indicating the punch is fully charged. At this point the button only needs to be pressed once to administer the attack. From Brawl onwards, a fully charged Giant Punch grants Donkey Kong armor when used, allowing him to power through an enemy's KO attack while he uses one of his own in the process. However, a Giant Punch that has just one stage below full charge has noticeably higher knockback.

From Melee onwards, the move becomes markedly weaker if used in midair, and also causes Donkey Kong to become helpless, making it very risky and much less rewarding to use in aerial combat compared to its utility on the ground.

Aesthetically, the move has been through a few changes. In Smash 64, Donkey Kong has his right hand directly behind him while his fist winds up. As of Melee, Donkey Kong uses his left arm for the attack, while also winding up his arm beside himself. The move was the slowest in Smash 64 with some notable recovery, though the animation for both the actual attack's startup and its recovery has been sped up in later games. In Ultimate, Donkey Kong now charges Giant Punch with either arm, due to his mirrored stance. It also no longer puts him into a helpless state, similar to Smash 64. After fully charging his Giant Punch, Donkey Kong now displays an angry expression until he unleashes his Giant Punch, though he shows a regular expression by canceling Giant Punch with a shield button just as it is about to get fully charged.

Stages

As explained above, Giant Punch's charge goes through stages. These are visually recorded in the swings of Donkey Kong's arm; each time he swings, the punch's damage and knockback is generally increased. The charge has eleven stages in total; the eleventh stage is the fully charged stage. A fully charged Giant Punch will have a quicker animation, resulting in a quicker punch, and do the most damage, but is weaker in knockback than a few of the stages below it. From Melee onwards, all stages of the punch are weaker when used in mid-air.

This article or section may require additional technical data.
The editor who added this tag elaborates: data for Melee, and completed data for all the other games
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Smash 64 stages

Stage	Number of swings	Damage	Percent that can KO	Elbow damage	Elbow percent that can KO
Stage 1	1	14%
Stage 2	2	16%
Stage 3	3	18%
Stage 4	4	20%
Stage 5	5	22%
Stage 6	6	23%
Stage 7	7	26%
Stage 8	8	28%
Stage 9	9	30%	65%
Stage 10	10	32%	50%	31%
Stage 11	11	36%	48%	35%

Brawl stages

Stage	Number of swings	Damage	Percent that can KO	Elbow damage	Elbow percent that can KO
Stage 1	1	10%	178%	12%	146%
Stage 2	2	12%	150%	14%	124%
Stage 3	3	14%	126%	16%	107%
Stage 4	4	16%	110%	18%	93%
Stage 5	5	18%	95%	20%	81%
Stage 6	6	20%	83%	22%	70%
Stage 7	7	22%	72%	24%	61%
Stage 8	8	24%	63%	26%	53%
Stage 9	9	26%	55%	28%	46%
Stage 10	10	28%	48%	30%	39%
Stage 11	11	28%	72%	18%	101%
Aerial stage 1	1	6%	276%	8%	213%
Aerial stage 2	2	8%	218%	10%	174%
Aerial stage 3	3	10%	178%	12%	146%
Aerial stage 4	4	12%	150%	14%	124%
Aerial stage 5	5	14%	126%	16%	107%
Aerial stage 6	6	16%	110%	18%	93%
Aerial stage 7	7	18%	95%	20%	81%
Aerial stage 8	8	20%	83%	22%	70%
Aerial stage 9	9	22%	72%	24%	61%
Aerial stage 10	10	24%	63%	26%	53%
Aerial stage 11	11	25%	86%	15%	125%

Note that not only does a stage ten Giant Punch have more knockback than a fully charged punch, but stages eight and nine also have more knockback.
The sweetspot for an uncharged Giant Punch is at the elbow.

A video showcasing all the stages of Brawl's Giant Punch.

SSB4 stages

Stage	Number of swings	Damage	Percent that can KO	Elbow damage	Elbow percent that can KO
Stage 1	1	10%	183%	12%	146%
Stage 2	2	12%	153%	14%	125%
Stage 3	3	14%	131%	16%	107%
Stage 4	4	16%	113%	18%	93%
Stage 5	5	18%	98%	20%	81%
Stage 6	6	20%	85%	22%	71%
Stage 7	7	22%	75%	24%	62%
Stage 8	8	24%	65%	26%	53%
Stage 9	9	26%	57%	28%	46%
Stage 10	10	28%	49%	30%	40%
Stage 11	11	28%	74%	18%	234%
Aerial stage 1	1	6%	284%	8%	214%
Aerial stage 2	2	8%	223%	10%	175%
Aerial stage 3	3	10%	183%	12%	146%
Aerial stage 4	4	12%	153%	14%	125%
Aerial stage 5	5	14%	131%	16%	107%
Aerial stage 6	6	16%	113%	18%	93%
Aerial stage 7	7	18%	98%	20%	81%
Aerial stage 8	8	20%	85%	22%	71%
Aerial stage 9	9	22%	75%	24%	62%
Aerial stage 10	10	24%	65%	26%	53%
Aerial stage 11	11	25%	88%	15%	126%

Ultimate

Ultimate abandoned the concept of storing Giant Punch in stages, instead opting for a charge formula in line with other moves. In this case, Giant Punch's power will increase by a given amount every 6.67 Frames. The charge duration lasts 110 Frames as of 6.0.0, and overall it will increase in power by 18%^[1]. This means it will deal 28% maximum. As usual, an uncharged Giant Punch is more powerful than a maximum charged one. However, to utilize this takes extreme precision in Ultimate due to its frame perfect nature and no longer charging via windups.

Charging from nothing to full takes 121 frames, including the 7 frame pre-charge lag and 4 frame post-charge lag (which can also be applied to shielding, rolling or jumping). It can also be cancelled through jumping in the air, which takes 5 frames as well.

Ultimate introduced a glitch that caused the Z-Axis to make Giant Punch miss point-blank opponents. This was fixed in 3.0.0, although only for the fully charged version^[2]^[3]. 3.1.0 fixed a glitch with Giant Punch that existed since Smash 4, where landing on frames 12-17 during a fully charged Giant Punch caused DK to never get his super armor^[4].

Reverse Charge Cancelling

Reverse Charge Cancelling is the concept of reversing Giant Punch's windups, and has existed since 64^[5], and stayed in every Smash game to date. Normally it is impossible to B-reverse the windups, but through inputting a normal turnaround B, this can occur. This provides some additional unique maneuvers for Donkey Kong, especially in later games where charge cancelling becomes more prominent.

Since Melee added the ability to cancel Giant Punch in the air^[6], it became possible for Donkey Kong to use Reverse Charge Cancelling for movement. Through this, he could Reverse Charge Cancel, cancel the Giant Punch windups, and follow up with an aerial. This added many of the options high-level players still use today, such as the ledge options it provided. RCC back aerial was a powerful way to avoid ledgetraps. The ability to use reverse aerial rushes through this added powerful mixup options as well, adding further depth to Donkey Kong's playstyle. It's also possible to chain these together, possibly allowing for a powerful punish if the opponent tries to jump in. This gives Donkey Kong better bait and punish tactics that would otherwise be very difficult to do.

In Ultimate, the ability to jump cancel charge moves greatly improved Reverse Charge Cancelling^[7]. This made Reverse Charge Cancelling much more accessible to players, not having to simply cancel Giant Punch and then jump. This greatly streamlines Donkey Kong's playstyle. It also provides Donkey Kong with an extra movement option, as the momentum allows for him to weave in and out of the opponent's range, especially with the ability to jump now readily available and not requiring more frames to cancel Giant Punch.

Instructional quotes

instruction booklet		Press to charge, then again to punch. Press , , or to stop charging.
instruction booklet		Charge with B, then press again to punch. Quit charging with Z.
case foldout		Charge with , and then press again to punch.
Move List		Charges up a punch that can keep charging after dodging or shielding.

Customization

Special Move customization was added in Super Smash Bros. 4. These are the variations:

1. Giant Punch	2. Lightning Punch	3. Storm Punch

"A mighty punch. Press the button once to charge it, then again to release it."	"Charges up much faster, but isn't quite as mighty. Deals electrical damage."	"A punch that's not very strong, but it pushes opponents away with a gust of wind."

Giant Punch: Default.
Lightning Punch: An electric punch that charges up much faster, but is weaker and doesn't have flinch resistance. Deals 15% damage at full charge and the move has slightly less startup than Giant Punch.
Storm Punch: Less powerful, but charges faster and generates a whirlwind that blows opponents away. The whirlwind itself is enough to send opponents flying off-stage at high percentages, if not also KO them by sending them towards the side blastline. The move does 18% damage.

Origin

File:Expand.gif

The clip from "Bad Hair Day"

While the move has no true origin from his home series, Donkey Kong has done a similar move to this one in other forms of media outside of Smash Bros.:

Donkey Kong performed a punch comparable to the Giant Punch in the Donkey Kong Country episode "Bad Hair Day".
When a player lands on a Bowser Space in Mario Party 5, Donkey Kong may appear and punch Bowser in a similar way to the Giant Punch.
In the ending of Donkey Kong Country Returns, Donkey Kong uses a move similar to this when he is falling, charging his punch and striking the moon.

Gallery

Charging a Giant Punch in Super Smash Bros.
Giant Punch in Melee.
Donkey Kong using the Giant Punch on Ike in Brawl.
Donkey Kong using the Giant Punch on Samus in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
Donkey Kong using the custom Storm Punch in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
Giant Punch in Smash 3DS.
Giant Punch as shown in the Move List in Ultimate

Names in other languages

Language	Name
Japanese	ジャイアントパンチ, Giant Punch
English	Giant Punch
French	Coup de poing géant
German	Riesenschlag
Spanish	Puñetazo gigantesco
Italian	Pugno gigante
Chinese	巨型重拳
Korean	자이언트 펀치, Giant Punch
Dutch	Reuzendreun
Russian	Огромный кулак

Trivia

In Smash 64, instead of Donkey Kong's head steaming to show he's fully charged, his fist will spark.
- In addition, unlike in all subsequent games, Donkey Kong uses his right hand to throw the punch in Smash 64.
In Melee, the move is stronger if the player doesn't store the charge before using it.