A screen KO is a special type of KO which occurs sometimes when characters are sent off the top blast line. Instead of a character being Star KOed as usual, the character instead falls into the foreground and appears to crash into the television screen before being KOed. Whether a character is Star KOed or Screen KOed is random, though Screen KOs are considerably rarer than Star KOs.
Screen KOs occur faster than Star KOs which can, at times, affect gameplay. When a character is KOed by Jigglypuff's Rest, getting a Star KO means that the character will not respawn fast enough to punish the sleeping Jigglypuff, due to the length of the Star KO. However, if a character is instead Screen KOed, this provides him/her with much more time to potentially get a solid hit on the vulnerable Jigglypuff. The Screen KO's shorter duration can also influence the outcome of matches that have gone to a last stock situation. If both characters die off of the top at around the same time and one is Screen KOed instead of Star KOed, the Star KOed player will win the match due to random chance and the longer animation; as a result of this perceived gameplay imbalance, some mods, including Project M, disable the KO altogether.
Differences between games
In Smash 64
In Smash 64, rather than hitting the camera, characters fell down between the front of the stage and the camera. Depending on the camera angle, this may not be seen. Also, the distance from the camera is chosen randomly - sometimes doomed characters appear to be falling normally, while at other times they are just a quick flash of colour down the screen.
In Melee
In Melee, all characters have a unique tumbling animation for when they crash into the screen; upon striking the screen, the character also yells one of their "pain" sounds.
There is a bonus for getting Screen KOed: Foresight, which grants the receiver 500 points for every time they are KOed this way.
In Brawl
In Brawl, characters still have unique tumbling animations for the screen, though the animations for the actual impact are not as nuanced as in Melee.
In Smash 4
In SSB4, the character hits the screen, then stays in place for a second before finally sliding down. As a result of the "pause", however, this means that Screen KOs in Smash 4 will take considerably longer to complete than in previous games.
Trivia
- In Melee, if a player is Screen KO'd on Flat Zone, a different animation plays; instead of the usual animation, characters will instead hit the screen with their tumbling animation.
- In Coin Battle, smash coins appear on the screen when characters are Star KOed; if the game is paused, then they will disappear if the camera is moved.