Judge
| Judge | |
|---|---|
 Using Judge in Ultimate, the 5 effect being shown. | |
| User | Mr. Game & Watch |
| Universe | Game & Watch |
Judge (ジャッジ, Judge) (known as Judgment in Melee) is Mr. Game & Watch's side special move. Mr. Game & Watch will attack with his hammer and hold up a digital display with a random number on it when used.
In all of the games Mr. Game and Watch has appeared in leading up to Ultimate, he retained his normal sprite when using the move. In Ultimate, his appearance was changed to resemble the characters in the Judge game from the Game and Watch series.
Numbers and their effects
The number that can display as the move is used is a random number from 1 to 9, like in the original game. In order to add variance, in Melee and Brawl, Mr. Game & Watch cannot get a number that was used in either of the two previous uses of the move, meaning each valid number has a 1 in 7 chance of appearing. For example, getting a 5 means that the next two uses of Judge cannot result in a 5. At the start of a match, the previous two uses are set to 2 and 1, meaning that the first use of Judge in a match cannot be a 2, and the first two uses cannot be a 1.
In Super Smash Bros. 4, this behavior is removed, allowing any number to always have a 1 in 9 chance of appearing and making it possible to get a number any number of times in a row. Getting a 1 in the All-Star Mode's Waiting Room does not cause recoil damage. In addition, in the Home-Run Contest and Target Blast modes, the move always comes up as 6, removing randomness but making it impossible for the player to use 9 to their advantage.
In Ultimate, it is once again impossible to get the same number twice in a row, but it is still possible to get the same number every other roll.
The effects associated with these numbers are as follows:
| # | Description | Damage | KO Percent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A very weak hit that does not deal knockback or cause flinching. It inflicts 12% recoil damage regardless of whether or not it hits. | 2% | N/A |
| 2 | Has minimal knockback. In Brawl and SSB4, it has a 20% chance of tripping an opponent. | 4% | N/A |
| 3 | Makes a paper sound similar to the Fan. It launches the opponent towards Mr. Game & Watch and deals a significant amount of shield damage. | 6% | 496% 504% 
|
| 4 | A slashing attack that launches opponents diagonally. | 8% | 483% 491%
|
| 5 | Produces four electrical charges that inflict 3% damage each that zap the opponent, dealing slight upwards knockback. | 12% total | 482% 507%
|
| 6 | Deals flame damage and is a semi-spike, threatening opponents who are off-stage. It has the second strongest knockback of all Judge attacks. | 12% | 156% 158%
|
| 7 | Deals moderate knockback and causes a food item to appear. In Melee it drops a random food item, in Brawl and SSB4 it drops one apple, and in Ultimate it drops 3 apples. The food item will only appear if the attack connects, even against invincibility. The apple appears regardless of whether items are on or not. | 14% | 264% 257%
|
| 8 | Freezes the opponent with fixed vertical knockback, and makes the "PING!" sound (or a slightly quieter version of it in Melee). | 4% 9%  13% |
N/A |
| 9 | Deals massive knockback at the Sakurai angle and makes the "PING!" sound, resembling the effect of the Home-Run Bat. Can potentially KO below 10%. In Brawl, it KOs the heaviest characters at 13% and can KO characters as light as Pikachu at 0%, although it is not a guaranteed OHKO. Prior to Ultimate it had a smaller hitbox compared to the other numbers. In every game after Melee, the attack is accompanied by a bell sound like that in Mr. Game and Watch's up and side taunts. Flashes of light resembling electrical effects appear around the hammer when this number appears, but the attack does not do electric damage. It is one of the most powerful moves in the game that isn't a Final Smash, only losing to Ganondorf's Reverse Warlock Punch and Roy/Chrom's fully charged Flare Blade. | 32% | 16% 9%
|
Instructional quotes
 instruction booklet |
 |
The random strength of (Mr. Game and Watch's) Judgment is determined by the number displayed; food appears on lucky 7. |
 Move List |
 |
Swings his hammer. The power changes depending on the number displayed. |
Customization
Special Move customization was added in Super Smash Bros. 4. These are the variations:
| 1. Judge | 2. Extreme Judge | 3. Chain Judge |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
| "Swing your hammer. The power changes depending on the number displayed." | "Only "1" or "9" will appear, but the latter isn't quite as devastating as usual." | "The number shown on the card equals the number of continuous hits dealt." |
- Judge: Default.
- Extreme Judge: The only numbers picked are 1 and 9, with more normalized effects for each. 1 deals 5% damage to both Mr. Game & Watch and the opponent, while 9 only deals 23% damage and less (though still significant) knockback. The odds of getting a 9 are 1 in 5 (20%). If the move is used in one of the modes that forces the number to always be 6, it has the same effects as the default version of the move.
- Chain Judge: None of the numbers have different effects on the opponent. Instead, the move hits several times, corresponding with the chosen number. In addition, some numbers are more common than others, as opposed to the default move's equal probability for all numbers.
| # | Description | Total damage | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | One hit. | 1% | 1 |
| 2 | Two hits: the first deals 3% damage, and the second does 2%. | 5% | 2 |
| 3 | Three hits, each of which does 3%. | 9% | 3 |
| 4 | Four hits: the first three deal 3% damage, and the last does 2%. | 11% | 3 |
| 5 | Five hits, each doing 3%. | 15% | 2 |
| 6 | Six hits: the first five deal 3% damage, and the last does 2%. | 17% | 2 |
| 7 | Seven hits: the first six deal 2.5% damage, and the last does 4%. | 19% | 1 |
| 8 | Eight hits: the first seven deal 2.4% damage, and the last does 4.2%. | 21% | 1 |
| 9 | Nine hits: the first eight deal 2.25% damage, and the last does 10%. Also has very high knockback, though less than the regular Judge 9. | 28% | 1 |
Spirit
| No. | Image | Name | Type | Class | Cost | Ability | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 693 |  |
Judge |  |
★★★ | 1 | Critical Hit ↑ | Game & Watch Series |
Origin
Judge was a Game & Watch game that could be played with two players. Two Game & Watch characters had signboards and hammers. When a round starts, each player's sign would display a random number from 1 to 9. The point of the game was for the player with the higher number to hit their opponent on the head with their hammer, while the player with the lower number tried to dodge said hit. If the numbers were equal, the player can either hit or dodge. This was translated in the Smash world to where the higher the number, the stronger or better the attack.
Gallery
Judge 6 in Melee.
All nine of Judge's effects in Brawl.
All nine of Judge's effects shown in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS.
Judge 9 in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Judge 1 in Ultimate.
Judge as shown by the Move List in Ultimate.
Names in other languages
| Language | Name |
|---|---|
 Japanese |
ジャッジ, Judge |
 English |
Judge |
 French (NTSC) |
Judge |
 German |
Urteil |
 Spanish (NTSC) |
Juez |
 Italian |
Castigo |
 Korean |
심판 |
 Dutch |
Beoordeling |
 Russian |
Судья |
Trivia
- In Ultimate, during the startup of Judge, numbers will rapidly flash up on the sign before stopping on the selected number. However the numbers that flash up are not completely random, as the numbers from 1-9 are flashed in a random order for the first 9 frames of the animation, and then the numbers are cycled through in the same order for the remainder of the startup. This does not affect how the final number is selected.
- If one of the Stadium games appears on a ticket in Master Orders, custom moves can be used there, something that is not normally possible. However if Extreme Judge is used, it will be changed to the standard variation and still land on a 6. It is the only custom move to do this.
- Judge is the only multiplayer Game & Watch game to be represented in Mr. Game & Watch's moveset.
- Judge is the only one of Mr. Game & Watch's special moves to not be represented in Flat Zone 2 and Flat Zone X.
- In the original Game & Watch game, the number 7 displays with the F segment lit (i.e. with a hook at the top left); it has a different rendition without the F segment in Smash.
