Porky (SSBB)

Porky in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Universe	Earthbound
A boss in	Brawl
Availability	Hacking
Tier	Banned

Porky (ポーキー, Porky/Pokey ), is an unplayable character in Brawl and only playable in Boss Battles via hacking. He has no specific voice actor, letting out mechanical bellows instead.

When playable, Porky's power level scales with difficulty. Uniquely, he is the only boss that can move independently, in this case with Crab Walk; however, it is a little unwieldy. Porky is also distinguished by his ability to summon Mecha-Porkies to control the field more effectively. This gives him an interesting bag of tricks, but without his Rush Attack, he has trouble closing out stocks. This makes him less polarising than most Brawl bosses, putting him firmly at the middle of the pack.

Attributes

Porky's standout trait is his Crab Walk, which unlike in regular Boss Battles, only uses the slow walk; additionally, it is hard to telegraph when he becomes actionable. This makes Porky a rather sluggish and clunky character, and, thus, it should not be used too often, even if contact does deal damage. Where Porky truly excels is in his stage control game, with the Mecha-Porkies and Plasma Attack forcing players to rapidly dodge many projectiles while forcing them to commit to intercept him at all. Finally, his HP is high on boss standards — compounded with a resistance to projectiles — which gives him some ability to outlast repeated onslaughts and react in turn. This forms a playstyle not seen in many Smash characters, only remotely being matched by King Dedede. It is notable that Plasma Attack, Jump Press, and Energy Ray all track opponents correctly under human control, which is a privilege few Brawl bosses can claim.

Porky loses his Rush Attack when playable, forcing him to find alternative ways of closing out stocks; these include the Thrust Attack, Jump Press, and Energy Ray. Thrust Attack deals large amounts of damage and is hard to telegraph after a Crab Walk, but can be SDIed by an experienced player, and Jump Press is slow and easy to avoid, especially if a player gets on top of Porky, but has the highest KO power. The Energy Ray is arguably the most effective as a result, which uniquely defends Porky from players climbing on top of his capsule, with the energy ball KOing extremely early.

However, Porky does have some crucial flaws, even outside of his difficulty landing KOs. The Crab Walk's lack of actionability makes it very difficult to utilise, sometimes leaving him vulnerable to players jumping on his capsule. From there, Porky is exceptionally vulnerable to attacks like down smashes, which can rapidly deplete his HP. Jump Press and Plasma Attack can be exploited with this in mind — albeit with caution in the latter case, once Porky is about to loose a beam — leaving him vulnerable to further heavy hits. He can, however, counterplay this with Energy Ray and Mecha-Porkies, as well as not tunnelling into constantly using the Crab Walk.

Health values

HP Values
Round	1-3	4-6	7-9	1-3	4-6	7-9	1-3	4-6	7-9	1-3	4-6	7-9	1-3	4-6	7-9
Boss Battles	150.4	152.2	168	163	169	189	176.5	187	210	190	205	235.5	226	253	292.5
Multiplied by 0.6× when a second player is present.

Damage taken	×1.0	×1.0	×1.0	×1.0	×1.0	×1.0	×1.0	×1.3	×1.3	×1.0	×0.75

Moveset

Like all bosses, Porky's moves are inputted using a set of commands with a GameCube controller, chiefly with the D-Pad. Move names are taken from the Japanese strategy guide for Brawl. Damage varies by difficulty, the following being taken from the game's files. Samus's Grapple Beam restores AI control. Unlike its boss appearance, Porky cannot use his Rush Attack.

Image	Move	Damage	Input	Description
	Thrust Attack (突き攻撃)			Porky's walker does a flurry of stabs, inflicting extremely heavy damage if all blows land (nearly 100% on Intense). The last hit alone has decent knockback, and on Very Hard (Intense in Boss Battles) most hits landing can lead to a KO. It is possible to DI or even SDI out of it by approaching towards him and jumping above. Some characters can crouch under this move as well. Difficult to telegraph after a Crab Walk.
	Jump Press (ジャンププレス)		+	Porky's walker jumps up high and tries to land on the player. On Intense difficulty, damage can reach 34% while falling and 53% on landing; if the player is just above the ground when he lands, both hits can connect and easily KO. Effective alongside Mecha-Porkies to limit areas a player can go.
	Crab Walk (カニ歩き)		/	Porky's walker walks around. Contact does minor damage (up to 18%) and very weak knockback (only KOing from center stage over 700%). It isn't very well-telegraphed (the walker speeds up a little and its eyes glow), but easily avoided by staying away or jumping over the mech.
	Energy Ray (エネルギー光線)			Porky's walker creates a ball of energy, which shoots a laser towards the player. In the air, it is a multi-hit attack that rapidly (every 8 frames) deals damage (up to 17% on Intense). Sometimes on the ground, it is a powerful one-hit attack that does upwards of 58% on Intense, capable of KOing around 40%. Touching the ball of energy deals high damage as well (40% on Intense) but much less knockback than the powerful laser hit. If the player is on top of the walker as the laser is moving, they could potentially get hit multiple times by it before being KOd by the energy ball if they don't DI out in time. On higher difficulties, the laser moves faster, sometimes able to loop around and hit a second time.
	Plasma Attack (プラズマアタック)		+	Porky's walker hovers up, and tries to attack the player with a lightning bolt. On Intense the bolt deals 42%. At low HP, he does this two or three times. Standing on Porky will not dodge the attack, instead dealing 40% and weaker vertical knockback, but is still very dangerous since the player is very close to the upper blast line.
	Porky Robo (ポーキーロボ)		+	Porky's walker sends out six Mecha-Porkies from Mother 3 that try to self-destruct on the player. If they are attacked with a projectile, they trip and explode, inflicting up to 38%. The explosion doesn't have great KO power, being unable to KO until around 70% on Intense. In Boss Battles, the robots can still deal damage to the player even after Porky himself has been defeated.
	Self-Destruct	None		KOs Porky.

Codes

Like all Brawl bosses, Porky can be accessed using a Gecko code that enables debug mode controls for Player 3 in Boss Battles. He is encountered randomly without additional external modifications, meaning other bosses need to be defeated or forced to self-destruct with their own codes to reach Petey Piranha's stage. The following codes are for the NTSC-U version of Brawl and both codes must be on.

Enable Boss Control
4A000000	810F1F3C
D2000000	00000002
901F058C	5400843E
90020070	00000000
C277F780	00000010
7CDFF050	2C06414C
4082006C	2C1C0002
40810064	39820074
809E0038	A0EC0000
7C043800	41810050
A0EC0002	7C1C3800
41820044	3CC0804E
A0C6E4C0	A8EC0004
2C070000	41820030
A8EC0004	7C063800
4082000C	A38C0006
4800001C	2C07FFFF
4082000C	AB8C0006
4800000C	398C0004
4BFFFFD8	939E0038
60000000	00000000
4A000000	805A9320
14000078	00000000
E0000000	80008000

Porky control for Player 3
4A000000	805A9320
30000070	00005C02
16000074	00000028
00080001	10800001
00820013	00810013
01800017	0188001A
0288001E	02840022
02800023	FFFFFFFF
E0000000	80008000

In competitive play

Tier placement and history

Because Porky is only playable through hacking, he's banned by default in all competitive Brawl tournaments. While some boss characters have arguments to be legalised, Brawl's bosses have unique challenges that make them particularly unlikely cases. They do not conform to the usual ruleset, are exclusive to Boss Battles and thus their specific stage, are subject to Boss Battles's random boss selection without further modifications, and have varying difficulty levels that would require rulings to decide on them properly. This boils down to a very clunky experience that would likely end up delaying tournaments due to the length of time it takes for them to be set up. Furthermore, Samus's Grapple Beam can reset the controls of Brawl bosses, which could cause further ruling issues. Ergo, Porky has seen little to no competitive experimentation outside of casual matches.

In The Subspace Emissary

Porky in The Ruined Zoo.

Porky appears as the third boss in The Subspace Emissary after the Pig King Statue is defeated in The Ruined Zoo. He is defeated by Lucas and Ness before the latter is turned into a trophy and stolen by Wario. After this event, Lucas is joined by Pokémon Trainer.

Gallery

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  Official artwork

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  Porky trophy

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  Porky sticker

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  Porky hops, before rushing forwards at a high speed.