Screen KO
Screen KO is a term regarding a special type of KO in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl games. Instead of a character being Star KO'd off the top blast line, the character appears to fly at the screen and hit it before falling down and being KO'd. Super Smash Bros. Brawl has a slightly different Screen KO. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, the character has a normal tumbling animation. When he or she hits the screen, however, the character makes a yelping sound and changes to a hurt face. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the character tumbles all the way without changing the animation. Screen KO's are less common than star KO's.
In Coin Battle, smash coins appear on the screen, surrounding the KO'd character. Once paused, the coins disappear.
In Super Smash Bros. Melee, there is a bonus for getting KO'd this way: Foresight.
There is a fair bit of controversy surrounding the idea that, since the choice of Star KO and Screen KO is random, two players may end up being KO'd at different times even though they hit the top blast line at the same time. If both players are on their last stock, this can determine the match.
While the Screen KO was not in Super Smash Bros. per se, there was an equivalent: sometimes Star KO'd characters would fall down between 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 the doomed character appears to be falling normally, while at other times they are just a quick flash of colour down the screen.
If the camera focusing on the stage while players are battling is zoomed in, pausing players can zoom out and see the characters hitting the screen before they are KO'd. Sometimes, if the camera gets close enough, the player can switch views with L or R on that KO'd character as if the character is still on the stage. This does not work if the camera is zoomed too far out.
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 the Mushroom Kingdom and Mushroom Kingdom II stages, characters being Screen KO'd appear much closer to the screen as they fall.
