Roy (SSBM)

Roy in Super Smash Bros. Melee
Universe	Fire Emblem
Availability	Unlockable
Tier	B (20)

“	While Roy's moves are well balanced, he's a little on the slow side, and doesn't excel at midair combat.	”
—Description from Roy's trophy.

Roy (ロイ, Roi) is a secret character in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Roy is a clone of Marth, with all of their moves having the same animations and most having similar functioning, although they do also have their differences in their fighting styles (primarily in the location of their sweet and sourspots). Like Marth, he is a hidden character, making Roy the only clone of an unlockable character.

Roy is currently ranked 20th on the tier list, in the B tier. Roy's upsides include a good approach due to one of the best SHFFLs in the game, as well as a good grab game, among the best reaches in the game, and some excellent KO moves. However, Roy's flaws are significant, including poor flexibility in his comboing game, attacks that are difficult to properly land, and among the worst recoveries in all of the game; as a result, Roy has numerous KOing problems while being easy to KO himself, leading to numerous matchups hard countering him, especially against those who are higher-tiered than him.

How to Unlock

To unlock Roy, the player must complete either Classic or Adventure Mode as Marth without using a continue, or play 900 VS. matches.

Roy is fought on the Temple stage, with the track "Fire Emblem" playing.

Attributes

Overall, Roy doesn't fall into any specific archetype of characters; while having a slew of powerful attacks, Roy himself is rather nimble, with a relatively fast dash, a good dash dance and a very high falling speed. Roy, however, has a relatively poor air speed. A combination of a fast falling speed and a low traction gives Roy a decently lengthed wavedash.

Among Roy's primary strengths is his overall power in most of his ground based attacks. Roy's forward smash is a fast attack and is his primary KO move. Additionally, Roy has a rather powerful, if laggy down smash, and a up smash with multi-hit properties, decent knockback, and, when tipped, spike properties, though the lattermost property is rather situational. Roy's specials are also powerful; his Flare Blade is a deadly edgeguard tactic, almost guaranteeing a OHKO if fully or almost fully charged, his Double-Edge Dance naturally combos into itself and can act as a reliable finisher, and his Counter varies in power against other attacks. Against smash attacks, Roy's Counter can quickly become his most powerful move; its pseudo-semi-spike properties also makes it useful when the opponent's back is to the ledge.

Roy also has a decent ground-based approach. Despite his only average wavedash, Roy still has access to a disjointed hitbox with his Sword of Seals, as well as a rather fast dash in general. Additionally, a combination of low-lag, fast aerials and a very high falling speed gives Roy a fantastic SHFFL; Roy's SHFFL is among the best in the game due to its extreme speed, and it is potentially faster and stronger than even Marth's. Roy's down tilt also sends opponents directly upward, with decent hitstun, giving Roy a very good method to start combos. Additionally, while Roy's wavedash is not as long as Marth's, it can still aid his approach, aided by his disjointed hitbox and long grab range. As a result of his rather good approach, Roy has among the highest reaches in all the game, with only Marth having a superior reach.

Roy's grab game is also surprisingly good. Roy has the second highest grab range among characters who do not have extended grabs (such as Link), behind only Marth in this regard. His throws can easily chain into each other; their low knockback and high grab range allow Roy to decently tech chase and chain grab. His up throw, unusually, is also the second strongest in the game and can chain grab other fast fallers. Roy's grab game comprises a good deal of his edgeguard game. A common tactic is to force opponents off the stage with a down throw or forward throw and immediately intercept their recovery with a forward smash or Flare Blade.

Roy, however, has his primary flaw in his disjointed hitbox. Unlike Marth, who can safely attack opponents from a distance, Roy must go into incredibly close ranges to deliver strong damage and knockback, as the sweetspot on his sword is closer to the hilt than tip; while attacks can become incredibly powerful at this close of a range, this causes Roy to become very vulnerable, especially against characters with powerful close range attacks or grabs, such as Fox, Falco or Mewtwo. While Counter can potentially mitigate against physical attacks, it requires particularly good reads from the player to avoid punishment, and the attack is completely ineffective against grabs. Roy's sourspot is also unacceptably weak compared to Marth's; while Marth still has some KOing potential in his sourspotted attacks, Roy's sourspotted attacks have very poor knockback and damage in comparison.

As a result of this close sweetspot, Roy himself lacks a particularly reliable KO move; with the exception of his forward smash and potentially his down smash, Roy has few options to quickly KO others, and even with these two attacks, Roy needs to connect with them in close ranges in order for them to have any reasonable KOing power. Further compounding Roy's problems with KOing are his aerials; even when sweetspotted, none of these aerials can reliably KO under 200%, they require good setups in order to properly connect, and none of them can easily inflict damage in the first place. Roy also lacks any "quick" KO options; while Roy has two meteor smashes (the third hit of his "up" Double Edge Dance and his down air) and one spike (his tipped up smash), all three are highly situational, requiring particularly lucky or skilled setups in order to properly connect. Coupled with poor off-the-stage options as a result of high-lag aerials that are all of high risk off the edge and a poor recovery, Roy is almost completely dependent on attempting to rack up damage with short combos, culminating in a reliance on wavesmashing and edgeguarding to garner KOs.

Roy also has poor comboing ability, in stark contrast with Marth; Roy has slightly below average air speed like Marth, but Roy's sweetspot once again hurts him. Roy cannot move fast enough in the air to hit with the centre of his blade, causing primarily tippered attacks, resulting in low hitstun and hitlag attacks, hurting Roy's comboing game. Roy himself, however, is easy to combo; like other fast falling characters, his high falling speed harms him by making him extremely vulnerable to chain-throws and potentially even the space animal slayer. Even with the fast falling speed, Roy's vertical survivability from the upper blast line is decidedly average, due to his lighter weight than characters such as Captain Falcon.

Roy, just like Marth, also has a non-stellar recovery, though his faster falling speed makes Roy's recovery among the worst in all the game; adding to this, his high falling speed makes him extremely vulnerable to edgeguarding, as well as being easy to gimp. While Roy's Blazer is slightly more effective than Marth's Dolphin Slash, due to its greater horizontal distance, multi-hit properties that can aggravate edgeguarders, and its ability to be controlled to an extent, Roy still has the high ending lag in his Blazer; additionally, while Roy can still use Double Edge Dance to recover horizontally, it is not as effective as Marth's Dancing Blade again due to his higher falling speed.

Moveset

For a gallery of Roy's hitboxes, see here.

All of Roy's attacks are at their strongest when they hit with the centre of the Sword of Seals; if an attack hits with both the sourspot and sweetspot hitboxes, then the sweetspot hitboxes take priority.

Ground moves

Normal

• Neutral attack: Slash->Counter Slash - Similar to Marth's, he slashes in front of him. Roy, however, only slashes once, and at a slower rate than Marth. 5-6%.
• Dash attack: Raid Chop - Slashes in front of him for 12%. Like Marth's, can either send opponents in front of him, behind him, or above him.
• Forward tilt: Sharp Edge - A slash in front, somewhat slower than his Neutral Attack. Can KO at high percentages or when the blast line is close by. 10% damage.
• Up tilt: Anti-Air Slash - Upwards slash, similar in appearance to neutral attack. Despite generally covering Roy's hurtboxes, it is less powerful and has less combo potential than Marth's. 9-10% damage.
• Down tilt: Low Stab - A sword poke to the ground. Has longer hitstun than most of Roy's other attacks, and also sends opponents upward, making it a good combo starter overall. Its range and speed makes it a very favorable move to use for neutral game and spacing, as well as egdeguarding. 10% damage normally. If very close to the foe, it can do 12% damage.

Smash attacks

A demonstration of the spike hitbox of Roy's up smash.

• Forward smash: Dragon Killer - Roy swings his sword in an arc in front of him. An attack very similar to Flare Blade, only one handed and leans forward more. It is rather fast, and is Roy's primary KO move. Uncharged 20%, 27% fully charged.
• Down smash: Whirlwind Blade - Sweeps his sword on both his sides via an outward slash in front then an inward slash behind. A decent finisher, useful for vertical KOs, though there is rather high ending lag. 21% in front of him, 16% behind uncharged; 29% in front and 21% behind fully charged.
• Up smash: Flame Sword - A relatively quick sword thrust upwards with fire effects. Can actually spike if enemy is hit on the sword's tip during the start of the attack, though this is highly situational. This attack is a multi-hit attack and the last hit has decent vertical knockback, if enemy is hit at the base. 17% uncharged, 22% fully.

Other attacks

• Ledge attack- Gets up and slashes, 8% damage
• 100% ledge attack- Similar to his normal ledge attack, 8% damage
• Floor attack- Slashes on both sides, 6% damage.

Aerial attacks

Roy's aerial attacks

• Neutral aerial: Double Slash - Two swipes around him via an inward slash then a full outward spin, with decent knockback and damage if sweetspotted. 4% first slash, 7% second.
• Forward aerial: Aerial Swipe - Swipes sword in front of him. Does 8% with surprising range and tends to be a primary combo tool due to its speed and recovery.
• Back aerial: About Face - Turns around and swipes inward his sword, similar to his forward aerial in terms of usage and knockback. Like Marth's back aerial, this move turns Roy around. 9% damage.
• Down aerial: Half Moon - Swipes below via an outward wide slash. While it acts as a meteor smash, it's rather weak and has nearly unrecoverable ending lag. The sweetspot is extremely tiny; the hilt is required to be touching (having Roy overlapping the opponent significantly), making the move more difficult to hit with than Jigglypuff's Rest. 9% at the base, 6% near the tip.
• Up aerial: Luna Slash - Swipes above outward while doing a delayed backflip. Meant to be a juggle tool, but is often subpar due to its low early knockback. Does 6% damage. It does 9% at the base.

Grabs & throws

• Pummel: Knee - Knees foe, 2-3% damage.
• Forward throw: Bounce - Knocks opponent forward. Can chain-grab certain heavyweights at low percentages. Inflicts 5% damage.
• Back throw: Throw Away - Tosses foe behind him. Inflicts 5% damage.
• Up throw: Emblem Toss - Thrusts opponent upwards. Can chain-grab the Space Animals at lower percentages. It is the second strongest up throw in the game. Inflicts 5% damage.
• Down throw: Slam - Tosses the foe to the ground. Chain grab potential. Inflicts 6% damage.

Special moves

Roy's special moves

Neutral special	Flare Blade
Side special	Double-Edge Dance
Up special	Blazer
Down special	Counter

Cheer

"Roy's our boy!"

In Competitive play

Matchups

Super Smash Bros. Melee Character Matchups

Avg.

Roy has a below-average matchup spread. According to the matchup chart, he has the 21st weighted total (tied with Yoshi). He counters only Pichu, soft counters two characters, and has two even matchups. On the disadvantageous side, he is soft countered by four characters, countered by twelve characters, and is hard countered by four. His poor comboing ability, awful recovery, and vulnerability to combos have resulted in him struggling against most of the cast, with his matchups against those who can exploit his latter two problems (like Sheik and Jigglypuff) being especially terrible. The need to get up close in order to hit with his blade's sweetspot has also been cited as a major problem, as he cannot strike from afar without losing a heavy load of power in his attacks; such a detrimental property gives him trouble against characters with more favorable hitbox placement (like Marth and Falco).

Notable players

See also: Category:Roy professionals (SSBM)

Active

•  Shokio

Inactive

•  Masashi
•  NEO
•  Ripple
•  Sethlon

Tier placement and history

On the current tier list, Roy ranks 20th, in the B tier. Roy as a competitive character has been ranked very low on most revisions of the tier list, with his highest rank being fifteenth on two separate occasions. Despite boasting some decent attacks and a good SHFFL, Roy has ranked low primarily because of his risky, unsafe approach, stemming from the poor sweetspot placement of his sword; Roy's physics also harmed his tier placing, as his high falling speed makes him easy to combo, creating poor synergy with his risky approach that favours close-ranged fighting, and it also causes his recovery to become considerably worse than most other characters. Roy's metagame also did not boast the potential creativity of other characters, especially Marth, owing to his over-reliance on his smash attacks; a lack of Roy mains have also prevented his metagame from potentially evolving, and most of Roy's previous mains have either become inactive in the tournament scene or have elected to use other, higher-tiered characters. Roy himself does not place well in tournaments, even in low tier tournaments, and arguably Roy's only notable representation in the current Melee metagame has been via Mew2King, who occasionally uses him in games against lower-leveled players as a weaker substitute for his usual Marth.

The "Tier Wars" and comparison to Marth

Marth's and Roy's differences became the center of controversies on GameFAQs' tier list debates, specifically in 2003 and 2004, when the competitive scene was picking up. Marth players who generally supported the tier list claimed Marth had overall better attributes, in terms of speed, weight, and recovery capabilities. They also cited tournament results as proof for his superiority, with a multitude of professional Marth users such as Ken placing extremely high in major tournaments, while Roy lacked any such representation to back up the anti-tiers' arguments. Roy players who generally opposed the tier list, however, claimed that Roy's different attributes, such as his larger sweetspot in the center of his blade and general "superiority" in power, were enough to allow him to be as efficient of a character as Marth was; they also argued that professionals needed to learn how to use Roy as a different character from Marth in an attempt to disprove the tournament results.

Owing to the fact that these debates took place before extensive testing of Melee's engine, the debates were plagued by numerous inaccuracies that have since been disproven. The point about Marth's extra weight, for instance, is now considered moot; his extra weight is decidedly negligible, and can even be interpreted as a disadvantage, considering his extra weight makes him susceptible to Fox's shine combos, while Roy's lighter weight makes him immune to such combos. More importantly, pro-tiers made a common assumption that Marth is faster than Roy. While Marth indeed has a faster dashing speed, this claim is questionable, considering that Roy's SHFFL is faster than Marth's due to his falling speed and lower short hop. Similarly, some points brought up about Roy's viability are also now considered inaccurate. For instance, Roy's "superiority" in power has been disproven, as many of Marth's attacks, tipped and non-tipped, deal more knockback and damage than Roy's respective centered and non-centered strikes. The sweetspot in the hilt of the blade is now considered a disadvantage and one of the main reasons for Roy's poor tier placing; while Marth can attack from afar and still deal respectable damage, Roy cannot do so, lest his attacks hit with extremely low knockback; Roy's sourspot on the entire length of his blade, besides the hilt, is also much weaker than Marth's sourspot on the hilt of the Falchion.

Overall, the prime reason for Roy's named inferiority is precisely the one that anti-tiers tried to refute: Roy has too much trouble trying to KO his opponents. Marth has far more creative and flexible ways to string together moves, deal damage, KO, and edgeguard (especially due to his down aerial spike). Roy, however, lacks the same flexibility in his comboing and KOing games, and is instead heavily reliant on predictable and repetitive chaingrab and down tilt setups, with almost all of his viable combos ending in a forward smash; Roy's edgeguarding game is also considerably worse than Marth's, due to a lack of effective meteors or spikes, as well as his poor recovery. The current metagame for Melee reflects these differences: Marth ranks in the S tier at 4th place and features numerous dedicated mains, while Roy ranks in the B tier at 20th, and has very few dedicated mains.

Perhaps in spite of his inferiority to Marth, Roy still has a notably large fanbase in the Melee community, partially stemming from his notable roles in some machinima. In an unofficial poll held by NinBuzz, Roy was actually voted the fifth favourite Melee character amongst viewers, gaining 9% of the vote.

In single-player modes

In Classic Mode

Roy's unused intro image.

Unusually, Roy does not appear at all in the Classic Mode when unlocked, neither as an ally, nor as an opponent; the reason for this is unknown. Despite this, Roy does have an introduction image for the "Now Loading..." screen between matches.

In Adventure Mode

The Adventure Mode makes no concessions to Roy when he is unlocked. Like Marth, however, music associated with him can play in the Underground Maze stage.

In All-Star Mode

In All-Star Mode, Roy and his allies are fought on Final Destination, as Roy was not designated an official home stage. Final Destination has the unusual property of playing the Fire Emblem music track when accessed this way.

In Event Matches

Roy appears in two Event Matches:

• Event 46: Fire Emblem Pride: The player battles and must defeat a team of Marth and Roy in an untimed match in the Temple stage, with all three characters receiving 3 stock.
• Event 49: All-Star Match Deluxe: Roy is the fifth opponent fought in this series of staged battles. The selected character battles him on the Temple stage with a stock of 2 while Roy has 1. With a timer of four minutes, the player must defeat him and the other five characters one-by-one with the overall time and damage: Dr. Mario, Falco, Pichu, Young Link and Ganondorf.

Ending images

• 

  Classic Mode.

• 

  Adventure Mode.

• 

  All-Star Mode.

Japanese Translations

Roy speaks less than fellow Fire Emblem character Marth, only speaking in Results screen.

Roy's three victory lines are:

• "苦しい戦いだった。 (Kurushī tatakai datta。)", which translates to "It was a difficult fight."
• "真の戦いは、これからだ。 (Shin no tatakai wa, korekara da。)", which translates to "The true fight is yet to come."
• "守るべきもののために、負けられない! (Mamoru beki mono no tame ni, makerarenai!)", which translates to "For those whom I must protect, I will not lose!".

Trophy Descriptions

In addition to the normal trophy about Roy as a character, there are two trophies about him as a fighter, unlocked by completing the Adventure and All-Star modes respectively with Roy on any difficulty:

(Smash Red)

While Roy's moves are well balanced, he's a little on the slow side, and doesn't excel at midair combat. His blade, the Sword of Seals, gives him excellent reach, and makes his Double-Edge Dance slightly different than Marth's Dancing Blade. When it's fully charged, Roy's destructive Flare Blade delivers an instant KO.

• B: Flare Blade
• Smash B: Double-Edge Dance

(Smash Blue)

Roy's blade is different than Marth's; he does the most damage hitting with the center of his sword. So, a fearless advance into the arms of his foe is Roy's best bet. Blazer is a bit slower than Marth's Dolphin Slash, but it's still a mighty attack that sets anyone it strikes aflame. Roy's attack after using Counter differs slightly from Marth's.

• Up & B: Blazer
• Down & B: Counter

• 

  Classic

• 

  Adventure

• 

  All-Star

Alternate costumes

Roy's changeable clothing in Melee

Trivia

Closeup of Roy's sword, showing the text "HAL LABRATORY.INC"

• Roy does not feature a sheath during gameplay and his "Challenger Approaching" screen like Marth does; this is considered unusual, as Roy has a sheath in his victory poses, official art, character select portrait and all three of his trophies, as well as his unused Classic Mode introduction.
• Roy and Marth are the only two characters in Melee that speak Japanese, regardless of language settings.
• Roy and Marth are the only playable characters in Melee that don't have a stage representing their universe, though hacked data shows that one was planned.
  • In Melee's All-Star Mode, Roy is fought on Final Destination. In his two Event Match appearances and his unlock battle, he appears on Hyrule Temple.
• Roy with his Flare Blade, Mr. Game & Watch with his Judgement, and Pichu with most of its electric attacks are the only characters in Melee to have attacks that directly damage themselves. Kirby can also harm himself if he copies either Roy or Pichu.
• Along with Marth, Roy was originally going to be a Japanese-exclusive character Super Smash Bros. Melee, but was kept in all versions on request of an employee at Nintendo of America. American fans became interested in Fire Emblem because of Super Smash Bros. Melee, which helped Fire Emblem to enter the countries where the games in the series had not been released.
• Roy, Marth, and Peach are the only characters in Melee with a special move that can counter.
• Roy's appearance in Melee was the first time he appeared in any game, as his game was released after Melee.
  • This technically makes Roy the first ever playable Nintendo character to debut through the Super Smash Bros. series.
• Close examination of textures for the Sword of Seals shows that the text "HAL LABRATORY.INC" was included in the file. It is not known why the signature is there.
• All of Roy's sourspotted attacks make a punch/kick sound effect instead of a slashing sound effect.