27 Things You DIDN'T Know About Super Smash Bros

27 Things You Didn’t Know About Super Smash Bros

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we’re gonna tell you 27 things you didn’t know about the “Super Smash Bros.” games!

Pichu’s Powerup?

“Super Smash Bros. Brawl” (2008)

While it might seem a bit outlandish at first, there’s actually a very plausible fan theory suggesting that the Pikachu from “Super Smash Bros. Brawl” is actually the Pichu from “Super Smash Bros. Melee,” grown up. In Melee, Pichu’s alts wear the same type of goggles and bandana that Pikachu has in their alt costumes in Brawl. And Pikachu’s Final Smash is Volt Tackle, an ability that Pichu possesses! It just all seems a little bit too coincidental. Maybe the tiny ‘Melee Pichu’ eventually evolved into the powerful ‘Brawl Pikachu!’ There’s even a theory that the Pichu in ‘Ultimate’ is the grandchild of the original ‘Smash 64’ Pikachu, but we’ll save that for another time!

Rhythm Heaven in Smash

“Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U” (2014)

Occasionally, dataminers are able to find pretty interesting secrets in video games, and in Smash, it turns out that we almost had a “Rhythm Heaven” character! Unused files in “Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U” were discovered that hinted at a scrapped character. The files were code-named “Rhythm” and contained a variety of animations and sound effects that strongly suggested a playable character from that series was in development for Smash before being cut. Although the identity of the character remains a mystery, it’s clear that a “Rhythm Heaven” fighter was on the table at one point. The files and other contextual clues seem to point at the character being playable “Chorus Kids,” but no one can say for sure!

Sakurai’s Cat

“Super Smash Bros. Brawl” (2008)

Many games include hidden easter eggs these days, but none are quite as adorable as this one from “Super Smash Bros. Brawl.” In the Pokémon Stadium 2 stage, if you zoom in on the hut during the ice transformation, you can spot a small photograph of what appears to be a cat. Rumors started floating around that this is actually a photo of the game’s director, Masahiro Sakurai’s, beloved pet cat! But Sakurai debunked this directly on his X account, saying that it isn’t true. Regardless, it’s a pretty adorable and fun hidden little easter egg!

Charles Martinee

“Super Smash Bros.” (1999)

Even the original “Super Smash Bros.” has some secrets, or mistakes if you will. In the game’s ending credits, the name of Mario’s voice actor, Charles Martinet, is misspelled as “Charles Martinee.” This small but admittedly funny mistake has become a running joke among fans. If you thought it was over, it doesn’t end there! It seemed to be a common trend to misspell his name in Nintendo 64 games, like “Mario Party” 1 and 2, “Mario Golf,” and the Japanese version of “Mario Kart 64.” While it’s probably a mere typo, it’s a bit of a disservice to the legendary voice actor of Mario!

The Toon Link Conductor

“Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U” (2014) & “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” (2018)

On the Spirit Train stage featured in the more recent “Smash Bros.” games, the train is usually driven by Toon Link. However, if a player chooses to play as any of the Links on that stage, a different conductor takes his place. The driver becomes Alfonzo instead, a side character that acts as Link’s mentor who is also from “The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.” Link’s sudden disappearance is honestly surprising considering how many different Links there are in the timeline!

Custom Moves

“Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U” (2014)

“Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U” introduced a feature that has yet to return; custom moves. As you could guess by its name, the feature allowed players to swap out a character’s special moves for alternate versions, creating unique playstyles. While the DLC characters didn’t have custom moves, the feature offered a new level of customization and depth to the game. Not even ‘Smash Ultimate’ has it, although you may use them when designing a Mii Fighter. So 3DS and Wii U really remain the only games to have the feature as of Ultimate, although this may yet change in the future.

Yoshi Stampede

“Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” (2018)

Yoshi’s Final Smash in “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate,” known as Yoshi Stampede or simply ‘Stampede!’ depending on where you read it in-game, is a direct callback to an iconic shot from the opening cinematic of “Super Smash Bros. Melee,” where we see a herd of Yoshis charging across the battlefield. It’s just one of the many small ways that Smash plays on your nostalgia. Fun fact, the colors of the Yoshis in the foreground of the Final Smash are random and will be chosen from Yoshi’s first seven costumes.

Mr. Game & Watch’s True Form

“Super Smash Bros. Melee” (2001)

Mr. Game & Watch might appear to be a flat, 2D character, but he’s actually a fully rendered 3D model. His design is simply made to look like a 2D sprite from the classic ‘Game & Watch’ handheld games, but he is in fact a fully three-dimensional model with the values for his z-axis set to zero, giving the illusion of a flat character. It’s why he looks so visually distinct. This visual illusion also sometimes has the consequence of kind of breaking when hit by certain attacks or seen from certain angles!

Minecraft Soundtrack

“Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” (2018)

When the ‘Minecraft World’ stage was added to “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” together with Steve, a lot of players noticed that the music seemed unfamiliar or sounded unlike the original “Minecraft” game. This is because the ambient music from the main game was considered too relaxing to fight to, according to the creator of “Super Smash Bros.,” Masahiro Sakurai, and also because it was difficult to license. So instead they selected the soundtrack for the stage from the spin-off games “Minecraft Dungeons,” and “Minecraft Earth.” It makes a lot of sense for them to try to keep energy high considering that it’s a fighting game!

Selling Fast!“Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” (2018)

When it first launched, “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” was the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch game of all time. But it was also the fastest-selling game for ANY Nintendo console in Europe based on its first 11 days of sales, and soon it’d become Nintendo’s fastest-selling title of all time everywhere with Amazon reporting that ‘Ultimate’ was their highest selling video game product of 2018. It has since been surpassed by “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” but it still holds the title of the fastest-selling “Super Smash Bros.” game in the franchise’s history today.

James Bond

“Super Smash Bros.” (1999)

One of the more obscure origins for a smash item is the Motion-Sensor Bomb, also known as the Proximity Mine, which is found in every “Smash Bros.” game. It doesn’t appear in any Nintendo game, so where did it come from? The answer is “GoldenEye 007,” a game published by Nintendo. It seems a bit like they’ve been slowly trying to cover up this connection now with later games since they look nothing like their origin counterparts, but that’s just speculation! There were also rumors that James Bond would make an appearance in “Super Smash Bros. Melee,” but Sakurai only ever mentioned that they’d be difficult to include, not that he had any plans of doing so!

Sonic, Snake & Wario in Melee

“Super Smash Bros. Melee” (2001)

While characters like Sonic, Wario, and Snake made their debut appearances in “Super Smash Bros. Brawl,” they were all originally planned for Melee. Due to development constraints and time limitations, they were all cut from the roster, but the idea to include them was already there. Evidently, that means the idea to bring in third-party characters was considered much earlier than fans had ever realized. According to the game’s director, Masahiro Sakurai, Snake’s own creator himself, Hideo Kojima, had personally requested his character’s inclusion in “Super Smash Bros. Melee” because his son wanted to see Snake in ‘Smash!’

The Forbidden Seven

“Super Smash Bros. Brawl” (2008)

Much like Melee, during the development of “Super Smash Bros. Brawl,” seven characters were cut. Unlike other cut characters, these seven, which included fan favorites like Roy, Mewtwo, and Dr. Mario had incomplete files still present in the game’s code. With that said, the files themselves were entirely empty so all we have to go on is the names of the files. Some of them are actually a bit ambiguous, like the filename “pra_mai” which has been theorised to be the Pokémon species ‘Plusle’ and ‘Minun!’ This discovery by fans led to the cut characters being called “The Forbidden Seven,” a mythical and endearing name for this tidbit of Smash lore.

The Attack Cooldown

“Super Smash Bros.” series (1999-)

“Super Smash Bros.” games have a hidden mechanic to discourage players from spamming the same move. The game’s engine will temporarily weaken any attack that a player uses repeatedly, forcing them to vary their offense. This mechanic is called “Stale-Move Negation” and will cause the spammed move to deal less damage as well as less knockback. While that may seem like a complete disadvantage at first, you may actually manipulate this mechanic to make otherwise impossible combos doable! However, they’re also not really optimal most of the time, outside of a few rare cases.

The Menus of Smash

“Super Smash Bros.” series (1999-)

The menus of “Super Smash Bros.” across all the games are iconic and each of them showcase unique styles. But what many fans don’t know is that all of them were actually at least in part designed by Smash creator Masahiro Sakurai’s wife, Michiko Sakurai. She’s actually worked on a lot of Masahiro’s games, but notably she’s the main UI designer on each Smash title. Her work on the game’s user interface is a major reason why the game’s design is so clean and easy to navigate. She’s even stated in an interview that she’s drawn a couple of the maps in the games!

Dragon King

“Super Smash Bros.” (1999)

The original name and idea for “Super Smash Bros.” was kind of different from what we have today; the original title was “Dragon King: The Fighting Game.” It was a similar concept to Smash and the prototype fighters in it, who were all completely new characters, eventually became how Captain Falcon plays today. According to Masahiro Sakurai, the game had no specials, dodges, or items ‘yet.’ The name was later changed, and the roster as you know now would be populated with famous Nintendo characters instead, creating the now massively successful “Super Smash Bros.” series!

Mosh Pit

“Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” (2018)

On the ‘Town and City’ stage in “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate,” if the game is played on a Saturday night between 8 PM and midnight, K.K. Slider from the “Animal Crossing” series will appear and perform a live concert for the players. In “Animal Crossing,” he’s found across the various games playing concerts in different spots around the games. This isn’t actually the first Smash game he does this in either, as he can be found in Brawl and “Super Smash Bros. for Wii U” playing on the Smashville stage.

The Original 12

“Super Smash Bros.” series (1999-)

Out of all of the hundreds of characters that have appeared in the series, only twelve of them have been in all five games, from the very first “Super Smash Bros.” game and now Ultimate - Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, Pikachu, Luigi, Ness, Captain Falcon, and last but not least Jigglypuff. It’s actually a bit of a miracle that Jigglypuff and Ness still made it, considering Smash creator Sakurai almost decided on not including them due to time constraints during the development of “Super Smash Bros. Brawl.”

Damaging Taunts

“Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” (2018)

Most taunts across Smash Bros. games have just been for show, but four characters actually have taunts that can deal damage - Luigi, Snake, Greninja, and Kazuya! They all come with unique properties too, like Luigi’s down taunt spiking the opponent, Kazuya’s side taunt being an entire string, Greninja having an un-counterable attack on down taunt, and Snake whipping out the iconic cardboard box on any taunt, which works as a weak projectile when he discards it. Up until now, each game in the series has introduced a new character with a damaging taunt, all except for Melee which didn’t.

Harmful Water

“Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” (2018)

Water damage is a little-known mechanic in “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.” Characters have been able to swim since “Super Smash Bros. Brawl,” whereas before that you’d simply fall through water on stages like Jungle Japes. But in Ultimate, Charizard, Incineroar, Inkling and Sonic, which is simply implemented as a reference to their respective lores and designs, like Charizard being a Fire-type Pokémon, or Sonic being unable to swim. Quite a few of the cast members have unique interactions with the environment in certain stages that none of the rest have!

Where’s Ditto

“Super Smash Bros. Melee” (2001)

Originally, the Pokémon Ditto was planned to be a usable Pokémon from the Poké Ball item in “Super Smash Bros. Melee!” But while the files for Ditto still exist in the game, the character was cut from the final release. It was removed from Melee right before its release, and was supposed to transform into a duplicate of the character you threw the Poké Ball with, to help you in battle. Ditto is still semi-accessible through a bit of file manipulation. Fast forward to “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate,” and now they’ve fully implemented this cut feature nearly two decades later.

Teen Rating

“Super Smash Bros. Melee” (2001)

“Super Smash Bros. Melee” was the first time that a game starring Mario had received an ESRB Teen rating, with Mario typically being in stricter rated games. While the original “Smash Bros.” was rated ‘E for Everyone,’ the addition of more violent content and a higher difficulty level in Melee led to a higher age rating. It’s kind of a big deal, since series creator Masahiro Sakurai almost religiously adheres to the ratings or at least tries to, based on what he’s said in interviews! Brawl would get itself a T rating too by the ESRB, but it seems the new ones are back to E10.

Day/Night Cycle

“Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” (2018)

The Animal Crossing stages in the “Super Smash Bros.” games as well as several other stages have a very cool and unique feature. The stages change based on the time of day on your system’s internal clock. Sometimes it’s just the time of day, but some of them change more; they also feature different background elements and characters like the K.K. Slider concert from prior, or like the actual clock in Umbra Clock Tower reflecting the time on your system! This feature wasn’t in the first few Smash games though, as it started with Brawl which got the first “Animal Crossing” stage in the form of Smashville.

Characters Are Ordered

“Super Smash Bros.” series (1999-)

In the various “Super Smash Bros.” games, characters are ordered in the character select screen in different ways. In the very first one, the initial eight are arranged in a specific grid, with the rest of them not ordered at all. In Melee, the roster is generally grouped by series, but not strictly. In Brawl and Smash 4, it’s the same, but stricter. And as we get into “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate,” characters are ordered chronologically based on their fighter number, which corresponds to the order in which they were added to the series. That’s why Mario is number one!

Low Expectations

“Super Smash Bros.” (1999)

Looking at things now, this one’s gonna be hard to believe, but Nintendo had low expectations for the original “Super Smash Bros.” The company didn’t think the game would sell much, and it looks like they originally didn’t plan to release it outside of Japan based on the release dates. It was only released worldwide after selling over a million copies in Japan. The sales team at Nintendo didn’t like having their characters beat each other up, and the commercials were low-budget. Masahiro Sakurai even wrote a manual in an effort to persuade more people to try it.

8 Players

“Super Smash Bros. Melee” (2001)

While “Super Smash Bros. for Wii U” introduced the eight-player smash mode, it was something the developers had considered implementing all the way back in Melee. However, the technology of the time just didn’t cut it and it wasn’t advanced enough to handle that many characters on screen at once. As such, the idea was abandoned, and it wasn’t until thirteen years later that the team was able to finally implement this idea in full, with “Smash 4.” At first, this was an entire mode of its own, but now in Ultimate, it’s fully integrated into the regular Smash modes.

Guinness World Record

“Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” (2018)

Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario, was actually awarded a Guinness World Record in 2018 for the most performances as a single character in a video game. “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” marked his 100th performance as the iconic plumber! The man behind the voice originally got the role just as the casting directors were leaving, where he improvised Mario’s trademark falsetto on the spot. We could all learn a little bit from Martinet, who told Guinness; “I want to be more like this character - full of joy and happiness and fun and courage.”

Are there any obscure Smash Bros. facts you feel should be on this list? Let us know in the comments below!