To knock out an opponent, the player must knock that character outside the stage's boundaries in any direction. As a character's percentage rises, they suffer stronger knockback from enemy attacks. Characters have a damage total which rises as they take damage, represented by a percentage value that measures up to 999%. Instead of winning by depleting an opponent's life bar, players seek to launch their opponents off the stage and out of bounds. Pre-release screenshot of Ultimate featuring Ganondorf, Link, Mario and Mega Man battle on the 'Great Plateau Tower' stage, based on the location from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Every game in the series has been well received by critics, with much praise given to their multiplayer features, spawning a large competitive community that has been featured in several gaming tournaments. In Melee, Brawl, and Ultimate, some characters are able to transform into different forms that have different styles of play and sets of moves. had only 12 playable characters, with the roster count rising for each successive game and later including third-party characters, with Ultimate containing every character playable in the previous games. The series primarily features characters from various Nintendo franchises, including Super Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Yoshi, Kirby, Star Fox, and Pokémon, as well as third-party franchises like Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter, and Final Fantasy. Ultimate, was released in 2018 for the Nintendo Switch. The 3DS installment was the first for a handheld platform.

for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, was released in 2014 for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, respectively. The fourth installment, Super Smash Bros. Although HAL Laboratory had been the developer for the first two games, the third game was developed through the collaboration of several companies. Melee, which was released in 2001 for the GameCube and became the best selling game on that system. The series achieved even greater success with the release of Super Smash Bros.

was released in 1999 for the Nintendo 64. The series is known for its unique gameplay objective which differs from that of traditional fighters, in that the aim is to increase damage counters and knock opponents off the stage instead of depleting life bars. The series was created by Masahiro Sakurai, who has directed every game in the series. is a crossover fighting game series published by Nintendo.

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