differences between smash bros clones
2022 10 08
in every single super smash bros. game, there are characters referred to as clones. they are called this because they take heavy source material from another character in the roster, usually because of shared source material or body structure. in smash ultimate, a lot, but not all, of these clones were given the title "echo fighter," which we like, because it removed all negative stigma for the character type and embraced them as a part of the game.
a lot of previous clones in ultimate were not officially called a echo fighter, like mario and dr. mario. this is probably confusing for some people! they are very similar characters. we'd like to go over the different clones in the smash bros. series, from the beginning, how they've been changed over time, and what differences they have with their source character!
in fact, most clones in smash bros. only share some basic animations with their base character. they often have completely different gameplans, and even the moves that share animations often have wildly different use cases!
the marios
the marios, so, mario, doctor mario, and luigi. this doesn't include wario! wario was always designed to be completely different from these three, whereas luigi and doc both originated as heavily based on super mario himself.
64
luigi and mario in smash 64 shared basically all the same animations, with few exceptions.
from the very beginning of smash bros., luigi is portrayed as clumsy and shy, compared to mario. in gameplay, this is seen in things like a hasty, anxious dash attack animation, worse air physics,
luigi jumps very straight up. mario jumps more low to the ground, and can move left and right in the air more freely than luigi.
some of the most notable differences for us, is that cyclone on luigi travels highers, and can be used as a combo ender, and up special also can be used as a kill move on luigi! also, luig's traction is very low, but this becomes more important later on we think.
melee
luigi
luigi is VERY slippery in melee!!
traction in smash bros. primarily effects how far you slide when stopping your run, or turning in the other direction, and how far your aerial momentum slides your character when they land. it also effects blockpush, which is how far someone shielding is pushed away when they block an attack.
in melee, airdodging diagonally towards the stage gives characters a big horizontal slide, in general, but characters with low traction like icies and luigi, slide extremely far. we think it would be cute if luigi had the boing sound effect the ice climbers have when they slide.
having just this alone makes luigi a lot more capable in battle. luigi's awkward physics in 64 combined with some other things made them really really bad. wavedashing (the name for the slide technique) helps luigi enormously, because they can get in to use their fun attacks.
luigi also got a lot more unique move properties and animations, like on downsmash, which is very fast and has an upwards angle! we love this move. luigi's move animations all follow the more shy, anxious and clumsy character personality, and have very unique, and in particular, silly, animations and properties.
in addition, melee gave luigi a gameplan, and began to shape the character into something of a grappler, a fighting game archetype that really struggle to approach, but once they get and get an opening on you, you're going to take a lot of damage. luigi's strong punish game didn't matter in 64, because literally every character can get a stock off of a single hit, and luigi just had a bad neutral.
luigi's strange physics and and randomly really strong moves give him a linear approach, and a lot of reward if the player can still get in despite having a linear approach.
luigi is a very silly character at their core and we like that. an important distinction from mario was made here, where mario is an well rounded an somewhat average character, and luigi is very specialised, and very silly! our favourite luigi move in melee is down smash.
doc
doctor mario is very similar to mario, especially compared to luigi.
luigi in melee, and especially after, was distinguished heavily from mario, and further morphed into a grappler type character. we'll see with doctor mario, that the character remains mostly the same over time.
compared to mario, doc is a professional doctor. In addition, he acts like the "heavy mario," in that his moves are stronger and weightier, and that his physics and ability to move are more limited than mario. in melee, this comes through in better damage output and kill options, and a worse recovery than mario.
we,, umm
we've heard doc in melee described as just, "better mario" to us, and, like,,,, yeah hehhe. so, in melee, doctor mario has stronger moves than mario. that is like, the main difference. wearable doctor equipment combined with a lab code and PhD seem to make doc more weighed down than mario, a professional life and years of school will do that to someone, so he can't find the energy to recover as far. but, in melee, edgeguarding is really strong, so mario having a better recovery than doc doesn't really count as a major difference, since it doesn't come into play ever.
smash wiki says that there are some other things that are worse than mario but,, we don't think they do come through in actual gameplay, because they are either so similar, or where most of what is important is just better on doc
brawl
we have like, no idea what brawl luigi is like. nobody ever plays them or talks about them and all we know is that forward smash and forward air are REALLY silly. doc was removed in this game. smash wiki reading time it is.
oh smash wiki says that luigi has fast and strong attacks yeah so basically, luigi's attacks being really fast help him combo with, really whatever they want! especially in melee and smash wii u, luigi comboes can be basically be anything you feel like. it also contributes to their shy portrayal and and also silliness.
okay so reading smash wiki just confirms the very base things we assumed. brawl's universal game style, being extremely defensive and neutral based (comboes in a traditional sense don't really,,, exist). it has no wavedashing, making it so luigi just kinda, can't play neutral at all against most of the good characters in brawl, and when they do get in, they don't really, do anything. THAT's why nobody plays luigi in brawl.
specifically, because traction also increases shield pushback, luigi can't play the patient grappler approach game, where they take their time getting through their opponent's wall to get in, slowly but surely, eventually forcing their opponent into their threat bubble. luigi's shield pushback makes it so he just loses neutral for having their shield get hit.
because luigi also doesn't have a fast burst option in wavedashing, combined with shield pushback, they struggle a lot against characters with more range than them. hint: brawl's most popular character has huge disjointed sword attacks and the best mobility in the game.
because luigi's silly attacks are very strong and fast, luigi does a better job taking opponent's stocks than mario. mario lost pretty much everything in brawl compared to melee, and gets even less reward than luigi for getting in. in brawl, characters can live for a very long time, and the average kill percent for the two characters is probably really big.
wii u
luigi
at this point, we think luigi is pretty heaviily different from mario, and we don't think people call them a clone by this game. we just want to talk about luigi from wii u and 3ds because that's our favourite iteration.
luigi has finished their evolution into a grappler in this game. before donkey kong and to a lesser extent bowser were buffed, luigi was the de facto grappler of this game. basically everything they do in this game is off of a grab. for people who have only played ultimate, luigi's down throw is better in wii u than it is in ultimate. in ultimate, luigi's down throw is known for being an oppressive kill confirm at literally 0%. yeah, it used to be BETTER.
mario also gets a lot off of grab, but only mainly at low percent. mario is a well rounded character again with a decent projectile, good comboes, solid movement, good stats. luigi has gone full in on grappling, in comparison!
in brawl, mario and luigi had a special move changed. their down special. mario's became a move with a windbox, and luigi's remained cyclone, with it's high mobility. in smash wii u, this is somewhat of a microcosm of their differences.
mario is well rounded, and can use their down special in creative and diverse ways. it is a unique neutral tool they have that also lets them edgeguard. cyclone, is, however, very clear with how it wants to be used. it either is gonna kill you, or its gonna help luigi get back to stage. Sometimes both at the same time.
because luigi now gets huge reward for getting in, the loss of wavedashing doesn't affect them as harshly anymore. they have a better run, and they can use this with smash wii u's very good dash shield to get a power shield, which negates shield pushback and lets you drop your shield imediately, without needing to wait through an animation. luigi is playing the slow approach game, and if you let him get in, he will put you in the Luigi Vortex, and probably in one or two mixup scenarioes to lead to to your stock being lost.
doc
doc sucks
so, in smash wii u, doc's attacks were made more noticably stronger and more of a "hit you once" kinda deal.
they have strong single hits instead of combos, which in smash bros. is usually combined with really poor movement speed and frame data. doc doesn't have bad frame data! in fact, their up special is one of if not the fastest out of shield option in the game! but!!! they are definitely really slow at moving.
in addition, they can't get specific opennings off of combo starters, because they don't really have them, at least in comparison to mario. doc's moves just are too strong to keep the opponent close enough for comboes, and this forces doc to rely on raw neutral and advantage state more for damage and stocks.
this, is really tough. so doc needs to continuously do things like win neutral, juggle, or edgegaurd someone, but they also have some of the lowest mobility in the game, so they can't get in a position where they can actually threaten someone in neutral, they can't get into a position where they can anti air a landing, they can't get offstage fast enough to edgeguard, and they are extremely vulnerable to being reverse edgeguarded because of a bad recovery.
ult
luigi and doc are mostly similar to their smash wii u version. luigi struggles to get in but explodes you when they do, and sorta also the case for doc. doc was changed the most. notably, luigi's grab is now extremely large for it's frame data and can be used as an oppressive edgeguarding and ledgetrapping tool, luigi's traction is brought in line with everyone else so they can now start using their extremely strong up special and grab out of shield, and their down special lost like all of its mobility and traded it for being a frame 1 invincible move.
this is the best time in this blogpost to say that we think the effective removal of shield pushback in ultimate because of homogonised, extremely high traction, was one of the worst changes they made.
doc
in ultimate, shield safety has gone way up overall, making approaching a lot more effective, especially for aerial based characters, because of additional changes like very low pre-jump.
doc's approach is so much stronger now because of this and some specific improvements. doc's fireball (drugs), is now wayyy more rewarding on hit, which makes it a much better neutral move compared to mario and luigi's fireballs. it is so much scary to get hit by than the others, because it's a slow projectile that can be ran behind for a safe approach, while also forcing a lot of pressure onto the opponent since, if they get hit, doc can combo into his extremely strong aerials, and if they block, they can hitconfirm a grab that doc gets a ton of reward off of.
fireball (drugs) being so strong also makes doc able to cover multiple defensive options in advantage state properly now! pill can cover landings and force high recoveries. also, doc's aerials being signifcantly stronger makes doc so much more threatening in general. up air specifically is now both a combo move and a good kill move, whereas previously it was, meh, at both of those.
doc also got some actual combo starters and some more outright kill moves. we think this helps doc a lot.
we like that doc's gameplan actually feels effective now. a one-two hit character with strong attacks and low movement, with a projectile that forces interactions and forces people to think about the character. they are actually able too win repeat neutral interactions and advantage state and they also get a lot more reward off their attacks.
we think it's funny doc is usually considered bottom 5 (out of like, eighty characters) for most people after how many improvements we just listed. in ultimate, like, over half the cast is high tier, and there are other characters like doc, like Incin, that have better hitboxes, comboes, and much safer kill options, only really trading a projectile for a long ranged command grab. doc isn't a bad character, they are just usually considered worse than the other characters in the game. we think that's important to acknowledge about ultimate! low tier characters in ultimate would probably be considered mid or high tier in previous smash bros. games.
pink round rounds
kirby and jigglypuff mostly share normals, particularly ground normals with each other, and became pretty heavily distinguished early on. mainly, puff is heavily air based, and reusing animations from kirby was just a method to quickly create an air based character. they aren't particularly similar, especially nowadays. we don't have a lot to say about them!
the links
this includes regular Link, Young Link, and Toon Link.
compared to the marios and pink round rounds, the links have pretty much always had very similar movesets throughout the entire series, and roughly similar gameplans. we're excited!
in general, Link regularly is a solid mid range fighter, and focuses on setplay and pressure mixups, and occasionally traps. they also generally like whiff punishing.
melee
in melee, young link and link are very similar.
they both have roughly the same gameplan, with controlling space. link uses their sword moves for this a lot more than young link, because it's a lot bigger!!!
as a tradeoff for less range and space control, young link is like a speedy lightweight version of link. they have more mobility, mainly, and are easier to kill and less effective at killing than Link.
for the most part, this tradeoff balances each other out. in smash bros., speed and range are fairly analogous. for example: sonic can put pressure from a very long range away because they are very fast and can get in your range faster than you can react, and Min min does the same, but with huge disjointed hitboxes instead.
however, in specific matchups, young link's ability to throw projectiles while also being fast lets them do keep away strategies, where they chip their opponent with projectiles, and then, since they are faster than link, they can run away with a life lead. in other matchups, link is sometimes considered more effective, since they are better at mid and close range because of stronger and larger hitboxes, although, this is a very small difference, and both characters are good at close range, and it can go the other way, too, where young link is considered better at close range for having better movement mixups.
brawl
young link was replaced by toon link in brawl, another small body version of Link that trades speed for traditional space control. toon link is not really a clone in the traditional sense, like, they were designed from the ground up to be different from Link, they just, decided to use the same moveset anyways????
okay so opening up toon link has much better mobility and frame data than link. this is huge.
toon link is a floaty, instead of a higher fall speed character, letting them pressure really well in the air with their fast strong aerials. their boomerang controls a lot of space because of how long it stays in place, and so does their bow and arrow and bombs. their projectiles and sword let them play mid and long range, and their speed and frame data let them approach well too!
link, in comparison, has weak attacks, bad frame data, bad mobility. their projectiles are still good, but they take pressure so much less well than toon link does, and their attacks are so much less threatening. we don't know much about brawl link, but they seem like another character that just, doesn't really have a gameplan. we think brawl is going to be like this for a lot of characters in this blogpost.
wii u
toon link has a custom neutral special that gives them fire arrow which is really good at ledgetrapping.
in smash wii u, regular Link's setplay and mid range zoning, and their ability to whiff punish is really good!
they are heavyweight defensive character and are one of our favourite character designs in the series.
Link has very strong and safe neutral air, and it has become nutorious. They have really strong call out options that can sometimes be setup into from their projectiles, which makes their projectiles and mixups scary. In general, Link wants to pressure with aerials and projectiles at mid range, force people to make decisions that they can punish, and have people follow their gameplan. their attacks are really strong and meant for punishing the decisons their opponent makes.
toon link's mobility and frame data let them set up their projectiles more safely and also let them continue pressure more effectively outside of mid range. their attacks are less strong on hit, and less intimidating. we think toon link is a more straightforward character than Link, focusing less on setplay and more on just using their projectiles to hit someone.
ult
young link
young link focuses wayy more on speed than their counterparts. link's design has been streamlined little and toon link's mostly unchanged. young link was changed to be something of a rushdown character, and being able to start strong comboes with all of their projectiles, including a very very fast arrow which we've heard be called a laser.
they can play at range, but generally young link wants to get in close to get their best options. usually they look for opennings with their projectiles, like Link, but instead of letting the opponent act defensively, young link goes in aggressively imediately, for the most part.
samus
these are actually the same character but have a different height and jump animation
spacies
this includes fox and falco, and a little bit of wolf, at least in ultimate, where their moves were made more similar to the other space animals.
fox has always been a rushdown character. falco is generally a slower, harder hitting animal with a better projectile.
melee
in melee, fox and falco share a lot of animations with each other, and were really clones. they both have strong neutral, comboes, have similar weaknesses (they get chain grabbed on one stage), and most of their differences are very minor.
despite both having strong neutral, it is for different reasons. fox's very high mobility allows him to get in and use movement mixups extremely well, probably better than anyone else in the game. falco, on the other hand, is more linear, and is good in neutral because of how oppressive their laser is, which stuns opponents and can be fired quickly.
in comboes, falco is very vertical based, whereas fox is mostly a whatever he feels like kinda character. a big part of this is that, falco's shine pops opponents upwards, unlike fox, which sends diagonally down, and falco's down air spikes. because they are both very popular, they've had their differences really fleshed out by players and we think that is cool.
something we think is notable is that fox seems much better at overwhelming other characters in melee than falco is, and one of fox's signature moves in up smash isn't really ever used with falco in this game! fox can move a lot more than falco and seems a lot more creative to us.
we'll see the characters' focus on rushdown versus slower gameplay and vertical comboes continue as the series goes on!
there are a lot of smaller differences between the two that we think are interesting, things like how falco's up special doesn't have a hitbox during the charge like fox's, although this mostly only effects ledgestalling we think. we want to write these with a characters' whole gameplan in mind, because it is difficult and overwhelming to talk about every single difference a character has, if it isn't broad and sweeping!
brawl
in brawl, fox is really good at rush down and is also a glass cannon. they were in melee, as well, but they also had one of the good recoveries in melee and also just, were extremely unbelievably strong and oppressive, so we don't think of them as a glass cannon as often in melee.
brawl fox likes spacing back airs, forcing approaches with laser, jump in nair and dair mixups, and dash attack for burst range in neutral. they also like catching people with up tilt. because fox's attacks are so low knockback, they combo better than most brawl moves, because hitstun cancelling only takes effect when characters are sent into tumble, which only occurs at moderate knockback.
so, fox is actually like, a cohesive character in brawl, unlike the other ones we've looked at so far. they are so fast, and covers suprisingly large amounts of space. earlier we wrote brawl is extremely defensive and neutral based, and, despite being a aggressive character, brawl fox is able to exist well here because a lot of their core strengths, in speed power and utility, just, aren't borked by the game mechanics. he is so fucking fast.
falco has been given a toon of unique move animation changes, and we love this. falco for the most part is still quite similar in design theory to melee, but he looks completely different from fox this time.
falco's lasers are SO good in brawl. they are also BLUE.
since brawl has less effective approach options than melee, short hop double laser with falco is so so good. it singlehandedly completely shuts down so many of the characters in the game. it creates a gigantic wall that deals damage and is hard to get around. oh also falco has a chain grab in brawl which is like, really really good.
falco not only expects, but can force you to come to him. he can also use laser to approach. we think dash attacks in brawl base their distance on character attributes, which would make sense because we're preetty sure brawl falco's dash attack is a worse burst option than fox's. falco usually uses it as a combo ender, since it has a gatling (cancelling a normal into another normal) with upsmash. we don't think this gatling can be hitconfirmed, so it's a lot riskier in neutral.
wait can fox gatling up smash from dash attack omg
that would be VERY silly.
okay no he can't
this doesn't come into play that much just yet for character differences but in melee onwards falco has a amazingly high jump and a mediocre distance up special. in melee we figured this was wrapped well into vertical based comboes. in brawl, the mediocre recovery part of falco's jump tradeoff is VERY funny. fire bird goes NOWHERE.
wii u
falco is relatively unfortunate in wii u. if you've ever asked the question "wow how would falco do without lasers" then this is a good case study. in melee and brawl, laser had no landing lag, and that's why it was so effective. in wii u, there is not a single other change to falco that matters more than lasers no longer having zero landing lag. it makes the move slow and predictable and easy to deal with, and makes falco, as a character, wayyyyy worse.
falco's patient playstyle continues and he now focuses more on more diverse comboes up close, and they are pretty fun to play. his backair in particular is reallly really good and can be comboed into (hint: it is way stronger in wii u than in any other game in the series, even ultimate). also his down tilt comboes and kills. it's cool.
falco's only burst option in dash attack (phantasm didn't become a burst option until partway into ultimate), is, Bad. it is meant as a sorta hit the person over there move, it doesn't really do anything on hit. we think, if it had a teeny tiny bit more knockback this would be okay for falco's design, um, if he could get in.
so, the thing with luigi, was that they got so much reward when they got in, and had some special gimmicks like a super powerful up special and down special for offense, that their neutral was made good just by the fact that luigi's openings are strong. there are mechanics like the power shield, crawl, and just, patient play, that enable luigi to play neutral. he can play off-tempo too. falco, falco does have threat, they do have comboes. they absolutely aren't terrible in neutral, but like, that isn't saying much. we think they are also slower than luigi.
now, fox on the other hand remained mostly the same. spacing back air, nair/dair mixups on offense, amazing dash attack and burst options (better than brawl). all they really lost from brawl was laser having no landing lag, same as falco, but fox is primarily a in your face rushdown character. they don't need projectiles! in addition, fox got a HUGE upgrade in that getting sent into tumble still lets you combo people, giving fox more effective options in neutral compared to brawl.
even in a defensive environment like brawl and wii u, fox's offensive is so unbelievably incredible that they are still an amazing character. falco is a character that is forced to play patiently, and look for openings carefully. they can't not be oppressive in neutral, because they are a defensive character by design. but they are most effective on offensive! but because this is a defensive game, they don't really have any means of opening up someone for that offense, because they are designed to be defensive themselves. it's like, the developers knew laser was blue and also broken as fuck, and said, well, shucks, this is so damn oppressive we need to get rid of the broken part (being blue was kept though). but this was also like, basically all falco had after melee, and even in melee he relies on it so heavily and would be so so so bad without it.
we love smash wii u so much
ult
fox once again is top tier with literally the exact same tools in the previous game but this time his shield pressure is better and we think that's cool. we love fox. we also think it is so funny that fox has been top tier in every single smash game with the only two notable changes between games being losing laser stun in melee, and losing shine jump cancels (and probably also wavedashes) in brawl. that's sick that his identity has stayed basically the exact same and it's always been the poster of glass cannon rushdown in the series.
falco
phantasm is now a gigantic unreactable combo starting burst option and they added up tilt to the game damn guys can we go back to laser walls please and thank you.
what the fuck did they do to falco
genuinely, most characters in smash ultimate are very similar to their version in wii u, with only a few core changes that make them a little better or a little worse in some areas.
falco is one of the characters who was given an entire damn gameplan. even doc in wii u had a gameplan, it was just bad.
falco, well, laser is actually a lot better in this game, it's just characters are so good at approaching in ultimate that it's mostly a nice to have. it isn't bad by any means. instead of being an all purpose everything neutral move, it is now something to influence someone's decision making. it isn't able to force someone to make a decision, but it does come close, which is a strong trait to have. we think this design choice of being a harassment tool from a distance and to make opponents less complacement is a good place for the move.
falco's comboes are close to luigi levels of strength, mostly due to their strengthen vertical comboes, and they may actually be more mean to hit people with than vertical melee comboes. Most likely. but unlike luigi, falco has a burst option. that also starts comboes. and a better recovery than luigi. and a signifcantly better projectile. what the fuck
?????????????
they gave him a combo starting burst option what the fuck.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
we think it is interesting that falco is still considered high tier, and not top tier. falco's limitted mobility and not being able to force people into his threat range is a major reason for this. compared to fox, who can use their really strong options regardless of how their opponent plays or who they play for the most part.
we played someone in pools recently who didn't know how to do falco comboes and didn't have a gameplan and we think we are gonna coach them next time they show up. we love coaching and exploring game theory.
wolf
brief intermission before we talk about wolf: omg we are so pretty and cute and tiny and are hair is awesome. we love our clothes and they love our body and we smell nice and awesome and everythign about us feels awesome.
we are the cutest girls in the world
wolf is the defensive spacie. falco is more of a, patient and look for your openings, and fox plays rushdown. we love this, that they all have distinct play styles.
specifically, wolf's forward air is a spacing move in addition to being a combo move, which fox and falco's are. wolf has worse mash out of hitstun and shieldstun options than fox, so they get locked in shield harder and occasionally struggle in disadvantage.
wolf's blaster is the star of the show. fox and falco's lasers are meant mainly for chip damage or forcing someone to approach. wolf's blaster is the neutral, and is probably the most classic street fighter fireballs in smash bros.
it moves at the perfect speed to control a lot of space while still threatening long ranges, it does good damage and low lag, it's also an anti air for some reason on startup which is funny but not really useful. it forces someone to do things, not just to approach or hop on a platform. combined with wolf's high air speed, it lets them quickly check someone with a safe option.
wolf has less devastating comboes than fox and falco, although part of this is probably because wolf players practice their comboes less, since the character attracts moore defensive and neutral based players, so there's a good chance a lot of wolf's best comboes don't appear in competitive settings very often.
in general, wolf has a lot of smaller differences from the other two space animals that are interesting but less signifcant, but add up to a lot!
a very slow and very large neutral air compared to the others, they recover in completely different ways from fox and falco, their up special out of shield is the only one that can kill, spacing back air against someone in the corner is extremely strong (whereas fox is just okay strong, and falco doesn't use back air like that), wolf's smash attack function completely different from the other two (and to be honest most other smash attacks in the game) and uses all of them, forward tilt is a whiff punish and getup option punisher instead of spacing tech chase move, down tilt is a swat that returns both characters to neutral, dash attack is slow and strong
pika pichu
pikachu (for page search).
melee
in melee, pikachu is a solid character. they have good edgeguarding, good comboes, pretty good projectile. pichu has a good neutral air. Just neutral air :)
pichu was called a joke character in melee (by the developer!!). they deal damage to theirselves, are the lightest character in the game so they die super early, and their moves do very little. they aren't actually terrible, which is funny! their neutral air is genuinely incredible and they have good movement.
we think the idea of character archetypes like this that don't describe a specific playstyle but something super unique like things self damage is such a cool and unique idea! imagine if pichu had,,, EX moves that cost more health,,,
ultimate
in ultimate, pikachu is a solid character. they have good edgeguarding, good comboes, pretty good projectile. pichu has some of if not the strongest capabilities on offense in the entire game.
pichu was called the best character in the game (for a period of time). they deal damage to theirselves, are the lightest character in the game so they die super early, and their moves compensate for this by being extremely damn strong. they aren't actually terrible, which is funny!
if pichu had EX moves EX forward tilt would be prepatch forward tilt but it does wayyy more self damage. ex moves are so coool we want to mod them into smash
in ultimate, pichu is a little bit of a rushdown character, compared to pika being more well rounded, looking for mistakes with bair and neutral pressure with tjolt. pichu🎀 tjolt makes her lose neutral because of self damage, and can apply less pressure with bair and tjolt because she is a fastfaller. when pichu gets a hit, they have some of the strongest offense in the game. they are probably the most akuma-like character in smash bros., extreme glass cannon.
pk kids
kinda like toon link and wolf, lucas isn't really a clone of ness, they just share aesthetic similarities.
their ground normals are really the only moves that have some similar use case, all of their aerials and specials are used in very different ways!!
we also don't know much about brawl lucas or ness other than they took grab release comboes more than any other character. so we don't want to write this one!
pk fire with ness is more of a whiff punish and a check option, whereas lucas' is designed like a solid neutral fireball, that is also good in advantage (things like covering landings/recovery routes). on hit, ness's pk fire can be comboed off of, and lucas's iis a one hit move that doesn't lead to any more imediate presure.
:)
falcon ganon
we remember being surprised when we learned that captain falcon and ganondorf are clones, they are the only clones in the series that do not have some established connection between them or their source material, other than puff and kirby, but like, those two weren't really clones even.
these two are definitely clones.
which is, especially intersting, because the base character, falcon, was completely made up for smash bros..
melee
in melee, captain falcon has some really good hitboxes combined with speed, and some opppressive comboes. they can do reaction tech chasing as much as they want and it's siiiiicck.
ganondorf is, ganon is a slow version with really strong attacks. the only different move they have is forward air, which makes sense, because it is falcon's second signature move. ganondorf also has only a jab 1, and it's a really solid poke move, probably one of the best jabs in the series. they play sorta midrange, and kinda like doctor mario in ultimate. they have really strong and big hitboxes that apply a ton of pressure. they play a lot more of a neutral based game than falcon, who has really strong comboes as well as neutral.
they are really, really similar.
brawl
both these characters didn't function in this game and only for very slightly different reasons but basically the same ones.
smash wii u
in smash wii u, because it lacks wavedashing, big, slow and strong characters generally are a lot worse than melee.
a few more moves were changed by this point, ganon now has a second, more useful command grab, ganon's up smash is safe on whiff and block and also very strong (a trait falcon's would inherit in ultimate), but for the most part they are still just a slow strong version of falcon.
ganon doesn't have a way of getting in, and if they go get in, they struggle dealing with defensive options. falcon can confirm into their big moves with safe attacks, and also has more mixups and pressure, by a LOT. meh
ult
ganon uses a sword for his smash attacks. that's basically it, both these characters are made up.
peach and daisy
daisy is shorter than peach when standing, that is literally it. in older versions, turnips were different.
fire emblems
this is a little different from the others! originally, roy was a clone of marth. roy was removed from smash bros., and marth got a new clone in lucina. afterwards, roy was added with a new moveset, and then roy himself got a clone in chrom.
in smash bros., marth is the poster of defensive swordies. they are a midrange zoner and have pretty strong comboes
melee
marth is a character whose attacks are stronger and more effective on the tip of the sword, to encourage spacing and midrange gameplay. in melee specifically, Marth has very strong movement with dash dancing, and really strong approach and pressure options with neutral air, down tilt, and grab. one of these is a combo starter, another is a safe big poke, and the other beats blocking. they get a lot of reward on hit.
roy is designed to be a aggro version of marth, with hitboxes that encourage being point blank. for example, instead of roy's down tilt being a safe poke in neutral like marth's it is a point blank combo starter. roy has a higher fall speed, also, and isn't a floaty like marth is, meaning they are forced to use their aerials differently from marth, in addition to having different effects on hit.
some notable differences between the two is, roy's weak hits, at the tip of his sword, do almost nothing at most percents. they start comboeing very late for most characters! these makes spacing with them really ineffective and makes them more predictable and also gives them less powerful comboes. some of roy's moves are really really strong, also, which is cool. down tilt, forward smash, flare blade and counter come to mind. they are really really strong. most moves don't seem to really reward agression all that much.
we think it's a little unfortunate roy has so many weaknesses (they have a worse recovery also), because we like the character design theory!
interestingly, because roy is a clone of a top tier character, they are still pretty strong overall despite them being very clearly much worse than marth because of their hitboxes and stuff. they maintain marth's amazing dash dance and grab, in addition to retaining a reallly really good forward smash and down tilt.
brawl
marth doesn't have any clones in brawl we just want to say how much we love brawl marth.
wii u
lucina
lucina is the first character denoted as an echo fighter in ultimate that has signifcant differences from their source character! she was in wii u also, before the echo fighter title was made.
the main difference between the two is that lucina's sword doesn't have a strong hit or a weak hit, and does the same damage and knockback all the way through the attack. she has less range than marth and is mostly a more accessible version of him.
notably lacking a tipper strong hit and having less range make her less effective at spacing and zoning very very slightly, and marth can usually kill earlier than her because he can reliably set up or space his strong hits, which are stronger than lucina's equivalent.
two very minor differences we learned fairly recently is that lucina's up special goes less distance than marth's and her shield breaker animation looks fucking awesome. we love when lucina's go for it in ultimate.
roy
roy now has entirely distinct animations from marth and is a more interesting take on a rushdown swordie. their weak hits are little bit more effective and their strong hits are much more effective on average than in melee, their aerials are also unsafe on block because of their frame data and inability to be spaced practically which is really funny because they are a rushdown character (aerials in smash bros. are the most important moves in neutral usually).
he has stronger comboes than marth and lucina and a different style of recovery! they are far more bashful and this is reflected in way less elegant and precise stuff. we love that!
they are fast and hit hard and use moves in sometimes reckless ways.
ultimate
lucina
most of lucina's non hitbox strength differences were removed in ultimate, like her range and up special length. because of nerfs to some important marth tippers like forward air, and general game mechanics, make lucina generally seen as a strictly better version of marth for more people, which we think is unfortunate, because marth is a lot more interesting mostly! we think if marth was better but lucina was still good like in wii u than she'd be viewed as a more accessible version of marth which gives them different strenghts and use cases, rather than one just being better than the other!
now, don't neccesarily agree with that strictly better sentiment, because marth nair is a DLC move in the corner and dancing blade is entirely consistent with practice and kills at 60 and can be comboed into!! in general marth's comboes are really strong. but for now and possibly the foreseeable future we can at least see what people are talking about, even if we don't think it really makes sense to play someone just because you think they're better
roy
a lot of roy's benefits in ultimate are mainly universal changes: aerials being universally safer on shield makes roy's rushdown genuinely fucking terrifying, lower ending lag on aerials also makes roy's comboes even stronger, higher mobility makes new comboes possibly like jair, yeah!
double edge dance was also made a lot stronger and therefore a lot more threatening on offense!
roy is really good.
down tilt is -3 on block and a huge amount of shield pushback for how far roy steps back. broken. this and alex up tilt are the only ground normals we can think of that are safe on block. which we honestly wish was a bigger amount of ground normals!!! ground pressure doesn't really exist except for like, sheik, ken, and terry, and like, a big part of that is shield pushback. we like slower neutral based games and a part of that is genuinely ground based footsies lol
CHROM
chrom is a cool dude.
chrom is a version of roy without a weak hit. because roy's attacks are fucking amazing, this is a problem. chrom has so many extremely strong attacks. it's roy but he can SPACE that's so broken and amazing. up air is awesome, jab is huge, forward tilt has absurd coverage. chrom is so good
unlike, falco, chrom can force people into his effective range and situation.
to compensate for this, chrom has perhaps the worst recovery in the game, in the same tier of recovery as mythra.
chrom's recovery is very linear, doesn't grab ledge until he starts descending so he can be hit very very easy while ascending above ledge or while he hovers next to it, destroyed by lingering projectiles and counters.
we sometimes wish chrom wasn't so polarising. he is so incredibly fun to play as but it's kinda upsetting that it's so heavily in favour of chrom until his feet lose hold on the ground. it's so,,, polarising.
pits
wii u
dark pit are very very similar and have some funny differences for no reasons. we think it would be cool if dark pit was aerial based and pit was ground based.
dark pit randomly has a different forward tilt from pit, in that it's a tech chase move??? we don't know it's weird. um,, we vaguely remember smash wii u tips saying that dark pit is a more high damage version of pit but like the only differences are forward tilt, side special, and neutral special. their final smash also but this doesn't change much. in fact while we're here a lot of clones have distinct final smashes but most of them are functionally identical, and in general final smash design isn't very interesting. it's like, this one kills, this one dashes forward, this one starts a cinematic, this one buffs you for a period of time. it's, very binary.
dark pit's bow differences from pit from our understanding just make the move Worse, and in many scenarioes dark pit's side special is just strictly better because of higher knockback or something.
in smash for 3ds and wii u, the pits were called "honest" characters. they didn't really have any overwhelming or unexpected power. they were also called solidly midtier, which, we think is strange, because they weren't all that good. they didn't really have a cohesive gameplan, or what they had wasn't really that useful.
ultimate
in ultimate, dark pit can combo back throw into final smash and it's really funny. they could probably do this in wii u too. gosh we wish smash bros. just had a normal super meter and normal super moves, and were actually fun. lucina needs EX spotdodge (this is lighthearted and from a conversation with our friend thinking about EX moves in smash bros., and this is one of the ones we think is funniest out of context. although it's funnier with context. we think EX moves are cool).
the difference between pit and dark pit's forward tilt was removed, and dark pit's neutral special is a whole lot better. it's not like, a zoning move in neutral, compared to pit's which is mainly a recovery checkmate. they have a fairly straightforward gameplan where they take guesses and try to make the right ones, their movekit is very, standard. The pits are shotos is what we're saying.
the animal crossingings
you know we of anyone should at least have an idea of how villager and isabelle are different um
we're gonna do our best! and by that we mean try to theory craft their gameplans in our head instead of asking the people we know who play these characters
they are both zoners with tons of space control. they can set hazards on the stage, in tree and lyoid, have huge forward and back airs with slingshot, and have a really good counter zoning move!
isabelle trades a projectile for a hitgrab, a windbox and strong kill move for a trap move that doesn't work against most of the cast, has strong fast smash attacks with less utility than villager's and has a disjointed combo jab.
like, the characters are similar but so different in a lot of ways, and have so many different moves. we really wish for characters like this, with tons and tons of source material to pull from, their clones got to explore more of that. characters like toon link, dark samus (or rather dark samus inheriting samus' playstyle so samus can have something new), dark pit. even just small things like isabelle. its, disapointing. the reason why fire emblem clones work so well is because fire emblems largely have a lot of similar character archetypes and more importantly not very much source material.
miis
we just want to mention miis here. they are their completely own characters! but they take a significant amount from other characters oftentimes. brawler takes a lot from mario, ZSS, and Fox, for example, swordfighter link, gunner samus.
an element of their design is to be basic versions of their playstyle, so we don't consider them clones, and because they very much do have their own identity completely separate from their source characters.
shotos
most of the echo fighter characters are characters who have never been "decloned". they are characters who were made a clone and didn't really have aspiration be different! unlike, like for example, a lot of the clones in melee try very hard to do different things from their counterpart. compare roy and lucina, and how they approach marth clone, and one seems a lot more ambituous to us, because it is completely changing the character's playstyle!
ken and ryu are a huuuuuge gigantic exception to this, and are the reason we made this blog post!
ken is very pressure and rushdown based. they vortex you!!! they run fast, and want to get in, and want to deal a bunch of damage at their range quickly and terrifying. this is like modern renditions of ken in street fighter, too.
ryu, in comparison, is a very fireball based character. shaku is really good for him and his comboes and pressure are much more fair than ken's.
ken has some important move differences from ryu: they have funny punch instead of collarbone breaker for their forward command normal. ken also has specials that cancel into a command normal that does a lot of shield damage which gives ken some of the only true block pressure in the entire game. it is so scary and ken will either kill you or kill your shield and then you.
shoryu is also pretty different! and since it drags people upwards it kills earlier. ken's fireball also sucks.
we really thought that, ken and ryu had more differences. it's just that, ken has some specific differences that make them completely different, completely different, and none of it has to do with funny punch!
all of their specials are different and some key normals and command normals are took
belmonts
richter is hot and their holy water doesn't hurt red pikmin.