A
Guide to Guides: Character Guides Explained
and Also a List of Characters According to Weight
The purpose of this page is to explain to you what I put on my guides for each character. All my character guides consist of three pages and follow the same format. Here is the format below.
Page 1
Background Info
Costumes
Moves list
Sidenote---
KKT: Introducing the Kill Kirby Test (This is not
a part of every guide)
Page 2
Characteristics
Cpu Tendencies
Strategies
Versus
Pros/Cons list
Final Verdict
Page 3
Break the Targets
Board the Platforms
Information---Character Weight List and Testing Methods (Not included in each guide)
Now we'll go to a detail description of each section starting from the top.
Background Info
This section tells some uh... background info on the subject character. It may include what Nintendo games the person is from and other known facts about the character. The next paragraph in this section then tells how this character handles in Smash Bros. Some general attributes are listed and anything special about the character is also touched upon. If the character in question is a secret character, then I'll tell you how you can obtain the character for use. After the paragraphs, the personal stage, battle entrance and the character selection animation are listed. The battle entrance is how the character's animation at the beginning of a fight. The character selection animation is when you select a character and the character does something funny.
Costumes
This is simple enough to figure out yourselves. It lists the costumes available to the subject character. Both free for all and team costumes are listed. Just so that you know, the most a character can have is six costumes.
Move List
The move list lists all the attacks that a character can do. They
are always listed in the following order:
-Weak Attacks
-Recovery Attacks
-Taunt
-Strong Attacks
-Running Attack
-Smash Attacks
-Throws
-Aerial Attacks
-Special Attacks
For a definition of these terms mean, go to the Smash Basics page. I
list all the move in the same way with the same attributes. Here's the
format below.
Name:
Tells you the name of the move. This could be a name from the instruction
booklet or a name that I or someone else made up.
Buttons: This item gives you instructions on how to start the
move with your controller. The + sign means press the buttons beside
the sign at the same time. The comma "," means press the first
button then the other second one and so on.
Damage: This part lists the MAXIMUM possible damage for the
attack. This is not necessarily the most common damage. For example
most of you probably think the Luigi tornado does a max damage of 15%.
Well, you are wrong. It can do up to 18% on the last hit.
KKT score: This is where I will put the KKT score. If it is
just a %, then you can assume its for killing people over the side.
Read the section below this one for a complete explaination of KKT.
Startup: This is the time a move takes between when you press
the buttons and when it enters the hit phase, or the phase where the
move delivers damage. Moves are can be rated slow, medium slow, medium,
medium fast, or fast.
Duration: This is how long the hit phase lasts for the attack.
This can be rated short, medium short, medium, medium long, and long.
Recovery: This is how long a move takes to recover to the character's
ready position after the hit phase is over. This has the same ratings
as startup.
Reach or Range: This tells you how long the reach is for the
attack. For projectile attacks, this attribute is listed as range. It
has the same ratings as duration.
Flight Path: This tells you how an enemy flys if he or she
gets hit by the subject attack. There are several terms that can go
be listed in here. Note that some moves can create more than one flight
path. All possible flight path are listed. Here are the terms.
Normal or regular: A launch angle of about 30 degrees off the ground.
This is the most common flight path in the game of Smash
Horizontal of flat: The victim will fly horizontally without gaining
much altitude. An example would be Fox's split kick.
45 degrees: Exactly what the name states, the victims fly up at close
to 45 degrees to the ground. Kirby's stone is one of these moves.
Steep diagonal: A launch angle where the victim flys further up then
he travels horizontally. A move that would cause an launch like this
is Yoshi's ground pound.
Straight up or nearly straight up: The victim flies straight up or close
to straight up when hit by the move. Examples would be DK's clap and
Luigi's fire punch.
Diagonally down: This is like steep diagonal, but the victim flys downwards.
A move that can cause this is DK's aerial forward A.
Straight down or nearly straight down: The victims is propelled straight
or nearly straight downwards after the hit. Most send downs will cause
this flight path.
Description: This is where I describe the moves. I might exaggerate
a bit and you'll have to use your imagination or turn on your system
and see for yourself because there's no pictures for you to see.
My Opinion:: I list my opinions on the move here. I'll comment on
how good or how bad it is and put any strategies I know for this move
here.
Rating: This is where I rate the subject attack. The rating range from
1 (extremely useless) to 5 (very useful).
KKT: Introducing the Kill Kirby Test
Kill Kirby Test is a test I made up (I'm so proud of myself.) to test
the power of every attack in Smash. The tests took tens of hours and
a lot of effort on my part. The definition of power is how far can an
attack launch a victim at a given damage. A powerful move can send someone
further than a weaker move if the victim is the same character with
the same amount of damage. The Kill Kirby Test involves killing Kirbys
(hence the name) by testing for how much damage does Kirby need to take
before the attack in question can kill Kirby outright. Killing outright
means sending Kirby completely over the boundaries for an explosion
or a star KO. An attack that can kill at a lower damage is more powerful
than an attack that kills at higher damage.
The Kill Kirby Tests took place during training mode on the left side
of Hyrule Castle. Moves that are used to KO people over the side boundaries
are tested with Kirby at the very left edge. Moves that usually star
finish are tested on the little ledge beside the left side ground that
slopes down. This is because certain moves that star finish (DK's clap)
can't hit people that are beside the character, so the ledge will provide
a bit of vertical distance so these moves can hit. The KKT is standardized
with only one variable. The variable is the move that is being tested.
Every other thing is the same. All tests are conducted with Kirby as
the punch bag and at the same place. That's why the results of this
series of tests can be used to compare the power of different attacks.
Note that you should not compare the KKT scores between star finishing
moves and side KO moves. This is because side KO moves are tested on
the very edge of the stage, therefore in a real battle it usually take
more damage to actually kill while the star KO moves are tested on a
relatively low part of the stage, which means it's likely the these
moves can KO at even lower damage. Moves that have constant power or
moves that can't KO Kirby at 300% are not tested to a specific amount
of damage, since these moves are not likely to KO outright anyways.
Constant power means that the move will send a certain character the
same distance no matter how much damage the character has.
Ok, here's what the KKT scores means for the attacks. A KKT score of
below 50% indicates that the attack is extremely strong and can kill
at absurdly low damages. A KKT score between 50% and 100% is a power
move. Most smash attacks will be in this range, and also back throws
and aerial power hits. A KKT score between 101% to 150% means that the
move is of medium strength. Most strong attacks and running moves fall
into this category. Anything that has a KKT score of above 150% is considered
weak.
Okay, we got a little off track there so now lets continue with the character guides explaination. Now we are on to page two.
Characteristics
This section tells you how fast the character runs, how high can he/she jump, how well does he/she roll and how big the character's shield is.
Cpu Tendencies
This section describes how a cpu, specifically a level 9 of the designated character behaves. This is listed more for curiosity's sake, since comps are easy to beat.
Strategies
This section contains a few specific strategies suited for the character. These are of course my opinions. If you disagree or have something to add, feel free to email me at webmaster@tonyjiang.com.
Versus
This section tells you how the subject character stack up against other characters in Smash. This is mostly one on one strategies. I don't really feel qualified to list team strategies since I don't play team battles often. The things listed are based on my experienced when fighting with my friends, so it might not be the best advice out there. The versus starts with Luigi and ends with Jigglypuff.
Pros/Cons
List: This is self explanatory. I list the pros and cons of the character in point form.
Final Verdict
My final words on the character.
Character Weight List and Testing Methods
This section is a chart comparing the relative weight of each character. If a character has more "weight," he/she will fly less than a character with less weight and the same damage. Most people who plays Smash knows that DK is by far the heaviest character of all, and Jigglypuff is the lightest, but no one is sure how the other characters rank (well, maybe some people at Nintendo and Hal Labs know), until now. I conducted two tests in Training mode to see which characters can tolerate damage better. I try to make these tests as accurate as they can be, but I can not guarantee that there are no mistakes in them, so take these as an approximate measurement.
Test 1: This test was conducted on the right edge of the Congo Jungle stage (not the platform above it). I used Kirby's Lunge Kick (Tap Forward + A) at full damage/power as the instrument of testing. I chose Kirby's smash because it is quite powerful, so I don't have to spend all day damaging a character, and because the smash isn't too powerful, like the Giant Punch, so the differences in weight between characters can be better seen. All test subjects are damaged up to a certain percentage, and then moved to very right edge to be kicked off the stage. The lowest percentage that gives an explosion KO over the side for the character is recorded. Here are the results from highest tolerance (=weight) to lowest.
| Character Name | Percentage for Explosion KO |
| Donkey Kong | 79% |
| Samus | 69% |
| Yoshi | 69% |
| Captain Falcon | 67% |
| Link | 66% |
| Fox | 63% |
| Mario | 63% |
| Luigi | 62% |
| Ness | 55% |
| Pikachu | 52% |
| Kirby | 50% |
| Jigglypuff | 44% |
The results at the most part were fairly unsurprising. DK is rightfully at the top of the list and Jigglypuff is at the bottom. The one surprising fact to me is that Samus managed to tie for the second spot with Yoshi. She even managed to beat "heavy" characters like Link and Falcon. I always thought that Samus was at the middle of the pack in terms of weight, and she seems to get killed easier than some of the characters that scored worse on this test than her. Hmmmm... Let's move on to the next test.
Test 2: Again, this test takes place in Training mode on Congo Jungle. This time, the tool of the test is Mario's Headbutt (Tap Up + A) and the test was conducted at the lowest part of the stage (the middle of the main platform). The reasons for chosing the Headbutt and the other test methods are the same with test 1. This lowest damage that gave a star KO was recorded for each character. Here are the results from highest to lowest.
| Character Name | Percentage for Star KO |
| Donkey Kong | 99% |
| Captain Falcon | 89% |
| Link | 88% |
| Yoshi | 87% |
| Fox | 82% |
| Samus | 80% |
| Mario | 74% |
| Luigi | 72% |
| Ness | 70% |
| Pikachu | 64% |
| Kirby | 60% |
| Jigglypuff | 50% |
Whoa, what a
turn around. Compared to the first chart, Samus dropped from second
spot all the way to sixth. The results of test two was more of what
I had in mind about the weight rankings of characters. So through the
two things, I can conclude several things about the weight of characters.
1. Characters may react differently to a hit that propel them sideways
and a hit the propels them upwards. For example, Samus is easier to
kill over the top because of her "floatiness," while Link
is easier to KO over the sides.
2. DK is by far heavier than any other characters in the game, making
him the only true heavyweight in the game. This gives him a great advantage
to compensate for his slow speed and big size.
3. In contrast, Jigglypuff is significantly lighter than any other character,
making him as light as a balloon. It's not like Jiggly didn't have enough
problems already.
4. Mario and Luigi are not exactly the same weight. Logically, the "rounder"
Mario is slightly heavier than his thinner brother. Both are, however,
in the middleweight range.
And that's it! Now you know how to read my character guides and know the weights of all the characters. If all text guides make your head spin, make sure you drink lots of water and go do something else every half an hour, so you don't faint. Hopefully my guides won't cause any permanent damage.
On Page 3 you will find the instructions to complete each character's bonus stages.
Break the Targets
Here are instructions to each character's "Break the Targets" bonus stage.
Board the Platforms
Here are instructions to each character's "Board the Platforms" bonus stage.
Each bonus stage's explanations will be accompanied by a diagram drawn and labelled by yours truly. The colour coding on the diagram is as follows:
| Colour | Definition |
| Black | Black indicates solid ground, which means you character cannot pass through it from above or below. |
| Blue | Blue indicates semi-solid ground.Your character can jump to the top of these from below, but you cannot go through these grounds from above. Ex. DK and Samus stages' main sections. |
| Green | Green indicates platforms where characters can go through from above and below. |
| Red dots or lines with numbers | These are either the targets you have to break or the platforms you have to activate. |
| Blue "S" | The place where your character starts. |
| Other colours | These are things that don't fit the above descriptions or deserve special mention. Their meanings will be stated in the instructions for the stage. |