Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is loaded with secrets, video game references, and esoteric bits of lore that only the most eagle-eyed and dedicated players will ever discover. A person could spend months playing this game and still not uncover everything Ultimate has to offer.
I’ve created a list of neat little things I’ve discovered in the enormous amount of time I’ve spent playing Ultimate. If you’ve invested ludicrous amounts of hours into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, you probably know a few of the things I’m about to call out. But even the most dedicated of bro-smashers probably still has at least a thing or two left to learn.
Anyway, here are 40 things you probably didn’t know about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Feel free to mention in the comments section how many of these you actually knew, and let me know if I’ve missed any that you think are essential.
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was once the fastest-selling Switch game of all time, but Animal Crossing: New Horizons surpassed it. Ultimate is still the fastest-selling game in the Smash franchise, however.
- If you play the game in Classic mode, you can unlock the characters in the order of your choosing. Shacknews has compiled the full list of unlocks.
- Mario’s forward-super move causes him to wave a cape, which can reflect projectiles. However, there’s an even better use for it: if the cape hits an opponent, it will cause the opponent to turn to face the opposite direction.
- Ultimate newcomer King K. Rool can toss his crown at opponents. He needs to be careful, however, because his crown can be lost, which means he can’t use it again until a new one spawns in. Also, Isabelle and Villager can steal the crown by putting it in their pockets, which also prevents K. Rool from using it.
- Two of the Animal Crossing stages, Town & Country and Smashville, sync with your Switch’s internal clock so they’re set in the current time of day. When you play one of these stages at night, for example, it will be nighttime in the stage. Tortimer Island, however, is always set in the daytime.
- The Umbra Clock Tower stage is also synced with the Switch’s internal clock so the clock tower always displays the correct time.
- Echo fighters are additional fighters who play very similarly to another character. Richter, for example, is an echo fighter of Simon. However, all echo fighters have different taunts and victory animations from the fighter they’re echoing.
- Speaking of echo fighters, Daisy is actually shorter than peach.
- Both Daisy and Peach can switch between a golf club, a tennis racket, and a frying pan. Here’s how to pull off the switch.
- As a reference to Super Mario Bros. 2, Daisy and Peach have a move where they pull a turnip out of the ground. These turnips often have different faces, and the face on the turnip often determines the amount of damage dealt when the turnip is tossed. Sometimes, though very rarely, these princesses will randomly pull up a Mr. Saturn or a Bob-omb.
- Smash Bros. amiibo figures can be scanned to create a Figure Player (FP) in the game. Scanning these figures will also sometimes give you special gifts.
- The Spirits you earn in World of Light and the Spirit Board can be inherited by your amiibo FP to gain stat boosts and special skills. It’s a surprisingly complex system, so I’ve created a detailed guide to how it works.
- Non-Smash amiibo figures can also be scanned for rewards, though each figure can only be scanned once.
- As stage hazards, the Midgar stage features five summons from the Final Fantasy series. Here’s a list of all five.
- When Link is at zero damage, slashing his sword will create a sword beam. This applies to adult Link only. Sorry, Toon Link and Young Link players.
- If you spam an attack, that attack gets temporarily weaker.
- The Great Bay stage features the ominous moon from Majora’s Mask. If you watch the background, you’ll see the Four Giants catch the moon and hurl it back into the sky. This was present in the Melee version of this stage as well, but it looks far more impressive in HD.
- There are four possible scenarios on the Shadow Moses Island stage. During the battle the hanger will break open to reveal Metal Gear REX, Metal Gear RAY, or two Gekko. The fourth possibility is that the hangar will remain undamaged.
- On the Magicant stage, Flying Men will appear in the upper right-hand corner of the map. Touching one will recruit it to fight for you, but as a heart-wrenching reference to EarthBound, Flying Men can only be recruited five times in a single battle.
- Some fighters take damage when they’re in the water (such as Charizard and Inkling), while others don’t.
- Ryu and Ken have Street Fighter move inputs.
- Ice Climbers can be desynched.
- You can’t use taunts in online mode, but Incineroar still can.
- Luigi is the only character who can do damage with a taunt.
- Joker and the announcer are the same voice actor.
- Sakuri’s wife designs the menus for the Smash games.
- Sakuri voices King Dedede.
- You can unlock Chrom in World of Light, but you need to find a secret area first.
- Olimar can also be Alph.
- Greninja transforms into Ash’s Greninja during his Final Smash.
- Pichu takes damage when it attacks.
- The music chosen for the Moray Towers stage can affect the ink color on the stage.
- Bowser is the heaviest fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. He gains weight every time he appears in the series. His weight ranking was 117 in Melee, 120 in Brawl, 130 in Smash 4, and it’s 135 in Ultimate.
- Also, you probably never wanted to know this, but Bowser probably smells like lemons.
- Picking fruit can be a lucrative hobby in the Animal Crossing games. Appropriately, the trees on the Tortimer Island stage produce various types of fruit, and these can be collected for various effects.
- While Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has the largest roster in Smash history, it also launched with the lowest amount of new fighters to ever appear in a Smash game. There were only 11 newcomers in the base game. With DLC characters, however, this has been addressed.
- Charles Martinet is known to the world as the voice of Mario, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is his 100th credit as the Goomba-stomping plumber. He was awarded a Guinness World Record for the most performances for a single character in a video game.
- Smash Balls, which let your character unleash a devastating Final Smash, were introduced in Brawl. Ultimate throws a twist on the classic Smash Ball by introducing decoy Smash Balls. Here’s how you can tell the difference between the real ones and the fake ones.
- K. K. Slider plays from 8 pm to midnight on Saturday nights.
- If you play as Toon Link on Spirit Tracks, the conductor is someone besides Link.
