Jake's Super Smash Bros.





, also known simply as Super Smash Bros. or JSSB, is considered as both the seventh instalment of the Super Smash Bros. series, following 2018's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as a soft-reboot for it. Unlike previous titles in the series, the game is not directed by series creator Masahiro Sakurai but instead by Jake, who also serves as the game's announcer; Sakurai still works on the game as a design consultant and producer.

Jake's Super Smash Bros. retains the same gameplay elements as previous Super Smash Bros. titles, such as being a 2.5D fighting game set within platformer-esque levels, as well as including a story mode that reimagines and builds on the plot of Super Smash Bros. Brawl's Subspace Emissary.

North American players who pre-ordered the game as certain gaming outlets got a two-disc CD collection titled JSSB: Special Music Collection along with the game. This collection contained a large selection of the new remixes created for Jake's Super Smash Bros., as well as a new medley of the Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl main themes not heard anywhere in the game. In Japan this CD collection was made available through My Nintendo, while Nintendo of Europe sold this CD for a limited time through their online store.

Gameplay
As with previous entries in the Super Smash Bros. series, Jake's Super Smash Bros. is a 2.5D mascot fighting game that ditches several aspects that "traditional" fighting games, such as Tekken or Street Fighter, utilize. The game features a number of different characters from various Nintendo-owned and third party franchises, and up to eight can fight at once on a single stage. Instead of the normal, flat stages found in most fighting games, Jake's Super Smash Bros. features ones with a variety of different platforms and hazards that may affect one's playstyle.

Unlike most fighting games, which utilize combo-based movesets for fighters, Jake's Super Smash Bros. simplifies this- all playable characters have a single 'standard attack' button, and a 'special attack' button, with the control stick's directional input determining what attack they perform. As such, all fighters have eight main attacks- up, down, side, and neutral standard and special moves. There are also tilt and smash attacks, which are more powerful versions of the fighters' standard moves; tilt attacks occur when a control stick is not tilted fully in a single direction and are generally more powerful than normal standard attacks, while smash attacks are even more powerful standard attacks that can be charged up by holding down the standard move button. When airborne, fighters are also granted a different set of standard moves, and some special moves may also act differently. Additionally, airborne fighters are granted another standard attack, as tilting the control stick forwards or backwards causes the fighter to perform a different attack. Finally, all fighters also have a Final Smash, a powerful special move that replaces the character's neutral special move once they have broken a Smash Ball.

Also unlike most other fighting games, the aim of a battle is not to deplete a foe's HP bar but instead knock them past the invisible blast lines located around the stage, with damage increasing a fighter's "damage percentage", which increases the amount of knockback they take; a fighter whose damage percentage is at 20% will take far less knockback than one whose damage percentage is at 120%, for instance.

Compared to other Super Smash Bros. titles, the game aims to be more casual than most other titles. Characters generally move at a speed faster than those in Super Smash Bros. Brawl do, but slower than in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U, and have about as much weight as those in the former do. Because of the game's more-casual target audience, many of the series' techniques utilized in competitive play, such as directional air-dodging and the "wavedashing" glitch, are not present in the game. The game does not completely ignore changes made after Brawl however, as some of the gameplay elements from Ultimate - such as the ability to attack while climbing a ladder, the optional Final Smash Meter that fills up as you deal and take damage, the ability to toggle hazards, and the fact that both fighters i a 1-on-1 match take more damage and knockback than in matches with more players - have been retained.

Collectibles
There are four collectible items in the game: CDs, trophies, stickers, and Memories.

CDs, as implied by their name, unlock new music for stages upon being collected. CDs are the rarest type of collectible though, unlike trophies and stickers, players can not collect duplicates of one track; once all CDs have been collected they will cease spawning.

Trophies and stickers may spawn during matches (trophies rarely and stickers uncommonly), though can more easily be earned through other modes. Trophies are small figurines of characters, items, or other objects from various series, which have different descriptions that give details about the object or its usage in its original appearance, while stickers can be used to alter the statistics of a fighter. All playable characters, including Echo Fighters, have a Memory associated with them, which is unlocked upon completion of the "true" All-Star Gauntlet. These Memories detail information about a certain piece of media in which a playable character makes a prominent appearance.

Collected stickers and trophies can be viewed in the Gallery. For a complete list of all of the game's music, trophies, stickers, and memories, click the corresponding button below. The buttons are listed in that order. There also exists a shop where players can purchase music, trophies, and stickers with in-game currency earned by playing Classic Mode, All-Star Gauntlet, Smash Run, and Smash Tour.



Stickers

 * Main article: Jake's Super Smash Bros./Stickers

Stickers are a gameplay mechanic that are very much comparable to the Custom Parts included in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U and the Spirits from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. All collected stickers have certain powers bonded to them, which the player can place onto the base of a playable character's trophy in order to power them up in certain ways. Stickers use artwork depicting characters from various media, and the size of the stickers denote the amount or strength of the powers attributed to it. Whether or not the effects of the stickers applied to a character are active during a battle can be decided via the options menu, and the active effects are displayed to all players before the battle begins. Should a sticker be removed from a character, it, as well as any of the powers that the sticker contains, will be permanently destroyed; no sticker can only be obtained once, as even those received from completing challenges can be obtained in platinum sticker packs. Additionally, stickers can not be overlapped on the base of a trophy, and as such the player must arrange them in such a way in order to optimize characters to suit their play style.

Shop
The Shop always has a collection of seven trophies that can be purchased with the gold earned by playing through the different modes as well as three packs of stickers. Any trophies that are obtained through random chance and not the completion of a specific challenge, though some are rarer than others and will be priced higher than others. Likewise, packs of stickers come in four varieties, each one increasing in price and thus the rarity of stickers that they may contain: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum; a bronze and silver pack will always be available for purchase, while platinum stickers will, on rare occasion, replace the otherwise-present gold packs.

This system previously appeared in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, though it has been revised for its Jake's Super Smash Bros. counterpart. The main difference between its previous appearances is that the shop is now manned by one of several characters, which are chosen randomly; while character similarly appeared in the shops in the Adventure Mode of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, in Jake's Super Smash Bros. the clerks all have unique attributes that allow the player to do a variety of different things when spoken to.

Clerks
There are four characters that can appear: the wooden box-headed clerk from Tomodachi Life, Rusty Slugger from Rusty's Real Deal Baseball, Timmy and Tommy Nook from the Animal Crossing series, or the Happy Mask Salesman from The Legend of Zelda series. The Mii does not have any unique attributes, and as such is the most common salesman, followed in order by Rusty, Timmy and Tommy, and the Happy Mask Salesman. When the language is set to Japanese, Rusty is replaced by Inuji Darumeshi just as in his original title.

Rusty allows players to haggle with him to lower the prices of trophies and sticker packs; and he may also lower the prices of trophies already at a discounted price. When Timmy and Tommy mans the shop, players can sell their duplicate trophies and pay roughly 30% of the trophy's original price. The Happy Mask Salesman will only appear for 72 minutes at a time (a reference to how Majora's Mask takes place over three days - or 72 hours), and only carry trophies normally priced at 2500 G. The Salesman may also include discounts that can range from anywhere between 5% off and 65% off, making it possible to pay only 875 G for a trophy normally priced at 2500 G.

Prices
Prices are determined by the rate of how common a trophy is, as all trophies that can be earned by random drop can also be purchased. Some trophies, notably the alternate trophies of the playable characters, can only be obtained by purchasing them through the shop.

Prices may also be discounted at 10% off, 30% off, or 50% off. These sales happen at random intervals throughout the day.

Playable Characters
Jake's Super Smash Bros. includes 150 unique playable characters from a number of video game series, primarily focusing on the intellectual properties created by Nintendo. While the series represented are primarily ones that have seen releases in more-recent years, there are a number of more-obscure characters that represent Nintendo's rich history. The game's philosophy is not to include a roster full of characters that "make sense" as fighters or as representatives of a series, but rather to include a large number of characters that are interesting and may not be as well known even to longtime Nintendo fans.

In addition to characters owned by Nintendo, select characters owned by third party companies will also be playable including representatives from SEGA, Capcom, Bandai Namco, and Koei Tecmo, among others. According to the creator of the game, any character that has debuted in a video game is eligible to appear as a playable character in the game, though characters from Nintendo's first- and second-party franchises are to be prioritized over any third-party fighter. A small number of characters hailing from media other than video games will also be included in the game, with the stipulation that they must have previously appeared in a video game released for a Nintendo console.

The game features unlockable characters; notably most characters not owned by Nintendo are not available by default. All characters have two different methods that can be used to unlock them: a wholly-unique criteria must be completed, such as completing a certain mode with a specific character, or a character will be unlocked once they join the player's party in the game's story mode, Crown of Orchid.

A number of characters with movesets based on another character's, dubbed "Echo Fighters" and marked with a lowercase Epsilon (ϵ), are also included in the game, but do not increase the number count on the roster and the player can choose to stack the icons of Echo Fighters atop their "original" on the character select screen. All Echo Fighters must be unlocked.

The playable characters are broken up into two waves. The first 100 unique fighters - as well as Echo Fighters Dark Samus, Metal Sonic, Apollo, Midbus, Toadette, Sakura, Fay, and Morpho Knight - are classified as being "Jake's Super Smash Bros. Originals", while all others are classified as part of "Jake's Super Smash Bros. Complete", as only the former were originally planned to be added into the game. Seven characters that were announced as part of Complete, six of whom appeared in previous Super Smash Bros. titles, were announced prior to the reveal of all 100 of the original playable characters as a tease towards the expanded roster: Sheik, Marth, Lucario, Snake, Toon Link, Mewtwo, and (albeit not by name) Kumatora.

Basic Abilities
Some playable characters have their own special quirks, often derived from abilities they may demonstrate within their series of origin. These traits may not be attack-based, instead granting them special defensive- or movement-based techniques that other fighters may be unable to use. There are five abilities that some characters may also exhibit, as well: the ability to crawl, wall jump, glide, the ability to grab opponents from afar (known as tether grab), and use either a tether grab or a special move in mid-air and latch on to a nearby ledge (known as tether recovering). It should be noted that Zoroark has full access to all of these abilities should it transform into a character capable of performing such.

Additionally, while all characters can swim in water, some fighters take damage while doing so due to having a weakness of such element in their home titles. The amount of damage is minimal, and should only be a factor should they remain in the water until they sink. The characters that take damage while swimming are Paper Mario, Litten, Chibi-Robo, Inkling, R.O.B., Callie, Marie, and Sonic. Captain Olimar's Pikmin are also defeated immediately upon touching the water, with the sole exception being that his Blue Pikmin will swim alongside him.

Stages
Jake's Super Smash Bros. includes a number of different stages based on a large pool of Nintendo IPs, as well as select third party series; all third party series with a playable character representative have at least one stage, but other third party series are represented solely with a stage and no playable character counterpart. Unlike traditional fighting games, which tend to feature flat stages, Super Smash Bros. instead opts for a stage designs that border of levels from a platforming title, with a number of different platforms and obstacles being present on stages. Obstacles can be toggled on and off through the settings. Stages are based off various locales from a number of different titles, and consist primarily of two types of platforms: solid platforms, and soft platforms; while the former is self-explanatory, the latter allows fighters to drop-down come-up through the platform. Other types of platforms exist as well. Like in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, all stages support up to eight players at one time.

The Stage Morph mechanic from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate returns in Jake's Super Smash Bros. When this option is turned on, the stage will shift between two selected (or random, should that option be chosen instead) stages during the battle. Depending on the option, the stages can morph every 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, or at completely random intervals.

All stages can have their hazards toggled on and off. When disabled, bosses or enemies will not appear on stages and parts of stages that may deal damage on contact do not. Additionally, stages that scroll or travel will instead remain stationary at the point they begin at normally. The Ω (Omega) and Battlefield Forms present in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate do not make a return.

Twenty-three of the stages return from previous Smash Bros. titles, though some have been renamed or altered in aesthetics.

Jake's Super Smash Bros./Stages/Default Stages|Default Stages Jake's Super Smash Bros./Stages/Unlockable Stages|Unlockable Stages

Stage Bosses
Some playable stages include bosses as stage hazards. Unlike normal stage hazards, stage bosses can actually be defeated and will cease appearing once they are. Additionally these bosses act as more dangerous hazards, having a multitude of different attacks, and often grant a point to the fighter that dealt the last hit in timed matches.

My Music

 * See also: Jake's Super Smash Bros./Music

The My Music system introduced in Super Smash Bros. Brawl returns in Jake's Super Smash Bros. with the same function. This "My Music" feature allows the player to set the frequency that each song in the game is capable of playing on a stage during a match. While, like in previous games, some songs must be unlocked via the collection of CDs and all songs are only capable of playing on a single, pre-determined, stage, players are capable of being more specific with each frequencies and also allow songs to be disabled out-right; in previous titles, setting a song to a 0% likelihood still makes it possible to play during a match, albeit it is very unlikely for it to.

Each stage in the game has a total of 10 music tracks, with four of the songs needing to be unlocked through the collection of CD's. In addition, the menu music can also be changed through this feature; while the menu has its own set of specific music tracks, the player can also import songs that can play on stages into the Menu's My Music selection. Below is a list of the different songs that can exclusively be found in the Menu's My Music selection.

Smash Taunts
By holding down the taunt button for an extended period of time, certain fighters can initiate conversations with other characters from their series of origin on specific stages. These conversations are known as "Smash Taunts", and do not actually affect the battle in any way, making them purely fanservice. Most Smash Taunts will change depending on what fighter(s) the player is fighting against, often having the characters reference the movesets of the player's opponents. The following characters can perform Smash Taunts, once per match unless stated otherwise:

Story Mode
is the story mode of Jake's Super Smash Bros., and features the playable cast of the game teaming up to defeat a group of villains. Set within its own fictional world made up of aspects of all of the game's represented series, this story focuses on the villains attempting to retrieve the titular Crown of Orchid which is said to be the sole connection to the forbidden realm of Subspace sealed away long ago.

Arcade Mode

 * Main article: Jake's Super Smash Bros./Arcade Mode

Arcade Mode is a new mode that is essentially a replacement of sorts for the Classic Mode that appears in all previous entries of the Super Smash Bros. series. Much like in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate every character has their own pre-set Arcade Mode "campaign" consisting of twelve levels tailored based on the their home series or role within such. Much like the Classic Modes from entries prior to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the player faces Master Hand in the final stage; Crazy Hand will join the battle starting from intermediate difficulty (7.2 on the numerical scale), while both will be replaced by the Orchid Palms starting at intense difficulty (9.5).

Jake's Super Smash Bros. features two Bonus Stages, which are the only stages in each character's campaign that is not designed specifically for them. These Bonus Stages both make use of the map designed for the Smash Run mode: Race to the Finish and Break the Targets. Both modes see the player having to fight against the basic enemies from the Smash Run mode while completing certain objectives, namely trying to locate an exit (Race to the Finish) and destroying the 10 targets hidden around the stage (Break the Targets). While these Bonus Stages are not specifically tailored to each fighter, they do feature some instances of randomization, such as the location where the player begins, and the location(s) of their objectives. This Bonus Stage always takes up the sixth stage in a character's campaign.

Like in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, players decide difficulty by sliding a numerical bar. At the beginning of a game, players can select up to 5.0, and the difficulty will increase as battles are complete by a certain amount dependant on how the player performs. Unlike in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, players can also pay in-game gold to play a "harder" version of the mode, which begins the game at 7.2 and increases a significant amount more than it normally would.

All-Star Gauntlet
All-Star Gauntlet is a game mode where one or two players can team-up and fight all of the game's playable characters in a challenging gauntlet of battles. Characters are fought in groups of five. After a certain amount of characters are KO'd, the player will be given a limited amount of healing items (which do not replenish each time they appear) or they could continue with the gauntlet by entering a teleporter. The stages on which the gauntlet are played on are random, changing after each of the "checkpoints"; the stages' hazards are enabled on Normal difficulty or higher, though due to there being more than four characters on the screen at once no bosses will appear on stages. All players also only get one stock, though both need to be KO'd before the game is "lost".

The mode is available by default, though unlockable characters will only be added to the line-up once they have been unlocked. Once all playable characters have been unlocked, the player will unlock a character's Memory should they beat all characters and complete the mode.

Fighting order
The order in which fighters are fought is not wholly randomized, though there are four possibilities. Fighters may be fought in order of their debut appearance (either newest-first or oldest-first), grouped by the series they represent in order of the series' first release, or in order by their designated number; which of these orders is used is randomized. In the first two cases, should multiple fighters have made their debut in a single game, they will be fought in a randomized order. As with other modes,.

Oddly, though they share the same symbol and are always-otherwise described as representatives of the "Mario" series, when the player fights the roster in series order, Paper Mario, King Boo, and Midbus are separated from the rest of the Mario fighters and are fought in-line with where the first instalments of the Dr. Mario, Paper Mario, Luigi's Mansion, and Mario & Luigi series would be.

Smash Run
Smash Run is a locally-single player game mode in which the player is tasked to run around a large map for five minutes, defeating a number of enemies and collecting the stickers, trophies, and, most importantly, stat boosts. These stat boosts affect the character's abilities, from movement speed to damage output, and are carried over into the battle that directly follows the Smash "Run" portion of this mode. Smash Run can be played alone, with the battle at the end of the mode seeing the player facing CPU fighters with random stat changes, or online against three other players; though the player can not interact with other fighters outside of the battle at the mode's end.

Upon defeating an enemy, they may drop different stat boosts that change the way the fighter would play normally. In addition to there being six different types of stat boosts - #ff8604, #00de01, #017eff, #ffc700, #ff2e2f, and #a046fe - the size of the stat boost item dropped changes its potency.

Enemies
The enemies that appear in Smash Run all come from different franchises, from Super Mario to even third party franchises like Sonic the Hedgehog.

There are two different classes of enemy, which are as follows:
 * Basic enemies are the most common enemies that spawn on the map. They are generally weaker and have a small amount of health, though this is not a rule and there are definite exceptions to this.
 * Dangerous enemies are the strongest class of enemy. They spawn extremely rarely, and are generally marked on the map when they do. These dangerous enemies are comparable to bosses, and yield a large amount of larger power-ups when they are defeated. Unlike Basic enemies, Dangerous enemies have their health indicated by a health bar.

Smash Tour
Smash Tour is a party game mode that bares some similarity to another one of Nintendo's multiplayer-focused franchises, Mario Party. Smash Tour is a mode in which up to four players run around on one of four boards, each one styled after a different Nintendo property, collecting power-ups in a manner not unlike Smash Run. Unlike Smash Run however, Smash Tour focuses more on the interactions between players (or, should they be enabled, CPU characters), and lasts for a set amount of "turns" (which begin when all players stop their spinners to determine how many spaces, between 1 and 10, they can move).

In Smash Tour mode, up to four players traverse a board, landing on different spaces and collecting power-ups and stickers. There are six different types of power-ups, all of which return from Smash Run and act identically to their appearances in that mode: #ff8604, #00de01, #017eff, #ffc700, #ff2e2f, and #a046fe. These power-ups are scattered across a board, and are collected by the player's avatar, a Mii saved on the game's console, as they run through them.

Also found on the board are stickers. Most stickers that are collected have unique qualities in this mode that can be used to affect the player or their opponents before a turn or before a battle, though others gift the player that picks it up a playable character. Before a match begins, a player chooses a playable character out of those that they have collected, and applies it to their Mii - once this character is defeated in battle, they lose this character and must collect them once more. If a player wins a match they will not lose the character they used during such match, though they will retain whatever amount of damage they had when they won.

Players can run into each other on the board, and doing so will automatically begin a one-stock match between these two players once the turn is complete; the loser of this match will be knocked away and sent flying elsewhere onto the map, and they can potentially also lose some of the power-ups they collected. There are also four different colours of spaces that make up the board:
 * #c3c8c9 are the most plentiful colour on the board. Nothing happens when a player lands on this space.
 * #2964d0 are the second-most plentiful type of space on the board. When a player lands on this, a battle will begin between all four players. This battle can be either time- or stock-based, and is randomly chosen before the beginning of a match. Should it be time-based, the match will last for two minutes, while if stock-based all players will be given two stocks. Certain other elements, such as whether stage gimmicks and items are enabled, are also randomly decided prior to the match's start, though stage bosses will never be enabled.
 * #e83c25 are scattered around the map, but are less common than either grey or blue spaces. Red spaces begin special battles once a player lands on them. In these matches, which always last for two minutes, have random attributes assigned to them: players can all be giant, small, metallic, or invisible throughout the duration of the match, damage and knockback modifiers may be present, characters may all have their weights altered to make them floaty, or the battle's speed will be either slightly slower (0.75x its normal speed) or slightly faster (1.25x its normal speed). Which attributes are present during a match are randomly selected at the beginning of a match.
 * #f8d764 are the rarest type of space, as only a maximum of four may be present on a stage. When a player lands on this type of space, several events may begin. These events could be: power-ups and stickers become more plentiful on the board, Nabbit will appear on the board and steal all of the loose power-ups and stickers and give them to the one who reaches him before he escapes, or a boss will appear on the board that grants large amounts of power-ups to those who defeat them. The bosses that can appear are Ridley, Petey Piranha, or the Dark Emperor, who are fought on their respective stages.

Once the designated amount of turns have been completed, all players will be placed into a unique type of stock match, where each stock has them become another fighter. Players can choose which fighter they wish to start the match as out of those they have collected at the end of the game, but the others in their deck are shuffled into a random order succeeding them. Whichever player is the last one standing wins the entirety of Smash Tour.

Boards
Smash Tour contains four boards that players can choose from, all of which are available from the start. Each of the four boards feature four "checkpoints" that, when passed for the first time, grant players large bonuses to all of their stats. Passing each of the four checkpoints also grants a small bonus to the players' stats as well. In addition to these four checkpoints, each board also features a "Capture Point", which becomes "captured" by the player who passes it. The player in command of the Capture Point at any given time receives a small boost in the power-ups they collect (for instance a small power-up, which normally grants 2 points to a stat, instead grants 3). A Capture Point is lost when another player passes by it, and whoever has ownership of it once the final turn ends gains another bonus to their stats.

The four boards have certain gimmicks that make them different from each other, which promotes replaying the mode to see what each board has to offer.

Sticker Power-ups
In Smash Tour, stickers have special attributes that can also be applied to the player's Mii though these will also be completely lost once the battle is finished, no matter if they win or lose. Stickers are divided into red and blue categories, which denote when they can be used: red means they can be used at the beginning of a battle, while blue means they can be used at the beginning of a turn on the board. Excluding the stickers that grant a player a fighter to be used in battle, the following stickers can be collected:

Online Play
Online Play is a subsection of the normal "Smash" mode, where, instead of playing against CPU opponents or other players locally, players can search for opponents via the internet or link up two or more Switch systems together to fight matches. Players can link up exclusively with their friends, and are capable of changing all individual rules available to them, or can fight against strangers in specific match types.

When fighting "With Anyone", there are two main game modes: "For Glory" and "For Fun". When playing With Anyone, players do not get any choice when it comes to which stage the match will take place on - one of the stages will be selected at complete random. When playing With Friends this is not the case however: players can choose a stage and the game will randomly select one of the stages out of those each player has selected. Custom Mii characters also can not be used in With Anyone matches, and choosing them will default to a random default appearance. In addition, both For Fun mode and For Glory mode feature other differences from both each other and settings found in With Friends:
 * "For Glory" mode removes all of a stage's hazards and gimmicks, allowing for a more hardcore experience. These matches are based upon the most common ruleset for Super Smash Bros. tournaments, being one-on-one matches, with each fighter having three stocks. No items drop in this mode.
 * "For Fun" mode instead embraces the insanity of the Smash Bros. formula. In addition to keeping items on, each match can feature up to four players - if fewer than four players can be found, the game will insert CPU-controlled fighters of varying difficulties.

In addition to playing online in random matches, players can also set up or join active tournaments, or spectate the current matches of players on their Friends List.

Items
What sets Jake's Super Smash Bros. from other fighting games is the inclusion of items that can be used to change the outcome of battle. Many of these items can be picked up and used as weapons, while others will heal the user of some damage. Items can be classified as "battering", "shooting", "healing", "transformation", and "miscellaneous", though these merely serve to categorize how they are used. Items are not a necessity, and it can be determined by the player which items will spawn in the Items Menu accessible from the Battle Setup screen.

Assist Characters
Assist characters are characters that can be summoned from either the Assist Trophy or, in the case of Pokémon, the Poké Ball items. Just as with playable characters, there are some assists may be unlockable. Some third party series may be represented with an assist character despite not seeing any fighter or stage representatives, and only those that are from the same universe as a playable character must be unlocked.

Jake's Super Smash Bros./Default Assist Characters|Default Assists Jake's Super Smash Bros./Unlockable Assist Characters|Unlockable Assists Jake's Super Smash Bros./Assist Pokemon|Assist Pokémon

Trivia

 * The game's heavy use of the colour purple is a multi-layered reference. While the colour is the preferred of the game's creator, the colour is also based upon that of the Polemonium boreale, otherwise known as the Boreal Jacob's Ladder, which grows natively in parts of western Canada. The creator of the game, as well as the game's namesake, goes by "Jake" - which is a shorthand of the name "Jacob" - and lives in Canada.
 * Unlike the original Jake's Super Smash Bros., which completely ignored the actual Super Smash Bros. games released to that point, this new version of the game does acknowledge their existence but does not follow them to a T.
 * However, due to its nature as a soft-reboot, all of these characters are considered to be appearing in the series for the first time, as characters not present in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate are not marketed as "newcomer" characters.
 * Daisy, King K. Rool, and Joker were added to Jake's Super Smash Bros. prior to them being announced for an official Super Smash Bros. title.
 * For April Fools Day in 2018, a special announcement was made revealing a crossover DLC expansion with several manga series serialized in the Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine. Alongside a new story that takes place after the Crown of Orchid story included in the base game, three new fighters were revealed to be included as playable characters as well.
 * The game's tagline of "Jake's Super Smash Bros. is the most ambitious crossover event in history" is a reference to a meme that was created in anticipation for the then-upcoming theatrical release of Avengers: Infinity War, the nineteenth instalment set within Marvel Studios' shared universe in which all their films occur.
 * Jake's Super Smash Bros. is the first game in the Super Smash Bros. series to explicitly feature blood, as Edward Richtofen has two vials filled with blood strapped to his chest. Despite retaining these blood vials however, the bloody stains on his clothes have been removed.
 * This is the first game to feature a character who has never appeared in a video game.
 * This character is Maria, who was a doll released by Nintendo in 1968, prior to them entering the video game industry. Maria's release in 1968 makes her the oldest character to be in the Super Smash Bros. in any form, pre-dating the previous-oldest "character", Color TV-Game 15 (who first appeared as an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U), by nine years and the oldest fighter, Mr. Game & Watch, by twelve.
 * Maria is the second toy created by Nintendo to be added as a playable character in the Smash series, following R.O.B.'s appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Unlike Maria however, R.O.B. made a number of in-game appearances prior to his Super Smash Bros. debut, appearing in the likes of F-Zero GX, Mario Kart DS, and StarTropics.
 * Nester also joins R.O.B. and Maria as another character playable in Jake's Super Smash Bros. who does not originate from a video game. Like R.O.B. however, Nester has made a number of prominent appearances in video games and even starred in the 1996 Virtual Boy title Nester's Funky Bowling.
 * While Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U featured a fictionalized version of a real life human as an assist trophy (Ryuta Kawashima), this is the first Super Smash Bros. title to include some as playable characters (Yukimura Sanada, Lü Bu, and Wang Yuanji) as well as real-life locations as stage (Edo Castle and Mount Chang). This is primarily due to Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors receiving representation in the game, as both series primarily feature characters and locations from Japanese and Chinese history and myths.
 * Of those who appear in Super Smash Bros., Kunoichi is the only character from the Dynasty Warriors or Samurai Warriors who is of fictional origin. While she does draw some inspiration from reality (such as the rumour that Yukimura Sanada employed Takeda ninja for his militant force), Kunoichi does not have a known historical counterpart and was created simply to fill gaps in the gameplay styles of the initial Samurai Warriors title.
 * Star Fox 64 and Shantae: Half-Genie Hero are the only video games to be the origin of all stages pertaining to series (namely Star Fox and Shantae, respectively) with multiple stages.
 * Cooking Mama Limited is the only third party company to be represented solely by an assist character and not a playable fighter, with Cooking Mama.
 * Cooking Mama is also one of the few third party franchises to be represented by an assist character but not a playable one, the others being Yakuza, Katamari, Dead or Alive, and DOOM. The other franchises are owned by companies that also own characters that are playable fighters (namely Sega, Bandai Namco, Koei Tecmo, and Bethesda Softworks).
 * Team GrisGris and Clever Endeavour Games are the only third party companies to be represented by a stage and not a playable character, with Corpse Party and Ultimate Chicken Horse receiving stages.
 * Ludger Will Kresnik, Monokuma, and Emily Kaldwin are the only third party characters who have never appeared on a Nintendo console in a game from their series of origin.
 * Though a Danganronpa title has not been released on a Nintendo console, Monokuma has made appearances in games released on such. Such titles include Attack on Titan 2: Future Coordinates for the Nintendo 3DS and in DLC for PixelJunk Monsters 2 for the Nintendo Switch among others.
 * The Wii Fit Trainer is the only character to receive voice lines in more languages than just English and Japanese, as the trainers of both genders are fully-dubbed in English, Japanese, Spanish, German, Italian, and French.
 * Additionally, they are the only characters whose voice in a language is different in certain region releases of the game: their Spanish and English voice actors are different between the PAL and North American releases.
 * While most characters are referred to by their given name, Tom Nook, Doc Louis, and Lu Bu are always referred to by their full names. It is unknown why they are not referred to as "Tom", "Doc", and "Bu", respectively.
 * Despite Lana and Timber the Tiger being owned by Koei Tecmo and Rare Ltd., the developers of Hyrule Warriors and Diddy Kong Racing respectively, the two are treated as Nintendo characters instead of third-party ones. This is likely due to these titles' connection to Nintendo franchises.
 * Purah and Ganon are the only two playable characters from The Legend of Zelda series whose designs do not come from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess or Hyrule Warriors. Purah has appeared solely in Breath of the Wild and thus where her design originates, while Ganon's design comes from the Oracle sub-series.
 * Sheik may also count for this, as her design if based of that from Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U; though her design from those games, as well as the earlier Super Smash Bros. Brawl, is based upon an unused design for her that was created for Twilight Princess.
 * While characters created by English and American development studios were present in previous Super Smash Bros. titles, Jake's Super Smash Bros. introduces characters created by teams based out of Canada, Sweden, France, and Italy, in addition to including newcomers of English and American origin. The following characters are of international origin; all others were created by Japanese studios:
 * England: Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, K. Rool, Funky Kong, Timber the Tiger, Banjo, and Kazooie were created by Rare, Ltd.
 * America: Dark Samus was created by Retro Studios; Nester was created by Howard Phillips for Nintendo of America; Emily Kaldwin was created by Arkane Studios; Shantae was created by Matt Bozon; and Edward Richtofen was created by Treyarch.
 * Canada: Alexandra Roivas was created by the now-defunct Silicon Knights.
 * Sweden: Steve was created by Mojang AB.
 * France: Rabbid Mario was co-created by Ubisoft Paris; Emily Kaldwin was created by Arkane Studios; and Lady Sia was created by the now-defunct RFX Interactive.
 * Italy: Rabbid Mario was co-created by Ubisoft Milan.

Development
Jake's Super Smash Bros. was originally conceived in 2015, and featured a large cast of playable characters initially exclusively from properties owned by Nintendo. Various sequels were later announced, including Jake's Super Smash Bros. II and JSSB♯ZERO. These games would later be deleted from Fantendo.

The idea to return to the Jake's Super Smash Bros. concept surfaced in late 2016, and was initially conceived as Super Smash Bros. Switch. Not liking the trajectory of the idea, which had quickly gained popularity within the community, the game was scrapped but the page kept on the wiki for reference. After its cancellation, it was quickly decided that a reboot, in the form of Jake's Super Smash Bros., would be created. Original drafts of this game saw a small roster of 15 playable characters, with each having an assist character associated with them as if they were a sort of "partner". At the time, the idea of it being a reboot came in the form of new movesets for each of the playable characters; unlike the final game where some characters reuse aspects of the movesets previous Super Smash Bros. titles gave them, all characters were originally planned to have all-new movesets based entirely off their native appearances. This was changed early in development, as the creator of the title didn't feel as though it was an interesting project to pursue.

After the game was reworked into its pseudo-reboot form, various changes would occur during development. Before work had begun on the game proper, a draft of over 100 characters was conceived, and eventually narrowed down to 52. Over the course of development this roster changed and grew, with some characters who were initially planned being replaced with others, demoted to an assist trophy, or cut out-right. A total of ten third-party characters were included in the initial 52-character draft, though, as with characters from Nintendo's own first- and second-party titles, many of these were replaced or cut outright.

Characters were decided to all have special traits in order to make them stand out more, as such even semi-clone or clone fighters could have their own unique attributes to make them stand out. Characters that made prominent appearances in Nintendo's major series were, for the most part, prioritized over others.

When deciding upon third party representatives, companies who have had prominent relations with Nintendo in the past were focused upon.
 * SEGA, while initially a large rival to Nintendo, became one of Nintendo's biggest supporters over time. Mario and Sonic, the flagship characters for Nintendo and SEGA respectively, would make numerous appearances together in the Mario & Sonic series, which saw them (and characters from both of their home series) compete in a fantasized version of the real-life summer and winter Olympic Games. Sonic's previous appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series also gave him an edge over many other third party characters.
 * Atlus, a company owned by SEGA, is also a frequent supporter of Nintendo's platforms (primarily their handheld ones), having released several entries of the Trauma Center, Megami Tensei, and Etrian Odyssey series on Nintendo consoles. In addition to their own series, Atlus collaborated with Nintendo and Intelligent Systems to release a Megami Tensei/Fire Emblem crossover for the Wii U known as Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE; it was for this reason that a representative from Atlus was thought to be included. Atlus has a large catalogue of characters that were considered to represent them within Super Smash Bros., with Megami Tensei 's Jack Frost, the Fencer from Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond The Myth, Yu Narukami from Persona 4, and Itsuki Aoi from the aforementioned Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE. In the end, it was decided that the main protagonist of one of Atlus' newest titles, Persona 5, would be included in the game; this was primarily decided due to the many different possibilities his moveset presented, with the ability to use multiple Personas, a knife, and a gun being in his arsenal. At the time of his announcement, Joker's sole appearance and debut - Persona 5 - had only been released on PlayStation-brand systems (namely the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4), though Persona Q2, a game in which he appears, was announced for Nintendo 3DS after this.
 * Bandai Namco Entertainment has a healthier relationship with Nintendo than many other third party companies, and they have developed or assisted development of several games that utilize Nintendo's strong IP, including being the developers of the Mario Kart Arcade GP series, Mario Super Sluggers, and publishing the Project X Zone series, which was developed by a second-party studio to Nintendo and features some of the company's characters. In addition to them working closely with Nintendo, Bandai Namco has also published a large variety of their own titles on Nintendo systems; and thus it was known from the beginning of Super Smash Bros. 's development that Bandai Namco would receive a representative. PAC-MAN, being one of the most prominent names in video gaming, was easily decided upon as a representative for the company.
 * Capcom, like SEGA, has also been a fairly prominent supporter of Nintendo's various systems, with a large number of their titles releasing on Nintendo consoles. In terms of a representative from Capcom, the first choice was one of the company's flagship characters - Mega Man - whose popularity caused him to be well recognized as one of the many mascot characters of the Nintendo Entertainment System, on which his first six titles were released on exclusively. Phoenix Wright was another Capcom representative decided early on in development; in addition to him making a previous appearance in a fighting game (Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3), the Ace Attorney series has seen initial releases on the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo 3DS platforms, with some games being ported to mobile or other home platforms after being released on one of Nintendo's handhelds. Because of this release trend, Phoenix Wright has become one of the most well-known faces of Nintendo's handheld platforms. The developers also thought that Phoenix's unorthodox "fighting" style in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 would make him fit right in alongside many of Nintendo's own characters.
 * Ubisoft's representation in the game largely comes from Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, a tactical RPG title that features characters from the Super Mario series alongside their Rabbids. While this title's whole existence stems from the two company's close relations, it is much less noteworthy than Nintendo's relations to SEGA or Capcom. Ubisoft has supported many of Nintendo's platforms, and Nintendo has even aided Ubisoft by publishing some of their titles - namely some of the newer instalments of the Rayman series for their consoles - in Japan.
 * Koei Tecmo has released a number of games on Nintendo's platforms throughout all four of the companies' histories (Nintendo, Koei, Tecmo, and Koei Tecmo), but a large factor in deciding whether to include a representative came from the close bond both Koei Tecmo and Nintendo have held for quite a long time. Both companies worked together to make a crossover between their Nobunaga's Ambition and Pokémon series for the Nintendo DS (Pokémon Conquest), and Koei Tecmo has also worked with Nintendo to create Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors, which took Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda and Fire Emblem series and placed them within the gameplay styles of their popular Warriors franchise. When deciding on a character to include from Koei Tecmo, the field was narrowed down to five characters: Lana from Hyrule Warriors, Rowan from Fire Emblem Warriors, Zhao Yun from Dynasty Warriors, and Yukimura Sanada and Nobunaga Oda from Samurai Warriors. In the end, Yukimura Sanada was chosen due to his role as a prominent figure within Japanese history, as well as him being the mascot character for Samurai Warriors. Nobunaga Oda was reportedly "a very-close second choice", mainly due to him being the main [apparent-]antagonist of Pokémon Conquest (a game in which Yukimura Sanada also made an appearance) as well as a main figure in both the Samurai Warriors and Nobunaga's Ambition series. Yukimura Sanada was also chosen over Nobunaga Oda due to the former primarily wielding a spear; spears have not been the main weapon of any previous Super Smash Bros. fighter, so it was thought that this could make him stand out in a way that Nobunaga Oda (who primarily wields a sword) could not. Due to the lack of female playable characters, Wang Yuanji from Dynasty Warriors was also later chosen, with the decision to use her mainly due to the fact that Dynasty Warriors 9 was in development at the time of her reveal, and a port of Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires was planned to be released for the Nintendo Switch in Japan; though Naotora Ii from Samurai Warriors was also strongly considered but decided against as to allow variations in represented series. A large amount of other Koei Tecmo characters were briefly considered to appear in the game, with some cited including Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden), Kasumi (Dead or Alive), Ayane (Dead or Alive), Nobunyaga Oda (Samurai Cats) Arnice (Nights of Azure), and Sophie Neuenmuller (Atelier Sophie); though these characters were never seriously considered as playable characters like Nobunaga Oda, Naotora Ii, and Zhao Yun were.

Some characters were cut during development, though the only one to have been added to the page and later removed was Ridley. Ridley was originally added to curb some complaints regarding the cutting of several veteran characters from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, though it was later decided to disregard these complaints as Jake's Super Smash Bros. was always designed to be an author appeal project. Ridley's appearance in Jake's Super Smash Bros. was based on his Ultimate appearance, though at the time of his reveal the names of his special moves were unknown so all of these are original to this title.

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Jake%27s_Super_Smash_Bros._logo_sideways.png transparent Newcomer Directs
Newcomer Directs are events in which multiple new fighters are introduced in a single blog post. These blog posts are written in an informal way in order to introduce newcomers in a way that may be easier for those unfamiliar with them to understand as well as to explain the creator's reasoning for their inclusion. The following characters were announced in Jake's Super Smash Bros. Newcomer Directs:
 *  (09/21/2017)
 * Ukiki from the Yoshi series (#36)
 * Wang Yuanji from the Dynasty Warriors series (#37)
 * Doc Louis from the Punch-Out!! series (#38)
 *  (10/28/2017)
 * Callie from the Splatoon series (#41)
 * Marie from the Splatoon series (#42)
 * Emily Kaldwin from the Dishonored series (#43)
 * Ragna the Bloodedge from the BlazBlue series (#44)
 *  (09/05/2018)
 * Snake from the Metal Gear series (#101)
 * Pico from the F-Zero series (#55ϵ)
 * Jody Summer from the F-Zero series (#73ϵ)
 * Simon Belmont from the Castlevania series (#102)
 * Pumpkin from the Castlevania series (#102ϵ)
 * Kumatora from the EarthBound series (#103)
 * Lucario from the Pokémon series (#104)
 * Twili Midna from the Legend of Zelda series (#23ϵ)
 * Sheik from the Legend of Zelda series (#105)

Glossary

 * Dash: When the control stick is smashed in a certain direction, the fighter will enter a dash. This is faster than their normal walking speed, and the preferred way to traverse the ground.
 * Double Jump: After jumping once, the player can press the jump button again in order to perform a double jump. This double jump technique essentially allows a fighter to jump twice (or more, depending on the character) before needing to touch the ground again.
 * Flinching: When a fighter takes damage whatever animation they are performing as they are is interrupted. There are certain specific exemptions to flinching- some attacks do not cause fighters to flinch while other fighters can enter temporary forms (either through their Final Smash or through the use of an item) that do not flinch from attacks yet still take the damage.
 * Footstool Jump: The act of jumping off of another fighter, sending the fighter who was jumped upon into a pseudo-helpless state. A fighter can only be jumped off of in midair.
 * Helplessness: Fighters may enter a helpless state after performing certain special moves. While in a helpless state, they are unable to perform any actions (aside from moving left or right) until they land on the ground.
 * Juggling: The act of trapping a foe in a combo of various attacks, preventing them to retaliate unless they can escape or are knocked away.
 * Ledge Bump: When a character tries to grab a ledge should another character already be holding on to it, the former will bump the latter off, sending them down off the ledge.
 * Psuedo-helplessness: A state where fighters are incapable of performing special attacks until they touch the ground. Unlike when they are fully helpless, fighters can still perform standard aerial attacks or dodges while midair.
 * Tether Recovery: A form of recovery that some fighters are capable of performing, which sees them using some sort of extension (whether through internal or external means) to grab onto a ledge from a short distance away. These tether recovery actions tend to automatically be directed towards a ledge should they be close enough.
 * Tether Grab: A similar technique, which sometimes go hand-in-hand. Tether Grabs allow fighters to grab other fighters from far away, giving them an advantage over those who can only grab fighters they are directly next to.
 * Tumbling: The act of dashing off an edge. This will cause fighters to enter a flipping animation, and, should the player continue to hold the control stick in the same direction, they will continue dashing should they land on another platform. Also known as "edge tumbling".