| ||||
Developer(s) | Sora Ltd., Bandai Namco Games | |||
Publisher(s) | Nintendo | |||
Platform(s) | Nintendo Switch | |||
Genre(s) | Party, Fighting | |||
Release Date(s) | November 21, 2019 | |||
Age Rating(s) | ESRB: E10+ | |||
Media Included | Nintendo Switch game cartridge |
Super Smash Bros. Strife (大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ Z, Great Fray Smash Brothers Z), often shortened to "SSBS", or "Strife", is the fifth installment in the Super Smash Bros. series published by Nintendo, however it can be considered the sixth installment if Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U are considered separate installments. The game runs on an improved and tweaked version of the engine used for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and largely keeps the same artstyle as said game.
Gameplay[]
The gameplay remains largely the same as previous games in the series. Up to 4 (or 8) players fight with an assortment of different characters on a stage of choice. When fighters get hit, they take damage, which increases the amount of knockback they take when getting hit. If a fighter is knocked out of the boundaries of the stage, they lose a point, and the player who knocked them out gains a point, and the player with the most points when time runs out is the winner. However, there is also a stock mode, where players lose a life every time they get knocked out, and the last player standing wins. If a time limit is enabled for stock mode and time runs out, then the player with the most stock remaining is the winner.
Gameplay Changes from Wii U/3DS[]
Due to being made on the same engine, Super Smash Bros. Strife plays very similarly to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U in many aspects, however, various new mechanics and adjustments have been added.
- A big new mechanic in Strife is the Strife Burst. There is a meter on each player's HUD that slowly goes up when dealing and taking damage. When this meter fills up, players can activate the Strife Burst, which drastically powers up their fighter's attack power and speed for a short amount of time. A new item is introduced to compliment this new mechanic called the Burst Gem, which flys around the stage similarly to the Smash Ball, and when broken, will fill up the meter immediately. Strife Burst can be turned off in the Rules, and when turned off, the Burst Gem will not appear in matches regardless of if it's turned on or not in the Item List. The amount of charge the meter must contain in order to activate a Strife Burst can also be modified in the Rules.
- Another new mechanic introduced is grab parrying, where if two fighters attempt to grab each other at the same time, both grabs will be cancelled out and both fighters will be pushed back. This works similarly to when two hitboxes collide at the same time, albeit without the priority system.
- Gravity and fall speed have been slightly raised for every character, and in addition, the knockback system has been adjusted so fighters are KO'd significantly earlier than before. This makes the game a bit faster than it's predecessor, but still remaining slower than Super Smash Bros. Melee.
- Attacks with the bury effect are a guaranteed meteor smash in midair, and if a fighter in air is still in hitstun from an aerial bury attack, they will be buried when landing on the ground.
- Fighters can now get put to sleep in midair, however, the effect lasts only three fourths as long as it does on ground. In addition, all moves with the sleep effect now go past shields, putting shielded fighters to sleep.
- The rage mechanic from Wii U and 3DS has been removed entirely.
- Sudden Death can now be disabled. If Sudden Death is disabled and two or more players have the same score/stock, then the player with the least amount of damage taken on the life they were on wins. If the players have taken the same amount of damage, then port priority decides the winner.
- The Special Smash gamemode has been removed, and in it's place is the new Player Settings feature. Players can each individually set the settings for their fighter in Smash and 8-Player Smash, including most of the options from Special Smash along with several new options.
- Game speed and camera options can now be set in the Rules, and Stamina is now a mode along with Time, Stock and Coin matches.
Characters[]
There are 74 total fighters in Super Smash Bros. Strife, not counting Mii Fighters. 50 fighters are available from the start, and 24 have to be unlocked. There are 17 total newcomers, and 5 of them must be unlocked. Click on the character icons to go to their character pages. (Note: Not all character pages are done.)
Starting Roster[]
Secret Fighters[]
Unlock Conditions[]
As per previous Smash games, every secret fighter has two different ways to be unlocked, either through playing a certain number of matches, or through an other way that usually involves playing single-player gamemodes.
Character | Criteria 1 | Criteria 2 |
Jigglypuff | Play 10 matches. | Complete Classic mode without using any continues. |
Ike | Play 15 matches. | Clear 10-Man Smash within 15 seconds. |
Ness | Play 20 matches. | Complete Event Match 14: Projectile Panic |
Greninja | Play 30 matches. | Complete a Master Order on Hard or higher. |
Meta Knight | Play 35 matches. | Complete Adventure mode. |
Luigi | Play 40 matches. |
Complete Adventure mode as Mario without using any continues. |
Captain Falcon | Play 50 matches. | Clear 100-Man Smash. |
Wii Fit Trainer | Play 60 matches. | Get 2250 ft. or farther in Home-Run Contest. |
Paper Mario | Play 65 matches. | Complete every Break the Targets stage as Mario. |
Waluigi | Play 75 matches. | Complete Crazy Orders after winning 10 rounds. |
Wolf | Play 90 matches. | Get 1 KO or more in a single Cruel Smash. |
Palutena | Play 100 matches. | Destroy 175 or more blocks in a single game of Trophy Rush. |
Chibi-Robo | Play 125 matches. | Collect 100 different trophies. |
Roy | Play 135 matches. | Complete Event Match 28: Bring on the Fire! |
Lucas | Play 150 matches. | Complete Adventure mode as Ness without using any continues. |
Dr. Mario | Play 175 matches. | Complete Classic mode as Mario on Normal or higher without using any continues. |
Duck Hunt | Play 200 matches. | Complete every Board the Platforms stage. |
Pichu | Play 210 matches. | Complete Crazy Orders as Pikachu after winning 15 rounds. |
Dark Samus | Play 225 matches. | Complete Classic mode as Samus on Hard or higher without using any continues. |
Mewtwo | Play 230 matches. | Complete Smash Tower. |
Mr. Game and Watch | Play 240 matches. | Complete Adventure mode with Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Little Mac and Pac-Man. |
Bayonetta |
Play 250 matches. | Complete a Master Order on Insane. |
Ryu |
Play 275 matches. | Play 15 matches on Suzaku Castle. |
Balloon Fighter |
Play 300 matches. |
Complete Event Match 44: Retro Throwdown. |
Alternate Costumes
As with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS, some characters have radically different alternate costumes, some of which change the character into a completely different one. Strife introduces a few new alternate costumes amongst returning ones.
Challenger Approaching Screens[]
Items[]
Poke Ball Pokemon
Names in orange indicate Pokemon that can come out of Master Balls, and names in blue indicate Pokemon that can come out of Beast Balls. Names in bold indicate Pokemon that must be unlocked.
Stages[]
This section is a work in progress, and not all stages are currently listed. The list serves as a placeholder and is planned to be replaced with a proper table later on.
Names in bold indicate stages that must be unlocked.
New Stages[]
- Battlefield
- Final Destination
- The Odyssey
- Bowser's Castle
- Bob-omb Battlefield
- Gloomy Manor
- Dr. Mario
- Prism Island
- Mangrove Cove
- Gangplank Galleon
- Temple of Time
- Alola Pokemon League
- Poke Floats 2
- Inkopolis
- Spring Stadium
- Main Street
- Noisy Notebook
- Parachute
- Gyromite
- Balloon Fight
- Studiopolis Zone
- Pac-Maze DX
Past Stages[]
- Mushroom Kingdom II (Melee)
- 3D Land (3DS)
- Mario Circuit (Wii U)
- Yoshi's Story (64)
- WarioWare (Brawl)
- Jungle Japes (Melee)
- Hyrule Castle (64)
- Temple (Melee)
- Fountain of Dreams (Melee)
- Pyrosphere (Wii U)
- Brinstar Depths (Melee)
- Palutena's Temple (Wii U)
- Sector Z (64)
- Spear Pillar (Brawl)
- Big Blue (Melee)
- Magicant (3DS)
- Tortimer Island (3DS)
- Distant Planet (Brawl)
- Pilotwings (Wii U)
- Suzaku Castle (Wii U/3DS)
- Umbra Clock Tower (Wii U/3DS)
Unlock Conditions[]
Stage | Criteria |
Bob-omb Battlefield | Defeat King Bob-omb in Smash Tower. |
Gloomy Manor | Unlock Luigi. |
Dr. Mario | Unlock Dr. Mario. |
Prism Island | Unlock Paper Mario. |
Poke Floats 2 | Unlock Jigglypuff. |
Parachute | Unlock Mr. Game & Watch. |
Gyromite | Complete Classic Mode as R.O.B. without using any continues. |
Balloon Fight | Unlock Balloon Fighter. |
Pac-Maze DX | Complete Event Match 19: Pac-Man Fever. |
Fountain of Dreams | Complete 100-Man Smash as Bandana Dee. |
Brinstar Depths | Complete Classic Mode with Ridley on Very Hard or higher. |
Sector Z | Complete Adventure Mode as Fox, Falco and Slippy. |
Big Blue | Complete 10-Man Smash as Captain Falcon in under 10 seconds. |
Umbra Clock Tower | Unlock Bayonetta. |
Modes[]
Classic Mode[]
Classic Mode has been changed to a formula similar to that of Classic Mode from Brawl and prior. However, a few changes have been made.
There are 6 difficulties, Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard, and Insane. What difficulty you are playing on is represented by the color of the background on the round screens, blue is Very Easy, cyan is Easy, green is Normal, yellow is Hard, orange is Very Hard, and red is Insane. Similarly to Classic Mode in 3DS and Wii U, you must spend a certain amount of gold depending on the difficulty.
Difficulties | |||||||
Very Easy | Price to Play is 100G 4 Rounds, 1 Bonus Stage No Choosable Rounds Final Round is 4-Player Free-for-All Master Hand is not fought | ||||||
Easy | Price to Play is 50G 6 Rounds, 1 Bonus Stage No Choosable Rounds Final Round is 4-Player Free-for-All Master Hand is not fought | ||||||
Normal |
Free to Play | ||||||
Hard | Price to Play is 250G 10 Rounds, 2 Bonus Stages Rounds 3 & 6 allow you to choose between 3 different fights Round 7 is Multi-Man Smash with the Fighting Shadow Team, Round 8 is a Metal Battle, Round 9 is a 4-Player Free-for-All Final Round is a fight with Master Hand | ||||||
Very Hard | Price to Play is 500G 10 Rounds, 2 Bonus Stages Rounds 3 & 6 allow you to choose between 3 different fights Round 7 is Multi-Man Smash with the Fighting Shadow Team, Round 8 is a Metal Battle, Round 9 is an 8-Player Free-for-All Final Round is a fight with Master Hand and Crazy Hand | ||||||
Insane | Price to Play is 750G 11 Rounds, 2 Bonus Stages Rounds 3 & 6 allow you to choose between 3 different fights Round 7 is Multi-Man Smash with the Fighting Shadow Team, Round 8 is a Metal Battle, Round 9 is an 8-Player Free-for-All Final Round is a fight with Master Core |
On Rounds 3 and 6 on Normal or higher, you have an option of choosing between 3 different matches, a 1-on-1, a Giant Battle, or a Team Battle, with varying difficulties. Playing the harder match will get you better rewards.
Classic Mode Bosses | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Master Hand |
Master Core |
Crazy Hand |
On Very Hard difficulty or higher, you fight with Master Core, which has been changed greatly from it's appearance in Super Smash Bros. 4. The fight begins with Master Hand appearing in the background behind Final Destination, who then proceeds to release a shockwave, eradicating his outer self and revealing Master Core within. Master Core proceeds to charge up and surrounds itself with several layers of crystal. This is where the fight begins, as Master Core proceeds to float around the stage releasing high-knockback shockwaves every few seconds. The player must continuously hit Master Core until one of it's crystal layers is broken. After this, a new phase begins where Master Core goes into the background and starts forming crystal opponents, each with different looks and attack patterns. These opponents are some of the same opponents faced in Wii U/3DS, including Master Edges, Master Beast, and Master Giant, however they have each recieved a visual overhaul, now formed out of crystal as opposed to their shadowy look from the previous game. In between each of these opponents, Master Core will come back onto the stage, where the player must again keep hitting Master Core to further destroy it's crystal layers. Master Edges, Master Beast, and Master Giant are all slightly weaker compared to Wii U/3DS to balance out the increase in phases. Once all of it's layers have been depleted, Master Core will fall to the bottom of the stage and must be launched off to be defeated.
All-Star[]
All-Star mode returns from previous installments, however, unlike Wii U/3DS, you do not immediately have access to the mode and must once again unlock it by unlocking all of the secret fighters. Unlike the completely random order in Melee and the chronological orders in Brawl and Wii U/3DS, Strife's All-Star mode has players face off against 1 specific group of fighters per round in random order. (i.e. Face off against every Mario character in one round, and then every Pokemon character in the next). Certain characters will be put into the same round despite not being in the same universe however, such as Yoshi with the rest of the Mario characters, as well as every third-party being put together, possibly to decrease the number of rounds which would otherwise be massive. Like Melee, enemy fighters will also sometimes have alternate-color costumes on. However, drastically different alternate costumes like Bowser Jr's Koopaling alts or Alph will not be picked. In the rest area, players have 3 Heart Containers to use in between rounds unlike the varied assortment of healing items in Wii U/3DS, and you must press up on the door in the middle of the rest area to start the next fight, most likely to make it easier to get to the healing items instead of accidentally starting the next fight.
Fighter Group | Fighters Faced | Possible Stages |
---|---|---|
Super Mario | Mario
Dr. Mario Luigi Peach Captain Toad Rosalina Bowser Bowser Jr. Yoshi Paper Mario |
|
Donkey Kong | Donkey Kong
Diddy Kong King K. Rool |
|
Wario | Wario
Waluigi |
|
Legend of Zelda | Link
Toon Link Zelda Sheik Ganondorf Skull Kid |
|
Metroid | Samus
Zero Suit Samus Ridley Dark Samus |
|
Kirby | Kirby
King Dedede Bandana Dee Meta Knight |
|
Star Fox | Fox
Falco Slippy Wolf |
|
Kid Icarus | Pit
Palutena |
|
Fire Emblem | Marth
Roy Ike Robin Lucina |
|
Pokemon | Pikachu
Jigglypuff Charizard Squirtle Ivysaur Mewtwo Pichu Lucario Greninja Decidueye |
|
Mother/EarthBound | Ness
Lucas |
|
Retro | R.O.B.
Ice Climbers Duck Hunt Balloon Fighter Mr. Game & Watch |
|
Others |
Olimar Captain Falcon Villager Shulk Inkling Spring Man Isaac Little Mac Chibi-Robo Wii Fit Trainer |
|
Third-Party | Sonic
Mega Man Pac-Man Bomberman Rayman Bayonetta Ryu |
Smash Tower[]
Smash Tower is a new single player gamemode in Super Smash Bros. Strife, where players select a fighter and go through a 50-floor tower consisting of many different types of fights that gets progressively harder as you go. You start out with 3 lives. You only have one life during a match, and if you lose, then you lose one life from your total life count and have to try the match again, as opposed to all of your lives being used in the same match like Classic mode and Adventure mode. Every 10th floor is a boss battle, and if this floor is cleared, then you will be sent back to that floor upon getting a game over until reaching the next boss floor. The boss you face is randomly selected from a pool of 9 different bosses, and the final floor will always be a fight with Master Hand and Crazy Hand. Losing all of your lives will result in a game over, which will penalize you by sending you back to the last boss floor as mentioned, as well as losing any of the loot that you won on the floors that came after it. Sometimes you can also receive items when clearing floors, which you can use before starting a match to give yourself a boost during the fight. They can not be used during floors that consist of bonus challenges such as Home-Run Contest and Target Smash. Upon completing Smash Tower for the first time, you will unlock Smash Tower EX, which is a harder variant with 100 floors and several more match types added into the mix such as Coin battles, Stamina battles and so on. In addition to this, on some floors, the player is given negative effects that only they have, such as flower, raised damage ratio, light weight, small size, etc. Items can not be used when a negative effect is in place. Due to being 100 floors, every boss is faced in this version of the tower. The final floor is a fight with Master Core, and unlike other floors, you are given multiple lives in one try.
Smash Tower Bosses | |||||||||||
Petey Piranha |
King Bob-omb |
Dyna Blade |
Andross |
Necrozma |
Dr. Coyle |
Metal Face |
Dr. Eggman |
Yellow Devil |
Boss Battles[]
Boss Battles returns from Brawl, allowing players to fight every Smash Tower boss one-by-one in random order until they've defeated them all, similarly to All-Star mode. This mode must be unlocked by clearing the EX mode of Smash Tower.
Custom[]
The custom fighter system from Wii U/3DS has been overhauled. Equipment has been completely removed, and in it's place are Badges. 3 badges can be equipped per custom fighter, and each of them has varying effects, many of which are carried over from the bonus effects of equipment from Wii U/3DS. Only a few badges are available by default, and the rest must be unlocked by playing single player gamemodes. Since equipment is gone, stats can now be modified at will. There are now 6 different stats, Attack, Special, Jump, Speed, Defense, and Arms, similarly to Smash Run. When creating a custom fighter, by default you have 60 usable points, which can give to stats to increase them. Every stat has 100 points by default, and points can be subtracted from stats to be given to other stats. The maximum amount of points a stat can have is 300.
Smash Shop[]
The Smash Shop is where gold can be spent to unlock a variety of different items. The first three options are the Trophy Pack, Custom Pack, and Badge Pack. These can be purchased for 500G each and will contain a random assortment of 3 different trophies, custom moves, and badges respectively, and they can be bought an infinite amount of times. The rest of the items are one-time purchases, and can include modes, CDs, and more.
Online[]
For Glory[]
For Glory now has a ranking system. Players now have seperate Rank Scores for each ladder, 1-on-1, Team Battle and Free-for-All respectively. Rank Score determines what players you are matched up with, and there are 6 different tiers of Rank Score depending on how high it is. Players are most likely to be matched up with players of the same tier. Each player starts out at 1000 Rank Score in the Bronze tier, and the maximum Rank Score is 9999.
Rank Score Tiers | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Bronze 1-1999 |
Silver 2000-2999 |
Gold 3000-3999 |
Platinum 4000-4999 |
Crystal 5000-5999 |
Rainbow 6000-9999 |
Rank Score points are gained and lost at the end of each match depending on how well the player performs.
Bonus | Points |
Match Won | +25 |
Match Lost | -10 |
KOs | +5 per KO |
Falls | -3 per Fall |
Self-Destructs | -10 per SD |
Stocks Remaining | +5 per Stock Remaining |
Win Streak | +5 per Win |
Loss Streak | -3 per Loss |
A leaderboard option is available in the menu of each ladder that allows you to see the players with the highest Rank Scores and compare your Rank Score with others, including players on your Friend List.
Images[]
Trivia[]
- Super Smash Bros. Strife has the highest number of unlockable characters in a Super Smash Bros. game, at 24.
- Super Smash Bros. Strife is the first game in the Super Smash Bros. series to not be lead and designed by Masahiro Sakurai.