| This article may contain spoilers for a variety of different media. Please be aware of this when reading character descriptions, especially. |
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Jake's Super Smash Bros. includes 200 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.
