List of Super Smash Bros. series characters

The fighting game series Super Smash Bros. from Nintendo, launched in 1999, features an assortment of video game characters from 40 different franchises. There are 89 playable characters across the series, mostly sourced from Nintendo franchises but with a number of third-party ones as well. There are also other non-player characters that take the form of enemies, bosses, and power-ups.
Master Hand is a glove-like being that appears in all games to date, serving as the final boss of Classic Mode of the original Super Smash Bros., the boss of the 50th Event Match "Final Destination Match" in Super Smash Bros. Melee, and the secondary antagonist of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, forced into the service of Tabuu. In Melee, Master Hand is playable via a system glitch. He is also playable in Ultimate's Adventure Mode if certain requirements are met.
Super Smash Bros. Melee introduces a left-hand counterpart to Master Hand named Crazy Hand, who appears alongside him in all subsequent games under certain conditions. Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U features a new form, Master Core, a shapeshifting mass of black particles that emerge from Master Hand and Crazy Hand after their defeat. Master Hand and Crazy Hand have gone on to make cameo appearances outside of the Super Smash Bros. series, most notably appearing as bosses in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror.
Tabuu is the embodiment of Subspace and the mastermind behind the Subspace Army, who bends Master Hand, Ganondorf and the Ancient Minister to his will, who is the final boss of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, annihilating all heroes with his cataclysmic "Off Waves" attack before his power is negated by Sonic. A humanoid apparition composed of pure energy, he has a single eye located where a human's stomach would be.
The Ancient Minister is introduced in "The Subspace Emissary" of Super Smash Bros. Brawl as the apparent main antagonist and leader of the Subspace Army, having his soldiers face there heroes and R.O.B.s set off Subspace Bombs to destroy reality with Subspace. As the game goes on, the Ancient Minister is shown to be saddened by the R.O.B.s unrelenting willingness to die for their cause, trying and failing to stop them, before ultimately disregarding his robes and becoming the playable R.O.B. robot himself.
The narrative of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: World of Light introduces the evil entity of light, Galeem, destroying the Smash Bros. world, vaporizing almost all of the fighter characters and placing them under his imprisonment; only Kirby, due to his Warp Star, evades this attack. After Galeem is defeated, a new enemy, its dark counterpart Dharkon, emerges; after Dharkon's defeat, it wages war against Galeem. If just Galeem is defeated, Dharkon will engulf the world in evil darkness, but if just Dharkon is defeated, then Galeem will cover the universe with equally evil light. However, by defeating an equal amount of light and dark Spirits on the final map, players are able to challenge and defeat both of them, freeing the Spirits from their control. In the limited-time boss battle known as the "Sephiroth Challenge", Galeem is killed by Sephiroth.
Each game in the series has a number of playable characters, referred to as "fighters", that are taken primarily from Nintendo franchises. There are 89 total fighters across the series. Starting with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, characters from non-Nintendo franchises began to make playable appearances, Each character has multiple alternate costumes, some, such as Villager, having both male and female costumes. Each game has multiple unlockable characters that can only be used if certain conditions are fulfilled.
All games have featured fighters that largely share their moves and abilities with another fighter on the roster, but with minor differences in their presentation and gameplay. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, all of these characters, known as "model swap characters" according to the Japanese website, were unlockable, but were distinguished from other unlockable characters in that their portrait was added next to the character they were based on instead of filling in one of the placeholder slots at the bottom of the select screen. In Ultimate, several of these characters were officially labeled as "Echo Fighters". They have an option either to be displayed next to or within the character portrait from which they are based on.
Originally designed as a prototype using only original characters, a prototype was later developed featuring Mario, Donkey Kong, Samus, and Fox. Another idea considered was to make the roster entirely made up by Kirby characters or dogs. He found Pokémon characters the hardest to get permission for due to how their image is "tightly supervised." Sakurai remarked that part of his aim when creating the game was to ensure that the characters were handled appropriately. According to Sakurai, some people within Nintendo were concerned about the optics of the game, particularly the idea of Mario attacking Pikachu.
Super Smash Bros. Melee features multiple characters that were considered for inclusion but ultimately turned down. During development, Sakurai wanted to include a character from a classic Nintendo game, including the protagonists of Balloon Fight, Excitebike, Clu Clu Land, and Urban Champion, before settling on Ice Climbers. Ayumi Tachibana from the Famicom Detective Club series was also considered, but was not included due to her lack of presence among international audiences. Marth and Roy were both considered to be removed from international versions of Melee. Marth was originally included due to Sakurai's desire to include more sword users, specifically so Link would be able to "cross blades" with someone else. He also campaigned for Roy's inclusion. Sakurai stated that having characters speak Japanese in English releases was rare at the time, and that there was more dispute over Roy. He ultimately succeeded in convincing them to remain in international versions. Lucas was considered for Melee as a replacement for Ness, but he was kept out of the roster due to the cancellation of the Nintendo 64 version of Mother 3. Third-party characters, including Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog, were considered as well. Snake's creator, Hideo Kojima, requested it, but it was too late in development. Time restraints similarly affected Sonic's inclusion according to Yuji Naka. Wario was also considered, with Sakurai stating that he would have included him if he had more development time.
According to Daniel Kaplan, a former business developer for Mojang, discussion about Steve's inclusion began in 2015. Sakurai stated that a Nintendo employee asked at one point about the prospect of including Minecraft in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, at which point he agreed.
Each Super Smash Bros. game features multiple characters who were considered for inclusion as a playable character. Some of these characters were added in later entries after being decided against, such as Pac-Man and Villager.
Sakurai remarked that it was difficult to balance Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 64 due to certain characters being better in four-player matches and others being better in one-on-one matches. He also stated that he heard from tournament players that Kirby and Ness were too strong. He agreed about Ness, and one of Ness' attacks was nerfed in overseas versions to make it weaker.
In competitive Melee, the top characters among the roster tended to include Fox, Sheik, Falco, Jiggypuff, Captain Falcon, Ice Climbers, Peach, and Marth. Yoshi, considered one of the worst fighters in Super Smash Bros. Melee, was used by competitive Melee player aMSa to win the first "super-major tournament" with a Yoshi ever. Donkey Kong, another low tier, was also able to perform better. This, combined with other low-tier picks, inspired other players to use characters like Yoshi and Donkey Kong in competitive play. It has also led to players reconsidering Yoshi and Donkey Kong's placement in the tier list, with competitive Melee player Hungrybox considering Yoshi among the best of the characters.
The competitive Ultimate scene has had multiple characters experience bans, including Steve and Kazuya, due to how powerful they were though Steve was more commonly banned.
In addition to the roster of playable fighters, several non-playable characters appear, some original and some from other games, including summonable characters like Pokémon species and bosses like Master Hand, an original Super Smash Bros. creation.