Stance mirroring

Stance mirroring (officially referred to by Masahiro Sakurai as Flipped animationFlipped Animation [Animation]) is a mechanic in which most or all of a character's animations and moves are mirrored if they turn around, mimicking the sprite mirroring of older fighting games. This mechanic results in the characters' front side being visible more often. When mirrored, all hitboxes are also mirrored - for example, a punch that is animated with a character's right arm, when mirrored, will instead use the character's left arm.
In general, a character must have a symmetrical body shape and not wield a weapon in order to be eligible for stance mirroring, though in Ultimate characters who put away weapons when not in use (e.g. Villager's various tools) are generally not affected by this rule. Minor asymmetry such as Pikachu's tail and King K. Rool's eye tic can be acceptable, depending on their exact animations and hurtboxes. Compared to Smash 4, characters with stance mirroring in Ultimate are generally animated in a way that better accommodates the feature.
Stance mirroring also affects which hand characters use to hold, swing, and throw items. Turning around will cause a held item to simply teleport to the other hand (there is no animation for it). A fighter with stance mirroring that is reversed (for example, by Mario's Cape) or double jumps in the opposite direction (if they possess multiple double jumps, with the exceptions of Kirby and Jigglypuff) can be seen in a non-mirrored position for a short time, before suddenly snapping into the proper mirrored position.
As some characters mirror while others do not, it is possible for interactions to differ based on whether the characters are facing each other left-to-right versus right-to-left. For example, a mirroring character's thin attack may hit Marth's extended sword arm from one direction, but not the other, as the third dimension alters whether the two collide or pass by. As Cloud is not mirrored, his side special move Cross Slash notably has two different animations depending Cloud's facing direction in order to properly write its kanji symbol, which have subtle gameplay differences.
Stance mirroring is not present in games before Smash 4, though some special moves and many taunts in Melee and Brawl have a different animation for each direction to accomplish a similar effect.
In all Smash games, including those before mirroring was introduced, the default facing direction is to the right of the screen; this means that fighters without stance mirroring generally face the screen when facing right. The exceptions - those who instead face the screen when facing left - are Marth, Roy, Young Link, Toon Link, Pit, Lucina, Robin, Dark Pit, Chrom, Simon, Richter, and Sephiroth, as well as Link before Ultimate. Several of these are for consistency with the characters' home series; for example, Marth faces left in the battle scenes of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and other games, while Simon's right-facing sprites from Castlevania are posed such that his torso faces away from the screen.
==Characters with stance mirroring==
Fighters 		
Banjo & Kazooie		
Bowser 		
Bowser Jr. 		
Charizard 		
Daisy 		
Diddy Kong 		
Donkey Kong 		
Dr. Mario 		
Duck Hunt 		
Greninja 		
Ice Climbers 		
Incineroar 		
Inkling 		
Isabelle 		
Ivysaur 		
Jigglypuff 		
Joker 		
Ken 		
King K. Rool 		
Kirby 		
Lucas 		
Luigi 		
Mario 		
Mega Man 		
Mewtwo 		
Mii Brawler 		
Ness 		
Olimar 		
Pac-Man 		
Peach 		
Pichu 		
Pikachu 		
Piranha Plant 		
R.O.B. 		
Ridley 		
Rosalina & Luma		
Ryu 		
Sonic 		
Squirtle 		
Steve 		
Terry 		
Villager 		
Wario 		
Yoshi 		
Zelda 		
The Ice Climbers are the only character who hold a weapon at all times to have stance mirroring. They are animated to pass the hammer to their other hand when turning around.The squid form utilizes stance mirroring for all animations except refilling ink.Arsène has stance mirroring.Kirby will mirror Copy Abilities even if they belong to non-mirrored characters (e.g. he can hold Marth's sword with either hand).Luigi has different animations when using the Poltergust G-00 that don't face the screen when facing left.Pikmin have stance mirroring when not being used in an attack.Luma has stance mirroring.
==Trivia==
*Mr. Game & Watch appears mirrored in most cases due to his flat and monochrome nature, but some of his props (such as the helmet in his up smash) show that he is not.
==References==
Category:Game mechanics