Cruel mode
Cruel Melee and Cruel Brawl are Multi-Man modes in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl, respectively. To summarize Cruel Melee/Brawl in one sentence, the tables are turned and the player(s) are the Alloys (and they are you only in higher numbers). The game challenges the player to defeat as many opponents, with high handicaps and increased aggressiveness, as possible (Fighting Wire Frames in Melee, and Fighting Alloys in Brawl) before the player is KO'd. In Cruel Brawl, the Fighting Alloy opponents mimic the characters Mario, Kirby, Zelda, and Captain Falcon, though they cannot make use of the corresponding characters' special attacks, making them slightly easier to knock-out as they have little ability to recover using their own moves and can't grab ledges. This mode is unarguably the most challenging of all Multi-Man Melees and Brawls, as the opponents faced are immensely harder than those who appear in the other modes.
The high scores of Cruel Melee and Brawl are recorded by the amount of opponents knocked out. In Cruel Melee, very high scores (such as in the thousands) can be obtained using a freeze frame glitch. Cruel Brawl, on the other hand, has no such glitch. The only widely used method of obtaining high scores is planking, or any other form of stalling under the stage which, when done correctly, often causes the Alloys to self destruct when attempting to edgeguard the player.
Rewards
In Super Smash Bros. Melee
- Defeating five opponents in Cruel Melee will result in unlocking the Mr. Resetti trophy.
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Defeating five opponents in Cruel Brawl will result in unlocking a trophy depicting the Red Alloy.
- Defeating ten opponents in Cruel Brawl will result in unlocking a sticker depicting Liquid Snake.
Trivia
- The Super Smash Bros. Melee incarnation of this mode is famous for its involvement in the Sonic and Tails Rumor spread by Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine as an April Fool's Joke. The rumor suggested that after defeating 20 Fighting Wire Frames in a single round, the player would be challenged to defeat Sonic and Tails of the Sonic series, where victory would result in unlocking the characters. The rumor also claimed that completing Classic mode with either character would give the player a "surprise". This rumor was proven false both in premise (such as how there's no data of either character in the game's data) and in practice (using strategies such as Roy's Flare Blade or Jigglypuff's Rest).
- In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the song Cruel Brawl that plays while in Cruel Brawl is the only song missing from the Sound Test.
