Clone

In Melee, Mario and Dr. Mario's aerial attacks are
identical in animation, which is part of what makes them clones.

A clone (officially Echo Fighter (ダッシュファイター, Dash Fighter) for certain clones in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate) is a character whose moveset, animations, and general properties are mostly derived from another character, as opposed to being unique to them. All clones have some sort of gameplay difference from their parent character, ranging from different animations (such as with Daisy) to fully unique moves (such as with Chrom), but on the whole, they will generally be very similar to their parent, to the point where a casual player might play either in the same way, and even competitive players will often play both a clone and their parent character. However, this is not to say that playing a clone like their parent will be successful; Falco may be a clone of Fox in Super Smash Bros. Melee due to sharing all his attacks and animations, but as his movement attributes, hitboxes, frame data, and other move data are all altered, the usage of his moves and his optimal playstyle are significantly different.

Clones are a common inclusion in all types of fighting games, as it is significantly less expensive in time and resources to develop a character using another character as a base than it is to do everything from scratch, while still potentially forming a character with a distinct playstyle and fanbase. However, despite being much easier to create and thus resulting in a larger roster overall, fans are often quick to show disdain for clones, perceiving them as stealing resources from potential unique characters.

The term "clone" can also be used to refer to individual moves, albeit is used for that purpose much less frequently. For example, Charizard's Flamethrower is a clone of Bowser's Fire Breath, as even though the characters are not related, they are the same type of move with identical function.

It is uncommon for clones to be starter characters; they are more likely to be unlockable characters. If a clone's parent is also unlockable, it is very likely for the clone to be unlocked after their parent.

Subtypes

The term "clone" does not by itself sufficiently describe how similar two characters are. Perhaps two characters share all but one attack, while another pair has only half of their attacks in common while still clearly being a derivative overall. As a result, there is a spectrum of terms to describe how much of a clone a character might be.

• A full clone (often shortened to just "clone") will have unique taunts and victory poses, may have unique attributes (such as being heavier or faster) or non-combat animations (such as running or jumping), may have some moves that function differently despite being conceptually the same as their parent character's, and maybe perhaps an entirely unique attack or two. Otherwise, they share nearly all moves and animations with their parent. Pichu since Melee and Lucina since Super Smash Bros. 4 are examples of full clones.
• A semi-clone has several unique attacks and animations of their own while retaining a significant amount from their parent, while often the cloned moves they retain have distinct functioning or altered animations. Falco since Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Roy since Smash 4 are examples of semi-clones.
• A pseudo-clone is, for the most part, their own unique character, but with enough moves or animations still copied from their parent that it would be inaccurate to say they are not cloned to some degree. Wolf since Brawl and Luigi since Ultimate are examples of pseudo-clones.

It is not uncommon for a cloned character to receive further differentiating changes in later games, thus making them less of a clone. Some use the term "Luigification" for when a character is separated from their parent and forms their own identity, as Luigi has done in both his home series and the Smash Bros. series. However, it is debatable at what point a character who was once a clone is no longer a clone, or even which specific category some characters may fall into. For example, Luigi's status as any type of clone post-Brawl was a subject of heavy debate before the term "pseudo-clone" was accepted.

Ultimate introduces the term "Echo Fighter" to refer to certain clones. The term is used to determine which characters are grouped together on the character selection screen when the corresponding menu option is enabled, and also forces such characters to share the same fighter numbers with an appended epsilon (ε). The Japanese term is "Dash Fighter", and uses the prime symbol (') instead of an epsilon. In Japanese, the prime symbol is pronounced "dash", hence the term "Dash Fighter"; in mathematics, the prime symbol is used to designate that something is derived from something else, such as x′ being derived from x. Otherwise, it is simply a term used by the developers to denote a character as being low-budget; as a result, it only loosely fits into the spectrum of clone terms used by the community to discuss the degree of similarity in the final result. For example, Dr. Mario is a full clone, while Ken is a semi-clone, but Ken is labeled as an Echo Fighter while Dr. Mario is not. However, Daisy, Richter, and Dark Samus, who have little gameplay-relevant differences from their parent character, are labeled as such. Notably, none of the clones who debuted prior to Smash 4 are labeled as an Echo Fighter.

Clones in Super Smash Bros.

Super Smash Bros. features one clone and one semi-clone. All four of the unlockable characters were created with the premise of reusing assets from the fighters in the starting roster, with the other two unlockable characters being unique, despite sharing some moves form their parents.

Clone	Parent	Category	Different moves	Attributes
Luigi	Mario	Full clone	Luigi's only unique attacks are his dash attack and down tilt, though his taunt is unique among the cast in that it has a hitbox.	Luigi's special moves all have different purposes: his Fireball's lack of gravity alters where it controls space and they are colored green, while his Super Jump Punch and Luigi Cyclone are both one-hit power moves rather than trapping combo moves. In general, Luigi is slower than Mario with fewer combos and an inferior ability to approach, but has a better recovery and more KO moves.
Jigglypuff	Kirby	Semi-clone	Jigglypuff's unique attacks include its up smash, back aerial, up aerial, forward throw, and all special moves. Jigglypuff's neutral attack does not end in an infinite rapid jab like Kirby's.	While the pair has historically not been seen by the casual fanbase as semi-clones in the same way that other characters are, Jigglypuff in its debut appearance shares many of Kirby's animations, moves, and properties (such as having six jumps).

Notes

• The Fighting Polygon Team is composed of identical clones of all 12 playable characters, though they cannot use special moves.
• The 1P Mode minibosses Giant Donkey Kong and Metal Mario are full clones of Donkey Kong and Mario respectively. Unlike in future games, where they are simply the base character with a Super Mushroom or Metal Box permanently active, these minibosses are coded to be separate characters.
• As mentioned before, the unlockable fighters were developed using assets borrowed from the base roster:
  • Jigglypuff and Luigi are clones of Kirby and Mario, respectively, with their differences as described above. Jigglypuff is the only semi-clone to not be from the same universe as Kirby.
  • Ness and Captain Falcon re-use assets from Mario and Samus, respectively. For Ness, his only similarities to Mario are his floor attacks. For Captain Falcon, he shares his dash attack, up tilt, down smash, neutral aerial, and floor attacks with Samus, but is vastly different otherwise.
    • Additionally, the Polygons of Luigi, Ness, and Captain Falcon are almost identical to those of their parent.
    • On a related note, Captain Falcon's moveset design shares many similarities to the fighters seen in the game's earliest prototype, suggesting the fighting style was re-purposed for his moveset when the game became Super Smash Bros.

Clones in Super Smash Bros. Melee

Originally, Masahiro Sakurai was going to include significantly fewer playable characters in Melee, with the planned roster being what it ended up minus the six clone newcomers (Dr. Mario, Pichu, Falco, Young Link, Ganondorf and Roy). However, with him knowing fans were expecting more characters while time was too constrictive to add any more, Sakurai decided to add the clones later in development to pad out the roster, as these characters would take a lot less time to develop than unique characters would (according to Sakurai, adding the six clones to Melee took less development time than adding a single unique newcomer would have). On the Japanese website, clones were referred to as model swap characters (モデル替えキャラ). Clones are marked on the character selection screen as recessed icons next to the fighters they are based on.

Luigi received many changes that distanced him from Mario considerably, changing him from a full clone into a semi-clone. On the other hand, Jigglypuff and Kirby both received changes significant enough that Jigglypuff is no longer considered even a pseudo-clone.

Clone	Parent	Category	Different moves	Attributes
Dr. Mario	Mario	Full clone	Dr. Mario's moves are all nearly identical in animation to Mario's and most function similarly, though his moves have altered frame data, he throws Megavitamins for his neutral special that act differently to Mario's Fireballs, as well as has a few more unique properties.	Dr. Mario has stronger attacks in general, with some of them having unique properties: his forward smash is an electrical attack without a sourspot but has less reach (on account of it lacking the explosion that Mario shoots for his), his forward aerial is a powerful vertical-launching finisher that cannot meteor smash, and his neutral aerial is a sex kick with its later hitboxes being stronger than its initial hitboxes (in addition to having a slightly different animation). Dr. Mario also cannot wall jump and has a worse recovery, due to Super Sheet stalling Dr. Mario in the air for a much shorter duration, Dr. Mario's Super Jump Punch having a single frame of intangibility instead of four frames, and Dr. Tornado's hitboxes having less reach and duration. Despite Dr. Mario's trophy describing him as "a tad slower" than Mario, the two have identical mobility stats, with the exception of Dr. Mario actually having slightly faster air speed, though all of Dr. Mario's aerials have higher landing lag.
Falco	Fox	Full clone	While most of Falco's entire moveset has different functioning from Fox's due to different knockback or properties, all of his moves are completely identical in concept and animation.	Falco is slightly bigger than Fox, making most of his moves have slightly larger range as a result (with the notable exception of his down tilt due to Falco's much shorter tail, and Reflector, which has a smaller hitbox). Falco has a slower walking speed, dashing speed, and jump squat, and a shorter dashdance, but a higher vertical jump height, as well as slightly heavier weight and faster falling speed. While Falco's moves all look the same as Fox's, many have different properties and therefore applications. For example, Fox uses his up smash and up aerial as his primary high-power KO moves, while Falco instead relies on his forward smash and down tilt. Fox's down aerial is a multi-hitting drill with weak knockback that deals more damage if all hits connect, and can combo at any percent, but can be escaped using SDI, whereas Falco's down aerial is a powerful single-hit spike that cannot be SDI'ed out of. As such, Fox's down aerial is more difficult to punish out of shield as a neutral opener, but is less reliable as a combo starter, while Falco's down aerial is a much more reliable combo starter and deadly edgeguarding tool. Fox's Blaster shoots faster and does not cause flinching, and is more suited for tacking on damage for free and forcing approaches, while Falco's (which he additionally fires with a different animation) shoots slower and causes flinching, and so is more suited for facilitating and interrupting approaches. Falco's side special, Falco Phantasm, travels a shorter distance than Fox's, but has faster startup and meteor smashes the opponent when it hits. Falco's up special, Fire Bird, charges faster and hits much harder, but covers significantly less distance than Fox's and has no hitbox while charging. Fox's Shine delivers set semi-spike knockback that facilitates waveshine combos at any percent on characters with a weight of 86 or higher, and makes a very potent edgeguarding tool; Falco's Shine deals more damage, delivers scaling vertical knockback, and is used for extremely potent vertical combos, especially on fastfallers, but loses its combo ability at higher percents, particularly vs. floatier characters. The lasers shot by Falco's back throw and up throw also produce knockback unlike Fox's; this causes opponents to launch in unpredictable directions, making them unreliable as combo starters, and Falco cannot chain grab or kill confirm with his up throw like Fox can.
Ganondorf	Captain Falcon	Full clone	Ganondorf has a single-hit neutral attack that is animated differently as a palm thrust, and a unique forward aerial, that is an arching overhand punch instead of a Knee smash. The rest of Ganondorf's moveset is cloned, though he is consistently much slower but stronger than Captain Falcon, most notably in his up tilt.	Ganondorf is significantly heavier and much more powerful than Captain Falcon, and all of his mobility stats are much slower, in particular his dashing speed, though most of his attacks do not lose too much speed. Ganondorf is additionally bigger than Falcon, giving his moves more reach in general, though some of his moves also have larger hitboxes. Functional differences in his moveset include his up tilt being a hail mary move that is one of the strongest moves in the game, in exchange for an absurd 81 frames of startup that also makes it the slowest move in the game, whereas Falcon's up tilt is a standard anti-air move with above-average horizontal knockback. Each of the two hits in Ganondorf's up smash are individually very powerful whereas the first hit of Falcon's is meant to link into the second stronger hit, a functioning difference that applies to their neutral aerial as well, though this functioning is reversed for their down smash. Ganondorf's forward smash launches vertically while Falcon's launches horizontally, a launch angle difference that also applies to their down smash. Ganondorf's up aerial has a late hitbox that semi-spikes opponents, which can be used as a deadly edgeguarding tool, while Falcon's up aerial lacks a late hitbox altogether. Aerial Gerudo Dragon does not meteor smash whereas aerial Raptor Boost does; conversely, aerial Wizard's Foot is a powerful spike while aerial Falcon Kick launches horizontally. Finally, many of Ganondorf's moves have different effects; his forward smash, Warlock Punch, Gerudo Dragon, and Wizard's Foot hit with the darkness effect while Falcon's variations hit with the flame effect; Ganondorf's up tilt hits with a flame effect while Falcon's has no special effect; and Ganondorf's jab, down aerial, and Dark Dive hit with an electric effect when Falcon's variations do not, while the inverse is applied to their forward aerials.
Luigi	Mario	Semi-clone	Luigi has a unique neutral attack final hit, up tilt, down tilt, dash attack, forward smash, forward aerial, and side special.	Luigi has a higher jump height, slower air speed, slower dashing speed, and much lower traction compared to Mario, with the lattermost notably giving Luigi a much farther wavedash. Luigi's down smash, neutral aerial, and down aerial look the same as Mario's, but function differently, as the former two launch vertically while Mario's launch horizontally; in particular, Luigi's neutral aerial is a much more effective combo starter. Luigi's down aerial is a strong single-hit move that can launch horizontally or meteor smash, whereas Mario's is a multi-hitting drill move with negligible knockback. Luigi's Super Jump Punch additionally goes straight up while Mario's travels diagonally, and Luigi Cyclone can move much farther across the ground, but requires being "charged" on the ground first in order to grant any height in the air, while Mario Tornado has no such restriction.
Pichu	Pikachu	Full clone	Pichu's only unique move is its up smash, though it has various other different properties; most notably, Pichu takes recoil damage from all of its electrical attacks.	Pichu moves slower than Pikachu with slower running speed, slower fast falling speed, and a shorter wavedash due to its higher traction, but all of its aerials have significantly less landing lag, making Pichu's aerials safer. Pichu is smaller which makes it harder to hit, but consequently its moves have less reach, often significantly so, especially those that involve Pichu's much shorter tail, and Pichu is much lighter, making it much easier to KO. Pichu's down smash is a single-hit move that launches at a semi-spike angle and has no electrical effect, while Pikachu's down smash is a multi-hitting electrical move that launches vertically. Pichu's up aerial have all of its hitboxes launch at an 80 degree angle, making it more reliable for comboing, but cannot semi-spike like Pikachu's and thus Pichu loses a very potent gimping tool. Pichu's special moves additionally have functional differences; Pichu's Skull Bash can be charged for longer, where it then travels much farther and becomes much more powerful; Agility is slower and has no hitboxes while dealing recoil damage to Pichu, but it can move in angles that Quick Attack cannot; and Pichu's Thunder is a multi-hitting move that can deal a lot more damage than Pikachu's but lacks the knockback to KO high up opponents off the top.
Roy	Marth	Full clone	Roy's neutral attack has only a single hit, while Marth's consists of two. The rest of his moveset is cloned from Marth's, though some of his moves possess the flame effect, and most notably, he has an inversed tipper mechanic, with Roy's moves having sweetspots at the hilt of his sword instead of at the tip.	While Marth's sweetspot is at the tip of his sword, Roy's is at the hilt, which affects almost his entire moveset and so enforces a different style of play. Roy is additionally slower than Marth in most aspects, with Roy having a slower walk, dash, jumpsquat, shorter jumps, and a shorter wavedash, on top of most of his moves having slower frame data. Roy does, however, notably fall faster and has higher gravity, giving him a faster SHFFL in exchange for making him more vulnerable to combos. Roy is also slightly smaller, giving his moves less reach, and he weighs slightly less in NTSC, which makes him slightly easier to KO horizontally, but he is light enough to get knocked down by Fox's Shine whereas Marth does not, making him less vulnerable to waveshine combos; however, Marth's weight was changed to match Roy's in PAL. When it comes to the functional differences of their moves, Roy's down tilt launches vertically and is thus more useful as a combo tool, whereas Marth's down tilt can more effectively edgeguard with its semi-spike knockback; Roy's up smash is a multi-hit move with no sourspots while Marth's hits once with the standard tipper mechanic intact; Flare Blade has an insubstantial shield damage bonus but can be charged for much longer and become immensely powerful; Blazer is a slower multi-hitting move with set knockback and Roy has some control of its trajectory in exchange for less recovery distance, while Dolphin Slash quickly hits once with considerable power and has no control over its trajectory; and Roy's Counter has a 1.5X damage multiplier with much higher knockback scaling, while Marth's deals a set 7% no matter what hitbox it counters, with higher base knockback but lower knockback scaling. Roy's up smash and all of his specials additionally hit with a flame effect, while none of Marth's moves do.
Young Link	Link	Full clone	Young Link's moves are all weaker than Link's, and his much smaller Kokiri Sword gives his sword moves significantly smaller hitboxes, but his entire moveset is otherwise the same as that of Link.	Young Link has a much faster dashing speed, faster jump squat, higher jumps, and a longer wavedash due to lower traction, but his much slower fast falling speed inhibits his ability to SHFFL as effectively as Link. Young Link can wall jump to give him an additional recovery option, but his shorter hookshot is less effective at Wall grappling than Link's. Young Link is additionally much smaller and lighter than Link, which makes him much more difficult to hit and combo, but makes his moves have even less reach and makes him much easier to KO. Some of Young Link's moves also function differently; the first hit of Young Link's forward smash is purely a setup hit for the strong second hit, whereas both hits of Link's forward smash are individually powerful; Young Link's down aerial possesses a sweetspot that is a very powerful meteor smash with a flame effect; Young Link's Fire Bow hits with more hitstun and has a flame effect, but Link's Bow can shoot arrows farther and be charged longer; Young Link's grounded Spin Attack is a multi-hit move capable of dealing more damage but with no viable KO power, while Link's is a strong single-hit move; and the explosion of Young Link's Bombs are multi-hitting with less damage-per-hit, unlike the explosions of Link's bombs that only hit once.

Notes

• As Luigi and Dr. Mario share a "parent" in Mario, it could be argued that they are technically semi-clones of each other.
• Giga Bowser is effectively a full clone of Bowser; he is omitted from the above list due to not being a playable character.
• The Fighting Wire Frames are both clones. The Male Wire Frame is cloned from Captain Falcon, and the Female Wire Frame is cloned from Zelda, though both Wire Frames lack special moves. Unlike the previous game's Polygons, they also have altered, though mostly worse movesets.
• Master Hand and Crazy Hand could be considered semi-clones, as they share most of their attacks while having some unique attacks and many unique animations. They would also undergo their own "Luigification" in subsequent games, as both would be given more unique moves and animations as the series went on.
• Coincidentally, all clones' head icons face the opposite direction as their parent's.
• While Jigglypuff is considered decloned enough in Melee to not even be labelled a pseudo-clone any more, remnants of it being based off of Kirby remain and so it cannot be said to be a completely unique character, with Jigglypuff still sharing a forward tilt, up tilt, down aerial, and grab, while having a similar forward smash with Kirby. This remains true for all subsequent games, though their animations for these shared moves would become slightly more distinct in later games.
• Technically, Samus can be considered a "grandparent" to Ganondorf, since the latter is a clone of Captain Falcon, who was partially cloned off of Samus in the previous title. The two characters are so vastly different that they cannot be considered clones in any practical sense, but Ganondorf and Captain Falcon still share their floor attack, dash attack, and up tilt animations with Samus.
• Although Mr. Game & Watch has always been a unique character as opposed to a clone, he shared most of his attributes (except for his weight, air speed and air acceleration) with Mario in Melee, indicating he started development based off of Mario until being developed into his own unique character.
• Although Zelda is a unique character, many of her non-attack animations are derived from Peach, indicating she started development based off of Peach. They also have similar animations for their dash attacks and neutral aerials.

Clones in Super Smash Bros. Brawl

According to Masahiro Sakurai, there were complaints regarding the full clones in Melee, claiming that they were "cutting corners" by reusing the same animations. In response to this, four out of the six full clones from Melee were cut, with the two that returned (Falco and Ganondorf) now becoming semi-clones. In addition, two new pseudo-clones and one new semi-clone were added. As a result, Brawl is the only Smash game with no full clones.

Clone	Parent	Category	Different moves	Attributes
Falco	Fox	Semi-clone	Falco has a different neutral attack, up tilt, forward smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial and up aerial. His down special has the same English name and concept, but is practically a different move with a completely different animation and functioning, as he now kicks his Reflector out instead of being able to hold it in place, functioning as a long-reaching transcendent disjointed move that can poke through opponent's moves in addition to reflecting, but loses any ability to work as a combo or disadvantage tool.	Falco keeps many of his other differences from Melee, such as which of his attacks are more powerful than Fox's, and keeps most of his differences in attributes, though he now has slightly faster air speed than Fox while also falling slower than Fox. Falco's moves have a few more new functional differences from Fox's; Falco's down throw launches at a different angle that allows it to effectively setup combos and chain grab into itself, while Fox's down throw launches at an even more vertical angle with much more knockback, serving as a throw to just put opponents in disadvantage; Fire Bird now has hitboxes during its charging phase, but is now a multi-hitting attack with much weaker knockback than the still single-hit Fire Fox; and Falco's Landmaster shoots weaker blasts than Fox's, but can fly up faster and much higher, allowing it to more effectively carry opponents off the top blast line. Then finally, Falco's Blaster now shoots blue lasers instead of red lasers to make it more visually distinct.
Ganondorf	Captain Falcon	Semi-clone	Ganondorf has a unique neutral attack, forward tilt, up tilt, down tilt, up smash, forward aerial, up throw, side special, and Final Smash.	Ganondorf has a wide variety of new animations for general actions, and all of his remaining moves that are still conceptually the same as Falcon's have altered, stiffer animations to differentiate them from Falcon's equivalents. The most obvious examples of Ganondorf's shared moves with altered animations are his down aerial, Warlock Punch, Dark Dive, and Wizard's Foot. Dark Dive additionally now has an uppercut animation at the end of it, which has a corresponding hitbox to hit opponents without grabbing them, giving it a significant functional difference from Falcon Dive. Ganondorf however lost a functional difference, as his forward smash now launches at the same horizontal angle that Falcon's forward smash does. Ganondorf still maintains the same motif of being a slower but stronger semi-clone of Falcon, but it's even more exaggerated than it was in Melee, with most of Ganondorf's mobility stats being harshly nerfed, in addition to many of his moves being made even slower.
Lucas	Ness	Pseudo-clone	Lucas's only similar moves are his forward smash, up aerial, pummel, side special, up special, down special, and Final Smash. The rest of his moveset is unique, and even then his shared moves feature different properties.	Having mostly a unique moveset of his own, Lucas' similarity to Ness is primarily in his weight and skeleton being identical to Ness', while they both also uniquely suffer an additional 10 frames of grab release lag that no other character has, making them uniquely vulnerable to many grab releaese setups. However, Lucas's movement attributes are all faster than Ness' with the exception of a slower walking speed, and he has lower traction that makes it more difficult for him to punish out of shield. His special moves are fairly similar in animation and concept to Ness's, but with major functional differences; Lucas' PK Fire launches opponent away with moderate knockback while he also fires it with a different animation and cannot fire it diagonally when using it in the air, unlike Ness' PK Fire that can be fire diagonally in the air and still functions by trapping opponents within it; Lucas' PK Thunder does not dissipate when it hits opponents but produces negligible knockback on contact, and Lucas' PK Thunder 2 travels much farther, but is a multi-hitting move with drastically weaker knockback than Ness' variation; and Lucas' holds his PSI Magnet outward in front of him instead of surrounding himself with it like Ness does with his PSI Magnet, while additionally producing a small hitbox with moderate knockback in front of him when he releases it. This is the only clone pair where the derived character is the starter and the parent is unlockable.
Luigi	Mario	Semi-clone	Luigi has a unique neutral attack final hit, up tilt, down tilt, dash attack, forward smash, down smash, forward aerial, down aerial, side special, down special, and Final Smash.	Mario's Mario Tornado changing from his down special to his down aerial, while his down special became F.L.U.D.D, is the main new difference between him and Luigi, giving them entirely different down specials and down aerials. Luigi can additionally now crawl, whereas Mario cannot. Luigi has been given some new animations and now has his own voice clips, rather than re-using a sped-up selection of Mario's, while a few of his remaining shared moves have had their animations altered to differentiate from Mario's, which include his forward tilt, down smash, up aerial, and pummel. Every other difference they had in Melee not already addressed here still applies.
Toon Link	Link	Semi-clone	Toon Link has a unique up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, forward throw, and back throw.	Toon Link retains many of the same differences from Link that Young Link had in Melee: he is smaller, lighter, faster in most aspects (with Link only having faster falling speed, fast falling speed, and gravity), is generally weaker, and can wall jump, while having having a forward smash that only launches on the second hit and a multi-hit grounded Spin Attack. In addition to having a handful of unique moves, several of Toon Link's shared moves have different functioning; Toon Link's dash attack launches opponents away at a semi-spike angle while Link's launches vertically; the first hit of Toon Link's down smash leads into the second stronger hit while both hits of Link's are individually powerful; Toon Link's down aerial is a stall-then-fall that meteor smashes while Link's down aerial has no momentum-altering properties; the arrows fired by Toon Link's Hero's Bow are much floatier and slower; Toon Links Boomerang travels much slower as well and does not have any windboxes like Link's Gale Boomerang; and Toon Link's Bombs function very similarly to Link's Bombs, but their explosion have a much more cartoonish appearance. Toon Link also has different animations for general actions, generally faster frame data on his moves, and much shorter reach on his attacks due to his much shorter sword. For one more odditity as a result of the cloning process, there is an error where Toon Link's forward throw is treated as a Foot attack like Link's even though it is a shoulder tackle.
Wolf	Fox	Pseudo-clone	Wolf's only similar moves are his forward throw (which has a different animation but is functionally the exact same with its hitbox and frame data), pummel, side special, down special, and Final Smash. His neutral special and up special follow the same theme as Fox's, but are so different that they are practically their own unique moves (which is reflected in those moves have distinctly different Japanese names from Fox's, being クローブラスター, Claw Blaster, and ウルフシュート, Wolf Shoot, respectively). The rest of Wolf's moveset is unique, and Wolf's attributes are significantly different.	Historically, Wolf's status has been very unclear and heavily debated ever since Brawl's release, until the adoption of the term "pseudo-clone". Like Lucas, his main similarity to his parent is similarly-themed special moves, but Wolf's are even more distinct; his Blaster is unique by only firing a single shot with a completely different animation, while the laser it fires is completely different in appearance from those shot by Fox's Blaster, and it has an attached bayonet to hit opponents with a melee hitbox; Wolf Flash hits with his body instead of producing damaging afterimages (in addition to the "afterimage" trail having different graphical effects), while Wolf additionally travels in a slight diagonal trajectory during it (which allows scarring), and is weak at the start but hits with a powerful hitbox at the end that either meteor smashes or semi-spikes opponents; Fire Wolf has a completely different animation and has no distinct "charging" phase, with the only functional similarity to Fire Fox being that the player can control which direction Fire Wolf travels in; Wolf's Reflector remains more similar to Fox's than his other specials, but has a distinctly different "shine" graphic, while possessing some functional difference in its much greater amount of intangibility that starts on frame 1, making it a much more effective disadvantage tool; and then Wolf's Landmaster has a difference appearance to match the Wolfen theme, while being much more powerful and more mobile than Fox's, in exchange for a much shorter duration. Despite the vast move differences, many of Wolf's non-combat animations (such as dodges, getups, and item actions) remain exactly identical to Fox's, even in cases where they do not connect properly into his other animations as a result.

Notes

• The Fighting Alloy Team are all clones: Red of Captain Falcon, Blue of Zelda, Yellow of Mario, and Green of Kirby (with Jigglypuff's forward, back, and up throws). Like their predecessors, they lack special moves.

Clones in Super Smash Bros. 4

Super Smash Bros. 4 re-introduces full clones, adding one such veteran and two such newcomers. These clones were originally developed as alternate costumes, but it was later decided to give them a difference in moveset, resulting in them being split into their own characters — as "even a small difference in abilities" requires a unique roster slot. Aside from Roy now becoming a semi-clone, there are no new semi-clones, and returning semi-clones were not given much in the way of new differences. Full clones are marked on the character selection screen by being listed outside of the rest of the characters from their series, near the third party characters.

Most clones and semi-clones share at least one custom move, though full clones have nearly every custom move in common.

Clone	Parent	Category	Different moves	Attributes
Dark Pit	Pit	Full clone	Dark Pit has a different Final Smash, though it is still cloned (from Zelda and Sheik, specifically). All of his attributes and nearly the rest of his moveset are completely identical.	Dark Pit was made into a clone because Sakurai did not like the idea of him using Pit's Three Sacred Treasures for his Final Smash. Another noticeable difference is his side special, Electroshock Arm, which deals electrical damage with stronger knockback while hitting opponents at a horizontal trajectory. Besides this, his other differences from Pit are extremely minimal; he has a smaller hitbox on his neutral attack's rapid jab finisher (which is due to only Pit's equivalent attack getting buffed in patch 1.1.0, which was never applied to Dark Pit's presumably by mistake), his forward tilt has significantly weaker base knockback, and the arrows fired from his neutral special travel with less control but are stronger and faster. Due to his extreme similarity to Pit, most tier lists do not even give him his own placing, instead having him share Pit's spot, including the Smash Back Room's Smash 4 tier list.
Dr. Mario	Mario	Full clone	Dr. Mario retains his down aerial and down special from Melee, which, due to changes to Mario since, are now incidentally different attacks. Dr. Mario additionally still fires Megavitamins for his neutral special.	Dr. Mario was made into a clone, instead of being turned into alternative costume for Mario, because Sakurai felt fans of his Melee incarnation would be disappointed to lose his uniqueness. Many of his moves lost their subtle functional differences, but some of the more notable ones retain their unique functioning; his forward smash is still an electrical move that's stronger with less reach, his neutral aerial retains the unique trait of being a sex kick whose later hitboxes are stronger than in its initial hitboxes, and his forward aerial is a very powerful vertical KO move instead of being a meteor smash. Dr. Mario now acts more truly to his original intention as a slower but stronger Mario; he has built-in equipment multipliers that significantly nerf his movement stats across the board, and his aerials retain their higher landing lag, but he also has equipment modifiers that give him an increased damage modifier to all of his moves. Dr. Mario has an additional new difference in that his up special now only hits once without spawning coins, but he has gained the ability to wall jump, removing a difference between him and Mario. Overall Dr. Mario remains very similar to Mario, with even his Final Smash and custom moves being all direct copies of Mario's (or Luigi's, in the case of Dr. Tornado's customs), though Doctor Finale fires two large Megavitamins instead of shooting a large fire blast.
Falco	Fox	Semi-clone	Falco has a different neutral attack, up tilt, forward smash, up smash, neutral aerial, forward aerial, back aerial, up aerial, and down special.	Not much has changed for Falco; aside from getting a new up smash and back aerial (the latter of which was already different from Fox's), and up aerial's animation being significantly altered (with Falco flipping on the horizontal axis instead of the vertical axis, making it more obviously unique from Fox's up aerial), he retains his differences from Fox that he had in Brawl. Notably, while he shares no custom moves with Fox, he and Fox both have custom neutral specials that replicate the other's default. Overall, Falco is still a clear semi-clone, though slightly more distinct than he was in Brawl.
Ganondorf