Air speed

Air speed, or lateral air movement, is the maximum rate at which a character can move left or right while in midair. Air speed, air acceleration, falling speed, and gravity are factors for how far a character can recover. Air speed is measured in units per frame.

Air speed is often confused with how far a character can travel without landing. Characters with low falling speeds tend to be able to travel farther in the air, simply due to hitting the ground later, not due to traveling through the air faster. As a result, characters with higher falling speeds are often perceived as having lower air speeds, when in reality, some fast falling characters can move around in the air faster than the floaty characters.

Super Smash Bros. air speed ranking

Super Smash Bros. uses a different scale for air speed compared to later games. An approximate scale conversion is (a / 30) (so an air speed of 30 is around 1, using the scale from later games).

JPN

Rank	Character	Air speed
1	Yoshi	40
2	Pikachu	37.5
3	Fox	36
4	Jigglypuff	35
5-6	Link	31
	Captain Falcon
7-8	Mario	30
	Donkey Kong
N/A	Metal Mario	30
	Giant Donkey Kong
9-11	Samus	28
	Kirby
	Ness
12	Luigi	26

NA

Rank	Character	Air speed
1	Yoshi	44
2	Pikachu	37.5
3	Fox	36
4	Jigglypuff	35
5-6	Link	31
	Captain Falcon
7-8	Mario	30
	Donkey Kong
N/A	Metal Mario	30
	Giant Donkey Kong
9-11	Samus	28
	Kirby
	Ness
12	Luigi	22.5

AUS

Rank	Character	Air speed
1	Yoshi	44
2	Pikachu	37.5
3	Fox	36
4	Jigglypuff	35
5	Captain Falcon	31
6-7	Mario	30
	Donkey Kong
N/A	Metal Mario	30
	Giant Donkey Kong
8-9	Kirby	28
	Ness
10	Link	27
11	Samus	26
12	Luigi	22.5

EUR

Rank	Character	Air speed
1	Yoshi	44
2	Pikachu	37.5
3	Link	37
4	Fox	36
5	Jigglypuff	35
6	Captain Falcon	31
7-8	Mario	30
	Donkey Kong
N/A	Metal Mario	30
	Giant Donkey Kong
9-10	Kirby	28
	Ness
11	Samus	26
12	Luigi	22.5

Version differences

NTSC-U

• Yoshi's air speed: 40 → 44
• Luigi's air speed: 26 → 22.5

PAL (AUS)

• Link's air speed: 31 → 27
• Samus' air speed: 28 → 26

PAL (EUR)

• Link's air speed: 27 → 37

Super Smash Bros. Melee air speed ranking

NTSC

Rank	Character	Air speed
1	Jigglypuff	1.35
N/A	Giga Bowser	1.22
2-3	Yoshi	1.2
	Mewtwo
4	Captain Falcon	1.12
5	Peach	1.1
6-9	Donkey Kong	1
	Link
	Young Link
	Mr. Game & Watch
10	Zelda	0.95
11	Ness	0.93
12-14	Dr. Mario	0.9
	Marth
	Roy
15	Samus	0.89
16	Mario	0.86
17-18	Pikachu	0.85
	Pichu
19-20	Fox	0.83
	Falco
21-22	Bowser	0.8
	Sheik
23-24	Kirby	0.78
	Ganondorf
25	Ice Climbers	0.7
26	Luigi	0.68

PAL

Rank	Character	Air speed
1	Jigglypuff	1.35
N/A	Giga Bowser	1.22
2-3	Yoshi	1.2
	Mewtwo
4	Captain Falcon	1.12
5	Peach	1.1
6-8	Donkey Kong	1
	Young Link
	Mr. Game & Watch
9	Zelda	0.95
10	Ness	0.93
11-13	Dr. Mario	0.9
	Link
	Roy
14	Samus	0.89
15-17	Pikachu	0.85
	Pichu
	Marth
18-20	Mario	0.83
	Fox
	Falco
21-22	Bowser	0.8
	Sheik
23-24	Kirby	0.78
	Ganondorf
25	Ice Climbers	0.7
26	Luigi	0.68

Version differences

PAL

• Link's air speed: 1.0 → 0.9
• Marth's air speed: 0.9 → 0.85
• Mario's air speed: 0.86 → 0.83

Super Smash Bros. Brawl air speed ranking

Rank	Character	Air speed
N/A	Wario-Man	1.692
1	Yoshi	1.316
2	Jigglypuff	1.269
3-4	Wario	1.222
	Wolf
N/A	Giga Bowser	1.222
5	Captain Falcon	1.18
6	Sonic	1.1092
7-9	Donkey Kong	1.081
	Mr. Game & Watch
	Squirtle
10	Lucas	1.05
11-13	Bowser	1.034
	Marth
	Zero Suit Samus
14-17	Samus	0.987
	Zelda
	Charizard
	Lucario
18	Ness	0.9588
19-21	Mario	0.94
	Snake
	Toon Link
N/A	Fighting Alloy Team	0.94
22	Ike	0.9212
23	Pikachu	0.9118
24-26	Peach	0.893
	Falco
	Pit
27-28	Fox	0.89
	R.O.B.
29	Kirby	0.85
30-31	Sheik	0.846
	Ganondorf
32	Diddy Kong	0.8272
33	Olimar	0.82
34	Link	0.8084
35	Ice Climbers	0.7708
36-37	Meta Knight	0.752
	Ivysaur
38	Luigi	0.7332
39	King Dedede	0.658

Super Smash Bros. 4 air speed ranking

Rank	Character	Air speed
N/A	Giga Mac	1.7
N/A	Wario-Man	1.69
N/A	Mii Brawler (lightest)	1.422
1	Yoshi	1.28
2	Jigglypuff	1.269
3	Mewtwo	1.25
N/A	Mii Gunner (lightest)	1.24425
4	Roy	1.24
N/A	Giga Bowser	1.22
5