Zelda (SSBU)

Zelda (, Zelda) is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. She was confirmed as a playable character along with and the rest of veterans on June 12, 2018. Unlike the game's predecessors, she is unlockable instead of being available from the start. Zelda is classified as Fighter #17.

In a similar vein to her fellow Zelda fighters and, Zelda is now voiced by , who reprises her role from  in all regions, replacing Jun Mizusawa from Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Super Smash Bros. 4. Similar to characters in Melee, the former provides a single line of spoken Japanese dialogue in World of Light's opening; this line is dubbed in English by Brandy Kopp, who also voices.

Zelda is ranked 75th out of 82 on the current tier list, placing her in the D+ tier. This is a slight improvement from her 52th/53rd out 54 placement in SSB4 where she was tied with, and is her best placement in the series.

How to unlock
Complete one of the following: Zelda must then be defeated on Temple (the Ω form is used in World of Light).
 * Play VS. matches, with Zelda being the 2nd character to be unlocked.
 * Clear with  or any character in his unlock tree, being the 4th character unlocked after.
 * Have Zelda join the player's party in World of Light.

Attributes
Zelda is a tall, floaty lightweight character with overall slow mobility. While she has a slightly above-average air speed, the 20th highest traction, and a decent initial dash, her jumping force and air acceleration are below average, and she has the 22nd slowest walking speed, the 16th slowest falling speed, the 10th lowest gravity, and is tied with for the 9th slowest running speed in the game. Zelda's attacks are based on magic, making most of them disjointed or otherwise long-range attacks. They also boast generally quick startup; all of her attacks activate before frame 10, except for forward tilt, up aerial, down aerial, and forward smash. Despite her lightweight status, most of her attacks have KO potential and impressive damage output, giving her power comparable to heavyweights. Due to these factors, Zelda can be generalized as a zoner glass cannon.

Her neutral attack is a small burst of magical energy in front of her, boasting decent range and good damage output before transitioning into a rapid jab of many magical bursts with a finishing hit. Forward tilt is a strong arm swipe with good range and little ending vulnerability, with the additional ability to be angled. Up tilt is a vertical, long-lasting, circular arm sweep, useful as an anti-air and combo tool across most percentages of damage. Down tilt is a quick crouching kick that lasts surprisingly long and is good for many combo setups and 2-framing opponents. Her dash attack is a dual hand thrust with a burst of magic most powerful closest to her hands. It’s best used throughout combos to gain distance. Her forward and up smashes are both powerful, multi-hitting bursts of magic energy; the former being a thrust of the hand forward and the latter being a wave of the hand back and forth above her. Down smash is a very fast 360° leg sweep that launches opponents at a semi spike angle with decent knockback.

Zelda has unique high-risk/high reward aerials which boast immense kill power power. Zelda can auto-cancel both her neutral and down aerials in a short hop, and forward and back aerial auto-cancel from a fast fall. Though her neutral air lacks notable KO ability, it pairs a long active duration with generously-sized hitboxes and decent damage. This, combined with its aforementioned early autocancel window, makes her neutral air her most versatile aerial, used for extending combos (and sometimes starting them), setting up edgeguards, pressuring shields, anti-airing, and edge-guarding. Unfortunately, opponents will occasionally fall out of her neutral aerial, making it an inconsistent tool.

Her forward and back aerials are known as Lightning Kicks. Both of these aerials possess a very small but powerful sweetspot at her foot, dealing 24% with high knockback. The sweetspot is only active for the first frame, with the late hit or "sourspot" dealing 4% with minimal knockback. Both kicks boast an extremely fast startup at frame 6, but have very punishable ending lag, making them high risk/high reward aerials. Their fast startup and powerful knockback means they excel as well spaced landing aerials, as well as deadly out of shield options. Their short active frame for the sweetspot and punishable ending lag/sourspot means they are very risky when used as rising aerials, as missing or hitting opponents with the sourspot will almost always mean Zelda will get punished. Up air is a large, disjointed explosion with excellent damage and knockback, however with significant startup. Down air, sometimes nicknamed the "Lightning Stomp", is a meteor smash with a powerful sweetspot on her foot, similar to her Lightning Kicks. However, unlike her Lightning kicks, this sweetspot is much larger, making it much easier to connect despite it short active window. Also unlike the lightning kicks, its sourspot has great utility, having large and lingering hitboxes that always spike opponents downwards. It is amongst the most powerful meteor smashes in the game, and one of Zelda's most useful aerials. Besides being one of the best meteor smashes in the game, it also has great utility in platform chases and is a great punish tool as hitting it on grounded opponents will allow Zelda to combo it to her other powerful aerials. Overall, her aerials are all unique high risk, high reward moves.

Her special moves take inspiration from various Zelda titles. Her neutral special move, Nayru's Love, is a reflector that doubles as a melee attack; Zelda also is intangible from frames 4-13 of the move. These traits make it useful against projectile users as well as evading/halting opponent’s combos. Din's Fire, her side special move, sends out an explosive ball of fire that explodes on the release of the button or when reaching max charge, becoming more powerful and flying further the longer it is charged. It possesses a powerful sweetspot in the inner part of the explosion, with an otherwise large explosion hitbox. The ball of fire does not count as a projectile, but the explosion can be absorbed. In addition, for the first time in the series, Zelda can use it to cover her recovery, as it no longer leaves her helpless in midair. Her up special move, Farore's Wind, is a great KO option, possessing very fast startup and elevator combos from the first hit on the ground to its very powerful second hit in the air. This, combined with it being a omnidirectional teleport recovery that travels a very respectable distance, renders it a very potent recovery move and perhaps one of the most versatile in the game. As a teleport recovery, it's difficult to edgeguard against by default due to its intangibility between exit and reentry. On top of this, it can have anti-ledgetrap and mindgame potential if one opts to use the aforementioned powerful second hitbox instead of snapping to ledge. And, much like 's Warp, she can completely avoid the move's ending lag by using a technique called edge cancelling, which grants her access to otherwise-impossible approach and stage control options. Lastly, her down special, Phantom Slash, is perhaps her most versatile tool. It's a unique projectile that she builds piece-by-piece until it is fully formed, though she can use it at any stage of its creation by pressing either the special or attack button, which affects several of its properties. The earliest stages have rather low damage, knockback, and range, but it becomes increasingly more potent as it becomes more complete, with the final stage having high damage output, impressive knockback, and stellar range. It takes a little over a second to reach the final stage, after which Zelda will be able to move and attack freely in an untethered sort of state. The Phantom will attack on its own after about another second if it is not triggered, granting Zelda a lot of flexibility when using it, such as retreating behind it for protection, attacking in tandem with it, launching the opponent towards it, performing shield breaking combos, making grab setups, and even covering her recovery (similar to Din's Fire).

Zelda has outstanding range and reward for her grab, with her pivot grab being one of the most disjointed in the game. Her grab however, has extremely slow startup. Her throws have great reward. Forward throw is good to setup edge guarding, while back and up throw are excellent kill throws. Down throw is most useful as a combo starter, and can combo into neutral aerial, forward and back aerial, up aerial, as well as stall long enough for a set up Phantom to hit.

Despite her toolkit's versatility and potency, Zelda has noticeable flaws. Chief among them is arguably her poor mobility&mdash;especially on the ground&mdash;which hampers her ability to approach effectively against those who outspeed her. As a result of this, she flounders against quick, fast-falling opponents like and. This mobility issue is exacerbated through numerous frame data issues, as many of her attacks, while quick to startup, have punishing amounts of end lag. Since she is light, tall, and floaty, she is also vulnerable to juggling and can be KO'd earlier than a good part of the roster. Her very poor disadvantage state makes her vulnerable to momentum changes as well. While rage improves her excellent KO potential even further, her mediocre endurance doesn't allow her to take advantage of it as much as heavier characters. This riskiness is especially apparent in her KO options; though they're incredibly potent, they struggle with unreliable or weak sourspots (in dash attack and Lighting Kicks), punishable ending lag (in up smash, up aerial, and forward smash to an extent) or a combination of the two (in Din's Fire and Farore's Wind). Along with this, some parts of her moveset struggle with landing reliably. Her neutral aerial's multihits, though improved through patches, still sometimes struggle to connect with each other, and her neutral attack and forward tilt's hitboxes are placed high and narrow, respectively, so they sometimes have trouble hitting short or crouching fighters.

Finally, her special moves have exploitable weaknesses; Nayru's Love has noticeable ending lag, making it punishable if overused. Most importantly, Phantom knight is a large commitment and Zelda is stuck either in startup if she chooses to charge the knight fully, and she is stuck in ending lag if she releases early. This means opponents can punish Zelda hard by reading when she decides to charge knight, and can either prevent her from setting up entirely or by jumping over the knight and punishing her while she is still stuck in startup.

Overall, Zelda has an excellent stage control, ledgetrapping, and can easily KO opponents thanks to a variety of strong attacks and KO setups. However, she has to be precise with how she spaces her attacks and sets up phantom knight due to startup and endlag. She must be creative in her approaches to overcome her mobility issues when she does not have a lead, and must mix up what she does to get out of a disadvantage due to her floaty nature and lack of safe landing options.

Changes from Super Smash Bros. 4
Zelda had historically and consistently been regarded as one of the worst characters (and, at one point in Super Smash Bros. 4, the overall worst) in previous games, due to her combination of underwhelming frame data as a whole, a lackluster special moveset, bad hitbox placements, and an undesirable mix of attributes (slow, light, tall, and floaty). While SSB4 had brought updates to her offensive game, her weaknesses remained, causing her to remain unviable. Likely as a result of being a poorly regarded character in previous games, Zelda has been significantly buffed overall in the transition to Ultimate.

One of Zelda's biggest buffs is her greatly improved moveset: many of her moves have either reduced lag, better KO potential, or other improvements. Neutral attack, previously the slowest in the game, comes out significantly faster, and has been reworked to possess an infinite portion with better damage racking ability and knockback; forward tilt has more range, less ending lag, and increased damage that improve the sweetspot's KO potential; forward smash now uses an improved autolink angle, allowing it to connect reliably at both close range and when spaced.

Neutral aerial has decreased landing lag, allowing it to start combos into multiple ground options, including down tilt into forward aerial. Up aerial has received a new weaker late hit that increases its duration, its hitbox is larger, has been moved upwards and its duration has been extended; while the placement makes it difficult to hit grounded opponents, this increases its already solid large vertical range and makes it more difficult to spot dodge. Her Lightning Kicks have been improved as well, having a larger sweetspot and the forward kick is now active as fast as the back kick, increasing their potency for followups when landing with them, and making them more devastating out of shield. Her already good grab game was improved to the point it is now among the most useful in the game: her back and up throws are much stronger, while down throw deals more damage and, although its knockback and angle were altered, its combo ability remains mostly intact. Additionally she has the longest range for a non-tether grab of any character in the game.

Zelda's special moveset, considered among the most situational in previous games, has seen various improvements. Nayru's Love has faster startup and intangibility, and preserves Zelda's momentum, strengthening its already strong defensive ability and improving its edgeguarding applications. Din's Fire no longer causes helplessness, giving it utility as an anti-edgeguarding option, has increased duration of effect and the sweetspot is larger and easier to land, making it more difficult to spot dodge and more effective in neutral or advantage state. Farore's Wind has faster startup, making it a more effective out of shield option, and more precise angles for reappearance, allowing her to land its second hit easier even if the enemy DIs the first hit, making "elevator" combos much more consistent. Most importantly, however, Phantom Slash has been heavily reworked to possess several more stages that can be unleashed faster, deal more damage, and the last stage allows Zelda to move around before it is unleashed, allowing for intricate trap setups and combos when edgeguarding and approaching, while the Phantom no longer has any cooldown if destroyed. Since the Phantom is formed behind Zelda, it is now better used in her advantage state, though with sufficient spacing it is also a strong tool in the neutral game; though with precise input, Zelda can also short hop behind the Phantom while charging it, allowing it to block incoming projectiles while charging.

Additionally, Zelda noticeably benefits from some of the universal changes. Despite still having below-average mobility relative to the rest of the cast, the universal 3-frame jumpsquats and reduced landing lag improve her noticeably, as they greatly supplement her neutral game, previously one of her main weaknesses. This allows her to approach more reliably and improves her combo potential, giving her more consistent and durable followups from moves such as up tilt, neutral aerial, up throw, and down throw, which can dish out large amounts of damage. The changes to air dodging also generally benefit her, as they improve her edgeguarding game with moves like Din's Fire.

However, Zelda has received some mixed changes and a few nerfs as well. Despite the improved speed and combo potential of her neutral attack, it no longer has frame advantage against shields, and none of her other attacks has had their ending lag reduced enough to fully compensate. Down tilt has less ending lag, but has less range and its new angle worsens its combo potential in general, removing its ability to combo into up aerial, although it can now combo better into neutral aerial and dash attack and has a new KO setup into forward aerial. The changes to down aerial's hitboxes increase the clean hit's range and remove the blindspot located in Zelda's lower leg, but causes the late hit to have smaller hitboxes. Zelda's dash and pivot grabs, already below-average in speed, have received even more startup, although her pivot grab has very large range for a non-tether grab and both of them have less ending lag. Both forward throw and Farore's Wind are weaker, most significantly the former, now only being usable for setting up edgeguards in a similar vein to ' own forward throw, though Farore's Wind is more consistent for self-combos due to faster startup and more precise DI options for reappearance that can hit opponents who DI the initial hit.

Although Zelda benefits from some the changes to the game's engine, other changes have impaired her as well; the universal increase in mobility doesn't benefit her as much due to her slow grounded movement, since it still doesn't allow her to catch up with most of the cast. The increased shieldstun both helps and hinders Zelda, as it allows her moves to be more safely spaced, but combined with the universal reductions to landing lag (despite aerials having less shieldstun), it also slightly worsens her respectable out of shield game.

Overall, Zelda's moveset has been considerably enhanced from previous installments, making her strengths much more defined and allowing her to play defensive much more reliably, while her nerfs aren't as meaningful as her buffs. Game updates also brought her meaningful improvements that have made her moveset more cohesive and consistent. This has allowed Zelda to fare better than in previous installments; though despite these changes and her strengths, Zelda still retains some of her weaknesses from previous games, mainly her slow mobility, light weight, and moveset inconsistencies. Coupled with the various buffs other veterans have received (to varying degrees) as well as the introduction of varied DLC characters mean Zelda still underperforms compared to the rest of the cast, despite this incarnation being her strongest one yet.

Update history
Zelda has been buffed overall via game updates, receiving significant changes in update 7.0.0 and 13.0.0. Notable buffs in version 7.0.0 include her neutral aerial connecting better and having less landing lag, her up aerial having more range, knockback and a longer duration, her forward tilt becoming stronger, and Phantom Slash dealing more damage at all charge levels. In 13.0.0, the first hit of her neutral attack was made slightly faster, somewhat improving its consistency as a combo starter, her up and down smash inflict more knockback, and her down aerial's sweetspot is significantly larger, making it an all around more reliable tool. Aside from these buffs, as of 10.1.0, her forward smash connects better and has more range. However, Zelda has also received minor nerfs to Phantom Slash; in update 3.0.0, its shield damage was reduced, hindering its potency in shield break setups, while in update 9.0.2, a bugfix removed a technique that allowed Zelda to spawn the Phantom in front of her, granting more protection during the charge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moveset
For a gallery of Zelda's hitboxes, see here.

On-screen appearance

 * Appears facing the screen, generating magical sparkles from between cupped hands. Zelda then flourishes her hands while smiling before assuming her idle pose.

Taunts

 * Up taunt: Places her hand on her hip, while generating magic and twirling it in front of her.
 * Side taunt: Closes her eyes and summons Din's Fire between cupped hands.
 * Down Taunt: Giggles and waves with a smile.

Idle poses

 * Brushes her hair while looking back.
 * Smiles and performs a pondering gesture with a finger tapping her cheek.

Crowd cheer
 

Victory poses

 * Left: Creates magic with her fingertips and waves it around.
 * Up: Creates fire from her fingertip and waves it around while giggling.
 * Right: Summons a Phantom behind her with a snap of her finger and poses with it.

Most historically significant players
See also: Category:Zelda players (SSBU)


 * - One of the best Zelda players in the world in 2019, most notably placing 3rd at defeating  and  and 5th at  defeating, alongside some strong major/supermajor results such as 25th at  and 33rd at . She dropped Zelda for  in 2020.
 * - The best Zelda player in Europe is a top 50 player on the continent in the post-online metagame, ranking 37th on the European Ultimate Power Rankings for the first half of 2023. He has consistently placed highly at several events, most notably 13th at and 17th at.
 * - The best Zelda player from 2019 to 2022. His best results were in the early metagame thanks to strong performances such as 17th at defeating  and 33rd at  defeating ; he was also the first Zelda player ranked on a global ranking, ranking 83rd on the OrionRank Ultimate: Six Months In. Although less consistent since, he has still seen some strong results, including 9th at, tied as the best Zelda placement at a major.
 * - The best Zelda player in the world since 2023. He has the best peaks for a Zelda player, including placing 9th at the supermajor defeating  and the major.

Tier placement and history
Players were initially divided on Zelda's competitive viability. Many players pointed out that her key issues, most notably her low mobility and poor endurance, were retained from previous games. On the other hand, other players were more optimistic towards the character due to improved frame data over her Smash 4 iteration, particularly on her jab and out-of-shield options, as well as Phantom Slash's higher utility. However, players found that some of her key issues, such as her low mobility and poor endurance, were retained from previous games as well. This optimism, coupled with strong early performances from players such as, , and , led many to believe the character was a solid mid-tier, with some arguing that she could be a potential high-tier.

This optimism did not last for long, as Zelda's polarizing nature became more noticeable as time went on: despite buffs in patches 7.0.0 and 10.1.0 that improved her consistency and neutral game, Zelda's linear game plan and poor mobility remained critical weaknesses. As a result, Zelda players began struggling in the developing metagame, and they either dropped the character (such as Mystearica) or saw worse results and consistency than before (such as ven). Although Naskino continued to do well in Europe and began making waves in Japan in early-2023, opinions on Zelda declined, and as a result she sits at 75th out of 82 on the current tier list. Although it is her best placement in the series and she is far better than all her previous incarnations, she remains a low-tier character.

: Wisdom Prevails
Zelda's opponents are antagonists and she fights each of them on stages that hail from series.

Credits roll after completing Classic Mode. Completing it as Zelda has  accompany the credits.

Role in World of Light
Zelda was among the fighters that were summoned to fight the army of Master Hands.

During the opening cutscene, Zelda tried to rally the other fighters to fight the army of Master Hands by saying, "Stow your fear; it's now or never!" ("", Now that we've made it this far, there's no turning back!), and was present on the cliffside when Galeem unleashed his beams of light. She and attempted to reflect the beams using Nayru's Love and Confusion, respectively, but this attempt failed, and both of them were vaporized and placed under Galeem's imprisonment along with the rest of the fighters (excluding ).

Zelda was one of the many fighters that fell under Dharkon's control upon Galeem's first defeat. She is unlocked in The Dark Realm at Sacred Land, on the bottom left corner of the land which makes up the Triforce of Wisdom. The player must defeat the spirit of (which is revealed by solving a clock-based puzzle) to clear a boulder that's blocking the path to her unlock battle and then the  and  spirits. Unlocking her reveals the Triforce of Wisdom in the center of the map. If is unlocked, the boulders leading to 's unlock battle and the Master Sword clear out.

Zelda is later seen among several other fighters, making their last stand against Galeem and Dharkon. She is also seen in the bad ending where Galeem emerges victorious against Dharkon, witnessing Galeem engulf the world in light.

Spirits
Zelda's fighter spirit can be obtained by completing. It is also available periodically for purchase in the shop for 300 Gold, but only after Zelda has been unlocked. Unlocking Zelda in World of Light allows the player to preview the first spirit below in the Spirit List under the name "???". As a fighter spirit, it cannot be used in Spirit Battles and is purely aesthetic. Her fighter spirit has an alternate version that replaces it with her artwork in Ultimate.

Additionally, different incarnations of Zelda appear as primary and support spirits.

Trivia

 * Masahiro Sakurai chose to base Zelda's design in Ultimate off of her A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds incarnations instead of her more recent Breath of the Wild incarnation because that version of Zelda, according to him, "is more into research than fighting."   He also mentioned in a subsequent Nintendo Treehouse Live event that he chose this design to better represent The Legend of Zelda franchise as a whole instead of having all of its fighters come from the same game.
 * Zelda's current default design was previously an alternate costume in terms of coloration of her model, whereas her previous default design based on Twilight Princess has now become an alternate costume in that same regard.
 * Coincidentally, Zelda was revealed in SSB4 at the same time A Link Between Worlds was released, which inspired her current design.
 * Ironically, despite her Twilight Princess incarnation being retired after this game, even though Ganondorf's design from that game is still directly referenced via a spirit, as well as Link's Wolf form from that game, Zelda is the only returning Zelda character from SSB4 that doesn't have her Twilight Princess design directly referenced in Ultimate at all.
 * Zelda can be unlocked by Kirby via his Classic Mode route, which may reference their team-up from Brawl's Adventure Mode, The Subspace Emissary.
 * Zelda is currently the only playable The Legend of Zelda character in Ultimate whose design originates from either a handheld game or a non-3D game.
 * She is also the only Zelda character whose design comes from the "Fallen Hero" timeline.
 * The World of Light opening marks Zelda's first spoken line of dialogue in the Smash series. This is also the first time in the series that any Zelda character is voiced in English.
 * Zelda is one of the few characters to have her cutscene dialogue dubbed in English, but otherwise keep her Japanese voice actress's battle grunts, after and  in Melee. She is also the only character to speak English in a cutscene while still having a Japanese KO line (with her yelling "" (Nooo!)).
 * Zelda speaks English in all Western language versions of Ultimate, unlike Breath of the Wild, which was dubbed into multiple languages.
 * She is the second Zelda character to speak in Smash, the first being in Melee.
 * Zelda is the only The Legend of Zelda character whose animations are mirrored.
 * Zelda's Classic Mode route is vaguely similar to 's, as both characters fight villains and/or final bosses of various series for opponents.
 * Zelda,, , , , and are the only fighters to appear as allies in Spirit Battles.
 * Ultimate marks the first time Zelda's Kirby hat no longer resembles Young Zelda's wimple from Ocarina of Time, despite her appearance in Melee being based on her adult design from the same game, and her Brawl and SSB4 designs both being based on her appearance in Twilight Princess, which also makes it the first time said Kirby hat is based directly on how she appears in-game.
 * Gravity on Zelda's hair is temporarily disabled whenever she performs her hair-brushing idle pose.