Special Zoom

Special Zoom is an aesthetic effect introduced in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, designed to add drama during a match. The term was coined by Masahiro Sakurai and his development team (referred to as Decisive Impact in the initial design document ).

Overview
Special Zoom activates when a fighter is hit by certain attacks: for a short moment, the background flashes blue with dramatic "spark" effects pointing towards the impact, time will substantially slow down, and the camera zooms in on the impact. In games with more than two players, the slowdown and camera zoom effects will be nearly non-existent, although there are some exceptions (a few moves will always zoom even outside of 1v1 matches). A Special Zoom is usually accompanied by the sound effect previously exclusive to Little Mac's KO Uppercut in Super Smash Bros. 4. During some Special Zoom events, camera control is disabled, though this is not consistently enforced.

A few moves in Smash 4 which also had zoom-and-slowdown effects, such as KO Uppercut and Cloud's Finishing Touch and Limit Break Cross Slash, now use the standard Special Zoom effect.

In general, the attacks that trigger Special Zoom are slow and hard to hit with (such as Warlock Punch or Falcon Punch). Most other attacks that trigger Special Zoom have conditions that need to be met, such as 's Skewer needing to be sweetspotted, or Little Mac's smash attacks requiring his armor to be triggered during the start-up. Certain items and stage hazards may also trigger Special Zoom, also requiring special conditions in some cases.

Special Zoom occurs even if the attack's knockback is negated by armor. However, Special Zoom will not trigger if the opponent is hit while invincible, during the last five seconds in a time match, when Nightmare is active, when hitting the AI-controlled character of the, or when a Final Smash is active.

Finish Zoom
Similar to Special Zoom is Finish Zoom or Final Zoom, terms also coined by Sakurai and his team. Finish Zoom is used when the game calculates an attack will likely result in a game-winning KO. Like the Deadly Blow mechanic introduced in Super Smash Bros. 4, this effect only factors in knockback and launch angle, and does not account for obstructions or DI being used to make an otherwise-deadly blow survivable. Like Special Zoom, Finish Zoom zooms in on the point of impact and briefly slows down time. However, Finish Zoom uses a red background instead of a blue one, and the sound is always the same. The sound used is also different again, being akin to a ping hit combined with the sound of slashing swords. Screen KOs rarely occur when a Finish Zoom sends an opponent into the upper blast line, while Star KOs are very rare.

By character
* None of the attacks that Kirby can copy have the 'Always zoom' effect.

Trivia

 * Should a character be hit by an attack that triggers a Finish Zoom, they will react with a shocked expression that overrides the expression normally displayed.
 * If a non-cinematic Final Smash causes Finish Zoom, the background will change to the stage's normal background, rather than the background for the Final Smash.
 * In-game parameters reveal that Captain Falcon's Knee Smash was planned to have the Special Zoom effect, although it is not active in the final game.
 * Hero has the most moves which can trigger Special Zoom out of all characters, with 7.
 * Collecting all three parts of the Dragoon and getting hit by Odin's slashing attack will cause the camera to zoom in, but do not cause the Special Zoom background to appear.
 * In Home-Run Contest, Special Zoom does not occur on moves that trigger the effect; presumably to prevent such moves from costing the player time due to the timer not slowing down while Special Zoom is in effect.
 * However, using a Special Zoom move in place of the Home-Run Bat swing will not result in an angled view of Sandbag flying, and will instead feature a normal Special Zoom.
 * Certain moves are given a hidden multiplier that increases the amount of knockback needed to trigger Finish Zoom, usually for moves that are clearly telegraphed and/or heavily affected by DI, which the opponent would feasibly always react to and DI against accordingly. Star KOs will be more common if the match is finished this way than with the actual Finish Zoom effect.
 * These multipliers are set manually, independent from the move's actual knockback calculations, and may not always accurately reflect the practical KO potential of the move. For example, Mario's back throw can KO at around 140% at the ledge with no DI and 160% with optimal DI for a roughly 1.15x increase in survivability, but it is set with an arbitrarily high multiplier of 1.5x, causing the Finish Zoom to begin occurring well beyond its minimum KO percent.
 * A glitch involving and Finish Zoom was introduced in the Version 8.0.0; if the opponent didn't get KO'd (e.g. due to directional influence) after Min Min's attack triggered Finish Zoom, her last used ARM will be visually stuck in being stretched.
 * If Finish Zoom occurs to a character getting hit from behind, the reverse knockback animation does not play, although they will briefly assume the pose.
 * If uses Thwack on  performing Withdraw, Squirtle will be instant KO'ed, but it will not trigger the Special Zoom.
 * If Ryu uses Shin Shoryuken or if Ken uses Shippu Jinraikyaku as his Final Smash, the move uses a mechanic similar to Finishing Zoom where if the final hit has enough knockback to KO, the backdrop is set to an orange color.
 * Characters launched out of the bury status that trigger Finish Zoom have a notably increased chance of being Star KO'd after Finish Zoom.