Mega Man (SSB4)


 * Mega Man Joins the Battle!

Mega Man (, Rockman) is a newcomer in Super Smash Bros. 4. He was announced at Nintendo's E3 2013 Direct Conference presentation for the game, becoming the first-revealed of the six third-party characters in the game along with SEGA's and, Bandai Namco's , fellow Capcom character , and Square Enix's. He does not widely use hand-to-hand combat, instead relying on the large arsenal of ranged weaponry he has amassed by defeating boss characters in his own games. His sound effects are reused from the vast number of retro Mega Man games he has appeared in.

Mega Man ranks 27th on the SSB4 tier list, in C tier as a high tier character. Mega Man's most prevalent advantage is that he has among the best projectile games in Smash 4, with his wide array of projectiles being able to keep opponents away. He excels in pressuring as a result, with his Crash Bomber able to pressure shields easily, Metal Blade being an overall useful tool for forcing approaches, shield pressure and edgeguarding, and a useful mid-range spacing tool with his Mega Buster. This is made more effective once combined with Mega Man's grab game; his grab is among the fastest in the game, with his down throw being a decent combo starter, while his back throw is a decent damage racker and KO option at high percents. Mega Man also possesses above-average endurance due to his high weight and falling speed, which ties in with an effective recovery in Rush Coil that does not cause him to go helpless. Some of Mega Man's finishes are also among the strongest in the game, such as his up tilt and down smash. Finally, owing to his high air friction, Mega Man also has extremely fluid control in the air, including the ability to zig-zag while jumping.

Despite these advantages, Mega Man is not without flaws. His grounded mobility is comparatively poor, with his dashing speed in particular being the 13th slowest in the game. This leaves Mega Man at a disadvantage against characters with better mobility, such as and. Mega Man's melee attacks also have short range overall despite their extensive utility, causing him to struggle up close against characters with disjointed range like, , and , while the high ending lag on his attacks puts more stress on this flaw. Mega Man's above average weight and falling speed also makes him an easy target for combos and juggles. Finally, Mega Man's projectile-heavy playstyle is also his biggest weakness, as he is heavily affected by powershielding, reflectors, absorbers, and other anti-projectile tools, which can shut down both his approach and defense options.

Overall, Mega Man is a strong contender in the Smash 4 metagame, and he has placed well at some tournaments, with both placing 2nd at EVO 2016 and  placing 5th at Super Smash Con 2016 with him. Despite this, Mega Man's high learning curve has prevented him from attaining as large of a playerbase as other characters in his tier.

Attributes
As in his home series, Mega Man's moveset relies heavily on various projectiles, giving his attacks unusual functions and characteristics. This extends beyond his special moves and into his standard moveset. For his neutral attack, he fires shots from his Mega Buster, and for his forward tilt, he fires shots from his Mega Buster while walking. His up tilt, the Mega Upper, is a jumping uppercut, and his down tilt is a forward slide.

Despite having an unusual set of moves, Mega Man shines in approaching while spacing opponents at midrange and disrupting any approaches, for he has two projectiles that can cause opponents to react predictably: Metal Blade's ability to be thrown in eight directions and trapping opponents in high hitstun makes it a fantastic mindgame and shield-baiting tool, while Crash Bomber can cause panicky opponents to run towards Mega Man or shield the explosion. Both projectiles easily lead to a grab punish as Mega Man owns a great grab combo ability, having a fast grab and many of his attacks connecting reliably after a throw. This allows him to rack up damage easily once he grabs an opponent. He does not have much trouble KOing once his opponents are damaged either, for he has many finishing options: from his lightning-fast up tilt to his projectile based forward smash which can be used to edgeguard. His other projectiles are terrific, notably his aerials; up aerial can KO early if an opponent is high up, and his down aerial is one of the safest meteor smashes in the game. To top it all off, Mega Man is a fantastic spacer: his jab is a fast and useful projectile (that can be used while moving and jumping) which interrupts most attacks and weak projectiles at a safe range, and when combined with Metal Blades and Crash Bombs makes Mega Man difficult to approach. Due to his amazing pressuring ability and grab game, characters without a projectile or with low reach can have trouble approaching without being severely punished. Even if he does get knocked around, Mega Man is a heavyweight character, weighing only slightly less than, meaning he is more likely to survive potentially lethal blows that could KO a lighter character, especially with proper DI and his good recovery move, Rush Coil.

Regardless of his good grab game and punishing options, Mega Man still has some flaws to counter his strengths. Since his projectiles are imperative in initiating combos, he suffers against opponents with reflectors or other methods to render his projectiles ineffective, such as the 's Pocket. His low speed and ending lag on his non-projectile moves significantly limit his approach. He lacks options in keeping away foes up close, with no actual melee jab or quick standard attacks to knock them away. Because most of his strongest attacks suffer from either noticeable startup or ending lag, Mega Man works best at mid-range where his attacks can connect safely, though at the cost of giving opponents a good amount of time to react to any of his attacks, somewhat making his finishers predictable.

Mega Man gains various additional options from his custom moves. Shadow Blade and Ice Slasher are good for immobilizing opponents and are less susceptible to being used against Mega Man himself. Hyper Bomb and Danger Wrap are harder to land, but deal much more damage and knockback. Tornado Hold has more offensive value due to it dealing damage and granting Mega Man new combo potential. Plant Barrier does not last as long as the default Leaf Shield, but can deal and absorb more damage. Skull Barrier lacks a hitbox when circling Mega Man and deals less damage when thrown, but it reflects projectiles when orbiting and cannot be destroyed, giving it a more defensive value than both Leaf Shield and Plant Barrier lack.

In essence, Mega Man is a very versatile, medium-ranged projectile fighter who has no trouble spacing opponents, though KO attempts can be risky for him as he suffers slightly at close range due to the lag of his attacks. He has to use his effective spacing and grab punish options to rack up damage at medium range while keeping his distance until the opponent is weak enough to risk using one of his slow yet powerful finishing moves.

Update history
Mega Man has been slightly buffed in the game's updates. In 1.0.4, much like, his grab release was altered to remove guaranteed combos several characters had on him out of an air release. Besides this, he only received minor buffs to his Leaf Shield, but in update 1.1.1, he had the speed of his Ice Slasher and Hyper Bomb custom specials slightly improved as well, along with a slight increase to Hyper Bomb's power and splash damage. However, the changes to shield mechanics make some of his projectiles, most notably his forward smash, less safe on shield due to their low hitlag.

 1.0.4

 1.0.6  1.1.0  1.1.1

Moveset
For a gallery of Mega Man's hitboxes, see here.
 * Mega Man can wall jump.

Tier placement and history
Mega Man was seen as a very obscure and unorthodox character since the game's release. His strange playstyle mainly comprised of projectiles always saw a large topic of debate for him, though the general consensus was always of him being at least a mid-tier character. Alongside very limited tournament representation and tournament results, he would at first rank 28th on the first 4BR tier list. However, his popularity would become stronger after game updates nerfed, and , and his tournament representation, while limited, saw strong results from smashers like , , and most notably , who would travel to the USA to compete at EVO 2016 and get 2nd place at the tournament. This spike in tournament results allowed him to be seen much more favorably and allowed him to rank 15th on the second tier list, reassessing him as a high-tier character and gaining the third largest rise between the first and second tier lists.

Mega Man would later rank 16th on the third tier list, a very slight drop in favor of claiming 10th place. However, due to his huge lack of consistent results, Mega Man is ranked 27th on the fourth and final tier list, suffering the largest drop between the third and fourth tier lists. Some smashers have said said that Mega Man should be higher due to his amazing projectile game and his matchup spread, while others like  think that Mega Man is overrated and that his placing is somewhat accurate.

Most historically significant players
Any number following the Smasher name indicates placement on the PGR 100, which recognizes the official top 100 players in Super Smash Bros. 4 of all time.

See also: Category:Mega Man players (SSB4)


 * (#18) - The best Mega Man player in the world. Placed 1st at, 2nd at , 3rd at , 5th at , and 9th at with wins over players such as , , and . Ranked 4th on the JAPAN Power Rankings.
 * - Placed 3rd at, 9th at , 13th at both and , and 17th at  with wins over players such as , , and.
 * - One of the best Mega Man players in the United States. 4th at, 7th at , 13th at , and 25th at both and  with wins over players such as , , and . Ranked 1st on the South Carolina Power Rankings.
 * - Placed 2nd at at, 7th at , 17th at both and , and 25th at  with wins over players such as , , and.
 * (#51) - The best Mega Man player in the United States. Placed 5th at, 9th at both and , 13th at , and 17th at  with wins over players such as , , and.
 * - Placed 5th at, 17th at , , and , and 25th at with wins over players such as , , and . Ranked as high as 4th on the Michigan Power Rankings
 * - Co-mained Mega Man alongside and was one of the best Mega Man players in the United States by the end of the game's active lifespan. Placed 2nd at, 4th at , 7th at , 9th at , and 33rd at  with wins over players such as , , and.

Solo Events

 * Behind Enemy Lines: As, the player must survive one minute against Mega Man and
 * Mechanical Menace: The player, as, must defeat a metal Mega Man, , and Metal Face.
 * New Challengers 2: Mega Man is one of the seven opponents fought in this event, alongside, , , , and.
 * The FINAL Final Battle: The player must defeat Mega Man, alongside, , and.
 * Yellow Devils: Mega Man must defeat a giant and, along with the Yellow Devil.

Co-op Events

 * Robots vs. Dragons: Mega Man and must defeat a giant  and, as well as Ridley.
 * The Ultimate Battle: Two players select a character and must defeat the entire roster.

Trivia

 * Mega Man makes several references to his home series outside of his moveset:
 * Mega Man is the only character to have additional effects added to his KO explosion. When Mega Man gets KO'd, he splits into multiple orbs with identical coloration to his outfit, while the signature "lose a life" sound from the original Mega Man echoes in the background. This is a direct reference to what would happen to him in the Mega Man series whenever he dies.
 * Mega Man is tied for highest air acceleration, true to the famously "twitchy" controls in the Mega Man series.
 * Aside from his idle poses, Mega Man stands completely still when idle, like in the classic Mega Man games. In the Wii U & Nintendo 3DS Developer Direct at E3 2013, Mega Man is also seen blinking when idle, but for unknown reasons, this is not the case in the final game.
 * This also applies to the ending animation of all three of his victory poses, but it's difficult to see due to the camera constantly moving around.
 * The way how he always faces the screen regardless of what side he's facing is a reference to how he faces the screen in the Mega Man game.
 * The Robot Masters that appear in the segment in Mega Man's trailer where he shows off his Robot Master abilities are silhouetted versions of their original artwork from the Mega Man series.
 * Each silhouette is also featured with the Weapon name, Robot Master name, and Robot Master number.
 * None of the Robot Master weapons from ', ', ', or ' are included in Mega Man's arsenal, even though there is at least one weapon used from every other Mega Man game from 1-9, although the Black Hole Bomb from  only appears briefly during his Final Smash. Beat from Mega Man 5 also appears as a custom up special move.
 * While Mega Man's eighth palette swap uses yellow as the light armor color, the Wii U stock icon uses white instead for unknown reasons. The 3DS version uses yellow like it should be. Strangely, the 3DS result screen uses the white coloring.
 * Mega Man is the only character to be a part of every stage event with a different boss, although he is only absent from Samus's event Galactic Avenger.
 * Coincidentally, Mega Man and R.O.B. appear as CPU opponents with Metal Face in Mechanical Menace while they are playable characters in Robots vs. Dragons who fight Ridley, and a giant and.
 * In both events where he is playable, Mega Man faces two giant playable opponents along with a stage boss.
 * Mega Man's forward aerial, Flame Sword, shares the same name as 's up smash.
 * Mega Man and Rosalina are the only two SSB4 newcomers to appear in the CGI portions of a newcomer trailer other than their own, namely 's.
 * Mega Man,, and are the only newcomers whose Final Smashes are not shown in their reveal trailers.
 * Mega Man,, and Snake are the only characters that have projectiles that can stick to walls.
 * If Mega Man is Star KOed while the Leaf Shield is active, the Leaf Shield will still continue around him depending on how long the move has left. However, this is merely aesthetic and causes no gameplay issues.
 * Despite being a third-party character, Mega Man's appearance was heavily advertised, as he appeared in more trailers and promotional material than any other third-party character.
 * Curiously, in Mega Man's trailer, he is seen pulling out two Metal Blades, something that can't be done in either Smash Bros. or Mega Man.
 * In the E3 2013 gameplay demo, where the was also revealed, Mega Man's name in the HUD was displayed as one word ("Megaman") as opposed to two ("Mega Man").