Event 51: The Showdown

The Showdown is the 51st and final event match of the 51 event matches in Super Smash Bros. Melee, unlocked upon clearing the previous 50 events, as well as clearing and Adventure Mode at least once (the player does not need to fight Giga Bowser).

The player controls a fighter of their choice and must win a 3 stock match against Giga Bowser and a CPU and  on the  stage. This event match does not feature a time limit. The CPU Ganondorf and Mewtwo's artificial intelligence is set at Level 5, while Giga Bowser's artificial intelligence is set at Level 6.

When the match starts, the player's fighter will spawn on the left side of the stage, while Mewtwo, Giga Bowser, and Ganondorf will spawn on the right side of the stage in that order.

Despite being the final event match and arguably the most difficult under normal circumstances, the opponents themselves are weaker than usual; Ganondorf and Mewtwo are only level 5, while Giga Bowser is level 6 (and Giga Bowser's artificial intelligence almost never shields). Additionally, they all deal decreased knockback (only a slight 5% decrease for Ganondorf and Mewtwo, but a large 35% decrease for Giga Bowser), and Giga Bowser also sustains 50% more knockback himself (despite the massive increase in knockback sustained, Giga Bowser still sustains less knockback than every regular playable character, just now slightly less than the heaviest characters).

The event match's difficulty comes from the player simply being overwhelmed, by the opponents controlling most of the stage, opposing hitboxes covering a large amount of the stage most of the time, and the player sustaining massive damage whenever caught by any of the opponents. Additionally, Giga Bowser's size gives him massive reach, enough to cover nearly half the stage, necessitating aerial approaches. This will leave the player heavily vulnerable to Ganondorf's frequent Dark Dives (who is also often behind Giga Bowser, leaving him usually safe from the player's aerial attacks, and making it easy for him to catch the player with the move), requiring a player to either hit him out of it with an aerial attack or dodge and punish. The lack of Friendly Fire also means that players cannot attempt to get the three to inflict damage to each other, with the exception of potential artificial intelligence exploits. With there being three opponents controlling most of the stage, it can also be difficult to get items before the opponents do.

Similar to Multi-Man Melee, some items do not spawn in the event match due to being too powerful if the player grabs them first, or making the event match too difficult if an opponent grabs them first. These items include the, the Home-Run Bat, both Poison and Super Mushrooms, and Starman. Container items, with the exception of the Party Ball, also cannot appear. In addition, no healing items can spawn in the mode; as a result, Chansey, when spawned from a Poké Ball, will only be able to drop throwable eggs; however, Legendary Poké Ball Pokémon can still spawn from Poké Balls and Party Balls full of Bob-ombs can still appear.

Clearing this event match will reward the player with the Final Destination stage and trophy. A special notice is displayed if the event match is cleared without losing a stock, stating, "You cleared Event 51, The Showdown, with no falls!"

Trivia

 * The opponents in this event match are each main antagonists from highly represented universes who share a darkness attack: Giga Bowser from the universe (the gargantuan version of  from the  universe), Ganondorf from the  universe, and Mewtwo from the  universe in Pokémon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back.
 * The final event match in Brawl, Event 41: The FINAL, Final Battle, is similar to this event match, with Giant replacing Giga Bowser, and  and  replacing Ganondorf and Mewtwo. Both event matches are also battled on the  stage and share a Japanese name.
 * The music track that plays in this event match, "Multi-Man Melee 2", has not played in any other event match since Event 1: Trouble King. In this regard, the two event matches can serve as bookends of the mode.
 * Coincidentally, fights the same three opponents in this event in Round 5 of his  route in Ultimate. The only two differences are that Simon fights all three opponents on the default form of the Reset Bomb Forest stage rather than  or any Ω form, and Simon battles a normal-sized Bowser instead, as Giga Bowser himself is only a standalone boss in Adventure Mode: World of Light and  & 's Classic Mode routes each.