Clone

A clone (officially Echo Fighter (, Dash Fighter) for certain clones in Ultimate) is a character whose moveset, animations, and general properties are mostly derived from another character, as opposed to being unique to them. All clones have some sort of gameplay difference from their parent character, ranging from different animations (such as with ) to fully unique moves (such as with ), but on the whole, they will generally be very similar to their parent, to the point where a casual player might play either in the same way, and even competitive players will often play both a clone and their parent character. However, this is not to say that playing a clone like their parent will be successful; may be a clone of  in Melee due to sharing all his attacks and animations, but as his movement attributes, hitboxes, frame data, and other move data are all altered, the usage of his moves and his optimal playstyle are significantly different.

Clones are a common inclusion in all types of fighting games, as it is significantly less expensive in time and resources to develop a character using another character as a base than it is to do everything from scratch, while still potentially forming a character with a distinct playstyle and fanbase. However, despite being much easier to create and thus resulting in a larger roster overall, fans that are ignorant of the development process are quick to show disdain for clones, perceiving them as stealing resources from potential unique characters.

The term "clone" can also be used to refer to individual moves, albeit is used for that purpose much less frequently. For example, Charizard's Flamethrower is a clone of Bowser's Fire Breath, as even though the characters are not related, they are the same type of move with identical function.

It is uncommon for clones to be starter characters; they are more likely to be unlockable characters. If a clone's parent is also unlockable, it is very likely for the clone to be unlocked after their parent.

Subtypes
The term "clone" does not by itself sufficiently describe how similar two characters are. Perhaps two characters share all but one attack, while another pair has only half of their attacks in common while still clearly being a derivative overall. As a result, there is a spectrum of terms to describe how much of a clone a character might be.


 * A full clone (often shortened to just "clone") will have unique taunts and victory poses, may have unique attributes (such as being heavier or faster) or non-combat animations (such as running or jumping), may have some moves that function differently despite being conceptually the same as their parent character's, and maybe perhaps an entirely unique attack or two. Otherwise, they share nearly all moves and animations with their parent. since Melee and  since Smash 4 are examples of full clones.
 * A semi-clone has several unique attacks and animations of their own while retaining a significant amount from their parent, while often the cloned moves they retain have distinct functioning or altered animations. since Brawl and  since Smash 4 are examples of semi-clones.
 * A pseudo-clone is, for the most part, their own unique character, but with enough moves or animations still copied from their parent that it would be inaccurate to say they are not cloned to some degree. since Brawl and  since Ultimate are examples of pseudo-clones.

It is not uncommon for a cloned character to receive further differentiating changes in later games, thus making them less of a clone. Some use the term Luigification for when a character is separated from their parent and forms their own identity, as Luigi has done in both his home series and the Smash Bros. series. However, it is debatable at what point a character who was once a clone is no longer a clone, or even which specific category some characters may fall into. For example, Luigi’s status as any type of clone post-Brawl was a subject of heavy debate before the term “pseudo-clone” was accepted.

Ultimate introduces the term "Echo Fighter" to refer to certain clones. The term is used to determine which characters are grouped together on the character selection screen when the corresponding menu option is enabled, and also forces such characters to share the same fighter numbers with an appended epsilon (ε). The Japanese term is "Dash Fighter", and uses the prime symbol (') instead of an epsilon. In Japanese, the prime symbol is pronounced "dash", hence the term "Dash Fighter"; in mathematics, the is used to designate that something is derived from something else, such as   being derived from. Otherwise, it is simply a term used by the developers to denote a character as being low-budget; as a result, it only loosely fits into the spectrum of clone terms used by the community to discuss the degree of similarity in the final result. For example, is a full clone, while  is a semi-clone, but Ken is labeled as an Echo Fighter while Dr. Mario is not. However,, , and , who have little gameplay-relevant differences from their parent character, are labeled as such. Notably, none of the clones who debuted prior to Smash 4 are labeled as an Echo Fighter.

Clones in Super Smash Bros.
While all four of the unlockable characters were created with the premise of reusing some of the pre-existing characters' movements and models, two of them ( and ) are unique enough that they are not considered clones of their parents ( and respectively), and mainly only copy from their skeletons rather than their movesets.

Clones in Super Smash Bros. Melee
Originally, Masahiro Sakurai was going to include significantly fewer playable characters in Melee, with the planned roster being what it ended up minus the six clone characters. However, with him knowing fans were expecting more characters while time was too constrictive to add any more, Sakurai decided to add the six clones later in development to pad out the roster, as these characters would take a lot less time to develop than unique characters would (with Sakurai stating that adding the six clones to Melee took less development time than adding a single unique newcomer would have). According to the Japanese website, clones were known as model swap characters. Clones are marked on the character selection screen as recessed icons next to the fighters they are based on.

Luigi received many changes that distanced him from Mario considerably, changing him from a full clone into a semi-clone. On the other hand, Jigglypuff and Kirby both received changes significant enough that Jigglypuff is no longer considered even a pseudo-clone.

Clones in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
None of the newcomers in Brawl are full clones, though there are two new pseudo-clones and one new semi-clone. In addition, four out of the six full clones from Melee were cut, with the two that returned, and, now becoming semi-clones. As a result, Brawl is the only Smash game with no full clones.

Clones in Super Smash Bros. 4
Super Smash Bros. 4 re-introduces full clones, adding one such veteran and two such newcomers. These clones were originally developed as alternate costumes, but it was later decided to give them a difference in moveset, resulting in them being split into their own characters — as "even a small difference in abilities" requires a unique roster slot. There are no new semi-clones, and returning semi-clones were not given much in the way of new differences. Full clones are marked on the character selection screen by being listed outside of the rest of the characters from their series, near the third party characters.

Most clones and semi-clones share at least one custom move, though full clones have nearly every custom move in common.

Clones in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
As stated above, Ultimate uses the term "Echo Fighter" to refer to certain clones based on development time. The term is only loosely related to how unique a character is, as some full clones are not marked as Echo Fighters despite their largely shared movesets, while Ken is marked as one despite being more distinct than some clones that aren't marked as Echo Fighters. Certain Echo Fighters are considered the same entity as their base fighter competitively; Daisy, Richter, and Dark Samus, due to their differences from their base fighters being competitively negligible; and Dark Pit, who does have notable moveset differences, but only in two attacks. On the character selection screen, Echo Fighters are positioned directly after their base fighter, and there exists an option to merge the portraits of the base fighter and the Echo Fighter in certain modes.

With Ultimate bringing back all veterans, every clone that was originally cut returns. However, most returning clones did not receive many new differences. In the transition from SSB4 to Ultimate, however, Luigi and Ganondorf were both significantly decloned (with Luigi commonly being agreed to have become a pseudo-clone), and Link's new changes based off of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild subsequently decloned both of his counterparts to an extent.

Trivia

 * Jigglypuff is so far the only character to go from a clone archetype to a character considered unique enough to not even qualify as a pseudo-clone.
 * Mario and Marth are the only characters to have more than one full clone of them.
 * Jigglypuff and Ganondorf are the only characters to have been a type of clone of someone outside of their series.
 * is the only series to have more than one Echo Fighter.
 * and are the only third-party series to have a clone.
 * Simon and Richter are the only pair of clones who are stated to have taken inspiration from each other, rather than one being explicitly developed before the other, with the pair sharing Simon's abilities from Super Castlevania IV and Richter's additional abilities from Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.
 * Most of the clone groups have fan terms to refer to them collectively, as due to their significant similarity, often all characters of a clone group are applicable to a subject at hand, such as describing how a particular combo works on them, or referring to who someone plays, as often players of these characters will play other characters of the clone group.
 * Fox, Falco, and Wolf are often referred to under the collective name of the "Spacies", sometimes unabbreviated as the "Space animals". The term originated in the early competitive days of Melee for Fox and Falco, being the first such collective clone group terminology to gain popular traction, and players of the later Smash games would embrace the term.
 * Marth and Lucina are often referred to by the portmanteau "Marcina". Similar terminology applies to "Chroy", for Roy and Chrom.
 * Peach and Daisy are also sometimes referred to by a portmanteau, "Paisy". "Princess" is another alternative, but this is uncommon due to it being applicable to other unrelated characters with the same title, most notably Zelda, who is not a clone.
 * Simon and Richter Belmont are simply referred to by their family name, "Belmont".
 * Ryu and Ken are often referred to as the "Shotos", the traditional FGC term for all Ryu-derived characters in the Street Fighter series.
 * Pikachu and Pichu are often referred to as the "Rats", which originated as a disparaging nickname for Pikachu in Smash 64 due to its long-standing status as that game's undisputed best character, and then was later adopted by Ultimate players to refer to both of them, often with similar negative connotations.
 * Ness and Lucas are often referred to as the "PK kids".
 * Pyra and Mythra, as a pair of both semi-clones and transformation characters, are either collectively referred to by the portmanteau "Pythra", or as the Aegis, their collective name in Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
 * To refer to Pit and Dark Pit, Samus and Dark Samus, or Link, Young Link, and Toon Link, the most common method is to pluralize the parent character's name; i.e., "Pits" and "Links".
 * Mario, Luigi, and Dr. Mario are often referred to under the collective term of the "Plumbers" or the "Mario Bros."; however, Mario and Dr. Mario specifically are sometimes also referred to as the "Marios", similarly to the aforementioned "Pits" and "Links", given that they are not only the same character in canon, but have much more in common with each other gameplay-wise than either of them does with Luigi.