Mr. Game & Watch (SSBB)

Mr. Game & Watch (, Mr. Game & Watch) is a veteran playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, returning from his debut in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Initially, Mr. Game & Watch was indirectly revealed from a leaked copy of the game. However, he was officially confirmed on the Smash Bros. DOJO!! website on March 10, 2008, one day after Brawl was released in North America.

Mr. Game & Watch is ranked 16th on the game's tier list, which is a high leap from Melee (where he is ranked 19th in low-tier). The largest benefit Mr. Game & Watch gained in Brawl were the universal changes to physics, where he is significantly less vulnerable to combos, his back aerial is significantly more useful due to hitlag, and the leaning towards defensive gameplay boosts Mr. Game & Watch's strengths in general. For some of his individual traits, Mr. Game & Watch possesses large and disjointed hitboxes in most of his attacks, with his attacks being rather fast in start-up lag and the majority being quite powerful (especially his brutal smash attacks, all of which can reliably KO under 100% while none being particularly slow). Additionally, Mr. Game & Watch possesses amazing survivability for a character of his weight class, as his amazing momentum cancelling ability gives him the horizontal endurance potential of a lighter heavyweight via Bucket Braking, while his recovery covers great distance and provides great protection against edgeguarding. Mr. Game & Watch also possesses above-average movement speed and good mobility, effective tilts and aerial attacks, and a down throw that can force a tech-chasing opportunity on all characters at all percentages. While Mr. Game & Watch's attacks are fast in start-up lag, they are particularly heavy in ending lag, with his aerials also possessing high landing lag with the exception of his neutral aerial and up aerial. His attacks, despite possessing large hitboxes, have rather poor/mediocre reach. This results in him being easily punished when his attacks are shielded, and complicates safe approaches. His projectile is also laggy and short-ranged, while being mostly ineffective, preventing him from being able to outcamp most characters to cover his approaching difficulties. Additionally, he is susceptible to early vertical KOs as his vertical endurance is among the worst (Bucket Braking is significantly less effective when launched vertically), his grab and throw game is rather poor in general (he possesses one of the shortest-reaching grabs and near useless throws outside his down throw), and his rolls are rather slow while gaining among the shortest distance. Regardless, Mr. Game & Watch's strengths outweigh his flaws, resulting in overall strong matchups, that are dominating against characters below him on the tier list, while being lackluster against characters above him (especially losing to eight of the top 10 characters, while countered by four of them), and he has achieved strong tournament results. In particular, Mr. Game & Watch is especially considered a high-tier in the European and Japanese tier lists.

How to unlock
Complete one of the following:
 * Play 250 VS. matches.
 * Clear Target Smash!! with 30 different characters on any single difficulty level.
 * Have Mr. Game & Watch join the player's party in the Subspace Emissary (Battleship Halberd Bridge).

With the exception of the third method, Mr. Game & Watch must then be defeated on Flat Zone 2.

Attributes
Mr. Game & Watch packs a punch. In terms of mobility, he has above-average walking and dashing speeds, the seventh-fastest air speed, high air acceleration, slow falling speed and below-average gravity. Altogether, these stats collectively make Mr. Game & Watch's mobility exceptional for a lightweight.

In general, his attacks possess favorable and disjointed hitboxes, low lag, and high knockback; however, his roll and dash attack are rather poor. Several of his attacks can hit multiple times, which allows him to rack up high damage in seconds, but render then vulnerable to SDI. His erratic and instant frame-by-frame movement makes him almost impossible to predict in almost all situations, excluding approaching. Mr. Game & Watch's tilts follow the pattern of his other attacks: being quick and powerful, while also possessing disjointed hitboxes. Mr. Game & Watch arguably has the most powerful set of smash attacks in Brawl, with all of them being able to KO reliably under 100%. In turn, his down smash is especially the strongest (of all down smashes) in terms of knockback while possessing the lowest duration out of all down smashes in the game, while his up smash and forward smash are among the strongest, with the former granting intangibility on his head. Mr. Game & Watch's aerials are powerful and versatile, although most of them are burdened with moderate/high landing lag. Mr. Game & Watch's grab game is not especially effective, excluding his down throw, which can tech-chase all characters regardless of precentage, and if the player can predict the opponent's rolls, it can be used for an infinite chain grab (like 's down throw). His down throw also allows him to follow up with several moves, like an easy down tilt, a smash attack, or a neutral aerial (by buffering a dash into a short hop).

Mr. Game & Watch is able to negate projectiles easily using Oil Panic (although exclusively against energy-based projectiles) or simply ducking underneath most projectiles using his low crouch. Oil Panic can also easily provide one-hit KOs in doubles if Mr. Game & Watch's teammate possesses an energy-based projectile. Mr. Game & Watch does possess a versatile projectile, Chef, but it is burdened by its short range, lag and randomized trajectory. His side special, Judge, is infamously polarizing due to being luck-based: its effects range from damaging Mr. Game & Watch himself (1) to being a one-hit KO (9). His up special, Fire, is a superior out of shield option and excellent recovery that can be used to plank or KO at high precents near the horizontal blast zones.

Using Bucket Braking and directional influence, he can be hard to KO despite being the 2nd-lightest character in the game (tied with ). Possessing both quick mobility and a small size, Mr. Game & Watch can be difficult to hit.

Changes from Super Smash Bros. Melee
Mr. Game & Watch has been significantly buffed from Melee, as he benefits from the universal alterations to the physics in Brawl, along with other various buffs. The introduction of hitstun canceling and momentum canceling assists Mr. Game & Watch more than most of the other returning veterans, as it not only makes him much more difficult to combo, but it also drastically improves his endurance due to the introduction of Bucket Braking. The introduction of other mechanics introduced to Brawl also prove to be beneficial to Mr. Game & Watch, such as B-reversing, and the removal of certain mechanics from Melee, such as L-canceling, affects him less than the other returning characters. His defensive game has received rather considerable improvements: his shield has a much larger size to cover his entire body, and his spot dodge has been altered from being one of the worst in Melee to being one of the best in Brawl.

However, Mr. Game & Watch received a few nerfs, as some of his attacks are either weaker or are burdened with additional lag. In addition, while the removal of L-canceling has affected Mr. Game & Watch less than the other returning veterans, this aforementioned change does not provide full compensation on his forward and down aerials, which are Mr. Game & Watch's only aerials capable of L-canceling in Melee. However, he did not receive huge nerfs that drastically hinder him, aside from some of his moveset (including his down tilt and neutral aerial) losing their KO power in exchange for improved frame-data.

Overall, Mr. Game & Watch's aforementioned buffs have exponentially rendered him much more dominating than in Melee. Due to these aforementioned improvements and possessing the largest jump between tier lists from Melee and Brawl, Mr. Game & Watch holds the distinction of being the most buffed character among the entire cast during the transition to Brawl, going from from a bottom-tiered character in Melee to a solid high-tier character in Brawl, with early tier lists ranking him as among the best characters in the game.

Ground attacks

 * Neutral attack:
 * Dash attack:
 * Forward tilt:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up tilt:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down tilt:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Forward smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Up smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:
 * Down smash:

Aerial attacks

 * Neutral aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Back aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Up aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:
 * Down aerial:

Throws/other attacks

 * Grab:
 * Pummel:
 * Down throw:
 * Ledge attack:
 * Down throw:
 * Ledge attack:
 * Ledge attack:
 * Ledge attack:

Special moves

 * Chef:
 * Judge:
 * Fire:
 * Oil Panic:
 * Judge:
 * Fire:
 * Oil Panic:
 * Fire:
 * Oil Panic:
 * Fire:
 * Oil Panic:
 * Fire:
 * Oil Panic:
 * Oil Panic:
 * Oil Panic:
 * Oil Panic:
 * Oil Panic:
 * Oil Panic:

Moveset

 * All of Mr. Game & Watch's moveset depict in using objects from the Game & Watch titles, making him the only character to feature all attacks in his arsenal based on a game he made his previous appearance before.

Notable players

 * See also: Category:Mr. Game & Watch players (SSBB)


 * - a top Canadian Mr. Game & Watch player. While he didn't travel outside of Canada often, he notably placed 13th at Apex 2015, 4th at Get On My Level 2016, and 9th at Get On My Level 2018.
 * - a top Mr. Game & Watch player from Norway.
 * - placed 25th at GENESIS 2.
 * - A top Mr. Game & Watch player from Texas. Notable for being one of the original Game & Watch mains during the pre-MLG era. Placed 17th at Apex 2009, 9th at GENESIS, and 17th at MLG Dallas 2010.
 * - While known for being a top main, he used Mr. Game & Watch as a strong secondary.
 * - Was widely considered the best Mr. Game & Watch player in the world after the pre-MLG period. Placed 13th at MLG DC 2010, 4th at KTAR 6, and 5th at WHOBO 3. He switched to in the later period of Brawl.
 * - A top Mr. Game & Watch player from Texas. Notable for being one of the original Game & Watch mains during the pre-MLG era. Placed 17th at Apex 2009, 9th at GENESIS, and 17th at MLG Dallas 2010.
 * - While known for being a top main, he used Mr. Game & Watch as a strong secondary.
 * - Was widely considered the best Mr. Game & Watch player in the world after the pre-MLG period. Placed 13th at MLG DC 2010, 4th at KTAR 6, and 5th at WHOBO 3. He switched to in the later period of Brawl.
 * - Was widely considered the best Mr. Game & Watch player in the world after the pre-MLG period. Placed 13th at MLG DC 2010, 4th at KTAR 6, and 5th at WHOBO 3. He switched to in the later period of Brawl.

Tier placement and history
Initially, Mr. Game & Watch was considered to be a top-tier character, ranking as high as 4th place on the first tier list, which is also his greateat ranking so far. This was due to his disjointed reach, disproportionately high power, great aerial game and Bucket Braking, which made him very difficult to KO, as well as edge-guard, while also being efficient on both points. In addition, Mr. Game & Watch boasted a powerful tech-chasing advantage over the entire cast using his down throw. His position, however, started to decline starting on the second tier list, where he was ranked at 5th place: while he possessed several advantages that made him a formidable threat, his weaknesses later became more and more exploitable. His largest drop occurred on the transition to the fourth tier list, dropping from 8th to 12th from the third one. He would later rise negligibly on the fifth tier list to 11th, before starting to drop again on subsequent versions. Currently, he is ranked 16th on the tier list: while he is still a relatively viable character, his notable disadvantages prevent him easily beating other top-tiered characters, most notably Meta Knight, Ice Climbers and Marth, though his strengths are enough to face other top/high-tiered threats, like, , and. However, his current ranking remains a high topic of debate, with most of the community pointing out that he deserves to be ranked much higher due to the potency of his strengths, up to high or top-tier, or even rendering him as one of the best characters in Brawl.

Role in The Subspace Emissary
The Shadow Bugs trophy description explains that Mr. Game & Watch supplies a limitless embodiment of Shadow Bugs inside of his body, which require incessant extraction. Shadow Bugs are a mysterious, violet substance that can replicate characters or even create new dark creatures, such as the Duon. Tabuu discovered this and captured Mr. Game & Watch in the prologue, using the Shadow Bugs to build the Subspace Army.

, and  enter the Halberd's control room to discover a quintet of false Mr. Game & Watches piloting the ship. Snake quickly charges at them and knocks them all out the window. The horde fall onto the the ship's bridge, interrupting (disguised as ),, and 's tea party. The clones then revert to Shadow Bugs and transform into Duon. Sheik, Fox and Peach challenge it to a fight. Snake and Lucario jump down for their assistance, along with who ejects from an Arwing. Once the giant dual monster is defeated, the Shadow Bugs dissolve the Duon and retreat, leaving behind Mr. Game & Watch's trophy. Fox prepares to shoot it with his blaster, but Peach revives him. Upon his revival, Mr. Game & Watch wonders around his whereabouts until Peach scolds him for the trouble he created, causing him to stare down in shame. Eventually, Peach offers him her parasol as a token of friendship, which fascinates Mr. Game & Watch, while Meta Knight is reunited with the Halberd Airship.

Back at the Canyon, spots the rift, along with, , , , , , , , and , who all recently teamed up to fight off the massive ambush of the Subspace Army. Soon, the Falcon Flyer (carrying, , , , , and ) and the Halberd (carrying Meta Knight, Lucario, Snake, Peach, Zelda/Sheik, Fox, Falco and Mr. Game & Watch), lands and all the fighters are united.

After annihiliating the Subspace Gunship and invading the Subspace, Mr. Game & Watch and the other fighters eventually confront Tabuu. Unfortunately, the rest of the fighters have been effortlessly trophicated by the stray of Tabuu's off waves, including Mr. Game & Watch. However, Mr. Game & Watch is miraculously revived thanks to the efforts of, , and , alongside the rest of the other fighters. After completing the Great Maze, Mr. Game & Watch and the other fighters confront Tabuu once again, and the latter prepares to trophicate the fighters another time by using his off waves, but shatters his wings, teaming up with the other fighters and eventually defeating Tabuu. In the end, the fighters successfully defeat Tabuu, including Mr. Game & Watch among them, resulting in the restoration of the World of Trophies and the Subspace being wiped out of existence.

It was confirmed on the DOJO!! website that the reason Mr. Game & Watch was manipulated so easily by Tabuu is that lacks morality, the understanding of good or evil.

Playable appearances
Mr. Game & Watch first appears in Battleship Halberd Bridge and then joins the player's team after, but isn't playable until all the characters are reunited with each other after the events of The Subspace Bomb Factory (Part II), where they then invade Subspace in Entrance to Subspace.


 * Entrance to Subspace
 * The Great Maze (if rescued in Subspace (Part I))

Exclusive stickers
These stickers can only be used by Mr. Game & Watch or a select few including him:


 * Chef (Game & Watch): [Specials: Indirect] Attack +25
 * Donbe: [Slash] Resistance +26
 * Duck: Launch Resistance +20
 * Forward Type: [Throwing] Attack +22
 * Flag Man: [Specials: Indirect] Attack +4
 * Lion: [Specials: Direct] Attack +13
 * Vermin: [Weapon] Attack +15
 * Wild Gunman: [Specials: Indirect] Attack +5
 * Yakuman Player: [Electric] Resistance +28

In Classic Mode, Mr. Game & Watch can appear as an opponent in Stage 9 if he has been unlocked on Flat Zone 2. Mr. Game & Watch can also appear as an opponent in Stage 11, but only if he hasn't appeared in Stage 9.

All-Star Mode
In All-Star Mode, Mr. Game & Watch is fought in Stage 1 on Flat Zone 2.

Solo Events

 * Event 32: Bird in Darkest Night: As (with a dark alternative costume), the player must defeat Mr. Game & Watch on Brinstar. The stage gets dark frequently throughout the match.
 * Event 34: All-Star Battle Melee: Mr. Game & Watch is one of the opponents fought in this event. All opponents are newcomers from Super Smash Bros. Melee.
 * Event 35: The Visitor to Flat Zone: Mr. Game & Watch must defeat blacked out versions of, , and on Flat Zone 2.

Co-Op Events

 * Co-Op Event 16: Jigglypuff's Great Comeback: and Mr. Game & Watch start out tiny and must defeat  and, who are giant, on Castle Siege. During each background change, Jigglypuff will grow while Ness and Lucas will shrink, but Mr. Game & Watch remains the same size.
 * Co-Op Event 21: The True All-Star Battle: Both players select a character and take on the entire roster on.

Trophies
Mr. Game & Watch's main and Final Smash trophies can be obtained by clearing and All-Star mode respectively with Mr. Game & Watch.

Trivia

 * His official artwork resembles his Melee artwork.
 * As in Melee, Mr. Game & Watch is conceptually the only character who is typically 2D in appearance, even in his trophicated form. Although Mr. Game & Watch typically has a two-dimenstional design, the effect is achieved by flattening a 3D character model. He is also the only character with the lack of textures or shading; he is simply one solid color and outline.
 * Mr. Game & Watch is depicted 3D, however, when he is caught in 's down throw or he is played using moveset swaps. His false clone fought in the Great Maze and Metal Box form also depict him 3-D.
 * With Mr. Game & Watch's design originating from characters that made their first appearance in 1980, he can be considered the "oldest" character in Brawl's roster - which is the reason he is the first character to be fought in All-Star Mode. Interestingly enough, he is the final character to be fought in Melee’s All-Star Mode.
 * While almost all of Mr. Game & Watch's animations are in a choppy frame-by-frame style, there are times when he animates smoothly: when being thrown, when being grabbed by Snake, and when using a Cracker Launcher. The first two are due to using animations shared by all characters, while the third is due to the mechanic of angling the Cracker Launcher.
 * Mr. Game & Watch,, , and are the only characters that never talk or emit vocalizations. In Mr. Game & Watch's case, he instead emit Game & Watch-esque beeping sounds.
 * As a result, Mr. Game & Watch is the only character whose sound cues do not seem to be affected by a Metal Box.
 * Mr. Game & Watch is the only character who does not move when charging his smash attacks.
 * In addition, Mr. Game & Watch is the only character in the game who has a unique sound effect when charging his smash attacks, being accompained with an echoed "beeping" sound effect.
 * He is also the only returning veteran with this trait.
 * In The Subspace Emissary, Mr. Game & Watch is the only playable character who does not have an immediate presentation screen.
 * When wearing a badge, it hovers in front of Mr. Game & Watch's body, due to being attached to where his body would be if not flattened.
 * When the black (default) costume of Mr. Game & Watch is equipped on the underground version of Mushroomy Kingdom, he appears to be dark yellow. This could possibly be a reference to the color-changing characters in the original Super Mario Bros.
 * Oddly, when in Camera mode, the color changes back to black.
 * Mr. Game & Watch and Jigglypuff are the only returning characters who can no longer become helpless via any of their special moves in their transitions from Melee to Brawl.
 * Curiously, the manhole cover (down tilt) is the only item from Mr. Game & Watch's arsenal that is rendered in true 3D while retaining the solid color palette. In Melee, it was rendered 2D, as with the rest of his moveset. This unique trait was carried over into his future appearances.
 * Mr. Game & Watch and are the only characters to have a better average matchup spread than a character above them in the tier list. In this case, Mr. Game & Watch has a better average matchup spread than.
 * Mr. Game & Watch, the, , , and Samus are the only characters whose icon in the Subspace Emissary and the Sticker Menu is not based on their renders.