Rayquaza (SSBB)

Rayquaza (, Rayquaza), stylized as RAYQUAZA in European versions, is an unplayable character in Brawl and only playable in Boss Battles via hacking. It uses similar roaring sound effects to those heard in , the seventh Pokémon movie.

When playable, Rayquaza's power level scales with the difficulty setting chosen for Boss Battles. Depending on this, it can KO players with just a few hits using a mix of large sweeping hitboxes, projectiles, and charging moves. Being among the most durable bosses on top of this, thanks to having numerous elemental resistances and having only negligible weak points, Rayquaza can take a long time to bring down. All things considered, Rayquaza is among the better and more well-rounded boss characters in Brawl.

Attributes
Rayquaza is one of the most durable Brawl bosses, giving it some ability to outlast opponents; factoring in resistances and Intense difficulty, it effectively has around 300 HP. This, coupled with its constant passive armor, makes it capable of responding to any attack fiercely. Furthermore, it has a decently fast, easy-to-use side switching move in Dash, something that other bosses have some difficulty doing, while also being a decently strong and fast attack in its own right. Air Dash can serve a similar purpose, attacking players who stay too lose to the blast zone, though this is far easier to avoid. Rayquaza is also one of few bosses to possess projectiles in Electric Ball and Blast, though their slow nature can make them easy to avoid and the former can be reflected. Regardless, they can prevent characters from camping on the other side of the stage. Finally, its Lightning Strike and Iron Tail give it decent "get off me" tools, the latter of which can break shields up close, making up for its occasional blindspots. Its bevy of resistances also makes Rayquaza uniquely capable of surviving repeated onslaughts from 's Vegetable z-drops, and Lightning Strike is a more than apt response to such.

However, Rayquaza has multiple moves that are arguably useless, including Dig and Ground Burst, which do not track the opponent when used through hacking. With Dig being one move that is meant to help Rayquaza side switch, this does reduce its flexibility by a bit. Lightning Strike also fails to deal significant knockback, only tacking on damage without launching the opponent, which gives it less utility than it would imply; in fact, it can sometimes be unsafe on hit. It also has a notable blindspot on the ground, with no "launcher" hitbox, so it's strictly an anti-air attack. Electric Ball is vulnerable to reflection, which can deal gigantic damage if attempted against a character that has them, such as. Iron Tail, while it does deal with characters behind Rayquaza well, doesn't hit completely into the magnifying glass, allowing characters like to get in a massive amount of chip damage with projectiles; in these cases, Rayquaza can't do much other than Air Dash, which isn't difficult to avoid or crouch underneath. Rayquaza also suffers from the regular drawbacks of bosses, with its attacks all having high startup and endlag that make them punishable. For example, 's Mach Tornado and 's Rock Smash can deal extremely high damage to it, being usable repeatedly during its attacks. Thus, playing as Rayquaza often means watching attacks while one is being used, and buffering the next response afterwards.

Moveset
Like all bosses, Rayquaza's moves are inputted using a set of commands with a GameCube controller, chiefly with the D-Pad. Move names are taken from the Japanese strategy guide for Brawl. Damage varies by difficulty, the following being taken from the game's files. 's Grapple Beam restores AI control. Unlike its boss appearance, Rayquaza cannot use its Roar attack.

Codes
Like all Brawl bosses, Rayquaza can be accessed using a Gecko code that enables debug mode controls for Player 3 in Boss Battles. It is encountered randomly without additional external modifications, meaning other bosses need to be defeated or forced to self-destruct with their own codes to reach Rayquaza's stage. The following codes are for the NTSC-U version of Brawl and both codes must be on.

In competitive play
Because Rayquaza is only playable through hacking, it's banned by default in all competitive Brawl tournaments. While some boss characters have arguments to be legalised, Brawl's bosses have unique challenges that make them particularly unlikely cases. They do not conform to the usual ruleset, are exclusive to Boss Battles and thus their specific stage, are subject to Boss Battles's random boss selection without further modifications, and have varying difficulty levels that would require rulings to decide on them properly. This boils down to a very clunky experience that would likely end up delaying tournaments due to the length of time it takes for them to be set up. Furthermore, 's Grapple Beam can curiously restore AI control, prompting further ruling issues. Ergo, Rayquaza has seen little to no competitive experimentation outside of casual matches.

In The Subspace Emissary
Rayquaza appears as a boss at The Lake in The Subspace Emissary, being the second boss of the game and fought by and. It later reappears in The Great Maze with reduced health.