Pirate Ship

Pirate Ship (, Pirate Ship) is a stage in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The stage is loosely based on Tetra's pirate ship from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, but with many changes to facilitate Smash's gameplay. The main setup is a slightly curved main platform, representing the main deck, and two upper platforms, representing the mast of the ship. Characters can swim in the surrounding ocean.

It was released as the final downloadable familiar stage for on September 30th, 2015, and also reappears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a familiar stage. The stage notably uses the cel-shaded artstyle of The Wind Waker as opposed to the realistic style of Brawl, which carries over into its future appearances; in Ultimate, it more closely resembles the style of The Wind Waker HD.

In Brawl and Ultimate, the unlock battle for Toon Link is fought here. In Brawl, the stage is unlocked along with Toon Link himself. In Ultimate, 's unlock battle in World of Light is also fought here, as a reference to Gang-Plank Galleon, his own pirate ship in the Donkey Kong Country series.

Stage overview
All fighters are on a cruising ship that slowly passes though the Great Sea; players can freely swim in the water with few major risks beyond the inherent potential of drowning. However, the stage is technically scrolling to the left at almost all times due to the motion of the ship; players standing on the ship will not have their position shifted by the scrolling, but players and items (such as Bumpers and Party Balls) in the air or the water will slowly drift towards the rightmost blast zone. Any player that swims or is dragged into the front of the pirate ship while in the water or is meteor smashed towards the bottom of the back of the ship will take 20% damage and be automatically OHKO'd via a very powerful meteor smash. Fighters with tether recoveries can also be meteor smashed due to their tether reaching out far enough for them to swing towards the water and thus into the front of the ship (this is substantially less likely to happen in Ultimate due to water now interrupting tether recoveries, causing a player to begin swimming the instant they touch the water, though the aforementioned scrolling might carry a player into the front of the ship anyways if they are do not react in time to swim away or jump out). A smaller boat, the King of Red Lions, occasionally makes an appearance by sailing from the right side of the stage, and acts as a platform that players can stand on; much like the main ship, players standing on the King of Red Lions are not affected by the stage's scrolling. The head of the boat creates a small wall, briefly allowing chain grabbing in Brawl. However, the King of Red Lions will eventually leave the screen; players that remain for too long on the boat will be carried past the side blast line as it departs.

The ship occasionally travels past an enemy lookout that fires bombs at the ship. Anyone that comes in contact with the bombs will take heavy damage (20-55% in Brawl and 35% in Smash 4 and Ultimate) and high knockback, enough to KO below 40% in Brawl if hit point-blank. In Smash 4 and Ultimate, the bomb's power is severely nerfed from Brawl; the knockback is now fixed and is too weak to KO anyone. The ship will also run into a small rocky island from time to time, giving players a newly-shaped piece of terrain to fight on. If characters run into the front of the ship while it is colliding with the island, they will take 10% damage, but there is no meteor effect unless the player is trapped underwater between the rock and the ship beforehand. The ship will eventually right itself as the island sinks, returning the stage to normal.

There is a catapult at the front of the ship that will come up from the deck on occasion. Anyone who is standing on it will be sent flying when it fires. It deals no damage but high knockback. In Brawl it can KO as low as 50%, but in Smash 4 and Ultimate it has less knockback doesn't start KO'ing until well past 100%. The efficacy of the launch depends on where the character is: counterintuitively, being on the bucket tends to yield the least distance and often ends up throwing the character into the ship (negating almost all of the knockback), whereas being on or in front of the frame launches at a higher angle, missing the ship and thus allowing for a more consistent KO.

Another hazard is that a storm will sometimes cause a cyclone to come from the background, throwing the ship high into the sky, eliminating the option to swim around near the ship. This also throws the King of Red Lions into the sky if it is on the screen at the time, causing it to disappear along with anyone unlucky enough to have stood on it while it was flipped upside-down. The ship will fall back down after a short time and land back in the water. While the ship is rising or falling, the stage will not scroll (so players and items in the air will not drift towards the right blast zone); furthermore, while the ship is falling, the players experience reduced gravity.

Ω forms and Battlefield form
In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, the Ω form is set on an enemy lookout platform with the Pirate Ship sailing across in the background, with the ship's design more closely resembling that of the actual ship in The Wind Waker. Players cannot swim as the water lies below the lower blast line. The weather also occasionally changes, but does not affect the players or stage.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the Ω form and Battlefield form are set on a similar platform to the Ω form in SSB4; however, the skull structure is now gone and it is resized and reshaped to match and, respectively. The three soft platforms of the Battlefield form resemble the soft platforms on the mast of the ship in the normal form.

Origin
This ship is taken from , although it is much smaller. After Link's sister,, was kidnapped by the , Link sailed to the on Tetra's ship to save her. During the trip, he was challenged by, a pirate. This ship came back later in the game during the search for the third. The pirates stole bombs on, intending to get the treasure from Outset Island in the morning unaware of a curse on the sea preventing morning. Link managed to hear the password, and then came back on the ship to be challenged one more time and then get the bombs and beat the pirates to the treasure on Outset. This ship appeared a final time at the end of the game to rescue both Link and Tetra after they defeat Ganondorf. The ship came back at the beginning and end of . Like in Smash, the ship also has a catapult: it was used in The Wind Waker to launch a boulder at the Helmaroc King and to launch Link towards the Forsaken Fortress.

The smaller, red boat that appears on the right is known as the, which is actually 's king in disguise. He can talk, and assists Link during the events of The Wind Waker. In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, when Link conducts the with his, a cyclone comes and transports Link to his destination: the cyclone that comes in this stage could be a reference to Ballad of Gales being played.

Also from The Wind Waker are the enemy look-out towers with cannons that fire bombs at Link if he sails too close, which can occasionally be seen in the background of this stage and act as a stage hazard. The Ω form of this stage takes place on top of one of these enemy look-out towers also.

Tournament legality
Pirate Ship is universally banned in all three of its appearances. There are various hazards that interrupt gameplay such as the catapult on the ship, the bombs that target players, and the front of the ship. Various places also promote camping such as the King of Red Lions and the rock that appears. When stage hazards are turned off in Ultimate, the stage remains banned as the slant on the ship can still block projectiles, and the water disturbs gameplay.

Glitch
The Olimar grab glitch is a glitch in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It involves and. To perform it, Olimar and Donkey Kong must be at the back of the Pirate Ship. Olimar must then perform a grab on Donkey Kong in a specific spot on the ship. If done correctly, Donkey Kong should clip in and out on the ground while the Pikmin is latched onto him. Like the Ike grab glitch and King Dedede grab glitch, the reason this happens its because the big character does not have any space when grabbed. When this happens, the animation of the character twitches, shakes, or flinches in two poses, causing the character to not break free from the grab.

Trivia

 * The rain on this stage is not rendered in 3D; it is actually just 2D sprites falling in the foreground and background, similar to the Distant Planet stage. This can be viewed by pausing the game and tilting the camera.
 * If a Rolling Crate is inserted between the rock and the ship, the game will emit a loud buzzing noise.
 * In, all of the music tracks for this stage are shared with other stages. This makes it one of three stages to share music with other stages, the others being Super Mario Maker and Big Battlefield.
 * Pirate Ship is the only downloadable stage that does not add new music.
 * Pirate Ship and Miiverse are the only downloadable stages in all of Super Smash Bros. 4 that are not in . Masahiro Sakurai stated that the Pirate Ship was intended for the 3DS version, but it was scrapped because it was unable to function on the console. Possible data for the stage was found in version 1.0.6 data mining.
 * Pirate Ship is the only Brawl stage that is available as downloadable content, as well as the only DLC past stage that did not originate from the original Super Smash Bros.
 * Pirate Ship is one of three stages that has been a unlockable stage, a DLC stage, and a starter stage, as it was each in Brawl, Smash Wii U, and Ultimate, respectively; the others are and.
 * There exists a glitch where a player would possibly fall through the ship during the section where it crashes into the rock.
 * This includes falling through the catapult when the ship is sailing as normal.
 * In Ultimate, the following Assist Trophies can only appear on the Battlefield and Omega forms of this stage: Nightmare, Kapp'n, the Squid Sisters and the Ghosts. Devil cannot be summoned on this stage at all. Additionally, Marshadow can only be summoned on the stage's Battlefield and Omega forms.