Wall grapple

Samus's Grapple Beam as a wall-grapple in Melee.

Wall grappling is a technique in Melee that can be used by Link, Young Link and Samus that allows the player to grab a wall within a certain area and climb up. Unlike a Tether Recovery from Brawl, wall-grapples can connect with any wall surface instead of just grabbable edges.

How to wall grapple

For characters to wall grapple, the player merely has to perform a zair attack, via pressing Z or one of the shield buttons and A immediately afterward; in the latter case, players can air dodge upward to slightly aid their vertical recovery. From there, the tip of the grapple must hit a wall, but at the correct distance; if the player is too far away, they will not grapple onto the wall and will be put in a helpless state, while being too close to the wall causes the player to immediately enter helplessness.

Once the player has grappled, they can press A or a jump button to scale up the wall; while they will not be given their second jump if it has been used prior, players can use their up special or any other moves necessary to recover, and a scaling player will immediately sweetspot an edge if they cross it.

Players do not have to immediately act when they have attached to a wall; however, if the player hangs for too long, the wall grapple will end, sending the character into a state of tumbling, as well as taking away their second jump, even if not yet used. Similarly, being slightly too far away from the wall can cause players to immediately "fall off" when their characters snaps to the bottom of the grapple, putting them into a state of tumbling as though they had held on for too long.