Crouching

Crouching can be used to avoid some projectiles.

crouching character can also crawl if they have the ability. In Melee, crouching is also used often to cancel dashes. The crouch can then be stopped by simply stopping holding down on the Control Stick.

How well a crouch can help a character dodge attacks is highly dependent on the crouching animation. Some characters can become very difficult to hit since they essentially hug the ground (such as Kirby, Jigglypuff, Snake, Sheik and Wii Fit Trainer). Other characters, however, barely lower themselves at all by crouching (such as Meta Knight, Bowser and Pac-Man), making their crouches extremely limited in use. Similar to idle poses, all characters present unique animations while crouching that replay constantly (such as Mario and Donkey Kong looking around, or the Wii Fit Trainer doing push-ups).

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U digital manual description

"Tilt down to crouch and reduce the amount of knockback that results from enemy attacks."

Gallery

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  Mario crouching in Melee.

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  Mario holding his crouch in Melee.

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  Crouching decreases the size of hurtboxes. Shown here is Kirby's hurtbox when he crouches in Smash 64.

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  King Dedede's crouch in Ultimate.