Crumple

{{{content1}}} {{{content2}}} Crumpling in Ultimate.

Crumpling, officially known as falling in place, is a status condition that debuted in Super Smash Bros. 4 and reappeared in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The only characters that utilise it are Ryu, Ken, Ridley, and Kazuya.

Overview

Any fighter afflicted with the crumpling affect will be stunned momentarily. In the air, the fighter is essentially paralyzed, but if grounded, they collapse to the floor in a weakened state. During this time, they are unable to move or act until the animation passes, in which the fighter is automatically returned to their standing position.

Unlike paralysis, the effect has a fixed duration regardless of the attack that causes it, the relative strength of the attack, or the damage of the target, and cannot be decreased by button mashing. These factors guarantee the attacker a set amount of time for a follow-up attack, though the victim's animation may shift their hitboxes in a way that makes them harder to reach.

While some fighters initially had different lengths of vulnerability while crumpling, this was changed in version 11.0.0 of Ultimate so all characters have the same vulnerability window.

Attacks

In Super Smash Bros. 4, only Ryu and his Focus Attack at half to max charge can inflict it, but in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Ryu's Echo Fighter Ken was also given Focus Attack. Additionally, the newcomers Ridley can achieve it if he sweet spots his Skewer, while fellow newcomer Kazuya can inflict it with a close-range Devil Fist or his unique crouch-stand attack, Demon God Fist - which seems to keep the target crumpled for longer than the other attacks and uses a different animation.

Trivia

• The animation for a grounded crumple is the same as when a character is defeated by a weak attack in Stamina Mode.
• Coincidentally, all three moves that inflict this status condition are down special moves.