This article contains a list of known glitches and oversights found in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Melee in particular is known for its high amount of glitches due to the game's short development time; some glitches were eventually fixed in later versions of the game, such as NTSC versions 1.01 and 1.02, and the PAL version.
| Name | Details |
|---|---|
| Artificial intelligence | CPUs in Melee are well-known for their flaws in artificial intelligence; for example, repeatedly self-destructing on certain stages. For more details, see List of flaws in artificial intelligence (SSBM). |
| Battlefield ledges | Battlefield's unusual ledges can cause characters to fail to sweetspot the ledge when recovering from certain angles; it also allows certain characters to auto sweetspot the ledge during their recovery moves, which is normally not possible with other ledges in Melee. |
| Black character glitch | A method of the name entry glitch that allows the player to use an all-black character. |
| Black hole glitch | A well-known glitch involving Turnips, the Super Scope, and the Reflector to create a point on stage with an infinite amount of hitboxes. |
| Boomerang superjump | An extension of the chain dance exclusive to Link and Young Link, which allows them to perform an extremely high jump using a Boomerang; only found in versions 1.0 and 1.01. |
| Bowser's down throw | In NTSC, Bowser's down throw does zero damage to Jigglypuff and Mr. Game & Watch; this was fixed in the PAL version. |
| Bowser's giant hand glitch | Causes Bowser's hand to briefly increase in size, after picking up an item and immediately short hopping while air dodging. |
| Box glitch | A collision detection glitch that completely restricts a character's vertical movement. |
| Captain Falcon's up aerial | Captain Falcon's up aerial lacks a hitbox entirely on its late hit (a trait not present in Ganondorf's up aerial); this is presumably due a programming error, where the "delete all hitboxes" command runs on the same frame the late hit begins, and so the late hit never occurs. |
| Chain dance | A series of related glitches exclusive to Link and Young Link, performed by throwing a Boomerang, then grappling on a wall and then catching the boomerang while chained to the wall; only found in versions 1.0 and 1.01. |
| Daisy's third eye | In versions 1.0 and 1.01, Daisy's trophy has a graphical glitch in which she has a third eye on the back of her head under her hair. |
| Dimensional Arrow | An extension of the chain dance which allows Link and Young Link to release an arrow from behind themselves; only found in versions 1.0 and 1.01. |
| Donkey Kong's forward aerial | Donkey Kong's forward aerial cannot be autocanceled until frame 85, even though the move itself has an animation of 59 frames; it is the only aerial attack in the game that cannot be autocanceled. |
| Empty Chamber glitch | A glitch which causes Ness to fail to spawn the projectile of PK Thunder. |
| Flat Kirby glitch | A glitch exclusive to Kirby, performed by using a copied Rollout from Jigglypuff, which causes Kirby to become flatter every time he uses it. |
| Fountain of Dreams reflections | The water reflections on Fountain of Dreams can cause major lag spikes and frame delays, especially when there are four players or both Ice Climbers present. The reflections also do not show changes in characters' facial expressions; this can be most easily with Jigglypuff's Rest and Pichu's crouch, where the reflections will still show the characters' eyes open. |
| Freeze glitch | Exclusive to the Ice Climbers, it is performed by performing Squall Hammer with Popo while interrupting Nana's forward throw or up throw; this causes the opponent to be frozen in place, completely unable to move or attack. |
| Frozen turnip glitch | A glitch performed by interrupting Peach's Parasol or Mr. Game & Watch's down tilt on the very first frame while they are holding an item, that causes the item to be completely frozen for the rest of the match. Only found in version 1.0. |
| Game crash | There are numerous well-known methods of crashing the game in Melee, some of which have been fixed in later versions of the game. |
| Ganondorf's Bunny Hood | If Ganondorf performs a jab while wearing a Bunny Hood, the attack will perform a second jab animation with no hitbox. This is exclusive to version 1.0. |
| Giant Punch charge glitch | Donkey Kong will lose his Giant Punch charge if hit out of his up special, Spinning Kong. This is only present in the NTSC versions, however, as it was fixed in the PAL version. |
| Ghost Arrow glitch | An extension of the chain dance which allows Link and Young Link to charge their neutral special without spawning an arrow; only found in versions 1.0 and 1.01. |
| Ice Climbers on fire glitch | A glitch performed using a Fire Flower, which causes Nana to become permanently on fire while holding the item; this is a visual effect only. |
| Infinite Super Scope glitch | Causes a player holding a Super Scope to receive an extremely large amount of ammunition; a component of the black hole glitch. |
| Invisible ceiling glitch | A glitch caused when a character hits an opponent's shield, then becomes airborne before the attack's animation ends, which causes the character to receive no vertical knockback until they return to the ground. |
| Invisible shine | This glitch occurs when the reflection animation of Fox's and Falco's Reflector is canceled out, which causes the character to stand in the move's animation pose without the hexagon appearing on screen. It is performed by entering from a grounded to airborne state, or vice versa, on frame 4 of the move's animation. |
| Item pickup glitch | A glitch that allows Mr. Game & Watch to pick up items that cannot normally be held, such as food. |
| Item vanish | A glitch performed by grabbing an item right before it disappears, which causes the character to perform the grabbing animation, but no item will be picked up. |
| Kamikaze glitch | An exploit involving Mr. Game & Watch's Oil Panic, performed by absorbing three extremely strong projectiles, and then unloading the bucket on a shielding opponent, which causes Mr. Game & Watch to slide extremely quickly across the stage, dealing massive knockback to any opponent he collides with. |
| Link's neutral aerial | Due to a coding error, the hitbox of Link's neutral aerial stays out for the move's entire animation, even after Link retracts his leg. |
| Luigi's dash attack | The last hit of Luigi's dash attack completely lacks a hitbox; this leaves Luigi in a large amount of ending lag when performing the move. |
| Luigi Cyclone charge glitch | Luigi Cyclone's charge value is left blank at the beginning of match; as such, the value is determined by a extensive and arbitrary set of factors. |
| Mario's Super Jump Punch wall jump | Mario can perform an additional wall jump during his up special, Super Jump Punch, between frames 23 and 27, depending on the angle of the up special. |
| Master Hand glitch | A variant of the Name Entry glitch which allows the player to play as Master Hand in versus mode. |
| Master Hand laser glitch | An extension of the Master Hand glitch, performed by picking up a Super Mushroom or Poison Mushroom while using Master Hand's laser attack, which causes the lasers to remain for the rest of the match. |
| Mr. Game & Watch's aerials | Mr. Game & Watch's neutral aerial, up aerial, and down aerial are the only aerial attacks that cannot be L-canceled; this is due a programming error that classifies the attacks as special moves. |
| Name Entry glitch | A complex glitch using the Name Entry that allows the player to form a variety of exploits, most famously the Master Hand glitch. |
| Needle Storm charge glitch | Sheik can retain a full charge of needles by Transforming into Zelda before being KO'ed, and then transforming back into Sheik after respawning. |
| PK Trap glitch | A glitch involving Ness's PK Flash which causes the projectile to explode instantaneously when Ness is hit by an attack. |
| Pokémon Stadium glitch | Players can arbitrarily fall through the main platform during the Fire and Rock transformations, as well as through the tree on the left side of the Fire transformation. |
| Randall exploits | On Yoshi's Story, players can walk inside the main platform of the stage, by getting thrown into the stage with precise timing while on the cloud. |
| Roy's dash attack | Roy's dash attack lacks a hitbox on his sword for most of the move's animation; the hitbox only appears at the very beginning of the attack, then disappears as Roy swing his sword upwards. This occurs because the animation of Roy's dash attack is reused from Marth's dash attack and slightly slowed down, but the move's hitboxes were kept the same. |
| Same color glitch | A glitch that allows multiple players in versus mode to use the exact same color palette, without being on the same team. |
| Shadow glitch | A glitch involving Mewtwo's forward throw, which allows a third player to catch one of the small Shadow Balls emitted during the throw. Exclusive to version 1.0. |
| Shine mine | A glitch performed using Fox and Falco's Reflector, which allows the user to reflect projectiles far away from their character model. |
| Shrink glitch | A glitch performed by copying Yoshi's Egg Lay as Kirby, which allows the Yoshi player to permanently shrink in size by quickly breaking out of an egg. |
| Single person match | An application of the Name Entry glitch which allows the performer to play as a single player in versus matches. |
| Soul breaker | A glitch exclusive to Mewtwo, performed by using Confusion to simultaneously grab an opponent and reflect a powerful projectile, which causes the opponent to become permanently attached to Mewtwo, unable to act. |
| Stock glitch | A glitch that allows the player to play with the stock design of another character. |
| Superjump | A series of glitches and exploits that causes the player to move upward a large distance while in a neutral state. |
| Super wavedash | A frame-perfect exploit exclusive to Samus, that allows her to slide extremely long distances across a stage. |
| Whispy blink glitch | A glitch performed by Marth and Roy on Dream Land; if the performer times certain attacks during Whispy's blinking animation, the attack will have an unusual animation and a lingering hitbox. Exclusive to version 1.0. |
| Yo-yo glitch | A glitch involving Ness's yo-yo, which allows him to attack or grab with near limitless range, or attach certain single-hitbox attacks to Ness's body. |
| Yo-yo stack glitch | A glitch involving Ness's down smash, performed by using a down smash on the earliest interruptible frame of a previous down smash, allowing Ness to hold multiple yo-yos at once. |
| Zero gravity glitch | A glitch performed by repeatedly launching a character with extremely high vertical knockback against a ceiling, which eventually causes the character to be pressed against the ceiling and appear to float. |