Star KO
Not to be confused with KO Star.
A star knock-out or star finish (星バースト, Star Burst), abbreviated as star KO, is a type of KO that can occur beyond the upper Blast line. They often last about 2 seconds and are the longest type of KO, often leaving their perpetrator safe from the victim.
Overview
When characters are knocked beyond the upper blast line (save for a few exceptions), they fly through the background and away from the stage while usually screaming or shouting, and eventually disappear as a star. In Melee and Brawl, this has the longest duration out of any KOs. Along with Star KOs, there is a chance of a Screen KO happening instead, where characters slam into the camera.
Most conditions on the characters, such as the invincibility of the Super Star or standby mode after breaking the Smash Ball, are still visible on the characters while they are Star KO'd. Exceptions include metal characters in Melee and Brawl (unless while playing in Super Smash Bros. Melee's single player modes), giant or tiny characters due to Super or Poison Mushrooms in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and frozen characters in Super Smash Bros. 4. In Flat Zone 2 and Hanenbow, conditions are not aligned with the character (i.e. the frozen block and character fly off separately).
In Super Smash Bros. 4, Star KOs are no longer a certainty; the upper blast line will cause either a Blast KO, a Star KO, or a Screen KO at random. Players launched at extremely high speeds, however, are not Star KO'd or Screen KO'd. In addition, presumably as to solve balance issues, Star KOs no longer occur when there's only five seconds remaining in a timed match and in Sudden Death (unless an unknown glitch occurs or in Trophy Rush.); Screen KOs were increased in length, and as a result, Star KOs actually last shorter than Screen KOs. In Smash 64 and Melee, all playable characters have a voice clip for being Star KO'd (including Samus), while Olimar lacks one in Brawl; SSB4 later introduces more characters that remain completely silent when Star KO'd, with these being Mega Man, the Mii Fighters, Pac-Man, Villager and the wireframe version of Little Mac. Ultimate adds Isabelle and Piranha Plant.
In Ultimate, the characters now tumble away from the screen and go a much further distance away from the stage. Most characters also now use a sideways version of their tumbling animations, with the exceptions of Cloud, Corrin, Incineroar, Inkling, Shulk and Joker, who spin forwards similarly to the previous games. The star is also now a purple color. Additionally, the Boss Galaga will always cause a Star KO.
Origin
It is a recurring trope, especially in Eastern media[citation needed], for characters and objects to be sent flying into the sky, leaving behind a twinkling star when they vanished from sight. Since Star KO'ing an entire team in Melee yields the Rocket KO bonus, the Star KOs in Smash may be intended as a reference specifically to the trope's use as a running gag in the Pokémon anime, where the Team Rocket trio would often be sent "blasting off again" whenever they were defeated.
Exceptions
Unless otherwise noted, all of these exceptions also apply to Screen KOs.
In Super Smash Bros. Melee
- Fighting Wire Frames (except for Event 37: Legendary Pokémon).
- Team battles in Classic Mode
- Adventure Mode
- All 25 Mr. Game & Watches at the end of Melee' All-Star mode
- Opponents in Event Matches: Kirby's Air-raid, Super Mario 128, The Yoshi Herd, Puffballs Unite!, Game & Watch Forever!
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Fighting Alloy Team
- Playable characters appearing as enemies in Multi-Man mode
- Enemies in The Subspace Emissary
- Team battles in Classic Mode
- Opponents in Solo Event Matches: Super Bowser Bros., Diddy Kong Panic, Yoshi's Rainbow, Molten Norfair, Sonic Boom
- Opponents in Co-op Event Matches: The DK Tag Calamity, The Yoshi Team of 50, Sonic and Mario
- Characters who use a Zair before surpassing the upper blast line, in which case will always be blast KO'd
In Super Smash Bros. 4
- Lumas (Unless they get respawned when Rosalina is getting star KO’d)
- Invisible characters in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
- Stages (does not entirely apply to Screen KOs): Dream Land, WarioWare, Inc., Boxing Ring, Green Hill Zone, Mushroom Kingdom U, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Maker (Wii U), Mario Circuit, Delfino Plaza, Jungle Hijinxs, Skyloft, The Great Cave Offensive, Halberd, Gamer, Wii Fit Studio, Duck Hunt (stage) (Wii U), Wrecking Crew, Wuhu Island, Pac-Land, Miiverse and Umbra Clock Tower. (Note: Early versions of Mushroom Kingdom U and Skyloft featured Star KOs, they were later removed for unknown reasons.)
- Fighting Mii Team
- Playable characters appearing as enemies in Multi-Man mode
- Opponents in All-Star Mode
- Flying Men
- Nabbit
- Ridley
- Master Core's true form
- Enemies in Smash Run
- Final Battles in Smash Run
- Some opponents in the horde battles in Special Orders
- Opponents in Event Matches: 1988, Unlikely Allies, and All-Star events
In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- Lumas (Unless they get respawned when Rosalina is getting star KO’d)
- False characters during the battle against Galeem and/or Dharkon in Adventure Mode: World of Light
- Stages: Green Greens, Mushroom Kingdom, Mushroom Kingdom II, WarioWare, Inc., Frigate Orpheon, 75m, Mario Bros., Hanenbow, Green Hill Zone, Gerudo Valley, Dream Land GB, Unova Pokémon League, Mute City SNES, Balloon Fight, PictoChat 2, Mario Circuit, The Great Cave Offensive, Flat Zone X, Gamer, Wii Fit Studio, Boxing Ring, Duck Hunt, Wrecking Crew, PAC-LAND, Super Mario Maker, Umbra Clock Tower, New Donk City Hall, Moray Towers and Dracula's Castle (Applies to Normal, Battlefield and Omega stage layouts).
- Finish Zoom
Bonuses
In Smash 64
- Comet Mystic (10000 points): Finished the match while in the middle of a Star KO.
- Star Finish (10000 points): Cleared the stage via a Star KO.
- Trickster (11000 points): Star KO'd every member of a team.
In Melee
- Rocket KO (5000 points): Star KO'd every member of a team.
- Shooting Star (1500 points): Finished the match while getting Star KO'd.
- Solar Being (800 points): All KOs experienced were Star KOs.
- Star KO (300 points per opponent): Star KO an opponent.
Trivia
- In the original Super Smash Bros., Kirby's various Copy Ability hats remain on when he is Star KO'd.
- Super Smash Bros. is the only game in the series where a player can Star KO themselves regardless of if they were hit or not.
- This can be best seen if Ness uses his jumps and PK Thunder straight up on either Hyrule Castle, or his Break the Targets/Board the Platforms stages.
- In the Camera mode in Super Smash Bros. Melee, by maneuvering the camera into a certain position, the "trick" of the Star KOs is revealed: once the defeated character hits the upper blast line, they get shifted toward the background as their tumble animation starts, before reappearing onscreen for the KO animation. This trick can also be revealed in Ultimate using the camera's frame-by-frame controls.
- If the cage the Mii resides inside on the Find Mii stage sustains sufficient damage, the Mii and the cage will be Star KO'd, though no sound effects play when this occur.
- In SSB4, King Dedede and Cloud's voice clips for being Star KO'd are longer than the time allotted for the Star KO animation.
- In SSB4, if a character is way beyond the upper blast line and gets Star KO'd, the character will fall into the background faster than usual, but the Star KO length will still be the same.
- The same result can also be executed in Melee by going into the debug menu, selecting the Home-Run Contest stage and getting Star KO'd there.
- In SSB4 and Ultimate, files of Star KO screams actually do not have in-game echo. This is unlike KO screams in Stamina Mode, as in-game echo is carried to the file.
- In SSB4, looking closely, Jigglypuff's mouth animates with its Star KO voice clip (though it can sometimes be seen smiling). If by any way Jigglypuff is Star KO'd without its voice clip playing (like being frozen), its mouth will not animate.
- In Ultimate, if a character gets Star KO'd by Snake's Final Smash while a missile is still locked on to them, the missiles will chase them throughout the Star KO animation.
- In Ultimate, the radar will track a Star KO'd character, but will not track a character who's been Screen KO'd.
- In Ultimate, Pit has a unique Star KO line, where he yells "I never learned how to read...!". This is a reference to Chapter 17 in Kid Icarus: Uprising, where he yells the same line after his Power of Flight is cut en-route to the Aurum Fortress.
- In Ultimate, both Young Link and Ivysaur's Star KO voice clip seem to have an error at the beginning, as it starts with a noticeable pause.
- In Ultimate, Ken's Star KO voice clip doesn't appear in his voice gallery, making him the only character in the series with this distinction.
