Victory pose
A victory pose is a short animation that any character or team characters does after winning a match while the losers stand in the background or in a separate window, applauding politely, albeit sometimes to different effects; while characters such as Marth and Ness clap rather ordinarily, characters such as Lucario and Wolf seem to do so more begrudgingly. Typically, every character will have three different poses that can be performed at the end of a match. The results screen will then appear after the victory poses are finished.
While a majority of characters will applaud for the victor, there exist some exceptions. In Super Smash Bros., Jigglypuff doesn't clap and instead just moves its head to the right and does nothing else, though in Super Smash Bros. Melee and in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it moves its head left and right without stopping. The Ice Climbers also don't clap and instead cry while wiping their faces, referencing the screen seen when failing a bonus stage in Ice Climber. Mewtwo simply stands with his arms crossed, looking away in disappointment. Diddy Kong takes off his cap and looks down at the ground with a confused expression on his face, scratching his head, as a reference to his idle pose in the original Donkey Kong Country, though this is in Brawl only, as he does clap in Super Smash Bros. 4. The Pokémon Trainer, as a reference to the Pokémon Stadium games, will pull his hat down, cover his face with his hand, and hang his head in disappointment while the last Pokémon he had out when the match ended applauds instead. While Wario does clap, he will cease clapping every few seconds to open his mouth and call out towards the victor. Characters do not clap at the results screen in Smash 4; instead, they clap in the No Contest screen. Same goes to the Wii U version after the winner are announced.
In Super Smash Bros., the ended battle screen transitions to the victory screen in several different ways. Among these are by falling apart in a checkerboard pattern and folding into a paper plane and flying away. This also happens in a similar way in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS.
Super Smash Bros. Melee is the only game where characters can stand in different elevations when doing a victory pose. This can make them apparently float beside their teammates after they win a team battle.
Buttons
The victory poses are picked randomly. However, if the player is holding down on a specific button during the match's end, it'll force the character to use a specific animation.
In Melee, holding down X or Y determines the victory pose that will occur. A and B can also be pressed for a character with more than two poses.
In Brawl, the game follows a mechanic similar to its predecessor. The B, Y and X buttons on the GameCube controller can be held down before the victory screen to choose a pose, and hitting the D-pad in a certain direction will also determine the pose. The DOJO!! claims the pose chosen is based upon the taunt being used by the character at the time the match ended, if any. While this is true in part since the D-pad is also used for taunting since Brawl, the pose is based upon the held button, regardless if the character managed to stroke a taunt or not. This means that a character unable to move (such as being helpless, grabbed, etc), can still had its victory pose chosen by using the D-pad.
In the 3DS version of SSB4, the victory pose can be chosen by pressing the D-pad up, right, or left. Holding the down button on the D-pad will not determine anything and the pose will be chosen randomly.
Lists of victory poses
- List of victory poses (SSB)
- List of victory poses (SSBM)
- List of victory poses (SSBB)
- List of victory poses (SSB4)
