Z button

The Z Button on a GameCube controller.

The Z button refers to the long, purple button at the top right corner of a GameCube controller; the rectangular, gray trigger located on the back of a Nintendo 64 controller or the rectangular button on the back of the Nunchuk. It can also collectively refer to the ZL and ZR buttons, two circular buttons on the top of the Classic Controller and New Nintendo 3DS, or the two buttons above the L and R buttons on the Wii U GamePad, Wii U Pro Controller, Nintendo Switch Pro Controller and Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons. The Z buttons match the color of the Nunchuk, Classic Controller, Wii U Pro Controller and Wii U GamePad, while they are dark gray on the Joy-cons and Switch Pro Controller.

Overview

In the original Super Smash Bros., the Z button is used to shield. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, shield funtionality was moved to the L and R buttons, and the Z button now activates a grab, which is how it functions in all future installments. Holding the button past the grab will shield the character and pressing the button in Melee specifically can grab items in midair. If the character being played as has a tether grab, pressing Z while airborne will instead use their tethering object as an attack. In Melee, pressing Z while airborne as a character with a tether while there is an item nearby will grab the item instead of using the tether as an attack.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl introduced the Classic Controller, which have a ZL and ZR button, which later became standard in all Nintendo controllers ever since. Effectively being two Z buttons, the have the exact some functionality in each Smash game for the most part, only having some individually unique applications in menu navigation.

When using a single Joy-Con in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the ZL or ZR button (depending on which Joy-Con is used) is not set to any action by default. Instead, SL is used for grabbing and SR for shielding. In this configuration, the L, R, ZL and ZR buttons cannot be set to grab.

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the Z, ZL and ZR buttons can all be customized on their own to do other functions, while in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, ZL and ZR are coded to do the same functions as the R and L buttons, respectively. Prior to version 1.0.5 of the game, these buttons' functions were reversed, so ZL would trigger the same actions as L and ZR would trigger the same actions as R, though their functions outside of battle (such as in menus) were the same as in current versions. On the character selection screen in Smash 3DS, the ZL and ZR buttons are also used to scan amiibo to the lower screen and register them for battles. While not directly related, Nintendo Switch hardware version 10.0.0 introduced the ability to map the functionality of any button to any other button from the console options menu, further diversifying how the Z button can be used in Ultimate.

In terms of Brawl's programming, the Z button on the GameCube controller is considered to be both a shield button and a standard attack button at the same time. This is known because nowhere in character movesets does the game check to see if a grab button has been pressed - it only checks for if a shield and an attack button have been pressed simultaneously. This explains why the Z button can execute both attack-based functions (natural combo continuations, smash charging) and shield-based functions (air dodging). It is currently unconfirmed if this is the case for the other games as well.

Gallery

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  Nintendo 64 controller's Z button.

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  Nunchuk's Z button.

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  The Classic Controller's ZL and ZR buttons.

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  The Wii U GamePad's ZL button.

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  The Wii U GamePad's ZR button.

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  The Joy-Con's ZL button.

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  The Switch Pro Controller's ZL button.

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  The Joy-Con's ZR button.

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  The Switch Pro Controller's ZR button.