Brawl returned to the plain black background (there would be a silhouette of an unlockable character the player would face), but still had animations that would ease in, and when the player pressed any button, the images would fade to black, while the "Challenger Approaching!" text would scatter all over the screen the siren is also considerably faster and more panicky in its sound than how it sounds in Melee. Original music was also provided solely for the screen, which took the sound of a slow, ominous siren. The game also added animations to the screens, with an undulating matrix effect in the background, while the exclamation point, text and silhouette would be eased in. The poses for the challengers were silhouettes of their renders when selected on the Character Select screen (some, however, like Ganondorf's and Luigi's, were their renders from inside the boxes). Melee added the phrase "A new foe has appeared!," and also had a silhouette of the approaching challenger. The original game also uses similar music to the 1P-Game's intro, with the only difference being the absence of drums for the "challenger approaching" tune. Japanese versions had the approaching challenger fully revealed. Western versions of the game had a silhouette of the character merely displayed in a blue box in front of a black background, with an exclamation point in a red circle on the top of the screen, and the phrase "Challenger Approaching" next to it. The "Challenger Approaching!" ( 挑戦者が現れました!, A Challenger has Appeared!) screen is a message that will be displayed after the player has met a criteria required to unlock any of the available characters. The Challenger Approaching! screen which Zelda challenges the player in Super Smash Bros. The Challenger Approaching! screen which Lucina challenges the player in Super Smash Bros. The Challenger Approaching! screen which Dark Pit challenges the player in Super Smash Bros. The Challenger Approaching! screen which Falco challenges the player in Super Smash Bros. The Challenger Approaching! screen which Ganondorf challenges the player in Super Smash Bros. The Challenger Approaching! screen which Jigglypuff challenges the player in Super Smash Bros. The placeholder slots were removed in Brawl, Smash 4, and Ultimate. Instead their portraits simply appeared afterward. The clone characters didn't use placeholders prior to unlocking. In Smash 64, the character select screen displayed placeholders for not yet unlocked characters. Match or mode will allow for another attempt. Match to unlock them after the criteria has been met, playing another Vs. Once the player has met this criteria in-game, a message will display in all cases, the player is given this screen after completely finishing gameplay.Īs with most fighting games, in all five games if the player fails to defeat the character in the Vs. Melee are unlockable.Ī unique criterion must be met in order to unlock a certain character, as outlined below.
Ultimate, every newcomer starting from Super Smash Bros. indicating unlockable characters.Īn unlockable character (also referred to as a secret character or hidden character, and in-game as challengers) is one that is not available at the start of the game (unlike a starter character), but instead must be received in-game (unlike downloadable characters) through other means. Character selection screen in Super Smash Bros.