Unlockable character

An unlockable character is a character that is not available at the start of the game (unlike a starter character), but must be unlocked. A special criteria is needed in order to unlock a character. First, the player must do a special task, once the task is done, then a message will display "Warning! Challenger Approaching!" with a silhoutte of the character. The player must be then challenge and defeat the character to unlock him/it.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Masahiro Sakurai once stated that he feels that it would be appropriate that third-party, or "guest" characters, like Solid Snake or Sonic the Hedgehog, would be unlockable. This became true when Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out on January 31.

Also, the Smash Bros. DOJO!! has confirmed that most unlockable characters will be unlockable by "playing through" The Subspace Emissary. The use of the phrase "playing through" possibly suggests that these characters will be unlocked as you progress through the mode, rather than after completing it. With the setup of the mode, as seen in the Brawl demo available at E For All, in consideration, it seems likely that secret characters will be unlocked either immediately before or after clearing their respective parts.

Characters
* Subspace Emissary has been removed unless it is the only known way for that character to be unlocked or if there is more detail as to what you need to do. Every character can be unlocked by gaining that character in Subspace Emissary, its not needed to list them.

** Toon Link, Jigglypuff, and Wolf are not part of the main plot of Subspace Emissary, you must beat the main story first then revisit certain stages to find them that way.