Unlockable character

An 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.

A unique criterion must be met in order to unlock a certain character, as outlined below. 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.

As with most fighting games, in all four games if the player fails to defeat the character in the Vs. Match to unlock them after the criteria has been met, playing another Vs. Match or mode will allow for a second attempt.

In Super Smash Bros., the character select screen displayed placeholders for not yet unlocked characters. This was changed in Melee, where some characters didn't have placeholders prior to unlocking, with their portraits simply appearing afterward. The placeholder slots were completely removed in Brawl and 3DS/Wii U.

"Challenger Approaching!" screen


The "Challenger Approaching!" (, 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. Every game has its unique screen.

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. Japanese versions had the approaching challenger fully revealed. 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. Melee added the phrase "A new foe has appeared!," and also had a silhouette of the approaching challenger. 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). 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. Original music was also provided solely for the screen, which took the sound of a slow, ominous siren. 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. Smash 4 reused Brawl's warning siren, but added in considerably more colours, including hues of green, black, and violet; the screen also says "A challenger approaches!" instead of its previous quotations. However, the Wii U version kept the previous quotations.

After the "Challenger Approaching!" screen, the unlockable character will then be fought in an ordinary one stock match with no time limit, on a pre-determined stage and pre-determined music. The player uses the last character played as, as well as the same palette swap; in the case of multiplayer battles, the player who won the match will fight the challenger for the first three games, though if a CPU won the match, then the players are not given the opportunity to unlock the character. Super Smash Bros. 4 changed this formula, and it is no longer necessary to win a multiplayer battle in order to fight the challenger; if a CPU wins the match, then the human-controlled player with the highest rank will fight.

By defeating the opponent, the character becomes playable. If the player fails, however, they will not unlock the character, but in the next battle they win, they are guaranteed to meet with the challenger again.

The "Challenger Approaching!" screen has become somewhat of a meme in the Smash community. Many digitally manipulated versions of these screens have appeared, often featuring characters who do not appear in the games, mostly using artwork of the character from another game instead of original artwork (which gives away its falseness). The screens became so popular that they were featured as part of the DOJO!!; in earlier updates, whenever a new character was introduced, a banner that said "Warning! Challenger Approaching!" would appear above the entry.

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 March 9, 2008.

Also, all unlockable characters can be unlocked by playing through The Subspace Emissary, some just by playing through, while others involve completing the mode and returning to specific zones and going through previously absent doors to a playable stage where, after a short cutscene, the player will be able to fight and unlock the character. Once a character joins a group of playable characters, the character will be instantly unlocked for normal play, without requiring a "Challenger Approaching" battle. However, some characters, as per the SSE's story, must be battled to before they will join the party.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
In previous games, when someone unlocks a character, a unique text appears saying that the player has unlocked a character. However, when the player unlocks a character in this game, it will only say the name of the character unlocked followed by "Joins the Battle!".

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Unlike the 3DS version, Ness, Jigglypuff, Ganondorf & Bowser Jr. are starter characters. Like the 3DS version, a character is unlocked for every 10 versus matches played. Two exceptions to this are and, which they need 20 more versus matches than  and Mr. Game & Watch, respectively.

Trivia

 * The AI level of unlockable character fights increases with each consecutive character, though the opposite is the case in Melee.
 * In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, the AI level for all eight characters is high, no matter what order they're fought in.
 * Super Smash Bros. is the only game not to use silhouettes of the characters before fighting them, it shows them as they full color models instead.
 * In Brawl, whenever the player fights a hidden character, his/her character always uses their default palette swap, even if another costume was selected.
 * Luigi, Captain Falcon, Ness, Jigglypuff, Marth, Ganondorf, Wario, Lucario, Toon Link, and Sonic are the only non-DLC characters to have their availability status change in future Super Smash Bros. installments.
 * Wario is the only character debuting as a starter before becoming unlockable.
 * In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, some unlockable characters in the 3DS version are starter characters in the Wii U version. This was a personal choice of Masahiro Sakurai, who opted with his team to make said characters starters as they were unlockable in the 3DS to save players who already had this version to take extra time to unlock all, but still have fun unlocking hidden content.
 * Additionally, because of this, Sakurai's original plan was to make all characters available from the start in both versions; meaning there would be no hidden fighters. This idea was abandoned given the fact he acknowledged players enjoy the idea of the expectation of finding hidden content, as well fighting a secret fighter in order to unlock him/her. To balance this with his original idea of making all characters available, he toned down the unlocking difficulty, meaning characters both in the Wii U / 3DS versions are easier to unlock than previous titles.
 * Falco, Mr Game & Watch, Dr. Mario, and R.O.B. are the only four unlockable characters to remain unlockable in every game they appear in, and have also appeared in more than one game.