Disney Magical Smash Bros. series

Disney Magical Smash Bros. is a series of crossover fighting video games published by several companies before being acquired by THQ Nordic in 2017. It primarily features characters from Disney's well-famed franchises. The series was created by ???, who has directed every game in the series.

The gameplay objective is very similar to both Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. franchise and Nickelodeon's Super Splash Bros. franchise by aiming to knock opponents off the stage instead of depleting life bars. The original Disney Magical Smash Bros., released in 2000 for the PSOne, Dreamcast and Game Boy Color, had a small budget and was originally a American-only release, but its domestic success led to a worldwide release. The series achieved even greater success with the release of Disney Magical Smash Bros. Melee, which was released in 2001 for the consoles and became the bestselling game on that system. A third installment, Disney Magical Smash Bros. Revolution, was released in 2008 for the consoles. Although Toys for Bob has been the developer of the first two games, the third game was developed through the collaboration of several companies. The fourth installment, Disney Magical Smash Bros. Universe, were released in 2014 for all video game consoles. The 3DS and PS Vita installments were the first series titles to be released on a handheld platform. A fifth installment, Disney Magical Smash Bros. Ultimate, is in development for the gaming consoles including Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One and is scheduled to be released in December 2018.

The series features many characters from Nickelodeon's most popular franchises, including Charmy the Speedy Fawn, Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan, Pirates of the Caribbean, Ducktales, Toy Story, and The Lion King. The original Disney Magical Smash Bros. had only 12 playable characters, with the roster count rising for each successive game. Some characters are able to transform into different forms that have different styles of play and sets of moves. The games also feature many non-Disney characters, such as Sora, Riku, Agumon, Guilmon, Spider-Man, Yoda, Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Jackie Chan, Jade Chan,Cloud Strife, Tyson Granger, Aerrow, Indiana Jones, Bugs Bunny, Nausicaä, Pikachu, Ladybug, Cat Noir, Scrat, Homer Simpson, & Wolverine. Every game in the series has been well received by critics, with much praise given to their multiplayer features, spawning a large competitive community that has been featured in several gaming tournaments.

Gameplay
The gameplay in the Disney Magical Smash Bros. series is mostly similar to both Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. franchise and Nickelodeon's Super Splash Bros. franchise which it differs from many fighting games. Instead of winning by depleting an opponent's life bar, players seek to launch their opponents off the stage and out of the map. Characters have a damage total which rises as they take damage, represented by a percentage value that measures up to 999%. As a character's percentage rises, the character can be knocked progressively farther by an opponent's attacks. To knock out an opponent, the player must knock that character outside the arena's boundaries in any direction. When a character is launched off the stage, the character can attempt to "recover" by using jumping moves and abilities to return to the stage. Some characters have an easier time recovering onto the stage than others due to their moves and abilities. Additionally, some characters vary in weight, with lighter characters being easier to launch than heavy characters.

Controls are greatly simplified in comparison to other fighting games, with one button used for standard attacks and another used for special attacks. Players can perform different types of moves by holding the directional controls up, down, to the side, or in a neutral position while pressing the attack or special button. As such, each character has four types of ground attacks, mid-air attacks, and special attacks that can be performed. Quickly pressing or tapping a directional input and the attack button together while on the ground allows players to perform a chargeable "Smash Attack", which is generally more powerful than other attacks. When characters are hit by attacks, they receive hitstun that temporarily disallows any attacks to be made. This allows combos to be performed. A shield button allows players to put up a defensive shield which weakens with repeated use and will leave the player unable to move if broken. Combining the shield button with directional inputs and attack buttons allows the player to also perform dodges, rolls, grabs, and throws. The three basic actions in Super Splash Bros., attacking, grabbing, and shielding, are often described using a rock–paper–scissors analogy: attacking beats grabbing, grabbing beats shielding, and shielding beats attacking. When a player knocks another player off of the main platform, they may perform an action called edge-guarding. At the same time the player that has been knocked off will try to recover by jumping back onto the stage and avoiding the other players' edge-guarding.

Another element in the Super Splash Bros. series is battle items, the abundance of which players can adjust the before matches. There are conventional "battering items", with which a player may hit an opponent, such as a Home run bat or a Beam Sword, throwing items, including Bombs and Metal Balls, and shooting items, either single Pixar balls or Buzz's blaster. Recovery items allow the user to reduce their damage percentage by varying amounts. Revolution introduced the Assist Trophy item, which summons a character from a Disney or other third-party franchise. Revolution also introduces the Smash Ball, which when broken allows fighters to perform a character-specific super attack known as a "Final Smash".

The rules that can be used in a match vary depending on the game, but the most commonly used settings across all games are Time and Stock. Time mode uses a point based system in which fighters earn points for knocking out their opponents and lose points for being knocked out or self-destructing (i.e. falling out of the arena by themselves). The player with the highest score at the end of the set time limit wins the match. Survival uses a life-based system in which players are given a set number of lives, known as stock, with each fighter losing a life whenever they are knocked out, becoming eliminated if they run out of lives. The winner is the last fighter standing once all other fighters are eliminated or, if a time-limit is applied to the match, the fighter with the most lives remaining once time runs out. In the event of a tie, such as two or more fighters sharing the highest score/life count at the end of the time limit or remaining fighters losing their last life simultaneously, a Sudden Death match takes place. Here, each of the tied fighters are given a starting damage percentage of 300%, making them easier to launch off the stage, and the last fighter standing wins the match. In some games this process is repeated if the match ends in another tie.

Gameplay using competitive Disney Magical Smash Bros. rules is usually played in stock mode and with a timer. Items are turned off and the only tournament legal stages are those that do not feature hazards and other disruptive elements.

Playable characters
Each game in the series has a number of playable characters (referred in the games as "fighters") taken from various Disney franchises. Starting with Revolution, characters from third-party franchises have also made playable appearances. At the start of each game, some of the fighters will be locked from play. To unlock a hidden fighter, players need to clear certain conditions, such as playing a certain number of matches, and defeat that fighter in a match. In Revolution, players can also unlock fighters by encountering them in the Subspace Emissary mode. In Disney Magical Smash Bros. Universe, players are able to customize existing fighters with altered movesets and statistics, or make their own Disney fighters that can be given different fighting styles, though these cannot be played in online matches with strangers.

Non-playable characters
The following characters are non-playable characters unless using glitches or cheat cartridges, that appear only in the various single-player modes throughout the series, controlled by the computer, as hazards in specific stages, as assist trophies, or in Smash Run. Most of the non-playable characters were created for use in the Disney Magical Smash Bros. series although some of them, such as Disney polygons, come from other game franchises.

Bosses
Throughout the Disney Magical Smash Bros. series, most single-player modes have included several non-playable boss characters. Most of these bosses were created specifically for the Disney Magical Smash Bros. franchise.

Master Wizard is a glove-like being that appears in all games to date, serving as the final boss of Classic Mode and, in Disney Magical Smash Bros. Melee, the 50th Event Match "Final Destination Match". In Melee, Master Hand is playable via a system glitch. Super Smash Bros. Melee introduced a left-hand counterpart to Master Wizard named Crazy Wizard, which appears alongside Master Wizard under certain conditions.

Tabuu is the villain of Disney Magical Smash Bros. Revolution's story mode, The Subspace Emissary. He is a human-shaped apparition composed of pure energy, with a single eye-shaped object located where a person's stomach would be. He is able to conjure several weapons for use in battle, including a rapier and large chakram. His other powers include the ability to change his size at will and teleportation. Towards the end of The Subspace Emissary, it is revealed that Tabuu is the entity that controlled Master Hand and the true antagonist behind the events of the story.

The Subspace Emissary also features other boss characters. Some of these characters, such as Randall, The Great Prince, Metal Charmy, the Omnidroid x10, and Jafar, are from other Disney franchises. Three original bosses are also featured: the aforementioned Tabuu, Galleom, and Duon. Galleom is a giant cyborg that is fought twice while Duon is a giant twin-bodied robot.

Other characters
In each of the games, there is a group of characters that resemble the designs for the initial characters. In the Japanese versions of the games, these characters have always been called the "Mysterious Enemy Corps". In the English regionalized versions of the games, they are given names that describe their physical form. These include the Fighting Disney Polygons, the Fighting Wire Frames, the Fighting Alloy Team and the Fighting Avatar Team (depends on which video game console). Along with Melee's Adventure Mode came the inclusion of minor, generic enemies, such as Chrimsonaniks from the Mitchell Van Morgan series and Plankton mechs from the SpongeBob SquarePants series. This trend continues into Disney Magical Smash Bros. Revolution, which also includes an assortment of original characters to serve as non-playable generic enemies led by the Subspace Army.

The Subspace Army are the antagonists of Disney Magical Smash Bros. Revolution, appearing in The Subspace Emissary and led by the Ancient Minister. Their goal is to bring the entire world to Subspace piece by piece with devices called Subspace bombs (detonated with the aid of Chad-Bot, requires 3 minutes of waiting time). The Sandbag appears in the "Home-Run Contest" minigame since Disney Magical Smash Bros. Melee. The object is to strike it as far as possible with either a Home-Run Bat or a fighting move. Sandbag also appears randomly as an item that drops other items when hit in various other modes in Revolution.

Each Disney Magical Smash Bros. game has an announcer who blasts the player character names upon selection and victory. The announcer's voice is used in many of the promotional materials of the games.