Super Smash Bros./Items

Items are some of the main things that make this game so addictively fun. I mean, how can you have massive explosions without explosives? However, they can also make play very frustrating and/or annoying. Essentially, items act to balance out character and player differences, making for a fun casual game, but in serious play they don’t allow for the skilled players to always defeat the less skilled ones. There is quite the list of available items, and some are more fun than others.

Containers
Put simply, these are items that contain other items, as many as three at a time. To open these containers, you can either pick them up and throw them or you can simply attack them. Beware, though, as some no-good individual has made random containers explosive, which means you go BOOM when you kick them, though people tend to do so anyway in an attempt to get an item. When you point a direction, and push the A-button, your character throws the item in that direction. Remember though, when taking long shots at an opponent, it’s better to break the container and throw one of the items inside then to throw the container itself, because you’re either wasting or giving your opponent items if you miss.


 * Crate: The crate is just that, a great big wooden box. Picked up and thrown, the crate flies a short distance and then breaks when it hits the ground and/or an opponent.  Donkey Kong, due to his massive strength, can pick up and carry crates, though he can only perform a single jump at a time while holding one.  Also, you can attack it, at your own risk, but it is most times a better option in the heat of battle, because it takes a little while to pick up a crate, as it is rather heavy.


 * Barrel: This is a barrel, shaped quite like those from the Donkey Kong series, but really, how different do barrels get? You can pick this up and throw it (or attack it), but when it hits a surface, it rolls until it runs into a wall or a character and breaks.  Donkey Kong, just like when he threw them at Mario in the original Donkey Kong game, can pick barrels up and be exactly as mobile as he is with the crate. For other characters, it takes a while to pick up, so it might be a better idea to just smack it and hope for the best.


 * Canister: This is a white and pink canister that looks like a Dr. Mario pill. Anybody can pick this up and carry it, and throw it at stuff.  Because this one can be picked up instantaneously, it’s a better idea to grab it, jump, and throw it at the ground or an opponent, and then take the items, to avoid the kablooie effect.


 * Chansey Egg: The eggs tossed around by the cute little pink Chansey contain items as well.  Chancey drops four eggs, and one of them is usually explosive.  Treat them like canisters, and try not to wonder too much why her eggs contain large explosive devices.

Hand-to-Hand Weapons
These weapons are held by a character and swung at them to inflict damage and death. Because they are an additional weapon, they provide a longer-range attack with a disjointed hitbox (attacking part is not part of the attacker, so you can't hit the attack to stop it), as well as adding on additional damage. Each one of these weapons has a different attack for: neut. A, ftilt, DA, and fsmash, and they are not used for any other attacks, which means that when you execute other attacks, you'll just do them while holding the item, without actively using it. Also, each character has a different version of each of the above movements, so learn your characters’. All of these weapons, when thrown, are action-blockable.


 * Home-Run Bat: This weapon is good, old-fashioned American fun. You can’t lose if you can beat the bejeezus out of the other guy with a big, solid chunk of wood, now can you?  Though not as long range or as quick as the beam sword, the baseball bat’s draw lies in the smash, wherein your character winds up and lets loose, and if it connects, it kills 99% of the time.  Usually your character will have a bit of a backswing, which means that opponents just slightly behind you will get launched as well.  Remember, though, that this attack has a long warm-up and cool-down time, so be careful using it (make sure you have good position and timing) and take advantage fighting it (roll, jump, or dash-dance  out of the way, and then pounce on them, AFTER their swing is done).  If you figure out a way to set up this smash well, please post it here, as it’s still a rather impractical move with my crew.


 * Beam Sword: The game's "lightsaber", this pink, glowing rod of doom is a hated weapon for those who must fight against its skilled users. Its relative speed and long range (as well as its knockback) make it a great juggling weapon, and its length makes for a large projectile when it’s spinning through the air at an opponent, and this large projectile has impressive knockback, so watch out.  A common strategy is to run-juggle your opponent, as the dash attack stays out for a good while and this defeats techs and rolls.  You can take them all the way across the stage by repeating this attack.  It's also a great defensive weapon - one tap of A at the right time and you can slap them away from you with a quick neut. swing of the sword.  Oh, and if someone gets all good with the sword and begin calling themselves a Jedi or some crap like that, smack them upside the head to disillusion them.  I hate that.


 * Fan: The fan is seen by many as a weapon purely usable for annoyance. A fast neut. swing with low recovery time coupled with medium-high knockback makes a weapon that can lock an opponent in place for whole chunks of time, doing 1 damage a hit.  If they try to run away, they are stunned - if they put up their shield, the fan does it MASSIVE damage (shield breaks in 2-3 hits).  The tilt is a bit slower, but has more knockback, and the smash even more so.  The thing with the fan is that it knocks them TOWARDS you when you hit them, so if you smash or DA them with it, they will fly over your character to the other side.  So, the best way to get through a fan if you are stuck in the middle of it is to push the stick TOWARDS your opponent, and you will end up running past them.  If they turn around in time, they can trap you again, but if you're quick enough, you can avoid it and hit them with a real attack.  Thrown, the fan causes very large upward launching action, making it easy to kill light characters off of the top with it.  However, this makes it a nearly useless edgeguarding weapon, because it simply gives them altitude.  Have fun playing with this weapon.

Hand-Held

 * Star Rod: This weapon is hard to place in a certain genre, because it is a hand-held weapon with both a melee attack and a projectile attack. A neut. swing of the wand gives simply a melee swish, but tilts and smashes both shoot a star out of the end of the wand in the direction of the attack. This star has decent knockback, but travels relatively slow and has maximum range, so it should not be used at long distances. The best use of the wand, in my own opinion, is thrown, as (if it hits them, of course) it will send your enemy away and DOWN with decent knockback. This means that if you hit them with it while they are near or off of the edge, they will be spiked down at an angle, making recovery much more difficult, or even impossible.


 * Fire Flower: Unlike one would expect, picking this item up and using it does not change your character's colors and allow him/her to throw fireballs, but instead it shoots out a continuous stream of fire. This fire stuns your opponent and has little knockback, allowing you to keep your opponent trapped in the fire for a few seconds, accumulating free damage. It DOES knock them back a bit with every hit, allowing them to escape the fire after a couple of seconds of damage. Adding this to the relatively slow speed of the fire makes this weapon less useful when simply triggered stationarily. However, you can trap someone with it easily by either falling from above them while holding the A-button or by putting their back to the wall and burning the living daylights out of them. The latter method can rack up significant damage, and your opponent can't really do anything until your flower runs out of charge. When this happens, the flower will simply emit puffs of useless smoke. Thrown, the flower has acceptable knockback and does fire damage, stunning them for a bit longer than a normal item would.


 * Ray Gun: This weapon shoots out a very fast laser projectile which zaps the opponent. The shots send your opponent into the air and slightly back, stunning them for a short duration. Because it can be fired quickly, and stuns for a short duration, you can juggle your opponent for a long time. This is not possible to do against opponents with high damage, as they will get knocked higher into the air and will have a chance to recover from the attack. Small, quick characters like Fox can escape the barrage, but big, slow characters like DK are easy pickings for this weapon. Individual shots don't do much damage, but ten shots in a row followed by throwing the gun at your opponent will deal significant damage. At long range, and against highly damaged opponents it is sometimes necessary to time the shots and/or jump up when shooting so that you can continue hitting them without them without them being able to recover. Because it keeps opponents in the air and pushes them back, it is possible to push players rather far off the edge, and then throwing the gun to send them flying way out over the abyss.

Thrown
This category covers the items that are meant to be thrown at an opponent. Pressing "A" while holding these items throws the item (as that is its whole purpose). However, one must remember that every item in the game (save the Hammer, Heart, Tomato, and Star) can be thrown by pressing the R-button. Neuts, tilts, and smashes all work as well when throwing items, for different stick pressure while throwing causes different throwing distance. Some items work very well when thrown (melee weapons especially), so that should be a very viable option when using an item. However, do not throw away items unnecessarily, because you are just giving them to your opponent if you miss. Also, though items will bounce if thrown with some sideways momentum, when thrown straight up or down they do not, unless they bounce off of another character.


 * Motion-Sensor Bomb (Mine): This weapon provides me with some of the most fun that I have with the game. My friends try to avoid planting mines on the stage, and if they are planted, they try to detonate them with projectiles instead of leaving them.  This is because, once thrown, this little grey disk lands on the ground with a "click", and after about a half-second, activates.  Anyone or anything that touches the mine now will cause it to explode, causing very good damage.  It doesn't have quite the knockback of a Bomb-Omb, but it is good enough.  If you can distract your opponent enough so that he/she doesn't see/hear that you planted a mine, so much the better.  However, even if they know where it is, you can still direct them towards it, though it's harder.  It has been theorized that I get some sadistic pleasure out of throwing my opponents into mines, and this is partially true.  It is fun, but it's also a lot quicker than simply smashing them off of the stage.  They hit that mine, and they're gone, if not dead then certainly off of the stage.  Play with these, but be careful that you remember where your mine (and your opponents') landed, because they are very hard to see once planted.


 * Bom-Omb: Ah, the Bomb-Omb. This is the most potent explosive in the entire game, by leaps and bounds.  It's also a very impatient bomb, for after being left alone for a while, it begins to wander back and forth across whatever platform it's on (it won't fall onto any others), starting in the direction of the nearest character.  After a while it bores of even THIS and stops walking, gets all red and glowy, and then detonates.  My personal rule of thumb to avoid getting rocked by Bomb-Ombs is that if I don't see it appear, I don't go get it.  Once picked up, the bomb is happy, and will explode on contact with anything.  This explosion knows no allegiance, so don't throw it at yourself or your teammate.


 * Bumper: You can achieve some really funny, unexpected results with this weapon. The most effective way to use it is to throw it slightly above players trying to jump back to edge of the platform - this sends the shooting downward to their death. Alternatively, a bumper thrown just right can send an opponent into a mine or into someone else's fist. A bumper thrown at an opponent standing right in front of you will bounce back and hit you in the face. A bumper on the floor restricts the movement of players, and can also be used as a tool to help you combo your attacks (e.g., a punch sends them flying into a bumper, which bounces them back into a kick).


 * Pokeball: These are very useful items. First of all, hitting your opponent with them does good damage and has good knockback.  Secondly, and most importantly, when the ball comes to a stop, out pops a pokemon. With any pokemon, the act of popping out of the ball hurts the opponent. There are 12 different types of pokemon, each doing different things, which hurt everyone but the owner of the pokeball (and his teammates):


 * Beedrill: My personal favorite, your opponents will groan and/or shout, "Dammit, bees!" A single beedrill (a wasp-like pokemon) will fly out of the ball, hover for a moment, then take off in either direction, flying out of the level.  If it hits you doing so, it will damage and knock you back moderately.  Just when you think it's gone, though, it comes back from the KO wall it left through...and it brought friends.  A line of beedrills, altitudes slightly randomly modulated, stream horizontally across the stage at the altitude where the pokeball was originally dropped.  These guys hurt as much as their scout buddy, except there are lots of them.  You're gonna want to stay either well above or below these pokemon, as though they do deviate from the normal altitude, it isn't by very much.
 * Chansey: This happy little pink pokemon cheerfully distributes three eggs, each containing up to three items.  See the section on "Chansey Eggs" (in Items:Containers) for how to deal with them.
 * Charizard: Bursting out of the pokeball with a ferocious roar, Charizard spews flame alternately in both directions (left and right, that is) as he turns his head from side to side. This flame is just like fire-flower flame, in that it hurts and holds you in place, but different in that when he turns to burn the other side, you can move.
 * Clefairy: Because this pinkish white pokemon has no self-esteem, she shamelessly copies the attack of another random pokemon. You can tell which she is by watching her actions, so be careful you don't get hit by a Hitmonlee that you thought was an Onyx.
 * Goldeen: "Pointless, Wasteful, Depressing...Useless(TM) by Calvin Klein" is what my smash partner used to say when he saw this tiny fish pop out of a pokeball. Goldeen generally makes your opponents chuckle at your misfortune.  However, that's about all she does, flopping around, quite literally, like a fish out of water, repeating her name until she disappears or flops off of the edge.  Good riddance.
 * Hitmonlee: This is a pokemon with an identity issue. When he pops out of the ball, he clearly says "Psyduck", although he is OBVIOUSLY not a psyduck, and I don't personally see why he would want to be one.  Poor guy.  Anyway, he leaps into the air after a moment with an extended flying side-kick, yelling a poke-warcry.  He can't jump very high, so leaping above him is the best option, but he will aim for you if you are in his range, and he moves parabolically, so he can hit and kill you on the way back down as he plunges to his untimely end.  When he hits you, it HURTS, so just avoid him.
 * Koffing: Another self-involved pokemon, Koffing states his own name and then begins spewing poison gas from every one of his many orifaces. If you get in the middle of these puffs of gas, you will be juggled around between them and damaged, making this a beautiful set-up for a killing aerial by the owner of the pokeball.  This is an area-effect pokemon, so if you can stay out of its cloud, you will be just fine, but watch for your opponent knocking you into it.  If you have this pokemon, it is most effective near edges.
 * Meowth: Like Koffing, Meowth is an area-effect pokemon, one of the deadliest in the game. Not even bothering to state his identity, Meowth begins spewing out coins in a rotating, four-spoked windmill pattern.  These coins, though they hit for 1% damage each, present a high-damage juggle threat to any and all characters, especially heavy ones.  Getting caught in one of these is extremely painful, and can lead to quick death if you have a semi-good opponent.  They ARE area effect, so if you throw it, put it on an edge or back your opponent against the wall with one, and if you are defending against it, well, stay out of the way and hope they don't throw it onto the edge.
 * Mew: Another pointless pokemon. Unlocked after you successfully unlock all four secret characters, this rare pokemon will randomly appear in pokeballs.  If it does so during single-player, it nets you mass points.  In multiplayer, it simply sparkles and then flies away.  Like Goldeen, Mew is simply a waste of oxygen.
 * Onyx: With a wordless roar, Onyx pops out of the pokeball and throws himself straight up, through the KO ceiling. However, it seems that he isn't rated for that sort of altitude, because he begins to come apart, and the boulders that made up his body begin raining from above.  If hit by Onyx himself as he heads for the roof, you will go flying, big time.  If you are hit by falling boulders, you will be bounced upwards (hey, no one ever said that the physics in this game made sense) and stunned for a moment.  As the boulders fall in a medium-sized radius around the pokeball, it's a good idea to stand clear and use projectiles from afar.
 * Snorlax: The obese American of the Pokemon world, this lazy guy bellows his own name as he flies up towards the ceiling. He must have found a burger joint up there or something, because when he comes down, he is livin' large.  If you get hit by him, either on the way up or the way down, you will go flying up and away from him at impressive speeds.  This is a good pokemon for getting some breathing room, because your opponents will most likely get out of range of the falling fat man.
 * Starmie: This little starfish-dude isn't the smartest of pokemon, but can be very damaging against a disadvantaged opponent. Starmie comes out of the pokeball and heads towards an opponent.  When it reaches the right point, it opens fire with a horizontal stream of energy blasts in the opponent's direction.  If they are off of the edge or if they simply have nowhere to run, this star attack hurts as it juggles them in the air.  However, to combat a Starmie, if you jump high and then fast-fall before it starts firing, you can get it to miss you completely, as it doesn't move once the shooting starts.


 * Green Shells: As seen in various Mario games, Koopa shells can be used as potent projectiles when kicked or simply picked up and thrown. The same is true in Super Smash Brothers.  If attacked, a shell will simply cruise off in the direction that it was hit.  Throwing a shell can make it go further, though shells will also respond to very light tosses and taps, making them creep along the ground.  They move only if given momentum, and will disappear after a random number of tosses.  This weapon has very good knockback, but watch out when throwing it, as once it bounces off of a surface, it can hit and damage you.


 * Red Shells: Unlike the green shell, the red shell is inhabited by miniature demons, bent on pissing you off. This shell, when thrown, immediately begins following the character nearest it in an attempt to hit it and do damage.  Jumping over or rolling through the shell works to avoid it, and remember that you can use the shell to your advantage by drawing it over to your opponent and causing it to hit them.  The knockback isn't nearly as great as the green shell, but the red shell is good enough to be very annoying.  It hits everyone, no matter who threw it originally, so take care.

Healing Items
Healing items, of which there are two types, heal you (but if you had to be told that, you should probably be spending your time elsewhere). These items normally don't drop as frequently as others do, so be sure to quickly make your way to them if they do drop.


 * Maxim Tomato: When picked up, your damage meter scrolls down 100%, and your percentage cannot be increased while you are being healed.


 * Heart: This does the same thing as the tomato, except it heals you of ALL your damage.

Because they can give an unfair advantage to one player or another that does not depend very much on skill. Essentially, it either levels or immensely steepens the playing field, so these two items are usually banned from serious competition.

Hammer
The hammer is most likely the best weapon to tilt the odds of winning in your favor. It drives your character into a smashing spree (Your character takes his/her hammer and whacks it back and forth) With 30% damage per hit, the hammer will send most enemies flying sky-high in a couple of hits... however, double (or triple) jumping is impossible. Also, if for some reason, you get knocked off the stage, the only way to make it back on with the hammer is to "float" back with the tilted fall. Also, remember that you cannot throw away the hammer. You hold on to it for the duration that it lasts, which you may regret as you plummet to your death.

For fighting a hammer, many people run away, but if you do it right, you can use your opponent's hammer as a handicap. Kirby's B-down Stone and Link's bomb will hit right through the hammer and maybe even knock it out of their hands, and if they hit while the hammer is back, boomerangs, fireballs, and other projectiles will connect. Also, the hammer's blocking radius does not extend very far behind your opponent, so you can smash them in the back if you can get behind them. Essentially, you're trying to either knock the hammer out of their hands or knock them off of the edge where they will fall helplessly into the pit.

However, once again, as this item is rather cheap, it is often banned from tournaments as well.

Star
The star is another powerful item. It grants you limited invincibility, so you will not be hit or damaged from any attack. While you have the star, the invincibility music from the Mario games plays, but be careful, as the invincibility dies a few moments before the music does. Also, this invincibility does not save you from flying through a KO barrier (I've gotten a star as I flew upward from a smash and the music played for about .5 seconds before abruptly stopping). An interesting twist is if you are invincible and you fall off of the edge of Zebes, you will fall right through the lava to your death, as it will not hurt you and launch you back up. This is also regarded as a "cheap" item, and is also usually banned from tournaments.