In Classic Mode, you select your character, number of lives, and difficulty level, and battle your way through a series of 12 battles. Your opponents, allies, and the stage will be randomly chosen; however, each match is based on a different game series, so the characters and stage will be chosen from that series.
- Level 1: The Legend of Zelda series
- Level 2: Donkey Kong series or Yoshi
- Level 3: Pokémon series
- Level 4: Fire Emblem or EarthBound
- Target Smash!!
- Level 5: Kirby series
- Level 6: Metroid or Pikmin
- Level 7: Star Fox or F-Zero
- Level 8: Super Mario series
- Level 9: Game and Watch, Kid Icarus, Ice Climber, or R.O.B.
- Level 10: WarioWare, Metal Gear, or Sonic
- Target Smash!!
Note that if the Pokemon Trainer, Zelda/Shiek, or Samus/Zero Suit Samus are who you'll fight against, the single character/transformation will be said by the announcer and you'll only fight one of them (i.e., instead of "Pokemon Trainer", it'll be either "Squirtle", "Venasaur", or "Charizard").
Any one of these matches may have special conditions applied; these are also randomly chosen. In addition to the normal 1-on-1 matches, there will be:
- 2-on-2 matches: You have a CPU-controlled ally and two opponents. Usually, the charcter of your ally is related to the theme of the stage. For example, in a Mario stage, you may have Mario or Luigi as an ally, or maybe Bowser or Peach.
- Giant matches: Your opponent is gigantic. You might have one or two CPU-controlled allies. There is the possibility that this will happen twice during your run through the mode. It's best to have Yoshi giant on the 2nd round, as to the fact that you can KO him with ease and extremely fast (around 7-9 seconds fast) if you're playing on any difficulty.
- Metal matches: Your opponent is metallic, as if they'd picked up a metal box. Metal opponents are resistant to launching and flinching, but are pretty much doomed if you can trap them under the stage. For best results, have a light character as metal. Pit is better to have as metal, since he can go down faster than any other light character and the fact that he won't have the chance to use his Up-Special in time.
- Multi-Man matches: You fight 10 duplicates of the same character. Each duplicate only takes a few hits to knock offscreen, though. On the other hand, if you are playing on Very Hard or higher, they would have to take about as much as they would if there was one. Best to have any light character on the harder levels, excluding Pit.
There are two rounds of Target Smash between matches. The first corresponds to the chosen difficulty level. The second corresponds to the next highest difficulty level.
- Easy:Level 1, Level 2
- Normal:Level 2, Level 3
- Hard:Level 3, Level 4
- Very Hard:Level 4, Level 5
- Intense:Level 5, Level 5
Level 11 is a free-for-all with three random opponents on Final Destination.
Finally, Level 12 pits you against Master Hand on Final Destination. If you're playing on Hard mode or higher, and if you reach this level in 9 minutes or less without any continues, Crazy Hand shows up too. Be warned that you fight both of the hands at the same time.
- To do the most damage to either hand, attack them from behind and with powerful, fully loaded Smash Attacks. If you do this, the hands will go down pretty fast.
When you finish Classic Mode, you get your character's trophy. Mind you, if you play as Zelda/Sheik, Samus/Zero Suit Samus, or Pokémon Trainer, you only get the trophy for the specific character that landed the final blow on Master Hand or Crazy Hand, whichever comes last. For example, if you want to get the ZSS trophy, use Samus' Final Smash beforehand.
- If you beat Classic Mode on Intense difficulty, you'll get the Crazy Hand trophy.
- If you beat Classic Mode with all characters, you'll get the Creeping Chrysanthemum trophy.