Jigglypuff Character Guide for Super Smash Bros. Melee Version 1.2 August 23th, 2003. By Jigglysama (iceclimbers@costarricense.cr) Hi there you interested reader to my very first guide. This time I'm going to dedicate this document to one of the most underrated characters in a video game, Jigglypuff. Many people just ignore this little puffball and never gives the respect it deserves so here I am to teach you the true obscure secrets of this normal-type balloon Pokemon. ----------------------- Basics: ----------------------- First than all, Jigglypuff is not a playable character when you create a new file of Super Smash Bros. Melee in your memory card, so you need to unlock it. I think you don't need so much help at this because there are two simple ways to get it. The easy one is just clearing either the 1P Mode in either Classic or Adventure with ANY character and in ANY difficulty and you can use continues! How easy can that be? The other method is for people who really like to kill time, just play 50 VS matches in the multi-player mode (remember that the Special Melees and Tournament Mode matches don't count!). Oh, as an added bonus you unlock the stage Brinstar Depths while doing this! :) Anyway, now that you can choose Jigglypuff you have to read the facts of this character. 1. Jigglypuff is one of the lightest characters, so it gets KOed easily compared with something like Ganondorf. 2. It's a slow runner, but that's not a big problem since its attacks are fast (save for Rollout), and you don't need that extreme speed when you have a decent, fast dodger. 3. You can't attack with projectiles, this means you have to fight close to your enemies all the time (except if you are playing with items on). 4. Jigglypuff has 5 jumps (6 if you started jumping from the floor), adding its Pound attack as an "endless" recovery move and the R mid-air dodge makes Jiggly the BEST jumper and one the most powerful aerial attackers from the game. 5. If your shield breaks in battle Jigglypuff is automatically KOed, so you should not use your shield very often, instead try to dodge around your foes. ------------------------- Moves: ------------------------- Let's check how to use properly our favorite pink puffball. Control Stick: You perform basic movement like walking, docking and jumping. Depending of how you move the stick you can run at different speeds. For jumping you can all use either X or Y (I like more using these buttons rather than the Control Stick, but is up to you). Ground A Moves: They are performed when you are standing on the stage and making combinations with the A button and the control stick. Most of them are not that powerful and have a short range of hit so try to avoid using them so much. However, they are very quick and her running attack is as good as her Forward Smash attack. Smash Attacks: Jigglypuff has really good smash attacks, these can be made by tilting fast the control stick to any direction and pressing A at the same time, you can hold both the stick and the button to build up power in your attack but you can't hold it for long time or the character will free it when reaches its limit. The Forward Smash is both useful and strong, this is one of Jigglypuff's best finishers. The Down Smash as a short rang but is good to keep away your enemies and sometimes KOing them if their damage are high enough. Finally, the Up Smash also has a short range but is a good as a juggle starter. Air A Moves: They still having a short range but are a bit powerful compared with her ground A moves. Try to send your opponent upwards and start to "juggle" him or her coordinating its jumps with the Up + A air slap. B Moves: We have some good stuff right here! Her B Moves are insanely powerful but some of them need to be performed in the right situation or you'll get your butt kicked... B = Rollout: Pushing B does nothing but having Jigglypuff rolling slowly and with no power if hits someone, but holding B for a moment and then releasing it makes her a demoniac fast wheel that can knock a player away, and if his or her damage is high enough it can KO them! Also, if you miss you can turn back by tilting the control stick to the contrary direction and try to strike again! You can change directions three times and then Jiggly will stop. This attack is useful specially in four player melee since the other people will be busy fighting the others ;). Be careful of the terrain, though. You don't want to SD yourself off the stage! B + > or < = Pound: Is fast a high damaging punch that can send opponent to the air, this attack is good to as a combo starter and one of the best "returning" moves in the game for the simple reason that you can use it continuously for horizontal recovery (Having advantage of her 5 jumps for getting back vertically). B + Up = Sing: Not so good as the other moves, but if the opponent has a high damage you can put them to sleep and then charge a Smash Attack for getting rid of it for once! Also good in 2 vs 2 battles, put them to sleep and your partner can quickly send them into oblivion! Be aware that Jigglypuff will take some time to perform this move and thus you re open to an attack. B + Down = Rest: For the people who think that Roy's Flare Blade is the strongest move in the game... they are very wrong! With this technique Jigglypuff puts herself asleep, but if you are close to your opponent you can blast them away before you can say "HOLLYMOLLYPOLLYNESIUM"! Works wonders on big characters like Bowser and even not so tall like Link, try not to use it in light, small ones such as Kirby or you'll regret. There are many ways to nail the Rest attack correctly, but they still not being easy to pull off! You need to practice a lot in order to master this move, and Jigglypuff itself in general. 1. Pick up a Fan, start attacking the opponent continuously until he or she is close enough to sleep on them. 2. Use to upward throw, then jump and attack when you touch the victim. 3. When their damage is high, just use Sing and then they'll be open to a direct attack (not only Rest). 4. Use Pound and sometimes your enemy will fly close to you, giving another chance to nail Rest. Works specially on fast fallers like Fox. Grab & Throws: They surely can't KO and opponent but are good for causing damage and starting combos. To grab someone you have to be close to them and press Z, or pressing L or R + A. Once you have a victim you can pummel them with A. The more damage he or she has, the longer you can hold him or her. After attacking you can cause extra damage by throwing them in either one of these directions: Forward Throw: Not strong but can also damage someone who is coming close to you. Behind Throw: A bit stronger than the Forward Throw. In some stages you can be cheap with this move. Check the stages information for more details. Up Throw: Jigglypuff's must useful throw. Is excellent as a juggle starter and allows you to use Rest. Down Throw: This one is pretty for starting ground combos or for delivering an strong Smash Attack without your opponent trying to stop you. Dodge: Now let's check something important to use while playing as Jigglypuff... DODGES! You can't survive without these cool abilities. Using its shield (as mentioned before) is not a good idea, instead you can roll around your enemies by holding R and tilting the Control Stick to the either left or right, depending of your strategic and the battle situation. Don't worry, Jigglypuff is an amazing, quick dodger. You can also dodge attacks in mid-air by just pressing the R button, if your jumps and pounds aren't enough then hold the Control Stick to the direction you want to go and press R! Is extremely useful when your opponent plans to attack when you are close to the edge. ---------------------- Stages: ---------------------- Overall, Jigglypuff can survive easily in all the stages thanks to its insane jumping abilities. Let's see how to handle it. Princess Peach's Castle: Not a good stage for Jigglypuff. The tower in the middle and those blocks that appear often can mess up aerial attacks, and also can stop a well planted Rest. And for making things worse there is not much space for attacking with Rollout. Try to keep your opponents to either the left or right platforms, avoid the middle one! Don't forget about the massive Bullet Bill! Stay away from that thing! I'm SERIOUS!!! Rainbow Cruise: This place is nice for the continuos movement of the stage... and is filled with some tricks for you! SO be aware of the kind of platform you are standing. Not use Rest or Rollout at the Airship part nor on the platforms. Kongo Jungle: Finally! An stage with not many obstacles for your attacks, and those platforms above the long group of logs can help for juggling and for sneaky attacks with Rest! I think you won't need to use the barrel cannon of below. Oh, and be careful with those Klaptraps! They are very lethal! Jungle Japes: One hard arena, indeed! Star KOs are hard to pull off easily due to the big height space of this place. The central platform is the best place to work on damage, as the two platforms at both sides are small... and falling into that river is not good! Klaptraps are also a menace here! Great Bay: If you want to make really cheap kills, this stage is one of the best. Great Bay is a very small stage when the turtle is underwater. If you give a strong attack to your opponents and send them under the "main" platform, they'll have a low chance of recovering and will get KOed! The Tingle Balloon can be an annoyance sometimes when you try to kill your opponent. Temple: Wow! This place is too freakin' HUGE! Perfect for every single attack of Jigglypuff! Lots of space for using Rollout and Rest! Even Rest is able to KO things in the lower cave, place where is very difficult to blast away somebody! Yoshi's Story: The generic "small-with-three-floating-platforms-and- without-hazards" level. Not much to say about this stage, is very straight-forward. Yoshi's Island: Evil. A really small Arena means easy ways to perform KOs. Stay away from the center of this place, those spinning blocks might send you to your doom if you attack them! Fountain Of Dreams: Yet another straight-forward level. Only be aware of the platforms, sometimes they disappear into the water, save for the center one. Green Greens: You must pay attention with everything in this place. First there are those breakable blocks, sometimes they get mixed with a Bomb icon, obviously they explode if they are attacked and causing a lot of damage, also Whispy Woods not only will blow to either the left or right, add that and the apples he drops. You can recover health or throw one to your opponent. Be aware, though, they hurt if they fall on you! Don't stand in the middle of stage when that happens. Corneria: Another large stage, good stuff for Jigglypuff. Play as regularly you would do, as there are plenty of aerial space at the middle and left parts of the arena, perfect for juggling. Sometimes Arwings and Wolfens will start shooting for no apparent reason so watch out for them! Get used to this stage, as many people tend to choose it instead of any other place to fight... *sigh* Venom: Oh My! The layout is a bit similar to Peach's Castle, only with more ground space. Try to fight at the lower wings of the Great Fox for increasing damage and then blast them until next week! As in Corneria, wait to see some annoying Arwings, but not very often. Brinstar: A really cramped place, this stage is! Adding the sudden acid raise covering almost the entire level and we have a limited space to battle. The air fight is more than recommended here... and this is not the best to sleep, take note of that! Brinstar Depths: MWHAHAHAHA! Most people hate this level so much, take advantage of your jumps and destroy those little ignorance bags. However, you also have to pay attention to the movement of the stage. Rollout may seem hard to pull out in here, but Rest works somewhat well. Onett: The first arena with no edges. You can be really cheap by grabbing your opponents close to the blast line and using the backwards throw... Oh yeah, the cars are a constant danger so look out for the "!" sign and keep away from the floor! However, you can try to cause some sweet KOs by using the Down Throw when a car is coming. Well, that tactic can be performed by any other character. Fourside: Looks a bit similar to Peach's Castle, only bigger, better, faster and stronger! (I'm so lame). Anyway, a decently big stage with some pits between the buildings. This is yet another good place to battle with everything Jigglypuff has been given, although Rollout seems a bit risky, the only safe place to use it is on the UFO. Don't worry about the pits, Jiggly's jumps can save you from that nightmare, but keep and eye at those called "Spikers" or "Meteor Smashers"! Mute City: Prepare for the madness! Use Smash Attack a lot and try to stay close to the moving platform, a 4 players battle in here can be a complete disaster due to the limited space of some parts of the course. Stay away from the fray in those parts, specially the one where are flying and there's no racetrack below! The F-Zero cars are annoying but nothing to worry about. Big Blue: IMO, the hardest VS Mode stage to survive. This place is even wackier than its Mute City counterpart! Here you need a different strategic, as the place is in continuos movement and very limited platforms. Rollout and Rest are very hard to use here for those obstacles, but is not impossible! You need to be very confident of your skills, but the basic advice is to rank damage with air attacks and then go to the cars and use your Down Smash, they will fall into the racetrack and probably get KOed. The Backward Throw might work for the same manner. Pokemon Stadium: This level seems simple, but if the battle takes long (which is an assured thing) the layout will change at random between 4 different structures, not included the default. The Fire and Rock models can be difficult for your battle style, so take advantage of the Water, Grass and the common default form. A good place to Rollout and Rest, don't miss the chance! Poke Floats: A bit harder than Rainbow Cruise. Again, your jumps will be your principal pride and joy here. On the big floats Rollout and Rest can be useful, while the small and fast moving ones are a risk to take. Hope your opponents SD a lot! Mushroom Kingdom: Another stage who hates Jigglypuff. Those breakable red bricks are extremely nerve-racking for interrupting juggles and KOs! Stay in either the left or right side of this place and pummel your foes there, a there are fewer bricks in those places. As said in Onett, you can kill them easily when they are close to the edge. Mushroom Kingdom II: Who said that second parts are always worse? MK II doesn't have the blocks from MK, instead it has the Birdo shooting eggs and Pidget flying on his carpet. Let loose in this place and you can continue being cheap by KOing people close the edge. Icicle Mountain: As treated at Brinstar Depths, many people fear playing here because of the scrolling. Contrary to that tendency I enjoy a lot of scrolling stages, they are SO evil! Jump like heck when the screen moves fast and attack with your goat strength, specially near the edge... Oh yeah! More cheap KOs stravagance! Flat Zone: Extremely small place with loads of dangers. You must play cheap if you want to survive here, as Jigglypuff can be KOed in a few strikes. The falling tools are evil, be careful with them. -------------------------- Battle Strategics: -------------------------- _The basic advice is try to spend time playing as the other 24 characters, in that way you can learn their best moves, combos, advantages and disadvantages. Only in that way you can consider yourself as a true Melee Master (that sounded very deep, didn't it?). _When fighting human players, play at the defensive by blocking and dodging attacks (don't forget to damage them occasionally), or stay away from the fray for not receiving high damage i the first minutes of the battle. _NEVER, but NEVER think of winning by just using Rest! No Sir! Jigglypuff has several powerful techniques to sweep away like the Forward Smash Attack. _An opponent trying to get back up to the stage is an easy pray! Remember that you have A LOT of jumps, so float right to them and Now let's see how to face off each one of the other characters: Bowser: One of the easiest characters to attack with Rest. Most of his attacks are slow so you will not have problem to avoid damage. He looks intimidating, but is more fragile than what he looks, but he stills being strong enough to KO you with a few blows, and also he has a decent reach. C. Falcon: The Captain's here! He's another heavy hitter packed with amazing speed. However, his attacks are slow and predictable, perfect for our puffball to perform its Smash Attacks. Try not to miss with your Rest, Falcon Punch can be a painful attack to receive! DK: A bit harder to defeat compared with Bowser. Humans tend to go away and charge up his Giant Punch, then return to the action place to start a KO rampage. You better put an eye at those DK players, as they not always play with the monkey's strength all the time (I am one of them :D.) Dr. Mario: The Doctor is very powerful, but can't jump well at all. He's somewhat small so Rest might not be a good idea to use. His Megavitamins can be annoying so pay attention when he plans to use them. Falco: As mentioned with Dr. Mario, Falco hits harder than Fox, but is hard for him to recover once he's knocked away. However, your opponent may annoy you with his speedy attacks like the Falco Phantom, Smash Attacks, his stunning Blaster and even he'll try to juggle you, so forget about using Rest on him. Fox: His speed might be your worst enemy. The best you can do is to use aerial attacks and Pound, then finish him with Smash Attacks. Fox can be annoying with his blaster and the Fox Illusion, just like pointed in Falco's strategic. Ganondorf: Jigglypuff handles this dummy like nobody else. The reason? He's big, slow and is a terrible jumper. Kick him around for a while and then Rest over him. Just be careful in falling into his powerful attacks, even though they are easy to avoid. Ice Climbers: Oh no! These couple can take Jigglypuff down very quickly. They got powerful Smashes, some nice attacks for performing combos with, and their size make them hard to hit. You'll have troubles trying to cause damage, as the CPU controlled Climber is usually the first going down, leaving you with the player controlled one. Take note, a lone Ice Climber does not mean you have the match in your pocket... Kirby: Your rival pink puffball! But don't worry, he's not match for Jigglypuff's skills. Those who use him always use the Stone attack, which is nothing to be scared off (save for intercepting juggling) and leaves them open to any attack. Kirby can be tricky, but very predictable. Link: The elf has a ton of projectile weapons to attack you with, meaning they will attack from distance, but Link also can fight pretty well close to his opponents. Dodge his fast attacks, as he is vulnarable after using an strong attack, or his hookshot. Now that's were Rest comes into play! Oh, and Link players tend to overuse that Down + A attack in the air, you have been adviced... Spin Attack can annoy a bit, too. Luigi: Mario's brother has troubles at recovering, but his quick and strong blows will pummel you! The Man in Green users are aggressive, so get ready for another tough match. Since he's taller than Mario, Rest might actually beat him, or else you'll get blasted off with his always deadly Flaming Jump Punch! Mario: See Dr. Mario's advice, as these two just differ in a few parts. Marth: Watch out with that sword! This guy is extremely powerful if used by the proper person. IMO, Marth is very well rounded (Save for the lack of projectiles), however that Falchion can destroy stuff like you in no time due for its long reach. Also his Counter can ruin your Rollout, so remember to change directions before hitting him. Mewtwo: He's big but fragile, another free victim for Rest... Wait! This Psychic Pokemon may be harder to beat than you think. Mewtwo's style play is to rank damage up, then throw or Smash away. Be careful when it comes to you, as it has a decent damage range and it can grab you when you less waited. Mewtwo can surprise you with its Shadow Ball so watch it when it's charging the energy ball in another place. Mr. Game & Watch: Oh boy! The black dude is extremly lethal if used on the right hands, so get ready for a painful match. G&W has some dangerous both air and Smash attacks, can strike quickly and is a decent jumper... If you are in a melee, let someone to fight him for you, but once he's the last guy left besides you then start dodging and countering blows. He's a very umpredictable fighter, so is hard to come up with a solid strategic to beat him. Ness: Many characters have trouble with the EarthBound boy, but I feel that Jigglypuff is an exception. Stay on ground and watch out for his Bat Smash and PK Fire. Trying to take it out in the air won't work very well most of time, since Ness has very good aerial moves, included his juggler headbutt. Ness is small, so avoid the use of Rest on him. More to come... ---------------------- Ending: ---------------------- OK guys and girls, that's all for now. Yes, I know this FAQ needs A LOT more of content, but don't worry, I'm working on that. Be patient, remember that this is the first guide I have ever made and I want to complete it as it deserves. If you have some useful information to share then send it to me at the mail direction at the beginning of the FAQ. Of course, I'll give you credit in here for that! ;) For next time I'll finish the analysis of the rest of the stages (I was supposed to do that for this version), as well with characters strategics and maybe some extra content. See you next time!