Most pages about super smash bros how to unlock all characters either assume too much or explain too little. This aims at the middle, which is where the useful part sits.
Two answers to super smash bros how to unlock all characters circulate online, and both were correct at some point. Patch notes are dull and they are also the fastest way to find out what changed. The optimal approach and the reliable approach diverge more than people expect.
If you only read one section
If you only do one thing from this page, do the first step properly.
When to stop optimising
One clean run beats five rushed ones, both for results and for your patience. It is worth knowing which part of this the game actually enforces and which part is convention. Doing this properly once is faster than doing it approximately three times.
Where a guide and the game disagree about super smash bros how to unlock all characters, the game is right and the guide is old. If the first attempt fails cleanly, that is more useful than one that half-works.
Edge cases worth knowing
Keep the first attempt simple and add refinements only after it works. Bookmarking the exact step you stopped at saves more time than remembering the whole guide. Anything presented as a hidden trick is normally just a step that a popular guide left out. People searching super smash bros how to unlock all characters are usually stuck at one specific moment rather than confused generally.
The straightforward version
The second time takes a fraction as long, which makes the first attempt worth doing carefully. The obvious approach works; the rest of this page is about making it work the first time. The complicated explanation and the simple one usually describe the same thing at different zoom levels.
- Keep the original settings somewhere you can restore them from.
- Do the boring preparation step, even when it looks skippable.
- Check the known-issues list first.
- Verify the outcome rather than assuming it took effect.
If your situation is slightly different
It helps to know why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation differs slightly. Anything presented as a hidden trick for super smash bros how to unlock all characters is normally a step a popular guide left out. Checking the result immediately costs seconds and saves the most common kind of wasted time.
What most guides get wrong here
The steps are boring on purpose; the interesting version is the one that fails half the time. The useful answer is usually one sentence long, and everything else is the reasoning behind it. If the explanation feels overcomplicated, it probably is — the working version is usually short.
A change that works but that you cannot repeat has not really solved anything. Written notes beat memory when you come back to this in a month.
Things that waste the most time
- Making a permanent change to answer a question a reversible one would have settled.
- Doing everything right and then not checking whether it actually registered.
- Optimising before the basic version has worked once.
- Mixing instructions from two versions and getting neither.
Questions people also ask
How do I know it worked?
There is normally a visible confirmation, and where there is not, the check described above settles it in a few seconds.
Does this apply to every version?
The steps target the current release. Older versions usually behave the same way, though menus may sit in different places.
Is there a faster method?
Usually yes, and usually it is riskier. The route above trades a little speed for a much lower chance of having to start over.
The method above is deliberately unexciting, which is exactly why it keeps working.