Classic Anyone else attempt to "beat" All-Star Mode?

[TheYungLink]

Unlike in past games, where the mode was a gauntlet with frequent breaks and opportunities to heal, All-Star Mode in Smash Ultimate is an unending wave of 4 fighters at once. No breaks, no healing items, nothing. It's miserable.

The Challenge Board doesn't even have any rewards for completing it, just reaching a certain amount of defeated fighters and such, so there's no real reason to try to "beat" it. And yet here I am, attempting to at least defeat Incineroar if not Joker and The Hero, just because.

To emphasize: there are no difficulty options. You fight 4 opponents at once, at all times, and they all gang up on you. All 4 of them, trying to grab or attack you or use a special move on you. No breaks, no healing items, and no easier difficulty to make this more achievable.

Your only saving grace: the 4 opponents almost never run, only walk. You can clear out some opponents, go to either side of the Battlefield form stage you're attempting the challenge on, and plan your next move. This isn't that much of a reassurance though, especially when you're dealing with the projectile users at the moment.

You will come to hate certain "phases" because of the characters involved. Everyone fights you in release order, so it's oldest character to newest character like in Smash 4.

• Early on, you'll need to be careful when you're dealing with Piranha Plant if you have the DLC for it. Its tall body means it can protect other fighters behind it, and due to its weight, it's hard to knock out with a single attack most of the time. While you're knocking it out, the other 3 opponents can sneak some attacks in on you.
• Then comes the first dreadful phase: Simon, Pit, Palutena, Snake, Ryu, and Ken. These characters are a nightmare to fight, as Simon can hog the stage with his whip and cross, Pit can sit in the back and snipe with arrows then do a flurry jab when you get close that may outrage your strongest attack, Palutena will add onto your percent dangerously fast with Auto Reticle and cause you to flinch in the middle of what you're doing, Snake will spam grenades and will weave around you surprisingly nimbly while getting you with Nikita missile, and the shotos will lock you in place with jabs and cover the entirety of the floor with Tatsumaki. Deal with this nightmare group as fast and as efficiently as you can.
• After that you eventually fight Dr. Mario, then Yoshi and Sonic together, then Wario. Dr. Mario's Megavitamins are basically scary versions of Mario's fireball and you will get hit by a few of them, making your percent go up. Yoshi and Sonic both have a frightening strategy of using their roll attack side specials, the former doing hefty knockback and the latter comboing into Sonic's aerials upon landing, and they're almost always fought together in case you didn't think that was tough enough. Sometime after them comes Wario, whose strong aerials, fast air speed, and Wario Bike make him one of the more deadly opponents when it comes to trapping you in knockback. Also, if you've bought Terry, he's fought around the same time as Yoshi and Sonic and is very frightening if you're not close and up in his face, as Crack Shoot and Burn Knuckle will surprise you if you're dealing with someone else atm, however he is a bit more doable. After Wario comes Richter, who is as scary to fight as Simon was except your percent is looking pretty high right about now and you *really* don't need Richter's projectiles adding to it.
• The second dreadful phase is the Red / Blue Pokémon. You fight Pokémon Trainer, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, and Mewtwo. All are strong, with Squirtle's fast attacks and Pikachu's Thunder Jolt adding percent to your counter if you aren't careful, plus Mewtwo's Shadow Ball hitting you for huge damage if you aren't mindful of it. But the true monster is Jigglypuff. Its aerial game is as maddeningly effective as usual, and will jump to avoid the silent "no one runs" rule of the challenge, but more importantly it will charge up Rollout and ram right into you for massive damage if you let it. It goes right through the other 3 opponents perfectly fine, and will crash right into you if you're trapped in flinch status from the other Pokémon's attacks.
• Oh and right after fighting the Pokémon, you need to fight Cloud, then Wolf, then the Ocarina of Time characters Young Link, Sheik, and Ganondorf. Huge / precise projectiles flying left and right and two of the strongest sword smashes in the whole game to watch out for. Yippee.
• If you have Banjo & Kazooie then right after the OoT fighters you fight them. Surprisingly, they won't use Wonder Wing that much if at all, BUT they'll add to your percentage with Breegull Blaster and hit you with a powerful forward smash if you're not careful. It's ended quite a few of my runs after I thought I was safe having dealt with Ganondorf.
• Villager, Olimar, and Toon Link are fought next. This group is notable because their hurtboxes are smaller than you'd like them to be and Olimar in particular has a habit of weaving in and out of your attacks' vicinity while maybe sticking a Pikmin on you to increase your percentage even further. If you've made it to this point somehow only having around 150%, congratulations: your reward is even more percent added thanks to this terrible trio.
• Sometime after Roy comes Bowser Jr., Zero Suit Samus, Dark Samus, and Ike. Bowser Jr.'s Clown Car Jr. makes him sadly difficult to knock out quickly, so you'll need to strategize to get him out as quickly as possible so he can't use Cannon Shot and his side special to knock you out quickly. ZSS is infamous for powerful stunlocking attacks so that's no surprise, but Dark Samus can do frighteningly quick work of you as well due to Samus' (who wasn't that threatening very early on) Charge Shot now being potent enough to end you if you aren't careful. Ike is self-explanatory, stay away from Ragnell at all costs.

After that group, it's difficult to see who's hard to deal with and who isn't. I get as far as Bayonetta and Shulk before the former's down smash or the latter's forward or up smash trips me up and kills me, and I've only made it past them a single time, seemingly as a fluke, having finally reached the Fire Emblem: Awakening trio. I guess everyone is hard to deal with at this point because by definition everyone will have an attack that comes out quickly and has moderate knockback that, at this point, will likely kill you.

My high score is 70 fighters. I want to reach The Hero as they (or rather the Dragon Quest XI Hero, Eleven) are the latest in terms of release date so they will be the final opponent you fight before it loops back around to Mr. Game & Watch, but it looks more and more like that's going to rely on a lot of luck alongside basic survivability skills. But fighting and defeating The Hero is my goal, as to me that will count as finally "beating" All-Star Mode.

Anyway, I share all this because I need to share my pain with other people who have subjected themselves to it. What are your strategies for All-Star Mode? Any characters you like to stick with?

Personally I use The Hero when doing this mode, because of their mid-charged side-special, Zapple. It's a huge horizontal bolt of lightning that covers half of Battlefield, and sends away most opponents to give you some breathing room, making for an invaluable keep away tool when dealing with the relentless onslaught of opponents. However, their up-smash is one of the absolute worst in the game, only covering a tiny bit above their head, meaning if you miss someone above you then they will easily weave around your tiny sword and smack you from the side while you're in the middle of endlag. As bad as the move is, it's invaluable for quickly dispatching opponents who land directly on the left or right platforms of Battlefield as it can just barely reach them and knock them out in one hit.

 

[1FC0]

I did not even know about it until I read this post. Either way I just tried it and it's decently fun.

You will come to hate certain "phases" because of the characters involved.

This assumption turned out to be wrong. I admit that certain phases were pretty easy but it's not that bad.

there are no difficulty options.

I agree that it's too easy. Smash 4's All Star also lacked a proper hard setting, and it seems that SSBU's All Star is way too easy again. I recently heard about it and already got it to loop around. My high score is 84 and in the run where I got it I died to R.O.B.'s USmash. An honorable death for sure but I would have preferred to keep going for a while.

Either way it's a fun mode but it's just Multi-Man Melee again but with roster characters as enemies instead of the Wire Frames.

 

[Oddball]

I ain't ashamed to admit it. That mode chews me up and spits me back out. I've made it into the low 60s a few times, but usually I don't even get that far.

This version of All Star just seems kinda pointless and poorly thought out to me. Other Smash games you actually got something for beating it and it gave you a chance. In this game it's just here.

 

[1FC0]

I beat it shortly after I learned about it. It can be easy if you make use of the fact that the enemies spawn in disadvantage and in a very predictable manner.

The strategy that I came up with is to pick Ganondorf, learn when characters are going to spawn where, and then go below them and use USmash as they come down. Learning the spawn points should be done by just paying attention to them while playing. Knowing the spawn patterns is helpful because it allows you to start running to where characters are going to spawn before they start spawning and then dispose of them quickly with USmash before they can reach the lowest platform. It also sometimes allows you to position yourself properly to dispose of multiple enemies right after they spawn. As long as you can keep the lowest platform clean of enemies you're doing well.

If you fail to keep the lowest platform clean then you just need to rely on other moves to clean it up. Wizard's Foot and Dash Attack are probably the best moves for this. Dash Attack does not always kill but if it does not then it throws them up so it gets them out of your face and eventually in the right position for an easy USmash. FSmash can be very good too both for enemies still falling down and for enemies that have reach the lowest platform.

Try to kill enemies in the right order. Enemies should be given extra priority to be KO'ed for these reasons:
- They're easy to kill (gets them out of your face quicker and will make it so that there are less enemies on stage on average)
- They're annoying (annoying character like Megaman and Link keep interrupting Smashes and so saving they're fellow teammates)
- They're dangerous (it's not good to be on a nice killing spree only to suddenly be hit by something like Rollout of a K. Rool Smash attack)

If you get juggled then a good way to get down is Dair. At first I mainly used Wizard's Foot but they seem to often beat that out. Dair hits hard and is easier to hit than it might seem. Wizard's Foot can be good too sometimes.

If you need to recover then you need to watch out for those that want to gimp you. They're pretty aggressive and like gimping. Dark Dive past the ledge (by holding down) can be used to nail enemies waiting at the ledge. Because enemies will often line themselves up at the ledge when you hang there and seem to never defend against a Ledge Attack, a good strategy to recover can be to wait at the ledge for them to line themselves up there an then knock them away with a Ledge Attack.