NES and Land (119-124) and Project M (125-215): The order is the order the newcomers were in the series.

Crusade (106-118): The starter characters are ordered by their first appearance.

SSF and SSF2 (87-105): the starter characters in the Super Smash Flash series where players can choose their characters to be used by order in a game mode.

Legacy (83-86): the starter in Super Smash Bros Legacy XP 2.0 like Geno, Waluigi, Shadow and Metal Sonic.

SSB4 (45-63) and Ultimate (64-80): The characters are ordered by when each newcomer was revealed.

Instead, the three Pokémon (Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard, ordered by evolution stage) are given numbers instead. Notably, Pokémon Trainer is not given a fighter number, likely due to not being directly controlled by the player.

Brawl (27-44): The characters first revealed in Brawl’s original trailer are ordered first, followed by the remaining newcomers in the order revealed on the official website.

Mode matches are required to unlock them, and thus Young Link, Ganondorf, Pichu, and Mewtwo's roles in the reveal trailer are ignored. The unlockable characters are ordered by how many Vs. Zelda was the only character on Melee’s starting roster who wasn’t revealed to be playable at E3 2001, which could also be the reason why Zelda is placed after Sheik, despite Melee treating her as the primary character and Sheik as an alternate form.

Melee (13-26): The starter characters are ordered by their first appearance on Melee’s E3 2001 reveal trailer (based on which ones had their faces shown first, meaning that the Ice Climbers and Sheik come before Zelda, whose hand appeared earlier in the opening).

This also matches their series debut order, explaining why Ness comes before Captain Falcon. The unlockable characters are similar, though they are sorted column-first rather than row-first as the starters are as such, Ness precedes Captain Falcon despite being created later.

SSB (01-12): The starter characters are ordered by their placement on the character selection screen, which in turn is based on each character's first appearance (with Mario and Donkey Kong as the oldest and Pikachu as the newest).

The following list of characters are playable as the numbers order characters based on 'the order in which they joined the series'.

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