Team Battle is a versus mode setting present in all four Smash Bros. games. As the name suggests, players (whether human or computer) fight alongside up to two others against the opposing team. In SSBB, you use this mode by moving the cursor over the Brawl / Special Brawl button, then pressing A.
Gameplay
A team battle contains up to three teams (blue, green and red), with a character's allegiance being shown by their color scheme. If two of the same characters are on the same team, they will be light or dark variations of the same colour. Since a maximum of four characters can participate in a match of Smash Bros., the following options are available:
- 2 versus 1
- 2 versus 1 versus 1
- 2 versus 2
- 3 versus 1
Since team battles are a regular division of versus mode, the regular options of time, stock, and coin matches can be selected, along with Special Melee/Brawl rules as well. In time and coin matches, the score (or coins collected) of each team is the combined score of its members. Stock matches are played in essentially the same manner; each player starts with a set number of lives and the objective is to deplete the stock of the opposing team(s). However, there is one feature called Share Stock where, when one player loses his/her last life, and that player has a teammate with two or more lives, he/she may borrow one of the lives from his/her teammate, and the character re-spawns as usual.
As a default setting, members of the same team cannot attack each other. However, turning on Team attack on the options screen will allow players to damage their allies. This can lead to techniques such as easily using Mr. Game & Watch's Oil Panic move, giving Kirby a copy ability using Inhale, healing Ness or Lucas with PSI Magnet, or hitting a recovering ally with a low-knockback projectile, allowing them to re-use their third jump.
Team battle is also available for Nintendo Wi-Fi connection. When playing with anyone, a player selects his/her character as usual, but his/her team colour is determined randomly. Online team battles with anyone are always 2 vs. 2.
Trivia
- In the original Super Smash Bros., selecting the blue team was the only way to use Samus' or Captain Falcon's Blue costume, and green team is the only way to get Captain Falcon's, Mario's, Kirby's, and Donkey Kong's green costume.
- In SSBB, only R.O.B., Ness, Mario, Diddy Kong, and King Dedede use their default costumes for red team, only Yoshi, Luigi, Bowser, Link, and Toon Link use their default costumes for green team, and only Sonic and Lucario use their default costume for blue team.
- In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, it's possible to choose any color swap the player want for Team Battles, since the color outlining the characters have will show their team affiliation.