Megaphone

Lore & Background

In the ever-shifting arenas where the Smash Bros. tournaments take place, items materialize from thin air with no clear origin—just a flash of light and a soft chime. The Megaphone is one such artifact, a chunky, cartoonishly proportioned horn that seems far too large for any single character's hands yet fits perfectly when they grab it. Its design is deliberately generic: a flared bell, a tapered tube, a simple handle. No brand, no insignia. It belongs to no single world in the multiverse of fighters, which is fitting, because the sound it produces is universal. Every character, from a tiny pixelated plumber to a towering armored warrior, flinches the same way when that wave hits.

Fans often joke that the Megaphone is the tournament's way of saying, "You've been talking too much." In a game where characters carry swords, guns, and elemental powers, a simple loudspeaker feels almost absurd—and that absurdity is part of its charm. It reminds players that in the Smash universe, the rules are loose, the stakes are playful, and a well-timed "HEY!" can send a rival tumbling into the void just as effectively as a perfectly timed up-smash.

The Megaphone's presence in Brawl, the 3DS/Wii U titles, and Ultimate also reflects the series' philosophy of accessibility. It doesn't require a complex input or a deep understanding of frame data to be fun. Pick it up, point it, throw it. The sound wave does the rest. In a franchise built on the idea that anyone can grab a controller and feel like a fighter, the Megaphone is a small, loud reminder of that promise.

In Their Own Story

The stage was a crumbling rooftop, wind whipping through the hair of every fighter still standing. The crowd of spectators—half of them floating, half of them perched on invisible ledges—had gone quiet. A small, round character crouched near the edge, breathing hard, health bar flickering. Across the gap, a towering armored figure advanced, blade raised, ready for the finishing blow.

Then the chime. A small golden flash. The Megaphone sat in the air between them, bobbing gently.

The small character's eyes widened. They lunged, snatched it, and without thinking—without a single frame of hesitation—threw it in a low, flat arc toward the armored giant. The horn tumbled, caught the wind, and stopped. A cone of distorted air ripped outward, a visible ripple of sound that hit the blade mid-swing, hit the chest plate, hit the boots. The giant's eyes went wide. The blade clattered to the concrete. The armored figure spun, tumbled, and vanished past the edge with a long, fading shriek.

The rooftop was silent again. The small character dropped the empty air where the Megaphone had been, looked at their own hands, and whispered, "…I think I just yelled at a god."

The crowd roared.

Reader's Guide

The Megaphone is a straightforward throwable: you toss it in an arc, and the moment it lands or reaches its apex, it fires a cone-shaped blast of sound in the direction it was thrown. The cone is narrow but long, making it a precision tool rather than an area-of-effect nuke. Damage sits in the moderate range—enough to chip a full-health opponent into vulnerable territory or pop a partially damaged fighter off-screen, but not enough to one-shot at low percentages.

Timing matters more than raw power here. Because the sound wave travels in a fixed, straight line, you want to throw it when an opponent is predictable—mid-jump, recovering, or walking in a known lane. Throwing it too early or too late wastes the cone entirely. In the air, you can adjust the throw angle slightly, which lets you snipe a recovering opponent from above.

Competitively, the Megaphone is a niche pick. It doesn't appear often in high-level sets, but in casual or all-items matches it shines as a spacing tool: it punishes lazy approaches and can separate a group of opponents with a single well-placed throw. Veterans appreciate it as a mind-game item—opponents who expect a bomb or a star rod may not brace for a directional sound wave, leaving them open to the knockback. New players should practice the throw arc, since the cone's narrow width means a few degrees of error can miss a target entirely.

Did You Know?

• The Megaphone's sound wave is one of the few item effects in the series that travels as a directional cone rather than a single point or a radial explosion, meaning it can clip multiple opponents in a line.
• Despite its name and appearance, the Megaphone does not produce a visible character voice or word—it is purely a physical sound wave, keeping it world-agnostic across the many franchises represented in Smash.
• In Ultimate, the Megaphone can be thrown while the character is airborne, allowing players to aim the cone downward at opponents recovering below the stage.
• The Megaphone debuted in Brawl, making it one of the items that was not carried over from the original Melee roster, before becoming a staple of the item pool in later entries.