There are quite a few techniques that didn’t make their way into the Instruction Booklet.

I’ll try not to get too technical with things, but just know that there are lots of small tricks like these for you to play around with.

Ukemi

When a blow sends you flying, tap the shield button just before you come into contact with the ground, wall, or ceiling. You’ll bound off the surface with a little hop and, like a judo master, cancel any excess momentum that would have otherwise kept you careening around wildly.

Press with just the right timing.

Since mid-air move-based recoveries have become more fluid, I believe some will find this technique to be slightly less important than it was in the previous game.

Perfect Shield

The enemy closes in to attack. You draw him or her closer, then closer still, and just before the blow connects...

Clang! You just performed a perfect shield! You’ll recover from the blow you just blocked with almost no delay and are in a perfect position to launch a counterattack!

If you do a perfect shield on a big hit, get ready to strike back!

Stale-Move Negation

Use a particular move too many times and the damage it deals will begin to decrease!

And so it should. Let’s face it; it takes more skill to use a character’s full move set than to rely on the same attack over and over.

Moves will decrease in attack power when used repeatedly and get progressively weaker with additional usage, so try and use a wide variety of attacks.

Also, if you feel like your attacks just aren’t launching the opponent as far as they should... Once again, I suggest you try mixing it up a little bit.

Hey, don’t you think it’s time you, y’know, tried some other moves?

Glancing Blows

This isn’t really a technique so much as it is a little tidbit of Smash info.

When your attack just grazes the opponent you’ll hear a little "chik", meaning you’ve just barely grazed the opponent.

A glancing blow just nicks the opponent so don’t expect your enemy to flinch.

Swim

In Brawl you can actually swim a little bit when you’re in water. You’ll soon drown though, and the more damage you’ve accumulated, the less time you’ll be able to stay afloat.

We’re... We’re going under!

Small Jump

This technique is absolutely vital in a scuffle.

Every character has a momentary animation before they jump where they sort of hunker down. If you let off the jump button before this animation ends you’ll perform a small jump.

Here’s a comparison with a standard jump.

Try using small jumps to close in and score hits on your opponents while dodging their attacks.

Just take a little leap.

Pivot Grab

While dashing, press the direction opposite your current heading while performing a grab. You’ll get more range out of this kind of grab, so try pulling a 180 and scooping up your unsuspecting opponent with it.

You can grab from this far away!

Eating While Reclining

Let’s say you’ve just taken a solid hit. You go flying and collapse on the ground.

You notice a few tasty food items on the ground near you.

If this describes your situation, now’s the time to hit the A Button. You can scoop up food items and eat them without even standing up.

Mmm... Tasty!

Breaking Reflectors

・Mario’s Cape
・Fox’s Reflector
・Pit’s Angel Ring and Mirror Shield
・Zelda’s Naryu’s Love

...And so on. All these moves have the ability to reflect incoming projectiles back at your opponent. When you use one of these to send back an attack, it actually increases the damage that projectile does.

But if you and your opponent pump up a projectile’s damage too high, say by reflecting it back and forth...the projectile will become too powerful and break through your reflecting device.

You’ll take a heavily powered-up shot straight to the body, so you know it’s going to hurt.