Super Smash Keyboards


 * This article is about the series as a whole. For the first game in the series, see Super Smash Keyboards (1992 video game).

Super Smash Keyboards (大乱闘スマッシュキーボード) is a Japanese fighting game franchise originally created by Masahiro Sakurai for Drillimation Studios and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The idea was conceived by both Masahiro Sakurai and Hiroshi Takajima, as Sakurai wanted to develop a fighting game featuring Drillimation characters to compete with Capcom's Street Fighter franchise. The game's immediate success around the world caused it to spawn spin-off titles, including the Touhou Project crossover series Killer Minecraft, as well as anime television series and two anime films, manga, a card game, as well as a live tour. The series has become one of the highest grossing video game franchises of all time and has generated more than $5 billion in revenue.

Despite its critical success, the game had a large cultural impact in the West mainly for its use of bloody violence and was the first fighting game to use Fatalities for finishing moves, which led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board in North America. Early games were praised for replicating the animation style used in the Drillimation anime and was the first game to use palette swapping to create second-player versions of existing characters.