Master Hand

This article is about the video game character. For the documentary short, see Master Hands.

Master Hand is a Nintendo character created by Masahiro Sakurai. He first appeared in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. (1999), as the final boss. Master Hand is a floating right-hand glove that the player battles in every Super Smash Bros. game's single-player game mode. His left-hand counterpart, Crazy Hand, was introduced in Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001). In these games, he is responsible for setting up the fights between the cast of these games. He has been voiced by Xander Mobus since Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U (2014).

Master Hand
Super Smash Bros. character
Master Hand in Kirby and the Amazing Mirror
First game	Super Smash Bros. (1999)
Created by	Masahiro Sakurai
Voiced by	Various Jeff Manning (Super Smash Bros.) Dean Harrington (Super Smash Bros. Melee Pat Cashman (Super Smash Bros. Brawl Xander Mobus (Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U & Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)

Master Hand is primarily a non-playable character, only playable in certain ways, such as a glitch in Melee and officially in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018). He has been generally well received, considered a favorite boss fight by multiple critics. Master Hand has been the subject of analysis as to what he represents, with theories positing him as the player or developers, among others.

Concept and design

Created for the Super Smash Bros. series, Master Hand is a floating gloved right hand capable of doing multiple types of attacks, including shooting bullets from his finger, creating lasers, and other attack types.^[1] He was created by Masahiro Sakurai.^[2] He is typically fought on the stage Final Destination, a flat plane set in space and featured in every Super Smash Bros. game. Kirby Super Star (1996), a game released prior to Super Smash Bros. and developed by Sakurai, features a battle against the character Wham Bam Rock that uses its hands to fight in a way similar to that of Master Hand. Sakurai stated that he was not consciously recreating this boss fight with Master Hand, but that the specifications he had created back during Kirby Super Star's development were used.^[2] Master Hand was voiced by Jeff Manning in the Nintendo 64 game, Dean Harrington in Melee, and Pat Cashman in Brawl, and has been voiced by Xander Mobus since Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Each voice actor also voiced the announcer in their respective games, along with Crazy Hand since his debut in Melee.^[3][4]

Appearances

Master Hand first appeared in Super Smash Bros. (1999) for the Nintendo 64, where he serves as both the instigator of battles between Nintendo characters and the final boss. In the intro, Master Hand is showed arranging a battlefield and placing inanimate dolls of Nintendo characters such as Mario and Kirby, causing them to come to life.^[5] In the sequel, Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001), Master Hand reappears as a boss character. Under certain circumstances, Master Hand will be accompanied by Crazy Hand, a variant of his that fights more erratically.^[1] Through performing a glitch on the character select menu, known as the Name Entry Glitch,^[6] Master Hand can become a playable character.^[7][8] Starting with Melee, each game has a collectible object, such as a trophy, featuring Master Hand.^[1] In Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008), Master Hand appears in story mode titled Subspace Emissary, where he gives orders to the villain Ganondorf. It is eventually revealed that he is under the control of the true antagonist, Tabuu; once he breaks free, he attempts to fight Tabuu, but is defeated.^[5]

In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U (2014), Master Hand, under certain circumstances, will transform into the new form upon being defeated, Master Core, which transforms into different forms itself, including Master Giant, Master Beast, Master Edges, and Master Shadow, a clone of the player's character. In the Wii U version, it will also transform into Master Fortress, which the player must navigate to defeat. A new mode, Master Orders, features Master Hand offering different challenges for the player to complete.^[9] In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018), multiple Master Hands are the minions of the antagonist Galeem in the mode World of Light, used as pawns in a battle against fellow antagonist Dharkon, whose minions are a group of Crazy Hands. When both Master Hand and Crazy Hand are defeated, they are free from their control, creating a path to defeat both Galeem and Dharkon. Master Hand is also playable in a battle against various copies of Super Smash Bros. fighters near the end of the World of Light mode.^[10]

Master Hand, as well as Crazy Hand, appears in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror (2004) as a boss fight, featuring different attacks he used in Super Smash Bros. When defeated, Kirby can eat him, giving Kirby attacks from Kirby's appearance in Super Smash Bros.^[11]

Reception

Master Hand has been well received. IGN readers voted Master Hand as one of the 10 best bosses in video games.^[12] Den of Geek writer Gavin Jasper regarded him as among the best boss battles, stating that it stood out to him that, instead of using a preexisting character as a final boss, they created a "random" boss like Master Hand instead. He enjoyed this, comparing the fight between the characters and Master Hand to the fight between Sid and the toys in Toy Story. He discussed how each game added "needless context" to Master Hand, which he felt was a "special kind of weird."^[13] Fellow Den of Geek writer Chris Freiberg praised the Nintendo 64 battle against Master Hand in particular, stating that fighting a boss who doesn't follow the same rules as all the opponents before him was a challenging experience, considering it one of the most memorable bosses in fighting games.^[14] GamesTM staff agreed with this assessment, stating that the fight with Master Hand subverting the rules established thus far was the most interesting part of his fight. They felt that it was anticlimactic to fight him after fighting a "gamut of legendary fighters", though they still felt it memorable due to how bizarre it was.^[15]

In particular, Daryl Baxter, author of 50 Years of Boss Fights: Video Game Legends, considered the fight between Master Hand and Crazy Hand a memorable boss fight, praising various aspects as memorable, including the fact that both are non-playable, Crazy Hand appearing in the middle, and the "challenge and panic" associated with fighting Crazy Hand. He stated that he never lost his anxiety regarding Crazy Hand, and that this anxiety is part of what made Super Smash Bros. so "unpredictable and fun."^[16] Commenting on Master Hand's playable appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, IGN writer Tom Marks considered it one of the best moments of 2018, stating that it made him feel nostalgic, stating that it made the dream of playing as Master Hand real.^[17]

In an article for InvenGlobal, Olivia Richman noted that Master Hand having unclear origins and motives has led to speculation and theories about who or what Master Hand represented, mentioning theories that he could represent Sakurai, different types of gamers, or the imagination of a child.^[5] IGN writer Michael Thomsen believed that the premise of Master Hand creating the conceit for the characters in the original game was clever, stating that he was a "centralizing villain" who represented the "immature state of mind of a person capable of investing themselves in an absurd fantasy world where Mario would have to fight ten Captain Falcon's in a row."^[18] Kill Screen writer Erik Fredner felt that Master Hand could be interpreted in multiple ways, including "the unmoved mover, the master’s (meaning game-maker’s) hand, and, from a certain vantage point, the player". He compared Master Hand and the Super Smash Bros. fighters with Calvin, a young boy, and Hobbes, his imaginary tiger friend, from the comic strip of the same name, stating that he was "moving them around, hitting their karate-chop buttons". Fredner cited an in-game description referring to Master Hand as the "symbolic link between the real world and the imaginary battlefields", adding that the fight against Master Hand, who he argued represented the player, represented the player overcoming their limitations.^[19]

In the book Metagaming: Playing, Competing, Spectating, Cheating, Trading, Making, and Breaking Videogames, authors Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux believed he represented staff members involved in the development of the series, including Sakurai and former HAL Laboratory CEO Satoru Iwata, They stated that Master Hand's ability to bring toys to life was comparable to the "long tradition of the hand of the animator that appears at the birth of film itself", and that after this cutscene, the control switches to the "interactive hand of the player." They also discussed the Melee glitch that allows him to be playable, stating that players utilizing this glitch represents the player choosing to subvert Sakurai's rules and that the description of him as a link between the series and the real world carried a significance that Sakurai could not have anticipated.^[20]