Starter character

A starter character is a character in the  series who is available for play immediately after turning the game on for the first time; the player does not have to unlock or challenge that character in order to be able to select it (as one must do to select unlockable characters).

Trivia

 * ,, , , , , , and are the only starter characters in SSF2 who have been unlockable characters in at least one of the official  games prior to their inclusions.
 * Although Captain Falcon and Jigglypuff are starter characters, they each had to be unlocked in the demo version they debuted in.
 * Falco and Mr. Game & Watch are the only starter characters that have never been starters in the official games.
 * Luigi, Mr. Game & Watch,, and had their availability statuses swapped from unlockable to starter between their transitions from SSF to SSF2.