AFAIK, in SSB64 Jigglypuff never had this sort of "feature". When her shield broke, she got put into a stun animation. It seems like that from Brawl? onwards, this addition of her instantly rocketing to the stars once her shield broke became a thing.
Obviously, I figure there has to be a reason why this was added. I was weighing a few options in my mind but couldn't figure it out. I'm not heavily versed in Pokemon lore so there's no obvious lore reasons that come to mind why this would be a thing. Balance-wise wouldn't make sense, considering Jigglypuff has been consistently ranked pretty low in terms of power, considering she's the 2nd lightest character in the game, and gets KO'd at ridiculously low percentages. Pichu is an example of an extremely light character but doesn't instantly get KO'd if their shield breaks. In fact, Jigglypuff seems to be the only character with this.
So why is this a thing? Why does Jigglypuff instantly get KO'd when her shield breaks?
11 Answer
Jigglypuff had this feature in every Smash Bros game, not just Brawl onwards.
It has never been officially explained why this features exists. I don't think we'll ever get an offical reason as to why, but hypothesised reasons include:
- She is the balloon Pokemon. Her shield breaking is akin to a balloon popping and resulting in the balloon's loss of life.
- She was intended as a joke character in the original Smash Bros game. This feature may have been part of it, and it got carried over across the games.
- Compensation for her very large shield size relative to her actual size. However, she may have the large shield size because of her shield break feature instead of the other way round.
