I forgot how it went down in brawl and melee but I just played classic mode for the.. I don't know how many times, I've been doing it for character unlocks, but this time it was on intensity 5.5 (I've been ramping it up each time) and the master/crazy hands went down a little differently. Spoilers below of the

Very early on the master hand seemed like it was dying (I kicked it, the screen froze and zoomed in on the hand as if it was about to explode out of existence) but then the two hands combined and turned into these yellow smokey swords? What the hell is that?!

Edit: This time it turned into a scorpion first before the swords at difficulty 6.0. I don't know what this all is but it's a pretty cool surprise

The enemy you just faced is called Master Core. It's the force possessing the Hands (or at least Master Hand), basically, and it's the game's new true final boss.

Master Core goes through several forms depending on the difficulty. It won't appear any lower than 5.1, and only if you face both Hands as opposed to just Master. The higher the intensity, the more forms it has. You've seen the blades and the monster, but there's also a large humanoid form and its last form is a mirror of your fighter. After you beat your mirror match, the swarm surrounding the core disappears and leaves what looks like a Smash Ball, which you must rack up damage on and knock away like normal (but if you take too long it can auto-KO you).

It's a really fun addition to the series and answers a question I think a lot of people have been asking since Melee... and it's in Sakurai's classic "surprise nightmare fuel scenario" style.

It was quite a nice surprise and I was genuinely kind of unnerved by it... 'specially the way the animal one keeps making the arena wobble all over the place.

It got nothing on Giga Bowser, though. I still find the look of that guy to be close to terrifying....

Just talking Classic in general, I'm trying to complete it on 9 now.

Firstly, whenever there's a 2v2 match, does anyone find your computer ally to be hot garbage while your two enemy AI's to be both competent?

Also, I just fought a match where an enemy diddy kong got a smash ball and literally shot up the place for like 2 minutes while I tried to dodge the peanuts. Did anyone else have that happen to them? Is that a bug? Or is there a mechanic I was not aware of like repeatedly tap special attack to lengthen his smash mode?

@lanechanger: I tried using Diddy on the training mode and I was not able to make his final smash last longer, sounds like a weird bug. The computer has always been useless when they are on my team =\ the only time the AI seems to do anything is on the Earthbound stage but not my partner, I am talking about the alien that helps you fight if you get to hit first. He is annoyingly helpful as he does a lot of damage but every time I am trying to perform a smash he kicks the enemy out of the way lol.