Is anybody else appalled by the weak stage selection?

[yahooda]

Strongly legal:

Battlefield
Final Destination
Rainbow Road
Yoshi's Island
Prism Tower
Arena Ferox
Tortimer's Island

Tortimer's Island is probably going to get banned because of how it generates randomly

 

[CodeBlue_]

Why? The stage is super tame with all possible permutations.

What does that have to do with anything? The walk-off mechanic allows really stale play (e.g. camping) and removes the ledge mechanic. I have talked this already in my initial post. Please re-read it.

It's really not a big deal that it's randomly generated; you don't deserve an advantage in game one, and you counterpick it at your own risk.

I have no idea what you are trying to say in this statement. Please elaborate.

 

[Moldy Clay]

Honestly, my only complaints are:
1. Mega Man gets Wily's Castle again. It's bad enough Yellow Devil is a nuisance, but Sonic AND Pac-Man both have at least one stage on both games, even with Sonic's being a retro stage. That's just silly.
2. Mushroomy Kingdom is just a bad stage. I love the idea, but the only Mushroom Kingdom stages I liked were N64's and Subcon.
3. Mario doesn't really need 5 stages.
4. No Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon stage, though? C'mon.
5. No stages based on games like Pushmo.

Also, I don't know who you thought you were kidding. It was almost guaranteed that most of the stages were going to be based off of current games. What do you think Brawl and Melee did? And the Wii U version? Pulled assets, models and textures from recent games to save time. Melee less so, but still did.

Also, all the classic stages work as 'portable' ones.
Brinstar - Metroid Zero Mission
Corneria - Star Fox 64 3D
Jungle Japes - despite being named for a stage in DK64, it's like the DKC games
WarioWare - Nearly all the WarioWare titles
Yoshi's Island - Yoshi's Island Advance
PictoChat - Nintendo DS
Green Hill Zone - Sonic 3D or Sonic Genesis amongst other portable versions
Mushroomy Kingdom - SMB Deluxe
Flat Zone - Game & Watch

So you can rationalize it.

Also, it has nearly the same amount of new stages as Melee did. And you're ignoring the fact that the development is split, so there's technically way more new stages, but not on the 3DS version.

 

[CodeBlue_]

Fair enough. There are ways around walk off camping though. It isn't like it is impossible to overcome like some (not necessarily you) think. I still think they should be tested to some degree, but hey, I don't want either of us to get any more salty here. Peace?

Eh ok. I'm not saying it's impossible to overcome, I'm just saying defensive play is rewarded more. This has already been tested by two scenes, so I don't really see the value in testing it again, but be my guest.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Tortimer's Island is probably going to get banned because of how it generates randomly

I guess I'll quote myself from a few minutes ago:

Why? The stage is super tame with all possible permutations. It's really not a big deal that it's randomly generated; you don't deserve an advantage in game one, and you counterpick it at your own risk.

Banning Tortimer's Island for random generation just doesn't make any sense. There's really no gameplay situation in which the random generation makes the game less fair; IMO it actually makes the stage competitively superior to what it would be otherwise since it forces players to do more on the fly calculation of how to use the geography so it rewards being skilled more and being prepared less.

What does that have to do with anything? The walk-off mechanic allows really stale play (e.g. camping) and removes the ledge mechanic

Oh, I understand now; you're confused about what the stage does. Tortimer's Island is not a walk-off stage in any way; it's a traditional "floating" stage. It has water on both sides, but you just fall through it like air so it's the same as any other stage. I was responding to imaginary criticisms because I assumed you knew that; I'm sorry.

 

[DairunCates]

Oh, I understand now; you're confused about what the stage does. Tortimer's Island is not a walk-off stage in any way; it's a traditional "floating" stage. It has water on both sides, but you just fall through it like air so it's the same as any other stage. I was responding to imaginary criticisms because I assumed you knew that; I'm sorry.

Actually, for the record, I THINK (could be wrong, but I seem to remember something about) it does temporarily become a walk-off stage when Tortimer's boat shows up. However, the boat goes away after about 30 seconds. So, the camping viability of it is fairly limited. If someone's gonna just wait on the edge of the boat, you can just wait for the boat to start moving away.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Actually, for the record, I THINK (could be wrong, but I seem to remember something about) it does temporarily become a walk-off stage when Tortimer's boat shows up. However, the boat goes away after about 30 seconds. So, the camping viability of it is fairly limited. If someone's gonna just wait on the edge of the boat, you can just wait for the boat to start moving away.

It doesn't. The boat makes the blast zone kinda close if you're near the edge of it, but it's still not a walk-off (there's a real and substantial gap).

There's actually substantial video online of this stage and its mechanics are well understood. I don't have any of that handy, but if you just search for the SDCC top 8 matches, you'll see a few really illustrative games on Tortimer's Island that should give you a good idea how the stage works. IMO it's a really obviously legal stage; the "worst" thing is the occasional throwable items, but those are all about how a skilled player uses them so I'm pretty sure they're okay in the long run.

 

[Soul.]

This is pretty much directly in line with my expectations in terms of content selection, and more of the stages look to be high quality competitive stages than I expected at the start. Smash 4 will definitely have more new stages than Brawl; they're just divided between two versions, and it really should have been obvious that's how it was going to be from the very start (to be very clear, if there were only one version of smash 4, I think it would have had around 50 stages so we get more total stages this way just not double). How could I possibly be disappointed?

Either way, I feel confident we can easily reach good, double digit numbers of legal stages with this even making the more stubborn people happy, and we have a huge diversity too. Like here's my running tabs on stage legality:

Strongly legal:

Battlefield
Final Destination
Rainbow Road
Yoshi's Island
Prism Tower
Arena Ferox
Tortimer's Island

Reasonably Legal:

Paper Mario
Jungle Japes
Brinstar
Corneria
Reset Bomb Forest
Tomodachi Life
PictoChat
Pac Maze

Very Likely Not Legal:

Super Mario 3d Land
Golden Plains
Mushroomy Kingdom
Gerudo Valley
Spirit Train
N's Castle
Kirby's Dream Land
WarioWare
Distant Planet
Boxing Ring
Living Room
Find Mii
Balloon Fight
Flat Zone 2
Gaur Plains
Wily's Castle
Green Hill Zone

Totally Unknown:

New F-Zero Stage
Mysterious Pink Stage (Mother themed?)
Last Stage to Unlock?

That looks... pretty good to me?

Maybe it's just me, but weren't players able to change the stages to their "Ω" form? I think I saw that in some leaked image.
If this happened, stages like PictoChat would be legal. I'm completely fine with the strongly legal stages.

 

[CodeBlue_]

I guess I'll quote myself from a few minutes ago:



Banning Tortimer's Island for random generation just doesn't make any sense. There's really no gameplay situation in which the random generation makes the game less fair; IMO it actually makes the stage competitively superior to what it would be otherwise since it forces players to do more on the fly calculation of how to use the geography so it rewards being skilled more and being prepared less.



Oh, I understand now; you're confused about what the stage does. Tortimer's Island is not a walk-off stage in any way; it's a traditional "floating" stage. It has water on both sides, but you just fall through it like air so it's the same as any other stage. I was responding to imaginary criticisms because I assumed you knew that; I'm sorry.

Oh. Didn't know this wasn't a walk-off. Sorry for the trouble then ^_^.

But, I didn't know about this random lay-out. Of course there is a skill to learning how to adapt in a differing environment.

But if this layout is locked to only one, it could artificially create a bad situation for specific match-ups depending on which lay-out comes up.

I would suggest separating each layout as its own stage and just pick the stage over and over again until you get the correct lay-out.

Forcing a character to play a really bad match-up because of the roll of the die is very stupid. It's similar to the pro-item argument, which has no validity because a player can get a huge disadvantage because of a rogue capsule flying in their face. This isn't about adapting, this is about you getting screwed over, while your opponent reaps the benefits with no effort of his/her own. And this isn't appropriate for fighting games.

 

[DairunCates]

I would suggest separating each layout as its own stage and just pick the stage over and over again until you get the correct lay-out..

There's apparently over a billion permutations of this stage. You could be at it for a while.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Yeah, the thing is that it's just the following things that are random:

The dock is either on the left or right side. The dock is a grabbable ledge; the other side's ledge isn't grabbable. This is symmetric in either case.

There's a random set of trees. These are basically just platforms. Sometimes these trees have fruit which are weak throwable items (though one type of fruit can turn into banana peels).

That's... about it. The ground's shape and the general stage mechanics are the same no matter what, and the stage is always pretty simple.

There are a huge number of permutations (I've never seen the same lay-out twice), but it's always well within the range of what any character could be fairly expected to handle on game one. If you counterpick it, well, it's your counterpick; you know the risk going in.

Maybe it's just me, but weren't players able to change the stages to their "Ω" form? I think I saw that in some leaked image.
If this happened, stages like PictoChat would be legal. I'm completely fine with the strongly legal stages.

The omega stages IMO are just obviously something we don't want to use. We like having a lot of legal stages for diverse gameplay, not to look at different backgorunds. If Final Destination is already legal, what does allowing tiny variations of Final Destination do for us? PictoChat's core mechanics were really always fair, and if you didn't like the particulars of some drawings, well, the evidence is we have a totally new set of drawings. In general, that "possibly legal" group of stages I listed as such less because I think they're less fair than the first group and more because I need more information about the gameplay balance and in some cases about the stage mechanics before I have a good idea one way or another.

 

[Slyphoria]

The only thing I'm annoyed about is that of the returning stages, most of them are awful.

Jungle Japes, Mushroomy Kingdom, Brinstar, really? I hate those.

Oh, also, hi SmashBoards, first post.

 

[Spire]

The only thing I'm annoyed about is that of the returning stages, most of them are awful.

Jungle Japes, Mushroomy Kingdom, Brinstar, really? I hate those.

Oh, also, hi SmashBoards, first post.

You spent your first post hating on something in smash bros. Welcome to smashboards!~

 

[RIDLEY is too SMALL]

Yeah, If I'm being honest, I think the selection of 3DS stages is pretty abysmal. Don't get me wrong--I'm excited for the game, but the stages seem pretty disappointing.

I love Metroid and I was really looking forward to a new Metroid stage, but nope, all we get is Brinstar, my least favorite Metroid stage (why couldn't it at least have been Frigate Orpheon or Norfair?!). I love Starfox and was looking forward to a new Starfox stage, but nope, it's just Corneria again. I'm not a big fan of Pictochat, Flat Zone, Warioware, Distant Planet, Green Hill Zone, Jungle Japes . . . really, all of my favorite past stages are left out, and none of the past stages that are included (except for Yoshi's Island Brawl) are stages that I'd even want to play on.

Plus, the stage selection in general is almost entirely made up of really crazy stages with major hazards, and I know I'm not the only one who really wants to have just a few fair basic non-walk-off stages, and the 3DS version doesn't seem to have many (although the Wii U version does have a couple, thank goodness.)

It seems that after a while of playing on gimmicky stages, I'll probably end up be playing on the same couple of stages over and over on the 3DS version until the Wii U version comes out. If only there was a stage editor feature . . .

 

[strawhatninja]

I wouldn't say appalled more disappointed, but still satisfied.

 

[Soul.]

The omega stages IMO are just obviously something we don't want to use. We like having a lot of legal stages for diverse gameplay, not to look at different backgorunds. If Final Destination is already legal, what does allowing tiny variations of Final Destination do for us? PictoChat's core mechanics were really always fair, and if you didn't like the particulars of some drawings, well, the evidence is we have a totally new set of drawings. In general, that "possibly legal" group of stages I listed as such less because I think they're less fair than the first group and more because I need more information about the gameplay balance and in some cases about the stage mechanics before I have a good idea one way or another.

So they would end up being not that useful. I see. I thought they would have a use in competitive play, lol. Guess I was wrong.
PictoChat is fine. If there's a drawing players don't like, then they can just wait until the drawing is gone. Then, they can resume the match and stuff. I understand what you're saying about the possibly legal stages.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

Battlefield, Final Destination, Arena Ferox, Prism Tower and Yoshi's Island are all undeniably great neutral stages. Other stages that could be tournament legal will require some testing imo, I don't really like the looks of stages like Rainbow Road even if their hazards aren't present at all times. Personally I'm just hoping what seems to be a Magicant stage will be fairly neutral, what I'd give for a good Mother stage. I'd also have liked for them to bring back some better old stages, not ****ing Distant Planet.

 

[CatRaccoonBL]

The lack of new stages for the game really does bother me. As well as a couple of characters who really should've gotten new stages. For example, Game & Watch has plenty of history with handhelds, why couldn't he have gotten the gameboy stage? And speaking of which, Kirby has been on plenty of handheld games with unique environments. Why do we have to resort to going to the gameboy game?

Yeah, the thing is that it's just the following things that are random:

The dock is either on the left or right side. The dock is a grabbable ledge; the other side's ledge isn't grabbable. This is symmetric in either case.

There's a random set of trees. These are basically just platforms. Sometimes these trees have fruit which are weak throwable items (though one type of fruit can turn into banana peels).

That's... about it. The ground's shape and the general stage mechanics are the same no matter what, and the stage is always pretty simple.

There are a huge number of permutations (I've never seen the same lay-out twice), but it's always well within the range of what any character could be fairly expected to handle on game one. If you counterpick it, well, it's your counterpick; you know the risk going in.



The omega stages IMO are just obviously something we don't want to use. We like having a lot of legal stages for diverse gameplay, not to look at different backgorunds. If Final Destination is already legal, what does allowing tiny variations of Final Destination do for us? PictoChat's core mechanics were really always fair, and if you didn't like the particulars of some drawings, well, the evidence is we have a totally new set of drawings. In general, that "possibly legal" group of stages I listed as such less because I think they're less fair than the first group and more because I need more information about the gameplay balance and in some cases about the stage mechanics before I have a good idea one way or another.

I don't see what you mean. I for one wouldn't like to see the same looking stages over and over again. Yeah, the diverse gameplay is important, but at the same time people clearly do care about the backgrounds. Just look at how many people want a "Battlefield version" of every stage upon hearing about omega mode.

I do think the omega version make a lot of the eh stages I thought of before much more desirable with the final destination like elements with the nice backgrounds and music.

Having an option to have whatever stage you want playable in tournaments sounds awesome.

Besides, it wouldn't be a hassle. You just press one button before entering the stage then poof!

 

[BADGRAPHICS]

Too many stages are walk-offs... way too many.
Recovery is one of the main elements of Smash; walk-off stages should account for 10% at most.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I don't see what you mean. I for one wouldn't like to see the same looking stages over and over again. Yeah, the diverse gameplay is important, but at the same time people clearly do care about the backgrounds. Just look at how many people want a "Battlefield version" of every stage upon hearing about omega mode.

I do think the omega version make a lot of the eh stages I thought of before much more desirable with the final destination like elements with the nice backgrounds and music.

Having an option to have whatever stage you want playable in tournaments sounds awesome.

Besides, it wouldn't be a hassle. You just press one button before entering the stage then poof!

Think about it this way. We pick stages two ways: stage striking and counterpicking.

In stage striking, we each strike stages we find undesirable in the match-up until we arrive at the "middle" stage we find mutually most fair. Adding in Final Destination variants just clogs the system since you're not adding a new option; you're giving people another way to pick the same option. If we have 31 legal stages and 16 of them are "Final Destination", game one will always be on Final Destination. If your character sucks on Final Destination (I mained G&W in Brawl; he was good in general but HORRIBLE on Final Destination), this is ridiculously unfair. The only real sane thing is to only let Final Destination be in stage striking once, and if you only have one, it makes the most sense to use the real one.

In counterpicking players have stage bans. If I use my stage ban on Final Destination, it would be totally bogus if my opponent could pick Battlefield Omega Form to get around my stage ban. Other than that, I don't see a problem with counterpicking Omega Forms, but in terms of gameplay and interesting decision making, it's not adding a lot to the game while a stage with unique gameplay adds a whole lot (since it's a meaningful decision whether you want to counterpick it instead of a small change to the stage length/off-stage area and an aesthetic swap). So yeah, maybe the omega forms will have some small role, but they're not a good thing to focus on for early stage legality since the real main thing different stages offer us isn't a different thing to look at but differnet gameplay. That different gameplay actually offers advantages and disadvantages, and it's important to try to craft a ruleset that preserves maximum reasonable diversity to be maximally fair to the whole cast.

 

[Jdaster64]

Personally, I'm totally fine with this set of stages considering there are two versions of the game. I think the returning stages that were chosen are pretty solid in general, at least from ones in Brawl. If we don't see new Wii U stages for DK, Metroid, Wario, and Kirby (Dream Land's pretty meh representation given the recent releases), then I'll be a bit more upset.

EDIT: Disregard the "Metroid" part. That'll teach me to support series I barely follow Smash news on.

 

[Novice_Brave]

The stage selection is really the worst part of the game right now, for me. Of course it's not a huge deal in the end, I'll still love the game for sure - but I was hoping for more than ~5 stages I'd enjoy playing on regularly. The amount of stages with significant hazards is just unfortunate. I don't hate walk offs, so I'm fine with a few of those, though I do agree that walkoffs are bad for competitive play any way you slice it.

Personally, I think Tortimer Island looks fine. I also like Prism Tower, Arena Ferox, Battlefield/FD (of course), the Paper Mario stage, and Rainbow Road.

The unknown stages might prove to be pretty nice, but unfortunately I just can't say anything regarding them with confidence right now. Here's to hoping the Wii U stage selection is larger and more varied in terms of hazard/nonhazard stages.

 

[captainghost07]

guys first of all (while i still believe it) this is just a leak second of all there could still be a page 2 so i would not get too mad we only have to wait a couple of more days to find out and if this is just these stages im fine with that i like all the new stages and some of the old like warioware and corneria(but for the love of god why did mushroom kingdom have to be there)

 

[JUr]

I do think the omega version make a lot of the eh stages I thought of before much more desirable with the final destination like elements with the nice backgrounds and music.

Having an option to have whatever stage you want playable in tournaments sounds awesome.

Besides, it wouldn't be a hassle. You just press one button before entering the stage then poof!

And because of that I don't have many problems with the stage selection

 

[Nintendrone]

I think it's OK, but not great. I'm really just peeved that the Melee retro stages are appearing for the third time and that Mario has 4 new stages while other reasonably big series have none.

Oh, and Mushroomy Kingdom.

 

[Rich Homie Quan]

No lol. Appalled? I'm excited and grateful.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

What does that have to do with anything? The walk-off mechanic allows really stale play (e.g. camping) and removes the ledge mechanic. I have talked this already in my initial post. Please re-read it.

I have no idea what you are trying to say in this statement. Please elaborate.

Guys, the blast lines on many walk-off stages have already been proven to be far enough out that if you want to camp them and just chuck foes over the blast line, you're gonna be taking constant off-sceen damage. You can't camp the blast line with a percent lead anymore because your percent lead will just slowly go away while the foe does nothing but stand there. (At least, this was true of the E3/SDCC build.) At the very least, I think walk-offs merit testing even if they end up re-banned. There is absolutely no reason not to test them, unless you're worried that you'll somehow permanently kill the game's competitive scene within the first month (not likely in the slightest) just by allowing walk-offs.

Oh, also? I've seen absolutely nothing wrong with Find Mii barring a predictable stage hazard that doesn't really seem to do all that much of anything. The Dark Emperor seems to mostly just stand there and deal contact damage.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

If Green Hill Zone and Mushroomy Kingdom have final destination variants, then i'll be glad they're back

 

[Raijinken]

It's Sonic. The only iconic things about him is the Chao Garden and City Escape.

But anyways, end of snarking about Sonic.

It's a bit disappointing to some, perhaps, but there's quite possibly a whole second page of stages (like in Brawl) that isn't shown.

 

[SmashBear]

To be honest in my opinion the stage selection screen looks pretty bad and crammed and some of the stage choices seem a bit weird.But maybe in the wii u version of the game it will have a new stage for metroid and they're may be a new star fox assault themed stage so maybe the reason why stages are recycled (p.s this is pure speculation) is because that most metroid games have been on home console platforms with a exception of a few but yeah i feel some of the choices may be a bit weird

 

[LIQUID12A]

Considering the status of the game in question, it's sort of justified, but I'm appalled by the lack of a Metroid Prime Hunters stage.
You know what I would have killed for?

The Oubliette.

For those in the dark, the Oubliette is the final location in Hunters, unlocked after the Alimbic Cannon is fired with all the Octoliths.
As the name implies(oubliette comes from the French oubliette, literally "forgotten place"), it was a prison designed to seal away a dangerous threat to the universe. The threat's name...Gorea.

This is the main antagonist, whom I'll go into later.

Back on topic for a moment, why am I suggesting this over the other handhelds considering Hunters has the worst rep?
Because the stage idea is awesome.

This is where Phase 1 takes place. A circular room where Gorea was imprisoned. Not too much here except for the triangular constructs on the walls, and if you hit them all with the right weapon in a specific order...

You're teleported to the more remembered Oubliette multiplayer map. Gorea is fought in it's second form here.

Now, this idea is very easy to implement with stage transitions a la Reset Bomb Valley, but also, Gorea is a perfect stage boss candidate.

Gorea uses the Hunters weapons against you, so the issue of attacks is solved. As a reward for beating the creature, you're teleported to said second phase, where his second form attacks with lasers and debris, much like in Hunters. Here, defeating it would do nothing in game, however, just cause a large, damaging explosion.

Did I go too far?

Anyways, this is what appalls me. A perfect idea, ignored.

 

[guedes the brawler]

it's especially baffling that they brought back stuff like Jungle Japes or Brinstar that was in Brawl as a past stage already. i jus thope the wii u verison doesn't dissapoint like that

 

[Reila]

I suspect that there might be inverse distribution of new and classic stages between systems, in regards to certain franchises. Compare the following:

Metroid = Pyrosphere VS Brinstar
Star Fox = Great Fox VS Corneria
Pikmin = Garden of Hope VS Distant Planet
Sonic = Windy Hill VS Green Hill Zone
Kirby = Halberd VS Dream Land (Gameboy Stage)

It seems that if a series gets a classic stage one system, it has a chance of getting an exclusive stage on the other. As a result, the Wii U stage roster could have something like this:

DK = DKCR stage VS Jungle Japes
F-Zero = Port Town Aero Dive VS SNES Mute City
Mother = Onett or New Pork VS Magicant
Yoshi = New stage? VS Yoshi's Island
Wario = New stage? VS WarioWare Inc.

This inverse-parallel principle doesn't seem to apply to the Big Ones (Mario, Zelda, Pokemon), nor to the "new" series (Animal Crossing, Kid Icarus, Fire Emblem, etc.). Some stages are shared, but I suppose that's only fair.

So my suspicion is that, in order to alleviate the stage workload, they adopted this tit-for-tat approach. Instead of creating 60- something unique stages from the ground-up, they used classic stages to lessen the workload across both systems (stage-sharing, like in Wily's Castle, would also help).

Basically, each system has 5 shared stages (e.g. Boxing Ring), 19 system-exclusive (i.e. "brand new") stages, and 10 classic stages (from Melee/Brawl). When I look at things in this way, the 3DS stage roster seems much more palatable.

You could take umbrage with how they only made 40 new stages instead of 68, but when you remember the immense workload (50 characters, two systems, modes, game balance, etc. etc.), it's understandable that compromises would need to be made.


EDIT: I hear that Pictochat may be a new Pictochat (i.e. "Pictochat 2"). If it is a new stage, then the cross-system distribution is 5-20-9; if it's the one from Brawl, the distribution is 5-19-10.

Great post, I like this theory. I just don't want the Wii U version to have lot of new stages while the 3DS version gets tons of returning ones.

 

[Sehnsucht]

Great post, I like this theory. I just don't want the Wii U version to have lot of new stages while the 3DS version gets tons of returning ones.

Under my theory, they won't.

Each system will get the five shared stages -- Battlefield, Final Destination, Boxing Ring, Gaur Plain, and Wily's Castle. Each system will have 19 brand new, system-exclusive stages, and each system will have 10 classic stages from Melee or Brawl (for a total of 34 on either system).

The only thing is that some systems will get some new stages for some franchises, but not for others. For example, as per this theory, the 3DS gets a new Kirby stage, but the Wii U doesn't. The Wii U gets a new Star Fox stage, but the 3DS doesn't. And so it goes for the smaller franchises.

If the 3DS doesn't seem to have that many new stages, it's only because we know far more about the 3DS than the Wii U. After all, the only classic stage revealed for the Wii U so far is Halberd. There are nine more waiting in the wings.

Once we see the Wii U stage roster, we'll see that a good third of it will be made of Melee and Brawl stages -- just like in the 3DS version. It looks lopsided now, but I think it will look more level as more Wii U stages are revealed and confirmed.

That is, if my inverse-parallel and cross-system distribution principles are proven correct.

 

[Reila]

Under my theory, they won't.

Each system will get the five shared stages -- Battlefield, Final Destination, Boxing Ring, Gaur Plain, and Wily's Castle. Each system will have 19 brand new, system-exclusive stages, and each system will have 10 classic stages from Melee or Brawl (for a total of 34 on either system).

The only thing is that some systems will get some new stages for some franchises, but not for others. For example, as per this theory, the 3DS gets a new Kirby stage, but the Wii U doesn't. The Wii U gets a new Star Fox stage, but the 3DS doesn't. And so it goes for the smaller franchises.

If the 3DS doesn't seem to have that many new stages, it's only because we know far more about the 3DS than the Wii U. After all, the only classic stage revealed for the Wii U so far is Halberd. There are nine more waiting in the wings.

Once we see the Wii U stage roster, we'll see that a good third of it will be made of Melee and Brawl stages -- just like in the 3DS version. It looks lopsided now, but I think it will look more level as more Wii U stages are revealed and confirmed.

That is, if my inverse-parallel and cross-system distribution principles are proven correct.

Some people will be bothered by the idea of Kirby not getting a brand new stage for the Wii U version, but... I still like this theory. I mean, if we can handle not having new Metroid, DK and Sonic stages, Wii U-only players can handle the lack of a new Kirby stage.

We like having a lot of legal stages for diverse gameplay, not to look at different backgorunds.

Speaking for yourself.

 

[ToothiestAura]

I am mildly disappointed in the returning stages. However, I doubt that leak had all the stages. So it is likely redeemable in that regard.

Gerudo Valley seems pretty awesome: decent set-up and amazing soundtrack.

Prism Tower seems to be lovely.

Spirit Tracks looks fun and the music seems nice.

Gaur Plains also seems promising due to set-up ad music.

 

[Sehnsucht]

Some people will be bothered by the idea of Kirby not getting a brand new stage for the Wii U version, but... I still like this theory. I mean, if we can handle not having new Metroid, DK and Sonic stages, Wii U-only players can handle the lack of a new Kirby stage.

Precisely. It's unfortunate that we couldn't have new content for all franchises across both systems, but to expect as much is fairly wishful thinking, considering the immense development workload. With two games with tons of content being developed simultaneously, compromises and work-arounds were inevitable.

I do think that, with that in mind, we got a pretty good deal, all things considered.

 

[Raijinken]

Considering the status of the game in question, it's sort of justified, but I'm appalled by the lack of a Metroid Prime Hunters stage.
You know what I would have killed for?

The Oubliette.

For those in the dark, the Oubliette is the final location in Hunters, unlocked after the Alimbic Cannon is fired with all the Octoliths.
As the name implies(oubliette comes from the French oubliette, literally "forgotten place"), it was a prison designed to seal away a dangerous threat to the universe. The threat's name...Gorea.

This is the main antagonist, whom I'll go into later.

Back on topic for a moment, why am I suggesting this over the other handhelds considering Hunters has the worst rep?
Because the stage idea is awesome.

This is where Phase 1 takes place. A circular room where Gorea was imprisoned. Not too much here except for the triangular constructs on the walls, and if you hit them all with the right weapon in a specific order...

You're teleported to the more remembered Oubliette multiplayer map. Gorea is fought in it's second form here.

Now, this idea is very easy to implement with stage transitions a la Reset Bomb Valley, but also, Gorea is a perfect stage boss candidate.

Gorea uses the Hunters weapons against you, so the issue of attacks is solved. As a reward for beating the creature, you're teleported to said second phase, where his second form attacks with lasers and debris, much like in Hunters. Here, defeating it would do nothing in game, however, just cause a large, damaging explosion.

Did I go too far?

Anyways, this is what appalls me. A perfect idea, ignored.

I would so love a Hunters stage (though not as much as I'd love Sylux, Weavel, or Spire).

I seem to recall there being a lot of viable-seeming areas in the versus mode, as well, to make a stage setting out of. But it's possible Nintendo just noticed that they'd screwed canon beyond repair and decided to ignore Hunters.

 

[LIQUID12A]

I would so love a Hunters stage (though not as much as I'd love Sylux, Weavel, or Spire).

I seem to recall there being a lot of viable-seeming areas in the versus mode, as well, to make a stage setting out of. But it's possible Nintendo just noticed that they'd screwed canon beyond repair and decided to ignore Hunters.

It's not in this post, but I swear I heard you say Other M somewhere when writing that.

Call me crazy, but I swear it happened.

 

[Raijinken]

It's not in this post, but I swear I heard you say Other M somewhere when writing that.

Call me crazy, but I swear it happened.

I WISH they would ignore Other M, but sadly, they seem to be ignoring the game I liked, not the game I ignore.

I do feel that every series should have gotten a new stage on each version, but at the same time, some of them have gone so long without a new game (Starfox, F-Zero, Mother) that they're sorta running out of iconic locations.