I just noticed that Wario's moveset is different, he doesn't have his bike because it didn't exist until the WarioWare games, and his down special is a ground pound, which makes sense since is a move that wario uses in his boss fight in Mario land 2, that's such an awesome attention to detail
I have to admit that this video is really impressive; being a "What If" video but that does take either interesting or very plausible ideas for the game (the secondary stage music), taking pages from what Brawl ended up making (the extra stages), or even through the awesome mods out there in order to visually represent all of these cut ideas (characters), and getting to back-up almost everything with information from Sakurai himself. While the idea of Brawl stuff being implemented in Melee like that sounds a bit crazy, it does work well enough as a representation of the idea, and if anything, there have been so many times of Sakurai getting to use ideas for past games into the next ones (like everything you mentioned that was intended from 64 to Melee, and the Final Smashes alongside the Fire Emblem stages also being planned in Melee). Oh, and while it feels a bit odd that there's nothing mentioned about Sonic, I did read somewhere that the consideration of Sonic in Melee was mentioned only by Yuji Naka instead of Sakurai, and while it was apparently dropped due to time constraints, I guess that there's either no solid proof on that he would have been in anyways as Sakurai only talked about him during Brawl, was an idea brought by Naka but not realized or prioritized by Sakurai, or the fact that everything else mentioned in the video would likely have received more priority than Sonic. Keep spreading the Melee love my dude!
Thank you so much! Yes that was my plan, a feasible explanation for what Melee could have really been like if it had been given more time. There are plenty of clues out there to look at, and I frankly am surprised not many other people are doing this, especially with Melee modding really taking off recently and it becoming more and more feasible to include these visual aids. And you are 100% on the money with Sonic. I thought about it, but ultimately figured even the idea of a third party character being included would have probably needed to be something that was planned from the beginning, so even if Yuji Naka did contact Sakurai and he did seriously consider it, who know if even 6 extra months would work with a contract with Sega and Nintendo, since the Dreamcast was just barely at end of life at that point, and would have still been seen as more of a competitor.
I love the concept for the Adventure mode stages, it reminds me a lot of the Subspace Emissary from Brawl. If we could get a version like that but for Melee, that would be sick. Awesome vid David! Glad I could help with some of my mod creations!
Thank you very much. Yes, my problem with Brawl's Subspace Emissary mode is, although the story is really fun and there's some serious novelty around these characters interacting in cutscenes, the actual levels can be fairly bland and uninspired. The generic Subspace world is not that interesting compared to Melee's approach of literally visiting the worlds of the playable characters. Also, it is WAY too long and drawn out, especially near the end when it's really a grind. I'd replay Melee's Adventure mode way more times even if it was just a bit longer. I love your Urban Champion and Ayumi mods, they're SO cool. And I can't wait to see what you make next.
@@davidvkimball so true! Subspace gets put on a pedestal by people nowadays but it never really fit smoothly into the rest of the game. Melee's adventure mode always felt like an incomplete piece of a side scrolling mode that could've been pretty great.
Clicked for the Ayumi representation but that fleshed out version of Adventure Mode was the highlight. Really love the idea of traveling a Route and battling some of the roster Pokemon on the way to the Stadium fight or doing a bit of a standard Kirby first level before the Green Greens fights.
the adventure stages were mindblowing with how accurate they look it rlly is like a more finished version that fills those awkward abrupt transitions to other worlds, especially the donkey kong stage shoutouts to modders and yourself for putting this all together ❤
I had been thinking of a timeline where Melee came out in mid-to-late 2002 and wasn't required to be a launch title (which it ended up missing anyway) so I'm glad you talked about this. Most of your vision sounds great, especially the fleshed out Adventure Mode, but in my vision... - Either Sonic or Snake would be added, as they were personal requests. SEGA's budding relationship with Nintendo will ease negotiations. (yeah, it needed to have been planned first) - Board the Platforms would be added to Classic Mode and "snag trophies" bonus stage would be part of Trophies (think Coin Launcher from Brawl) -Ness would get a new costume based on Lucas, despite Earthbound 64 (Mother 3) being cancelled, just as a nod - A " back stage" based on A Link to the Past, probably the Dark World - Wario might be able to get one stage, presumably based on Wario Land 4 - Another Johto Pokemon may be included - More trophies from future releases - Funal Smashes would be implemented and make their debut
Yay! - I don't think a third party rep could have worked without being planned from the beginning. - Agreed, great ideas regarding Board the Platforms and Snag the Trophies being added - Love the idea of a Lucas nod!
I think instead of Roy we would’ve gotten Lyn to promote the FE7/Blazing Sword if that were the case and maybe even Krystal from Starfox Adventures but that’s a stretch and I’m getting ahead of myself lol.
I'm actually quite surprised Falco got in over Wolf. One would expect the body shape to be more similar between Fox and Wolf and that adding a villain to face off against Fox would be better than making just one of his teammates playable.
Right! However I think the other Star Fox team members were more popular in the Smash 2 pill, also Sakurai wanted to add the other Star Fox team members since Smash 64.
Yeah that’s pretty ironic now that you mention it. If I had to choose between Wolf and Falco it will always be Wolf. Seems like Falco is now grandfathered into Smash and will likely never get cut. Same with Roy too who originally wasn’t going to be in but instead, Leif from Thracia 776.
@@brandonwilliams6119 Well at least Roy was promoting the release of a new game. Falco had no monetary incentive there. I guess he just got in because Sakurai liked him better than Wolf (and to his credit, he is certainly the coolest of the original Star Fox team). Incidentally Roy being included in Smash before his game was even released kind of made him pretty inaccurate in Smash. For one he looks a few years older in Smash, but more directly, in his own game he's noticeable for having a long range weapon while in Smash they kind of made him a close range fighter because it was easy to make Marth with an altered sweet spot (not sure why they didn't just give him the Lucina treatment though). Kind of disappointing that in his two subsequent appearances they never attempted to give him anything resembling a projectile.
This is a wonderful take on what a more complete Melee would've looked like. (emphasis on "more complete" since I imagine even with the extra 6 months, they still might not have been able to implement everything they wanted to) The choices for stuff to include in the game are very interesting. Ayumi, especially, was a curious decision as I wasn't even aware her game existed until I saw this video. I also love the expansion to Adventure Mode, as that was my favorite mode to play through! To think Smash Balls were a concept even before Brawl's conception astounds me, I think that's one of my favorite bits of trivia to discover from this video. While not my first game ever, Melee was the first game I ever owned along with the GCN being my first owned console, and watching this whole video brought back so many feelings I had experienced in all the time I played this game. For me, Melee was more than just a game, it was a gateway that opened up so many new worlds beyond the imagination of little me. I was especially awed when I encountered Marth and Roy and unlocked them, and thinking about it, maybe I would've felt the same for Ayumi since before Melee, the world I perceived was simply just the U.S. (despite what I learned in social studies lmao) Makes me even more grateful they allowed Marth and Roy to be playable in the international release! Despite some of the rep it got later on in the mid 2010s and so, when I look back to Melee, I just can't help but smile and try to envision what it may had been like were it to had recieve it's full development. That said, I am still grateful for what we got at the time and forever, it is ingrained in my memory as the beginning of my journey across series both on and not on Nintendo platforms. I hope this mod continues to grow, I remember one of the things I learned later that made me sad was the Archanea stage being initially planned only to be scrapped before it could even be fully realized, so to see an attempt to bring it to life using Castle Seige as a base brings a smile to my face. I also love the inclusion of tracks like Boy Meets Girl and the theme for FE1's First Battle Map as well! Bless you for making this video!
What a magical comment! Thank you! Final Smashes were actually planned for Smash 64 originally! If you enjoyed these bits of trivia, I strongly recommend you watch my documentary on Melee's development, I think you'd learn a lot and get much enjoyment out of it! ua-cam.com/video/-3HiXYdFz38/v-deo.html
I really like this concept! The only thing I have a major disagreement with is Ayumi being a Zelda semiclone, Sakurai would've definitely give her a unique moveset. Other then that I love what you did for everything else.
@@Klonoahedgehog I made a moveset for Ayumi, faithful to her origins but functional. Even Lofi Robot Guy (The user who's working on Ayumi's mod) would use that to improve her.
Great video. I feel like one last detail they would have changed with 6 extra months would be to have given Luigi his own unique voice clips instead of sped-up Mario clips.
I think it is worth mentioning in the video that final smashes had sound effects in 64. I think that makes them a likely inclusion in Melee, had they been given more time.
Resetti getting swallowed up by brinstar juice and saying "there ain't much air in here" or something was comedy gold. Great job planning that one out David, you entertainer you
The fact that Melee was made in little more than a year is such an incredible feat. Looking back today, when the game has been so dissected, it's easy for people to call it "broken" and "buggy" but playing it casually when it came out, it actually felt extremely polished and had massive amounts of content compared to other fighting games from its era. It's crazy to think about how much more could've been done with just a few months of development, although the team probably would've taken things a bit easier if they had more time, realistically speaking.
You're probably right on the latter point about taking it easy. I don't understand why people would call the game broken or buggy though. Compared to any other game released around that time it's not.
Brawl Minus just had its 12th anniversary and the devs released a post going into detail on their team growth, and the upcoming version. They're still chugging away at getting their next big update out after all this time. It's unfortunate to not see it included amongst the rest of the mods here
Since we got Famicom Detective Club in the west in a form of remakes of the 2 games, I hope Sakurai will add Ayumi in the next installment in the future. And hey, Ayumi is voiced by Videl in Japan!
They have revisited old concepts and made them realities years later, like with the Ditto PokeBall. I would love to see Ayumi because I think she would have a unique play style, and I think we need to have more obscure characters in Smash Bros. This is why I want to see Takumaru and Euden in Smash Bros as well, since they come from obscure franchises and could have unique play styles (despite both of them being “anime sword fighters”).
My Version of Melee with full development time would be this -All the characters work solidly and have little to no broken aspects -Ganondorf would be given a moveset that represents him in orcarina of time
19:32 It would be cool if each Master Sword pedestal could start a fight with other characters besides Link, such as Zelda, Sheik, and Young Link. Also, it would be cool if Zelda or Link teamed up with you in the next stage to fight a powered up Ganondorf on Temple. I just had an idea for it, actually: Ganondorf would be invulnerable to the player unless Zelda/Link attacks him first, making him vulnerable for a bit (a reference to OoT). Maybe Zelda/Link could glow with light and Ganon could glow with dark purple to indicate this mechanic or something, and when his protection is down, his glow would disappear. Zelda/Link might have to be able to respawn for this concept to work, though. I'd also want 1 custom color slot per name tag. I'll reply to this comment if I get another idea.
This is the kind of video I love seeing. Not sure if I should describe them as what ifs but I always love the idea of thinking, what if that old game had more development time, more specifically, Smash Bros games since it really can feel like looking in an alternative universe and how it can change the future of the series. I also like the extra stages ideas for the Adventure mode.
Really cool vid. Interesting to see what could've been. I heard from other places that sukapon would've like a moveable platform to ride on, but i thought that never made much sense for the character.
First off, outstanding work on your PSA for Sukapon. And yes, Sakurai himself mentioned that characters could ride on him as an item in Melee, but he was cut. Super weird, I had trouble making sense of it, too. lol
As iconic as the Melee voices for Fox and Falco are, I would’ve loved it if they had their Star Fox Adventures voices in the game. I love Star Fox Adventures, so having even a small part of that immortalised inside Melee would’ve been awesome to see
That was so cool! For my Vision, Wario would've been in Melee early after Bowser and Dedede's debut in Smash 64 in the alternate timeline. Wario has his own franchise which represents Wario Land in Melee. I was hoping that the clones are still gonna be there. And you know what Sakurai said If he could have added one or two more characters, then he might be able to include Wario. And yes, I like to think Ganondorf will only have four unique moves which is his double netrual attack with palms, forward aerial, forward tilt and forward smash that involves his sword from Spaceworld 2000 while the rest of his moves were cloned from Falcon. :)
Good video! Everything in the video is so good, the way you say everything, and it even makes you want to be in that timeline and play that version of Melee, of course, without Poke Floats... Lol, Also that everything in the video looks so real, even in the parts where you use the Smash 2 mod. Also, I would like to see someone else do the same but with Smash 64 as an example, knowing that according to Sakurai that game could only have had 60% of the 100% that Sakurai wanted, we would have had King Dedede, Bowser, Mewtwo or Marth, and who knows, some other character, (Of which, 3 we already have in Smash Remix)
Another thing about the characters. According to Did You Know Gaming, it was stated that Sonic and Solid Snake were considered for Melee via request by thier creators Yuji Naka (Sonic) and Hideo Kojima (Solid Snake). But they were cut due to time constraints.
If there was a super smash bros melee definitive edition they should add online multiplayer, final smashes, assist trophies, an option to change the controls, c stick smash attack charge, all the n64 stages & the added fighters would be wario (with a wario land based moveset), diddy kong, wolf, sonic & King Dedede.
Main reason why I would want Ayumi in the game was so that Smash can have a character whose name starts with the letter "a" (excluding skins of course)
Amazing video, David! It's no surprise to me! Thanks so much for all this cool information! I particularly enjoyed your additions to Adventure mode. If you had told me that all of that was Sakurai's original plan, I would have believed you! It was perfect! It was nice to see all the amazing Smash Mods back to back. As a kid,I never would have dreamed we would be able to add so much to the games we love!
Finally got around to watching this very nice. The one thing I would maybe change about your vision of Adventure mode is having the Underground Maze use the unused version of the Temple theme the Yotsuya Kaidan version as the tone seems like it fits that adventure mode stage better than the final version of Temple, other than that I can't really think of anything else to change this hypothetical version of Melee except for maybe giving Young Link his Majora's Mask Gear instead of his Oot Gear when possible (which would be everything but the Boomerage since that's not in Majora's Mask so that would be based on Oot still). Good work as usual.
Oh, and also you are godlike for sourcing literally everything you show off in the description, both for giving the various creators the credit they deserve, and for making it easy for people to check their stuff out themselves.
This is the absolute best video and subsequent representation of what a more fully realized Melee would look like, the amount of research and thought put into this is incredibly commendable. Also nice to see how much farther Melee modding is coming in comparison to it's younger Wii sibling now. Curious to see more of Ayumi though, by far the most interesting pick for the roster here.
That is very fascinating to think about, I love how we reached the point where we can make certain dreams come true in Melee and things that never went as planned due to those grueling 13 months of development, also Ayumi Tachibana is Ultra Based!
I wish Nintendo would reconsider about re-release melee with the additional features that were cut. It's been over 21 years now and it would be a good idea to celebrate the game that hyped this series.
Thinking of the Gamecube Launch, with a bit more development time putting Melee in a post launch window, there'd be a bit of reflecting on the console. With a bit more time I think Luigi would have at least gotten real voice lines (even just repurposed Luigi's Mansion clips), and maybe his grab would have been the vacuum. Not the plunger thing, just sucking in air in front of him. Hard to see Pikmin not getting anything. Think Pikmin could have been an item - after you pluck it the pikmin follows you around for a bit and attacks enemies, and you can throw them. And Wave Race and 1080 Snowboarding probably don't go empty handed - I remember them being thought of as legitimate franchises back in 2001 (I remember the chronicles of 1080 Avalanche's delayed development). Maybe just trophies? Finally, there would be a gamecube stage, similar to Mario Kart Double Dash. Just a gamecube you fight on top of. Maybe a trophy tussle event (or could be the location of the final showdown).
Another thing I think could be a “what if” if there was more dev time would be Luigi’s design. His model would be more akin to his Luigi’s Mansion model, and his voice would be his actual voice instead of just Mario’s voice pitched up.
Including Ayumi sounded like a stretch before watching the video and, after watching it, tbh it still sounds like a stretch. Sakurai didn't really sound like he wanted that.
So for Onett, I think that would deserve a section as well, walking through the town of Onnet Fighting some Mother enemies, like the Devil Cars (Which appear in Smash Run later) And then Fire Emblem you would have a battlefield where you fight through bandits, cultists, and maybe some monsters before facing the Lord's on Castle Seige.
Great idea for the Mother series! Although my thought about Emblem was since it's an unlockable series, I'm not sure it would be included in Adventure Mode.
I love the Ideas of these new upgrades/updates version of thus and always feels like a "Director's Cut" to some things that didn't' make It In the original and I appreciate the new changes that you do. Though I may be mostly a "Brawl" and "Ultimate" person myself (mostly on Ultimate since "Brawl was more of my teen years), It's still always nice to revisit Melee to relive some of my Inner nostalgia and still hope to see my other favourites who deserves to be In for the next update as well. Will there also be newer cutscenes when facing other challenger or the giant versions of them or everything will remain the same? For example; we got Luigi jumping ontop of Mario head and you have to fight him and Princess Peach, but how would Diddy be Introduce or will the duo appear like normal or that depend If you unlock everything but If you didn't unlock the secret challenger you can still unlock them In regular adventure?
I really want to see Ayumi as a playable character! She would be a really interesting character and it would bring a more obscure character into Smash Bros!
Where has *this* video been these past couple years of my life? I always love me some extensive what-if scenarios on video games, whether it's about explaining how a less-than-stellar game could've been salvaged, or imagining how a great game could've turned out even better. Melee, a title that has enjoyed fame (and infamy) since it's release way back in 2001, had a development period that was as fascinating as it was strict, what with it needing to be out by the holiday season of that year to push early Gamecube sales. You have to wonder how the system would've gotten by if Smash fans had to wait until the middle of 2002. Wario, Diddy Kong, Wolf and Charizard may have needed another game, in the latter half of the 2000s, to get into the series, but they feel so at home in Melee, as if they were meant to make the cut a lot sooner. For the fifth extra character, call it wishful thinking, but I imagine King Dedede getting in a game earlier, too, just to immediately complete the tetrad of those whom were considered for the Nintendo 64 original. Kirby is Sakurai-san's pride and joy, after all. A note about character select arrangement: I like the idea of Wolf being positioned under Falco, at the bottom-left, sitting parallel to where Ganondorf is, the top-right. Concerning the addition of stages, besides Kongo Jungle, Yoshi's Island, Dream Land and Meta Crystal, Hyrule Castle and Saffron City would probably be the best choices to bring back from the original Super Smash Bros. stage selection, for extra Zelda and Pokémon stage representation, and their designs. To save on building time, I'd picture Icicle Mountain and Flat Zone remaining the only stages for Ice Climbers and Game & Watch, and only *one* Fire Emblem stage, which would be placed above Flat Zone on the stage select screen. But, if Sprout Tower were to have gotten made and replaced Poké Floats, here's an idea on preserving the *idea* of that stage. Keep the idea of giant character floats/statues/animatronics, but change the theme. How about... *Famicom/NES* Floats? Yeah, the background and function of the stage would be the same, but instead of Pokémon, there'd be various characters from the many small Famicom and NES titles (that aren't Ice Climber). Ayumu would be included, along with Balloon Fighter, Mach Rider, Takamaru, Tamagon, Bubbles, Sukapon, Donbe & Hikari, Eggplant Man, the ducks from Duck Hunt, and more. They could even use the trophy designs. On the stage select screen, this would go under Icicle Mountain. Also, the main music track for it could be a Famicom Detective Club theme as a tribute to the most notable Smash newcomer who never was. Speaking of music tracks, here are alternate music track ideas: a remix of Koopa's/Bowser's Road from Super Mario 64 for Rainbow Cruise, remix of Lockjaw's Saga from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest for Kongo Falls, a remix of The Last Iceberg from Kirby's Dream Land 3 for Fountain of Dreams, a remix of Meteo from Star Fox 64 for Corneria, a remix of Lower Norfair from Super Metroid for Brinstar Depths, and a remix of White Land II from F-Zero for Mute City. Also, I'd swap the main music tracks of Corneria and Venom. One more thing I'd add is another Event Match, bringing the total of those up to an even 52. It would simply be an alternate take on The Showdown where the player battles Bowser, Metal Mario and Giant Donkey Kong on Battlefield. I'd call it Boss Rushdown. And that concludes my giant comment. Thanks for reading if you have! Subscription activate!
I would love to see what King Dedede would have looked like in Melee. Come to think of it, other than his larger size and hammer attacks, he could have been programmed as a clone of Kirby. He floats and inhales like Kirby (without the whole copy ability part), and his side special could be the same as Kirby’s. His up special, the Dedede Jump, is a floatier but stronger version of Kirby’s up special, Final Cutter, and his down special could be like his dash attack where he falls over, but stronger and made to resemble Kirby’s stone attack. Melee Dedede’s move-set could be just like the old attacks he had in the boss fights in Kirby’s Dreamland, Super Star, et cetera. Just a thought.
My opinion may be most generic, but I'm still waiting for Sonic... I mean, if Smash 2 and Smash Remix did it, it MUST be possible to have a Melee Sonic that doesn't seem out of place.
Having actually played the Famicom Detective Club games, I just don't see any reason for Ayumi to ever have been made playable. Like, I get Sakurai said she was a character he would've wanted, but I think that was just from the perspective of "If I was a fan waiting for Smash, what character would *I* want?" I think he already put the consideration in, and I don't think he would've actually included her, even if he had a whole extra year of development time. Maybe in *very* particular circumstances, like he had a little extra time to add one clone fighter, and FDC was making a resurgence or something
I love pokefloats but bell sprout tower sounds really fun! I’m also curious if Ganon did start with his swords how that would have effected him in later releases
I'm not sure I follow the logic on Ayumi. That quote by Sakurai implies he thinks she's a poor fit for the game (like his stance on Animal Crossing characters at the time). Seems like a big reach to me.
Rewatching this a few years later, a few thoughts on Sakurai's inclusions and exclusions range into the ironic. He actually held significantly more power to giving some characters more popularity than he believed, like Fire Emblem being finally given a translation and becoming quite popular. We legit could've gotten ports of the Famicom Detective Club games DECADES sooner, possibly on the GBA, instead of just three years ago on the Switch. But that also goes the other way I suppose, in that Fire Emblem could've ended up never getting ported at all. Debates on if that would've been good or not is up in the air, as it might've also given the Advance Wars series a bit of a boost perhaps. Knock-on effects on top of knock-on effects, but all just pure speculation.
I honestly wonder if given more time, if we would've had Paula from Earthbound as a clone of Ness. Also, I think Meta Knight and King Dedede would've been high considerations if more time was given.
You should upload a video with another melee what if but having 1 more year of development,including new characters like sonic,shadow,zero suit samus and probably more cutscenes in adventure mode
All you said + Dedede and Meta Knight. That would be my favorite Smash game, period. I know Sakurai didn't want to have more Kirby reps in Melee but c'mon! Dedede and Metaknight are staple since the NES days. Ridley too since the opening scene hypes them so bad.
@@davidvkimball Also, Famitsu is pronounced like Fami-tsu, not Fa-mitsu (I'm saying emphasis on the first syllable). It's FAMI as in "Famicom", plus TSU as in "Tsūshin". And Iwata is *ee-wah-tah* (tho, you say tuh at the end, that's fine). I think aside from English, the Latin letter *I* is called "ee". Well, aside from Japanese, cuz English speakers taught them the letter names, BUT they still use it as Latin intended. As seen in "Iwata". English's "Great Vowel Shift" turned the letter Ah (A) into EY, EY (E) into EE, and EE (I) into AY. In case you were curious as to why and how English is the only one like that.
Snake would have almost absolutely been included considering the request from Kojima was in the tail end of Melee's development and Sakurai couldn't do it in time, so when Brawl hit, he went out of his way to slot him in.
Also if melee got a extra 2 months I could strongly see blazakin from Pokémon making a appearance. As the first episode with it aired in September 2002 for Japan and it was used to hype up ruby and sapphire I could see it being ether a playable character or some sorta Easter egg maybe in a pokeball
Fantastic video, I think this version of Melee could've been potentially even better than what we got in many ways. Personally, although the ideas for Adventure Mode were great, I think increasing its length so much would reduce replayability.
Fair enough Andrew, I did think about that, so I didn't add too much extra. Just adding two net-new stages (Minecart Madness and Pokemon Route to Vermilion City) and replacing two stages (first Kirby vs. is the Pop Star / Dream Land adventure part, and first Fox encounter is replaced with the Asteroid encounter).
I always felt Melee was held back because of it launching within the first few months of the GameCube. It was miracle that the game was even out and had a positive reception. I personally believed the game needed more time in development and shouldn’t have been crunched. The end product was fine and all, but this video greatly illustrates what could’ve been.
I'm very happy with the Melee we got. Could more dev time improved it? Maybe, but you could say that about any game. As it stands, Melee's my favorite game of all time.
You meantiomed that one of the factors for encountering giga bowser was whether you use continues or not but that only applies to get the giga bowser trophy.
also, another interesting fact is that Sakurai was originally going to add Leif is the second Fire Emblem character, but that was changed to Roy to coincide with the release of Binding Blade in Japan
One thing Melee and Brawl have over Ultimate is a good adventure mode. I wish we got something that combined the CG cutscenes of Subspace and Taboo with the levels taken from actual games.
I remember rumors that Solid Snake and Sonic were on the table but were too late to be included. GoldenEye Bond would have been incredible and i would've loved having Wario Land Wario in there. This would've really fleshed out the year 2000 vibe from Melee. My favorite thing about it.
Two things(aside from holy crap this is so cool thanks for visualizing it like this) 1. As much as I'd love to see Ayumi be playable, I think we dodged a bullet if it ment she'd be an echo of Zelda. I've mained Zelda since Brawl and I like her moveset, but I think we can all agree that it's really underwhelming compared to the options she had. Smash was faithful with it to a fault too, since they didn't want to change anything about it until they had to for Smash 4. I wouldn't want Ayumi to have a similar fate, and she definitely would've if they were willing to copy-paste Zelda's design flaws and all. 2. This might be a bit ambitious, but I think it would be awesome to have branching paths for adventure mode depending on how well you do. I don't mean a world map pick your route sort of thing. I mean having a hidden objective that would determine whether you stay on Route A(which I'll call the true route) or go to Route B on a few stages. For regular fight stages, it would be simple stuff like beat within X minutes or don't lose X amount of stocks. These wouldn't be harsh, this is designed with casual players in mind and bad luck can always happen, but they would still be tight enough to keep players on their toes. With the adventure mode exclusive stages, it could be something like find the secret switch/item or reach checkpoint before enemy Y. This would be harder to implement well because the level design would have to imply the hidden objective exists at all. We don't want a straightforward Mario-esque platforming section with a secret item box in a random block here. That's fine in regular Mario because missing that just means missing a small bonus, while in this game it means missing out on the complete experience(Route A). Going to Route B wouldn't be terrible, but it would be shorter than Route A, therefore less fufilling. The whole mode is pretty short in vanilla Melee, so it would increase the longevity in a way that would push players to get better.
Were there any games that were known to be coming but weren't quite released yet around the time of Melee? It's kinda like how Ultimate has nods to the, at the time, unreleased Luigi's Mansion 3 and Yoshi's Crafted World
Yes, Fire Emblem the Binding Blade. The first game with Roy was set to release after. Same with Animal Crossing in the west. Several other trophies have "future release" in their descriptions. Edit: there were probably others like Metroid Prime which was in concept phase fairly early on. Same with Double Dash, but many changed drastically after Melee's release.
Including Ganondorf and Bowser were by themselves mindblowing back in 2001. Also, Mewtwo (an actually cool Pokemon character). Melee set a high bar for new characters.
I bet most of the alternate colors representing characters were a sign of those such characters being likely, especially someone like Daisy since her color swap for Peach had literal model alterations.
I actually think we could have even seen more than some of the stuff mentioned. It was about 50% more time in overall terms but the engine itself had to be developed in that 13 month window as well.
I have an intriguing idea. What if Super Smash Bros. (N64) had a Game Boy Color adaptation in 2000 developed by Camelot Software Planning? and What if Super Smash Bros. Melee had a Game Boy Advance adaptation in 2002?
Man, I would've loved to see how the following would've been like in Melee; Ike, Byleth, Pyra/Mythra, Palutena, Hero, Joker, Terry, Cloud, Sephiroth and Inkling Maybe with all this technology that is now available a retroactive game putting all the available characters in Ultimate into in Melee. Also I miss that Melee Link render and voice was always my favorite version of Link.
They would also fix all the attacks that seem unfinished or with mistakes. Like a lot of Mr. Game and Watch aerials and shield, Link's nair, Roy's dash attack and like you added: The clone characters having more unique attacks.
I’m no competitive player but I worry for L cancelling, Wave Dashing and other advanced techniques that give the game it’s own identity. They probably would’ve removed those during those 6 extra months.
@@brandonwilliams6119 Nope! L-canceling was deliberately put into the game, as Sakurai has confirmed several times, and wavedashing was known by the development team and Sakurai mentioned its utility when a fan asked about it. So I don't agree!
this is a pretty cool video and now that i think about it, i new wonder what all the other games would be like have they readded all the planned, considered and scrapped characters, including characters who joined in later games appearing in games they weren't in originally, like having Sora in Brawl with his Kingdom Hearts 2 design or adding in Cloud And Sephiroth to the first game and Melee
![[SSBU] Jumping is Overpowered](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BmcpWL4FEp8/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for watching! If you enjoyed this, you might be interested in my documentary on Melee's development: ua-cam.com/video/-3HiXYdFz38/v-deo.html
If they had more Time they”d probably add combos and fix all the broken mechanics
@@BurningRubber454 huh? Haha
@Ever alexander martinez lopez lol, as soon as someone makes it, I'll cover it.
E
@@davidvkimball what’s not to understand
I just noticed that Wario's moveset is different, he doesn't have his bike because it didn't exist until the WarioWare games, and his down special is a ground pound, which makes sense since is a move that wario uses in his boss fight in Mario land 2, that's such an awesome attention to detail
Yes, Smash mod does a wonderful job with that!!
Makes me wish he was included sooner. The fart move damaged Wario's reputation.
Well it is one of his primary moves in Wario Land as well
@@RichterTheRat I hate how Wario is now some funny fart guy and not the opposite of Mario, he should be selfish and greedy not smelly and disgusting.
@@piranhalettuce My thoughts exactly.
*Macho Jerk Wario >>> Gross Wario*
It's nice to see the Melee modding community getting some attention.
Well-deserved to be honest. Some outstanding creators there.
You can tell some of the footage shown is from modded Brawl, notably anything showing Wario
@@kerokerocola99 I'm pretty sure all of the Wario footage is melee but even then I'm only 1/3 of my way through as of commenting
@@90sNath The Wario footage is not melee, it's a Brawl mod called Smash 2
@@kerokerocola99 Yeah, but it’s still a mod involving Melee assets. OPs comment still applies.
I have to admit that this video is really impressive; being a "What If" video but that does take either interesting or very plausible ideas for the game (the secondary stage music), taking pages from what Brawl ended up making (the extra stages), or even through the awesome mods out there in order to visually represent all of these cut ideas (characters), and getting to back-up almost everything with information from Sakurai himself. While the idea of Brawl stuff being implemented in Melee like that sounds a bit crazy, it does work well enough as a representation of the idea, and if anything, there have been so many times of Sakurai getting to use ideas for past games into the next ones (like everything you mentioned that was intended from 64 to Melee, and the Final Smashes alongside the Fire Emblem stages also being planned in Melee).
Oh, and while it feels a bit odd that there's nothing mentioned about Sonic, I did read somewhere that the consideration of Sonic in Melee was mentioned only by Yuji Naka instead of Sakurai, and while it was apparently dropped due to time constraints, I guess that there's either no solid proof on that he would have been in anyways as Sakurai only talked about him during Brawl, was an idea brought by Naka but not realized or prioritized by Sakurai, or the fact that everything else mentioned in the video would likely have received more priority than Sonic.
Keep spreading the Melee love my dude!
Thank you so much! Yes that was my plan, a feasible explanation for what Melee could have really been like if it had been given more time. There are plenty of clues out there to look at, and I frankly am surprised not many other people are doing this, especially with Melee modding really taking off recently and it becoming more and more feasible to include these visual aids.
And you are 100% on the money with Sonic. I thought about it, but ultimately figured even the idea of a third party character being included would have probably needed to be something that was planned from the beginning, so even if Yuji Naka did contact Sakurai and he did seriously consider it, who know if even 6 extra months would work with a contract with Sega and Nintendo, since the Dreamcast was just barely at end of life at that point, and would have still been seen as more of a competitor.
that extended Adventure Mode looks so fun, I wanna try it out
Hey
same
Thank you!!
I love the concept for the Adventure mode stages, it reminds me a lot of the Subspace Emissary from Brawl. If we could get a version like that but for Melee, that would be sick. Awesome vid David! Glad I could help with some of my mod creations!
Thank you very much. Yes, my problem with Brawl's Subspace Emissary mode is, although the story is really fun and there's some serious novelty around these characters interacting in cutscenes, the actual levels can be fairly bland and uninspired. The generic Subspace world is not that interesting compared to Melee's approach of literally visiting the worlds of the playable characters. Also, it is WAY too long and drawn out, especially near the end when it's really a grind. I'd replay Melee's Adventure mode way more times even if it was just a bit longer.
I love your Urban Champion and Ayumi mods, they're SO cool. And I can't wait to see what you make next.
@@davidvkimball so true! Subspace gets put on a pedestal by people nowadays but it never really fit smoothly into the rest of the game. Melee's adventure mode always felt like an incomplete piece of a side scrolling mode that could've been pretty great.
@@Wuss2ns absolutely true.
The DK Mine Cart section would’ve been very fun and intuitive!
@@brandonwilliams6119 Glad you think so!!
Clicked for the Ayumi representation but that fleshed out version of Adventure Mode was the highlight. Really love the idea of traveling a Route and battling some of the roster Pokemon on the way to the Stadium fight or doing a bit of a standard Kirby first level before the Green Greens fights.
Thank you! It was really fun to dream up!
Bruh, mewtwo would've kicked ass to go up against!
Incredible video. David does it again.
Thank you Space!! I'm glad you enjoyed it
love your channel space chicken! Please upload soon.
the adventure stages were mindblowing with how accurate they look
it rlly is like a more finished version that fills those awkward abrupt transitions to other worlds, especially the donkey kong stage
shoutouts to modders and yourself for putting this all together ❤
Thank you!! That was the idea. I wanted to find things that would make sense and fit aesthetically!
I had been thinking of a timeline where Melee came out in mid-to-late 2002 and wasn't required to be a launch title (which it ended up missing anyway) so I'm glad you talked about this.
Most of your vision sounds great, especially the fleshed out Adventure Mode, but in my vision...
- Either Sonic or Snake would be added, as they were personal requests. SEGA's budding relationship with Nintendo will ease negotiations. (yeah, it needed to have been planned first)
- Board the Platforms would be added to Classic Mode and "snag trophies" bonus stage would be part of Trophies (think Coin Launcher from Brawl)
-Ness would get a new costume based on Lucas, despite Earthbound 64 (Mother 3) being cancelled, just as a nod
- A " back stage" based on A Link to the Past, probably the Dark World
- Wario might be able to get one stage, presumably based on Wario Land 4
- Another Johto Pokemon may be included
- More trophies from future releases
- Funal Smashes would be implemented and make their debut
Yay!
- I don't think a third party rep could have worked without being planned from the beginning.
- Agreed, great ideas regarding Board the Platforms and Snag the Trophies being added
- Love the idea of a Lucas nod!
@@davidvkimball yeah, you're right about third party characters being planned. Stay tuned for my edit.
I think instead of Roy we would’ve gotten Lyn to promote the FE7/Blazing Sword if that were the case and maybe even Krystal from Starfox Adventures but that’s a stretch and I’m getting ahead of myself lol.
I never knew how much I needed an Adventure mode stage based on DKC's minecart levels until now
:D
I'm actually quite surprised Falco got in over Wolf. One would expect the body shape to be more similar between Fox and Wolf and that adding a villain to face off against Fox would be better than making just one of his teammates playable.
Right! However I think the other Star Fox team members were more popular in the Smash 2 pill, also Sakurai wanted to add the other Star Fox team members since Smash 64.
Yeah that’s pretty ironic now that you mention it. If I had to choose between Wolf and Falco it will always be Wolf. Seems like Falco is now grandfathered into Smash and will likely never get cut. Same with Roy too who originally wasn’t going to be in but instead, Leif from Thracia 776.
@@brandonwilliams6119 Well at least Roy was promoting the release of a new game. Falco had no monetary incentive there. I guess he just got in because Sakurai liked him better than Wolf (and to his credit, he is certainly the coolest of the original Star Fox team). Incidentally Roy being included in Smash before his game was even released kind of made him pretty inaccurate in Smash. For one he looks a few years older in Smash, but more directly, in his own game he's noticeable for having a long range weapon while in Smash they kind of made him a close range fighter because it was easy to make Marth with an altered sweet spot (not sure why they didn't just give him the Lucina treatment though). Kind of disappointing that in his two subsequent appearances they never attempted to give him anything resembling a projectile.
Idk, to me Wolf would seem too much like a cheap clone. Even more so than Falco
@@Jotari don't know why. Swordfighters with projectiles are cringe
This is a wonderful take on what a more complete Melee would've looked like. (emphasis on "more complete" since I imagine even with the extra 6 months, they still might not have been able to implement everything they wanted to)
The choices for stuff to include in the game are very interesting. Ayumi, especially, was a curious decision as I wasn't even aware her game existed until I saw this video. I also love the expansion to Adventure Mode, as that was my favorite mode to play through!
To think Smash Balls were a concept even before Brawl's conception astounds me, I think that's one of my favorite bits of trivia to discover from this video.
While not my first game ever, Melee was the first game I ever owned along with the GCN being my first owned console, and watching this whole video brought back so many feelings I had experienced in all the time I played this game.
For me, Melee was more than just a game, it was a gateway that opened up so many new worlds beyond the imagination of little me. I was especially awed when I encountered Marth and Roy and unlocked them, and thinking about it, maybe I would've felt the same for Ayumi since before Melee, the world I perceived was simply just the U.S. (despite what I learned in social studies lmao)
Makes me even more grateful they allowed Marth and Roy to be playable in the international release!
Despite some of the rep it got later on in the mid 2010s and so, when I look back to Melee, I just can't help but smile and try to envision what it may had been like were it to had recieve it's full development. That said, I am still grateful for what we got at the time and forever, it is ingrained in my memory as the beginning of my journey across series both on and not on Nintendo platforms.
I hope this mod continues to grow, I remember one of the things I learned later that made me sad was the Archanea stage being initially planned only to be scrapped before it could even be fully realized, so to see an attempt to bring it to life using Castle Seige as a base brings a smile to my face.
I also love the inclusion of tracks like Boy Meets Girl and the theme for FE1's First Battle Map as well!
Bless you for making this video!
What a magical comment! Thank you!
Final Smashes were actually planned for Smash 64 originally!
If you enjoyed these bits of trivia, I strongly recommend you watch my documentary on Melee's development, I think you'd learn a lot and get much enjoyment out of it! ua-cam.com/video/-3HiXYdFz38/v-deo.html
Did you also know that Leif from Thracia 776 was originally going to be the Marth Clone before they settled on Roy?
Man your killing it with these melee vids! Loved every bit of this What IF!
Thank you so much! I want to make more!
ganondorf needs an ENTIRE new move set. even untimate doesn't feel like him. making him a c falcon clone was stupid
You might like my video 'What if Melee was the first Smash game?'
@@PlayPodOG If he gets a better recovery, he instantly jumps to A tier
I really like this concept! The only thing I have a major disagreement with is Ayumi being a Zelda semiclone, Sakurai would've definitely give her a unique moveset. Other then that I love what you did for everything else.
Thank you! The semi clone bit was to justify her as a last-minute inclusion only, since 5 more characters is in and of itself a stretch!
What would they even give her? The Detective club games dont exactly give her much to work with.
@@Klonoahedgehog Improvisation is the key.
@@Klonoahedgehog I made a moveset for Ayumi, faithful to her origins but functional. Even Lofi Robot Guy (The user who's working on Ayumi's mod) would use that to improve her.
@@GlitchanBlack Yeah but that can't always work.
Great video. I feel like one last detail they would have changed with 6 extra months would be to have given Luigi his own unique voice clips instead of sped-up Mario clips.
True!
I think it is worth mentioning in the video that final smashes had sound effects in 64. I think that makes them a likely inclusion in Melee, had they been given more time.
It's a great point!
Resetti getting swallowed up by brinstar juice and saying "there ain't much air in here" or something was comedy gold. Great job planning that one out David, you entertainer you
Hahahaha
The fact that Melee was made in little more than a year is such an incredible feat. Looking back today, when the game has been so dissected, it's easy for people to call it "broken" and "buggy" but playing it casually when it came out, it actually felt extremely polished and had massive amounts of content compared to other fighting games from its era. It's crazy to think about how much more could've been done with just a few months of development, although the team probably would've taken things a bit easier if they had more time, realistically speaking.
You're probably right on the latter point about taking it easy. I don't understand why people would call the game broken or buggy though. Compared to any other game released around that time it's not.
Brawl Minus just had its 12th anniversary and the devs released a post going into detail on their team growth, and the upcoming version. They're still chugging away at getting their next big update out after all this time. It's unfortunate to not see it included amongst the rest of the mods here
That's a good point. I should have included it! I was thinking more about Melee and 64-derivative mods since those are my favorite Smash games.
That's a good point as well. I can see how it would have stuck out a bit then. Still a great watch nonetheless!
@@EpicNonBread Thanks!!
unacceptably low view count for the amount of effort you put in, I hope this gets a big bump. very well done
Thanks!!
Since we got Famicom Detective Club in the west in a form of remakes of the 2 games, I hope Sakurai will add Ayumi in the next installment in the future. And hey, Ayumi is voiced by Videl in Japan!
true!!
i think they will just rerelease Ultimate for new consoles. maybe with new dlc passes
@@Hugo_Prolovski That honestly.sounds.really.lame.since Ultimate ain't exactly a perfect game to put it lightly
Ayumi could be so fun and interesting to play, I hope one day it’s realized.
They have revisited old concepts and made them realities years later, like with the Ditto PokeBall. I would love to see Ayumi because I think she would have a unique play style, and I think we need to have more obscure characters in Smash Bros. This is why I want to see Takumaru and Euden in Smash Bros as well, since they come from obscure franchises and could have unique play styles (despite both of them being “anime sword fighters”).
My Version of Melee with full development time would be this
-All the characters work solidly and have little to no broken aspects
-Ganondorf would be given a moveset that represents him in orcarina of time
19:32 It would be cool if each Master Sword pedestal could start a fight with other characters besides Link, such as Zelda, Sheik, and Young Link. Also, it would be cool if Zelda or Link teamed up with you in the next stage to fight a powered up Ganondorf on Temple. I just had an idea for it, actually: Ganondorf would be invulnerable to the player unless Zelda/Link attacks him first, making him vulnerable for a bit (a reference to OoT). Maybe Zelda/Link could glow with light and Ganon could glow with dark purple to indicate this mechanic or something, and when his protection is down, his glow would disappear. Zelda/Link might have to be able to respawn for this concept to work, though.
I'd also want 1 custom color slot per name tag. I'll reply to this comment if I get another idea.
These are all great ideas!
This is the kind of video I love seeing. Not sure if I should describe them as what ifs but I always love the idea of thinking, what if that old game had more development time, more specifically, Smash Bros games since it really can feel like looking in an alternative universe and how it can change the future of the series. I also like the extra stages ideas for the Adventure mode.
I'm really glad you enjoyed this. It's fun to spark that kind of imaginative process, where you think about what could have been in a creative way.
Really cool vid. Interesting to see what could've been. I heard from other places that sukapon would've like a moveable platform to ride on, but i thought that never made much sense for the character.
First off, outstanding work on your PSA for Sukapon. And yes, Sakurai himself mentioned that characters could ride on him as an item in Melee, but he was cut. Super weird, I had trouble making sense of it, too. lol
Wario would’ve been in Melee if There had been a little more time for Melees development as Sakuri stated so he definitely would’ve Been there
Yep
As iconic as the Melee voices for Fox and Falco are, I would’ve loved it if they had their Star Fox Adventures voices in the game. I love Star Fox Adventures, so having even a small part of that immortalised inside Melee would’ve been awesome to see
I missed your comment here! Thank you
That was so cool! For my Vision, Wario would've been in Melee early after Bowser and Dedede's debut in Smash 64 in the alternate timeline. Wario has his own franchise which represents Wario Land in Melee. I was hoping that the clones are still gonna be there. And you know what Sakurai said If he could have added one or two more characters, then he might be able to include Wario. And yes, I like to think Ganondorf will only have four unique moves which is his double netrual attack with palms, forward aerial, forward tilt and forward smash that involves his sword from Spaceworld 2000 while the rest of his moves were cloned from Falcon. :)
I'd like to think similar to PM Ganondorf!
Good video! Everything in the video is so good, the way you say everything, and it even makes you want to be in that timeline and play that version of Melee, of course, without Poke Floats... Lol, Also that everything in the video looks so real, even in the parts where you use the Smash 2 mod.
Also, I would like to see someone else do the same but with Smash 64 as an example, knowing that according to Sakurai that game could only have had 60% of the 100% that Sakurai wanted, we would have had King Dedede, Bowser, Mewtwo or Marth, and who knows, some other character, (Of which, 3 we already have in Smash Remix)
Thank you so much!! I'm open to that.
Another thing about the characters. According to Did You Know Gaming, it was stated that Sonic and Solid Snake were considered for Melee via request by thier creators Yuji Naka (Sonic) and Hideo Kojima (Solid Snake). But they were cut due to time constraints.
Yes, but there's also an issue of third parties, which was unprecedented for the series at the time. Not many people bring that up.
If there was a super smash bros melee definitive edition they should add online multiplayer, final smashes, assist trophies, an option to change the controls, c stick smash attack charge, all the n64 stages & the added fighters would be wario (with a wario land based moveset), diddy kong, wolf, sonic & King Dedede.
Great idea!
Alternate title;
What if Sakurai overworked himself on Melee for 6 more months?
@@autismtony2404 yeah lol
Main reason why I would want Ayumi in the game was so that Smash can have a character whose name starts with the letter "a" (excluding skins of course)
^ABSOLUTELY
Amazing video, David! It's no surprise to me!
Thanks so much for all this cool information! I particularly enjoyed your additions to Adventure mode. If you had told me that all of that was Sakurai's original plan, I would have believed you! It was perfect! It was nice to see all the amazing Smash Mods back to back. As a kid,I never would have dreamed we would be able to add so much to the games we love!
Thanks Carl! That's really nice of you to say. 😊
Now I wanna see competitive melee played with this.
Would be fun to see! Anyone that plays competitive with the Akaneia build would be pretty close!
Finally got around to watching this very nice. The one thing I would maybe change about your vision of Adventure mode is having the Underground Maze use the unused version of the Temple theme the Yotsuya Kaidan version as the tone seems like it fits that adventure mode stage better than the final version of Temple, other than that I can't really think of anything else to change this hypothetical version of Melee except for maybe giving Young Link his Majora's Mask Gear instead of his Oot Gear when possible (which would be everything but the Boomerage since that's not in Majora's Mask so that would be based on Oot still). Good work as usual.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, man! I like the idea of making Young Link more of a Majora's Mask rep. That would be outstanding.
You really make this all feel authentic in a way that just looking at screenshots of it wouldn't. Great video as always!
Oh, and also you are godlike for sourcing literally everything you show off in the description, both for giving the various creators the credit they deserve, and for making it easy for people to check their stuff out themselves.
Thank you so much!
This is the absolute best video and subsequent representation of what a more fully realized Melee would look like, the amount of research and thought put into this is incredibly commendable. Also nice to see how much farther Melee modding is coming in comparison to it's younger Wii sibling now. Curious to see more of Ayumi though, by far the most interesting pick for the roster here.
Thank you so much!!
That is very fascinating to think about, I love how we reached the point where we can make certain dreams come true in Melee and things that never went as planned due to those grueling 13 months of development, also Ayumi Tachibana is Ultra Based!
Yay, I think so too! Thanks for commenting. :)
I wish Nintendo would reconsider about re-release melee with the additional features that were cut. It's been over 21 years now and it would be a good idea to celebrate the game that hyped this series.
Agreed, although it's hard to imagine Nintendo would do it justice at this point.
Thinking of the Gamecube Launch, with a bit more development time putting Melee in a post launch window, there'd be a bit of reflecting on the console.
With a bit more time I think Luigi would have at least gotten real voice lines (even just repurposed Luigi's Mansion clips), and maybe his grab would have been the vacuum. Not the plunger thing, just sucking in air in front of him.
Hard to see Pikmin not getting anything. Think Pikmin could have been an item - after you pluck it the pikmin follows you around for a bit and attacks enemies, and you can throw them.
And Wave Race and 1080 Snowboarding probably don't go empty handed - I remember them being thought of as legitimate franchises back in 2001 (I remember the chronicles of 1080 Avalanche's delayed development). Maybe just trophies?
Finally, there would be a gamecube stage, similar to Mario Kart Double Dash. Just a gamecube you fight on top of. Maybe a trophy tussle event (or could be the location of the final showdown).
Another thing I think could be a “what if” if there was more dev time would be Luigi’s design. His model would be more akin to his Luigi’s Mansion model, and his voice would be his actual voice instead of just Mario’s voice pitched up.
Agreed on the voice - not sure about the art direction though. Check out my latest video if you want a taste of a Mansion-ified Luigi!
"Animal Crossing Characters are obviously unsuitable" - Sakurai
*looks at Villager and Isabelle in Smash*
This aged well
Including Ayumi sounded like a stretch before watching the video and, after watching it, tbh it still sounds like a stretch. Sakurai didn't really sound like he wanted that.
Fair enough! It probably is a stretch. But it was possible.
So for Onett, I think that would deserve a section as well, walking through the town of Onnet Fighting some Mother enemies, like the Devil Cars (Which appear in Smash Run later)
And then Fire Emblem you would have a battlefield where you fight through bandits, cultists, and maybe some monsters before facing the Lord's on Castle Seige.
Great idea for the Mother series! Although my thought about Emblem was since it's an unlockable series, I'm not sure it would be included in Adventure Mode.
I love the Ideas of these new upgrades/updates version of thus and always feels like a "Director's Cut" to some things that didn't' make It In the original and I appreciate the new changes that you do. Though I may be mostly a "Brawl" and "Ultimate" person myself (mostly on Ultimate since "Brawl was more of my teen years), It's still always nice to revisit Melee to relive some of my Inner nostalgia and still hope to see my other favourites who deserves to be In for the next update as well.
Will there also be newer cutscenes when facing other challenger or the giant versions of them or everything will remain the same? For example; we got Luigi jumping ontop of Mario head and you have to fight him and Princess Peach, but how would Diddy be Introduce or will the duo appear like normal or that depend If you unlock everything but If you didn't unlock the secret challenger you can still unlock them In regular adventure?
OH heck yeah! More cutscenes would be amazing. Just harder to illustrate those things in this video. 😂
@@davidvkimball Oh okay. Sorry If confused you but my English Isn't too broken all the time. ^^;
That is an amazing video of what if Super Smash Bros Melee got more development time
Thank you!
I really want to see Ayumi as a playable character! She would be a really interesting character and it would bring a more obscure character into Smash Bros!
Where has *this* video been these past couple years of my life?
I always love me some extensive what-if scenarios on video games, whether it's about explaining how a less-than-stellar game could've been salvaged, or imagining how a great game could've turned out even better. Melee, a title that has enjoyed fame (and infamy) since it's release way back in 2001, had a development period that was as fascinating as it was strict, what with it needing to be out by the holiday season of that year to push early Gamecube sales. You have to wonder how the system would've gotten by if Smash fans had to wait until the middle of 2002.
Wario, Diddy Kong, Wolf and Charizard may have needed another game, in the latter half of the 2000s, to get into the series, but they feel so at home in Melee, as if they were meant to make the cut a lot sooner. For the fifth extra character, call it wishful thinking, but I imagine King Dedede getting in a game earlier, too, just to immediately complete the tetrad of those whom were considered for the Nintendo 64 original. Kirby is Sakurai-san's pride and joy, after all.
A note about character select arrangement: I like the idea of Wolf being positioned under Falco, at the bottom-left, sitting parallel to where Ganondorf is, the top-right.
Concerning the addition of stages, besides Kongo Jungle, Yoshi's Island, Dream Land and Meta Crystal, Hyrule Castle and Saffron City would probably be the best choices to bring back from the original Super Smash Bros. stage selection, for extra Zelda and Pokémon stage representation, and their designs. To save on building time, I'd picture Icicle Mountain and Flat Zone remaining the only stages for Ice Climbers and Game & Watch, and only *one* Fire Emblem stage, which would be placed above Flat Zone on the stage select screen. But, if Sprout Tower were to have gotten made and replaced Poké Floats, here's an idea on preserving the *idea* of that stage.
Keep the idea of giant character floats/statues/animatronics, but change the theme. How about... *Famicom/NES* Floats? Yeah, the background and function of the stage would be the same, but instead of Pokémon, there'd be various characters from the many small Famicom and NES titles (that aren't Ice Climber). Ayumu would be included, along with Balloon Fighter, Mach Rider, Takamaru, Tamagon, Bubbles, Sukapon, Donbe & Hikari, Eggplant Man, the ducks from Duck Hunt, and more. They could even use the trophy designs. On the stage select screen, this would go under Icicle Mountain. Also, the main music track for it could be a Famicom Detective Club theme as a tribute to the most notable Smash newcomer who never was.
Speaking of music tracks, here are alternate music track ideas: a remix of Koopa's/Bowser's Road from Super Mario 64 for Rainbow Cruise, remix of Lockjaw's Saga from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest for Kongo Falls, a remix of The Last Iceberg from Kirby's Dream Land 3 for Fountain of Dreams, a remix of Meteo from Star Fox 64 for Corneria, a remix of Lower Norfair from Super Metroid for Brinstar Depths, and a remix of White Land II from F-Zero for Mute City. Also, I'd swap the main music tracks of Corneria and Venom.
One more thing I'd add is another Event Match, bringing the total of those up to an even 52. It would simply be an alternate take on The Showdown where the player battles Bowser, Metal Mario and Giant Donkey Kong on Battlefield. I'd call it Boss Rushdown.
And that concludes my giant comment. Thanks for reading if you have!
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas. I really enjoyed reading them!
22:00 TRANS ROY LET’S GOOOOO
@@NothingUnderCtrl Trans Roy my beloved
I would love to see what King Dedede would have looked like in Melee. Come to think of it, other than his larger size and hammer attacks, he could have been programmed as a clone of Kirby. He floats and inhales like Kirby (without the whole copy ability part), and his side special could be the same as Kirby’s. His up special, the Dedede Jump, is a floatier but stronger version of Kirby’s up special, Final Cutter, and his down special could be like his dash attack where he falls over, but stronger and made to resemble Kirby’s stone attack.
Melee Dedede’s move-set could be just like the old attacks he had in the boss fights in Kirby’s Dreamland, Super Star, et cetera. Just a thought.
My opinion may be most generic, but I'm still waiting for Sonic... I mean, if Smash 2 and Smash Remix did it, it MUST be possible to have a Melee Sonic that doesn't seem out of place.
Keep your eyes peeled!
@@davidvkimball oh, you don't even need to ask
Having actually played the Famicom Detective Club games, I just don't see any reason for Ayumi to ever have been made playable. Like, I get Sakurai said she was a character he would've wanted, but I think that was just from the perspective of "If I was a fan waiting for Smash, what character would *I* want?"
I think he already put the consideration in, and I don't think he would've actually included her, even if he had a whole extra year of development time. Maybe in *very* particular circumstances, like he had a little extra time to add one clone fighter, and FDC was making a resurgence or something
Fair!
If it means losing PokeFloats it's not worth it
LOL
I love pokefloats but bell sprout tower sounds really fun! I’m also curious if Ganon did start with his swords how that would have effected him in later releases
@@JenSpinsSGP agree! Thanks for the comment
I'm not sure I follow the logic on Ayumi. That quote by Sakurai implies he thinks she's a poor fit for the game (like his stance on Animal Crossing characters at the time). Seems like a big reach to me.
Could be a reach for sure. Based on what I read I felt it was feasible!
Rewatching this a few years later, a few thoughts on Sakurai's inclusions and exclusions range into the ironic. He actually held significantly more power to giving some characters more popularity than he believed, like Fire Emblem being finally given a translation and becoming quite popular. We legit could've gotten ports of the Famicom Detective Club games DECADES sooner, possibly on the GBA, instead of just three years ago on the Switch.
But that also goes the other way I suppose, in that Fire Emblem could've ended up never getting ported at all. Debates on if that would've been good or not is up in the air, as it might've also given the Advance Wars series a bit of a boost perhaps. Knock-on effects on top of knock-on effects, but all just pure speculation.
@@macavityomega love the commentary. Great points made, thanks
I honestly wonder if given more time, if we would've had Paula from Earthbound as a clone of Ness. Also, I think Meta Knight and King Dedede would've been high considerations if more time was given.
I haven't heard "Eye-wata" said that way for a long, long time. Brought me back to 2005. Wonderful vid :3
Thank you!!
BRAVO, this was amazing! I loved Adventure Mode the most
Thanks man! I used your Kamek render in this video lol.
kid Dracula and his fireballs would have been perfect
@@AviciisGhost true!
You should upload a video with another melee what if but having 1 more year of development,including new characters like sonic,shadow,zero suit samus and probably more cutscenes in adventure mode
All you said + Dedede and Meta Knight. That would be my favorite Smash game, period. I know Sakurai didn't want to have more Kirby reps in Melee but c'mon! Dedede and Metaknight are staple since the NES days. Ridley too since the opening scene hypes them so bad.
I completely agree.
Felt like for Pokemon, Mewtwo should have a cutscene where he floats in and laughs then you fight him
6:04 that’s probably the most accurate wolf model and I’m not sure how to get that to happen
The "keke" in "totakeke" is pronounced like "K. K.", thus the name!
Ah, good correction! Thank you.
@@davidvkimball Also, Famitsu is pronounced like Fami-tsu, not Fa-mitsu (I'm saying emphasis on the first syllable). It's FAMI as in "Famicom", plus TSU as in "Tsūshin".
And Iwata is *ee-wah-tah* (tho, you say tuh at the end, that's fine). I think aside from English, the Latin letter *I* is called "ee". Well, aside from Japanese, cuz English speakers taught them the letter names, BUT they still use it as Latin intended. As seen in "Iwata". English's "Great Vowel Shift" turned the letter Ah (A) into EY, EY (E) into EE, and EE (I) into AY. In case you were curious as to why and how English is the only one like that.
@@Schwarzorn Helpful, thanks!!
This idea of What ifs for game development would actually be a cool idea for videos for other games
Thanks! If only the modding tools were as fleshed out for other games
I love this community
Same!
Can we get a "What if Melee get a expanded Wii port" next, like opposed to what Iwata proposed if Brawl didn't happen but took a step further?
That's a good idea!
weird how we still havent gotten a famicom detective club fighter yet we have gotten everyone else
Ha, yeah.
Snake would have almost absolutely been included considering the request from Kojima was in the tail end of Melee's development and Sakurai couldn't do it in time, so when Brawl hit, he went out of his way to slot him in.
Not sure about that.
Also if melee got a extra 2 months I could strongly see blazakin from Pokémon making a appearance. As the first episode with it aired in September 2002 for Japan and it was used to hype up ruby and sapphire I could see it being ether a playable character or some sorta Easter egg maybe in a pokeball
Ha. That'd be so cool!
12:37 Yikes. That song almost made them cry?
Great video! Well paced with a concise script / edit and everything is sourced properly. I love to see content like this!
Thank you so much!
It's hilarious when fans does a better job than Nintendo
Ha, well we're using HAL's work as a base here, to be fair.
16:15 oh boy, did Sakurai sure deliver on that one!
Yep. lol
Fantastic video, I think this version of Melee could've been potentially even better than what we got in many ways. Personally, although the ideas for Adventure Mode were great, I think increasing its length so much would reduce replayability.
Fair enough Andrew, I did think about that, so I didn't add too much extra. Just adding two net-new stages (Minecart Madness and Pokemon Route to Vermilion City) and replacing two stages (first Kirby vs. is the Pop Star / Dream Land adventure part, and first Fox encounter is replaced with the Asteroid encounter).
I always felt Melee was held back because of it launching within the first few months of the GameCube. It was miracle that the game was even out and had a positive reception.
I personally believed the game needed more time in development and shouldn’t have been crunched. The end product was fine and all, but this video greatly illustrates what could’ve been.
I'm very happy with the Melee we got. Could more dev time improved it? Maybe, but you could say that about any game. As it stands, Melee's my favorite game of all time.
You meantiomed that one of the factors for encountering giga bowser was whether you use continues or not but that only applies to get the giga bowser trophy.
Oh really?? Haha I guess I got mixed up.
also, another interesting fact is that Sakurai was originally going to add Leif is the second Fire Emblem character, but that was changed to Roy to coincide with the release of Binding Blade in Japan
That's right.
One thing Melee and Brawl have over Ultimate is a good adventure mode. I wish we got something that combined the CG cutscenes of Subspace and Taboo with the levels taken from actual games.
I completely agree!!
17:10
Mr. Resetti: “Phew. Ain’t enough air around here.”
Also Mr. Resetti: *literally 7 feet deep in gross brain acid*
I remember rumors that Solid Snake and Sonic were on the table but were too late to be included. GoldenEye Bond would have been incredible and i would've loved having Wario Land Wario in there. This would've really fleshed out the year 2000 vibe from Melee. My favorite thing about it.
Two things(aside from holy crap this is so cool thanks for visualizing it like this)
1. As much as I'd love to see Ayumi be playable, I think we dodged a bullet if it ment she'd be an echo of Zelda. I've mained Zelda since Brawl and I like her moveset, but I think we can all agree that it's really underwhelming compared to the options she had. Smash was faithful with it to a fault too, since they didn't want to change anything about it until they had to for Smash 4. I wouldn't want Ayumi to have a similar fate, and she definitely would've if they were willing to copy-paste Zelda's design flaws and all.
2. This might be a bit ambitious, but I think it would be awesome to have branching paths for adventure mode depending on how well you do. I don't mean a world map pick your route sort of thing. I mean having a hidden objective that would determine whether you stay on Route A(which I'll call the true route) or go to Route B on a few stages. For regular fight stages, it would be simple stuff like beat within X minutes or don't lose X amount of stocks. These wouldn't be harsh, this is designed with casual players in mind and bad luck can always happen, but they would still be tight enough to keep players on their toes. With the adventure mode exclusive stages, it could be something like find the secret switch/item or reach checkpoint before enemy Y. This would be harder to implement well because the level design would have to imply the hidden objective exists at all. We don't want a straightforward Mario-esque platforming section with a secret item box in a random block here. That's fine in regular Mario because missing that just means missing a small bonus, while in this game it means missing out on the complete experience(Route A). Going to Route B wouldn't be terrible, but it would be shorter than Route A, therefore less fufilling. The whole mode is pretty short in vanilla Melee, so it would increase the longevity in a way that would push players to get better.
You are right about the Ayumi/Zelda thing, just look at Falcondorf lol we could’ve ended up with Zelyumi and it continuing for future installments.
Ha! Fair point about Zelyumi. Also regarding your ideas about alternate paths in Adventure Mode, yeah that's a sick idea. Reminds me of Star Fox 64.
Wonderful. I would’ve played as Ayumi from Famicom Detective Club if it happens
@@SarahWestFriendlyXanaduQueen thanks!
Were there any games that were known to be coming but weren't quite released yet around the time of Melee? It's kinda like how Ultimate has nods to the, at the time, unreleased Luigi's Mansion 3 and Yoshi's Crafted World
Yes, Fire Emblem the Binding Blade. The first game with Roy was set to release after. Same with Animal Crossing in the west. Several other trophies have "future release" in their descriptions.
Edit: there were probably others like Metroid Prime which was in concept phase fairly early on. Same with Double Dash, but many changed drastically after Melee's release.
Don't forget Sonic was initially going to be in melee but couldn't happen do to time. So he came to Brawl.
That's not really true. He was never officially planned for Melee.
Including Ganondorf and Bowser were by themselves mindblowing back in 2001. Also, Mewtwo (an actually cool Pokemon character). Melee set a high bar for new characters.
Agreed! Well said.
Great video, thanks for the info on Melee and having all info in description!
You're welcome!!
I bet most of the alternate colors representing characters were a sign of those such characters being likely, especially someone like Daisy since her color swap for Peach had literal model alterations.
I think more so Sakurai tried to fit in as many references as he could, i.e. trophies.
I actually think we could have even seen more than some of the stuff mentioned. It was about 50% more time in overall terms but the engine itself had to be developed in that 13 month window as well.
@@Vidar93 what would have changed engine wise you think?
I have an intriguing idea.
What if Super Smash Bros. (N64) had a Game Boy Color adaptation in 2000 developed by Camelot Software Planning?
and
What if Super Smash Bros. Melee had a Game Boy Advance adaptation in 2002?
Thanks for the on screen credit!
You're welcome! Love your tracks!
Man, I would've loved to see how the following would've been like in Melee; Ike, Byleth, Pyra/Mythra, Palutena, Hero, Joker, Terry, Cloud, Sephiroth and Inkling
Maybe with all this technology that is now available a retroactive game putting all the available characters in Ultimate into in Melee. Also I miss that Melee Link render and voice was always my favorite version of Link.
Completely agree about Link. Ocarina of Time Link is peak design, voice actor, and characterization for the character!
They would also fix all the attacks that seem unfinished or with mistakes. Like a lot of Mr. Game and Watch aerials and shield, Link's nair, Roy's dash attack and like you added: The clone characters having more unique attacks.
Totally!!n
dont fix links neutral air. its kinda iconic lmao
I wonder how they would fix Kirbycide and make Bowser more imposing tougher.
i wonder though, if melee *was* 'finished', how could it have impacted melee's longevity? i wonder if it would still be around the way it is today
Great question. In my theoretical scenario, the fire of the game is untouched.
I’m no competitive player but I worry for L cancelling, Wave Dashing and other advanced techniques that give the game it’s own identity. They probably would’ve removed those during those 6 extra months.
@@brandonwilliams6119 Nope! L-canceling was deliberately put into the game, as Sakurai has confirmed several times, and wavedashing was known by the development team and Sakurai mentioned its utility when a fan asked about it. So I don't agree!
Fantastic video, David! Thanks for putting out such high quality content for the Smash community
Thank you so much! 😊 I appreciate your support a ton
this is a pretty cool video
and now that i think about it, i new wonder what all the other games would be like have they readded all the planned, considered and scrapped characters, including characters who joined in later games appearing in games they weren't in originally, like having Sora in Brawl with his Kingdom Hearts 2 design or adding in Cloud And Sephiroth to the first game and Melee
Agreed!
@@davidvkimball yep, that would be really cool