Castle Siege

Castle Siege
Castle Siege in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Universe	Fire Emblem
Appears in	Brawl SSB4 (Wii U) Ultimate
Availability	Starter
Crate type	Normal
Maximum players	4 (Brawl) 8 (Wii U and Ultimate)
Tracks available	In Brawl: Fire Emblem Theme With Mila's Divine Protection (Celica Map 1) Attack Preparing to Advance Winning Road - Roy's Hope Shadow Dragon Medley Ike's Theme Against the Dark Knight Crimean Army Sortie Power-Hungry Fool Victory is Near Fire Emblem (Melee) In SSB4: Fire Emblem Theme Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Medley With Mila's Divine Protection (Celica Map 1) Winning Road - Roy's Hope Attack (Fire Emblem) Preparing to Advance Crimean Army Sortie Against the Dark Knight Power-Hungry Fool Victory Is Near Ike's Theme Lost in Thoughts All Alone (DLC) Lost in Thoughts All Alone (DLC) Bolded tracks must be unlocked In Ultimate: Fire Emblem series music
Tournament legality Brawl Singles: Starter/Counter Doubles: Starter/Counter Smash 4 Singles: Counterpick/Banned Doubles: Counterpick/Banned

Castle Siege (攻城戦, Castle Siege) is a Fire Emblem stage in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. It was first revealed for Brawl at E3 2006. It is based upon themes and motifs from the series as a whole, rather than one particular title, due to the stage not resembling any game of the series. The stage takes place at an unnamed castle, transitioning between the castle's roof, its throne room, and an underground lava cavern.

In Brawl, the unlock battle for Marth is fought here. In Ultimate, the unlock battles for Marth, Roy and Robin are fought here.

Stage overview

The match begins on a small section of the roof of the castle, which has two elevated platforms. The castle itself is being bombarded with catapulted fireballs, but these do not affect the match.

After forty seconds, the ground begins to rumble, and the stage transitions into the throne room of the castle. It is a walk-off, as the floor reaches both of the lateral blast lines. There are four platforms, two of which are supported by statues. These statues can be attacked, and each one will break if it takes enough damage, which destroys the platform it is supporting. In Brawl and Smash 4, these statues can be hit by projectiles, potentially blocking their travel, but in Ultimate, the statues are intangible to indirect attacks.

After forty seconds in the throne room, the ground begins rumbling again, and the stage transitions to an underground cavern. It consists of a single large stone platform which balances on a stone spire, tilting in both directions.

After forty seconds in the underground cavern, the ground begins to rumble once more, as the stage transitions back to the first segment on the castle roof, and the cycle repeats.

While the stage is transitioning between segments, it is a walk-off. This can have the effect of saving a character who would have been otherwise unable to recover, as the ground comes from beneath; for example, Bowser players attempting a stalled Flying Slam or Ganondorf players attempting a stalled aerial Flame Choke. However, players must make sure to move to the center of the stage if it is not transitioning to the throne room, as when the stage is done transitioning, players that are on the sides of the ground will fall rapidly with the ground, easily causing a self-destruct.

Ω forms and Battlefield form

In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, the Ω form is set on a completely flat version of the first segment of the regular form, the castle roof. The stage does not transform.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the Ω form and Battlefield form are set in the first segment of the normal form, and the main platform is similar in design to SSB4's Ω form; however, it does not extend below the blast line, and it is resized and reshaped to match Final Destination and Battlefield, respectively. The three soft platforms of the Battlefield form bear the design seen on the platforms of the second segment, the throne room.

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  Ω form in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.

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  Ω form in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

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  Battlefield form in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Origin

Castle Ostia in Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword is one of the castles where the large castle in the background of this stage is derived from.

Throughout the Fire Emblem series, the main objective for many chapters is to seize a castle, which is the inspiration for the theme of this stage. Official artwork from the Fire Emblem games has depicted castles as being immense and often surrounded by forests. Forested areas surrounding a castle are common in the series, as forest regions provide extra defense for units. Another motif throughout the Fire Emblem series is that many of the villains belong to a dragon race, or use dragons and wyverns commonly in battle. The flags in this stage depict a dragon; while not identical to any particular flag in the series, it bears similarities to the flags of Daein and Dolhr, the main antagonistic nations in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, respectively.

In various Fire Emblem games, Ballista appear as ranged weapons. Specific varieties known as Hoistflamme and Pachyderm are used by a class known as Ballisticians in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, and Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. These are projectile weapons that launch flaming or explosive missiles at their targets. The weapons in the background of the stage are presumably similar, but are described as catapults, and are launching fireballs rather than explosives.

The indoor room depicts a large knight sitting on the throne in the background of the stage. The sprite for this knight is known as "gene_10" in the code of the game, a shortened version of "General". Many of the major chapters in the Fire Emblem series happen indoors, where the protagonist is trying to seize the throne that is usually guarded by a powerful boss. This boss is usually a powerful class such as a General, a slow unit with high defensive and offensive capabilities. This General bears a strong resemblance to the Black Knight, a very prominent character in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, who acts as a deadly rival to Ike. The Black Knight was a General class in Path of Radiance, but there are also several differences in the design of this General and the Black Knight.

Soldiers wearing red armor appear throughout the indoor area. The opposing armies in Fire Emblem games traditionally wear red armor. These soldiers wear full body armor and wield swords, similar to that of enemy Knight units in Path of Radiance, and soldiers from the Begnion army in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Armor Knights very rarely wield swords, usually using lances, so it is also possible that they represent dismounted Cavaliers.

Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War was the first Fire Emblem game to feature a background during conversations, and one of the backgrounds resembles the entire indoor room of this stage. Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade was the first Fire Emblem game to have destructible terrain, which may have inspired the collapsible statues in the indoor room.

Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade introduced stages that exist in underground areas surrounded by magma. Ever since The Binding Blade, these areas have become a recurring theme throughout the series. The last area of Castle Siege is designed to represent one of these areas.

Tournament legality

In Brawl

This stage is usually a starter, but is sometimes a counterpick because of the statues blocking projectiles in the second level, limiting approach options for characters like Mario and Falco. The second level also has walk-off edges, allowing easy and/or early KOs, such as a high knockback attack being able to finish off an opponent at stupendously lower percentages than normal when near the blast line, or characters with chaingrabs that involve walking or dashing being able to drag an opponent past the blast line (as with all stages involving walk-off blast lines), such as King Dedede with his down throw or Ice Climbers with their chaingrabs.

In Smash 4

Castle Siege was formerly included in rulesets as a counterpick, due to chaingrabs being non-existent and therefore not being abusable on the walk-off edges on the second level. However, as the second level's statues severely increased hitlag and blocked projectiles, and the second level itself had a massive top blast line and greatly benefitted characters with notoriously bad recoveries (such as Little Mac), it was seen as too strong of a counterpick and has been banned in major rulesets since GENESIS 3.

Gallery

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

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  Castle Siege in Brawl.

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  A entire view of the castle. The stage itself is on the lower right.

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  A view of the castle's moat and entrance.

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  Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Ike and Zero Suit Samus fight on the top tier.

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  Marth and Ike stand on the top tier.

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  Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Ike and Zero Suit Samus on the middle tier.

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  Donkey Kong destroys one of the statues.

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  The four characters during the transition.

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  Marth and Ike on the underground tier.

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  The background of the underground tier.

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  The flag seen throughout the stage.

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  The General's sprite, seen on the throne in the background of the stage.

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  A sprite of a soldier seen in the background of the stage.

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  A second soldier, balancing his sword on its point.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

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  Castle Siege in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

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  Ike crouching on the first segment of the stage.

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  Bayonetta using After-Burner Kick on the stage.

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  Lucina and Marth taunting on the stage.

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  Meta Ridley and Samus on the stage.

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  Young Link tossing a bomb at Wario on the third segment of the stage.

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  Lucas holding a Master Ball on the stage.

Trivia

• Pokémon Trainer stands in the little parapet on the right when he's on the first scene of the stage; if there are 3 or 4 Pokémon Trainers, 2 will stand in the parapet on the right, while the others will stand in the smaller parapet in the background.
• In Brawl, pausing the game while the stage is going through a transition will allow the transition to end more quickly, since the game continues to load the stage while the game is paused. When viewing a replay of a match with such a pause, the game will slow down during the transition to accommodate for the lost time. A similar effect happens with special moves that involve character-switching. This was fixed in Smash 4 by having all segments of the stage loaded at once.
• If a match on Castle Siege goes into Sudden Death, it will begin on whichever segment the match ended on, not necessarily the first one. This is likely done so the game doesn't have to reload the top level before Sudden Death.
• In Smash 4, there is a visual bug on the regular form of this stage: once the stage has transitioned, the sun in the background of the first scene no longer has its blue glow during subseqent visits, for the rest of the match.

External links

• Stage confirmation
• Music confirmation
• Fire Emblem Wiki