The following is all unused content that is known to have been at least considered during development of Super Smash Bros. before being altered, rejected, cut, or abandoned prior to the final release.
Dragon King: The Fighting Game
Super Smash Bros. was initially developed by Masahiro Sakurai and Satoru Iwata in their downtime, in a form titled Dragon King: The Fighting Game (格闘ゲーム竜王, Kakuto-Gēmu Ryūō), which lacked Nintendo characters. Sakurai, however, felt that the game could not provide the proper atmosphere on a home console without a recognizable cast. Nintendo characters were soon added and the game was redesigned and renamed.[1] A few screenshots of Dragon King have been released, and footage of the prototype was shown on Sakurai's YouTube Channel, Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games.
Below are the only known images of the game shown prior to Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games.
Below is the video on Masahiro Sakurai's YouTube Channel, Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, detailing the development of Super Smash Bros.
Fighters
Scrapped
- Bowser was a highly requested character, with Shigeru Miyamoto claiming in an interview that he was cut late in development.
- King Dedede was playable at one point, but was scrapped due to lack of development time.[2]
- Mewtwo was originally planned to be playable, but was scrapped due to lack of development time. According to Sakurai, Mewtwo was actually worked on in game.[2]
- Marth was intended to be playable, but he had to be scrapped due a lack of development time.[3]
Considered
- Clefairy was considered for inclusion as a clone of Kirby at the same rate as Jigglypuff.[4]
- Falco, Peppy, and Slippy were considered for inclusion as a alternate costumes for Fox.[5]
Bowser, Mewtwo and Marth would later on be playable in Melee, while King Dedede would later on be playable in Brawl.
Stages
The stage Meta Crystal and the stage for "Race to the Finish" both have spawn locations for all four players, implying that they might have been playable outside of the single player game mode. However, it could simply be a form of error handling, in the case someone hacks the game to play these stages in Vs. Mode.
Differences
- Dream Land had considerably darker shades of green for the foliage, as well as much taller grass in the foreground and background.
- Peach's Castle lacks the top platform. The brown, soft platforms are on the sides, with the wedge blocks having a different color. The bottom platform is lighter colored.
- Hyrule Castle had a considerably different color scheme, with the background having higher contrast and the castle itself being a shade of brown.
- Saffron City's main roofs had a considerably brighter pink texture. The roof on the left building is colored green, while the floating platform above it is brown.
Scrapped
Two stages have leftover data in Smash 64, and they can be accessed through use of the debug menu.
- Small is assumed to be an early version of Dream Land, as it shares many of the same textures and models as the aforementioned stage, as well as a similar platform layout.
- New is assumed to be an early prototype stage, even earlier than Small. It features an unusual layout, as well as a number of invisible walls, leading to frequent glitches involving movement.
Items
Initially, Crates lacked the Super Smash Bros. logo seen on the final versions' sides.
Gameplay
- According to an interview with Miyamoto, a time attack mini-game mode was originally planned, but was scrapped later in development.[6] It is not known what sort of gameplay this mode would feature.
- Luigi's dash attack and Samus' up aerial are both supposed to have final hits that are supposed to deal more damage and knockback, but do not spawn due to a developer oversight. Later installments in the series would fix this issue, however.
- At the time, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was being developed alongside Super Smash Bros. Due to the developers' lack of information, Link wields the Boomerang as one of his special move (an item which is exclusive to Young Link originally).
- Additionally, Link has two voice clips that are not sourced directly from Ocarina of Time, one being his KO scream and another that remains unused in the game’s files. This suggests that the voice acting was provided for both games before their releases.
- Every character has an unused animation that will instantly KO them when activated, similar to the instant KO in later installments. It is unsure what the animation was for, but it is speculated it was going to be for an unused stage KO feature, possibly activated if a character was eaten by a Piranha Plant or sank in Planet Zebes' acid.[7]
- A talk between Masahiro Sakurai and Satoru Iwata states that Sakurai intended to add Final Smashes in the game. While he did record some dialogue for them, limitations of the Nintendo 64 prevented their inclusion; Final Smashes later became a reality nine years later with the release of Brawl.[1] While the sound effects of these Final Smashes are not accessible through normal play, they can be found through Debug Menu. These sounds include Ness yelling, "PK Starstorm!", Pikachu charging energy and Captain Falcon yelling "Come on!" & "Blue Falcon!" (the latter exclusive to the Japanese version). Other characters heard include Fox, Kirby and Samus.
- There are some unused Announcer voice clips: "Are you ready?", "Final Stage!", "Bonus Stage!" and "Draw Game!". The first three are assumed to have been intended for use in the 1P Game, as the Announcer does not announce anything related to those stages.
- "Are you ready?" is assumed to have played before beginning a match or bonus stage, similar to how the announcer does so in later installments outside multiplayer modes.
- The "Bonus Stage!" voice clip is likely meant to player before beginning either of three bonus stages.
- "Final Stage" is most likely the final stage where players face against Master Hand, whose name would not be announced until Smash 4.[8]
- "Draw Game!" is most likely related to VS. Mode, where the announcer would say if a match ended up as a draw on the results screen. It may also be related to the cut time attack mini game. The voice clip was likely scrapped in favor of Sudden Death.
Aesthetics
- The placeholder question mark boxes for the unlockable characters on the character select screen were initially colored instead of the ordinary grey silhouettes with fiery backgrounds that appear in the final game; these coloured boxes matched the player number colours of red, blue, yellow, and green.
- The series symbol for the Yoshi series was originally not supposed to have spots on the egg, and the symbol for the Legend of Zelda series was a single, upside down triangle.
Alternate Costumes
- Both Jigglypuff and Pikachu have leftover data of an unused alternate costume for each of them. These would be their fourth alternate costume, although only three are accessible in a free for all battle. Pikachu's fourth alternate costume was to be a yellow party hat, and Jigglypuff's fourth alternate costume was to be a yellow bow. These alternate costumes are not accessible through debug mode, but if they are accessed through other means, the skin hues for both Pikachu}} and Jigglypuff will be abnormal, but the hat or bow will remain green. Normally, invalid alternate costumes would yield a corrupted stock icon and the latest occurring costume, but Jigglypuff and Pikachu are the only exceptions to this rule.
- Sakurai mentioned that he considered having Fox's alternate costumes being based off of other members of the Star Fox team, Falco Lombardi (who became playable starting in Melee), Peppy Hare, and Slippy Toad, but Sakurai decided against it and used the ones that were completely original to the game due to the fact that Slippy didn't have a moveset like the others. Starting from Super Smash Bros. 4, the concept of a fighter with different characters as alternate costumes would be reutilized for various characters, such as Bowser Jr., Olimar, Hero and Steve.[9]
See also
References
- ^ a b Wii.com (Accessed on 9-18-08)
- ^ a b https://web.archive.org/web/20180329191906/https://sourcegaming.info/2015/03/23/if-there-were-a-smash-2-poll
- ^ http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/12/13/sakurai-fe25/
- ^ The 64 DREAM May 1999, p. 91. ところで、「どうして隠しキャラにプリンが?」っていう意見もあったりするんですが。 / ふつうの格闘ゲームは、基本になる骨格などを一緒に作って、やられるモーションなども使いまわすことができるんです。でも「スマブラ」の場合は基本の8キャラがすべて異なる体型で作られているんですね。その上、やられパターンとか倒れパターン、それに起き上がりら攻撃パターンや崖捕まりパターンなど、それぞれ違う作りをしていて、それらを全て作るのは、ふつうの格闘っていうレベルでみてもすごく大変なことなんです。それで、隠れキャラは基本キャラの骨格を使い回すことを前提にしたんです。なので、ネスとルイージはマリオと同じ骨格でできてるし、ファルコンはサムス、プリンはカービィと一緒というわけなんです。プリンを選んだのはそういった骨格の類似性もありましたが、それとは別に、「人気ポケモンは?」って考えたときに、最後まで残ったのがピッピとプリンだったんですね。カービィ体形でピッピを作ることも可能だったと思いますけど、とりあえずキャラクター的な性格からして、プリンの方がやられ役っぽさがあったので選びました。
- ^ https://sourcegaming.info/2015/03/30/smash-reader-response-page-5/
- ^ http://www.sourcegaming.info/2015/04/29/shigesato-itois-smash-64-interview/
- ^ [1]
- ^ YouTube - Super Smash Bros. unused sounds (Accessed on 11-22-2009)
- ^ https://sourcegaming.info/2015/03/30/smash-reader-response-page-5/