Poké Floats

Poké Floats
File:PokemonSymbol(preBrawl).png
Universe	Pokémon
Appears in	Melee
Availability	Unlockable
Unlock criteria	Play 200 VS. matches.
Tracks available	Poké Floats
Tournament legality Melee Singles: Banned Doubles: Banned
Article on Bulbapedia	Poké Floats

Poké Floats is a stage in Super Smash Bros. Melee that can be unlocked by playing 200 or more battles in VS mode. In All-Star mode, Jigglypuff and its teammates are fought here.

Origin

File:OnixPS.png

Onix, as seen in Pokémon Stadium. This is an example of how Poké Floats took its design of the "floats" from the character models in Pokémon Stadium.

While this stage does not directly come from a Pokémon game, the character models of the first generation Pokémon come from the models in the game Pokémon Stadium. The models for the second generation Pokémon come from Pokémon Stadium 2. The concept of "Poke Floats" was reused in the WiFi chat rooms in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver Versions. Kanto Skies comes from the Kanto region, which was explorable in the first games.

The track that plays on this stage is a medley of the different themes that play when battling against other Pokémon Trainers, Gym Leaders, and wild Pokémon in Pokémon Red and Blue, as can be seen in this video.

Description

Poké Floats is a stage similar to Rainbow Cruise, since both are naturally fixed-camera and scroll. Unlike in Rainbow Cruise, however, the background remains static. The fighting is on top of giant Pokémon floats (hence the name) which are in a constant cycle. Staying on a certain float too long will cause the player to lose a stock because the float goes behind the blast lines. A caution is that the floats tend to become harder to predict as the loop goes on, until it resets back to the first one.

The Sudowoodo Trophy is unlocked upon unlocking this stage.

List of floats in order of appearance

• Squirtle (starting platform)
• Onix
• Psyduck
• Chikorita
• Weezing
• Slowpoke
• Porygon
• Wooper
• Sudowoodo
• Snorlax
• Venusaur
• Seel
• Wobbuffet
• A large quantity of Unown, interspersed with the other floats until the level loops again
• Goldeen
• Lickitung
• Chansey
• Geodude

After Geodude, the last few Unown clear the screen just before resetting back to Squirtle, and the process starts again.

Tournament legality

Poké Floats was originally deemed legal as a counterpick; it did not move fast enough to cause an overreliance on keeping up to it, and the obstacles were completely deterministic and rather easy to predict, though some characters could have trouble recovering or going from float to float. Ultimately, the stage was banned from tournament play, due to the possibility of stage spikes and other potential nasty surprises, as seen in this clip.