Today I decided to do something a bit different. I translated the webpage that lists all the references for the alts found in Smash 64. Some people have theories about certain alts, but this is an official source. Hopefully this will clear up some misinformation. The original page can be found here.
Personally, I love how Luigi is the only character that has the same pose, while everyone else has a team-oriented type picture. Also, the characters are organized by appearance, with secret characters at the end, if I’m not mistaken. Sakurai seems to really obsess over those details.
*Note: Gray colored text seem to be side comments from Sakurai himself. He’s most likely joking.
Also, “peach” (first color on the page, 桃色) color is a very slight variation of pink.
Lastly, I’m aware that the Kirby order is messed up. I kept the original order on the website.
The Secret of the Alts
On the character select screen if you press a C button, or if you are the same character [as another player], the character’s color will sometimes change to the color that is used in team battles (red, green and blue). There are cases where some of the character’s colors make use of various references.
Mario
- Red Hat: For player 1 and red team.
- Yellow Hat: For player 2 (Wario Color).
- Brown Hat: For player 3 (Foreman Spike from Wrecking Crew color).
- Blue Hat: For player 4 and blue team (Former Mario Color: Famicom Mario Brothers).
- Green Hat: Green Team.
Donkey Kong
- Brown fur: For player 1.
- Black fur: For player 2.
- Red fur: For player 3, and red team.
- Blue fur: For player 4, and blue team.
- Dark green fur: for green team.
Link
- Green clothes: For player 1 and green team.
- Red clothes: For player 2 and red team (Goron Tunic: Legend of Zelda 64).
- Blue clothes: For player 3 and blue team (Zora Tunic: Legend of Zelda 64).
- Light purple clothes: 4th player (When equipping the blue ring: Legend of Zelda Famicom).
Samus
- Bitter orange armor: For player 1 and red team.
- Peach colored armor: For player 2 (Gravity Suit equipment from Super Metroid on the Super Famicom)
- Black armor: For player 3.
- Green armor: For player 4 and green team (Nicknamed mass production Samus)
- Blue armor: Blue team.
Yoshi
- Green Body: For player 1 and green team.
- Red body: For player 2, and red team.
- Blue team: For player 3, and blue team.
- Yellow: For player 4.
- Peach colored body: For enemies.
- Indigo body: For enemies.
- *All the colors you see here, appear in Yoshi’s Story.
Kirby
- Peach colored body: For player 1.
- Yellow body: For player 2. (Nickname: Keeby: Kirby’s Dream Course).
- Blue body: For 3rd player and blue team (Ice Power: Super Famicom Kirby Super Star).
- Red body: For 4th player and red team (Fire power: Super Famicom Kirby Super Star).
- Green body: Green team (Nicknamed: kusa mochi Kirby).
Fox
- Ash colored jacket: For player 1.
- Red jacket: For player 2 and red team.
- Indigo Jacket: For player 3 and blue team.
- Green jacket: for player 4 and green team.
Pikachu
- No hat: for player 1.
- Red hat: For player 2 and red team.
- Blue hat: For player 3 and blue team.
- Green hat: for Player 4 and green team.
Luigi
- Green hat: For player 1 and green team.
- White hat: For player 2 (Old Luigi Color: Mario Bros on the Famicom).
- Light Blue hat: For player 3 and blue team.
- Peach colored hat: For player 4 and red team (Nickname: Strawberry Luigi).
Captain Falcon
- Purple clothes: For 1 player.
- Ash colored clothes: For player 2 (Costume from F-Zero X commercial).
- Red clothing: 3rd player and red team (Blood Falcon Color from F-Zero X on N64).
- White clothing: 4 player color.
- Green clothing: Green team.
- Blue clothing: Blue team.
Ness
- Red hat: For player 1.
- Yellow hat: For player 2 (Popular name: Hanshin Tigers Fan).
- Blue hat: For player 3.
- Green hat: For player 4.
Jigglypuff
- No ribbon: For player 1.
- Red ribbon: For player 2.
- Blue ribbon: For player 3.
- Green ribbon: For player 4.
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Well, two small mistakes:
Samus:
“Green armor: For player 4 and blue team (Nicknamed mass production Samus)”
DK:
“Blue fur: For player 4, and green team.”
I fixed them! Thanks!
Thanks for translating this. I’m surprised that the so many times mentioned Foreman Spike really is the inspiration for the brown Mario outfit, I guess Sakurai really likes Wrecking Crew, or likes it more than most people at Nintendo. He had that eggplant guy trophy in Melee, the golden hammer, the stage…
Also, I never heard about “Keeby”. Cool!
Here are some fun facts for you:
Wrecking Crew actually had a new iteration on Super Famicom (Super Nintendo) in 1998: http://img.gamefaqs.net/screens/e/8/1/gfs_9249_1_1.jpg It had multiple playable characters besides Mario and Luigi, including Peach, Bowser, Eggplant Man, and a re-designed Foreman Spike.
Keeby was actually inspired by Kirby’s development history. Though Kirby was monochrome in the game and on the NA box art, he was colored in Japan. Sakurai was set on making him pink, while Shigeru Miyamoto suggested he be yellow. Sakurai won out in the end, and Keeby is a bit of a throwback to that debate.
I suspect Miyamoto’s love of Pac-Man influenced his yellow choice… (^_~)
Heh, thanks for the info! But I already know that. xD
Glad that I’m not the only one who thought about Miyamoto wanting yellow Kirby because of Pac-Man.
“Circular character that eats stuff? Now’s my chance…!”
I assumed the Dark Green DK was based on the Donkey Kong Land GB titles, since it changes his chest/flesh colour too …
Also, isn’t the White/Pink Falcon based on Mr. EAD?
If it didn’t say on the site, I didn’t include it. The purpose of this post is a direct translation of the official Smash 64 website written by Sakurai. I’m constantly finding new sources, so that confirmation may appear someday but until it does, it’s not 100% confirmed. It could be a “inspired by” alt and not a “reference alt”.
I always thought that “Captain Fabulous” was based on Jody Summer’s F-Zero X appearance: http://archive.kontek.net/f-mode.planets.gamespy.com/games/fzx/pilots/summer.gif
Mr. EAD’s gloves and boots are more of a magenta color rather than pink, and Cap’s yellow scarf correlates with Jody’s yellow helmet.
I always thought that the pink-and-white Falcon was based on Jody Summer too. I also believe that the green one may be loosely based on Pico. (I know the original site didn’t specify, but I felt inclined to share anyways)
If it IS based on Pico, I think it may be more accurately be his car, the Wild Goose, as Pico tends to wear orange and blue outfits, generally.
Also, on a side note, I love how there’s a Blood Falcon alt in every game (Melee’s and Brawl’s are definitely the best for those.)
And one more thing, I came across the Tumblr of someone named Furballcan (http://furballcan.tumblr.com/) who has a breakdown of possible inspirations for the alternate costumes from every Smash game. Not all the characters were covered before s/he stopped updating, but there are quite a lot.
Thanks for translating this, PushDustIn.
“Strawberry Luigi?” Here I and many Smash fans thought it was based on Wrecking Crew Luigi…
Thanks for the translation, PushDustIn. Alternate colors are one of my favorite aspects of Smash.
Do you know if something like this is on Melee’s Japanese site?
As far as I’m aware, no. It’s really sad as it’d be nice to have 100% confirmation on everyone’s alt.
That’s too bad, but I suppose it might be better this way. This allows alts to be more interperative and people can conceive of their own associations.
What about The stage Like saffron city 64 Pkomon and aslo 2 characters missing I wana see Like Sora and Bayonetta ?????
I may be overthinking it, but I always though the party hat was a reference to the Birthday Pikachu card. It never wore a hat in that card, but the card was released around that time, and is about the only association with birthday parties Pikachu has/had. The card is/was notable around that time, and is the only card banned in all formats from the TCG, so it’s not obscure. May be where the idea came from, if nothing else.