Stadium
Posted 10.12.2001
There’s more to single player than just Regular Matches.
I’ve even come up with these modes for the hardcore faction.
Collectively they’re called “Stadium.” You battle your own records.
Break the Targets!
The mini-game that hurt the fingers of time attack enthusiasts in Smash 64 is back!
In “Break the Targets!,” you break 10 targets that are strewn all across the stage as fast as you can.
Gotta have this mode, of course.
By the time you’ve broken all 10 targets, you’ll naturally have learned the properties of that character’s special attacks.
After you’ve beaten a map once, now you can enjoy the fun (?) of shaving even just 0.1 seconds off of time.
If you pause you can see the whole stage, but this time pausing won’t stop the clock!
Things can get pretty heated if you try to race your friends.
Unfortunately, “Board the Platforms” from the last game has been cut.
Home-Run Contest
We’ve got a platform that looks like it’s from a Birdman Rally, your character, and a lone Sandbag. What’s going to happen?
It’s…the Sandbag.
You have a limited amount of time to hit Sandbag as hard as you can! As many times as you can!
Rack up the damage, but make sure he doesn’t fall off the platform.
You can fall off of the platform, if you wish.
And then right before you run out of time, smack him as hard as you can and see how far you can send him.
Smack!
This is the Home-Run Contest. How fast can you pile up the percent?
Maximizing your damage until the last second is key.
If you can’t launch him, “No Distance.” If there were a hole nearby, I’d hide in it.
Multi-man Melee
It’s a fight to survive against the Fighting Wire Frames!
This time there’s a male wireframe and a female wireframe.
Defeat as many as you can! Fight! Fight!
There’s a small submenu here, where you can choose from several modes. Defeat a set number of wireframes, or survive a set amount of time. You can compete with your friends by trying to get the fastest time, seeing who can survive the longest, or who defeated the most wireframes before falling.
This is that menu screen.
The only map available is Battlefield.
The ultimate challenge is Cruel Melee.
No items, and the strongest Wireframe team is after you.
No matter how many single player modes you make, if you only play one mode, then people will get bored. That much is obvious.
I could make it so you gain experience points, or can unlock items through single player, but that just doesn’t sit right with me. If I look at things in the long run, that might even end up the reason why you stop playing, because it feels so tedious…
So I don’t want Smash to be a game that requires multiple days to unlock everything.
I added the Stadium mode because I wanted a more light (or heavy) single player mode.
Forget about fighting other people, and focus on trying to better yourself. An endless challenge awaits.
- Sakurai’s Internal Smash for Wii U/3DS Development Notes - June 23, 2017
- Kirby’s Development Secrets - April 19, 2017
- Sakurai Discusses His Game Design Philosophy In a Podcast [2002] - March 28, 2017
“Gotta have this mode, of course.”
Where was that in 4?
They probably didn’t want to develop over 50 different courses for each character.
It’s a shame but the writing has been on the wall for awhile now, ever since Melee really. It’s probably the reason why Board the Platforms got cut, due to the increased roster size from 64 and thus they just wanted to focus on Targets.
“I could make it so you gain experience points, or can unlock items through single player, but that just doesn’t sit right with me. If I look at things in the long run, that might even end up the reason why you stop playing, because it feels so tedious…
So I don’t want Smash to be a game that requires multiple days to unlock everything.”
Looks like someone did a complete 180 for Brawl and Smash 4… The stupid RNG stickers is what prevented me from 100% completing Brawl. For Smash 4, I simply cannot understand why they made custom move unlocking such a tedious chore. If they weren’t behind so much RNG, customs would almost certainly be tournament legal.
Well, the stickers were only usable in Subspace, so I feel like he probably thought that wasn’t going to be a major time investment for most people.
On the other hand, customs (both moves and equipment)….eugh. Then again….13 years did pass, so.
If I may offer my opinion, I think there’s two types of unlockables; the ‘necessary’, and the ‘bonus’. I think Sakurai considers characters and stages to be necessary unlocks, since they’re the basis of the whole game. They’re easy to unlock; either play a lot of matches, or fulfill a specific condition. Things like trophies, stickers, and songs, are bonuses. You don’t *need* them to play, but they’re nice to have. It’s a grind to get them all, but you’re not losing a lot by not having them. That’s where I think custom moves fall; I don’t think Sakurai viewed them as ‘necessary’ since you can play the characters without them. Plus, Sakurai did say that he didn’t think balancing every custom move was possible, which is why they’re not allowed online. That’s probably another thing that contributes to them not being tournament legal, except on special occasions like Glitch.