The following article was written by Source Gaming alumni Frostwraith, who can be found on Twitter.
Introduction
Being a huge crossover game, a major part of the Super Smash Bros. series is music and how it unites several iconic themes from across Nintendo and video game history. Although the original game and Melee were restrained by having one or sometimes two songs per stage, from Brawl onwards, the approach changed so music would have a greater role, with many guest composers from the industry contributing new arrangements, as well as pulling a wide selection of music directly from the games Smash Bros. draws content from. The standard has become so stages have a wide variety of music options and the games having hundreds of songs to pick from.
This change in direction, as Smash series director Masahiro Sakurai explained on the official Brawl website, is due to people having different favorite songs from a given franchise and may have experienced different games as their first exposure to said franchise. This, in addition to organizing video game music events and extensively overseeing the music production of his games, suggests a deep care for video game music and its history.
Shortened songs
When Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U were released, it was noticed that some songs, including a few from previous Smash Bros. games, got shortened, having parts cut from them. The reasons for this are unknown but likely relate to storage issues.
A case with precedent, Brawl had a similar issue with some Sonic vocal songs such as “Live & Learn,” and considering Sonic was a late addition, it’s likely the developers were running out of resources or there may have been licensing issues as Sonic is a third-party franchise. In both Brawl and Ultimate, only Sonic series songs have been shortened when added to those games, with all other cases of shortened songs in Ultimate being carryovers from previous entries. An exception is “Training Mode” from Smash 64 which was also shortened in Ultimate; however, this actually originates from the original soundtrack CD release of the original Super Smash Bros., a case with precedence, as “Dragon Roost Island” from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and “Yell “Dead Cell”” from Metal Gear Solid 2 are slightly different in Smash for similar reasons.
In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U, some evidence pointing towards the culprit being storage issues include:
- There are songs around or over 3 minutes long that got no cuts, refuting the idea that songs were shortened to fit a 2-minute time limit from the default vs. match ruleset, although still a likely reference when making the short edits.
- Examples: “Mechanical Rhythm” (Xenoblade), “Final Destination” (Brawl), “Mega Man 2 Retro Medley.” On the other hand, “Brinstar” (Melee) is originally around 2:45 long and was edited to last around 1:40.
- The song “Super Mario Galaxy” (from Super Mario Galaxy) is originally 4 minutes long but its short version in Smash lasts for 2:50, longer than the full versions of “Brinstar” (Melee), “Jungle Level (64)” (Donkey Kong Country) and “Duty (Ablaze)” (Fire Emblem: Awakening).
- Two 3DS-exclusive songs from Kid Icarus: Uprising are 5 minutes long to fit with Smash Run’s time limit. Shortening them would defeat their purpose as they don’t loop.
- There’s no correlation between song length and the storage a song takes. “Mega Man 2 Retro Medley” in Smash Bros. for 3DS/Wii U is longer than 3 minutes likely due to being an 8-bit song not requiring as much storage as an orchestrated song to preserve good sound quality.
- Except for “Lost in Thoughts All Alone” (original) from Fire Emblem Fates, no songs in DLC were shortened, with even the song “After Burner (∞ Climax Mix)” from Bayonetta lasting over 5 minutes.
Kongo Falls returns from Super Smash Bros. Melee with enhanced visuals. Its layout is faithful to the original game yet its original track, the DK Rap, has been shortened.
Some common misconceptions about shortened songs include:
- Shortened to fit a 2-minute time limit: As evidenced above, several songs of over 2 minutes of length are in the game unchanged and some of these shorter versions are also still over 2 minutes.
- Edited to loop: While this is true for a few songs, there are still songs that lack proper loops (simply playing back from the beginning once they end) or that were shortened but retain their original loops due to the short versions simply skipping parts of the song ahead.
With Ultimate, the shortened version of the “DK Rap” was heard in the E3 2018 demo as background music for the Kongo Falls stage. Being a pre-release demo, it was not reflective of the final product. In the August 8th Direct, the total number of songs was confirmed to be over 800, having more music than Smash Wii U and a potential need to cut corners again. After Sakurai published a Famitsu article on the Direct’s contents, my hopes got up that the shortened songs could be replaced by their respective full versions in the final game. Quoting Sakurai,
“This is a little bit of trivia, but thanks to improvements in compression technology, we were able to fit all this music into the game without sacrificing audio quality in only a quarter of the space it took in Smash for Wii U. It’s like magic!”
Songs with run times longer than 2 minutes are in the game without any alterations.
In Ultimate, all songs to have been shortened in the 3DS and Wii U titles remained as is, while several songs exceeding the 3-minute mark can be found in the game, including new rearrangements, suggesting these shortened songs were likely carried over from porting most of Smash 3DS and Wii U‘s soundtrack to save on resources and therefore could be a potential oversight. Evidence for this is how the shortened songs are identical to the short versions heard in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U and how most of that game’s soundtrack is in Ultimate with only a few songs missing. There’s one exception to this, however, and it is the song “Eternal Bond” (known in Brawl and Smash Wii U as “Ike’s Theme”) from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, that was slightly shortened in Smash Wii U, is back to being featured as its full version. Interestingly, the sound test has it fading out before it loops, matching the timing with that of the short version in Smash Wii U, suggesting Ultimate had the shortened version at some point in development and got changed to its full version later but the sound test’s programming wasn’t updated to match.
Particularly compelling evidence regarding the above is in the Fire Emblem Awakening song “Id (Purpose)” that has a new rearrangement based on its full version and lasting almost as long as the original, including several parts cut from the original in Smash 3DS/Wii U, implying the sound team had access to the full version when creating the new version.
Reasonably, the development team wouldn’t have to listen to over 800 songs, spanning over 28 hours of play time, considering that using the soundtrack for the Wii U game as a base and building upon it would make for a less resource intensive solution to handling a large amount of music.
The total amount of time cut is a little over 35 minutes, which is very little time compared to 28 hours of music and likely wouldn’t take significant storage, especially with the known enhanced compression.
Gaur Plain recreates the world of Xenoblade Chronicles but several songs from that game, including the area’s original themes, are shortened.
Considering there are songs returning from the original Super Smash Bros., Melee and Brawl that weren’t in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U, it means they are able to at least get the full versions of songs that were in the former three games that got shortened in the latter two installments. Reiterating a point above, there’s the new arrangement of “Id (Purpose)” that suggests the sound team had access to its full version when creating the new version. Additionally, Sakurai himself has shown multiple times in the past to be heavily committed to the music production process in Smash, as evidenced by his detailed developer roundtable on Melee’s music, which discusses the now-shortened rendition of the DK Rap.
For a game that prides itself on its massive amount of content and being an ambitious crossover, the fact some songs aren’t in their full versions as fans remember them sure leaves a sour mark on its otherwise impressive 800+ song collection.
The Super Mario World music dilemma
Returning from Super Smash Bros. Melee, Yoshi’s Island (Melee) is a stage based on Super Mario World, serving as a home stage to Yoshi and considered as part of the Yoshi series.
In all previous Smash Bros. games, the music selection is primarily based on the Mario series despite the stage being grouped with those from the Yoshi series, fitting with its origin from a mainline Mario game. Before Ultimate, these were the assigned songs to this stage:
- “Athletic Theme” (Super Mario World) (Melee version)
- “Ground Theme” (Super Mario Bros. 3) (Melee version)
In Smash Wii U only, the following songs are also available:
- “Title / Ending” (Super Mario World) (Brawl version)
- “Super Mario World Medley” (Smash Wii U remix)
- “Yoshi’s Story” (Smash 64 version)
As it can be observed, with the exception of “Yoshi’s Story”, all music hails from the mainline Mario series and is even categorized as such in Smash Wii U’s sound test.
In Ultimate, however, “Athletic” (Super Mario World) was changed to be categorized as part of the Yoshi series while all other Super Mario World music remains as part of the Mario series. With stage music being entirely determined by series, it means this stage now only has Yoshi series music assigned to it, with all other Super Mario World songs unavailable on this stage, including most of the music listed above.
Likewise, this also renders a Super Mario World song unavailable to play on Mario series stages, because it is instead assigned to Yoshi series stages. And as the Super Mario Maker stage in particular can transition into Super Mario World‘s aesthetic, it’s unfortunate how an iconic track from the latter can’t be enjoyed on the former.
Except for “Athletic Theme,” all Super Mario World songs are categorized as part of the Mario series.
Because Super Mario World served as Yoshi’s debut, and the stage representing the game bears Yoshi’s name, it makes sense to classify it as a stage for Yoshi. However, it remains a fact that Super Mario World is otherwise a mainline Mario game, which is reflected elsewhere in Smash.
A simple solution to this matter would be to have both Mario and Yoshi series music available in Yoshi’s Island (Melee) and make “Athletic” (Super Mario World) also available on Mario series stages. This way, no options would be taken away from the game but would help have more fitting music choices for the stage.
Despite its unavailability in this stage’s My Music options, this song is often used as background music for the stage in Classic and Spirits modes.
The strange case of “Ground Theme” (Super Mario Bros. 3)
Exclusive to the Super Mario Maker stage is the option to have the stage switch between four different songs to match the stage’s aesthetic as the game progresses.
The songs are the four “Ground Theme” songs from Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U, all of which are taken directly from those games without any changes.
All of these songs were also featured in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U in a similar fashion, but also were assigned to other stages and able to be chosen as individual songs for Super Mario Maker without matching the aesthetic in the Wii U version.
This is mostly also the case for Ultimate, in which each individual song can be chosen on any Mario series stage. However, unlike the Wii U title, the original version of “Ground Theme” from Super Mario Bros. 3 is unavailable as an individual song and is even absent in the sound test menu, with only rearranged versions available.
This is very likely an oversight from the development team and could be fixed with a future update.
Though the original version of the song is in the game, it is not available in the sound test, rendering it unusable for Mario series stages and custom stages.
Campaign
With Ultimate, they’ve proven many times that they’re listening to the fans and want to deliver the best product by catering to the competitive community, adding a new story mode, adding highly requested characters like Ridley and King K. Rool, and adding new options to the game like the stage hazard toggle or the Final Smash meter. More recently, Nintendo answered to fan demand by issuing detailed patch notes with Ultimate’s latest updates, revealing all of the various balancing changes, as well as swiftly responding to concerns of Piranha Plant seemingly causing save data corruption.
Music is a big part of Super Smash Bros. and it’s disheartening as a video game music fan that not all songs can be appreciated in Smash as their full versions. Therefore, I hope the fanbase can unite on this matter and we can reach out to Nintendo and Sakurai to change this and make Super Smash Bros. Ultimate even more deserving of its title.
DLC is still in development and the game is having ongoing support and updates. Therefore, a campaign called #ExpandSong was created to spread awareness and potentially catch the attention of Nintendo. More information on this campaign, including a list of songs known to be shortened, can be found at my website (http://frostwraith.webs.com/), its official Twitter account (@ExpandSong) or the official Discord server (https://discord.gg/45V7r9U).
With all said, I thank you for reading and for all of your support.
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Also like to note that some returning Melee songs use the Brawl versions, like with Icicle Mountain, Battlefield, and “Fire Emblem”. iirc Smash 4 used the Melee versions of those songs.