Rainbow Road: Research Notes

[ParanoidDrone]

Now with pictures!

Previously Covered:
Mute City
Magicant
Unova Pokemon League

Layout:
Rainbow Road is quite similar to Mute City and Port Town: Aero Dive from Melee and Brawl, respectively. Players begin on a simple flat platform slightly shorter than Final Destination which travels along a racetrack, making stops along the way to provide a change of scenery. Unlike those two stages, this platform has grabbable edges. It is also possible to jump through it from below. Players 1 and 2 start at the edges and Players 3 and 4 start near the middle.

As the platform moves along the track, it may stop and set players down on the track in one of 8 distinct locations. These locations correspond to track features in Mario Kart 7, and the platform follows the course normally, so it is possible to memorize the order and whether or not you just passed up a given location.

The Omega Form of Rainbow Road is stationary and floats over the track. Players can fly underneath it.

There are two damaging hazards on this stage: Shy Guy racers and the track itself.

Locations:
There are 8 possible locations on the track that players can fight on. The main platform does not move backwards, meaning that if it passes up some location then it must make a full lap before it's possible to stop there again. There does not appear to be any pattern to which locations it does and does not stop at.

Each individual stop lasts 15-18 seconds. When the platform is about to depart, players are given a 3 second warning in the form of a large rainbow colored sign in the middle of the stage.

The main road has grabbable edges in all cases. Platforms rise from the bottom as the stage settles into position and retreat as the main platform rises to depart. Some locations have safe zones where Shy Guys cannot hit.

For the following images, note that the ingame screenshot feature does not permit one to zoom out too far. Thus the edges of the playable area are not caught in frame and are bigger than some images may indicate, particularly on sections with walkoffs. For reference and possible other use, here is the Imgur album.

Location | Image | Notes
Main Platform |

| Carries players around the track. Slightly smaller than Final Destination. Can jump through from below.
Start Line |

| Slightly smaller than Final Destination. Shy Guys approach from back. Edges of the road and the air in general are safe zones.
Ramp |

| Walkoff on both sides. Shy Guys approach from right and use the ramp to jump the gap. Hanging from the edge is safe, but no safe standing room.
Battlefield |

| Edges are grabbable. Shy Guys approach from back. Platforms and the air in general are safe zones.
Landing |

| Walkoff on right side. Shy Guys approach from upper left corner and glide down to road. Lower platform and left side of road are safe zones.
Cutouts |

| Shy Guys approach from back. Platforms, center of the road, and the air in general are safe zones.
Moon |

| Walkoff on both sides. Shy Guys approach from back, but swerve as they approach and are briefly hidden by the ridge before hitting players. The edges and air in general are safe zones.
Tunnel |

| Walkoff on both sides. Floor moves to the right, carrying stationary players offscreen. Intersection with blast line is near the top of this image as judged by explosion graphic. Shy Guys approach from back. Platforms and the air in general are safe zones.
Trident |

| Walkoff on both sides. Shy Guys approach from back and can use the ramps to drive over the platforms. Side road segments and the edges of the center segment are safe zones.
Departure Alert |

| The sign that appears to signal the stage is about to move on.
Shy Guy Alert |

| The sign that appears to signal the Shy Guys are about to appear. The Shy Guy faces the same direction they move.

Shy Guys:
Once players are set down on the track, there is a chance that a pack of 8 Shy Guys will race through. They do 10% damage on hit and kill Mario off the top at 143% with no VI from the main road itself. Some locations allow the Shy Guys to hit players higher up, which will influence kill percents. The Shy Guys are signalled 3 seconds in advance by a large yellow sign in the middle of the stage. This sign also indicates the direction the Shy Guys will be moving.

Whether or not the Shy Guys appear has nothing to do with whether or not it is feasible for them to have completed a lap since their last appearance. It appears to be a simple chance event for each individual stop.

Unlike the F-Zero machines in past stages and the Shy Guys in the Mario Circuit stage in Brawl, it does not appear possible to attack the Shy Guys on Rainbow Road.

Road:
Although the platform normally floats high enough above the track for offstage deaths to behave normally, there are a few isolated locations where the track will get in the way and deal 15% damage, killing Mario off the top around 85% with no VI. This most commonly happens in the seconds immediately before and after stopping at a given location on the track. Due to the speed at which the platform moves along, it is quite difficult to deliberately take advantage of this hazard.

Summary:

• Main platform slightly shorter than Final Destination.
• Road occasionally close enough to damage falling players, does 15% and kills Mario at 85%.
• Platform follows track and can stop at any of 8 possible locations. See table for details on each.
• Shy Guys may appear at any given stop, total of 8, dealing 10% and killing Mario at 143%. 3 second warning.
• Each stop lasts 15-18 seconds.
• 3 second warning before leaving current stop.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

Location | Image | Notes
Landing |

| Walkoff on right side. Shy Guys approach from upper left corner and glide down to road. Lower platform and left side of road are safe zones.

Are you certain there's a safe zone there? I think I recall having tried both of those locations and having been hit anyway as the Shy Guys' gliders allow them to take the jump at multiple angles. Maybe if you crouch at those places with a character with a relatively short crouch you'd be safe, but I remember standing at the left edge of the road as Pit and still being hit by Shy Guys taking the jump low.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Are you certain there's a safe zone there? I think I recall having tried both of those locations and having been hit anyway as the Shy Guys' gliders allow them to take the jump at multiple angles. Maybe if you crouch at those places with a character with a relatively short crouch you'd be safe, but I remember standing at the left edge of the road as Pit and still being hit by Shy Guys taking the jump low.

I'm pretty sure they're safe, but since this is all strictly based off of my own observations it's possible I've just never seen it happen for myself. It's a bit tricky (and very time consuming) to test since the stage not only needs to stop at that location, but the Shy Guys need to come around too.

It would be a lot simpler if the Shy Guys always took the same path when they come through, but I have no idea if that's the case or not.

I'll put a disclaimer that it needs verification for now.

 

[MysteriousSilver]

I have to say that I don't understand the mindset behind making a stage like this and "removing" the safe zones

There are a couple of design choices like this in the stages, like taking the Japes Klaptrap off of a timer, where it seems like the team was intentionally trying to make stages less viable. I'm rather annoyed by it, if the stage had safe zones I'd push for it's legality but as is I can't support it.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

I'm pretty sure they're safe, but since this is all strictly based off of my own observations it's possible I've just never seen it happen for myself. It's a bit tricky (and very time consuming) to test since the stage not only needs to stop at that location, but the Shy Guys need to come around too.

It would be a lot simpler if the Shy Guys always took the same path when they come through, but I have no idea if that's the case or not.

I'll put a disclaimer that it needs verification for now.

From what I've done so far since that post, that spot does indeed appear to actually be safe.

Also, on the one you have labelled as "Ramp", hanging off the ledges serves as a safe zone.

 

[Piford]

I believe there are safe zones on the start/finish lines and moon area, but I'm not sure where. I think on the moon one it's towards the left side. Landing definitely has a safe zone under the second platforms. It could also be noted that the shy guys are pretty easy to avoid in all the transformations besides the ramp, where the ledge is the only safe zone.

 

[WritersBlah]

So, speculation on this stage's legality?

I'm personally pushing to have Rainbow Road as a legit counterpick. I feel that the stage layout holds several key factors that make it even more viable than Port Town or heck, maybe even Melee's Mute City. First is the simple fact that this stage has grabbable ledges. This, in many ways, makes the imbalance stages like this previously had that super-skewed it towards Peach and Puff players considerably lower. It still favors them, but I think it's more like Melee Fox on Pokemon Stadium / Little Mac on Omega in terms of matchup influence. The only thing that really makes the stage's viability debatable are the Shy Guys. They take up a pretty big chunk of the stage when they whiz by, and they're invincible, so they're essentially equivalent to Brinstar's acid. However, said acid was only a real issue in Melee, since it could kill at pretty low percents (its banning in Brawl had more to do with Meta Knight being able to easily abuse the stage's layout than anything else.) Shy Guys don't kill until a pretty high percent, as stated in the OP, so I feel like they're more of an annoyance than a legitimate threat. So that's up in the air. I'm personally pushing counterpick, but what do you guys think?

 

[Doval]

Been messing around in Training Mode for over an hour now. I'm certain the side roads of Trident are safe; I've seen the Shy Guys go over a dozen times now. However, the sides of the middle road are also safe - the middle Shy Guys drive straight down the center of the lane.

In Cutouts, the Shy Guys always hug the side holes; the center of the road is safe, and from eyeballing it I think even Bowser would fit comfortably.

In Start Line, the edges of the road are safe - the Shy Guys keep some distance from the edge. The same goes for Moon. Even if there were no safe spots it's easy enough to see the Shy Guys coming and shield them. It's not unusual for them to miss you altogether in Moon even when you stand in the middle.

In Ramp, if you can't take the left edge for whatever reason, standing on either the leftmost platform or the left side of floor is a feasible gamble. The Shy Guys will usually split between going high or low, and with some luck only a few will go your way, in which case your shield won't break.

The lower platform in Landing isn't completely safe - most Shy Guys will miss, but sometimes one will land on it.

In my opinion this stage is a viable counterpick. The Shy Guys are easily avoided in every stop except Landing, where there's only one safe zone. However, there's no guarantee that the stage will stop there on any given lap, and if it does there's no guarantee the Shy Guys will appear. More importantly, Mario can survive a hit off the top platform at 200% (pre-hit) just by crouching. At the %s where the Shy Guys are lethal, your opponent won't have much trouble KOing if he connects with any decently strong move; if worst comes to worst, letting him have the safe spot and taking an extra 10% from a Shy Guy probably won't make or break the match - it might even help you since it's a fairly safe way to tack a bit of extra damage for the rage effect.

 

[Regi_King]

I've been playing a lot lately in the normal phase of this stage. The Shy Guys are normally hard to avoid, specially when they are coming from the sides and sometimes, I think you said it, there are parts of the track that are too high that when at a Mario Up+B distance to the ledge, the track simply hits you. That killed me twice actually. So basically, characters with horizontal recoveries like Ike or Jr might have a very hard time recovering properly while the platform is moving.

So yeah, could work as a nice counterpick.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

I guess I feel what I've read on the sub reddit, that if four players play on this stage, the Shy guys won't show up.