A Critique on Every Smash Bros. Stage Ever

[Vintage Creep]

I wanted to start this topic all day so I just figured let's try. I'm going to do an in-depth analysis on every single Smash Bros. stage since the original, leading up to the 3DS/WiiU one, talking about my personal feelings towards it and touching up on how they could be better, hipothetically.

Let's start, of course, with Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64, the original classic. The very first Smash Bros. was pretty much a budget game in comparison to its successors. The game counted only 9 stages, one of which unlockable, quite low considering Melee bumped it up to almost three times the number. The original Smash Bros. also lacked an official "standard stage", which is used from Melee onwards to basically introduce the mechanics to newcomers to the franchise. Even though almost all stages where renditions of the most recent titlte in their respective franchise, even the original Smash Bros. introduced the idea of the game being an homage to both new and old with the stage Mushroom Kingdom. All in all, even considering the low total number of options, I think Smash Bros. 64 was pretty well balanced in regards to different style of the environment, and dispostion of platforms regarding its stages. Many ideas and mechanics became staple to the entire franchise, and the stages themselves are usually remembered quite fondly by the players, with most of them reappearing in later installments.
To be fair, Melee was my very first Smash Bros. game, so I don't have that feeling of nostalgia towards 64, even though I played it extensively too once I became bored of the others, just out of curiosity.
Let's start looking at the stages of the game:

Peach's Castle (Super Mario 64)
Probably, the first time you booted up Smash Bros. 64, this was the stage you'd pick straight away for your battle debut. This was the series' introduction to possibly millions of Smash Bros. players today, and to be honest, Nintendo should've used something else. The stage theoretically plays on top of the princess' castle, but in actuality, the castle can be seen far away in the background, while the playable platforms are in fact floating in the air, hundreds of meters high up in the clouds. It's not going to be the last time Smash Bros. chooses to put in the background the actual landscape from a certain franchise, and then do whatever the hell they want with the playable part.
So sure, the place is recognizable. If you had Smash Bros. 64, chances were you had Mario 64 too, so you'd see that the landscape, even if done from the start up, is similar in every detail to its counterpart. So what is that bridge at the center? Why are those two platforms randomly floating in the air? Why is the bumper, which never appeared in Mario 64, an hazard, especially considering it's also an item? Smash Bros. 64's iteration of the castle suffers from this because it takes away the feeling of awe realizing you're fighting Pikachu in a place that appeared in Mario 64.
It looks kind of fake, probably the most random stage in the game, and from the most important franchise, arguably, represented in the game, the only one with Pokémon to get not one single fighter, but two!
Not only that, but even in regards to the gameplay the stage status as an "introduction" to the mechanics is pretty baffling. The first stage, and you get weird models to walk through (the bridge), annoying hazards (the bumper), moving platforms to left and right, and the stage itself is surprisingly quite big making escapes fairly easy.
The stage also is the first example of a staple in the Smash Bros. series. I'm talking about Sakurai's habit of using the most recognizable place of a game as the representation in Smash Bros. Peach's Castle is apparently so iconic to his eyes (understandably so), that it came back in the sequel, revisited.
By the way, Mario gets another stage anyway which is miles better.
Peach's Castle, surprising to me at least, actually returned in Smash Bros. 3DS and WiiU. Especially for the WiiU version, this was kind of unneeded to me not only because the stage looks kind of ugly and has aged terribly, but because the game itself is full of Mario stages.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Yoshi's Island (Yoshi's Story)
For the first Yoshi stage in Smash Bros. history, Sakurai chose to represent the most recent game starring the green lizard, Yoshi's Story, instead of the probably much more recognizable and loved Yoshi's Island on the SNES.
The stage retains the aesthetics of the game, even if more "blocky" and rougher, making the main platform you fight on actually an open book. Right at the center, a big smiling heart and a bunch of fruits set the mood of the stage with their bright color palette.
Had they used this stage layout for Peach's Castle, that would've been a perfect gameplay introduction, since Yoshi's Island follows a pretty simple disposition, being the first stage, kind of, with the classic "three platforms forming a triangle" format of the series. The three clouds are also walkable, being pretty useful to get back at the center of the stage.
While not being perfect in my eyes the way they blended the original material with Smash Bros., the stage's simplicity helps it to become kind of nostalgic.
Years have passed and I realized that Yoshi stages are almost always extremely simple, with few hazards if not at all.
Not much else I have to say on this one. It came back in Melee as an unlockable, so in a way it actually appeared in my first Smash Bros. game, so I have fond memories of it. Sometimes, simplicity makes for some fun battles, and I think it became one of my preferred stages in Melee, also because I loved Yoshi's Story.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Congo Jungle (Donkey Kong Country series)
Even though the very same year Donkey Kong got a new game on the Nintendo 64, making his debut in a 3D platformer (and, as of today at least, also his last adventure not in 2D), Sakurai chose the far more iconic Country trilogy to represent one of Nintendo's mascot. The environment isn't referring anything specifically, even if the aesthetic of the background led many fans to speculate the stage takes place in some levels of the original.
The stage layout is once again, fairly simple, but has a unique mechanic to it which later came back in other stages and even became his own item in Melee: the barrel. If you get inside it, you get shot out of it in the direction the arrow is facing. This is our first example of perfect blend between source material and Smash Bros. gameplay. The barrel functions basically exactly like it does in the games in which it appeared first, and that works perfectly fine in a party fighter too.
In the original game, I'm fairly certain this was one of the best stages as far as looks go. Rare's approach to the DK franchise is now extremely iconic, and Congo Jungle seems a fairly simple, yet fun and deep homage to that trifecta.
Oh and by the way, it's Kongo not Congo. Congo is an actual place in the world, and even though it was a mistake, this stage is the only one in the entire franchise which references an actual city or state or continent you can visit in the real world! Weird.
Kongo came back, vindicated, with its title adjusted for the occasion, on both Melee and Wii U, which is fine by me, I really like this stage.

 

[RedFly]

oh my god.

 

[Vintage Creep]

oh my god.

Well, thanks, I think this is pretty impressive too. Anyway:

Dream Land (Kirby Super Star)
We all know Kirby is Sakurai's own baby so it's not reaching to think that Dream Land, Kirby's home stage, was probably the very first stage designed for the Smash Bros. series, ever. The same artstyle is also used for two beta stages, even simpler by design, to make this assumption even stronger. The stage layout will become a staple for the Smash Bros. franchise: a flat platform, with three smaller platform over it forming a triangle. This simplistic design is often the favorite in competitive play, being one of the most, if not the most balanced layout for every character.
Dream Land though has one little touch to differentiate itself from all the Battlefields that will follow: Whispy Woods. This tree, locked in the background and unreachable by players, intervenes in the battle by blowing wind left and right. It doesn't actually damage the fighters, and to be honest, it's not that annoying either: running against it is more than enough to surpass it.
When I started watching competitive matches on Youtube, I was surprised this stage was picked so often even in Melee, since I thought Whispy Woods would've been a bannable offense to some, but really, it doesn't amount to much, making it one of the best hazards ever.
I like the stage a lot, especially the music, except for the backgound image. I realize now this is another "thing floating in the air over famous landscape from the franchise" stage, but I always considered the depiction of Dream Land in this stage kind of a bloated mess. It doesn't have higher resolution textures compared to Peach's Castle to be honest, but it's still... eh.
I also like the touch of King Dedede and common Kirby enemies floating in the background here and there. I guess that was Sakurai's way of coping with the rumored cut of the King in the original Smash.
Dream Land came back on both Melee and Smash 4, and it's basically an evergreen. Even with way more complex and peculiar stages here and there, I find myself picking this one time to time. Melee even had some sort of "upgrade" to it, which I liked too, but it wasn't able to capture the same feeling of simple fun this one had.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Hyrule Castle (The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time)
The first stage ever for the Zelda series is one of the most complex in layout in the first game, and possibly one of the most fun to play in. I honestly still don't understand why they did it so good for the Zelda franchise iconic castle, and blew it so bad with the Mario one. First of all, this time we're actually on top of the castle. This thing is not floating anywhere, and the background (with Death Mountain!) actually makes sense. Sakurai of course took some liberties to make it, but you can actually imagine this castle as if it's been taken directly from Ocarina Of Time's renders.
It has an hazard though, which definitely didn't appear in OoT: a tornado, appearing randomly all over the stage, and ****ing up everyone. Some say it's from the original Zelda, which would make sense, but it still looks pretty random to me.
I am a big fan of "gimmicks", and stages with unique hazards or elements, but this one... eh, I could do without. I could be wrong, but the right part, the one with "brick tent" thing that doesn't really make much sense, doesn't have a spawning tornado ruining the fun, and is in fact the most fun you have in the stage. Comboing your enemy against the wall is one of the most fun you can have in Smash 64, and I don't know if it's intentional, but this type of gameplay will be possible again in Melee's own Zelda Temple.
The stage will come back in Smash 4 as a downloadable content, and yes, the game could've used some hazard toggle, because without that random tornado, the stage is one of my favorites in the first game. The landmark it takes place in is iconic, even though, sure, OoT has probably more interesting places to fight in.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Sector Z (Star Fox 64)
The largest stage in the original Smash Bros. belongs to the Star Fox franchise, and it's pretty damn cool. You can consider the Great Fox Star Fox's own castle like the Hyrule Castle and Peach's Castle for Zelda and Mario: it's iconic, appears in basically every single game and functions as the center of operation for the protagonists.
For an on-rail shooter, it was hard to come up with a functioning stage in the middle of space especially in 1999, so this was probably the most obvious solution. The background was arbitrarily chose to be the fifth level of the game, Sector Z, but I guess it was chosen to justify the inclusion of Arwing hazards shooting the players every now and then, since this actually happened in the game in this place, sort of.
Still, I always thought this stage could have a cool gimmick by swapping randomly the background every fight. Since the Great Fox itself can become quite boring to look at in my opinion, a different background like Corneria, Venom, or the greatest level in Star Fox 64 ever, Solar, would've been damn cool. It is still, probably, one of the best looking stages in the first Smash.
I'm a big fan of Star Fox, sadly for me, so I lind of like this stage, even if Melee fixed it a bit. It is way too large for me, and the terrain becomes boring after a while. Adding the Great Fox's guns was a nice touch, but it doesn't amount to much.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Planet Zebes (Metroid)
Since it would take three more years for Metroid to get back on the spotlight with the Prime series and Fusion, Sakurai chose to base its first stage on the very first installment in the franchise, for the NES. The stage it's still one of those randomly floating platforms, but with a neat gimmick: the platforms themselves move up and down every once in a while, and can get submerged in a pit of acid and lava lying beneath.
I always found this idea pretty nice, it adds flavor to the stage and a sense of danger unrivaled by any other hazards in the original Smash Bros., without being too annoying (the lava can still be avoided by jumping on the higher platforms).
Back then, I never played Metroid, so I just accepted how this worked and never think twice about it. I am now a pretty big Metroid fan, having played every entry in the series except Federation Force (nothing against it to be honest, I just wasn't able to do it for now). So it occured to me that they could rework the hazard of this stage making it work like it actually does in the games: Samus could actually jump into the lava/acid, and her energy would simply get depleted pretty fast until she jumped out of it. The Smash Bros. lava instead, just rejects you and pushes you away upon dealing massive damage.
I mean, it works, it's fun and all, and it doesn't necessarily need to change, but since Melee introduced a stage that it's basically a remake of this one, maybe one of the two could work like I'm saying. Basically, the lava/acid would work like an off-screen damage boost until the player is submerged by it. Just a little idea I had that I decided to throw here.
Anyway, I think the stage is pretty good. The platform layout is fairly interesting, it makes much more sense to me to put random platforms here rather than in Peach's Castle (God I really hate that stage), and the color palette in this one is superb. Probably the best looking stage of the bunch: the bright yellow constrasts with the deep dark blue so damn well.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Saffron City (Pokémon Red & Blue)
This Pokémon stage takes place on top of the Silph Co. building in the first generation games of the massive franchise. As we'll see going forward with this personal analysis, Pokémon stages can be pretty damn creative, while other franchises keep kind of repeating the usual stuff with some new flavor. This is another very good stage, it plays well even if it isn't, in my opinion, particularly pleasant to the eye. Sure, the original Pokémon games were in black and white, but for a 3D rendition of their world on the Nintendo 64 I always imagined vibrant colors everywhere, while this city is, unsurprisingly, kind of grey and sad.
Of course, the big gimmick here is the spawning Pokémons from the central tower, dealing damage to everyone. When you think about it, this is probably the most complex hazard in the original Smash Bros., with five different Pokémons attacking and behaving in different ways. Charmander spits fire, Venusaur launches his leaves, Chansey lends you some useful curative eggs, Porygon just straight up mauls you and Electrode, of course, explodes.
While the central action is of course, well, on the center of the stage, I always found the most fun part of it on the left, where the smaller tower resides with those two floating platforms over it. The feeling of seeing your opponent crashing against a wall and then against the opposing one, and then again, and again, until he's way down the hole is simply gameplay perfection to me. The same applies to the left part of the stage, where the helipad is. I still have no idea why they put an helipad in there but it makes sense, I mean Silph Co. is a big corporation, they have money right?
Many fans are clamoring for this stage to come back somehow, and I can see why. It's one of the most imaginative both from a "gimmick" standpoint, and from a platform layout from the original game. I am not so fond of it still, since I believe almost every single Pokémon stage that came later managed to be even more original than this one, but I wouldn't be against it. I just hope it gets recolored a bit to be more vibrant and colorful, or that they just straight up de-make it to look like it's actually out from an 8-bit game, with even simpler sprites for the Pokémon appearing and an aesthetic which is not inspired, but it's actually ripped from the original Game Boy installments.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Mushroom Kingdom (Super Mario Bros.)
This stage breaks a lot of patterns set so far in Smash Bros. First off, it's the only unlockable one, and it makes the Mario franchise the only one in Smash Bros. to feature not one, but two stages to fight in. Even though it makes sense for Mario to be the favorite one in here, I still find it sad that F-Zero and Mother didn't get any, while still having playable characters.
From a gameplay standpoint, this stage is the first to have walkoffs possible. There's a pit in the center, but you can actually walk out of the stage and get KO'd since the main platform continues until the edge.
This is how you do a Mario stage by the way. I realized just now that Peach's Castle is the only stage in the original Smash Bros. I find just outright bad for multiple reasons. How is this one better?
Well, first off, aesthetically this actually reminds me of Super Mario. Not only the background is clearly inspired by the original platform masterpiece on the NES, but even the interactive elements look and work like they were straight out of the original game. The blocks break if you jump under them, the platforms in the middle go up and down based on the weight of the character that sits on them, Piranha Plants bite you, POW blocks create small earthquakes that deal damage, and most important of all, pipes warp you to other parts of the stage if you press down while you're over them.
This last feature is fantastic to me, and I'm baffled Sakurai hasn't used it in other similar stages in the next installments. I mean, if you're playing competitively, you'll probably never intentionally use this stage element to escape opponents, since it's easier to just run away, but in battles with four players going at it, this actually turned useful to me a handful of times.
Like in Congo Jungle, this is honestly a perfect stage. I'm not the biggest 2D Mario fan out there, but I love when Smash Bros. perfectly blends original source material with its own gameplay, creating something that feels true, logical, and at the same time fun as hell. This stage is so good, that I think Sakurai decided to put it unlockable to reward players, and then designed Peach's Castle in like one week because Mario had to have a starter stage in the game.
Yep, I just explained the reason behind Peach's Castle's existence, I guess.
Mushroom Kingdom never came back, it was lost way back in 1999, and that's a pity. Mushroom Kingdom as a concept will be visited many times more in the next installments, sometimes succesfully, sometimes not that much, but this one is still one of the best both from a visual and gameplay standpoint. Kudos.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Not a lot of people are caring about this, but hey I'm having fun so whatevs.

It's 2001 and here it is: Super Smash Bros. Melee for Nintendo Gamecube. Only 2 years later, Sakurai pushed out a sequel to the massively succesful Smash 64, and it was fantastic. My first Smash Bros., and quite possibly the first for many of the playerbase today, it succeeded in both expanding and greatly improving the formula set in the first game. The roster jumped to 12 to 26 characters, even if many were quickmade clones of others, and most importantly for this thread, the stage selection jumped to 9 to a whopping 29, with three of them being returning stages from the original game.
First, I want to talk about the artstyle Melee chose to follow. Both Melee and Brawl were weird in this regard, with Sakurai choosing some realistic artstyle with the intention of making characters from so different franchise coexist with each other, and only Smash 4 brought the saga back to the more cartoony/colorful aesthetic of the first Smash Bros.
It was a bold strategy, that didn't suit Nintendo that well to be honest, but still was liked by the fanbase. This not to say the game wasn't vibrant and full of colors, that would be heresy of course, but if there was room for reinterpretation, you bet Sakurai would go down that road. Textures were complicated and much more detailed thanks to Gamecube's far superior hardware, making the jump between Smash 64 and Melee the biggest Smash Bros. has seen and probably ever will.
Melee's stage selection was revolutionary even from a gameplay standpoint. Of course we got simple stages more in line with the few we talked about so far, but we also got something new like stages with the camera moving on a set rail (Rainbow Cruise, Icicle Mountain), a stage which rotated around itself (Brinstar Depths), stages that literally morphed their layout into a different one (Pokémon Stadium).
If you look at it, Melee was almost more imaginative with creating stages, rather than new playable characters.
I played Melee to the death, spending literally thousands of hours on it with my friends when I was a kid. Since I haven't played Smash 64 before, I was blown away by it, not only by the novel idea of seeing Mario kicking Pikachu's ass, but the incredible set of different stages where you did it. I was used to simple 2D fighters like Tekken or Soul Calibur, which stages differ only from an aesthetic standpoint, and didn't think something like Melee was even possible.
That said, the very first stage we're going to talk about is pretty damn simple:

Battlefield (Super Smash Bros.)
Sakurai realized Smash Bros. needed a point of entry, a neutral battleground where it was easy to grasp the game's mechanics regardless of the character you chose to use for the first match. It had to be hazardless, immobile, basically just a flat platform for a training mode. And well, three on top of it of course.
I'm pretty sure that Dream Land on Smash 64 was one of the test stages used by the developers to balance everything, and was later just painted on to become a Kirby stage. So, here is born Battlefield.
Battlefield is a naked stage, with literally zero hazards going on here. Not only that, but even gameplay mechanics which don't damage characters like for example the pipes from Super Mario appear, because those too are mechanics which don't necessarily appear in every match. What you can do on Battlefield, you can do on every more complex stage out there, thanks to its simplicity.
Battlefield serves not only as a training/introduction stage, but in the one player modes like Adventure or Classic, is usually the stage bearing the penultimate battle before, of course, Final Destination.
I loved Melee's techno-thriller rendition of Battlefield. The design was simple, but the two hands holding the glowing ball on the lower part always creeped me out as a kid, it was something so out-of-place for a game starring Super Mario, that I loved it.
Melee was great in making you understand this was a clash of different worlds, bleeding into another one where Master Hand resides. The background, not a still image but a series of glowing and zapping stars, was epic as ****.
Battlefield will come back in every other Smash Bros. since then, always changing its appearance but keeping the tradition of a simple layout untouched.

In Brawl, Sakurai abandoned the techno style he used for Melee, and went for a more sober ruins-like place. The background changed from morning, to day, to sunset and night, giving this Battlefield some more flavor surely, but taking away the stronger personality of the first one. I understand the change though. Battlefield became officially the introduction to the game in Brawl, being the very first one we saw upon Brawl's actual reveal, so it makes sense to give it a more calm, peaceful, not antagonistic look and feel to it. Final Destination, instead, kept its epic and apocalyptic charm.

The style continued for Smash 3DS and Wii U too, here showing the superior home console one, with added flavors. More background models of fallen temples were added, and I love the touch of the Smash Bros. logo flags. Battlefield has become sort of a paradisiac place, it seems like all characters are supposed to meet here for the first time, sort of. From the ashes of a forgotten world were battles were fought, here is where it's supposed for the new one to start. I've grown to love this depiction of Battlefield, even if the Melee one has a special place in my heart. As a side note, especially this last edition of Battlefield strongly reminds me of the Kid Icarus franchise, which as we all know is Sakurai's second baby, so this is not surprising too. In a more subtle way, it is my opinion that somehow Kid Icarus has taken the place of Kirby as the franchise which Sakurai takes inspiration from the most when he has some creative freedom. But hey, maybe it's just a coincidence.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Princess Peach's Castle (Super Mario 64)
Sakurai probably realized his mistakes in the original Smash Bros., so he decided to rectify them in the sequel. The rendition of Mario 64's hubworld was one example of this, with a completely reworked new stage set in the same landscape, but this time a bit better. The most important change is that this time, we are in fact battling it out ON TOP of the castle, and not on random platform in the sky with the castle far away in the background.
Sakurai followed the layout of the actual castle pretty closely, even if it changed the proportions completely. The tower in the centre should be way taller and bigger, but it was restricted for gameplay purposes, making it fine anyway. The general artstyle is also completely different, to stay in line with Melee's realistic filter. I think it's okay, at least the hills and sky in the background have vibrant color, even if I never liked that much this realistic approach to Super Mario.
The details though are insane, here you can notice how much of a jump was the second installment of the series compared to the first one: I especially like Peach's portrait on the entrance and the windows.
To add some layer of difficulty to a pretty basic stage, Sakurai threw a couple of platforms here and there, a few blocks which can be switched on by hitting them creating more platforms and even giving you an item, and finally Banzai Bills.
These enemies never appeared in the overworld of Super Mario 64, but had some appearances in some stages so I guess it's not that much out of left field. The way they act is they appear and slowly crash against a wall of the castle, resulting in a huge explosion (the "you'll burn a while in my radius before I launch you away" kind).
Personally, while being this stage leagues better than its predecessor, I still wasn't a big fan of it. The drab and generic-looking design just doesn't compare to other Mario stages, and mechanically is pretty boring too. It's not even close to be the mess Smash Bros. 64 got, but I'm still waiting for a good rendition of Peach's Castle, which will probably never happen.
Honestly, it's not that big of a deal.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Rainbow Cruise (Super Mario 64)
Mario 64 is a fantastic game, and has much more to offer to Super Smash Bros. other than its most iconic landscape. Its 15th world, the last one before the final take against Bowser, is one of them. And Sakurai went completely crazy with this one.
It seems like Sakurai liked the idea of using some of his Board The Platforms / Target Test minigames and make an actual stage out of those concepts: long, corridor-like stages the player had to run through while performing a wide variety of actions to get to the end. Only that this time, the corridor has become a circle, and starts over until the battle ends by itself.
Rainbow Ride, Mario 64's original name for the stage, was the perfect choice for it. The game had vast worlds to explore in it, sandbox-style, while Rainbow Ride was more of a vertical adventure with various paths to choose from, forcing the player to continue to move upwards as fast as possible.
The boat where the stage starts from (actually one of the last things you'd see in the original level) sinks, the magic carpets desappear after a few seconds if characters don't stand on them, certain platforms fall when pressured with character's weights, and of course, the camera continues to move as it wants, not waiting for anyone.
This is a big aspect of the mechanic of the stage, and will become a staple for many more stages in the future. I think it's one of those "make it or break it" deals, some players might like it, some will probably hate it. It is absolutely 100% forbidden in a competitive based playerbase of course, since heavier and slower characters are inherently disadvantaged, but even with similar characters, I guess it depends on taste.
In this case the camera moves in a circular pattern, but this mechanic will be revisited for vertical movements in both this game and the sequel, for horizontal only movements, and more.
Personally I love this twist to the gameplay, it's a good spin compared to immobile stages. Sure, battles become more of a "let's try to survive this thing while we throw some punches", but it can still be fun. Regarding the stage itself though, I sadly consider the first half the only interesting one. When you surpass the actual rainbow and get to the last stretch of platforms, the camera becomes surprisingly annoying all of a sudden, since I think that layout would work better with a fixed one. Not a big deal anyway since the level is about to start anew in a few seconds.
The stage reappeared in Brawl, which had another interesting camera-moving Mario stage.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Kongo Jungle (Donkey Kong Country)
Another Melee stage which is essentially a new rendition of another Smash 64 stage (seeing a pattern here?), this is a pretty basic one, which I immensely love. I'm not big into DK's franchise, but for some reason I almost always love what Sakurai does with it, maybe because it keeps so simple while giving it personality both from an aesthetic viewpoint and a gameplay one.
Anyway, the stage is designed basically like Congo Jungle in Smash 64. Platforms are positioned differently and there's a walkable rock in the lower part of the stage, but in general, it's the same stage with a barrel under it.
Klap Traps also act as a new hazard, appearing randomly from the waterfall and biting the characters. Surprisingly, they deal a lot of damage and knockback, so they can actually be deadly at high percentages.
Another difference that I recall is that the edges are much close to the actual stage. It's kind of a nitpick, but I notice a difference in gameplay here which I like, they're essentially the same stage, but with those different edges, Kongo Jungle plays much more antagonistic and fiery compared to Congo Jungle.
Another small thing is that it looks like this stage actually takes place from the original DKC, and is not a collage of various things from the trilogy. Not much else to say about it to be honest, it's a safe venture with a safe result for Sakurai.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Jungle Japes (Donkey Kong Country series / Donkey Kong 64)
Sakurai also introduced a new take on the DK franchise in Melee, while keeping things relatively simple.
Jungle Japes is just three main platforms, with a small one on top of the bigger one, and that's it. None of them move, nothing happens on them, and sometimes, that's actually a good thing. Yes, I like this stage a lot too for a variety of reasons.
The lower part of it features a strong current filled with one-hit-KO capable Klap Traps in it, which adds a lot of action to the rather calm scenery. The background is similar to the one of Congo Jungle, a peaceful sunset, so the contrast it creates with the river flowing violently under it is pretty good.
The details are much more interesting to Kongo Jungle, especially Cranky Kong's house in the middle. If you look closely, you can see his silhouette in the windows which is damn cool, possible only thanks to the Gamecube's power.
The stage reappeared in both Brawl and Smash 3DS, and there's a small but rather interesting difference in them. Since Brawl, Sakurai introduced the swimming mechanic, which is pretty self-explanatory. So you can now technically dive into the river and jump back onto the platforms if you're fast enough. It's a small change but I love it, it adds danger to the stage since you're not dying by disappearing into the water anymore, but by being slammed to the left by the current.
In Melee, the lack of sense of impact upon falling into the water (the character would just continue to fall out of bounce with the same velocity it had in the air) kind of ruined another stage to me, even if for some reason it never damaged the fun I had on this one, so it was nice of Sakurai to bring it back perfected.
So far, Donkey Kong stages have been pretty basic even if well-done, but things are going to change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

 

[RealLuigisWearPink]

I'm loving it! I think this is really interesting. Keep it up.

I agree with most of your assessments in general, but I don't think Peach's Castle 64 is QUITE as bad as you say. Still a pretty boring and generic stage though.

 

[Vintage Creep]

I guess my strong dislike for Peach's Castle is for a variety of reasons which probably don't have much to do with the stage itself. I mean it's playable and all, not that big of a deal, but for Mario it's kind of a weak effort. Very nice to see someone interested in this, I'm having fun writing this stuff (oh, English is not my first language so forgive me for errors and stuff) but it's better of course to receive some feedback.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Great Bay (The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask)
Having Clock Town appear to represent the last Zelda game on Nintendo 64 would've been obvious, since Sakurai seems to prefer the most recognizable place for that purpose, but this time he changed it up a bit to be more peculiar and interesting. In the game, you'd get to this place more or less at the half part of your adventure.
I always absolutely loved this stage, and it's by far one of my favorites of the entire Zelda saga in Smash Bros. Let's start talking about that sweet sweet background featuring the Moon. At the time I played Melee I still didn't play Majora's Mask, so seeing the Moon slowly advancing towards the ground creeped me out so much. Eventually, the Four Giants come out of the forest to stop the apocalypse, and the entire thing doesn't result in any hazard, it's just cosmetic, but still fantastic.
The layout of the stage is pretty interesting too. There's a rock in the left part which moves a bit based on where you stand on it, then a main platform, another one under it and the turtle. The turtle dives down into the ocean every once in a while and comes back after a bit, but it's not that big of a problem for players to avoid.
The best part of the stage in my opinion is the one under the main platform: you were able to make your opponents crash against the lower part of the platform, and then fall into the ocean to their demise. So satisfying.
There is evidence that at some point the Laboratory part of the stage was intended not to be in the background: essentially, you'd be able to enter it from two doors to the left and right and battle it out inside, possibly to rack up high percentages of damage. That idea was scrapped, I guess because not being able to see your character when it was inside the Laboratory wasn't that great, and the Gamecube probably wasn't able to process the wall to disappear when inside like some of the stages in the future will do.
Oh yeah, Tingle is here. His balloon is actually a platform on which you can jump on, and I always had fun doing it for some reason. You can make it explode and he'd fall to the ground.
Great Bay is one of those stages that I'm eager to see comeback now that Smash Bros. has a swimming mechanic, but it never did so far, which is a pity. Of course at the time of Melee I never even thought about this, but once Brawl came out it was hard for me to get back to this one without swimming, despite my love for the stage. Who knows, maybe Smash Switch...

 

[Vintage Creep]

Temple (Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link)
Here we are. Out of all the Melee stages, Temple is probably the one that stood the test of time the better, becoming a recurring stage in both Brawl and Smash Wii U. The reason is simple: Temple, back then, was massive. By far the largest stage introduced in Smash Bros. until now, full of details, renders and models leagues ahead Nintendo 64's capabilities, and gameplay-wise, so interesting and complex to spawn a variety of in-game challenges created by the players themselves.
Those were quite fun because of their intituiveness. Chances are you tried out the Hyrule Jump challenge (how the players unofficially call it) without even knowing of its existence: it consisted in jumping from the lowest platform under the Temple, and trying to reach the main one on the top. In Brawl, some characters like Pit and Meta Knight could glide, giving the possibility to expand this challenge on the entire stage. When I played here with friends, I always picked characters like Kirby and Jigglypuff that could easily jump out of there and go anywhere, and the feeling I got by seeing my friends not being able to follow me was extatic to say the least.
Another area commonly referred as the "Fight Club" was amazing. It's the lower-left part of the field, where it was easy to survive even with high damage by stopping your fall by crashing against the walls and the ceiling of the Temple. For me, the only way to beat Melee's Challenges, which were quite difficult, was to run in this place and go at it with the strongest characters of the roster.
Again, the stage is massive anyway, so even by staying on the higher part of the Temple made it quite hard for characters to be launched away, making matches on this stage usually quite long.
I always found weird anyway that this stage was supposedly based on one of the most infamous Zelda games ever, the second one, and I'm still not quite sure Sakurai had this in mind. It always looked pretty generic to me for a Zelda stage, I mean the details on it are incredible and make it an unforgettable place, but personally, I think it's more representative of Zelda as a whole rather than Zelda II especially.
With 8-player battles now being a possibility, this is one of the best stage to play in for this particular mode. No hazards are present in the slightest, so the only difficult part is figuring out the best point where to fight based on the amount of damage you have. It's rare for such a big stage in Smash Bros. to have such a deep level of technicality, and if you really look at it, it's not even that complicated from a layout perspective. It's just pure gameplay madness, and sometimes, that's all you need for a stage to be memorable and fun.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Yoshi's Story (Yoshi's Story)
Let's get back for a moment to one of the most simple stages in Melee, and unsurprisingly one of the most common picked by competitive players around the world. Yoshi's Story follows the basic layout of Battlefield, with two small differences which make it that little bit more interesting for me personally when I see matches by high-level players on Youtube.
First of all, the main platform continues down below creating a pair of wall on which you can wall-jump. Also, a little cloud comically nicknamed "Randall" appears following a rectangular trait around the stage.
Other than that, there's not really much to say about this stage. It's a proven formula that works, so I like it, and I'm a big fan of Yoshi's Story so I like it's aesthetic look (it reminds of the first level of the game the most, especially with Pak E. Derm appearing in the background), but it's just that, a Battlefield clone with a couple of differences.
It might sound heretic, but Pak E. Derm could've been some form of hazard, not dealing damage of course, but blocking the characters' path with it's pole every once in a while. Of course this would've killed this stage tournament's availability, but Melee has some more ones to go with anyway.
I guess my thoughts on this stage are quite neutral. It exists, it looks good, it works perfectly, but it's too obvious to me. Dream Land and Battlefield already peaked in my opinion with this formula, so this is one of those instances in which I think that other than an Omega Form for the stages (which make them look like Final Destination), there should be an Alpha Form too to reprise the Battlefield look and call it a day.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Yoshi's Island (Super Mario World)
The third Yoshi stage in Melee was kind of weird to me, and I ended up disliking it a bit because of its weird layout and the feel that the stage should've been much larger to be enjoyable. The stage looks like a V, with the pipe on the left and the slide on the right forming a small valley which made traversing the platforms feel weird to me and kind of uncomfortable.
Maybe that was intended, I don't know. The slide on the right is also a walk-off, so you can go to the right for quite a while simply by walking before dying. This resulted in me launching my opponent on the right, thinking he was clearly dead, but instead watching as he just landed on the slide and came back easily. More than a few times my battles on this stage were fought entirely on the slide, sometimes even off-stage in the damage-dealing out of sight zone, which well, it's not that fun.
The yellow blocks at least were interesting: their mechanic resulted in so many unexpected deaths in the pit. If you hit them, they roll around themselves uncontrollably until they stop: if they rool, you can surpass them, but once they stop they become tangible again, which could be a problem.
There are a couple more weird things regarding this stage. For example, it's called Yoshi's Island, but it's clearly inspired by Super Mario World, not World 2. I mean yes Yoshi appeared on that too, but why did they miss the opportunity to follow the far more interesting aesthetic of Yoshi's Island is beyond me. Brawl kinda rectified that, as we'll see.
The second strange thing is that to me, this is a pretty unremarkable stage, but it came back on both Brawl and Smash Wii U. In Brawl, there was already a simpler but better designed stage called Yoshi's Island, so why did they put this in too? In Smash Wii U instead, not only does this stage come back when a far superior Yoshi one is in there, but it's also playable with 8 characters. Why? This stage is small, extremely small for 8 characters. I mean the crazyness was good enough, but it's one of those cases in which I really don't understand Sakurai's logic. Probably the stage was simply easy to port, and it was easy to make playable with 8 battles, so he was like "Why not?". Which is understandable of course, but still kind of weird. Sakurai is weird.

 

[Arthur97]

Planet Zebes (Metroid)

So, acid covering 90% of the stage is fine, but the tornadoes on Hyrule Castle are terrible?

Mushroom Kingdom (Super Mario Bros.)

Actually, the pipe mechanic did return in Pictochat 2 on the 3DS.

You forgot the Battlefield from the original where you fought the fighting polygon team. True, it is unavailable through normal means, but it probably deserves a mention.

You can't swim in 3DS.

I believe it was named after world 1 from World which was name Yoshi's Island. The tilted pipe even appeared in one of the early levels.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Thanks for the feedback, I didn't play much of 3DS since I don't like it at all so that's why I forgot that swimming wasn't possible there, and that Pictochat 2 had pipes. Anyway, I meant I was surprised the pipe mechanic didn't come back in a Mario stage mainly.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Fountain Of Dreams (Kirby's Adventure)
Back in the day this stage was stunningly beautiful. The intriguing color palette based on pitch black and purple, the nice looking background featuring some kind of aurora, it even had reflections in the water over the main platform even if kind of low-poly of course, it was fantastic. But for some reason, it always made me incredibly sad and nostalgic.
I'm not a Kirby fan, I played maybe three or four titles in total from this franchise, so I was surprised to see such a different and distant aesthetic for a game which I thought was all based on light colors and happy-go-lucky music.
Anyway, this is another Battlefield clone with two small twists: the pinnacle which supports the Fountain itself functions as a wall, so it's technically possible to jump on it even if quite difficult, and the two lower platforms move up and down a bit.
Other than that, yeah, it's Battlefield, but for some reason this stage became with time, I think, the favorite by the Melee fanbase out of the entire roster selection. I guess it's even more balanced than Battlefield because of those two small changes.
Personally, I like it, but I think that at this point Smash Bros. was starting to feel some Battlefield fatigue. Especially Kirby already had one in Dream Land, and the other Kirby stage was basically a Dream Land expansion as we'll see, so everything felt kind of redundant like with Donkey Kong.
At the same time, it would've been nice to get this one back in Smash 4 instead than Dream Land simply because of its looks.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Green Greens (Kirby's Dream Land)
As we've seen most Smash Bros. 64 stages were remade by Sakurai in Melee, either by expanding on them, or simply take their main gimmick and using it again with small changes in platform layout. In this case, Green Greens can be considered an expansion of Dream Land, with a few addition to make it a little more complex.
Whispy Woods comes back of course, and acts basically the same, except he now can make some apples fall to the ground. This apples can be picked up and will randomly act as both a weapon to launch against opponents, or an edible item to gain some health back. All this happens in the central island.
Sakurai added the blocks that divide the main island from the other two. They fall from the sky until they manage to build a rectangle: all players can hit these blocks, and the ones with the bomb image on it will unsurprisingly explode.
I've always been an advocate for complicated stages, as we'll see going forward I like some that will never be played in a competitive match because I usually always prefer some complicated layout to the basic Battlefield scheme. Well, this one is an exception. I don't hate Green Greens, but I just find it utterly forgettable for some reason. Even back then when I was 9 years old I thought having two stages featuring Whispy Woods was kind of lame, and even if I knew this was the updated version and most recent one, I always picked Dream Land over this. It doesn't help that the background is extremely low-poly for some reason, so it doesn't even compare to the general quality of Melee for me.
Sometimes, if something simple works, might as well not complicate it and leave it as that. The blocks weren't that annoying, but I always found them kind of random, and their presence blocked the entire stage layout to be enjoyable.
Still, the stage came back in Brawl, where its presence had a little bit more sense, but I still wouldn't enjoy this one that much.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Brinstar (Metroid)
Another Smash 64 remake, this time made good. As you saw I really like Planet Zebes in Smash 64, so it comes automatically that I also like Brinstar in Melee, since it's basically the same thing. The platform layout changes a bit, it's still a bit complicated and has an added flavor with these brain-looking fleshy pillars that can actually be destroyed, resulting with the platforms to the left and right to move a bit until those pillars regenerate after a while.
Another disgusting diseased blob in the middle of the stage can be destroyed, creating a pit. All this happens while the entire stage dips itself in the acid below exactly like Planet Zebes worked, and resulting in the same type of damage.
In what Brinstar distances itself the most from Planet Zebes is the way it looks. We're in the depths of the planet right now, Metroid players can feel the presence of Mother Brain even it doesn't appear in the stage. The whole place is one of the creepiest places Smash Bros. ever took us to, and I love it. That brain-looking thing appearing in the background especially is a fantastic element which adds so much personality to the stage, even though for some reason it always reminded me of Toad in the Super Mario Bros. movie so it didn't scare me as much as a kid.
Even the stage itself is full of incredible details: the Chozo statue that every once in a while just walks around randomly is a nice touch. Again, the color palette in this Metroid stage is also pretty damn good: I love the acid green of the hazard.
All in all, Brinstar managed to replicate perfectly what made Planet Zebes a good stage, and with a few added touches here and there, even surpassed it. It came back in both Brawl and Smash 3DS, when players started to realize an annoying trend in Metroid stages that we'll talk about when I get to Norfair.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Brinstar Depths (Metroid)
Man, man, man, maaaaaan do I love Brinstar Depths. I honestly have no idea how this stage is received in the player community, but so far, I actually believe it's one of the best if not the best stage I analyzed so far to my personal taste. I mean, it's of course banned in competitive play, and I can see some people be annoyed by it's main gimmick, but still, it's so ingenious that I can force myself to find a problem with it.
Brinstar Depth's main platform is a giant, irregular, circular boulder. In the background, Kraid, by far the most menacing and terrifying enemy to appear in Super Smash Bros. possibly ever, hits this giant boulder with its claws, causing it to rotate around itself. Of course, gravity still functions as it should so players have to follow the ground under their feet and try to stay on the top part of it. Or, you know, they can risk it and jump on one of the floating stones around the main one and go deep down, under the stage, just to chill you know.
I LOVED this thing back in the day, I always escaped from the main battle when things started to get rough, and watched my enemies battling against each other while I just stayed protected, even if at risk to fall myself in the lava, way under.
The stage has many possible layouts based around its rotation, 7 in total, but the randomness of it made them feel like way more to me, making this stage one of the most unexpected and fresh experiences Smash Bros. has delivered to this day.
There is something about Metroid stages in Smash Bros. that, even though they look and feel almost all the same, make them spectacular to me. The sense of danger that I talked about already is always present, you're not only fighting against your opponents, you're actually fighting against the stage trying to survive. I understand this is one of the main reasons most players hate hazards or enemy presence in a stage, since they want to fight and that's all, but to me Metroid gets a pass for two reasons. First, well, I love Metroid, it's really hard for me to find something wrong with it (hey I kind of enjoyed Other M too).
Second, it makes perfect sense for a Metroid stage to be antagonistic, primal, like it's always on the brink of absolute madness and destruction. Samus Aran in her games visits hostile and dangerous habitats all the time, it's just like, her job.
Even though this rotating mechanic never appears in the games (Kraid's battle in the original Metroid looks completely different), it still manages to me to feel like it does. It's a different sense of danger, but it's a sense of danger nonetheless.
Of course, I didn't even touch about how this stage looks, because it's obviously fantastic for me. Kraid's model is incredibly polished and full of details, by far the best looking non-gameplay element to appear so far in the franchise, and again the color palette is beautiful. This time, they went for a red/brown contrast, which makes it look like we're fighting in actual Hell.
The only problem with Brinstar Depths is that it never came back. Never. I don't know if it's possibly a technical reason (maybe the whole mechanic isn't worth to code into the games again and not easily ported?), or a choice. To me, this is one of the top stages I want to see come back, if you didn't figure it out already. Come on, Smash Switch!

 

[Vintage Creep]

I guess I REALLY wanted to talk about Metroid's stages since I mistakenly jumped over Star Fox's ones. Oh well.

Corneria (Star Fox 64)
Corneria is basically Sector Z on a different set, and the Great Fox itself is a little smaller than it used to be. The change in size actually is a good thing for this stage, since, also thanks to the more fast-paced gameplay of Melee, it results to be a far more enjoyable and funny place to fight in. For me personally in fact, even though I liked Sector Z, it was Corneria that actually became a classic stage to fight in, an evergreen basically.
The platform layout remains fairly simple, it's also still quite large so it's easy to traverse and even the hazards (again the Arwings) are easily avoidable. You can even jump on them for fun. Great Fox's blasters deliver one-hit-KO lasers, but really it's extremely rare you'll even find yourself on their range so don't worry.
The background this time is a lot more detailed, featuring the capital of Star Fox's universe and first stage in Star Fox 64, Corneria. It looks very peaceful even at war, but also kind of barren. The Gamecube was capable in my opinion to put something more in there, so the fact that the city looks deserted is kind of disappointing to me, but it's not a big deal. The best part for me is when we get to the ocean, it's such an iconic start for the original game.
Fox and Falco are able to perfom a special command by pressing certain buttons that triggers an easter egg in which they talk with the other members of their time, and the dialogue changes accordingly by who does it and who is present or not present in the battle at the time. It's a gimmick that will come back in Brawl with Snake, and then Smash 4 with Pit talking with Palutena.
Everyone loves this stuff and it's not surprising, it adds a lot of depth to the characters even if they're in a crossover game, making them feel more than simple images taken from original games to fight against each other.
Corneria's simplicity managed to bring it back in Brawl and Smash 3DS, and my guess is this is one of those stages that we'll easily see again and again until the franchise lives on. It is not especially good to me, but I can't find actual problems with it, it's just a good overall stage. I'm still waiting on those interchangeable backgrounds though.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Venom (Star Fox 64)
With Star Fox Adventures almost out I would've preferred Smash Bros. to distance itself from Star Fox 64 at least once, but then again not even Nintendo can distance themselves from that game so yes, three out of three Star Fox stages so far are based on the same damn game. I love that game, to be fair, but the Great Fox fatigue is starting to become unbearable.
Corneria was the starting stage, and Venom is the final level of Star Fox 64. Sakurai, probably realizing he had to at least try to do something different, decided to put the perspective of this battle from the center of the Great Fox. This time, players would run around its wings, and the cetral structure of the battalion would function as some kind of divisive obstruction. The end result is a mix bag, it is fresher than Corneria of course, but fresher doesn't necessarily mean better.
On Corneria, the Arwings and Wolfens were the only hazard, and technically, they're still the only hazard, again, but the messy stage and platform layout of Venom always counted as one additional hazard to me since when I was a kid.
To be blunt, the stage is a complete chore to traverse, it feels weird, and if a player wants to make the opponent get mad, it's easy to just continue to escape or try to use the central structure to pull off some annoying combos.
Mechanically, the only interesting new thing of this stage is the section in which the Great Fox enters a giant cave: characters which get launched away can actually bump against the rocks and come back, but even that felt kind of random back when I was a kid, I never was able to completely grasp how and when and why that worked or didn't work.
Aesthetically, the stage is fine even if completely barren. It's kind of sad to look at, it's supposed to be the final battle for the future of the galaxy, but it's actually more like a walk in the park with Fox and friends. The only chance to see an enemy on this stage is if it comes back alongside Wolf, and to be honest, it's fine where it is right now, lost in Melee's memories.

 

[Pippin (Peregrin Took)]

Describing these stages makes me yearn to play Melee again. I especially agree with you about Fountain of Dreams - it's so different from any other kirby stage out there and it's gorgeous.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Onett (Earthbound)
Finally Ness got his own battle stage in Melee, he was one of only two characters back in Smash 64 not to have an hometown to fight in. And Onett is, in fact, Ness' hometown. When I was a kid I used to hate this stage for some reason, but I've grown to like it a bit even though there are superior Mother stages in the franchise in my opinion. Onett is one of the few stages in Melee to actually take place on the ground, making it a walk-off place and if I'm not wrong, the only one in which simply falling out of the stage just impossible. The platform layout is pretty complicated, with many different places walkable.
The center Drug Store building isn't walkable (even though it's the main platform of the stage's Omega Form weirdly enough), but its tents are, and after a while they collapse. I always liked how the tree platforms behave, being softer than usual and moving just a bit every time a character jumps on them just to give the idea of their weight to the player.
To the left and right, after the houses, there is still a big portion of the stage where you can battle it out, trying to smash your opponent against the building to rack up damage and then launching them out of the fight zone.
Of course, on the road is where the biggest threats of this stage appear: a series of vehicles (which range from a taxi cab, to a bus, to a coupé) run amock on the streets and if you get hit, they actually deal quite a lot of damage and knockback. Since they're very fast, a warning signal appears to the side from which the car is going to appear, so you have the time to try to avoid it.
It is in fact a pretty peculiar stage, so peculiare that Sakurai felt the need to bring it back in both Brawl and Smash Wii U, making it the only Earthbound stage to have a second appearance in the series. From what I read about this stage its return in the sequels brought a couple of modifications, but I never even noticed them so they must be purely technical.
It is quite lovely to be honest, especially the music, and the amount of details is pretty impressive, but still I'm not so fond of it myself. The easter egg of the signal with a written warning for the cars is pretty cool though.
I have to admit I tried out Earthbound and managed only to get out of this city before abandoning it, so I'm not the biggest fan of the series overall, but it makes sense for this one to be the major representative.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Fourside (Earthbound)
To me, the second stage for Ness, while being a little more generic, was far more impressive, both aesthetically and from a gameplay point of view. It is, to be honest, a much simpler layout to traverse, and doesn't feature any hazard at all, making it more obvious to fight in, but at the same time more free. Every single building acts as a different zone altogether, and your strategy in battle has to adjust to where you actually stand because of it. The left one has metal moving platform used by construction workers, which expands the left field quite a bit. The central one is tricky: standing around the main structure may prove efficient to avoid attacks, but at the same time it was hard to hit your opponent since the space was so close.
The right building, instead, is where the majority of my fights ended up because it was a more open space: the feeling of wall-jumping from the very end to the stage and get back to safety was fantastic, but at the same time I ended up many times just falling off of it while crashing against each wall multiple times.
Oh, and then a giant UFO appears. Like, actual aliens. It was pretty great the first time I saw this since I had no idea aliens were a thing in Mother/Earthbound, but their appearance doesn't amount to much. Maybe there's an in-game explanation for it (I doubt it), but why the hell was the alien ship's surface so slippery?
Aesthetically, the stage was very impressive to me at the time and it still impresses me today. The amount of details in the buildings is incredible, and the background was epic to look at. Except for the UFO, it was like battling on top of an actual city like New York, which was completely novel to the Smash franchise.
I think that this rendition could've been possible only in Melee, which relied heavily on a realistic approach, and if Fourside was made today, it would look completely different even if maybe it would have the same layout. Maybe because of this very reason, Fourside has been forgotten in its original game and never came back, even if I vastly prefer it to Onett.
I remember that challenge in which you had to fight against a giant Donkey Kong and Bowser which was extremely fun to me, I've always been a big fanboy of Godzilla and King Kong so I loved the reference.

 

[Lola Luftnagle]

Yeah...I'm quite fond of Fourside, too. I love how it is set at nighttime when I'm typically up and about. I, too, never understood how that UFO was slippery. But let me tell y'all, it's fun to practice wavedashing on it as anyone, especially .

 

[Vintage Creep]

Pokémon Stadium (Pokémon series)
Finally we reach another new mechanic Sakurai introduced in Melee: transforming stages. And Pokémon was basically the perfect fit to introduce this new idea, because of its massive possibilities to be represented in a game like Smash Bros.
Pokémon Stadium starts in a pretty simple way: it's basically a flat platform with two little ones on top of it in the middle of nowhere. A giant Poké Ball logo appears in its surface to remind us that we're actually in a Colosseum-like field, with millions of people watching us battling each other to the death. I loved the idea of putting a giant screen in the background: its purpose was to report the player about many informations regarding the match taking place, from the protagonists to the time left before the ending.
Even as a simple stage like this it could've worked, by not being much memorable, it was serviceable. But then...

Randomly, one of four transformations would occur, changing the stage layout completely because why the hell not. Every transformation was based on one of the 17 (back then) different types Pokémon could be identificated with. This one is the grass type, one of the main trifecta, which is pretty simple. The main platform is a little more complicated, but basically it just changes the position of the two platforms of the main form, and adds a couple of trees.

The same happens with the fire type. Everything is burning, but that doesn't actually affect the player at all. The left part was a pretty annoying part where to fight in in my opinion, and for some reason the entire stage reminds me of Donkey Kong regarding the style. Still, this is a pretty basic transformation, it looks cool, but doesn't introduce any new ideas gameplay-wise.

The water transformation was by far the most interesting in my opinion thanks to the windmill. Out of all the four transformation, this was my (second) favorite for that element alone. Many probably find it weird to navigate, but me? I like when simple platforming is used in an original way, if it doesn't end up being particularly annoying. The best transformation though?

You'd think that having fire, water and gress (the three main types in Pokémon games since forevere) would be more than enough for this kind of stage, but Sakurai throws in a curveball in the form of the rock type. This was the most complicated and uncomfortable place to fight in, but it actually makes sense to me: it's supposed to represent the infrangible, undestructible personality of the rock type. You have to adapt yourself here, battling against the element itself, which is something you don't actually do in the other forms. Do you escape fire in the fire form? No. Do you swim in the water form? No. Do you, I dunno, get hit by leaves in the grass form? Nah. Here, though, you actually are grinding against rocks, trying to hit your opponent while that giant mountain on the left just sits there, giving you a literal hard time.
In general, the whole stage is pretty damn awesome. It was something completely novel in Smash Bros. and worked perfectly. I like the fact that the whole concept heavily reminds me of the gym locations in the actual games, here completely done from scratch but following the same idea of battling against a certain element, in its own element. Sakurai probably realized this worked because the stage came back in Brawl, followed by a completely new Stadium with more elements, expanded to actually have an effect on gameplay out of the simple platform design.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Poké Floats (Pokémon series)
Like... what the ****. You'd think that in a game with Mr. Game & Watch in it, he would take the crown for the weirdest, most unexpected stage ever, but no, it's Pokémon. What the hell is Poké Floats? This is probably the hardest of the write-ups I'm going to do in this topic, by far, it was honestly hard to find out where to start. If Pokémon Stadium was a celebration of the Pokémon series game design, I guess Poké Floats is a celebration of the Pokémon series... character design? You know what's up, you battle on top of (mostly) immobile 3D renders of actual pokémons, in the middle of nowhere. Is it a dream? Is it hell?
My opinion is that Sakurai, while creating renders for the trophy mode, found himself a bunch of models that could actually be used as platforms in the main game, and decided to use them, simple as that. He does the same thing in three missions in the challenge mode, using Goomba, Entei, and the Majora's Mask.
The result is a random, disturbing, fascinating and actually fun mess of a bunch of pocket monsters from the first two generations. It would be useless to actually talk about every single one of them, so I'll reference in random order the ones that stood out the most to me, starting with Squirtle. He'd become playable in Brawl, but here, he was the first "place" you'd fight in. I mean, there's something both scary and hilarious in fighting on top of his silly bald head, while he's just opening and closing is mouth with lifeless eyes. Just... I dunno. I also liked the Slowpoke part where he'd close his tail trying to capture you, or the Sudowoodoo... section? Damn. Really, it's hard to talk about this stage because it's so random, but it somehow works. I also love how Goldeen looks like it's splashing from a pond, how Lickitung extends its tongue, I mean Sakurai went over and beyond to make the characters appearing act like they actually do in their games, and that's pretty good.
It's actually even hard to define the stage. I guess it's an auto-scrolling one like Rainbow Cruise, but to me it feels a lot different. It's like you're always staying in the same spot, and things are happening around you. It adds to the creepy, confusing, random atmosphere that you don't get to see what's going to happen (unlike Rainbow Cruise, which camera is so large to accomodate the player's movement). Pokémon just randomly appear into the screen, and you have to adapt fast not to fall or get stuck on it while it goes away.
It is, quite honestly, a pretty fantastic stage. It's a perfect example for the Smash Bros. underlying weirdness: yes, it's a celebration of videogame characters, but it can become a celebration to the art itself by bringing something completely new, unexpected, unneccessary, just weird to surprise the player. And sometimes, an idea can be so good that it goes beyond the fact that this stage is... well, not very good for fighting. This is the stage in which only certain picks are tolerable: Pikachu, Pichu, Mewtwo and Jigglypuff. And the only item that has to be activated is the Poké Ball. And then you get the fun.
Just random, unpredictable, inconceivable random fun. And here's the tragedy: Poké Floats never came back. Like the supposed dream it takes place in, once it was over, it started to fade away. But I still believe in Sakurai's madness, I still believe he'll surprise us someday with not only a port of this stage, but a Poké Floats 2 altogether, upgraded all the way to the seventh (possibly eighth) generation. Come on Sakurai. Let me dream again.

 

[Vintage Creep]

I still messed up the order LOL... Mute City and Big Blue were the next. Well, we're nearing the end of Melee, with Brawl things will get interesting imho

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Very interesting write-ups. That said, eh, no worry if you slightly mess up the order. It's not worth copy-pasting into other posts. XD

 

[Vintage Creep]

Mute City (F-Zero X)
It is time for Captain Falcon finally to show off where he comes from, and as almost every series represented in Melee, he gets to do that with two stages. Coming from a racing game franchise, it wasn't obvious how to make a stage out of it, but Sakurai managed to pull it off with two completely different ideas. Let's see which one of the two worked out the best for me.
Mute City is one of the most famous landscapes in the F-Zero races, I guess we could basically call it the Mario Circuit of this franchise: it's a futuristic, kind of dystopian city, fans of Blade Runner should love it. The stage starts on top a floating platform which follows along the track, and it may seem pretty simple. But after a while, you'd find out that the platform stops every once in a while, descends into the ground and abandons the player on the actual track, where the 30 (yes, thirty) different racers will come soon enough without any warning, crashing against the characters. As an hazard, they look pretty damn great. Every single different racer from the original game gets its own 3D model and that's pretty great if you ask me.
The machines can actually be destroyed if you hit them hard enough with some item, but that's a risk you'll have to take: at high damage, getting hit by them means death.
The platform lands in different part of the track, the perspective's always the same: you'd get to see the racers coming from the background against the screen. To be honest, while this will find itself becoming a winning staple for racing game franchises stages in Smash Bros., this first rendition of it, even though extremely well done, feels kind of barren. Out of all the places the platform stops in, I remember distinctly every one of them, but the only one that I really appreaciate for some reason is the large tilted one because of the possibility of launching away opponents and see them not having the time to come back.
Mute City never came back but had a slew of spiritual successors, both from the same F-Zero franchise than from Mario Kart. As a big F-Zero fan, I don't feel the urge from this one to be back, even though it introduced a new type of stage that will be developed further in Brawl and Smash 4, the "touring" stage, consisting on a single platform carrying the characters to a number of different locations, basically creating a bunch of different "micro-stages" inside a bigger one. Its is a winning idea, probably my actual favorite to survive this installment, since many touring stages later will become interesting probably only thanks to this mechanic.

 

[ryuu seika]

I guess my strong dislike for Peach's Castle is for a variety of reasons which probably don't have much to do with the stage itself. I mean it's playable and all, not that big of a deal, but for Mario it's kind of a weak effort. Very nice to see someone interested in this, I'm having fun writing this stuff (oh, English is not my first language so forgive me for errors and stuff) but it's better of course to receive some feedback.

64's Peach's Castle is an amalgamation of many elements of the stages found in the various Mario games and, as someone who played Mario 64 first, that made sense to me. What didn't make sense was putting it as the first stage because, quite frankly, it was a mess. A fun mess that, without that stupid bumper, would have been quite playable, but not one that makes sense as an introduction to the series. Chaos may have been the game's selling point but it doesn't make for the best learning environment.
And it definitely doesn't represent the named location well at all.

Conversely, however, Mute City is the only "touring" stage I can think of that I actually like. In most of the others the means of touring breaks so completely from the design and feel of the environment that the right might as well not take place there. Which, for a franchise focusing on crossovers, seems pretty awful.

 

[Vintage Creep]

Big Blue (F-Zero X)
Creating a stage for a franchise which was about racing at light speed inside of futuristic machines wasn't easy to begin with, but Sakurai managed to came up with another one too, and to top it off it felt completely different from the other. In Mute City we watched the race from the front of it, with the F-Zero racers coming against us, in Big Blue instead, we are following the race on the right side of it, and we're able to actually jump on top of them and use them as platforms!
The idea was crazy to begin with, but the amount of work it had to go towards this feat is incredible to me: Sakurai and his team took the time to actually model and make walkable all 30 of the original F-Zero racers from X. The Blue Falcon, the Fire Stingray, the Wild Goose, they all appear and feel different thanks to their particular frame. Not only that, but the Falcon Flyer, a bigger vehicle actually created for this game acts as the main platform and the beginning of the stage along with different weird floating objects also appear. The road under the vehicles is actually walkable, but don't forget, we're running fast here: if you land on asphalt, chances are you're going to die immediately because the camera doesn't wait for anyone, the race is the highlight here, not the battle.
Overall, I'm conflicted regarding which is the better between Mute City and Big Blue. On one hand, I feel the first one is technically better designed and a more compact experience, but the high-octane adrenaline and general madness of the second one, while a bit messy, is unforgettable. It's one of those stages in which you're actually fighting against it too, not only your opponents, and many may not like it. Personally, thanks to my undying love for F-Zero (yes, my three favorite Nintendo franchises are this one. Metroid and Star Fox, you can laugh now), I end up preferring Big Blue. There's something about finding unpredictable ways to do something which Sakurai does so well, I have to applaud it. There's definitely room for improvement, maybe a Big Blue 2 with a better layout will perfect it. For the moment, Big Blue has returned once, in Brawl, and that was it. In Brawl, I loved the fact that a Bunny Hood wearing Sonic could actually run as fast as the F-Zero racers.