Okay, so this is probably a weirder pick, but I think it'd be an interesting one to delve into:
What if Sakurai didn't come back for Brawl?
According to what we know about the early stages of
Brawl's conceptualisation, Satoru Iwata originally suggested that if he were director, he would have simply released a remastered port of
Melee with online capabilities. With that in mind, I think it'd be interesting to conceptualise how that port might have looked, and some of the content that might have been potentially added to it (even if it'd admittedly be pretty minimal.)
With that in mind, let's see how
Super Smash Bros. Melee: Encore would have looked!
RELEASE
Given that this game would only have been a port of
Melee with a few changes, development would be unlikely to take as long as
Brawl's did. With that in mind, I'm suggesting that the development of this port would also have started in October 2005, with the full design document being finalised by Feburary 2006 (which acts as our cutoff point for inclusions.) The game would have then been released for the holiday season of 2007, without
Brawl's delayed development.
CHARACTERS
Probably the most controversial consideration - but
Encore would have maintained
Melee's base roster and not added any characters. I feel like, given how Sakurai has discussed his creative process for movesets and the like, it'd be unlikely that the new team would feel like they were equipped to add completely new picks, as much as I think it would be fantastic to see. However, some characters would be considered as holdovers from the original concept - these including Wario, Lucas, Snake, Sonic, Olimar and King Dedede. The idea of adding new characters at all would unfortunately be dropped. That said, certain characters would have a couple of changes, albeit purely cosmetic in nature.
- Link, Zelda and Ganondorf would be redesigned to appear in their Twilight Princess forms.
- Sheik would recieve a similar Twilight Princess-inspired redesign to that she recieved in Brawl.
- Fox and Falco would be redesigned to appear in their Star Fox: Assault forms.
- Captain Falcon would be redesigned to appear in his F-Zero GX form.
- Mewtwo would also be slightly redesigned to appear a little "softer", akin to his look in Pokemon: The First Movie.
That being said, every character would now have six alternate costumes - all of which are simple palette swaps. These would be intended to reference other characters where possible, though unique textures wouldn't happen - so for instance, Mario's "stars and stripes" costume wouldn't be included.
STAGES
Every stage from
Melee would return in
Encore, albeit obviously with a few graphical touch-ups to make it look less like a game released in 2001. However, whilst I didn't feel that new characters would be reasonable, I do think it's a possibility that some new stages would be introduced.
- Hyrule Castle and Saffron City would be brought into Encore as Past Stages from the first game, with a few touchups here and there but for the most part remaining true to their original vision.
- Archanea would also be added as a de-facto Fire Emblem stage, utilsing the (admittedly limited) resources that were pooled into the original game to make this possible. In terms of appearance, it'd be similar to Castle Siege's first form, but without transformations.
- Online Waiting Room would also be added, which is effectively a white-themed variation of Final Destination that can't be selected in typical play. This works akin to how it did in Brawl's WFC.
Yeah... that's it. As much as I'd like to suggest some more stages, I think this is a pretty decent (and honestly charitable) estimate of what might have happened for the time. Sorry, y'all.
MUSIC
That being said, I do think there's a possibility that stages would get a couple of additional music tracks. Don't get your hopes up, though - a lot of them are simply because other tracks enter the random rotation. For instance, Battlefield now has a chance of playing
Multi-Man Melee and
Multi-Man Melee 2 alongside just
Battlefield. In other cases, direct gamerips from older (or related) games are used so that an orchestra isn't put to use - for example,
Termina Field is pulled directly from
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask to play as part of Great Bay's rotation, whereas
Fire Emblem is no longer in Temple's rotation due to Archanea being added. No stage will have more than three songs - you can select their alternate songs by holding down either L or R when selecting the stage. There's also two bonus pieces of unlockable music that you'll only find in the Sound Test - I'll get to them later.
MODES
Again, for the most part
Encore's modes would remain similar to the original game's. I will note, however, that the Sound Test is available from the start - and doesn't have to be unlocked. That said - the main new menu option of note is
Wi-Fi! Utilising Nintendo WFC, it's possible to fight opponents online. You have two options - With Friends, or With Anyone. These matches allow you to fight your friends or complete in battles that have the same degree of rules customisation that a typical local match would have - including being able to engage in either a basic battle or a team battle. Not only this, but it's possible to send your replays and snapshots to your friends using Wi-Fi! However, there's no method of communicating with others online in order to alleviate concerns of potential bullying or misuse.
TROPHIES
Whilst the disappointing lack of new characters might be a bummer to some people, a reasonably large number of new trophies would be added - bringing the number of trophies from 290 to 350. Amongst other things, the trophies Tamagon, Mario and Yoshi, and Samus Unmasked would be included in the international release - and Captain Olimar would unlock if you have a
Pikmin save file, but would also be unlockable through normal means. Several of these trophies would outright reuse models or sprites from relatively recent games, such as some later Gamecube or Game Boy Advance titles. As such, a lot of them wouldn't be overly exciting - I imagine at least 10 would just be new Pokémon models from
Pokémon Colesseum - though some familiar characters, such as Lucas, would recieve trophies too.
Furthermore, to attempt to honour the original request of Hideo Kojima, Solid Snake would be included as the series' first third-party trophy - with Sonic the Hedgehog being second at the behest of Yuji Naka. Neither of them would, however, be playable. Upon unlocking them,
Encounter (ripped directly from
Metal Gear Solid) and
Green Hill Zone (ripped directly from
Sonic the Hedgehog) would be unlocked to listen to in the Sound Test, but can't be played on any stages.
ITEMS
Not much to report here. In terms of Pokéball Pokémon, Ditto finally functions as intended - similarly to its function in
Ultimate. However, the Cloaking Device and Motion-Sensor Bomb items would be removed, due to potential licensing issues with Rare given their recent acquisition.
GAMEPLAY
I should note that this version of the game would be based on v1.02, which would include some of the bug fixes present in that version. However, in keeping with the vision of maintaining this as a port, certain gameplay elements would be kept in place mostly because removing or replacing them would lend to the game being pretty different - and remember, this doesn't need to be high-effort.
BONUS CONTENT
Six of the seven Bonuses that were cut from Classic Mode have been added back - these being Barrel Blast KO, Crash & Burn, Green Shell Shooter, Poolshark, Red Shell Shooter, and Richochet Rifler. The exception to this is Deflector, which is due to the fact that it's unclear what it actually would have rewarded you for. Furthermore, Archives is now accessible in all regions, containing the How To Play video, the Special Movie that was previously NTSC-exclusive, and the Opening Movie.
IN CLOSING
Whilst I think this would be a pretty interesting alternate universe to look into, I'm kind of curious how it would have affected the series going forward. Whilst I think I can speak for all of us when I say I'm kind of glad
Brawl happened, it'd be a strange world where it didn't.
