Nintendo Direct (08.08.2018) - "Mysterious Mode" (Possible Story-Mode?)

[YeahVeryeah]

Oh good point the head isn't vital at all just got mauled by a croc. We also know he isn't dead because we never saw him again.

The new mode is called spirits and we're seeing spirits in prerendered cutscenes. It's tinfoil to suggest we're not getting something on a gradient between adventure mode and SSE.

 

[Arthur97]

Oh good point the head isn't vital at all just got mauled by a croc. We also know he isn't dead because we never saw him again.

The new mode is called spirits and we're seeing spirits in prerendered cutscenes. It's tinfoil to suggest we're not getting something on a gradient between adventure mode and SSE.

It's a cartoon penguin who fights Kirby (who, among other things, has access to a sword) of all things. He's fine.

We saw similar cutscenes for 4. Most of them being in the same style. Why is there any reason to think this is any different? Because they haven't pulled a Little Mac yet? Don't read too much into a few character trailers and a de-pixeled word.

 

[MalcolmBelmont]

I wonder if there is actually going to be a story mode or will it be more like Adventure Mode

 

[YeahVeryeah]

Dedede is indeed cartoonish! That cuts both ways. He can die in a comical fashion. That's entirely my point, in fact. Ridley might impale Mario straight through the heart, but DeDeDe can get croc-rawked and die with a cartoon lump on his head. And remember that Luigi's spirit was trying to go right back into his body! Just because characters are dying doesn't mean it's permanent!

As to why they'd do this... Sakurai will surely give an interview after the mode's reveal. The best speculation I can offer is that by depicting villains faithfully, some will be pretty violent (Ridley) and some will be comical (DeDeDe, Wario and somewhat Bowser). A wider set of tones is a wider set of tools to craft a narrative. K. Rool might show up early, but Ridley could be at a climax.

 

[Arthur97]

Dedede is indeed cartoonish! That cuts both ways. He can die in a comical fashion. That's entirely my point, in fact. Ridley might impale Mario straight through the heart, but DeDeDe can get croc-rawked and die with a cartoon lump on his head. And remember that Luigi's spirit was trying to go right back into his body! Just because characters are dying doesn't mean it's permanent!

As to why they'd do this... Sakurai will surely give an interview after the mode's reveal. The best speculation I can offer is that by depicting villains faithfully, some will be pretty violent (Ridley) and some will be comical (DeDeDe, Wario and somewhat Bowser). A wider set of tones is a wider set of tools to craft a narrative. K. Rool might show up early, but Ridley could be at a climax.

Your logic is still very flimsy as to why any of these trailers are indicative of a story mode. Changing the style every trailer would actually be more strange too.

 

[Superyoshiom]

If it is an adventure mode, I hope it's toned back more Melee style.

I'm with you to a degree, but I'd love some story elements. If they make a condensed version of Subspace with more iconic levels and enemies rather than the uninspired stuff from Brawl, we'd have a fantastic mode. And if the stuff with Monster Hunter and Dracula is to believed, then I think we're on the right track.

 

[TMNTSSB4]

One, Dedede isn't dead. He got hit in the head.

Two, why would they make a story mode about death?

For all we know, DeDeDe got slapped so hard by K Rool that he died (K Rool trying to be like Thanos)

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

Ridley's trailer was not exactly friendly.

And by knowing that, you still think that this is absurd to think that this Smash couldn't have a story based on spirits? So you think it's absurd that the game might have a dark themed story-mode, meaning that it doesn't fit Nintendo, but then you acknowledge how Ridley's trailer didn't fit either. Do you realize that what you say makes no sense?

We saw similar cutscenes for 4. Most of them being in the same style. Why is there any reason to think this is any different? Because they haven't pulled a Little Mac yet? Don't read too much into a few character trailers and a de-pixeled word.

This is different because all cutscenes follow the same artistic direction while Smash 4's trailers didn't. That's not hard to understand. I think that you should take a step back and think again about that.

 

[Khao]

It's a cartoon penguin who fights Kirby (who, among other things, has access to a sword) of all things. He's fine.

We saw similar cutscenes for 4. Most of them being in the same style. Why is there any reason to think this is any different? Because they haven't pulled a Little Mac yet? Don't read too much into a few character trailers and a de-pixeled word.

I'm honestly surprised people are taking these "deaths" so seriously. The only character who visibly died is Luigi, and even that's arguable, as he was clearly on his way to go back to his body which you don't see dead people do all that often. Ridley grabbed Mario's head and stole his hat, yay, worse things have been done to him in the series. Mega Man got stabbed, but he's a freaking robot.

Heck, when you look at the context of these things, it harder to call death an overarching theme. Ridley was presented that way because he's the most violent Nintendo character. Luigi had his soul taken away by Death because they're setting up Castlevania's creepy atmosphere. Meanwhile, in the more light-hearted K. Rool trailer, Dedede got hit in the back and made funny face at worst.

 

[Arthur97]

And by knowing that, you still think that this is absurd to think that this Smash couldn't have a story based on spirits? So you think it's absurd that the game might have a dark themed story-mode, meaning that it doesn't fit Nintendo, but then you acknowledge how Ridley's trailer didn't fit either. Do you realize that what you say makes no sense?



This is different because all cutscenes follow the same artistic direction while Smash 4's trailers didn't. That's not hard to understand. I think that you should take a step back and think again about that.

Do you realize that Ridley is not like most Nintendo characters? Yes, his was kind of gruesome, but so far they are fitting the themes of the characters. K. Rool's was fairly light by comparison.

"All." We've had a grand total of three. Only three (Awakening, Little Mac, and Kid Icarus) did not match in 4 so you really can't derive anything conclusive. You know why most of them probably share the same style? Probably so they can reuse assets. Like using the same Mario and Mega Man model.

 

[Michele]

Ok so in summary...
It's called Spirits, the Monster Hunter stage is all flat and there's only a player, there's this Castlevania thing, and the cutscene/animation looks very identical to Brawl. But, I think you forgot an important point, at least what it seems to me: the green part has been almost fully depixelated.
https://imgur.com/gallery/vMHFg8Q
Basically, the guy realized that he could decensor the Spirit logo in the same way as the text and well, this is his result. This is what the logo would look like.

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

Do you realize that Ridley is not like most Nintendo characters? Yes, his was kind of gruesome, but so far they are fitting the themes of the characters. K. Rool's was fairly light by comparison.

"All." We've had a grand total of three. Only three (Awakening, Little Mac, and Kid Icarus) did not match in 4 so you really can't derive anything conclusive. You know why most of them probably share the same style? Probably so they can reuse assets. Like using the same Mario and Mega Man model.

Damn man, you have hard time to understand (and not only on this thread by the way). I'll keep it simple for you :

• The hidden mode is called "spirits" and Luigi has his souls taken out of his body during a trailer. We are saying that we can assume that there might be a story-mode about spirits as those elements lead that way.
• Every cutscenes yet follows the same artistic directions (like Subspace Emissary), while Smash 4 didn't. This difference is enough to make people treating Ultimate's trailer differently.... BECAUSE IT IS. THIS IS FACT. If tomorrow we get an anime-trailer like for Palutena, we will take note and this argument will be defined as irrelevant.

In conclusion: we are not trying to prove anything, we gather elements that support the theory of a new story-mode or elements that counter the arguments in favor of the theory. So telling me that "having only 3 trailers doesn't prove anything" is stupid because: 1) We already know that and we're not trying to prove anything. 2) This is not an argument.

 

[Arthur97]

Damn man, you have hard time to understand (and not only on this thread by the way). I'll keep it simple for you :

• The hidden mode is called "spirits" and Luigi has his souls taken out of his body during a trailer. We are saying that we can assume that there might be a story-mode about spirits as those elements lead that way.
• Every cutscenes yet follows the same artistic directions (like Subspace Emissary), while Smash 4 didn't. This difference is enough to make people treating Ultimate's trailer differently.... BECAUSE IT IS. THIS IS FACT. If tomorrow we get an anime-trailer like for Palutena, we will take note and this argument will be defined as irrelevant.

In conclusion: we are not trying to prove anything, we gather elements that support the theory of a new story-mode or elements that counter the arguments in favor of the theory. So telling me that "having only 3 trailers doesn't prove anything" is stupid because: 1) We already know that and we're not trying to prove anything. 2) This is not an argument.

And I say that people are reading too much into trailers that historically have nothing to do with anything. If that were the case, Sonic would have shown up with Mario during a jungle/forest level in SSE. Insulting my intelligence does not change this.

 

[Just a random scrub]

Funny how in a few weeks, the likelihood of a story mode has gone from "LMAO, will never happen", to really plausible.

Hell, just the name "Spirits" has me drooling at the possibilities.... But if we're being honest, I'd really hoped that a Subspace-like mode will NOT be in the base game.

Why? Because, as much as I loved the Subspace Emissary, it was a magor development hog and caused multiple things to get cut from Brawl from the strain of working on it alone. I would much prefer such a mode would be saved off for DLC, so that it doesn't interfere with anything in the base game, and they could spend more time ironing out the issues of the Subspace Emissary (like the absurd difficulty spikes).

So, I came up with a pretty bitchin' idea. Please, just ignore the fact that it's probably absolutely impossible.

What if this Spirits mode was actually just a slightly revamped Melee-ish Adventure Mode...... that acted as a prelude of sorts to the true story mode (also named Spirits)? Like, the path taken and the final level are slightly different for each character, and there are even some bosses thrown into the mix? The idea is, there are cutscenes before and after the mode that are different for everyone, that help set up the events of the true story mode along with the levels themselves..... and maybe after you clear this hypothetical mode with everyone, you get an extra cutscene that directly leads into the events of the true story mode and ends with a cliffhanger that will be resolved once you buy the true story mode as DLC?

Thoughts?

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

Hell, just the name "Spirits" has me drooling at the possibilities.... But if we're being honest, I'd really hoped that a Subspace-like mode will NOT be in the base game.

Why? Because, as much as I loved the Subspace Emissary, it was a magor development hog and caused multiple things to get cut from Brawl from the strain of working on it alone. I would much prefer such a mode would be saved off for DLC, so that it doesn't interfere with anything in the base game, and they could spend more time ironing out the issues of the Subspace Emissary (like the absurd difficulty spikes).

So, I came up with a pretty bitchin' idea. Please, just ignore the fact that it's probably absolutely impossible.

What if this Spirits mode was actually just a slightly revamped Melee-ish Adventure Mode...... that acted as a prelude of sorts to the true story mode (also named Spirits)? Like, the path taken and the final level are slightly different for each character, and there are even some bosses thrown into the mix? The idea is, there are cutscenes before and after the mode that are different for everyone, that help set up the events of the true story mode along with the levels themselves..... and maybe after you clear this hypothetical mode with everyone, you get an extra cutscene that directly leads into the events of the true story mode and ends with a cliffhanger that will be resolved once you buy the true story mode as DLC?

Thoughts?

They said that they aren't even thinking of DLC right now because they just want to finish the game. I hate when a game isn't full and needs DLCs to be complete, something is wrong with you if you already think of buying DLC instead of wanting a full game.

The story-mode being in the base game or as DLC will makes no difference at all. Characters' mechanics and attributes wasn't the same in Subspace than in all other modes (there were special data for Subspace), so it technically didn't interfere with anything in the base game back then.

And seriously.. a cliffhanger that wants you to continue the story if you buy the DLC? I'd hate any companies that do that kind of disgusting things.

 

[Just a random scrub]

They said that they aren't even thinking of DLC right now because they just want to finish the game. I hate when a game isn't full and needs DLCs to be complete, something is wrong with you if you already think of buying DLC instead of wanting a full game.

The story-mode being in the base game or as DLC will makes no difference at all. Characters' mechanics and attributes wasn't the same in Subspace than in all other modes (there were special data for Subspace), so it technically didn't interfere with anything in the base game back then.

And seriously.. a cliffhanger that wants you to continue the story if you buy the DLC? I'd hate any companies that do that kind of disgusting things.

Holy ****, dude, calm down! It was just an idea........ One that, in hindsight, sounds pretty ****ing stupid now, but still.... THAT means something is wrong with me?! Seriously?

But what I meant by it interfering with the rest of the game's development was that it was less time devoted to the other aspects of Brawl, and Sakurai stated a few characters and elements had to be scrapped because of work on the Subspace Emissary. The cutscenes, the level design, the story, they all took up huge chunks of development time. Subspace was practically a separate game. But why listen to me? I'm just the dumbass that needs help, right?!

 

[Smashoperatingbuddy123]

Hang on a minute

I believe there was something on Dracula only appearing in certain times in the direct

Didn't melee adventure mode had special requirements to meet for special event s to happen

Like "have a "2" in the seconds to luigi instead of Mario." "Beat kirby team in 30 secs to fight the giant Kirby" "finish adevnture mode on normal inacertain amount of time to fight gigs bowser."

So maybe Dracula and rathalos is the same case so this will probably be a melee esc adventure mode and not subspace emissary

 

[Arthur97]

Wasn't Dracula at least hinted to show up on the actual stage though?

 

[YeahVeryeah]

Only so far as they edited it to look like one stage. Besides that, just a shadow from lightning.

 

[Smash Lampjaw]

An interesting idea I keep coming back to is a Melee-style Adventure Mode, but character-specific, as is common in other fighting games (Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, etc.) as opposed to one giant SSE-type thing with spirits having some sort of overlapping theme involving unlocking characters. Certain "character spirits" could be found and unlocked for each story mode, similar to finding trophies at the end of SSE. Would explain the Dracula boss, too, if that's the Castlevania campaign, but I'm not sure how Monster Hunter would fit into that idea, and I highly doubt the mode is nearly as complicated in actuality as the scenario I made up. Still, character-specific Adventure Modes that play like their original games could be fun. Pure speculation on my part, obviously.

 

[Just a random scrub]

An interesting idea I keep coming back to is a Melee-style Adventure Mode, but character-specific, as is common in other fighting games (Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, etc.) as opposed to one giant SSE-type thing with spirits having some sort of overlapping theme involving unlocking characters. Certain "character spirits" could be found and unlocked for each story mode, similar to finding trophies at the end of SSE. Would explain the Dracula boss, too, if that's the Castlevania campaign, but I'm not sure how Monster Hunter would fit into that idea, and I highly doubt the mode is nearly as complicated in actuality as the scenario I made up. Still, character-specific Adventure Modes that play like their original games could be fun. Pure speculation on my part, obviously.

Cool idea, but who would, say, Wii Fit Trainer or Duck Hunt's boss be? Or does not everyone have a boss?

 

[Smash Lampjaw]

Cool idea, but who would, say, Wii Fit Trainer or Duck Hunt's boss be? Or does not everyone have a boss?

Ehhhhhhhh... I don't know.

 

[soviet prince]

what if bringing all characters back was a red haring and the story mode is the real reason for less newcomers

 

[YeahVeryeah]

Have they confirmed trophies? Maybe they aren't fiddling with a couple hundred character models.

Anyways, since nobody has actually made any sort of counterpoint to there being a story mode using the reveal cutscenes, just saying no, I had to think up one myself.

We don't see a cutscene before Simon fights Dracula. You could say "well clearly they just didn't show that one" but Dracula actually does a flourish in-engine, one that looks like it could interrupt steady flow if it played right after a prerendered cutscene. You wouldn't expect a cutscene for Rathalos, either, unless they actually make a Monster Hunter character. It would be weird to do cutscenes sometimes but not other times.

The similarity of these cutscenes could be chalked up to marketing consistency and driving the point home about what is very clearly a heroes vs villains theme. They might depict events that are only shown in-enine ingame.

 

[Competitively]

The first trailer with Luigi says “not gameplay footage” making me believe that this Isn’t bad a cutscene. However, Ridleys cutscene and king k rools (the one where they are running at each other) makes me believe they are part of The story mode.

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

Holy ****, dude, calm down! It was just an idea........ One that, in hindsight, sounds pretty ****ing stupid now, but still.... THAT means something is wrong with me?! Seriously?

But what I meant by it interfering with the rest of the game's development was that it was less time devoted to the other aspects of Brawl, and Sakurai stated a few characters and elements had to be scrapped because of work on the Subspace Emissary. The cutscenes, the level design, the story, they all took up huge chunks of development time. Subspace was practically a separate game. But why listen to me? I'm just the ******* that needs help, right?!

I guess you interpreted my post in a more offensive way than I thought, sorry for that. But the real problem wasn't Subspace Emissary but the fact that they didn't get enough development time. Sakurai doesn't work alone on the franchise, they delayed the release two time to finish what they wanted to do anyway. "other aspects of Brawl", I don't see what you are talking about because I can feel the lack of contents in Subspace but the other stuff of the games were on point in my opinion. And if you think that the lack of speed of the game is due to the lack of time you're wrong, they did that on purpose (bad idea though).

An interesting idea I keep coming back to is a Melee-style Adventure Mode, but character-specific, as is common in other fighting games (Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, etc.) as opposed to one giant SSE-type thing with spirits having some sort of overlapping theme involving unlocking characters. Certain "character spirits" could be found and unlocked for each story mode, similar to finding trophies at the end of SSE. Would explain the Dracula boss, too, if that's the Castlevania campaign, but I'm not sure how Monster Hunter would fit into that idea, and I highly doubt the mode is nearly as complicated in actuality as the scenario I made up. Still, character-specific Adventure Modes that play like their original games could be fun. Pure speculation on my part, obviously.

However, there is a big problem with a Melee-like Adventure mode: It would be too similar to Classic Mode, even more than in Melee since Ultimate's Classic Mode has predefined opponents for each characters. We might get a selection of boss at the end of the Classic Mode to match your selected fighter.

Cool idea, but who would, say, Wii Fit Trainer or Duck Hunt's boss be? Or does not everyone have a boss?

As well as Rob & Mr. Game & Watch, they might put you against Master-Hand & Crazy-Hand. Another possibility is to choose a boss that is related in some way with the character (old character fight old boss? I don't know).

The first trailer with Luigi says “not gameplay footage” making me believe that this Isn’t bad a cutscene. However, Ridleys cutscene and king k rools (the one where they are running at each other) makes me believe they are part of The story mode.

As said previously, the "not actual footage" doesn't mean that this won't be in the game, but just that this isn't the in-game look. Game's trailers always have this mention for legal purposes, you can generally find the used cinematic within the game.

 

[Grevmak]

You know what? I'm calling it right the **** now. Dracula is not a stage boss either. He's part of whatever mode the Rathalos is too. Because look at the footage again. Dracula only appears with a single fighter on-screen. He's not in multiplayer battles.

While they tried to hide it, you can see the throne not appearing in the actual map and some other, more subtle differences like the map being bigger than it actually is when fighting Dracula.

Spirits also could be connected to the cast getting annihilated by stage hazards/villains so there's that, too I guess. But at the very least, we'll see some bosses and a mystery mode that is very likely to be quite important as it has its own point in the menu. I really like the point OP made, I hope this will be the case.

 

[Just a random scrub]

I guess you interpreted my post in a more offensive way than I thought, sorry for that. But the real problem wasn't Subspace Emissary but the fact that they didn't get enough development time. Sakurai doesn't work alone on the franchise, they delayed the release two time to finish what they wanted to do anyway. "other aspects of Brawl", I don't see what you are talking about because I can feel the lack of contents in Subspace but the other stuff of the games were on point in my opinion. And if you think that the lack of speed of the game is due to the lack of time you're wrong, they did that on purpose (bad idea though)..

Acutaly, I think I should apologize. I was having a very ****ty day, and I was just about ready to blow up. I really shouldn't have let it spill into my posts.

But it's all cool anyways. Also, yeah, you definitely have a point about the lack of dev time Sakurai and crew had. I probably should have thought of that.

(Also, just to clarify, I didn't think the lack of speed had anything to do with Subspace at all, it was a crappy decision by the dev team. Brawl was spot on in many aspects and could have been my favorite if it weren't for the bizzare gameplay decisions, but that's an issue for a seperate thread entirely.)

 

[Gouloudrouioul]

I would love a rogue-like adventure mode, with bosses from different series scattered in the levels. Each universe would randomly get a representation, and each series would come with its own challenges and obstacles (for example, doors that open when you hit them for metroid, pipes for mario, randomly generated encounters for golden sun, etc...). With more and more collectibles and powerups the more you succeed. A bit like spelunky.
A rogue like mod, with infinite playtime, would make this game truly ultimate for me.
Plus, it would give each series even more representation.

 

[Yuya-Noboru]

(Also, just to clarify, I didn't think the lack of speed had anything to do with Subspace at all, it was a crappy decision by the dev team.

Yeah that what just in case since this is the main concern about Brawl haha.

I would love a rogue-like adventure mode, with bosses from different series scattered in the levels. Each universe would randomly get a representation, and each series would come with its own challenges and obstacles (for example, doors that open when you hit them for metroid, pipes for mario, randomly generated encounters for golden sun, etc...).

Sounds... beautiful. Also add specific scenery for each universe with a nice order so the transition between worlds looks perfect. For example, you begin in a land that is a fusion between Mario & Pokemon universes (something that look cartoonish and happy-sugar-life) before climbing up to the sky (Ice Climbers + Pit Icarus) to reach Kirby universe. Then something makes you travel into the space with the Starfox characters before crashing into a planet as Samus does in (almost) every Metroid, etc. I agree with you, that would be the perfect way to make a story mode.

 

[Izanagi97]

I'm just gonna wait a couple months and see what comes of it (assuming some parts of that green mode get revealed at the next direct only to show like a couple things in there alongside a bunch of censored stuff)

 

[Sean Wheeler]

I would like to think it's a Story Mode. But I don't think it would be called Spirits because it was perfectly censored and was so pixelated and blurry, the person who came up with the Spirits theory would have to be extremely lucky. For all we know, the mode could just say "Story" or "Subspace" or "Smash-something." And those trailers said they are not gameplay footage. If the CGI portions came from cutscenes, that caption would lie to us.

 

[Crainy]

I hope its something akin to smash run, I think it fits great into the Smash formular. A slight rogue-like experience is what I want.

And while I dont believe that the trailers are cutscenes in the game, the "not gameplay footage" disclaimers arent indications of anything. They are definitely CGI rendered trailers, making them not gameplay footage. Only because they might appear in the game as prerendered cutscenes doesnt change that.