Unpopular Smash Ultimate Opinions! - Read the OP before Posting

[Idon]

Anyway, to break the "iconic" argument.

I think we should focus our feedback on the stages so we can hope on gathering more fun, tournament legal stages.
Warioware is an awesome level that's held back by it's small side blastzones.

Yeah here's my unpopular opinion.


90% of Smash's stages are godawful gimmick fests in both bothersome mechanics and stupid stage layouts, both casually and competitively. While some random wacky stages could be fun, it seems like Sakurai is concerned more about adding some sort of stage gimmick to seemingly every stage instead of just a fun stage layout.

 

[Xelrog]

Yeah here's my unpopular opinion.


90% of Smash's stages are godawful gimmick fests in both bothersome mechanics and stupid stage layouts, both casually and competitively. While some random wacky stages could be fun, it seems like Sakurai is concerned more about adding some sort of stage gimmick to seemingly every stage instead of just a fun stage layout.

Agreed. There are many stages that would otherwise be great if they didn't have one very intrusive element in them--and increasingly, more than one. As the Smash games have gone on it's reached the point that many stages have multiple gimmicks piled into them, and they're never non-intrusive. Even disabling stage hazards and BF/omegas have been something of a disappointment, as they remove the interesting parts of the levels as well.

Why they decided to make stage hazards include moving platforms, I have no idea. There's nothing wrong with the moving platforms in Town & City, Umbra Clock Tower, etc. And the swinging cage on Find Mii would have made it interesting, it's just the stupid boss interference that ruins it.

 

[Deleted member]

Tbf, Metroid stages having hazards does fit the franchise they are based on pretty well.

The Metroid games are about Samus facing many kinds of dangers alone, so I can see why Sakurai would give a good chunk of hazards to her stages as a way to simulate the feeling of danger.

 

[UserKev]

Unpopular and for good reasons

Smash 64 and Melee had the most balanced elements, well organized and fascinating stage gimmicks. Its only until later Smashes, the gimmicks were abused, there's no care put into them.

Unpopular opinion, I literally always wanted the desk at the beginning of the Smash 64 intro to be a stage.

 

[Oddball]

The desk would make an awesome stage.

In general, I think there needs to be more stage discussion. What stages you want to see, how you'd like to see them done, etc. People over look them when talking about what characters they'd like to see and making up their own move sets. I'd love to see more people designing stages. I'm not talking about with the game's stage maker either.

 

[Lenidem]

Unpopular opinion, I literally always wanted the desk at the beginning of the Smash 64 intro to be a stage.

Oh great, another impossible dream, like I didn't have enough of those... Thank you very much!

 

[Frizz]

I don't think Fire Emblem should focus on including different weapons, but rather important characters from the series.

Here's my ideal roster.

Marth
Anna
Tiki
Lyn
Ike
Chrom
Lucina
Robin

8 characters might seem like a lot, especially with 3 of them coming from Awakening (and Archanea too), but Fire Emblem introduces new characters with each new installment, so I feel like 8 is acceptable, even if it's pushing it a bit.

And yes, most of them use swords, but most of the Fire Emblem lords use swords anyway. Ephraim and Hector, as much as I like them, should not be added into Smash for the pure sake of weapon variety. Instead, Chrom and Lucina could be decloned so that they in no way, shape, or form resemble Marth's moveset. Simply allow them to use lances from their promoted Great Lord class, and you're golden.

Similarly, allow Lyn to use bows from her promoted Blade Lord class.

If you still think that 8 characters is too much for FE, then I suppose you could cut it down to 6, cutting out 2 of the 3 Awakening members and including them either as a Pair Up gimmick functioning similarly to Pokemon Trainer's Pokemon Change gimmick, or just include the 2 others in the 1's Final Smash and/or victory poses.

Also remove Robin's Female Robin alts, so that the male to female ratio of the FE roster is 4:4, perfectly balanced, as all things should be, huehuehue

 

[StormC]

The desk would make an awesome stage.

In general, I think there needs to be more stage discussion. What stages you want to see, how you'd like to see them done, etc. People over look them when talking about what characters they'd like to see and making up their own move sets. I'd love to see more people designing stages. I'm not talking about with the game's stage maker either.

The obvious inclusions are a non-jungle DKC stage and Bowser's Castle. Also the rainy planet surface in both Super Metroid and Samus Returns would make great stages.

If I were a decent artist I would probably sketch some of my ideas.

 

[Koopaul]

Yeah I am shocked at how badly the stage hazard toggle was handled. Sometimes it take saway things that should never be considered a hazard like moving platforms, and then sometimes it keeps things that absolutely ARE hazards. The Summit is a horrible example of this. Why on earth does The Summit still plummet?

 

[Slime Master]

Speaking of stages and hazard toggle, here's an unpopular opinion: the moving platform in SV was way more jank than WarioWare's blastzones or several other things that people are banning ultimate stages over; I'm glad it's gone.

 

[Ze Diglett]

The obvious inclusions are a non-jungle DKC stage and Bowser's Castle. Also the rainy planet surface in both Super Metroid and Samus Returns would make great stages.

If I were a decent artist I would probably sketch some of my ideas.

What about a Gyromite stage? R.O.B. has been here longer than half the other characters in this game, yet he still doesn't have a stage to call home and has to keep squatting in the token "retro stage" of whatever game he's in?

 

[StormC]

What about a Gyromite stage? R.O.B. has been here longer than half the other characters in this game, yet he still doesn't have a stage to call home and has to keep squatting in the token "retro stage" of whatever game he's in?

That is certainly true. R.O.B. should definitely get a stage. It's part of my reasoning that I believe R.O.B. is the most forgotten about Smash character. (The other part being that someone made a fake leak a while ago and it took hours before anybody realized R.O.B. wasn't on it.)

 

[TheYungLink]

I liked that the Gyromite spirit fight used Living Room as the stage for the battle. Most families are gonna keep video game stuff in the living room and since R.O.B. is technically a peripheral rather than a character it was a nice touch.

That said, if a frankly mediocre game like Ice Climber can get its own stage, I don't see why either of R.O.B.'s games couldn't as well, someday.

 

[ze9]

Stage design is the one thing that has consistently gotten worse and worse from one Smash to the next.

-Smash 64 has great stages. They are very spacious and they rely on interesting platform layouts and on visibile, but overall unobtrusive gimmicks.
-Melee is also great, offering some of the series' most memorable stages (Onett, Temple, Fountain of Dreams, Pokèmon Stadium, Jungle Falls, Mute City). The more "involved" stages still have simple and understandable gimmicks (like Brinstar Depths or Big Blue). It's still focused on interesting layouts and manageable gimmicks.
-Brawl is where something breaks. It becomes way more hit or miss. We still get some good old-style stages, like Delfino Plaza, Frigate Orpheon, Smashville, Halberd... but it's also where the gimmicks sometimes become too overbearing (just compare Pokèmon Stadium 2's transformations to Pokèmon Stadium 1), where the platform layouts start to feel randomly put together (compare New Pork City to Temple), where citationism starts to override fun (looking at you, 75m), where some stages start to feel cramped (Yoshi's Island but also Luigi's Mnasion), or the basic ideas just aren't that fun (like Spear Pillar or Green Hill Zone... why does the ground have to break?). Though overall it's more good than bad.
-Smash 3DS stages are actually pretty good, pretty Melee-styled.
-Smash Wii U stages however are horrible, the nadir of the series imho. Stages are either borderline unplayable (Pyrosphere, Wily Castle, Orbital Gate Assault, Great Cave Offensive) or incredibly boring and forgettable (I mean, Coliseum and Wii Fit Studio are basically the same stage - flat walkoff with random platform layouts appearing sometimes), or just too clunky and weirdly put together (Suzaku Castle). Also, you get transforming and travelling stages like no tomorrow. Pilotwings and Migar are the best things to have come out of that game, imho.
-Ultimate has few new stages, and though they dialed it back on the craziness they kinda feel basic and barren. On top of that, Moray Towers and Great Plateau are borderline unplayable. Spiral Mountain will probably be the best new stage.

 

[Ze Diglett]

Stage design is the one thing that has consistently gotten worse and worse from one Smash to the next.

-Smash 64 has great stages. They are very spacious and they rely on interesting platform layouts and on visibile, but overall unobtrusive gimmicks.
-Melee is also great, offering some of the series' most memorable stages (Onett, Temple, Fountain of Dreams, Pokèmon Stadium, Jungle Falls, Mute City). The more "involved" stages still have simple and understandable gimmicks (like Brinstar Depths or Big Blue). It's still focused on interesting layouts and manageable gimmicks.
-Brawl is where something breaks. It becomes way more hit or miss. We still get some good old-style stages, like Delfino Plaza, Frigate Orpheon, Smashville, Halberd... but it's also where the gimmicks sometimes become too overbearing (just compare Pokèmon Stadium 2's transformations to Pokèmon Stadium 1), where the platform layouts start to feel randomly put together (compare New Pork City to Temple), where citationism starts to override fun (looking at you, 75m), where some stages start to feel cramped (Yoshi's Island but also Luigi's Mnasion), or the basic ideas just aren't that fun (like Spear Pillar or Green Hill Zone... why does the ground have to break?). Though overall it's more good than bad.
-Smash 3DS stages are actually pretty good, pretty Melee-styled.
-Smash Wii U stages however are horrible, the nadir of the series imho. Stages are either borderline unplayable (Pyrosphere, Wily Castle, Orbital Gate Assault, Great Cave Offensive) or incredibly boring and forgettable (I mean, Coliseum and Wii Fit Studio are basically the same stage - flat walkoff with random platform layouts appearing sometimes), or just too clunky and weirdly put together (Suzaku Castle). Also, you get transforming and travelling stages like no tomorrow. Pilotwings and Migar are the best things to have come out of that game, imho.
-Ultimate has few new stages, and though they dialed it back on the craziness they kinda feel basic and barren. On top of that, Moray Towers and Great Plateau are borderline unplayable. Spiral Mountain will probably be the best new stage.

Agreed. Smash stages were definitely at their best in the Melee-Brawl days to the point that I have a hard time naming a Melee stage I genuinely dislike (Temple notwithstanding). Ultimate's new stages I've been fairly half-and-half on, and I basically never pick any of the Smash 4 stages anymore.

 

[Xelrog]

Spiral Mountain will probably be the best new stage.

We know it rotates into a walk-off stage, right? I can't wait for Grunty to also interfere while the mole pops out of the ground randomly and music notes from Tootie fly in from a random side of the screen. Also they'll re-add tripping just on Spiral Mountain.

Why have one gimmick when you can have five?

 

[PhantomShab]

Diving with a foot (even has a quake) isn't all that different from doing the same with a fist. I'd even argue he technically uses levitation on the ground version, whereas Falcon does his with sheer speed and momentum.

Honestly, if Falcon didn't exist this version of Ganondorf wouldn't be nearly this controversial, given the extremely limited material to pull from his human incarnation at the time of Melee.

They can both do it on the ground even while standing still with no momentum needed. It's a serious reach to say that Ganondorf's falcon kick is levitation when you can just call a spade a spade and say "yeah it's literally just a purple falcon kick".

Don't know why people want Dead Man's Volley so bad, when we see how that works so well with Dedede.

Then don't make it reflect-able by anything but actual reflector moves. Sakurai already picks and chooses what gets to be super accurate and what doesn't so at least giving Ganondorf the projectile is already a good middle ground. Have it be slow moving but powerful with a lot of priority over other projectiles and Ganondorf can use it to cover his approaches, something he's struggled with for a long time. Also if it means anything I think making Gordo reflect-able was also dumb especially now that we have K. Rool whose a heavyweight with more zoning options than Dedede and none of them can be reflected by attacking them. Either way that falcon punch of Ganondorf's is a dusty old relic made completely obsolete by his new forward smash which does literally everything the falcon punch could do but better.

Well, there's plenty of people who would prefer Ganondorf staying the way he is than completely reworking him, and I have a feeling that includes Sakurai too. Even after giving him a sword, Ganondorf is still mostly the same.

I know Ganondorf isn't exactly represented in a way everyone wanted, but I think it's time to move on.

Imagine if the people who wanted Ridley, K. Rool, and Banjo-Kazooie moved on. They wouldn't ever be playable in Smash. Also if the next Smash game has a lot of cuts (and let's face it, it will) then Ganondorf had damn well better be reworked to feel completely like his own character because every bit of freshness is going to be needed to make up for whatever we lose in the process.

Yeah because splitting hairs about fire and dark magic is solid evidence that Ganondorf is butchered into a flashy and heroic bounty hunter, right?

Like you cannot fathom a character thats so powerful that he shakes the earth with one punch and uses dark magic would use the warlock punch. No you literally have to see it with your own two eyes that Ganondorf does something similair to the warlock punch in a Zelda game for him to look fine.

Why is it so wrong to want one of the biggest villains in gaming to be a little more faithful to source material? Like I get that I'm arguing with a C. Falcon main named Blue_Falcon but come on now. Ganondorf is literally the only villain in Smash Bros who has to deal with this crap. He's the only one of the bunch that doesn't really have even a single move associated with him. It's so damn tiresome to see at this point and even more tiresome to see people actually defending it to the point of making up headcanons to justify it. Yeah the sword is a start and all, but even then it's just taken from an almost 20 year old tech demo and the moves themselves are just copy/pasted from Ike and Cloud's smash attacks.

And as of Hyrule Warriors, he does. Mind you it's modified into punching an energy ball for area-of-effect, but that's standard Warriors stuff.

Hyrule Warriors is not a Zelda game, so that means absolutely nothing to me.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

I personally much prefer the gimmick heavy stages as they add variety to the game. Things like Mario Bros., Hannenbow, and so on may not be incredibly fun stages when you're trying to compete, but they lead to pure hilarity when you've got items on and their unique elements really shine. Like far too many other elements of Smash Bros., I think you'd be genuinely taking something away from the game by removing them. There's an entire side of this game that should be based around random bull**** and pure madness because that's as legitimate a way to play as no items, Battlefield only, 3 stock. It brings in a variety and a new way to play for those involved. And Smash lets you tweak the madness to your heart's desire.

Also, I'm so confused by people cutting Lucina in this thread, but keeping Marth... Like why? She's a simple Echo that should always stay with Marth at this point. She's an incredibly popular FE character, she makes for a mechanically unique spin on Marth by removing the tipper mechanic, and she's the only female FE character in the game that isn't decided by the player. She only adds to the game and she's a fairly simple addition. No real reason to cut her when Marth is already there and ready to be Echoed.

I also really don't understand support for Reimu in Smash. Maybe I just don't know enough about the series, but all I see is bullet hell with anime like tendencies thrown in the background. I get that it has some real Japanese popularity, but I also get the sense that this specific series is the actual literal who that people always accused Dragon Quest of being for everyone else. I play a ton of video games of all types and am not unfamiliar with anime, and I have no clue who she is or why I should care at all about this specific character in Smash of all things. I also just don't really get the idea of bullet hell shooters in Smash as needing a playable character. I mean, sure it's something that can be done if Duck Hunt can exist, but it's also an idea that's really hard to conceptualize I think. I guess you could pull a Captain Falcon and pull her out of the ship, but as a specific representative of bullet hell shooters, that feels super off to me as well.

 

[Xelrog]

I also really don't understand support for Reimu in Smash.

It just seems like one of those things you have to take people's word for that it's popular. No one I know talks about it like no one I know talked about Persona or Dragon Quest or other "big in Japan" series, but you see fanart and such for all these series around.

Why is it so wrong to want one of the biggest villains in gaming to be a little more faithful to source material?

There hasn't been anything "a little" about your posts at all. You've been coming on really, really strong, dude. Of course people are going to be defensive.

As for why it's so wrong, well, it's because the character has established himself in the series. Those of us who actually play and have gotten good with him would be very upset (and would have wasted a lot of hours) if he were just up and thrown out for a whole new character design, something the game devs acutely understand. That's why they don't do complete character reworks from game to game. It's a gradual progression from entry to entry, and I'm sure come time for Smash 6 we'll see Dorf inch a little closer towards having specific reference moves.

 

[osby]

I also really don't understand support for Reimu in Smash. Maybe I just don't know enough about the series, but all I see is bullet hell with anime like tendencies thrown in the background. I get that it has some real Japanese popularity, but I also get the sense that this specific series is the actual literal who that people always accused Dragon Quest of being for everyone else. I play a ton of video games of all types and am not unfamiliar with anime, and I have no clue who she is or why I should care at all about this specific character in Smash of all things. I also just don't really get the idea of bullet hell shooters in Smash as needing a playable character. I mean, sure it's something that can be done if Duck Hunt can exist, but it's also an idea that's really hard to conceptualize I think. I guess you could pull a Captain Falcon and pull her out of the ship, but as a specific representative of bullet hell shooters, that feels super off to me as well.

Not that I disagree with you, but "ship"? Reimu fights on her own, not in a vehicle, and appeared in fighting games.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

Not that I disagree with you, but "ship"? Reimu fights on her own, not in a vehicle, and appeared in fighting games.

Whoops, that just goes to show how little I really know about the series and how much I managed to gleam from the Wikipedia page. I heard Bullet Hell and assumed it had to be a ship since that's most bullet hell shooters and her artwork didn't indicate any fighting abilities.

It just seems like one of those things you have to take people's word for that it's popular. No one I know talks about it like no one I know talked about Persona or Dragon Quest or other "big in Japan" series, but you see fanart and such for all these series around.

Persona 5 was a GOTY contender for many, many lists in 2017 and got some of the most rave reviews of any game alongside the likes of Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. The game was huge over here if you paid any attention to the 2017 gaming landscape beyond Nintendo and Persona arguably has as much popularity in the US as it does Japan from what I've seen. Dragon Quest is more understandable, but it gets lot of attention, especially with 11 debuting last year and the Switch port being one of the most consistently highlighted things in the past year. Hell, Dragon Quest has shared the stage with Mario a couple of times thanks to Fortune Street and even Slime in Mario Sports Mix. It's certainly more niche than a lot of series here and less generally discussed, but Dragon Quest has been pushed many times in the US.

I wouldn't really be able to name a single instance of Touhou being pushed in the US and as far as I know, the series has never appeared on a Nintendo console in even a tangential way (though apparently they've finally announced a port or something for PS4 and Switch of one). It's a series I feel like you'd almost exclusively encounter in more of the anime/cosplay community rather than the gaming community at large. The other two series are regularly acknowledged in some way by the Western gaming community. Touhou really doesn't stand on that same footing. That's the distinction I make between the two. It's pretty rare for me to not have some knowledge of major gaming series as I'm an avid fan of all modern and most retro consoles, and while of course some things I've never encountered, I feel like if Touhou was a big enough deal to warrant even part of the attention some people claim it does, then I would have heard about the series at least once or twice prior...

 

[ze9]

Reimu would be cool, if only for the music.
I'm not too big on Touhou but I liked what I played (Embodiment of the scarlet devil).

After Banjo, Ridley and K. Rool I'm not opposed to anything except more Fire Emblem.

 

[Gyrom8]

Re the stage discussion, I agree that excessive gimmicks can ruin a stage - not everything has to be tournament viable, but I don't find it much fun when you're fighting more against the stage than against other players

That said, however, I wouldn't always sacrifice anti-competitive elements in a stage if that came at the expense of accurately conveying a stage's source material or uniqueness. For example, were Paper Mario to get in, I'd like him to get a stage based on the theatre battle stage from the first two titles (would be much better than the existing Paper Mario stage, which is 2/3 obnoxious). However, that would probably entail walk-offs (partially obscured with curtains at the side), certain stage hazards (collapsing parts of the background) or various other things which could get in the way (the curtains closing as the stage switches between scenery)

Just some ideas I had but generally I'd err on the side of faithfulness to source material. I wouldn't want to sacrifice a cool idea for the sake of competitive viability. The problem is that a lot of the obnoxious stage hazards that do exist in Smash aren't cool ideas and don't seem to be integral to getting the idea of the stage across in the first place, so are unnecessary annoyances

 

[Opossum]

I mean it really isn't difficult to come up with how a Dead Man's Volley move would work.

Ganondorf launches the projectile. It starts off weak, and can be reflected by any move that causes knockback. However, while the projectile is active, Ganondorf's input becomes a backhanded reflect with a long active period and very little start and end lag, giving him a clear advantage over the opponent and representing his power.

As the projectile moves back and forth, it requires stronger attacks from the opponent for it to be reflected, eventually reaching the point where they don't have a move strong enough that they could put out in time. Meanwhile Ganondorf still has his priority reflector. As such, the opponent is pretty much forced to jump out of the way when they're out of options, making it easier for Ganondorf to approach, in theory.

There. A powerful special attack that gives Ganondorf one of his most iconic moves, while also fitting his moveset theme of "power" and complementing his playstyle. The projectile acts more as a way to force the opponent to approach in a certain way, giving Ganondorf a better idea of how to deal with them. It also makes the projectile not garbage, unlike the Gordo Toss.


I guess that coincides with my opinion (not sure if it's unpopular, but it's certainly controversial) that giving Ganondorf a projectile doesn't go against his game plan so long as it's balanced AROUND his game plan.

 

[PhantomShab]

As for why it's so wrong

It's not, at all. Stopped reading right here.

 

[Oddball]

Deadman's volley is really a move that's only going to work if your opponent plays along. If somebody gets hit by it the first time or just jumps over it, it's nothing more than simple fireball. Then if they DO reflect it, you have to reflect it back instead of getting hit by it, or dodging, or just missing it completley. It really sounds like it would slow down a fight. It works great in the Zelda games whee you have to figure out HOW to beat bosses, but in Smash where all you have to do is run up and start hitting thing, it's too slow and requires too much effort to be of any use.

 

[Lenidem]

Well, it can also be a simple projectile, reflected only by the traditional reflectors like Fox's shield and Mario's cape, plus the Master Sword.

 

[PhantomShab]

it's too slow and requires too much effort to be of any use.

Kind of like Warlock Punch then lol.

Well, it can also be a simple projectile, reflected only by the traditional reflectors like Fox's shield and Mario's cape, plus the Master Sword.

I've suggested this already but it went completely ignored.

 

[Wunderwaft]

I also really don't understand support for Reimu in Smash. Maybe I just don't know enough about the series, but all I see is bullet hell with anime like tendencies thrown in the background. I get that it has some real Japanese popularity, but I also get the sense that this specific series is the actual literal who that people always accused Dragon Quest of being for everyone else. I play a ton of video games of all types and am not unfamiliar with anime, and I have no clue who she is or why I should care at all about this specific character in Smash of all things. I also just don't really get the idea of bullet hell shooters in Smash as needing a playable character. I mean, sure it's something that can be done if Duck Hunt can exist, but it's also an idea that's really hard to conceptualize I think. I guess you could pull a Captain Falcon and pull her out of the ship, but as a specific representative of bullet hell shooters, that feels super off to me as well.

Touhou is popular because it ingrained itself in Japanese internet pop culture and the whole doujin scene in general. It's a series that anyone with an interest in Japanese entertainment would have heard of eventually, whether it's due to the games themselves or the millions of fan made content like art, music remixes, games, and memes(I'm not joking about the millions number, the amount of fan made content is INSANE). The fanbase is much bigger than what people give it credit for, with many old and new fans. The series has been going strong for over 20 years with over 25 official games and the popularity of the series hasn't waned. The impact of the series on the doujin market is unquestionably huge, with many hailing it as the doujin king in Japan. It grew so big for comiket that they had to make a whole new convention for the series which happens every year. Keep in mind the series is made by one guy, Zun, and he never attempted to commercialize the series like making an anime and whatnot because he wanted the series to stick to it's doujin roots and grow naturally. He's very lenient with copyright usage of his IP, which is why you see so many fan made Touhou games sold and why you see Touhou characters make a weird crossover with Kirby characters in Taiko Drum, a game owned by Bandai Namco. People have an appreciation for this series due to it's large impact on the doujin market and internet culture, and also due to the large legacy it has amassed for over two decades. One more thing, Reimu doesn't fly in a ship lol. She fights by herself and she even appeared in various official fighting games. If you want a good illustration for how she would fight in Smash then there's this moveset that someone made, which perfectly captures the spirit of the games themselves.

Spoiler: moveset

 

[Arthur97]

Stage design is the one thing that has consistently gotten worse and worse from one Smash to the next.

-Smash 64 has great stages. They are very spacious and they rely on interesting platform layouts and on visibile, but overall unobtrusive gimmicks.
-Melee is also great, offering some of the series' most memorable stages (Onett, Temple, Fountain of Dreams, Pokèmon Stadium, Jungle Falls, Mute City). The more "involved" stages still have simple and understandable gimmicks (like Brinstar Depths or Big Blue). It's still focused on interesting layouts and manageable gimmicks.
-Brawl is where something breaks. It becomes way more hit or miss. We still get some good old-style stages, like Delfino Plaza, Frigate Orpheon, Smashville, Halberd... but it's also where the gimmicks sometimes become too overbearing (just compare Pokèmon Stadium 2's transformations to Pokèmon Stadium 1), where the platform layouts start to feel randomly put together (compare New Pork City to Temple), where citationism starts to override fun (looking at you, 75m), where some stages start to feel cramped (Yoshi's Island but also Luigi's Mnasion), or the basic ideas just aren't that fun (like Spear Pillar or Green Hill Zone... why does the ground have to break?). Though overall it's more good than bad.
-Smash 3DS stages are actually pretty good, pretty Melee-styled.
-Smash Wii U stages however are horrible, the nadir of the series imho. Stages are either borderline unplayable (Pyrosphere, Wily Castle, Orbital Gate Assault, Great Cave Offensive) or incredibly boring and forgettable (I mean, Coliseum and Wii Fit Studio are basically the same stage - flat walkoff with random platform layouts appearing sometimes), or just too clunky and weirdly put together (Suzaku Castle). Also, you get transforming and travelling stages like no tomorrow. Pilotwings and Migar are the best things to have come out of that game, imho.
-Ultimate has few new stages, and though they dialed it back on the craziness they kinda feel basic and barren. On top of that, Moray Towers and Great Plateau are borderline unplayable. Spiral Mountain will probably be the best new stage.

I don't know, New Donk is a pretty decent traveling stage like Delfino. Spiral Mountain's spinning might get...weird. Also, it looks kind of barren.

 

[Xelrog]

It's not, at all. Stopped reading right here.

Don't ask if you don't want an answer.

I don't know, New Donk is a pretty decent traveling stage like Delfino. Spiral Mountain's spinning might get...weird. Also, it looks kind of barren.

Every traveling stage in the game would be better as individual stages that don't change.

 

[PhantomShab]

Don't ask if you don't want an answer.

Your answer was undoubtedly a bad one anyway.

 

[Blackwolf666]

Well, I feel it’s an unpopular opinion in the west at least. The DQ heroes are almost as exciting as Banjo & Kazooie getting in smash.

 

[Arthur97]

Don't ask if you don't want an answer.

Every traveling stage in the game would be better as individual stages that don't change.

There's nothing wrong with having traveling stages. Besides, that's a lot of very similar and kind of pointless stages.

 

[slrigeigdew]

I think Smash meter "on" should be considered an alternative style of play competitively.

For fun and silly side events I could see Smash meter battles being a thing but for the main events? Nah. Not only would it be such a big shake up to warrant its own rules and stage lists, it'd also be very boring to watch since everyone will just find the most broken FS and cheese it while also playing extremely campy.

This is why I think CPU tournaments are in some ways more hype than Human tournaments. CPUs are more aggressive, love taking (unnecessary) risks offstage, and are 100× more hype to watch with FS meter on.

 

[MBRedboy31]

There's nothing wrong with having traveling stages. Besides, that's a lot of very similar and kind of pointless stages.

Some individual stops on some traveling stages are pretty distinctive. I think traveling stages should definitely stay, but selecting a single phase should also be an option. Some Spirit fights already do that, so they’d just need to make a way to select it on the GUI. Maybe after selecting one of these stages, you’d be taken to a drop-down menu of sorts where you select either the normal version of the stage or select a form?

 

[Arthur97]

Some individual stops on some traveling stages are pretty distinctive. I think traveling stages should definitely stay, but selecting a single phase should also be an option. Some Spirit fights already do that, so they’d just need to make a way to select it on the GUI. Maybe after selecting one of these stages, you’d be taken to a drop-down menu of sorts where you select either the normal version of the stage or select a form?

Yeah, that would be nice, but that comment seemed in favor of just chucking them altogether. Besides, the New Donk stops on their own aren't particularly distinctive.

 

[MBRedboy31]

Yeah, that would be nice, but that comment seemed in favor of just chucking them altogether. Besides, the New Donk stops on their own aren't particularly distinctive.

I know, I’m just stating my own opinion.
And yeah, the individual stops on some stages aren’t so distinctive, as you said, but it would still be nice on stages like Wuhu Island, Delfino Plaza, Skyloft, ect.

 

[Xelrog]

Yeah, that would be nice, but that comment seemed in favor of just chucking them altogether. Besides, the New Donk stops on their own aren't particularly distinctive.

It depends on what you want from a stage. Different platform layouts is plenty, IMO. At the very least I wish we had the option to pick which of the travel versions to play on and turn off the travel. There are some that I personally like in there that I can't access because they're buried behind a mechanic I don't want. If I wanted it I would turn on stage transformation.

 

[Klydefiss]

It depends on what you want from a stage. Different platform layouts is plenty, IMO. At the very least I wish we had the option to pick which of the travel versions to play on and turn off the travel. There are some that I personally like in there that I can't access because they're buried behind a mechanic I don't want. If I wanted it I would turn on stage transformation.

Yeah, I think Ultimate should add a feature in which you could turn off and on Travel Stages. Another thing that would be cool is if you could organize stages in folders or something like that. With literally over 100 stages in the game it gets a bit hard to look for the one you want.