What if Melee had 6 more months of development?

[Perkilator]

Check out this cool “what-if” video for Melee

Here’s the gist of it:

• 5 new characters
• Small tweaks for existing characters
• New stages
• New music
• New trophies
• New Adventure Mode
• Possibility of Final Smash, assuming there’s no hardware limitations

 

[DreamyMystX64]

Turns out I made a topic about this as well and I didn’t even notice this in the first place at all…

I did post it in the Ultimate board however, as that’s more active compared to the Melee board.

For more information on what I’d do if Melee had extended development time, check this topic: https://smashboards.com/threads/if-melee-had-extended-development-time.517332/#post-24675435

 

[Deleted member]

What if melee was made by one guy only? Hmm, you would probably get arcade edition.

 

[KneeOfJustice99]

I feel like if Melee had more development time, the sort of tradeoff for that would be that the game ended up (in that timeline) selling nowhere near as well. Bear in mind, Melee's development time led to it being basically a launch title for the Gamecube (or at least only a couple of months after that point.) It also released in November - a key time considering the oncoming holiday season - which probably ended up massively driving up sales too. Had the game had six more months of development, whilst it'd likely have had more content in it, the game would likely have released in around May 2003 - shortly before the summer season which lends to some interest, but unable to be propelled both by the game's own merits and the combination of the fresh hype around the Gamecube and the holiday season. Interestingly, this could have actually ended up having knock-on effects down the line - whilst I can hardly imagine it impacting the existence of Brawl, I think that Brawl would be a game Nintendo would have more of an interest setting out as an actual Wii launch title - and Sakurai would be on board from the beginning given he wouldn't have had as much of a backbreaking experience in Melee's development. However, this would probably lead to Brawl having less development time - and characters like Sonic probably wouldn't have made it into the series until around Sm4sh.

But hey, it's not like I'm from a parallel universe or anything oh god I've said too much

 

[Veca Gorebyss]

¤


one too many copies in the game if you ask me.

i think they wouldve made original characters.

and given ganondorf a sword. he would be weilding it originally compared to link. its heavy. weilding it comparable to dedede possibly.

i think mewtwo wouldve seen more paranormal powers in his attacks. rather than robotic-like flip. or as if he needs to be hit to do the attack somehow. to do some bodily-based attacks.

i think is all.


¤

 

[Janx_uwu]

Would probably be a much worse game competitively

 

[Pupp135]

For fun, I’ll speculate on what a Melee with six extra months would look like.
With six extra months, this would mean that Melee would come out around the spring or summer of 2002.

Roster: In terms of unique fighters, I’d say that Wario would almost certainly make it in given that he was the next one planned to be added. Also, I assume that Ganondorf would be more unique as there would be more time to make him stand out from just being a Falcon clone. Maybe he’d be like his Ultimate version but with a projectile. In terms of other unique newcomers, the only other ones I could see are Togepi and Olimar given that we have a few Mario, LoZ, and retro characters at this point, Diddy was in a grey area at the time, and Sakurai was hesitant to add a Kirby character at the time. I went with Togepi as it would promote the Jhoto region. Olimar was requested by Miyamoto, and Pikmin and Melee wouldn’t be as close in terms of release times.
Besides additions, Mewtwo and Game & Watch would probably be polished a little as their characters were clunky/broken.
For clones, the only one that I think would be excluded is Pichu as Togepi would be the promotional fighter instead. Otherwise, they should probably stay the same.

Stages: Most likely, Archanea, Icetop, and Sprout Tower would be added at the expense of Pokefloats. Also, I could see Wario getting a stage, but I cannot say what it would be, so I’ll use Rice Beach or Wario‘s Castle as a placeholder.

Game Modes: Outside of a more polished Adventure Mode, I don’t think this would be much different, but it would’ve been cool if six player battles could’ve been a thing.

Finally, the game would be more polished in terms of bug fixes and balancing. While the current competitive community would’ve disliked this version’s ganeplay, I could still see some of the competitive community sticking with this Melee given Brawl’s slow gameplay and tripping (a taboo for the competitive community)

 

[Perkilator]

I decided to make a Google Doc of this a while back, only it's a year instead of 6 months.

 

[davidvkimball]

Thank you for sharing my video! Glad you enjoyed it and it's sparked some discussion.