Weird one, but;
What if Sakurai decided not to return for Brawl?
I say it's weird, because we kind of know the answer to it. Specifically, Iwata suggested that if Sakurai didn't return, they'd instead have released a remastered version of
Melee for the Wii, but with online capabilities. (
Here's a source on that. Thanks, SmashWiki!)
The way Sakurai points this out in his video (or at least, in its translated form) implies that the game would have been a straight port with little to no changes - and while that'd probably be true for a lot of the game's content, I do think there's a few things that could have changed as it was brought over. I'll explore them here!
Online Modes
The obvious point on this list, but still one worth noting.
Brawl's eventual online modes (under the Nintendo WFC menu) would include a variety of modes, which I think would be essentially the same in
Melee HD (technically an inaccurate name but I'll go with it for now.) Hence, I think...
- With Friends - A mode of play using the Wii's friend codes to allow for private online matches.
- With Anyone - Modes centring on play with random other players.
- Basic Brawl - 1v1 matches with random online players. I think they'd have kept the voting system for rulesets.
- Team Battle - Essentially the same as above, buuut... for teams.
- Spectator Mode - Probably the least likely to remain? If kept, it'd be a method of acquiring coins in the Lottery to acquire Trophies.
- Replays / Snapshots - I think this is fairly feasible given the systems in place for these already existed in Melee. It'd need tweaking, obviously - but being able to send replays and snapshots would be a decent online feature to add to the list. (Custom stages obviously wouldn't work.)
I'll get to another... possibility, later on.
Additional Settings
I don't think this'd be too unfeasible, either.
The first thing that occurs to me is adding selectable controls, which was introduced to the series in
Brawl. It seems unlikely that they'd refuse to give this game compatibility with the Wiimote, so giving it compatibility with different control schemes - namely the Wiimote, Wiimote and Nunchuk, and the Classic Controller - feels like a good way of handling things.
Something else that springs to mind is opting for widescreen support - this was also added in
Brawl, and feels like a pretty obvious and achievable decision to make, even if it ends up being by essentially stretching out the rendered gameplay.
And, as a third - but very unlikely - suggestion... it could be interesting to see
Brawl's Wiimote voicelines appear when selecting characters as an optional choice. I can imagine it probably just using voicelines from in the original game, most likely from taunts - but it seems like a cool way of giving this port some personality.
New (or updated) Trophies?
While new characters wouldn't happen, and new stages would be unlikely, I don't think Trophies would be in the same predicament.
The extent to which this area of the game would be switched up would probably depend heavily on how much work was being put into the port - at minimum, I'd suggest that certain trophies would have their information rewritten (like changing the
Animal Crossing trophies' release dates), or perhaps having new, more recent games inserted into their descriptions as appropriate. Additionally, I wouldn't write off the potential for the Mario & Yoshi and Samus Unmasked trophies to become unlockable through regular play, given both are included in the base game already.
However, there's also the possibility of models from various different games being retrofitted to work as additional trophies here and there - a system seemingly used for a number of trophies and the like in
Brawl. While I don't think this game would reach
Brawl's impressive total of 544 trophies by any means, it's possible that
Melee's 290 trophies could be extended to a value of around 320 with this kind of method? Additional trophies would be a cool selling point that wouldn't take too much work.
Masterpieces & Chronicle?
This actually doesn't seem completely unfeasible in my mind.
Remember, the reason that Masterpieces were included in
Brawl to begin with was as obvious cross-promotion for the Virtual Console service on the Wii Shop Channel - and given it's essentially just slotting in time-limited demos of ROMs that Nintendo already has lying around, I wouldn't put it past them to be capable of including some of these without too much work.
Obviously not all of them would be included from
Brawl, though (given some are for characters not playable), so games like
Kid Icarus probably wouldn't be there. That said, I wouldn't write off the possibility of other games - like
Dr. Mario - to be included. I'd also probably err on the side of N64 games not being included (namely,
Ocarina of Time and
Star Fox 64), and also games that might be difficult to emulate (like
Star Fox.)
Plus, Chronicle would be even easier - just an additional "mode" that allows you to read through Nintendo's release history.
Would this be
likely? I wouldn't say so. But it's absolutely a feasible possibility that'd extend this port's features, acting as a big selling point without too much work.
New Stages?...
As mentioned... this is probably more on the unlikely side of things - but hear me out.
A lot of stages featured in
Brawl were essentially asset-flips from other games. Now, while adding additional fighters would be a complex process, I don't think adding stages has nearly as much difficulty - there'd still be some that comes about from programming collision and the like, so don't expect
Brawl's entire stagelist to be here - but I do think there's a possibility for a few. I'm going to limit it to four for the sake of realism, those being...
- Delfino Plaza - Essentially ripped from Sunshine, I don't think this would end up being the travelling stage we saw in Brawl (given it'd feature significantly less changes than in Sunshine), but a static stage taking place somewhere in this location feels feasible. Think of it as just one of the many layouts we actually saw.
- 75M - While this isn't a direct gamerip from a Gamecube title, I think it'd be decently feasible given the graphics are essentially replicating sprite-based graphics from Donkey Kong. That said, this version would probably be simplified - no score numbers and no items to pick up. I think Donkey Kong would still be there, though - and his barrels and bugs.
- Bridge of Eldin - Again, I'd say this stage would be simplified a little - King Bulblin wouldn't appear or anything, and maybe the stage would have a couple of platforms made with a similar sort of look to the Twilight Realm overall. That said, it feels like an achievable stage given you could pull a lot of it directly from Twilight Princess.
- Distant Planet - An odd way to end out the quartet, but one that makes sense in my mind. Similar to the others here, it'd be simplified compared to its Brawl appearance - so no giant Bulborbs, weather systems, or flooding - and I think most of its design would be pulled from Pikmin 2's Awakening Wood level, taking place mostly on plantpots and a stone wall.
All of these would, of course, need music... but for most of these, I think Nintendo would either re-use music already from
Melee (for instance, the
Zelda theme on Bridge of Eldin could work), or just re-use music from their libraries (whether it be classic
Donkey Kong backing music for 75M, or some environmental noises for Distant Planet.) Bringing an entire orchestra back for a port is just unfeasible.
As for the elephant in the room - AKANEIA - I'm not sure it'd be possible to finish. Even aside from the fact that Iwata's team would likely be unfamiliar with elements related to it, it's also the only stage inaccessible for play in its current form, and was apparently cut due to "development issues". Plus, I'm not sure they'd even want to poke around in the game's code to bring back too much planned stuff (with exceptions like the trophies I mentioned earlier already existing in a fully-formed state.) That said...
Unused Content?...
Okay, so while I'm aware there's a lot of content on this front that people would be excited for... I don't think there'd be much here. One thing that does come to mind as achievable is re-introducing the Bonuses left in the original game - these being the following.
| Barrel Blast KO | x300 | Used a Barrel to KO someone. |
| Crash & Burn | -500 | All Meteor Attacks Missed. |
| Deflector | 1000 | Unknown (presumed to be something to do with reflecting attacks) |
| Green Shell Shooter | x800 | Caused damage twice or more with a Green Shell. |
| Poolshark | x300 | Threw one enemy into another. |
| Red Shell Shooter | x400 | Caused damage 3 or more times with a Red Shell. |
| Ricochet Rifler | x800 | Deflected shot hit an enemy. |
This seems like a... small, and unlikely change, but all of these Bonuses were left in the original game and accessible with a Game Shark, so it likely wouldn't take too much work to bring them back.
Downloadable Content?
While this is probably one of the least likely elements on this entire list, I'd like to give it an honourable mention on the basis of the fact that - theoretically - it'd be possible... but not in the way you might expect. A little-known thing about the Wii is that it actually was capable of DLC - albeit only on a small scale, ideally less than 40MB - which was used in games like
Animal Crossing: City Folk,
WarioWare D.I.Y.'s Wiiware application, and
Rock Band 2. None of this was on-disc.
What this means is that, unfortunately, full DLC characters or stages would be practically impossible, not to mention unlikely. After all, Iwata had no interest in developing characters anyway - I've only mentioned stages here because there's a
remote possibility of their inclusion. That said, DLC music (most likely pulling from Nintendo's archives) and Trophies (most likely assets ripped directly from other games) could probably work.
The problem with this is that I don't think there'd be much in the way of interest - either from consumers or from Nintendo themselves. It'd be feasibly possible, but I'm going to say it wouldn't happen. I thought it was just worth a mention.
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Overall, I think this is a decent overview of some of the changes that'd be possible. Are all of them
realistic? God, no. I think at most we'd likely have seen some of the online features minus Spectator Mode, maybe widescreen support, and
possibly extended controller support. But hey, it's fun to speculate on what's possible - and I think some of the suggestions I made would be pretty feasible additions that aren't outside the realm of possibility.
