Super Smash Bros. Melee
| “ | Within Nintendo, we've had a lot of discussion about which of our most popular characters should be ready to appear in games when Nintendo GameCube comes to market. We think we've got a great answer. | ” |
| —Shigeru Miyamoto moments before the Melee trailer was unveiled to the public at E3 2001. | ||
| Super Smash Bros. Melee | |
|---|---|
  | |
| Developer(s) | HAL Laboratory Intelligent Systems |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Designer(s) | Masahiro Sakurai |
| Released |  November 21, 2001 December 3, 2001 May 24, 2002 May 31, 2002 December 14, 2002
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| Genre(s) | Crossover Fighting game Platforming Party |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, Multiplayer (2-4) |
| Ratings | ACB: G8+ ELSPA: 11+, 3+ (re-rating) ESRB: T PEGI: 3[1] |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo GameCube |
| Media | GameCube Optical Disc |
| System requirements | 11 blocks of memory (an additional 2 or more blocks are needed for each snapshot saved) |
| Input methods | GameCube controller |
Super Smash Bros. Melee (大乱闘 スマッシュ ブラザーズ ＤＸ, Great Fray Smash Brothers Deluxe), often shortened to "SSBM" or "Melee" (スマブラＤＸ), is the second installment in the Super Smash Bros. series published by Nintendo. The game was released for GameCube in Japan and North America in late 2001, shortly after the system's launch that fall. It was released in Europe and Australia the following year, in late May 2002. The game was directed by Masahiro Sakurai and was primarily developed by HAL Laboratory.
Like its predecessor Super Smash Bros., Melee features gameplay unique from that of other fighting games that emphasizes movement and ringouts. This sequel greatly expanded on the foundation of its predecessor, including more characters and stages, sharper and more in-depth gameplay, and a wealth of single-player content. Melee is also one of the two games in the Super Smash Bros. series to be rated T by the ESRB, with the other being its sequel, Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Melee received universal acclaim, with many critics praising the game's expansion and refinement from its predecessor, as well as its visuals, tight controls, multiplayer mode, and orchestrated soundtrack. However, its single-player modes, large number of clone characters, and similarity to its predecessor received criticism. It is the GameCube's best-selling game and the sole GameCube game to have surpassed 1 million copies in Japan.
Opening movie[edit]
The opening movie of Melee mostly uses FMV videos from its E3 2001 trailer, along with some gameplay footage.
The FMV scenes were given particularly close attention by the developing team; according to Sakurai, the team wanted to create an entire, high-quality FMV sequence in the game to highlight the then newly released GameCube console's graphical power in comparison to previous consoles. The development team worked with three different animation studios in Tokyo, Japan, to finish the FMV opening.
An earlier version of the opening movie was released on Melee's Japanese website in November 2001.[2] The early movie is nearly identical to the final game's, but the clips of actual gameplay differ.
In addition, continuing the trend started in the previous game, the opening also directly segues into the title screen with the announcer calling out the game's title.
It is the first pre-rendered cutscene in the series.
Fighters[edit]
The cast of 25 playable characters, 26 if including Zelda's alter ego Sheik, includes all 12 characters from Super Smash Bros. and 13 newcomers (14 counting Sheik). Of these, 14 are available from the start of play (15 if Sheik is included), including all the veteran characters except Jigglypuff and Luigi, and 11 more which can be unlocked.
Of the new characters, the greatest number are from The Legend of Zelda universe if Zelda/Sheik are counted as two characters to go with Ganondorf and Young Link, although the Mario series also takes three new character slots for Bowser, Princess Peach and Dr. Mario added. On top of these, two universes add two characters each, with the Fire Emblem series making its Smash Bros. debut with Marth and Roy (with Roy making his debut in any game), and the Pokémon universe adding Pichu and Mewtwo to its two existing characters. The three other characters added are Falco, a second character from the Star Fox series, Mr. Game & Watch, and the Ice Climbers from two highly venerable Nintendo series.
| Veterans (12) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Mario 
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 Luigi
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 Yoshi 
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 Donkey Kong 
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 Link 
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 Samus 
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 Kirby 
|
 Fox 
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 Pikachu 
|
 Jigglypuff
|
 Captain Falcon 
|
 Ness 
|
||
| Newcomers (14) | ||||||
 Peach
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 Bowser
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 Dr. Mario
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  Zelda/Sheik
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 Ganondorf
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 Young Link
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 Falco
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 Mewtwo
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 Pichu
|
 Ice Climbers 
|
 Marth 
|
 Roy
|
 Mr. Game & Watch 
|
Bold denotes unlockable characters.
Stages[edit]
There are 29 stages in Melee that can be played in VS. Mode: 18 starter stages and 11 unlockable stages. Three stages return from Super Smash Bros. as Past Stages, all of which are unlockable. Each universe, except for the Fire Emblem universe, has a stage. The EarthBound and F-Zero universes, which previously did not have any stages, receive stages for their respective universes. Most universes have two stages; the exceptions are the Ice Climber and Game & Watch universes, which have only one, and the Mario universe, which has four. Counting Past Stages, the Donkey Kong, Kirby, and the Yoshi universes have three stages. For the first time in the series, Battlefield and Final Destination can be played in VS. Mode; previously, they were restricted to single-player modes.
Each universe's stages were designed to have a more orthodox "front" (表) stage, and a more experimental "back" (裏) counterpart.[3] The game's "front" stages are listed on the select screen's top rows, while the "back" stages are on the bottom.
1-player stages[edit]
These stages cannot be unlocked and can only be played under certain circumstances.
- Target Test Stages
- Snag the Trophies
- Race to the Finish
- Mushroom Kingdom
- Underground Maze
- Brinstar Escape Shaft
- F-Zero Grand Prix
- Rest Station
- Home-Run Stadium
- Goomba
- Entei
- Majora's Mask
Modes[edit]
1-Player[edit]
- Classic Mode
- Adventure Mode
- All-Star Mode (must be unlocked)
- Event Match
- Stadium
- Training
Multiplayer[edit]
- Versus Mode
- Special Melee
- Camera Mode
- Super Sudden Death
- Giant Melee
- Tiny Melee
- Invisible Melee
- Slo-Mo Melee
- Fixed-Camera Mode
- Single-Button Melee
- Lightning Melee
- Stamina Mode
- Tournament Mode
Other[edit]
Unlockables[edit]
The game features several points to be unlocked, most of which include the trophies, unlockable characters, and stages. Some of them are unlocked by a special way, like achieving a certain distance on the Home-Run Contest, while others are obtained by the Lottery. For a full list, see List of unlockables (SSBM).
Some unlockable elements in SSBM were left out, but can be seen with an Action Replay cheat disc. See Debug menu for more details.
Development[edit]
1999-2000: Conceptualization[edit]
Conceptualization of Super Smash Bros. Melee began almost immediately after the previous entry was released, even before Nintendo GameCube development kits were widely distributed. Masahiro Sakurai wrote the game's project plan on July 5, 1999, and spent over a year quietly tinkering with it by himself, with no knowledge of what the final hardware specifications would be. The game was conceptualized as a "deluxe", greatly-expanded and upgraded version of the original game, allowing Sakurai to achieve many things that he could not accomplish the first time around.[4] He publicly denied that he was working on a new Smash title until the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) event, where he would inform colleagues he was working on a "Smash game for the GameCube."[5] HAL Laboratory returned as lead developer of Melee, with Sakurai as director oncemore. When final GameCube development kits reached the team during the fall of 2000, they discovered that they were much easier to use then Nintendo 64 kits.
The optical disc format also let the team use streaming playback for the first time, which allowed the use of real musical instruments for music tracks. The final soundtrack ended up using a mix of real music recordings and synthesized instruments, though Sakurai assured that the differences would be nearly unnoticeable. These tracks are an inspiration for the founding of the Press Start: Symphony of Games concert series, which was an annual orchestral concert hosted by game industry veterans that featured arrangements of video game music that ran from 2006 to 2015. Neither music were released on Nintendo Music as of now.
Scheduled as one of the first games released for GameCube, Melee was developed as a showcase title for its new hardware, with the mission of being the biggest system-seller possible.[6] While remaining a fun game for players, it was developed to highlight the advancement in graphics from the Nintendo 64, particularly through a showstopping opening FMV sequence that would attract people's attention.[7] HAL worked with three separate graphic houses in Tokyo to make the opening sequence, with Sakurai personally storyboarding the intro instead of spending the New Year with his family. On their official website, the developers posted screenshots and information highlighting and explaining the attention to physics and detail in the game, with references to changes from its predecessor.[8]
Melee was developed during the transitional period between the end of the N64 era and beginning of the GameCube era. Reflecting this, character designs and overall representation from long-running series such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Star Fox retain those eras' respective games and artwork as their primary frame of reference, noticeably differentiating them from the then-impending GameCube installments that became those series's aesthetic standard that generation.
2001: Crunch development and E3 2001[edit]
The game was in development for 13 months, and Sakurai called his lifestyle during this period "destructive" with no holidays and short weekends.[9] Unlike the experimental first Super Smash Bros., he felt great pressure to deliver a quality sequel, claiming it was the "biggest project I had ever led up to that point". Despite the painful development cycle, Sakurai proudly called it "the sharpest game in the series... it just felt really good to play", even compared to its successor, Super Smash Bros. Brawl.[9] Sakurai also felt pressured to make the game as content-rich as possible to help it stand out from both other games at the time and its predecessor. Trophies were born out of this desire for content. Since the team was only able to make a limited amount of playable characters, trophies acted as representation for characters and franchises that did not make the cut otherwise as fanservice and a history lesson with background information attached to each trophy.
The game's official Japanese website elaborated on the rationale behind choosing the game's playable character roster. Several of them were popular requests in the 1999 Super Smash Bros. Poll surveying fans of Smash 64 on potential newcomers for a sequel;[10][11] Sakurai was now able to revisit his unrealized desires for Bowser, Mewtwo, and Marth in that game. The Ice Climbers were chosen due to a desire to represent the classic NES era, earning the spot through a process of elimination that deemed them the most unique and best-suited fighters.[12] Marth, while popular in Japan, was created knowing that he might be excluded from overseas versions of Melee. However, Sakurai pushed for his inclusion, and he received favorable attention from Nintendo of America, allowing him to remain in the Western release.[13] Mother 3 protagonist Lucas was initially slated to replace Ness during early planning stages, but this plan was abandoned following the cancellation of the game's N64 incarnation in 2000, just prior to the start of Melee's development.[14]
The game's initially-planned roster was much smaller, with only Bowser, Peach, Zelda, Sheik, the Ice Climbers, Marth, Mewtwo, and Mr. Game & Watch slated to join as newcomers. Midway through development, the decision was made to expand the roster with a handful of clone characters; officially known as "model swap characters", they reused data from other fighters in order to preserve development time and resources.[15][16] This, along with the ability to repurpose his pre-existing Spaceworld 2000 model, was stated as allowing for the fortunate inclusion of Ganondorf, a popular character who could not otherwise be included.[17] Roy was included from the then-unreleased Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, as Sakurai felt featuring a character from a new game would be a good promotion for the series.[18] Due to the two games' overlapping development, Roy's appearance and characterization are derived primarily from its prerelease material; unforeseen delays in the completion of The Binding Blade resulted in Melee releasing to market first.[19] Roy's inclusion was slightly more contentious internally than Marth's, but NOA ultimately agreed due to thinking he'd be a fun character.[19] While The Binding Blade was not localized, the decision to feature both in Melee is often credited for popularizing the Fire Emblem brand outside