User:Flippy

hey

Subpages/sandboxes

• Development info for each game
• Sandboxes
• in-progress pages and rewrites
• myths and misconceptions
• Melee trophy/model origins

Stuff I can't prove but I think is true

Forbidden 7 theory

The Forbidden 7 and Lucky 3 (my term for Jigglypuff, Toon Link, and Wolf) consists of three character types:

• Veterans: Jigglypuff, Mewtwo, Roy, Dr. Mario
• Pure Newcomers: Wolf, Toon Zelda, Toon Sheik, Dixie
• Refreshed Newcomers: Toon Link, Plusle & Minun

All of these characters are derived from pre-existing work - characters already in the game, veterans, or in Dixie's case, having actually been scrapped middevelopment. That left the door open for them to be resumed later if time permitted. Refreshed newcomers are new characters who explicitly replace veterans.

These characters were either deprioritized or outright cut early in development. The game's delay gave time to add exactly 3 of them. The lucky 3 were chosen because they were one each from these categories, and each came from a different series.

• Jigglypuff got the veteran spot because she's piss-easy to make and Sakurai couldn't bring himself to leave the original 12 barely-complete.
• Toon Link got the refreshed newcomer spot because he's freaking Link, and Wind Waker was a major, otherwise-unrepresented game. It was important to have both Young and Adult Link, as well as both the cel-shaded and hardcore branches of Zelda at the time.
• Wolf got the pure newcomer spot explicitly because he was the most popular and easy to make. It's actually my belief Wolf was explicitly cut, but then resurrected very late. (I actually think this is provable but it involves a lot of dot-connecting between disparate statements and game file indicators.)

The idea that "Mewtwo was cut because of Sonic" is bunk at worst, and a massive oversimplification at best. It actually seems that if anything, if it's true that adding Sonic influenced the game's delay, it actually would have been a factor that caused the lucky 3 to make the game. They almost certainly would have been cut for good if it weren't for the delay. And if if anything more, if he has to blame anyone, it'd be Wolf and Jigglypuff.

Why was Mewtwo cut?

I think Mewtwo probably really was next up if they had time for one, one more character. I think there were two main reasons why he got cut, and one was simple: the oversaturation of Pokemon in the game.

Pokemon had 4 new characters in Brawl. Its rep was heavily at the whims of The Pokemon Company. It's clear from Jigglypuff being deprioritized, Mewtwo and Plusle/Minun being cut, and Pichu not even being considered that everyone but Pikachu was fighting for air. In the end, Jigglypuff made the lucky 3 for hitting all four boxes as a veteran, Pokemon character, original 12 member, and being easy to make. I think Mewtwo just straightup got unlucky and lost in the shuffle unfortunately.

Mewtwo being a unique character is arguably why he was cut. It made including him a taller order compared to say, Falco and Ganondorf, who as clones could be derived from Fox and Captain Falcon. There's nobody to derive Mewtwo from and they already had 5 unique Pokemon characters to make. So he had to be scrapped and hopefully saved for later.

I also think a potential factor was being unable to find a role for him in Subspace. I think it's slightly less of one, but one nonetheless. Its plot is already pretty stuffed and it'd be hard to find a way to both fit him in and do him justice. But we know for a fact that timeline-wise, Subspace was written knowing he was on the chopping block.

Plusle & Minun?

The three prospective newcomers for Brawl each represented the main games released between then and Melee, serving TPC's interests: Plusle & Minun for Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, Pokemon Trainer for FireRed/LeafGreen, and Lucario for Diamond/Pearl.

Plusle & Minun were a win/win as they would have both replaced Pichu (saving moveset design time) and were being heavily pushed by TPC at the time. But RSE was getting pretty old and Pichu wasn't especially popular. That's why they were likely deprioritized in favour of Lucario, who was newer and more unique. It would have been easier to pick them back up later compared to Lucario and PT, who required much more development time.

When it came time to choose one of the two "refreshed newcomers", Toon Link got the spot for being more popular and representing Zelda. Between that and Jigglypuff already having been selected from Pokemon, Plusle & Minun got left behind.

Toon Zelda/Toon Sheik???

Honestly I think Toon Zelda and Toon Sheik were probably the biggest pipe dream of the 7, mostly because Toon Sheik obviously doesn't actually exist and would have to have been specially-made for the game. I do believe she, like regular Sheik, was probably specially-made for Brawl by the Zelda team. But I think that she would have gotten the least far and was the most low-priority of all the possible newcomers; the others are all more popular while Toon Zelda would have been more of a "nice to have".

I also think another factor might have been technical issues with the transformation - Sheik was revealed for Brawl very late and has significant loading issues compared to Melee. Considering that they dropped transformation entirely in 4 and never revisited it, unlike Pokemon Trainer, I think she came in hot and they just considered it too much trouble to be worth doing again.

Also, my answer to the "was it Sheik or Tetra?" debate is that Toon Sheik was Tetra dressed as Sheik. (I don't even know if I'm serious or not.)

Unreleased/cancelled/upcoming games & content represented in Melee

• Melee contains a distinct degree of representation for upcoming or otherwise unreleased games, including some that existed only as tech demos. Some of this is known to be an unplanned result of the volatile, frequently-protracted development cycles commonly experienced by Nintendo's software lineup during this time. Overlapping development means that source material for contemporary games was generally derived from their status as presented at Nintendo's Spaceworld events in 2000 and 2001, of which Melee unintentionally serves as a mid-development archive.
  • Ganondorf's model and sword are repurposed from The Legend of Zelda's Spaceworld 2000 demo, which was purely a proof-of-concept rather than a game. Ganondorf would not have been included in Melee if this model did not already exist for use.
  • Roy represents Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, with his characterization and appearance inspired by his design as of Spaceworld 2001. The Binding Blade was initially scheduled to release before Melee, but its extended development delayed its final release until March 2002 -- unintentionally causing Roy to make his chronological first appearance in Melee.
  • Star Fox characters' English voices, heard in Adventure Mode and their Smash Taunt, are the same as in Star Fox Adventures, whose release was repeatedly delayed from the GameCube's launch window until nearly a year after.
  • Yoshi's Classic trophy depicts an early version of his standard GameCube model, later seen in Super Mario Sunshine and Mario Party 4. This is distinctly unlike other Mario-related characters, whose appearances and trophies are derived primarily from N64-era designs.
  • The "Alpha" trophy, representing the then-unreleased Cubivore, depicts a character who does not actually exist in the final game.
  • Meowth's trophy is sourced from the Meowth's Party tech demo co-produced by HAL Laboratory and Creatures, demoed at Spaceworld 2000 and repurposed in 2003 for Pokémon Channel.
  • Waddle Dee's trophy is from the cancelled Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble 2.
  • Animal Crossing and Cubivore are not named at all in localized versions, simply listed as "Future Release". Japanese trophy text does not acknowledge then-upcoming games as future releases, specifically namedropping not only Doubutsu no Mori+ (the former's GameCube port) and Doubutsu Banchou respectively, but also Super Mario Advance 2 (Banzai Bill) and the GameCube port of Doshin the Giant (Love Giant, Hate Giant), listed under its working title Shin Kyojin no Doshin.
  • The event match Super Mario 128 is named and designed in reference to a famous GameCube tech demo, while Kirby's Air-raid alludes to the cancelled N64 incarnation of Kirby Air Ride, which would be revived for GameCube after Melee.
  • Certain textures in Onett, and a reflection texture of Osohe Castle used in various trophies, are repurposed from HAL Laboratory's work on the cancelled Nintendo 64 incarnation of Mother 3.