Fourside

Fourside
Fourside
Universe	EarthBound
Appears in	SSBM
Availability	Unlockable
Tournament legality Melee Singles: Banned Doubles: Banned

Fourside is an unlockable stage in Super Smash Bros. Melee, unlocked by playing 100 battles in VS. mode. It is also Ness's home stage, but you face Pichu and its teammates here in All-Star mode.

First announced at E3 2001, The stage consists of three buildings. The building on the far left is slanted, so items tend to roll off. The Monotoli Building, in the middle, is split into three parts: the top, two small ledges on either side in the middle, and a semi-long edge on the right. The building on the far right is the shortest one with a flat surface. On the far left building, there is a crane with a platform attached to it. It will move to the left a little and over the center of the building. Once in a while a UFO will appear over the left or right building. Characters can fight on top of the UFO, though it has a slippery terrain, giving the Ice Climbers a distinct advantage on it due to their constant traction.

The pits between the far left building, the middle building, between the far right building, and middle building are narrow, providing wall jumpers a decent advantage.

Fourside is often banned, largely due to Peach's ability to stall by using Peach Bomber repeatedly in a pit, as well as other ways to camp and stall due to the large size of the stage.

Origin

Fourside as it originally appeared in EarthBound (Click to zoom).

This stage is from EarthBound. Fourside is a major that Ness has to venture through in order to find the fifth melody of the eight possible. The mayor of Fourside is an old man named Geldegarde Monotoli. Geldegarde worked in the Monotoli Building which is the tallest building in Fourside. The Monotoli Building is the most important places in EarthBound as it is where you defeat the evil Mani Mani Statue and it is where Ness rescues Paula for the second time. In this stage in Melee, the Monotoli Building is the center building and looks similar to how it was designed in EarthBound. The Monotoli Building in EarthBound also has a helipad that had Geldegarde's yellow helicopter on it. When Ness confronts Geldegarde, Geldegarde lets Ness use his helicopter to get to his next location. When Ness gets to the helipad, Pokey Minch (Ness' former "friend") stole the helicopter and flew away and crashed in an area known as the Deep Darkness. In this stage, the helipad and the yellow helicopter are retained. The helicopter flying away could be a reference to Pokey stealing the helicopter; however, unlike in EarthBound the helicopter returns to the helipad. Also, the Monotoli Building is not the tallest building in this stage as taller buildings can be seen in the background. In EarthBound, Fourside also featured buildings that had fire escapes. The building featured on the right looks somewhat like one of the buildings in EarthBound that had fire escapes and the fire escapes themselves are retained. The buildings in the background don't resemble any building in Fourside.

File:OpeningEB.png

The opening image of EarthBound featuring the flying saucers.

After the company logos are shown in the opening of EarthBound, there is a "UFO" sound effect and the game displays an image of three large flying saucers attacking a small town. This is the only time these flying saucers appear in EarthBound as they are never seen in any other part of the game (while there are smaller enemies that are flying saucers in both Mother and EarthBound, these enemies do not look like the large flying saucers seen in this opening). In this stage, the flying saucers that appeared in the opening also appear in this stage and as the saucers enter the stage the same "UFO" sound can be heard from EarthBound's opening.

In EarthBound, Fourside is never shown at night, as much of the game only takes place during the day. However, in Melee, it is always night-time on the Fourside stage and features a large moon in the background. This is a reference to the area Moonside version of Fourside in EarthBound, where everything is black with glowing neon edges (as an employee of the Dark Moon Hotel says that it is "always the middle of the night". [1]

The music heard on Fourside is a remix of the Fourside theme from EarthBound (which sounds close to Mother's Pollyanna theme) , combined with the sound effects of caves, strange locations, and the first four melodies of Smiles and Tears, which is EarthBound's eight melodies. [2]

Trivia

• The UFO trophy is unlocked along with unlocking Fourside.
• Since Onett and New Pork City are also banned from tournaments, that means no stage from the EarthBound/Mother universe has regularly been seen in competitive play.

• Fourside1.jpg

  Gameplay in Melee.

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  Fourside in Brawl, recreated using the BrawlBox hacking program.

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  This is Moonside from EarthBound mentioned in the Orgin section (Click to zoom)