Beta elements are components of the Super Smash Bros. series that, for whatever reason, are removed or altered before that game is released. Known info about beta elements usually comes from one of two sources. The first is information released about a game, by its creators, before the game is complete. The second is data found within the coding of a game that serves no purpose, but could have been implemented into the game at one point.
Super Smash Bros.
Prototype of the game
Super Smash Bros. was initially developed by Masahiro Sakurai and Satoru Iwata in their downtime, in a form titled 格闘ゲーム竜王 (Kakuto-Gēmu Ryūō, or Dragon King: The Fighting Game), which lacked Nintendo characters. Sakurai, however, felt that the game could not provide the proper atmosphere on a home console without Nintendo characters, and they were soon added and the game was renamed. Only four known images of Dragon King exist.[1]
An image from Dragon King: The Fighting Game.
Beta gameplay elements
A talk between Masahiro Sakurai and Satoru Iwata states that Sakurai had intended to add Final Smashes in the game. While he did record some dialogue for them, limitations of the Nintendo 64 prevented their inclusion; Final Smashes later became a reality nine years later with the release of Brawl. [2] While the sound effects of these Final Smashes are not accessible through normal play, they can be found through the use of the Debug Menu. These sounds include Ness yelling, "PK Starstorm!", Pikachu charging energy, and Captain Falcon yelling "Come on!". Other characters heard include Kirby and Link. In addition to the unused Final Smash clips, there are two unused Announcer voice clips: "Are you ready?" and "Final Stage." [3]
Beta stages
In the final game, two beta stages are only playable with a GameShark; their intended use is unknown, but because they share textures and a background with Dream Land, it's likely that they were meant as Kirby stages. The stages have strange elements, such as invisible barriers. Another working Dream Land stage can be viewed in the "How to Play" tutorial, which itself can be seen by waiting on the title screen; this stage also shares similarities with Dream Land.
Saffron City and Dream Land also had minor differences with the final product; the roofs of buildings in Saffron City had a considerably brighter pink texture on them, while Dream Land had considerably darker shades of green, as well as much taller grass in the foreground and background.
One of the Beta Kirby stages.
An older version of Dream Land. Note the darker colouration of the grass and trees.
An older version of Saffron City, with considerably more pink and purple.
Other beta elements
In the character select, the question mark boxes, where Captain Falcon, Ness, Luigi and Jigglypuff have their character portraits, were initially supposed to be coloured, instead of the ordinary grey found in ordinary gameplay.
The original character select screen.
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Beta stages
The game initially only had 10 starter stages: Princess Peach's Castle, Kongo Jungle. Great Bay, Brinstar, Yoshi's Story, Fountain of Dreams, Corneria, Pokémon Stadium, Mute City, and Onett.[4] Stage placement was also different, with Brinstar being on the top row and Corneria being in the middle; furthermore, there were considerably more "?" boxes for secret stages.
Differences between stages are also common; Temple had an elevator on the right side of the stage that does not appear in the final game. Additionally, mysterious brown platforms appear throughout the stage; they don't appear in the final version, though they can be seen in the "Special Movie" video found in the game's Data menu. In the Great Bay, the laboratory was an actual part of the stage, and players could walk inside; in the final version, the laboratory is now a part of the background. Additionally, the platform at the right of the stage initially only had three pillars; the final versions of the game feature five pillars.
Yoshi's Story, Yoshi's Island, and Mushroom Kingdom had different designs altogether; the first had a design where the rightmost walkable part was a plateau followed by a curved path up to another plateau; the second was larger and had more blocks, while the third looked more similar to the Mushroom Kingdom of the previous game.
Onett's basic appearance was identical to the final game, but the music was different; while the identical song ("Bein' Friends" from Mother 1) plays, it has a considerably different arrangement. Additionally, the stage initially was called "Eagle Land: Onett" instead of "Eagleland: Onett". Fourside also only had ordinary black and white buildings, rather than the buildings in the final game, which have multi-coloured windows.
Pokémon Stadium also underwent multiple changes; the earliest screenshots show it with a completely blank screen, though it's possible these images were taken before the screen was fully programmed. Later screenshots show different element icons in the background screen, which resembled the icons of the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
A different Rainbow Cruise stage has also been observed, with considerably more clouds and a greyer sky; no gameplay footage, however, has been located of the stage.
A beta version of what appears to be Jungle Japes also was observed; the only pictorial evidence of it, however, does not give any information on how it might've been different, save for beta textures on the floor, as well as a background that looks similar to the finished stage.
Additionally, footage shows the Ice Climbers and Samus appearing to be fighting in what looks like the All-Star Rest Area. The stage is normally not accessible in the final game; additionally, this version has a darker coloured path, a fence that doesn't appear in the final game, and considerably fewer trees. Of note is that a similar area briefly appears in the final product's opening.
Through an Action Replay, multiple other beta stages can be found, leftover from testing. One of the stages is a large, gray stage, with the background appearing to be some kind of pub. The music is the same as used on Fox and Falco's stage Corneria. This is assumed to be a test stage because of its name, which on the debug menu is TEST; the background image is also a common image to use in OpenGL testing.
In addition to TEST, there exist four other stages: AKANEIA, IceTop, 10-2 and DUMMY. All four will immediately crash the game if they are accessed normally, though other hacks allow some stages to be used. AKANEIA was likely a Fire Emblem themed stages, as it shares the name with the primary setting of the first Fire Emblem game, which also starred Marth. However, even with hacking, no one has successfully accessed the stage. DUMMY, when hacked into, is simply a black background with a lone invisible platform. IceTop and 10-2 are both simply Icicle Mountain, albeit without the music; IceTop's use remains unknown, but 10-2 likely was to act as another Ice Climbers stage in the Adventure Mode, as 10-1 is the internal name for the Ice Climbers stage in Adventure.
Finally, Sheik seemingly was originally planned to have her own Target Test stage, separate from that of Zelda; the remnants of the stage, however, consists only of a single dark grey platform and three targets.
An older Stage Select screen.
Two platforms from the Temple stage that appear in the Special Movie but not during gameplay.
Peach standing on the unknown platform of the beta version of Temple.
Ness walking out of what is now a part of the Great Bay background.
There are only three pillars in this version of Great Bay.
The beta version of Yoshi's Story.
- 5.jpg
Yoshi's Island with 5 blocks, much smaller in comparison with the rest of the stage.
Donkey Kong stands on the 5 blocks.
Mushroom Kingdom's beta design.
Early versions of Fourside had more generic, black-and-white buildings in the background.
Early versions of Pokémon Stadium had blank screens.
- Pokemon Stadium Beta.PNG
A different fire image appears in the background of Pokémon Stadium.
An early layout of Rainbow Cruise with notable differences from the final version.
Sheik standing on what is likely beta version of Jungle Japes.
The Ice Climbers and Samus both on what appears to be the All-Star Teleporter, which is not possible in the final version.
- Testlevel.jpg
The test level.
- Sheiktargets.jpg
Sheik's beta Target Test stage.
While the overall menu system remains relatively unchanged from the final version, differences still exist; in the Main Menu (originally called the "Top Menu"), the Trophies, Options, and Data menus were all blanked out with "?"s. In the Multiplayer menu, Special Melee is also blanked out; furthermore, the panel to the right of the menus, which shows the next screen, looked considerably different.
The Lottery also had a radically different design; the actual machine looks considerably larger and had more details behind it, such as a model ship, a roulette wheel and a craps table.
The character select screen also underwent many differences during development. The earliest character select screens did not have characters arranged in a rectangle, instead being stacked and "leaning" to one side. Additionally, only nine characters were initially selectable, considerably fewer than the fourteen in the final game. Additionally, similar to the original's beta character select screen, the words "Battle Royal" were in the corner instead of "Melee". Finally, the "Press Start" banner on the "Ready to Fight!" band was not located on the banner; it was instead just above the character boxes.
Later versions, closer to the release of the final product, had character select screens looking almost identical to the final product. One image on the Japanese website, however, shows Zelda's character portrait covered by a "?" mark, like other secret characters.
Finally, All-Star Mode was intended to have intro screens, almost identical to the ones found in Classic. They were ultimately removed, though they are still fully accessible in the Debug Menu. Beta Classic Mode intros also had slightly different looking icons on the top of the screen for the "map", and the background the characters were on was considerably brighter than the final product's.
The beta menu screen, with blanked out selections, as well as a different name ("Top Menu")
A beta menu screen, with blanked out selections and a different panel to the right.
A beta version of the Lottery interface.
The old character-selection screen before the final version of the game. Note that Kirby, Peach, Zelda, and Ice Climbers are missing.
Zelda's portrait is missing in this picture from the Japan website.
An intro screen intended for use in All-Star mode.
- Super Smash Bros. Melee Classic Mode.png
A beta Classic Mode screen.
Beta trophies
Early screenshots showed the Motion-Sensor Bomb to be much different; these screenshots actually showed it to be a Proximity Mine from Perfect Dark rather than the Motion-Sensor Bomb from "TOP SECRET" (actually GoldenEye 007) that appeared in the final game. A screenshot of this Proximity Mine's trophy also shows that the text is almost identical to the final product, save for a few references to Carrington, an area in Perfect Dark. Why the Perfect Dark Proximity Mine was changed to a GoldenEye 007 Motion-Sensor Bomb remains unknown to this day.
Early versions of the game also had different Topi trophies. While the final version had a vaguely Yeti-looking creature, the beta had a seal-like creature. The seal was likely removed likely due to animal cruelty issues; while the subject is controversial in America, the subject is considerably less recurrent in Japan.
- MeleeMotionSensorBeta.png
Super Smash Bros. Melee's beta Motion-Sensor Bomb's trophy. The design is identical in the Japanese version of the game; note how the bottom also says "Perfect Dark" instead of "TOP SECRET".
- Topitrophy beta.jpg
The original Topi trophy.
Beta gameplay
In Melee's instruction booklet, an image can be seen for Stamina mode's description. In the image, all characters have over 150 HP of Stamina, which cannot occur in normal gameplay; players always start with 150 HP, and this value cannot be edited.
As seen and heard in the "Special Movie" included with Melee, Peach had a few voice clips that were ultimately unused. In Bowser's vignette, Peach throws a vegetable at him; while doing so, she yells "Yahoo!", which does not occur in normal gameplay. At the ending clips, which show all the characters, Peach's clip features her taunting; however, instead of saying "Sweet!" as per usual gameplay, she instead says "All right!".
In gameplay, the Pokémon Ditto was supposed to appear from Poké Balls, presumably turning into the summoner's character and assisting them in battle. It was removed, though it is still left over in the Debug menu; when summoned, however, it simply says "Meta!" after its Japanese name ("Metamon"), spins while stretching vertically, then disappears.
Beta screenshots show that characters, if selected by more than one player, could use the same colour scheme; unlike Team Battle, however, there was no change in contrast.
Ditto's appearance in Melee, before disappearing.
An image in the manual that shows HP values over 150 HP, which does not occur normally.
Here all four players have the same color scheme, impossible in the final version sans glitches.
Beta bonuses
Some Bonuses were left out of the final game, though they can be accessed with an Action Replay. The reason for their removal is unknown.
| Name | Points Given | Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Bower | Super Mario | 169 |
| Princess Peach | Super Mario | 66 |
| Wario | Super Mario | 65 |
| King Dedede | Kirby | 46 |
| Ganondorf | The Legend of Zelda | 36 |
| James Bond | GoldenEye 007 | 35 |
| Mewtwo | Pokémon | 35 |
| Banjo and Kazooie | Banjo and Kazooie | 33 |
| Toad | Super Mario | 27 |
| Mew | Pokémon | 24 |
| Marth | Fire Emblem | 21 |
| "Such Cheng" | Mother | 18 |
| Ash | Pokémon | 18 |
| "Character of Fire Emblem" | Fire Emblem | 18 |
| Gooey | Kirby | 17 |
| Diddy Kong | Donkey Kong | 15 |
| Sukapon | Joy Mecha Fight | 15 |
| "Someone of Pokémon" | Pokémon | 12 |
| Meta Knight | Kirby | 11 |
| Lugia | Pokémon | 11 |
Other beta elements
The opening sequence of Melee was slightly different; the middle section which shows actual gameplay has different animations and characters. It can be viewed here: [2].
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Beta gameplay
Some of the series symbols were initially the same as in the previous two games, but they were revised as time went on; the Mario series mushroom icon was refined and given spots, the Poké Ball icon has the top half colored in to properly represent how it is usually red, the Screw Attack icon was given more bends and another outline, and the Yoshi egg's colours were inverted.
Multiple attacks were also changed between the game's development and release. Kirby's Hammer move is an example; when he uses hammer in mid-air in SSBM, he does a vertical spin, but in SSBB, he does a horizontal spin. In the first trailer, released at E3 and included on the game disc, features him doing the former. Also seen in the first trailer is Zero Suit Samus's weapon. Instead of using her whip, she appears to be using a lightsaber-like weapon, though this could possibly be a dramatisation, as the specific sequence was generated as an FMV.
In the Nintendo World 2007 trailer, when Fox appears, he has his Blaster in his hand during the whole battle despite the fact in the final release he only uses the blaster when using his standard special move; additionally, animations left in the game data show both Fox and Falco inspecting the environment before putting their blasters away.
Another beta element is Link's Spin Attack. In the first and second trailers it's shown doing more than one strike, with an animation more similar to SSBM.
Pikachu's Quick Attack was also altered; in the first trailer it's shown doing 2 "bip" sounds when he gets teleported, however, in the final version the sound from the move is different, and it only makes one sound, i.e. on the first teleport.
Snake, in particularly, had many differences from the betas to the final product. For his grab, in some beta pictures, he's shown grabbing some characters with more accuracy than in the final version. One picture shows Snake grabbing Ike from his right arm and mouth, but in the final version his grab move is shown with less accuracy, with every character being grabbed by the head. Another thing that may be noted in the final version is when Snake grabs Sonic, where Sonic puts his arm behind his back. In beta versions, however, Snake has been grabbing Sonic by the arm and mouth. Snake's mines also were considerably more realistic-looking, sporting a drab, dark grey-green look instead of the light grey seen in the final game.
By examining the textures of certain characters it appears as if visible battle damage was at one point planned to be in the game, as evident by such unused textures as a Meta Knight mask texture with large gashes over the eye slot and a cracked helmet for Captain Falcon.
The beta icons.
Kirby using his forward special from Melee on Halberd in the E3 2006 trailer.
- FOX.jpg
Fox with his Blaster in his hand, as seen in the E3 trailer.
Fox and Falco look around before holstering their weapons.
Snake's original down-smash mine.
Snake has a considerably different grip on Ike than in the final game.
Meta Knight with a cracked helmet
Beta single-player elements
Multiple scenes in the Subspace Emissary were cut due to time constraints, which leaves some parts of the story out; however, an update on the DOJO!! explained these removed cut scenes. Among the explanations include how the Subspace Army takes over the Halberd and King Dedede unintentionally stalls Meta Knight from preventing it from happening.
A TV spot for Brawl also shows Mario instead of Kirby fighting Petey Piranha.
The font for enemies in the developing Subspace Emissary was slightly different and considerably more spaced out. Additionally, a beta screenshot of "The Battlefield Fortress" shows a considerably less overcast and brighter sky.
A less gloomy version of Battlefield Fortress.
Scrapped characters
Multiple unused character data files were found in the disc. They include:
The characters were likely meant for inclusion, but were later scrapped; in the case of Dr. Mario, Roy and Mewtwo, it's also possible that the data was imported from Melee, though both Roy and Mewtwo have unused fanfares in the game. Dixie Kong is another character from the Donkey Kong series and Toon Zelda was to be based on a cel-shaded Zelda from The Wind Waker, similar to Toon Link; as a cel-shaded version of Sheik has never appeared in the Zelda series, it is unknown how she was to be implemented. The identity of "Pra_Mai" is unknown.
Data for an unused Ridley assist trophy also exists; it was likely scrapped in favour of a boss version of Ridley.[3]
Beta names
Wario Bike, Drill Rush, Summit, Halberd, Rainbow Cruise, and "The Flowers That Bloom in the Echoes" were originally called Wario Chopper, Triple Dash, The Summit, Battleship Halberd, Rainbow Ride, and, "Flowers Bloom on the Notes" respectively. It's unknown why they changed these names, however, they likely changed Rainbow Ride because it was a Melee stage, in which it was misnamed Rainbow Cruise (although it remains Rainbow Ride in the PAL regions, mostly because it was called Rainbow Ride on the PAL version of Melee).
Also, the description for the My Music options originally said, "Adjust how often a song will appear on this stage." It has since been revised in a general tone to say, "Adjust how often songs appear on stages." Along with this, one piece of music that was planned for the Delfino Plaza stage was later moved to Luigi's Mansion.
A beta version of Delfino Plaza's My Music with a song later moved to Luigi's Mansion.
A beta version of the sticker album.
Scrapped Masterpieces
In the Japanese, American and European versions of the game, a Masterpiece of Donkey Kong Country was to be included. The game likely was not included due to rights issues; Donkey Kong Country was initially made by RareWare.
In the American and PAL versions, Masterpieces featuring Fire Emblem: Monsho no Nazo and EarthBound were possibly supposed to be included, as their data is found on the disc; interestingly, EarthBound has its American title of "EarthBound" instead of Mother. However, it's possible that the games were simply leftover from importing the data from the Japanese version.
See also
References
- ^ Wii.com (Accessed on 9-18-08)
- ^ [1]
- ^ YouTube - Super Smash Bros. unused sounds (Accessed on 11-22-2009)
- ^ Smash Bros. Melee: Onett beta music.