Probably the most interesting Wii title for me is the new Smash Bros. Why? Because I have high hopes that the new additions for Brawl are just as considerable in number as the amount of new stuff that was added to the second game.
Currently, folk are all wrapped up about the new characters the third entry will have: Snake and Wario seem to be the favorite new guys, while fanboys are endlessly lobbying for the inclusion of other third-party characters like Sonic, Alucard and Megaman. Me? I'm more interested in the inclusion of Meta-Knight, but that's just a small thing compared to what I'm really looking forward to seeing in the new SSB: The new stages.
Practically every stage of the first game had it's own characteristics and soul. There were all sorts of distractions such as explosions, lava/acid, gunfire, Pókemon attacks and so on. When the second game came around, they became even more inventive. Take for example the two F-Zero stages: One had you boarding a small platform racing high over a track from one of the games, which would occasionally touch down to allow you more space, but also let the racers crash into you. Before you could even recover the small platform was rising and you needed to board it again. The second F-Zero stage took place entirely on the racers' cars themselves from a side-view, with a few "safer" platforms such as floating cameras and Falcon's spaceship to catch a breath on.
Now far be it from me to tell the Nintendo guys what the new stages will be like (I'm painfully aware that they're much more qualified to figure out how the stages will work themselves), I thought I'd see if I could come up with a few on my own, based on both existing and potentially new characters of game three.
#1 - Link Stage (Legend of Zelda) - Yeah, it's the compulsory Legend of Zelda level. While the second game already has two LoZ levels, neither are particularly imaginative (one's a very vacant recreation of Hyrule Temple, the other is based on Mask of Majora's Termina Bay which has a few random things happening but is sort of sketchy) and Link is my favorite character so I figure there needs to be a new one:
Hyrule Castle (OOT) - OK, this level is uncompletely unlike the Hyrule Temple and Mushroom Castle levels first of all. I'm thinking of a general design plan of two floors (the inside and on the battlements) and various ways to get between them. This is more like Ganondorf's/Zelda's stage, since neither really had their own stage previously.
The gimmick is as thus: The castle starts off looking normal, has plenty of furnishings, light fixtures and Royal furniture such as suits of Hyrulean armor in the background. After a few minutes in, the walls and castle fortifications start to age rapidly and the safe green field around the castle crumbles away until the castle resembles the horrific place Ganondorf turned it into during the Adult Link era of OOT. I'm thinking the changes could be fairly rapid, maybe 20 seconds long, at which point the castle will stay the same for another few minutes before gradually changing back to the nice "in the past" version. The second form of the castle will be full of dangers, such as collapsing walls, traps, the aforementioned big pit into some bizarre vortex as well as maybe some Fire Keese (the fire-y bats) to bother the players while they're fighting. With the Wii's graphics properly capturing the sudden decay of the castle (to represent Link's almost instantaneous seven year hops through time) all around the fighters, it should look pretty boss.
#2 - Meta-Knight Stage (Kirby) - My favorite of the new characters probably won't get a stage, since his encounters with Kirby during the Kirby games usually amount to a simple stark room with a sword that Kirby is required to fight MK with. However, Meta-Knight got his own cool little chapter called Revenge of the Meta-Knight in the underrated Kirby's Fun Pak (Kirby Super Star in the States), where he controlled a giant metal airship called the Halberd in order to take over the world. I have two ideas for this level depending on which mode you're playing:
Classic/Versus: This stage would take place in the super/twin-cannon room, which was one of the sub-bosses of the Revenge Of The Meta-Knight chapter. The super cannon had various gun turrets with which to attack Kirby, who had to destroy the cannon piece-by-piece to proceed in the game. These include a bomb-firing cannon, a giant laser cannon (which charged up to give you sufficient time to duck) and a robotic hand that occasionally drops bombs on you or picks you up and slams you down. For the purposes of this fighting stage, the scene is recreated in 3D and the fighters have to fight around these distractions. However, the fighters may decide to destroy the more annoying parts of the cannon boss first (since each part requires a sufficient amount of damage to destroy, just like in the Kirby game). It'll be up to the players to choose whether to concentrate on each other or gang up on the machine. Of course, those who decide to be jerks and attack players who are busy attacking the machine may end up winning, so it's likely the whole group will just to try to ignore it to avoid letting their guard down in front of the other players. But they'll all go down faster if the machine continues to work.
Adventure: Adventure levels allow for much more depth and scope for stages, and for this one I was considering another "get to the end"-type stage. This time, the stage recreates the escape from the Halberd ship as it's crashing down around those controlling it while Kirby speeds off. Occasionally during the escape, Meta-Knight flies by to taunt you (who knew he had such cool demon wings to get around on? I hope they're in the new game too) before escaping with his tail beneath his legs. In this stage, he would actually land a few times to fight you while the Halberd was breaking up. You'll have to beat him up a few times while escaping to finish the level.
#3 - Secret Bonus Level (???) - OK, this was sort of a joke-y reply on the forums I frequent, but with the new Bob Ross "Joy of Painting" painting game purportedly coming out for the Wii I couldn't resist. Basically, the level starts off completely white in a flat canvas frame (sort of like the Game & Watch stage of SSB:M). Then, Bob Ross's hand comes into shot to paint some of the background in behind you as you're fighting. As he's doing so, he'll occasionally paint a platform for you to stand on or some kind of obstacle to annoy you with which fits perfectly within the picture's developing background. As the typical Bob Ross-esque lush landscape painting fills in, the level becomes more and more complex until the painting is finished and it rises off the easel to reset for a new painting. I haven't yet decided if this "painting reset" instantly kills the characters (it would be annoying for the players, but that's their fault for taking too much time to finish) or simply knocks them offscreen so they can fall back onto the new clean canvas. This level idea could even be expanded to allow a non-fighting player with a Wii controller to do the painting, annoying his friends who are fighting in the game with his random placements of traps and platforms.
OK, that's enough stage ideas for today. Even though the real ones for SSB:B have probably all been planned out and built already, it's still pretty fun to make them up so expect a few more SSB:B "stage design" updates in the future. As long as that character list doesn't get finalized any time soon (or even if it does, since I guess it doesn't matter for the purposes of this exercise) I'll have plenty of game worlds to think up battle stages for.
