All the Pokemens

[Aura]

Today is our final update on Explorers of Time and Darkness. To start with, we'll be discussing Team Outreach's experience against the last two bosses.

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Team Outreach

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Liz (Charmander F); Lv. 36

Item: Insomniscope 

Ability: Blaze | Moves: SmokeScreen + Scary Face, Flamethrower, Aerial Ace

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Sprout (Turtwig M); Lv. 35

Item: Red Bow 

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Withdraw, Crunch, Bullet Seed, Synthesis

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Grovyle M; Lv. 46

Item: None

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Quick Attack, Leaf Blade, Mega Drain, Dig

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Vs. Dusknoir & Sableye Squad

As alluded to before, this fight wasn't very difficult at all. I opened up by slapping Dusknoir with an X-Eye Seed to disorient him while picking off all of the underlings. Once it was just down to us and Dusknoir, the typical overpowered SmokeScreen + Scary Face strat worked wonders for putting him out of business. We did have to be careful around Pursuit, but other than that, it was easy enough to take him out.

=============

Vs. Primal Dialga

The Dialga fight was significantly easier. I was actually a lot more worried going into this fight because we'd had some unfortunate luck in the dungeon prior that led to us burning through all of our Reviver Seeds, but with SmokeScreen + Scary Face at play, Dialga's Roar of Time wasn't nearly as threatening. Not to mention, my best attack wasn't being resisted by his typing, either, and we were able to layer a burn to further assist with damage.

============

 

Of course, Sprout and Liz went through the same emotional turmoil that Pep and I did. With that, it's time to get moving onto the postgame of Explorers of Time!

=============

Before we jump in, I wanted to take note of the portraits on the save file. In Rescue Team, I'd note these whenever they'd pop up. Of course, these show up as you clear various checkpoints in the game: Defeating Drowzee at Mt. Bristle, Uxie's issusory Groudon at Steam Cave, the Luxray clan at Amp Plains, escaping the future and returning to the past with the help of Celebi, defeating Dusknoir at the Hidden Highlands, and finally, defeating Primal Dialga at the peak of Temporal Tower. Obviously, there's several bosses that remain in the postgame, but again, we won't be exploring those. At least, with one notable exception. I know I said I wouldn't do any postgame dungeon crawling, but while playing it came to my attention that one major postgame feature wouldn't be unlocked until I cleared one dungeon so I decided to push that boundary a little further back. That's okay, right?

=============

 

  

 

  

 

It seems we've gotten another time skip. Over this skip, life has returned to normal at the guild until now where we're suddenly hit with an opportunity to graduate from the guild!

  

Apparently this is the end result of our apprenticeship at the guild. If we graduate, we can leave the guild and begin life as a professional exploration team affiliated with it!

 

  

 

Corphish is a bit confused as to how we're able to take the graduation exam so soon when many of our colleagues haven't had the same opportunity, but Chatot adds that we've certainly proven ourselves time and time again.

  

Apparently we're not the first here to take the exam, as one of us, Loudred, has indeed taken it before! However, he's still an apprentice because he failed it.

 

  

 

  

 

The graduation exam sounds fairly simple on the surface: We must go to a place called the Mystifying Forest and make our way to a location in the forest's depths known as Luminous Spring. This is a place Pokemon used to go to in order to evolve, but due to time getting all screwy, the spring no longer offers the same powers it did before. At the Luminous Spring is a treasure we'll need to retrieve in order to pass our graduation exam.

  

However, retrieving that treasure is apparently going to be significantly tougher than you'd think. Within the Mystifying Forest is the grand master of all things bad... just what kind of monster could we expect to encounter? Giratina? Darkrai? Mewtwo? Deoxys?

 

  

 

With that foreboding warning from Wigglytuff, the morning briefing is adjourned! It sounds like we need to be prepared to face a terrifying foe unlike anything we've ever seen!

  

Pep seems to be in a panic after hearing about this news.

 

  

 

  

Pep asks Loudred about his experience with the exam, and he seems to have been too heavily affected by it that he doesn't even want to remember! Even if he could, he really can't because he's forbidden from speaking about the exam to other members... Regardless, it looks like we're on our own.

There's another diary entry to cover now, so let's take a look at it, shall we?

 

Sunflora's new entry is just her cheering us on alongside Lapras and Grovyle and her hopes to see us return safely home! It must've been incredibly sad for her to find that only Pep would be coming home for so long...

 

Bidoof is confident in our ability to succeed, he's been heavily inspired by us so much during our life together at the guild, so there's not a doubt in his mind that we'll be successful. Even though the odds were stacked so hard against us. Honestly, it's just really sweet, isn't it? You gotta love Bidoof, man.

  

As we head down into Treasure Town to prepare for our graduation exam, we'll bump into Ursaring and Teddiursa who are just heading out!

 

It turns out, they're on their way to Mystifying Forest!

  

 

  

 

When Pep asks if going there is really okay, Teddiursa and Ursaring seem a bit confused. They haven't heard anything about this "grand master of all things bad," and, of course, that name certainly sounds a bit silly. They head off leaving us to ponder what exactly is going on.

 

It's a bit confusing, it's clear there's something else brewing. But for now, we'll just need to prepare for whatever this "grand master of all things bad" has in store for us...

=============

But, of course, we've got more grab bags to open!

   

From our recent adventures, we have a Deluxe Box, Dainty Box, Hard Box, and Pretty Box to open up.

 

The Deluxe Box held Cherrim Dew

 

The Dainty Box held a Gar Fang

 

The Hard Box held a Sneasel Claw, boosting the Attack of the Sneasel line

 

And lastly, our Pretty Box opened up to reveal a Red Gummi.

==============

If we check out our old hideout at Sharpedo Bluff, we'll find Dugtrio overlooking the sea once again.

 

  

Dugtrio seems pretty frustrated with us when we ask him about the grand master of all things bad, so perhaps we should just leave him be and see if we can't get info from the others instead.

==============

Meanwhile, if we head back down to our hideout, we can still see that it's not been touched, and our beds are still here!

=============

 

If we speak with most of the townsfolk, they'll thank us for saving the world, we seem to command a lot of respect around here! That's nice to know!

We can ask Marill about the grand master, but he doesn't seem to know anything, either. Azurill just sweetly greets us!

==============

  

As we head back from Treasure Town, we'll run into Corphish and Sunflora who also don't give us any info on the grand master, Sunflora just hammers in how scary this guy is.

============

  

 

Before we head back to the guild, I wanted to check out the beach to find Lapras! He'll offer to take us back to the Hidden Land anytime we want from here.

=============

  

Back at the guild, of course Bidoof doesn't have any answers for us.

 

  

Team Poochy also hasn't heard anything about the grand master.

 

Poochyena does note something he has heard, however: a lot of pokemon in newly available dungeons seem to be more intelligent. What this means for us is that they literally have higher IQ stats and have access to various IQ Skills, so that's another layer you're going to have to grapple with as you explore postgame dungeons.

Anyway, once we've made our preparations, there's really not much else to do besides take on our graduation exam and find out about this grand master of all things bad first-hand! We're off to the Mystifying Forest!

 

  

I was planning on bringing our old teammates along for the ride, but Pep insists that we take the graduation exam alone. I suppose that's fair since they're technically not part of the team. Let's get going!

And so, we set out for Mystifying Forest!

==============

 

  

=============

Mystifying Forest

This is where our graduation exam is going to take place, and it's the first post-game dungeon you'll be exploring to give a small taste of just what these dungeons are like. Of course, that means Monster Houses and Traps are fair game, including new traps! So tread carefully! But it also means a new item or two...

                        

Shared items between both versions include: Poke, Def., and Pecha Scarves, No-Stick Caps, Persim, Power, Special, Stamina, and Zinc Bands, Iron Thorns, Silver Spikes, Sticks, Gravelerocks, Apples, Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries, Doom, Eyedrop, and Reviver Seeds, Max Elixirs, and TMs and Wonder Orbs.

The No-Stick Cap is a new held item returning from Rescue Team, but its effect is pretty specific to a particular trap, so I figure it's better to explain this one in retrospect.

More specifically, however, we have the Doom Seed which is a strange item that actually reduces the eater's level. When your level decreases, your stats decrease as well, so you can't use this as a means to boost your stats through infinite levelups. Its only purpose is to help a pokemon learn a move it would've known from a previous level and even that can be simply done at Electivire's Link Shop and requires layering. It's not even worth throwing at enemies because the stat drop isn't nearly going to be significant enough and it will only reduce the amount of Exp you'll receive from defeating that enemy. Plus, if you recruit that pokemon, you'll have just reduced their level. This thing is an all-round useless item that should be discarded ASAP.

                    

Explorers of Darkness features Insomniscopes, Scope Lenses, Patsy, Twist and Weather Bands, Sneak Scarves, Black, Clear, Gold, Gray, Pink, Purple, Red, Royal, and Yellow Gummis, Blinker, Pure, Totter, and X-Eye Seeds and version-exclusive TMs and Wonder Orbs.

Blinker Seeds will give the consumer the blinker status, causing them to wander aimlessly and be unable to see their surroundings.

Totter Seeds will inflict confusion on the consumer instead.

                   

Explorers of Time gets Lockon Specs, Detect and Racket Bands, Heal Ribbons, Mobile, Pass, and Warp Scarves, Blue, Brown, Grass, Green, Orange, Silver, Sky, and White Gummis, Quick, Sleep, and Warp Seeds, and version-exclusive TMs and Wonder Orbs.

The Detect Band returns from Rescue Team. It sounds powerful if you associate it with the move Detect, but it just boosts the Evasion of the holder.

The Racket Band also returns from Rescue Team and will alert any pokemon in the room to your presence. Just like in that game, I'm not sure why you would ever want this, but it's here for whatever vague niche situation you probably just thought of.

The Mobile Scarf is an incredibly powerful tool that I'm shocked they just give away to you so easily with no obvious incredible counterpart on the Darkness side. This item allows the holder to travel over any difficult terrain such as water, lava, or pits. Even through walls! It's invaluable for hunting buried items which begin to appear in these postgame dungeons! (There's nothing of interest here, though).

The Pass Scarf allows you to pass damage and move effects to adjacent allies, it's great if there's a particularly bulky pokemon in your squad.

The Warp Scarf is another incredibly powerful asset that allows the holder to warp randomly every few steps. Since you can simply take it off whenever you want, this quickly becomes invaluable for endurance focused dungeons since every warp has the potential of landing you right at the stairs.

The Quick Seed boosts the speed of the consumer by one stage. It's not quite as useful as the All-Mach Orb, but I suppose it, too, has its niche uses!

---------------

In the trap department, this is the first dungeon to start getting serious with the traps, which means you're going to start seeing some much more intrusive trap effects. Some of these are... quite frankly the number one cause of my loathing of the postgame from the first game.

           

Common across both versions are: Grimy, Gust, Mud, PP-Zero, Pokemon, Seal, SelfDestruct, Slow, Slumber, Spin, Sticky, and Warp Traps. Up until now, most of these traps have been version exclusive to one or the other, but they're now common across both, so depending on the version you're playing, the opposite version's traps are going to be a new threat. In addition, there are some traps here that are new regardless of version.

The Mud Trap is greatly buffed from its counterpart in Rescue Team. It reduces a random stat by significantly more. It used to be one of the more invisible traps, and it still is, but this stat drop can hurt pretty bad if you're not careful.

The PP-Zero Trap, as its name implies, reduces the PP of a random move to zero. The most threatening part of this effect is that this can instantly break your linked moves! Even after you drink a Max Elixir, you won't be able to re-link those moves unless you either use a Link Box or finish the expedition.

The Seal Trap is similar to the PP-Zero Trap, but slightly less threatening. It merely locks that move from use for the remainder of the floor, but it does not reduce your PP to zero, so it will only break linked moves if you try to use it.

The most threatening of all of these traps is the Sticky Trap, which causes one of your held items to become sticky and unusable. This can be any held item. Including important ones like Escape Orbs or Reviver Seeds. If your Held Item becomes sticky, you cannot take it out of your hands and it still remains useless. Once you exit the dungeon, all sticky items will be cleaned, but if this thing hits the wrong item at the wrong time, it could potentially doom your entire expedition. And it sure as hell has a bad habit of accomplishing just that. This trap is so dangerous, two items are added to protect against it.

 

The first is the aforementioned No-Stick Cap, which is a held item that protects specifically against the effects of the Sticky Trap, but is exclusive to Explorers of Darkness, at least for now. The other is the Cleanse Orb which is available in both versions. This item will instantly clean all sticky items in your inventory. If you only have one left in your inventory. Of course, this item isn't immune to getting sticky itself, so it's a gamble to press on without using it. I recommend carrying two with you everywhere you go to guarantee protection from your most important items getting stickied. If there are any items in your inventory that are important for your strategy, use an Escape Orb immediately if you're out of Cleanse Orbs. The last thing you want is your Escape Orb getting sticky and being unable to escape from an unfortunate Monster House. "What are the odds of that happening?" are the famous last words, remember that. Mystery Dungeon postgame actively hates you.

But wait, there's more!

 

Exclusive to Explorers of Darkness are the Poison and Trip Traps.

While Explorers of Time players have to watch out for Explosion Traps, which are more powerful counterparts to the SelfDestruct trap that destroy walls and items in a within a 2-tile radius and damage you for 50% of your current HP rather than the meager 25% of the SelfDestruct trap. Be even more careful in rooms with items you want.

And with all that out of the way, we can finally get into the actual dungeon itself.

===============

Mystifying Forest [1F - 2F]

                               

So, this dungeon is a bit unique. On the surface, all of these pokemon are technically available to encounter on any floor of the dungeon. However, only 14 different pokemon will be randomly selected from this large pool each time a new floor is loaded. In addition, the pokemon you encounter here come in a variety of strengths. Some will go down like toothpicks while others will take a considerable amount of effort to get past. There isn't anything too threatening, but in general, the tougher pokemon are easy to pick out from a visual standpoint. There are exceptions, though. Strangely, the Nidorans are significantly tougher than you'd expect.

Anyway, the pokemon you can encounter include: Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, Metapod, Rattata, Raticate, Spearow, Nidoran F and M, Venonat, Bellsprout, Weepinbell, Exeggcute, Koffing, Scyther, Eevee, Chikorita, Bayleef, Aipom, Teddiursa, Wurmple, Seedot, Nuzleaf, Roselia, Gulpin, Flygon, Turtwig, Grotle, Torterra, Bidoof, Stunky, Skuntank, and Munchlax.

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Mystifying Forest [3F - 8F]

                                

As a truly bizarre stand-out, Kricketot can only appear between the 3rd and 8th floors of the dungeon. I have no idea why this one pokemon is so elusive compared to the rest of the crowd, but that's just how it is.

 

On floors 3 and 5, the weather is foggy.

  

  

Starting on floor 5, if you're lucky enough to find one on an odd-numbered floor, you might notice some strange items on display in Kecleon Shops.

       

These include Fire, Leaf, Moon, Sun, and ThunderStones, Kings Rocks, Link Cables, and Metal Coats. In Rescue Team, a lot of these items could be found at the end of specific dungeons. Not the case in Explorers. These items are of significant value in Kecleon Shops going forward, so watch out for them. But they can also still be obtained for free through job requests and treasure boxes, so don't give up hope on obtaining them just because you don't wanna carry your cash around!

What are these items for? Well, without saying too much, they'll be helpful in evolving certain pokemon, just like they were in Rescue Team.

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Mystifying Forest [9F - 13F]

                               

For the rest of the dungeon after 8F, you can no longer find Kecleon, so the game is back to normal.

================

Mystifying Forest Clearing

 

We soon arrive at a clearing in the depths of Mystifying Forest. It's clear we're nearing Luminous Spring where our treasure resides.

  

 

Just before we continue, Teddiursa and Ursaring casually stroll up to us! They ask us about that grand master of all things bad, of course.

  

 

Teddiursa asks us what we're here for, so we tell him we're after Luminous Spring.

  

 

  

It turns out these two were already headed for Luminous Spring, so they invite us to come along with them. So, let's go!

 

But as we step forward to follow them, we end up falling into a pitfall!!

==============

  

We land at the bottom of a deep pit...

 

  

And suddenly, the pit gets covered up, closing off the sunlight and leaving us trapped in the darkness! What's going on!?

 

We then hear a sinister laugh from the darkness... This must be the grand master of all things bad!

  

He certainly introduces himself as such!

 

Pep is shocked and becomes incredibly frightened suddenly at this revelation. So was this actually true all along!?

  

Suddenly, voices start to speak out to us from all around. The grand master is not alone, he has a collection of minions surrounding us! Not only are we in the dark, but we're completely surrounded, too!

 

  

 

Suddenly, just as we were preparing to battle... the hole is opened again, light spills in and... the identity of this "Grand master of all things bad" becomes clear as day. It's just Wigglytuff and the guild putting on a performance!

  

 

  

As it turns out, Bidoof thought it would be too dark for everyone down here, so he decided to remove the cover over the pitfall so that we could see. This got a big laugh out of me, you just gotta love this guy! Anyway, Chatot is clearly embarrassed to have the whole surprise ruined by being revealed in this way.

 

Now that the secret has been spoiled, Pep decides to ask Wigglytuff straight-up, but... he refuses to break character...?

  

 

Chatot and the others quickly get back into character along with Wigglytuff to try and play it off as some crazy coincidence and everyone plays along to a hilarious degree.

  

 

It seems there's no getting out of this encounter. And Wigglytuff is far too excited by this role he's given himself. It looks like we have no choice but to fight it out!

==============

 

Team Persevere

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Aura (Chikorita M); Lv. 36

Item: Joy Ribbon 

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Synthesis, Bullet Seed, Swords Dance, Body Slam

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Pep (Piplup M); Lv. 37

Item: Persim Band 

Ability: Torrent | Moves: BubbleBeam + Growl, Fury Attack, Dig

===============

 

      

Vs. "the grandmaster of all things bad and his minions"

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All jokes aside, this battle is actually pretty dang tough. My first attempt ended in failure. I underestimated all of my foes, let myself get surrounded, and we ended up getting overwhelmed. I was no longer able to maintain mine and Pep's HP and he went down, causing our trip to end in failure. Wigglytuff on his own is tough, but Diglett and Dugtrio's room-wide Magnitude can cause some serious upsets. If you're not prepared with a Persim Band, Loudred can ruin your day with his SuperSonic as well. And don't underestimate Sunflora's Petal Dance or Chatot's attacks, either! You're really in for a beating here! It's a rough battle, for sure!

  

Anyway, I'm kinda glad I ended up failing my first time, because the scene that plays out when you return to this fight is actually pretty hilarious.

 

As Pep discusses the idea of treading carefully going forward to avoid the pitfalls better, Wigglytuff suddenly runs up from behind and just shoves us into the pitfall!

  

 

After we land back in, Wigglytuff once again does his spiel and it's back to the fight!

============

 

So, right away, my goal was to get some distance from everyone to get a leg up on our foes. I used Quick Seeds gathered throughout the dungeon to accomplish this.

From this position, I singled out Chimecho because she had Levitate to protect her from Diglett and Dugtrio's Magnitude. Everyone else would be taking the full force of the attack alongside us, so I figured it wasn't too much of a threat.

 

By the time Chimecho was gone, Pep had taken care of Chatot and Diglett's Magnitude helped in eliminating Loudred and Croagunk. I proceeded to try and finish Corphish off with Bullet Seed, with hopes that excess bullets would pierce through and damage Dugtrio. It took a bit of doing but I was able to get the angle right!

AFter taking out Diglett, it was just between us and Wigglytuff now.

 

I buffed myself with Swords Dance and pelted Wigglytuff with a bunch of Bullet Seed until he went down!

=============

 

  

After defeating the grand master and his minions, everyone scrambles out of the pit and runs away!

 

 

With that out of the way, we can finally finish our graduation exam by continuing toward Luminous Spring.

  

 

As we continue forward, we catch back up to Teddiursa and Ursaring who seem to have gotten distracted by a strange box on the ground. They're confused by whatever held us up, but they seem happy to see us!

  

 

Apparently the two are worried about the box. Teddiursa wants to open it but they aren't sure if they should, they're worried it might be a booby trap or something.

  

 

After explaining the graduation exam to them, everyone seems in agreement the box must be related to our exam! And so, Ursaring suggests we be the ones to open it!

  

 

Pep turns the task over to me, and I decide to try and use the dimensional scream to get a read on whether or not this box is actually a trap.

 

The familiar dimensional scream begins to trigger, starting with the dizziness before...

  

We see a very simple vision of Wigglytpuff placing this box here in the past. That seems to all but confirm that this is indeed related to our exam!

 

  

 

The treasure inside of the box turns out to be... a Perfect Apple. In case you still had any doubts, certainly only Wigglytuff himself would think to use an item such as this as our ultimate treasure for this quest.

  

Suddenly, a noise breaks through the scene before a bright light flashes and, just ahead of us, light begins to strike Luminous Spring once again!

  

Teddiursa and Ursaring both come to the conclusion that this strange phenomenon must mean that Luminous Spring is regaining its power!

 

  

A mysterious voice begins to speak out to us, to "those who seek evolution." It seems the resumption of time did indeed work to return power to Luminous Spring! I suppose Dialga's still hard at work setting things right even after all this time.

 

  

Pep admits that he's a bit confused by what exactly evolution means, so Ursaring and Teddiursa begin to explain it to him... I don't really need to echo this explanation to you, do I? We've played how many games? Evolution works more or less the same as it did in Rescue Team. Fulfill the requirements and a pokemon can evolve!

 

  

 

It seems that this is a huge moment for Teddiursa! He's been looking forward to evolution for a long time!

  

 

  

 

And so, Teddiursa stands in the center of the spring where the light reaches the water, and answers the questions the voice speaks out to him. And soon enough, Teddiursa successfully evolves into an Ursaring as well!

  

 

The new Ursaring is congratulated! Though the observation is made for me that it's pretty difficult to tell them apart... even still, Urasring is proud of Urasring and I'm sure Ursaring is excited, too!

 

Naturally, Pep is excited to try out this whole evolution thing himself! So, he volunteers himself without a second thought!

  

 

  

 

He tries the same process as Teddiursa, and Piplup should be capable of evolving into Prinplup at level 16, but there seems to be some sort of problem...

  

 

  

The voice explains to Pep that he may not evolve... the reason why isn't really clear...

 

  

 

The voice elaborates that the reason we cannot evolve must be related to the distortion of space. Curiously, not time like we've been hearing the entire game. And it isn't just Pep, but me as well. Apparently the both of us are somehow linked to the distortion of space, and until the issue is resolved, we are forbidden to evolve... huh...

  

 

Pep is rightfully disappointed by this news. Quite frankly, I am, too! I was really looking forward to finally having myself and Pep evolve! But it looks like that's not going to be happening any time soon...

  

That said, we got what we came here for, so we should return to the guild to complete our graduation!

=============

 

  

As soon as we return, we're met with resounding applause in celebration! But Pep can't seem to get his mind off of things at the spring... On top of that, it's not really clear what exactly this whole graduation thing is about in the first place.

 

  

Pep voices that it didn't really feel like our mission was all that difficult, which Wigglytuff immediately denies. We defeated the grand master, after all!

 

Except, Pep calls out the fact that Wigglytuff shouldn't really know about all of that... if, y'know, the grand master was indeed someone else.

  

 

  

 

This ultimately boils down into everyone in the room playing dumb and pretending not to know anything that went on during our exam.

 

  

Chatot decides to redirect the subject to that of our graduation! Now that we've graduated from the guild, we are no longer bound by the regulations of the guild and can operate entirely on our own!

 

  

 

When Pep expresses excitement about finally receiving the full reward from job requests, Chatot sadly has to rain on his parade a bit and explain that that aspect shall remain unchanged. As unfair as it seems, we're still affiliated with the guild and consequently all rewards must still be shared with the guild... wait a minute, excuse me!? Weren't we promised in the beginning this was only a product of being an apprentice!? We're an independent exploration team now, aren't we!? This whole operation feels like a total scam at this point!

  

 

  

 

  

 

 

And everyone continues to cheer us on for our graduation! It feels great to be cheered on by everyone, but I can't help but feel ripped off by the results of this graduation...

  

Upon graduating from the guild, one major boon is the reward of an even larger treasure bag! With this, we can carry up to 48 items at a time!

 

And finally, we're awared 10,000P as funding to help start our new exploration team.

===============

 

  

 

And so, this is where I'd say the postgame officially begins, and more or less where my coverage of Explorers of Time and Darkness ends. From now on, this hideout in the mouth of Sharpedo Bluff is Team Persevere's Exploration Base! It's close to the guild, and we can now save at the beds here just like the ones in our guild beds!

Now, while I would like to end things off here, I do want to make notes of a few things that change in the postgame.

  

If we make our way back toward the guild, we'll run into Chimecho just outside of it!

 

  

Chimecho informs us of a new special service available to us now that we've graduated the guild!

 

We can now choose any pokemon from among our recruits to be the new leader! So, if, say, we're going into a dungeon filled with Fire-type pokemon, we can opt to make Pep the leader and let myself stay out of it! Just like in Rescue Team, we now have total control over who gets to be where. Well, with some limitations. There are still some dungeons, such as the Hidden Land, that only myself and Pep can go into.

In addition to this service, one thing you may have noticed earlier is that there's a new sign out in front of the fountain. By ringing this bell, we can call Chimecho out to the front of the guild to use her services! Things are certainly a lot more convenient now!

 

 

Dungeon-wise, you can see that a few new dungeons are accessible, namely the four Zero Isle dungeons. We can also now revisit some of the dungeons we previously weren't able to revisit, such as Treeshroud Forest. Through this, we can now recruit pokemon in these dungeons! In addition, we also don't have to go through Mystifying Forest every time we want to visit Luminous Spring. We can simply go straight there! We can also visit the Hot Spring directly as well! And, if you ever want to return to the Hidden Land, you'll just have to speak with Lapras on the beach!

  

Anyway, let's try out that new service of Chimecho's! As you can see, we can set Charge as the current leader of the team instead of myself! Unfortunately, you still play as the player character in the overworld, at least for now. I can't say whether or not that'll change in the future. Regardless, being able to change leaders is certainly a major adjustment that'll affect things significantly in the future.

 

Now, let's head back to Luminous Spring, because even though Pep and I can't evolve, we do still have some friends that can!

 

One major thing I can applaud Luminous Spring for is being much more streamlined over its counterpart in Rescue Team. While I don't know if they've adjusted the way evolving with items works, you no longer have to go through the rigamarole of running around and rearranging your team so that you only have one pokemon alone. You can come here with anyone as your learder and evolve not just anyone in your current team, but any of your recruits period!

 

Any pokemon that's currently met the requirements for evolution will show up in a list here. In our case, Charge the Electrike and March the Mareep are both capable of evolution, so let's not hold them back!

  

 

If a team member evolves, it seems the active team gets disbanded. I suppose this is an unfortunate side-effect of the added convenience. I suppose you're better off setting any team members you want to evolve on standby first.

  

Anyway, I went ahead and evolved March into Flaaffy as well. Once no pokemon are capable of evolution, you're forced to leave Luminous Spring.

So, I'm going to level with you right now that... this was a major letdown for me, the fact that I can't evolve my player or partner without continuing onward with a larger plot thread. Rescue Team let you evolve your starter and partner right away, so I was really disappointed to find out I wouldn't be able to do that here, but I don't think I'm so let down that I wanna go out of my way to do whatever goose chase this would send me on. I said this would be the last post covering Explorers and I'm sticking to my guns, even if it means some disappointing news.

===========

Anyway, there's one more feature that I never quite got around to talking about much and that's Croagunk's Swap Shop. There's really not much to talk about here, but I was hoping to have an example to demonstrate it with. Unfortunately, I never got any of the pairs of items necessary to properly use this shop. But, long story short, you can use this to combine those species-specific items into larger, rarer items. Remember that Water Float Azurill and Marill were looking for? That's one of the incredibly rare items. I still am not fully clear on how exactly this works, though, so I can't really say much more about it. But this page on Serebii lists all of the items and what items are needed to form them, though it uses a fan translation of their Japanese names so there may be some inconsistencies with the official localization. It isn't too hard to figure out, though. Long story short, each species has two different common items which can be swapped together for an uncommon item, which can in turn be swapped with more of those common items for a rare item! It's a huge chain of that I assume we'll be able to play around more when we get around to thoroughly covering postgame content, but there ya go.

Before we leave the game world for the last time, I want to take one last look at the diaries as there's one final entry here.

 

Sunflora's entry is cheering us on! It turns out Sunflora turned down the graduation exam because she wanted to train more first, but Loudred took it and failed spectacularly. This is one thing that's been boggling my mind about this graduation exam. How exactly does it work? How do they keep it a surprise for anyone who's been around for anyone else's graduation exam? Doesn't it seem a bit peculiar? I suppose you're just not meant to think about it, though it's funny to imagine Loudred having no idea what they've been setting up for until it came time for the battle.

 

It's interesting to note that Bidoof's new entry seems to hint at some surprisingly negative feelings! But this is a private journal, after all. He confesses that he can't really argue with the explanation that we've more than proven ourselves capable already with our many great feats from standing up to Groudon, to escaping Dusknoir's grasp in the future, to fighting and defeating Dusknoir and Primal Dialga! We've done it all!

Anyway, with all of that out of the way, I don't believe there's anything else in terms of generic, surface-level stuff to cover. From now on, it's just the standard gameplay loop with some additional flavor mixed in every once in a while. We'll have to do our own legwork to find things to do, but no longer have Chatot issuing orders to us every morning.

===============

But we're still not quite done with our coverage! There's not much else to talk about, though. I just wanted to cover the menus a bit more, starting with showing the portrait of Wigglytuff... or is it the Grand Master!?

 

Other than that, there's Go Rescue through which, if we have any SOS Mail, we can come here to rescue others! We can speak to Chimecho, Kangaskhan, or Duskull to access their various services, or speak with Pelipper to initiate the rescue! When rescuing a friend, if I understand the process properly, you'll be able to revive them within the dungeon they were KO'd in with the added boon that the leader of the team that was sent to rescue them will help escort them to the end of the dungeon! It's actually a really neat addition to this already interesting feature and can help avoid the unfortunate reality of being revived just to find yourself in a still-just-as-hopeless situation as you were when you were first KO'd.

In order to receive SOS Mail, you can access Friend Rescue to link with a friend over wireless communication, passwords, or over Wifi! Well, you could, before DS online services were shut down. But, there isn't too much demand to remedy this since you can still use the standard password feature.

Wonder Mail can be used to exchange job requests with each other. This can be exploited with generators to get custom missions.

The Trade Items feature is something I think the devs really expected people to use with how many important items are locked behind version exclusivity, an incredibly questionable design decision. Half of the pokemon types are not even really viable as long-term partners just because you'd have to constantly trade over gummis of the right type. There are certain situations where this might be feasible, such as between siblings or school friends who rode together on the bus or whatever, but I think it's really unfortunate they put such a steep wall in front of such important items. To make matters worse, you can't even trade items using passwords or even wifi! It's strictly through wireless communication which is especially lame. How hard would it have been to make this work online?

Up next is Trade Team. Contrary to what it sounds like, this just sends data over to the other game for use in the Marowak Dojo similarly to Rescue Team, where the other team will show up as a boss to a mini dungeon.

And finally, there's the Exploration Record where we can view our Adventure Log, rename our team, or delete our save data.

  

Here are some fun stats for anyone who might be interested! Just like in Rescue Team, the Adventure Log will be filled out with various milestones as you uncover them.

And finally, the Nintendo WFC menu gives you various options around online communication including options to manage friend codes as well as even setting up your email!

 

This is certainly something I wasn't expecting to see! What a crazy thing to see on a DS!

=============

Anyway, that finally wraps of Explorers of Time and Darkness! I don't think there's really much else to say that hasn't already been said! Next time, we'll be playing a different game! But not actually what's next on the list. Actually, we're going to be revisiting a game. You see, while I was smack-dab in the middle of playing these games, Nintendo decided to drop a bombshell of content to their Nintendo 64 Online service. These included two pokemon games, one of which I briefly covered in the very beginning of this thread but couldn't actually thoroughly explore due to errors in... er, legitimate hardware. But now, here we are in the golden age of September 2022 and we now have an official means to play this game again without having to hunt down plugins or whatever would've been necessary to make the game... work. So, as much as I hate to admit it, next time, we'll be revisiting Pokemon Puzzle League to see some of the content we left behind due to unplayability!

[Aura]

Pokemon Puzzle League (Revisit)

As mentioned in the last post, before we move on to the next game in the list, I wanted to revisit pokemon Puzzle League because, as a major surprise, this game has suddenly become significantly more accessible on current-gen platforms thanks to the Switch's Nintendo 64 Online service! It was added while I was in the middle of Explorers of Time and Darkness, so this is our first opportunity to go back to it.

If you recall, way back when, I had to resort to... alternative means to play the game which led to the 3D Cylinder mode to being, well, unplayable.

This is what I'd have to deal with. It's simply an atrocious eyesore. While I was sure I could install some plugin or something to get it to run better, I wasn't about to go around the internet hunting for the right plugin to get this working, especially if it meant starting over from the beginning... More on that in a bit.

There was only one game mode where the cylinder was really required, and that was in the Spa as all stages starting with stage 4 are in the 3D Cylinder Puzzle mode. So I was never actually able to finish this mode.

But, thanks to the N64 Online update for Nintendo Switch, I can play this game in a more legitimate way, making the Spa mode playable again! So, I can play up to where we left off and continue onward from there!

This is what the mode is supposed to look like! I'll just have to ask that you ignore the borders from the NSO service.

Anyway, now that I've actually had some experience with this Cylinder Mode, I'm not sure if there's much to really say about it. It's certainly more difficult to keep up with the puzzle in a 3D form like this, that's for sure. I think the strategy of setting up large combos and chains up until the blocks are stacked all the way to the top before setting them off is definitely the way to go. When you do that, Jigglypuff Sings adding a multiplier to the amount of time the game stops, giving you more time to clear out extra space and set up more combos!

Just like the 2D stages, the objective in Spa mode is to drop all the blocks below the white line. It oculdn't be simpler!

Moving onto Round 5, we've got what looks to be a Kabuki theme (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that front).

Of course, this challenge is tougher than its predecessor. Once again, I'd like to remind you that you can track how long each stage took me to clear by the timer in the top-left corner. That should give you an idea of how difficult these stages were for me.

Round 6 is the final showdown with Team Rocket, no disguises at all! We're drawing nearer to the end of the game! And, I must confess... I... never cleared this stage. Yeah, even applying that Jigglypuff Sing strat, I found it impossible to keep up with the high speed of even just the first level in this stage. Let me stress again that my brain literally does not operate fast enough to manage this sort of game as fast as you're expected to. It's not just a matter of "getting good," it's literally impossible for me and every victory at this difficulty level just feels like a total fluke and nothing more. I just can't think far enough ahead and fast enough to keep up with all this puzzle stuff! And there's so many tiny things you have to pay attention to as well! You need a lot of doubles paired up to set up for combos and chains, but you need to be careful sliding panels around or you might accidentally break your combos or chains in the process of setting up another. Sometimes a new panel will just happen to pop up that matches the two above it and automatically clear it as well, so it's generally better to set up these combos starting from higher up, I suppose.

All in all, the closest I was able to get to clearing this first level was by applying that Jigglypuff strat and a lot of luck. Even still, I just barely didn't have enough time to slip the panel under the line. 

Anyway, I intended to take a break and come back after playing a bit of Splatoon 3, it is splatfest season after all (Go Team Fun!) and the fest was just starting! But I made the critical mistake of failing to set a restore point before closing the game and, as far as I'm aware, this mode doesn't save your progress. Honestly, I don't really care enough to check it out either because I'm just going to continue to be walled at this level anyway. I was at this one level for around 30 minutes with absolutely zero progress. (Pleasant reminder that the entirety of the previous round, that's five levels, took me around 38 minutes total, I was spending over 30 minutes on just the first of five here.

Anyway, just like Mewtwo, I think I'm gonna have to give you guys the same treatment for the ending of this mode and just post a video of it.

The final level of round 6 begins at around the 56:00 mark in this video, but feel free to watch the whole thing if you feel up to it. This guy is certainly a lot faster than I am! Credit goes to DarkBowser64 on YouTube for this video, of course!

Anyway, upon clearing round 6, you're treated to a brief FMV of Team Rocket Blasting Off before the game transitions you to the final boss stage against Giovanni which appears to be a special stage not unlike Butch and Cassidy's. For this reason, I'm honestly unsure if you actually have to defeat Giovanni, but I suppose it makes sense with him being the final boss and all. Upon defeating Giovanni, he'll tell you to "see how you do against the Puzzle Master" which... I can only assume refers to Mewtwo? You get a Key to Puzzle City as a reward but as far as I can tell, this is just like the badges and trophies you get form story mode. It doesn't actually unlock anything. Beyond that, you just get the credits and a code to unlock the hidden characters in multiplayer mode.

And that's really it as far as content! Nothing unlocks for clearing all the modes or anything. If you're a fan of puzzle games, Panel De Pon in particular, this is definitely a fun game for you. And like I've said before, I can certainly find casual enjoyment in these types of games! It's just when they start to get genuinely difficult that I feel a lot more deterred. Just let me enjoy my simple comobs, dammit!

Anyway, with that, we can finally put this game to rest and never have to worry about it again. And up next, it looks like we're taking the leap to the year 2008 with what I believe could make a legitimate argument as the single most hyped up video game of all time. I'm excited to get into it! But it's gonna be a bit different than its predecessors...

[Aura]

credit to SmashWiki for most images used throughout

January 31st, 2008 saw the official release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl in Japan. As explained with the previous games, while technically not a pokemon game per se, Pokemon is a very prominently represented franchise throughout Smash Bros. and I do consider it notable when exploring the history of Pokemon like this as I have a hunch that Smash Bros. has had some degree of influence over the design of some pokemon.

Anyway, this is a third game in the Super Smash Bros. series and, where its predecessors didn't have much in the way of "story" content, Brawl changes that, being most well known for the Subspace Emissary campaign. Originally, I was considering not playing the Subspace Emissary as, for the purposes of this thread, I typically only zero in on the Pokemon-related content. However, as the Subspace Emissary does include every character in the game to some extent, I do think it's appropriate to play through it. I also think it'd be a bit of a disappointment to allow Brawl to come and go without playing through its most iconic mode.

Brawl has some pretty split opinions among Smash fans. Casual fans generally appreciate it for the Subspace Emissary while competitive fans generally scoff at the game for its many anti-competitive design decisions, most significantly, an extremely unbalanced roster with Meta Knight being way too powerful compared to the many other characters in the game. 

   

Pokemon is represented in this game once again by 4 characters, though Brawl is the first game to cut characters from the previous roster and that concept didn't treat Pokemon well. Pikachu and Jigglypuff return, but Pichu and Mewtwo were both cut. However, the remaining two representations two completely new characters: Pokemon Trainer and Lucario, the rep from the latest pokemon games. That said, though there are 4 slots dedicated to Pokemon on the roster, it can be argued that there are technically 6 playable Pokemon characters as Pokemon Trainer is actually a 3-in-1 deal similar to Zelda and Shiek. He switches between Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard. I think this is a brilliant way to represent the franchise since it actually emphasizes the relationship between people and pokemon, the strategic element of switching between pokemon to suit the situation, and the pokemon chosen represent not only the three starters and type matchups really well, but also the three stages of evolution with a first, second, and third form pokemon! Anyway, just like in Melee and 64, I'll be giving each of these characters their own spotlight where I'll go into more detail about them and cover my experiences using them in the various single player modes.

In addition to characters, there are 2 new stages in Pokemon Stadium 2 and Spear Pillar as well as the stage Pokemon Stadium returning from Melee. We'll also give each of these stages their own spotlight as well!

The PokeBall item also returns, it is a staple, after all. There are 30 pokemon capable of appearing from the pokeball. As this game was released after Diamond and Pearl, Gen 4 is the main focus, but Gen 3 pokemon are also included! That's significant since the previous Smash game came out before Ruby and Sapphire. Some pokemon also return from Smash 64 that weren't in Melee!

Finally, there are collectibles! Like Melee, Brawl features collectible trophies. There are 76 Pokemon-related Trophies. But alongside those, there are also songs and stickers that can be collected throughout the game! There are 10 different songs and 38 Stickers from the Pokemon series. Each song can be played on a specific stage or used in the creation of a custom stage in the stage builder. And stickers are essentially just PNGs of official art of various characters, either from Brawl itself or pulled straight from the video games.

Needless to say, there's a lot more collectibles in this game! To sum all of this miscellaneous stuff up, here is a list of all the Pokeball Pokemon,  Pokemon trophies, Pokemon Songs, and Pokemon Stickers.

There's also one more way Pokemon is represented in this game, but I want to hold off on talking about that just in case somebody out there isn't aware of this one. I thought it was really cool when I first discovered it.

For the purposes of my coverage of this game, we're going to start by covering Classic and All-Star Mode just like in Melee. I'll be defaulting to Normal, though it's worth noting that "Normal" in Brawl is actually comparable to "Easy" in Melee, as Very Easy has been removed and all difficulties have been bumped down to make room for the new "Intense" difficulty that is comparable to Melee's "Very Hard". Consequently, in order to fight Crazy Hand, you'll have to fight on Hard difficulty rather than Normal. So, I'll likely switch over to Hard for Classic, but I've already done Pikachu's on Normal, sorry!

==============

I kind of already spoiled it, but it's not like it wasn't obvious that Pikachu would be our first character to cover! Pikachu is one of the only two Pokemon characters that are available from the very beginning of a new save file.

There aren't any significant changes from his playstyle in Melee, but, like Melee, Brawl does introduce a new kind of attack. In this case, the Final Smash! Pikachu's final smash is Volt Tackle which, as it turns out, is a reference to Pulseman of all things, a Sega Genesis game that predates Pokemon Red and Blue and is commonly referenced there. Pikachu transforms into a giant ball of electricity and begins moving erratically. When you press A, the ball of electricity will pulse, zapping nearby opponents. It's a bit of an underwhelming Final Smash, admittedly, and it's near-impossible to actually KO with. Even still, it's around!

Pikachu in this game has three alts, one in which he's wearing a red cap similar to Red's, one where he's wearing a green headband that looks similar to the bottom of Brendan's hat in Emerald (casual reminder it is a hat, he does not have white hair), and one where he's wearing blue swimming goggles. Most interesting of note, here, is the goggles costume which used to be one of Pichu's alts in Melee. This has led some people to headcannon that the Pikachu in Brawl is actually the Pichu from Melee, evolved. It's a fun way to explain away the absence of Pichu in the roster! Of note, this Pikachu is also capable of wall-jumping unlike Pikachu in Melee, which used to be an ability exclusive to Pichu. Also notably, none of Pikachu's colors in this game feature his party hat from 64! So it seems the goggles came at a cost...

 

One last addition in Brawl, while not actually an attack per se, every character now has three taunts rather than just one. Pikachu's old taunt of waving at the screen is his "Side Taunt" in Brawl. His "Up Taunt" has him charging electricity and his "Down Taunt' has him rolling on the ground. It seems to be a common trend where one animation is tougher and another is cuter.

Without further ado, let's get into the various modes! Starting with...

================

Classic Mode

Classic Mode in Brawl is somewhat akin to Classic Mode in the original series. Of course, to accommodate for the larger roster, rather than specific characters, each stage features one character from a specific franchise or set. To add a bit more variance, unlike being placed on set stages like in 64 and Melee, modified opponents such as Giant, Metal, Pair, and Team battles are randomly strewn about. You'll always fight two Giants, two pairs of two opponents, two Team battles (10 easier to KO opponents), and one Metal opponent. The first Giant and pair, you're given a randomly selected ally from the same set of characters. Pairs of characters will always be characters who naturally pair together, like Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong or Ness and Lucas. Each stage is also fought on a stage thematically appropriate for the selection of characters.

As for hidden characters and stages, they'll only appear if you've unlocked them.

Stage 1: Legend of Zelda

    

Characters: Link, Zelda, Sheik, Ganondorf, Toon Link

 

Stages: Bridge of Eldin, Pirate Ship

  

In Pikachu's case, I fought Toon Link on Bridge of Eldin.

Bridge of Eldin is a simple enough map. Against easier AIs like this, it's really easy to get quick kills thanks to the run-off edges. But if the fight goes on long enough, King Bulblin will run through and drop a bomb in the middle of the stage, opening up a giant gap in the center of the bridge which will be filled in by a Twilight Portal later on.

-------------

Stage 2: Yoshi and Donkey Kong

  

Characters: Yoshi, Diddy Kong, Donkey Kong

  

Stages: Yoshi's Island, Rumble Falls, 75 M

    

This was a pair battle where I teamed up with Yoshi against Diddy and Donkey Kong!

This stage is particularly obnoxious to play on. Ironically, even the Smash Dojo used to promote the game admitted it wasn't the best for serious fights. The stage is really cluttered, the platforms are small, and there are hazards all over.

-----------------

Stage 3: Pokemon

   

Characters: Pikachu, Pokemon Trainer, Lucario, Jigglypuff

 

Stages: Pokemon Stadium 2, Spear Pillar

    (Giant)

For this stage, I fought against a Giant Jigglypuff while teamed up with Lucario on Pokemon Stadium 2.

Again, we'll cover this in more detail in the future, but Pokemon Stadium 2 is more or less a repeat of Pokemon Stadium from Melee, but different type themes are explored throughout. I'm generally less of a fan of this stage over its predecessor because I feel the gimmicks of this stage are a lot more intrusive.

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Stage 4: Fire Emblem and Earthbound

   

Characters: Marth, Ike, Ness, Lucas

 

Stages: Castle Siege, New Pork City

    

I was paired up with Ike here against Ness and Lucas. 

At the time, New Pork City was by far the largest Smash Bros. stage yet. Consequently, it's the most frustrating to play on in single player. This place is huge! And needlessly so! However, occasionally the Ultimate Chimera will appear on a part of the stage, pressuring players away from that area. If you're confident, you may want to try using it to your advantage by smashing your foes into it for an easy finisher!

------------------

Bonus Stage 1: Target Smash!

So, Target Smash returns from the previous games! ...Sorta. I'll cover this mode in more detail later, but long story short, there is one stage for every difficulty. Here, you'll play the stage of the difficulty you selected.

-----------------

Stage 5: Kirby

  

Characters: Kirby, Meta Knight, King Dedede

Stages: Halberd

   x 10

This was my team battle against Team Meta Knight! 10 Meta Knights later and we were already moving on!

Halberd is definitely the stage most people think of when they think of Brawl, most likely because of that famous reveal trailer that took place here, and the Halberd's prominence throughout the game's story. The majority of the stage doesn't actually take place on the halberd itself, but on a tiny platform that floats around it, offering a cinematic view of the halberd itself as it flies around. Eventually, the platform will land on the deck of the ship. Here, you'll have to evade the Combo Canon as its laser locks on to one of the fighters and the claw reaches around and attacks you.

-----------------

Stage 6: Metroid and Pikmin

  

Characters: Samus, Zero Suit Samus, Olimar

  

Stages: Norfair, Frigate Orpheon, Distant Planet

   (Giant)

Up next was Giant Samus who I had to fight alone this time on Frigate Orpheon.

Frigate Orpheon is essentially two stages in one. After a brief while of fighting, an alarm will sound and the stage will flip over. You'll need to jump in order to land on the second set of platforms that will now land beneath you. The platforms surrounding the main platform will come and go, attach, detach, and float offscreen. Be wary of where you plan to move next!

-----------------

Stage 7: Star Fox and F-Zero

   

Characters: Fox, Wolf, Falco, Captain Falcon

 

Stages: Lylat Cruise, Port Town: Aero Dive

   

This time, I was facing off against Wolf and Falco on Lylat Cruise.

Did you know that it's possible to make a Star Fox stage that doesn't take place on the Great Fox? Apparently Brawl was the only game to get the memo. Even including the games that come later, every other Star Fox stage at least involves the Great Fox as a platform, it's pretty much a staple at this point. Anyway, this is actually a pretty standard stage. The cruise ship will fly through various settings from Star Fox: Assault and will tilt and turn, causing the whole stage to tilt slightly. This could interfere with your combos and attacks so you'll need to stay on your toes, but the stage is overall pretty clean compared to the much more gimmicky stages you'll find throughout this game.

-------------------

Stage 8: Super Mario Bros.

   

Characters: Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Peach

   

Stages: Delfino Plaza, Luigi's Mansion, Mario Circuit, Mushroomy Kingdom

   x 10

Up next was Team Peach on Isle Delfino. They were simple enough to pick off one by one, just like Meta Knight.

Delfino Plaza is a really cool stage! Much like Mute City in Melee, this is a traveling stage in which various arrangements of platforms will carry you around the environment which is a recreation of the iconic hub world of Super Mario Sunshine! The platform will occasionally drop you off at various landmarks around the plaza. When I was a kid, this was one of the stages I was most hyped to play on!

---------------------

Stage 9: Retro

   

Characters: Mr. Game & Watch, Pit, Ice Climbers, R.O.B.

    

Stages: Flat Zone 2, Skyworld, Summit, Mario Bros., Delfino Plaza

   (Metal)

Metal Ice Climbers were next on Summit! They were fairly tough to knock off due to their heavy weight, but once they were off the stage, it was difficult for them to recover.

Summit was the stage we fought on, of course! The stage starts out, as its name implies, on the top of a mountain, before breaking off, sliding down the side of the mountain, and floating off into the sea. The most awkward part to fight on this stage is while it's sliding down as the stage can leave you behind if you're caught in the air. Not only that, the entire bottom of the stage has ice physics, so fighting here can be pretty rough in general.

------------------

Stage 10: Loners

  

Characters: Wario, Snake, Sonic

  

Stages: WarioWare, Inc., Shadow Moses Island, Green Hill Zone

  

Next up was Wario on WarioWare, Inc.!

This wonky stage is obviously inspired by the game of the same name. Occasionally, a microgame will pop up in the background with a simple task to be completed. You can either ignore the microgame and continue fighting, or shift your focus to trying to clear the microgame. If the microgame is successfully cleared, all players who either succeeded in the challenge or assisted in completing the task, will be rewarded with a powerup! The most obvious gripe with this stage is that the powerups aren't quite balance. Sometimes you and your opponent will both win the microgame, but your opponent will get star power while you'll just get a Super Mushroom. Not all powerups are created equal, you know! If you're confident in your skills, you might want to focus on the fight and try to force your opponents to lose the microgames. But if you're not so good at the game, you might want to focus more on the microgames and maybe the powerups will help you out!

-----------------

Bonus Stage 2

The second Bonus Stage is another Target Smash. This time, you'll be playing on the map designed for the next difficulty up. If you're playing on Intense difficulty, you'll just be playing the Intense stage again.

-------------------

Stage 11: Random

This is a Free-for-all involving three random characters from among the ones that weren't selected for the previous rounds.

The stage here will always be Final Destination. Strangely enough, Battlefield and Multi-Man Brawl don't seem to be included in this iteration of Classic Mode.

   

In this free-for-all, I was matched up with Zelda, Bowser, and Fox. Nothing too terrible for Pikachu, I just had to be wary of Zelda and Fox's ability to deflect my ThunderShock attacks.

FInal Destination is more or less the same it's always been. A very standard, flat stage designed to be the most fair stage to fight on. Ironically, competitive players often argue that Final Destination isn't actually universally fair, but it's generally accepted as the "standard" stage alongside Battlefield.

Final Destination in this game, strangely enough, is rectangular rather than the more ciruclar shapes of its predecessors. I suppose this was just to more easily convey where the edge is.

-----------------

Final Stage: Boss

  

The final boss of Classic Mode is, of course, Master Hand who seemed to take a long time to take out. I don't know if I was fighting really inefficiently or what, but even though I was changing up my attacks to reduce the stale moves impact, I still felt like none of my attacks were dealing as much damage as I would've liked. Regardless, I was eventually successful in defeating Master Hand.

--------------------

The reward for clearing Classic Mode is a unique ending, congratulations screen, and trophy depending on your chosen character! The Classic Mode trophies are all modeled after the character's official art from the game. They aren't necessarily exact, but it's cool to essentially see a 3D version of the 2D render. Note that I can't find an isolated video of just one character's congratulations cutscene, the linked video instead automatically starts at the timestamp for Pikachu's cutscene and doesn't include the congratulations screen.

In addition, instead of credits, you'll be met with a role call of all the characters in the game. Like the credits in previous games, you can shoot the names of the characters. This time, you'll be rewarded with coins for doing so! But if you shoot the portrait instead, you'll earn two coins! The game will scroll through every playable character, every pokeball pokemon, every assist trophy, and every trophy currently in your collection!

In Pikachu's case, the song is Pokemon Center

==============

All Star Mode

The other main mode I want to focus on here is All Star Mode. This mode is functionally very similar to that of Melee's All Star. The mode unlocks only after you've unlocked every character in the game, which is pretty standard fare if you've completed the Subspace Emissary already. It is an endurance round where you face off against every single character in the game. Damage will carry over from one fight to the next, so you'll need to ration out the three Heart Containers provided carefully. Don't be too stingy as there's no reason to save all three to the very end, but don't get too greedy as there are some particularly tough stages at the end.

Unlike Melee, where the opponents appeared to be more or less random with the only constant being fighting a team of Mr. Game & Watch last, this time around the characters seem to appear in order of their franchise's debut. With Mario being an odd exception. I suppose for the purposes of this list, they're counting Donkey Kong Arcade as both the first Mario and Donkey Kong game. In each stage, you'll only fight up to two opponents at a time rather than getting tossed around like a sandbag in a  1v3 which is a pleasant change. The characters within each stage are grouped together by franchise, but you won't necessarily fight them in the order of the characters' debut. They'll appear within their own stage in a random order. Some of these are a bit deceptive, however. For example, you might fight Zelda or Shiek or Samus or Zero Suit Samus. They're technically the same character, so you won't fight them both even though they likely won't transform into their alternate forms.

I strongly recommend trying as hard as you can to carry at least one heart container up until the Pokemon stage, however. The reason being, this stage is rather deceptive in that it appears to only have 4 opponents, but it's actually the toughest stage as you're forced to fight all three of Pokemon Trainer's pokemon as if they're separate characters before he's eliminated. As you defeat the characters, their trophies will be placed in the background of the rest area to show how far you've come. Of course, Nintendo's newest IP by the release of Brawl was Pikmin, so Olimar is the final opponent you'll be facing. Coming right off of Pokemon, it's a bit of a joke, really.

Anyway, I had a fairly embarrassing encounter during my playthrough where I ended up having to use a continue against Wario of all characters because of a massive chain of bizarre misinputs where I tried to do a forward Smash to the right but somehow ended up turning around completely and using a jab combo to the left. I have no clue how that ended up happening, but it costed me an entire stock. To be fair, I'm using an old third-party classic controller with a fairly janky joystick in order to play this game, mainly because using a GameCube controller off of my Wii U isn't really much of an option. I'm also not even sure if the GameCube adaptor even works for the Wii U.

Anyway, there isn't too much to talk about on this front. I played through on Normal!

The reward is an alternate Congratulations screen to the Classic Mode one as well as a trophy depicting the character's final smash! In this case, Volt Tackle! I think this is a really cool concept compared to the All Star trophies just being modeled after alternate outfits and special moves or taunts back in Melee. This really makes clearing All Star a lot more exciting!

=================

There is one more mode that's a bit similar to All Star, but I think it's for the best to hold that mode off for a future post.

Anyway, that's Pikachu! I know this is a bit short but, sadly, it seems that Subspace Emissary took up a lot of the dev's attention. These modes which I personally always considered the "main" modes of single-player Smash Bros. feel like pretty stripped down versions of the previous iterations. But I'm not going to harp on it too much right now.

Next time, we'll be taking a look at the other pokemon character that's available out of the box! It's an interesting one, for sure!

[Aura]

The only other Pokemon character available straight out of the box is Pokemon Trainer! This is a complete newcomer from the Pokemon series, and, technically, it's actually three in one! As mentioned before, the gimmick of Pokemon Trainer is that, using his down special, you can switch between his three pokemon: Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard. You can select which of his three pokemon to start with by tapping their part of his portrait on the character select screen. Otherwise, I believe the result is random.

One of the major limitations of Pokemon Trainer is the stamina system. If you use one pokemon too long, it'll become tired and it'll deal less damage and knockback. You'll need to retreat into another pokemon in order to continue fighting at your peak. You can tell when your pokemon is tired because its idle animation will change to reflect its weariness. It's also pretty likely you'll notice the decrease in power of your attacks.

Squirtle is the fastest and most agile of the three. He's capable of wall-jumping and quick movement, but he's also the lightest weight of the three. I find he's best at knocking people into the air with his Up Smash, Hydro Pump for kills. His Neutral Special is Water Gun, allowing him to charge up and spit out water from his mouth. This water doesn't deal damage, but it does push people backwards, making it really useful for preventing opponents from recovering. His Side Special, Withdraw, has him retreat into his shell and launch himself forward like a Green Shell. And his Up Special, Waterfall, has a small waterfall appear in front of him that he'll climb up, the water will damage anyone it hits. His Down Special will switch him to Ivysaur.

Ivysaur is the form I found myself gravitating toward the most throughout my session. His Up Air and Up Smash felt really powerful and could KO at surprisingly low percents. His Neutral Special, Bullet Seed, has him fire seeds directly above him from his bulb. The button can be led to extend the attack for a while, an easy way to rack up damage on large opponents. His Forward Special, Razor Leaf, lets him throw a leaf forward as a projectile. It swerves in a random direction making it fairly inaccurate, but it can still mess with characters trying to recover. His biggest weakness is his Up Special, Vine Whip, which he relies on for recovery. This is a tether recovery which means the ledge has to be free for him to recover with it. Unlike in Smash 4 and Ultimate, a Ledge can't be grabbed if someone's already on it. Consequently, a lot of edge guarders will simply grab the ledge so you can't easily get that option without having to try and hit them first. In turn, that makes your recovery a lot more predictable and punishable. Try not to get caught off stage as Ivysaur. His Down Special will switch him to Charizard.

Charizard is meant to be the heavyweight, powerhouse character. If you find yourself at high percentages, you may want to switch to him as he has the best recovery potential of the three due to his multiple jumps and ability to glide! Gliding is a new mechanic in Brawl that was fairly shortlived in the series due to being rather poorly thought out in terms of character balance. Characters with wings are typically not only capable of multiple midair jumps, but can also hold the button after a jump to enter a glide state, allowing them to fly really far forward in one direction. This can really help a character to travel great distances through the air and assist with recovery when you're far away. Charizard's neutral special is Flamethrower which works just like Bowser's Fire Breath. His Forward Special is Rock Smash in which he holds a rock in front of him and bashes his head in front of it. This is Pokemon Trainer's strongest DPS move and can deal a massive chunk of damage against Master Hand! His Up Special is Fly which causes him to dash upward. It's not very strong or anything, but it can get you some extra height if necessary. His Down Special allows him to switch back to Squirtle.

 

All three of these forms share a final smash: Triple Finish where the trainer sends out all three of his pokemon to use their strongest attacks: Solar Beam, Hydro Pump, and Fire Blast at the same time. It even comes with a cute textbox from the Pokemon games!

Pokemon Trainer has alternate pallets based loosely on other Poemon characters that change the hue of his pokemon to match. The first alt makes his hat resemble that of Leaf's from FireRed and LeafGreen, his second makes his colors resemble Brendan's from Emerald. The third alt might simply be a reference to Blue version while the last one I suspect might be a reference to Gold and Silver? It's  areally pretty color, though, for sure.

I really wish there was a color where the pokemon resemble their shiny forms, but the closest you get is the green alt where Squirtle gets his green shell. Ivysaur in this color scheme also kind of works.

 

Of course, Pokemon Trainer and all of his pokemon each have three taunts to themselves as well. Pokemon Trainer is always hanging out in the background, sometimes a special platform loads in for him to stand on. All of these will be displayed in the order of Up, Side, and Down Taunt.

 

These are Squirtle's taunts!

 

Ivysaur's,

 

And finally, Charizard's. 

With that coverage out of the way, let's get into Classic and All Star Modes, shall we?

==============

Classic Mode

I should note that this time I decided to enter Classic Mode on Hard on the offchance that I might be able to fight Crazy Hand. Hopefully I'll be able to do so!

----------------

Stage 1

  

Stage 1 was against Toon Link again, but this time on Pirate Ship!

Designed after Tetra's Pirate Ship from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, this stage is set on the great sea! The ship will sail past several hazards in reference to the game, such as enemy outposts that will fire bombs at the stage, a cyclone that will blow the ship into the air, and even an island the ship will crash into briefly! Be careful if you're caught in the water in front of the boat because if the boat hits you, you'll be instantly KO'd! Occasionally, the King of Red Lions will appear behind the ship and serve as an additional platform.

-------------------

    

Stage 2 also had the same characters involved, I swear these are random! But this time, we fought on Rumble Falls.

This is one of the few, and I wanna say the only, Brawl exclusive stages in the game and for good reason. Based on the level of the same name from Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, this is a stage that takes after the likes of Icicle Mountain from Melee. It's an infinitely scrolling vertical stage that has you climbing platforms in front of a waterfall followed by an airplane that will fly into place allowing you to use it as a platform to further heights with beanstalks reaching high in the sky before heavy rainfall covers the background and you mysteriously appear back at the bottom of the waterfall again. It's a cool stage to look at, but not necessarily to fight on. Just like 75 M, a lot of the platforms are really small and the hazards are absurdly powerful. Donkey Kong really got the short end of the stick when it comes to Smash stages.

-----------------

    (Giant)

For once we got some slight variation! This time, we're fighting Giant Pikachu alongside Lucario on Spear Pillar.

Set at the top of Mt. Coronet from the Sinnoh Region, this stage is extremely close to being really cool! Again, we'll go over it in more detail later, but long story short, one of three pokemon can appear on the pedestal in the background: Palkia, Dialga, or Cresselia. Palkia and Dialga will interfere with the stage in various ways using their powers over Space and Time, but Cresselia is the one that really ruins the stage, I think. Cresselia can use Psycho Cut to send crescent-shaped projectiles all around the map and it's near impossible to tell where these projectiles are going. Not only that, but they're, once again, way more powerful than they deserve to be! You could be doing great the entire game and then Cresselia shows up and kills you out of nowhere because you had no clue whether the attack was going to go high or low. It's just obnoxious.

-------------------

   x 10

This time we got the same stage but finally a different type of fight. This was Team Ness on New Pork City. The large size of New Pork City makes Ness an unfortunate choice for a team battle, it makes this stage take a lot longer than I'd prefer.

------------------

Since I was playing on Hard Mode, I started out on the level 3 Target Smash instead of Level 2. This is where it really hits home that, yes, every character really does share the same target smash stage and I find that to be incredibly unfortunate.

------------------

  

Up next was Meta Knight on Halberd.

------------------

   x 10

I think this is the first actually completely different stage! This time, we fought Olimar on Distant Planet!

Based on the Forest of Hope from Pikmin 2, this stage makes you the size of a pikmin and has you fight on a tiny vine with leaves overhead as a platform. There's a slope on the left side and, when it rains, the runoff water might wash you into a pit! Pellet Posies will occasionally grow around the stage and can be killed to pick up their pellets. If an onion lands of the same color, you can throw the pellet into the onion to exchange it for an item! Otherwise, you can simply throw the pellet as a projectile. Occasionally, a giant Bulborb will appear on the right side as a temporary platform. But don't make a habit of standing on him or he might eat you!

--------------------

    

This time, I fought Fox and Wolf on Lylat Cruise with Falcon on my side!

-------------------

   (Giant)

On Delfino Plaza, I fought Giant Mario! An easy matchup for Ivysaur!

--------------------

   (Metal)

And once again I was tasked with fighting Metal Ice Climbers! I really don't get what the deal is with this lack of variation, but I suppose it makes things easier on this end!

-------------------

  

Up next was Snake on Shadow Moses Island.

Shadow Moses Island is a densely fortified weapons testing facility in Alaska from Metal Gear Solid. I don't know much about the Metal Gear Franchise, but I can imagine seeing this stage in Smash Bros blew Metal Gear fans' mines back in the day. Unfortunately, it's not so fun to play on. The game's main gimmick is that the two searchtowers on either side block off the main kill zones, leaving only the upper part of the screen to KO opponents with. Characters that are really good at jugging have an advantage here. As you can imagine, this is why I said before Metal Snake is the worst opponent to face as it's really difficult to KO him efficiently. Anyway, the searchtowers can be destroyed if they sustain enough damage, so you can push through and get KO's on the sides as well, it just requires destroying the searchtowers first.

There is a searchlight that scans the environment and will play the iconic discovered sound-effect from Metal Gear if you're spotted. You may attempt to avoid this searchlight, but it doesn't actually effect anything in the battle. The last thing that can happen is the back wall might break open to reveal one of various Metal Gear weapons in the background, but this is purely aesthetic as well. 

-----------------

And up next was the Level 4 Target Smash stage. This one is actually really obnoxious, especially if you happen to be playing as a character like Squirtle who can wall jump. There's all sorts of awkward angles and you often get stuck to walls unexpectedly as you're just trying to angle yourself right to hit the targets. It isn't too terribly bad, though. Just a bit frustrating.

------------------

   

For the penultimate Free For All, I was up against Wario, Jigglypuff, and Sonic.

------------------

  

Unfortunately, and I blame the fight with Team Ness as well as the Level 4 target Smash, I wasn't able to reach this fight fast enough to be able to fight Crazy Hand, so I just had to settle with fighting Master Hand alone. This was simple enough, though.

----------------------

Here's Pokemon Trainer's congratulations screen! I'm not sure that this is a screenshot that's actually possible to recreate in the final game... You can't have all three pokemon out at the same time outside of their final smash unless they're all different colors. I'm pretty sure you'd also have other Pokemon Trainers in the shot as well but it's possible they're cleverly covered up or out of frame.

   

Similar to Zelda or Samus, regardless of which form you used the most or ended as, clearing Classic Mode as Pokemon Trainer will earn you the Classic Trophy for Pokemon Trainer as well as each of his pokemon!

During the Roll Call, Pokemon Trainer's theme is Road to Viridian City (From Pallet Town/Pewter City)

=============

All Star

There's not really much to say about All Star, it's always the same every time you play through it. Since there's no secret boss to work toward, I just played this one on Normal Difficulty. I used Ivysaur through the majority of this playthrough since his attacks could KO the opponents so quickly and minimize potential damage I'd end up taking. With that approach, I was able to dominate the entire mode up until near the end during the Pokemon stage where I got KO'd not once but twice by Cresselia's stupid attacks on Spear Pillar. Cresselia makes me hate a stage that's otherwise really cool to me. But I digress...

Here's Pokemon Trainer's Congratulations Screen for All Star! I guess Red must be assuming Green DK is a Grass type?

==============

And that's that for Pokemon Trainer and the remaining characters that are unlocked from the start of the game! Next time, we'll start digging into the hidden characters.

[Aura]

It's time to begin Brawl's main feature: The Subspace Emissary!

So, real quick, let me explain why this is coming up all of a sudden. I know I said next time we'd be looking into the hidden characters but, as it turns out, one of the two hidden characters actually requires completing the Subspace Emissary in order to unlock while the other is unlocked through a mode that I'd rather have all the characters unlocked for. Beyond that, The Subspace Emissary is unique in that it is capable of unlocking the entire game's roster without having to accomplish any of the challenges necessary. This is how most players unlocked the majority of the characters in the game.

I still intend to cover the alternate unlocking methods of the characters, but I think it's appropriate to play through the SSE in its entirety right now. This will complete one of the possible routes to unlocking the remaining characters, but I'll go over the additional characters soon after.

Anyway, Adventure Mode in Brawl is what the game is most fondly remembered for, and for good reason! If you've ever wanted an Avenger's style crossover among Nintendo franchises, with a bit of Metal Gear and Sonic the Hedgehog sprinkled in, this is the place to look! Sometimes I wish I could erase my memories of this game and play through it blind all over again because I'll never forget how glorious it was to see all of my favorite Nintendo characters interacting...

Midair Stadium

We begin our adventure at the Midair Stadium where it seems a smash tournament is being hosted!

Among the crowd are Princess Peach and Zelda!

 

Down on the stage are Mario and Kirby who appear to be up against each other!

=============

Throughout the SSE, a cutscene will end on a freeze frame showing all the playable characters for the upcoming stage. In this case, you can select between Kirby or Mario to fight the other.

  

I decided to go with Mario since he's the more "typical" choice as the face of Nintendo. He's also a bit more shortlived in this intro stage.

You'll have to face off against the opposing character you didn't choose on a unique stage: The Midair Stadium. This is just a long, flat platform with nothing of particular significance. You're given three stocks to defeat the opponent once, so there's plenty of room for error.

Upon defeating the opponent, we cut to a shot of Pit who seems to be watching the fight from Palutena's Temple in Skyworld.

After being defeated, Kirby transofrms into a trophy only to be awakened again by Mario. The two shake hands and wave off their applause when the sky suddenly turns dark as red clouds begin to roll in! Battleship Halberd appears overhead and starts pouring strange purple bugs into the arena. Soon, from these Shadow Bugs, a strange new enemy emerges.

Immediately sensing danger, Princess Peach and Zelda spring into action, leaping onto the stage to fight alongside Kirby and Mario.

=============

   

This time, you're given a choice between four characters who will all be on the same side. You can select all four of them and the order you select them will be the order they appear as your stocks. I selected them in the order of Zelda, Peach, Kirby, and Mario, so if Zelda gets KO'd, Peach would take her place. Then Kirby, then Mario.

And from here, we enter a battle against a crowd of enemies!

During this fight, we're met with a handful of new enemies.

Primid

The first of these is the Primid, which is the standard mook of the Subspace Emissary. You're going to be running into these guys and their many, many variants a lot throughout the game. They're more or less standard opponents like fighting polygons or wire frames. Just beat 'em up and send them packing! All enemies in the SSE have a health bar and will be sent flying once that bar is depleted. On harder difficulties, enemies will have more health as well as deal extra damage to you. This is a good time to learn about these things! Primids are particularly weak to slash attacks, but slightly resistant to indirect (ranged) specials.

Boom Primid

Boom Primids will appear among the Primids you'll be facing off against. They carry giant boomerangs! Zelda can deflect these Boomerangs with Nayru's Love! They're slightly less vulnerable to slash attacks than Primids, but still moreso than most attack types.

Spaak

Spaaks are cloud-like enemies with electrical coils and a battery attacked to their backs. Their cloud body is resistant to all attack types, especially against electric attacks. You'll want to avoid hitting them here because, if they're low on HP, they'll turn dark and become more dangerous! Take them out quickly by targeting the battery on their back which is their weak point!

Sword Primid

Finally, there are Sword Primids which are Primids holding Beam Swords! They're resistant to Slash attacks where the others were vulnerable to them. They don't have any particular weaknesses, so try to pick them off with whatever your strongest attacks happen to be.

===========

Soon, a strange being begins to float down from the Halberd, carrying a mysterious ball. This is the Ancient Minister.

The Ancient Minister drops this ball and two R.O.B. emerge from behind it to open it up, revealing it to be some sort of bomb! The timer on the bomb starts ticking down from three minutes! The Ancient Minister flies off back toward the Halberd. Mario starts rushing toward the bomb only for a cannonball to knock him far into the sky. Before Kirby can do anything, he hears Peach's screams from behind and turns to find Peach and Zelda both trapped in cages held by...

Petey Piranha

Petey Piranha! This is the first of many boss characters in the Subspace Emissary!

Since Kirby is alone, you'll have to fight Petey as Kirby. He's capable of jumping around the stage and swinging the two cages around to try and damage you. Your goal is to rescue the princesses from the cages by breaking them open! You can do this by attacking the cages individually or attacking Petey himself to damage both cages. However, only one cage will break and which cage you break actually determines some slight variation in the story!

I decided to focus my firepower on rescuing Zelda mainly because I prefer the narrative and cutscenes you'll get as a result. The fight itself isn't too hard as Petey's attacks are all pretty heavily telegraphed. Jump when he's about to swing, get out of the way when he jumps, and don't get greedy! Since you have to play as Kirby here, you can also use Kirby's Down Special to avoid damage.

Eventually, Zelda's cage breaks and the boss fight is concluded. Kirby and Zelda leap from an explosion of flames only for yet another uninvited guest to make himself known!

Wario appears with a strange weapon that he aims at Zelda. But his attention is diverted when he notices Peach behind him, still trapped by the rubble of her cage. She tries to climb out but is too late as Wario fires his weapon. A black arrow is shot from the weapon and pierces Peach's chest, instantly transforming her into a trophy. With a laugh, Wario grabs her trophy and runs off with it. Kirby and Zelda start giving chase before noticing there's no time, the bomb is about to go off!

The bomb soon detonates, but Kirby flies off just in time with Zelda on his warp star! We watch as the Midair Stadium is engulfed in a mysterious black bubble.

===============

And that's our intro to Subspace Emissary!

 

After clearing the stage, Kirby and the princess you saved will join your team. Before we leave things off, I want to do one last thing: Customize these characters! If we go to the stickers option, we can power up our characters by placing stickers on the bases of their trophies! These stickers can boost various attributes of the characters! For example, one sticker might increase the strength of Flame attacks while another might boost their Direct Specials. You can't stack stickers of the same type of bonus, only the largest one will count, so choose your stickers carefully!

The biggest limiting factor to customizing stickers is the size and shape of them. Just knowing which effects you want isn't enough. You'll need to arrange them on the base in such a way that leaves as much empty space as possible for more stickers!

I messed around for a while and this is what I came up with:

===============

Kirby

 Dyna Blade (Kirby Super Star): Launch Resistance +46

 Kirby (Kirby 64): Body, Spin Attack +22

 Raiden (MGS2: Sons of Liberty): Specials Direct +14

 Cell Phone (Kirby & The Amazing Mirror): Slash Resistance +4

 Deku Baba (Zelda: Ocarina of Time): Arm, Leg Attack +4

 Mega Mushroom (New Super Mario Bros.): Food Effect +2

==============

Zelda

 Link (Zelda: Wind Waker): Flame Attack +31

 Zelda (Zelda: A Link to the Past): Magic Attack +27

 Shadow Mario (Super Mario Sunshine): Flinch Resistance +70

 Big Switch (Kirby & The Amazing Mirror): Launch Resistance +18

 Kamek (Yoshi Touch & Go): Specials Indirect +5

 Postman (Zelda: Majora's Mask): Specials Direct +3

================

I've gotta say, as frustrating as it can be, piecing together as many stickers as you can to fill in the gaps really is a lot more addicting than it may seem! It just feels like you always have enough room for just one more sticker if you just arrange them differently! But be careful about compromising too much on the most important abilities for your character! I recommend thinking about which moves you find yourself using the most with that character and placing large stickers that buff those before starting to cram stickers around them.

[Aura]

Stage 2: Skyworld

Returning to Palutena's Temple, we see that PIt has witnessed the events transpiring at the Midair stadium. Palutena seems to be aware of these events as well and sends Pit off on a mission to lend assistance.

Truth be told, this was a really big deal at the time. Pit was a character that hadn't been seen or heard of at all since the release of Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters on the GameBoy. It seems that Sakurai had a lot of love for this character with how much attention to detail he put into fleshing out his and Palutena's designs, modernizing them while still keeping them true to their original appearances. His love for these characters would go on strongly enough to lead to a whole new game for the series on the 3DS, but at the time, this was all we had of modern Kid Icarus! The closest thing we had to something like this back then was Icicle Mountain in Melee being a reimagined version of the original Ice Climbers game with a realistic look. But here, we actually get to see these long-forgotten characters truly brought to life!

Music: Underworld (Kid Icarus)

Anyway, after this cutscene we're put into a brief gameplay segment where we play as Pit decending down toward the earth. Ironically, the upbeat music played here is the theme of the Underworld rather than Skyworld. I suppose because it's the most recognizable song in Kid Icarus since it was a fairly difficult game and the Underworld is the first level.

Anyway, as you descend, you'll pass by some Cubes. When hit, these cubes can drop items including Stickers and trophies!

At the end of the brief bit of gameplay, allowing you to get used to playing as Pit, he'll land on a rocky pleateau peaking up through the clouds and see the Halberd flying up from below. The Halberd will begin dropping shadow bugs all around him, so be prepared to fight!

Music: Skyworld (Kid Icarus)

We return back to gameplay, this time dealing with swarms of enemies on a small platform! Once you kill the Primids, a stairway will appear allowing you to move on. This is a frequent occurence throughout these SSE levels. Occasionally the screen will stop scrolling and you'll have to kill waves of enemies before you can proceed. You'll really want to learn which moves do the most damage to which enemies in order to spend as little time in these areas as possible.

As you progress, you'll stumble across an orange cube. These cubes will always hold rarer drops than regular cubes, namely collectibles like stickers and trophies. The first one is pretty in your face, but for the most part, these cubes are hidden in secret bonus rooms requiring you to complete small puzzles or challenges. These bonus rooms are sometimes really cleverly hidden so you're going to want to think outside of the box if you want to find them all. Every stage in the game has a completion%, and in order to complete a stage 100%, you'll need to not only find every orange box, but collect its contents. Once an orange box is collected, it will return to a regular turquoise box whenever you come back, so you can't just grind out on these boxes to get all the trophies and stickers in the game.

You'll be dealing with Spaaks and Boom Primids as you progress forward, remember that Pit's down special, Mirror Shield, can deflect the Primid's boomerags back at them if you're in a good position to do so!

Before we progress, I want to address one major component of SSE and completion of Brawl altogether: The Trophy Stand. This item is essentially a pokeball that can transform a Subspace Emissary enemy into a trophy for you to collect! Long story short, the Trophy Stand will damage the enemy it hits and, if it KO's the enemy, they'll transform into a trophy. If it does not KO, it can still potentially transform the enemy based on how low its HP is. Depending on how high the difficulty is, trophy stands will be more likely to spawn or be dropped by enemies and cubes. You can also increase their spawn rate using stickers! Worth noting, you can also use Trophy Stands on bosses! You'll need to weaken the boss and stay alive while you wait for one to spawn, though. Playing on Intense is recommended since it'll cause Trophy Stands to appear more frequently, but expect to die a lot! Intense SSE is no joke! Optimize your stickers! Don't worry too much if you missed out on Petey Piranha's Sticker. You can't revisit the Midair Stadium yet, but you'll be able to at the end of the game. If it bothers you too much, we're still at the beginning so you won't be losing too much ground if you start over now. For some reason, I was under the impression that Trophy Stands didn't actually appear on this level. There's also nothing stopping you from just starting a new file and getting the trophy that way.

If you happen to pick up a Trophy Stand before an enemy you want to use it on appears, be wary that you can't drop it and guarantee you'll get it back. Try to fight using only special attacks until something appears that you want to use it on! Spaaks, Primids, and Boom Primids all have their own trophies. They're pretty straight forward, so I don't think it's necessary to mention them.

And we'll soon be introduced to a new enemy: Cymuls. These guys can be a bit on the annoying side. They're resistant to slash, grass, and indirect speicals. But more concerning is their ability to deflect projectiles. You'll need to get in close to hit them, but when you approach, they'll spin rapidly with their blades extended, damaging anyone nearby. The best way to kill them is to attack them from below. This is all the more necessary if you're trying to get its trophy, as it actually will deflect the trophy stands from the sides.

Just beyond the Cymul is your first Greap! Greaps are incredibly dangerous enemies, especially on high difficulties. They appear to be in some sort of canon modified to serve as a baby stroller? What strange creatures. Anyway, they have to large blades which they'll swing around and can even jump and spin 360 Degrees! They take up a lot of real-estate on the screen as well! The stroller is incredibly dense and resistant to all attack types, especially against slash and grass attacks. However, if you attack its soft head, it'll take significantly more damage from all attack types, so aim there!

After defeating the Greap, you can progress through another door where you'll be treated to another cutscene! Here, Pit discovers Mario's trophy which landed up here in the clouds!

Music: Underworld (Kid Icarus)

 

This time around, we can choose between Mario or Pit! Let's give our boy Mario a shot again!

Once again, the level will begin with us falling through some clouds before we're met by another new enemy!

Glunders are a pair of three enemies. Can you guess what the other two are like and what they're called? If not, you'll certainly catch on to the pattern after finding the second one later on. Anyway, Glunders will crawl along walls and, if they aren't attached to anything, will fall until the land. If they approach you, they'll open up and zap the area around them with electricity! They're resistant to electrical attacks for obvious reasons but are weak to Water. Even though they're slightly resistant to indirect attacks, you might find it beneficial to hit them with projectiles to knock them off of ceilings. As the difficulty increases, they'll move around faster as well, so watch out for them!

Shortly after, a small blue cloud will carry you tot he next section which is filled with Jyks! These enemies can't be damaged and are essentially elemental versions of Gordos from Kirby. Even though they're all just called Jyks, there are multiple variations of Jyks. This one is referred to as a Zap Jyk and will deal electrical damage to you. Since Jyks can't be damaged, they also can't be captured with a Trophy Stand, so don't even try. You can get a Jyk trophy elsewhere in the game instead. It really is a tad confusing but this is how it is.

Going forward, there's a section with stone pillars rising and lowering. Behind one of these is one of those sneakily hidden bonus doors, so make sure not to miss it!

Further along, there's a few waves of enemies that will end with yet another new enemy: A Roturret! These guys are a bit scary looking but are actually total pushovers. If you stand between their canons there's no tmuch they can do. You can spin them around by hitting them as well. They're particularly weak to ice and water but are resistant to fire and indirect attacks. In general, you'll want to get up close and personal with them and attack from between their canons.

After this wave of enemies, there's a golden door that will lead you to the end of the stage!

At the end of the stage, Pit and Mario continue to pursue the Halberd when they notice an arwing in hot pursuit as well! It seems even Star Fox is on a mission to stop whatever is going on!

============

 

Upon clearing the stage, Mario and Pit join your team! And you know what that means. It's sticker time!

--------------------

Mario

 Super Mario Bros.: Arm, Leg Attack +15

 Bowser (Super Paper Mario): Arm Attack +23

 Lakitu (Mario Kart: Super Circuit): Leg Attack +13

 Boundish (Digiluxe): Flame Attack +7

 Fly Guy (Mario Power Tennis): Head Attack +5

 Spinner (Zelda: Twilight Princess): Body, Spin Attack +4

 Jill (Drill Dozer): Electric Resistance +4

 Postman (Zelda: Majora's Mask): Specials Direct Attack +3

-------------------

Pit

 Hector (Fire Emblem): Slash Attack +27

 DK With Barrel (Mario vs DK 2: MotM): Specials Direct Attack +15

 Cranky Kong (Donkey Konga 3 JP): Specials Indirect Attack +7

 Reaper & Reapette (Kid Icarus): Flame Resistance +11

 Dribble (WarioWare MPG): Battering Resistance +6

 Brier (Yoshi Touch & Go): Launch Resist +7

 Zinger (DK: KIng of Swing): Slash Resist +5

[Aura]

Stage 3: Sea of Clouds

As we start up our next stage, we return to the story of Kirby. After escaping from the Midair Stadium with Zelda, or Peach if she's the one you rescued from Petey Piranha, they pursue the Halberd to figure out what's going on. In the process, Kirby winds up crashing into the front of the halberd and the two end up landing on the bridge.

 

You can choose between Kirby or Zelda for the upcoming section, or, again, Peach if she's the one who was rescued, but this section is extremely short-lived. It's the most underwhelming gameplay segment in the game as you literally just run along the length of the Halberd with zero opposition at all. When you reach the end...

We see that the quiet stage we've been crossing is only the calm before the storm. The Halberd's guns suddenly start blazing as they try to shoot down the arwing that PIt and Mario saw in pursuit. The arwing is able to skillfully dodge the many bullets flying through the air, but is eventually knocked out of the air by the claw from the Halberd's Combo Canon. The arwing nearly crashes into Zelda and Kirby who are sent flying off the stage from the near collision, sending the two plummeting into the clouds. Thus begins the main crux of Stage 3!

Music: Skyworld (Kid Icarus)

This is our first chance to play as our characters we've customized with stickers! With Zelda's build, her Din's Fire is incredibly powerful and can one-shot most enemies. Not to mention she can deflect projectiles with Nayru's Love. Unfortunately, it's not lost on me that I forgot to take her ability to transform into Sheik into account when customizing her trophy. I guess I've just grown so used to these two being separate characters in future titles. Unfortunately, Sheik's physical prowess doesn't get a whole lot of buffs from this build, but her needles and specials in general still do increased damage!

Anyway, throughout this stage you'll be exploring some of Skyworld's stone ruins which means breaking through some cracked blocks in order to progress forward. We'll be fighting our way through a few familiar enemies as we make our way down.

As we make our way downward, we'll pass a Turquoise Cube that holds a Stock Ball! This is an incredibly rare item in the Subspace Emissary that grants you an extra stock! While it might not be so important on lower levels, this can be a lifesaver on Intense.

Just a bit up ahead we'll run into a new enemy: A Poppant! This little guy seems to wear large bowl-shaped pants which he keeps presents stored inside! If you approach, it'll run away and throw its presents at you to damage you. It also doesn't have a whole lot of HP. This can make it really difficult to hit with a Trophy Stand. Your best bet might be to just try and hit it with a trophy stand at full health and hope for the best. If you're just trying to kill it, though, it's not so bad to pick off from a range. Din's Fire can make quick work of it with the boosts I have! Upon defeat, they'll generally drop healing items, so though they may be easier to let run away, you might want to kill them if you've got a lot of built up damage.

The next enemy we're introduced is a reallys trange-looking one: The Feyesh is a giant eyeball with fish-like fins and tentacles protruding from the bottom. These enemies are pretty standard, even moreso than Primids, though they can float around so you might have to fight them from the air. They're only resistant to indirect specials which seems like a common trend.

These guys are surrounding a Towtow, another new enemy type!

Towtows generally spawn in asleep, looking all cute and innocent, but they become enraged when disturbed. And be careful because you can accidentally wake it up with a stray projectile or even knocking a defeated enemy into it! Once it wakes up, it'll turn red and charge after you in a rampage. They're fairly large but not too difficult to take out. They're particularly vulnerable to electricity and direct specials.

If you're careful about avoiding destroying the footholds in the area, you can climb up to the top of this place to find a secret door that leads to some Cubes holding Heart Containers to heal you up! Just be wary the enemies will respawn!

At the end of this cloud section, you'll find a door that takes you back down to the surface. Run along and fight your way through some more Spaaks and Poppants and you'll come across a drop-off the game wants you to drop into. Before you drop down, however, carefully make the jump across to get over the wall on the other side and you'll find an item cube precariously placed on top of cracked blocks. Carefully break the cube without hitting the block beneath it and you'll be rewarded with a trophy! If you attack the cube carelessly, though, you might break the block beneath it and watch in dismay as your precious trophy falls into the depths below. You might even end up falling in yourself! Once you collect your trophy, some clouds will appear to assist your return to the main course.

And at the bottom of the drop-off, you'll be introduced to one of the most deceptively terrifying enemies in the entire Subspace Army. These Mites don't seem like much and they're easily disposed, but they'll swarm you in numbers and they're really tiny making them hard to hit! Try to use attacks with large hitboxes to eliminate them!

These Mites will spawn infinitely from a strange portal called a Generator. You'll need to destroy it by attacking it in order to stop it from spawning enemies. There is a finite amount of enemies it will spawn, but you can shut it off prematurely by just destroying the generator itself.

Going forward, there is a segment where you'll have to avoid falling rocks by taking shelter under platforms. These giant boulders can crush enemies as well, so they can be used to your advantage! As you march forward, you'll need to dodge your way through Primids and Glunders. If you can jump up to the wall on the far left side, you can find an item cube holding a starman to assist you in the following stretch! You'll have to fight through a second Mite Generator alongside a few Glunders. Humorously, if the Glunders end up rolling off the screen, they'll despawn and end the fight even if you didn't actually kill them.

After fighting your way through that wave of enemies, you're in the final stretch! You'll have to hide from boulders rolling after you here. Once you reach the end, you'll have one last stand-off with a Greap, or multiple depending on your difficulty, before arriving at a golden door signifying the end of the stage!

And that's it for Stage 3! See you next time for Stage 4!

[Aura]

Stage 4: The Jungle

Donkey Kong is pissed! We can see that the Koopa Troop seems to have stolen DK's hoard of Bananas with the most badass cutscene in the SSE yet! Apologies for the oddities in the cutscene, for some reason this cutscene from the source I've been using has really terrible audio, so I figured I'd use this one instead. Anyway, we see DK beating down Goombas and Koopas as he rampages through the forest after the Hammer Bro who has made the biggest mistake of his life. Why are the Koopa Troop trying to steal DK's Bananas? You do not steal DK's Bananas. As soon as he spots the Hammer Bro, it fires Bullet Bills at him. Diddy Kong jumps out from behind to shoot the two out of the sky with his Peanut Popgun and the two leap off after their banana hoard!

 

Music: Jungle Level (Donkey Kong Country)

Of course, you get to play as your choice of Donkey or Diddy Kong. I went with Donkey Kong!

And right away, we're introduced to our first enemy from the Koopa Troop: The Goomba! These guys are the Koopa Troop's counterpart to Primids. They're extremely basic and can even be killed simply by landing on their heads! It shouldn't be too hard to get their trophies as they just run along.

You'll also find Green Koopa Troopas. They're resistant to Ice and Water but vulnerable to Fire. They can also be defeated by jumping just like Goombas. More significantly, when defeated, they'll retract into their shells which can be picked up and thrown like their item counterpart. But be wary, the Koopa will pop back out after a bit of time has passed! These guys can actually be a little annoying.

Up next is the Green Paratroopa, which has wings. They'll either fly up and down in the air our bound forward along the ground. When damaged, or jumped on, they'll revert to standard Koopa Troopas and follow the same rules. It's worth noting that Koopa Troopas and Paratroopas have separate trophies, so try to hit a Paratroopa with a Trophy Stand without damaging it in order to get its trophy!

How could we include a level based around Donkey Kong without including Barrel Canons? The Subspace Emissary seems to have uniquely designed ones! Hop in and press A for some classic DKC-style Barrel Canon sequences! Regular ones are just a yellow arrow with a red outline and will automatically launch you when you jump in. Barrel canons with blue circles around the arrows will rotate in place and you'll have to time an A press to decide a direction to be fired in. This can lead to some forked paths and, of course, hidden secrets. Be mindful of where you can and can't return from!

Just up ahead, there's a blue canon that you can use to fire through some blocks just beneath it to collect an Orange Cube, necessary for level completion, of course! You can use the button down here to spawn a canon in order to return.

After a barrel canon sequence of involving blasting through a few Koopa Paratroopas, we arrive at a door that leads to our next section.

This section introduces Trackballs! When hit, depending on the strength of the knockback, the ball will be sent flying along its track and smash through obstacles or enemies in its path! Hit it with a Smash attack and watch it unwind! They're actually pretty fun to use! This section has various setups for you to play around with them to try and get items or kill enemies with them. Get used to this mechanic as these things will be important throughout the SSE!

There's a fork up ahead with a ladder leading further upward. Take the ladder for a small bonus room with two item cubes and a healing opportunity!

Jumping down to the platform ahead will lead to a small wave of enemies including a Red Koopa Paratroopa! These guys will fly through the air but directly toward you!

Of course, just like Green Paratroopas, Red Koopa Paratroopas will revert to Red Koopa Troopas when hit or jumped on. These are more or less the same as Green Koopa Troopas except that they'll turn around when they reach the edge of a platform rather than walk right off. Interestingly, they'll retract into their red shells. Red Shells being an item that isn't actually present in Brawl. In Melee's Adventure Mode, these Red Koopas would revert to the Red Shell item that would home in on any players or enemies on the platform. But in Brawl, the Subspace Emissary is the only place you'll find Red Shells and they are just functionally identical to Green Shells. A bit of a missed opportunity but, honestly, Red Shells were always really annoying to deal with in Melee and 64, so I'm glad their functionality is gone.

Red Koopa Troopas and Paratroopas share the same vulnerabilities and resistances with their Green counterparts, so try to hit them with fire when you can! They also have their own trophies as well.

Up ahead there's an ambush involving Hammer Bros.! Hammer Bros function more or less how you'd expect, though unlike the other members of the Koopa Troop, they can't be beaten simply by jumping on them. You'll have to manually attack them. Just like in Super Mario Bros., these guys will jump around and throw hammers at you in an arch. But they're far less threatening here than in that game. You can easily just run up to them and beat them down. Be careful when trying to get their trophies as they might jump right over!

This wave also includes Bullet Bills which will fly in from off screen! Some will just fire in a straight line while other swill try and home in on you. They're weak to Freeze and Water attacks but resistant to Fire. They're also treated like projectiles and can be deflected as such. If you can find a Franklin Badge item, or your character is capable of deflecting projectiles, it can be fun to deflect these guys and watch them fly away. But be wary that they might turn around and try to hit you anyway! They can be fairly difficult to get trophies from. Even if you hit them with the stand, they might fall into a pit and they only stay on screen for a limited amount of time. Try to lead your shot and be careful!

Through the next door up ahead, you'll be taken to a section where you'll have to survive on a small elevator platform as it rises up through hoards of enemies. It can be fun to get a Franklin Badge here as it'll protect you from both the Bullet Bills flying in from the sides as well as the Hammers from the Hammer Bros. Not much can really hurt you and you can even intentionally jump into the bullet bills to send them flying in the opposite direction!

Be careful to hop off of the platform as you reach the door at the top, it'll keep moving on and carry you right off the screen!

In the next section, there is a launcher that will humorously send you flying into a wall. This is actually a fairly important lesson to be learned! While hitting the wall is harmless, it does restrict your movement briefly. Going forward, be armed with the knowledge that you don't always wanna be launched by these things! Some of them are positioned as traps.

Falling down, you'll want to navigate your way through a series of Hydro Jyks which are functionally identical to Zap Jyks except they deal water damage to you instead. As you fall down, you'll want to stay close to the left wall because there's a ledge with a door on it that'll lead to a room with an orange cube, necessary for completion as per usual!

At the bottom of the pit, you'll find another ambush including a Giant Goomba! This thing is just a larger, stronger Goomba with more health. You'll have to land on it several times in order to kill it, or just badger it with attacks. Due to its large amount of health, you might want to jump on it a couple of times before trying to get its trophy. Make sure to clear out the smaller goombas surrounding it as well! Once you clear the final goomba, a golden door appears marking the end of the stage.

Again, for some reason the audio in the original source is screwed up, so sorry for the bad visuals here. I hope this isn't a consistent issue. Anyway, at the end of the stage we finally have some sort of understanding as to why the Koopa Troop is stealing DK's Bananas. We've caught up and reclaimed the Bananas, but it turns out the entire operation was a trap to lure DK and Diddy Kong out! Bowser emerges from the trees and reveals that, just like Wario, he, too, has a Dark Canon! He aims it at Diddy Kong. Recognizing what's going on, DK punches Diddy into the air to avoid the shot so that he can take the hit instead, being reverted to a trophy instantly just like Peach before. It's not quite clear yet why Bowser and Wario are trying to collect these trophies, but surely they must be up to no good.

Since DK was transformed into a trophy, only Diddy joins our team at the end of Stage 4. But, that still means we get to customize him with stickers!

==============

Diddy Kong

 Diddy Kong (Mario Hoops 3-on-3): Leg Attack +28

 Dr. Lobe (Brain Age Academy): Arm, Leg Attack +10

 Pauline & Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong): Arm Attack +18

 Wrinkly Kong (DK: King of Swing): Battering Resistance +4

 Iron Tiger (F-Zero GX): Flame Resistance +4

 Postman (Zelda: Majora's Mask): Specials Direct Attack +3

==============

And that's that for The Jungle! Next time, we'll catch up on Pit and Mario's adventure in The Plain!

[Aura]

Stage 5: The Plain

This next stage starts right in at gameplay! Mario and Pit are still in pursuit of the Halberd and their chase has brought them down to the surface!

 

This level marks our first opportunity to play as Mario and Pit with their stickers active! Well, in a new level. I should mention that, excluding Stage 1, you can always revisit any stage immediately after clearing it. If you miss any orange cubes, the level icon will display a green flag instead of a crown. You can go back into the level in search of any secrets you may have missed.

Music: Step: The Plain (Super Smash Bros.: Brawl Original)

Righ taway, we're very quick to be introduced to one of if not the strangest enemy in the Subspace Army: Borboras. These guys look like some kinda weird Super Sentai hero with their head stuck inside of a trumpet. They gleefully skip around before striking a post and blowing wind as their attack. They can damage you up close, but their biggest threat is the wind itself which can potentially blow you into other enemies, disrupt your attacks, or even blow you into pits! They don't have any particular vulnerabilities and are slightly resistant to indirect specials. You'll want to close in on them when they have to take a breath, or just brute force your way through their wind. They're pretty easy to dispatch, though, and their trophy shouldn't be too hard to claim.

The Ticken is another enemy you'll run into just ahead. Its durable body protects it quite heavily from indirect specials, so you'll want to fight it with physical and elemental attacks. It can briefly float through the air and crash down on you to damage you. Their high HP will make them take a little bit of doing to kill and cna make them fairly resistant to trophy capture, so make sure to soften them up with some specials before trying to use your trophy stand! Upon defeat, a Ticken's armor will break open revealing its true form: A tiny, cute little chick that will harmlessly fly away. Kinda reminds you of Sonic the Hedgehog, huh?

There's a tall wall of destructable blocks right next to these Tickens. If you manage to carve the blocks into the shape of a staircase, you can climb to the top to discover a hidden Orange Cube just off screen! It's a bit dastardly hidden, so I wouldn't be surprised if most people would miss this one. I even discovered it purely on accident.

There are Flame Jyks in the section up ahead, stone walls will rise up behind you and try to push you into them, so you'll need to be prepared to time your jumps well. These Flame Jyks are identical to the others but, obviously, they deal fire damage.

Alongside Flame Jyks, you'll also have to avoid the rocks and presents thrown at you by the Poppants and make sure not to fall into pits. There's a Turquoise Cube you'll want to hit quickly if you don't want it stuck behind the wall!

Continuing further ahead, you'll fight your way through some more Borboras and Primids. At some point, you'll find an opening in the ceiling. With Mario, you can string together a series of wall jumps to reach the top while Pit can simply make it with well-timed jumps paired with his Up Special. Up here, there's a bonus room with an Orange Cube and some other collectibles. Carefully destroy the blocks in the room without falling into the pit as you dig your way over to your prizes.

At the end of the cave, there's a door leading back outside to a floating platform that will carry you through a series of ambushes you'll have to fight your way through.

The second of these ambushes include Fire Primids! As you'd probably expect, these guys take bonus damage from Freeze and Water attacks. Worth noting, Mario's Down Special, F.L.U.D.D., may seem like a Water attack, but it isn't actually capable of dealing damage. It's an unfortunate quirk of the game's roster, but there's only one character with damaging water attacks and that's Squirtle. Anyway, these guys can spit projectile fireballs at you that can be reflected, but their resistance to fire will make their deflected projectiles deal little damage to themselves. Otherwise, they're just like normal Primids.

After you've fought through wave after wave of enemies, the platform will reach its destination and you can run off to the side to end the level.

At the end of the level, Mario and Pit draw close to the Anicent Minister. I suppose they reached the surface after keeping close enough to the Halberd to witness the Minister descending to drop another Subspace Bomb. Mario jumps after the Ancient Minister but fails to reach the bomb. Pit jumps off of his head, and even with his wings giving him a bit more air, he still can't quite reach the retreating minister. Unfortunately, it seems our journey isn't over quite so easily.

And that's it for Stage 5! It's a really brief update, for sure.

[Aura]

Stage 6: The Lake

(Sigh, apologies again for the awkward video. This was the best quality I could find on YouTube, but for some reason after the cutscene ends the video goes on to replay previous parts and scrambles it all up. Another video skips the beginning. I don't understand why it's so hard to find good footage of these cutscenes, but I hope it's serviceable!)

We return to Diddy Kong who is swinging through the trees of the Jungle when he sees the wreckage of the arwing that was knocked out of the sky by the Halberd. As he approaches, a very unexpected surprise awaits him: Rayquaza emerges from the lake! Perhaps he was roaming the skies and was enraged to be disturbed by the midair battle? I'm not really sure why Rayquaza would be found in a lake. Sometimes I get the vibe that Sakurai isn't actually that much of a Pokemon fan and just acknowledges the series' appeal. Whatever the case, Rayquaza seems to be used as a generic giant dragon rather than a guardian of the skies. Regardless, I can't tell you how excited I was to find out that Rayquaza was in this game! As a kid whose first real Pokemon game was Sapphire and later, Emerald, I always thought Rayquaza was such a cool pokemon! I was disappointed that Hoenn didn't get much representation thanks to coming out too late to be included in Melee but too early to be the latest Pokemon game when Brawl came along, so this was more than a welcome surprise! In case it's not clear, this is that last element of Pokemon representation we hadn't yet covered.

Anyway, the angry Rayquaza fires a Dragon Pulse at the arwing and snatches up Diddy Kong, clearly not sure who's responsible for disturbing the peace. From out of the Arwing, Fox McCloud appears! He frees Diddy from Rayquaza's grasp and uses his deflector to knock Rayquaza's Dragon Pulse back at him! 

 

For this upcoming fight, you'll be playing as either Diddy Kong or Fox. Diddy Kong will technically give you an advantage since you've had the opportunity to put stickers on him, but after that awesome introduction, who could turn down the opportunity to play as Fox!?

Vs. Rayquaza

Unfortunately, unlike Petey Piranha, the boss fight with Rayquaza isn't quite as impactful on the narrative. He's just an obstacle you'll have to overcome.

Rayquaza has various attacks that he'll use.

He can use ExtremeSpeed and swipe across the screen horizontally,

he can use Dig to attack from the ground below you,

he can swipe along the ground with Iron Tail, he can swerve to the other side of the screen,

he can use Thunder to strike the ground from the air,

he can cause an Explosion (I suppose this is supposed to be the move Explosion? But he himself doesn't explode),

and he can fire Dragon Pulse from his mouth. As demonstrated in the cutscene prior, Dragon Pulse can be deflected with Fox's Deflector, but Rayquaza is fairly resistant to it. Rayquaza also has notable resistances to Grass, Water, and Electric attacks and is most vulnerable to Ice attacks. This is so very close to accurately representing his Pokemon type, but, one, the devs seem to be under the impression that Rayquaza is a pure Dragon type rather than a Dragon/Flying, making electric neutral. In addition, he should have a resistance to Fire as well. He technically does, but it's a multiplier of 70% as opposed to 50% like the others. In fact, that vulnerability to Ice is really just the only type of damage that isn't resisted at all.

Rayquaza's movements are fast and fierce, and as his HP depletes, they'll get faster and more intense. Try to watch his movements, memorize his tells, and predict what he'll do next because he's incredibly difficult to spontaneously react to. Also, don't get greedy with attacks or you will get hit by some of his faster and less telegraphed attacks.

Remember, if you're looking for Rayquaza's trophy, you'll need to soften him up and stall out long enough for a trophy stand to spawn in. Remember that Trophy Stands spawn more frequently on higher difficulties! The fight'll be harder, but try it on Intense!

The audio in this video seems fine! Hopefully they're back to normal and I can start using these higher quality videos again? Honestly, no promises.

Anyway, after defeating Rayquaza, Fox tries to go off to return to his mission. Diddy Kong recognizes his strength and asks for his help in dealing with Bowser and rescuing Donkey Kong, but Fox is set on his own interests. Humorously, Diddy Kong grabs him at this point and forces him to come along. Fox is a bit too friendly to resist, I suppose!

 

Music: Bramble Blast (Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest)

You're once again given the choice between Diddy or Fox. Since we haven't used Diddy yet, let's give him a chance to shine! The stickers we gave him should make his physical attacks really powerful!

Right away in the upcoming stage, we're introduced to a strange gimmick that's a little hard to wrap your head around.

Basically, there are these doors, yellow and blue ones, with triangles on them. These are called Day-Changing Doors and I guess the idea is that you're using them to travel forward and backward in... time? Actions on one side may affect the environment in the other, so thoroughly exploring this stage can get a little vexing. When you go through the first one, you'll find that on the other side the impenetrable wall nearby is replaced with breakable blocks allowing you to break through to the other side!

As we continue onward, we'll be fighting through more of the Koopa Troop, none of them are anything new just yet.

Eventually, we'll be swarmed by a flock of Auroros! These bird-like enemies serve a bit of a dual purpose. They'll fly overhead and dive-bomb you for one, but when they do, they actually get stuck in the ground. At which point, you can pick them up like items and throw them into other enemies! They're pretty easy to transform into trophies since they get stuck like that. Their only resistance is to indirect specials, so have at 'em!

When you run into these guys, instead of continuing to the right, you'll want to turn around the way you came. Since you've passed through a Day-changing door, you should be in the period you were before. But, you're on the other side of that impenetrable wall from before! Go back, and you'll find yourself on the side of the Orange Cube that was just out of reach before!

Continuing forward, you'll drop down a pit which leads to another door and a dark chasm. You'll need to hit the bomb block above you in order to destroy the surrounding blocks and carve your way out of the cave! There's a Turquoise Cube nearby that you can use to heal up!

As you climb your way out of the pit and continue onward, you'll eventually stumble across another new enemy: Bucculus! These fat-lipped creatures are buried in the ground with only their lips poking out! As you pass over them, they'll pop out of the ground and try to kiss you! If they're successful, they'll hold you in place as they wrack up damage. If they fail, they'll flail around awkwardly for a bit before burrowing back into the ground. Try to bait them into popping out of the ground before going in for the kill. While they're flailing, it should be easy to hit 'em with a trophy stand to get their trophy.

Anyway, this area of the level is a fairly confusing puzzle if you don't understand the Day-changing doors. Basically, there are two doors before you: A regular one and a Day-changing one. Entering the regular door is a trap. You'll need to take the Day-Changing door first, but before you do, I recommend heading on ahead, tunneling your way through a series of Bucculus to find a Turquoise Cube on the other side for some goodies! Then, double back and take the Day-Changing Door. Continue back down the path to where you found that Turquoise Cube and this time you'll instead find an ambush of goombas and a giant goomba! Wipe the foes out and a mysterious bomb block will appear. Break it and nothing immediately apparent will happen. But on your way out, you might notice a crack in the ceiling of the tunnel! This is supposed to be a hint toward the solution to the puzzle, but if you're like me, you might assume the bomb block affected the lava in the other door, so you'd go through there again only to get burned again, dammit!

What you actually have to do is take the Day-Changing door to go back to the other time and find that the crack has opened up! You can now make your way up a secret passage revealing a hidden button! Pressing this button will cause the door to flash, indicating that it's been replaced with a different door! Now you can go back through that door and end up somewhere new!

Regardless of the time period you're in, you'll be funneled into the correct one by having to pass through another door if you're not in the correct time period. Otherwise, you'll find a Towtow guarding another regular door leading to the next segment of the stage!

Music: Battle for Storm Hill (Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat)

On this section, you'll be riding along on a raft that'll carry you along a river. You'll need to survive an assault from the Koopa Troop. Eventually, you'll reach a door that'll lead to a bonus room with some Track Balls and an Orange Cube! It isn't too much of a puzzle to make your way up to the cube.

In the next part of this section, you'll encounter a bunch of bullet bills! Fox's deflector can come in a lot of handy here! But be careful if you try to discard of any items that land on the raft! There's an Orange Cube that's kind of just... given to you, but I accidentally broke it open while it was offscreen and had its trophy drop into the water because I was trying to throw an item off of the raft. How was I supposed to know there'd be an Orange Cube there!? They're normally hidden, dammit!

Eventually, you'll arrive at the end of the rapids and the start of your next section!

Music: King K. Rool / Ship Deck 2 (Donkey Kong Country)

This is the final stretch! Just a little further ahead and you'll find a canon that'll take you to the end!

Music: Airship Theme (Super Mario Bros. 3)

There's no cutscene involved, but the next section of this stage is a fight with Bowser! Though he seems a bit different... You'll need to defeat Bowser by knocking him off of the stage like a typical game of Smash. The stage itself is pretty long and flat with some platforms strewn along overhead, nothing particularly fancy going on, there never really is with these SSE-exclusive stages.

Upon defeating Bowser, his trophy dissolves into shadow bugs... it was a fake! The Dark canon fires from the trees but Diddy and Fox are able to dodge out of the way in time! Diddy tries to stand his ground and fight, but Fox recognizes a losing fight and immediately takes Diddy with him and retreats! I actually really like this because it highlights Fox's leadership skills! It's more important to him to keep his allies alive than to defeat an enemy, and that's probably pretty smart. It would certainly be bad if Diddy get turned into a trophy, too!

The stage ends with a shot of Bowser laughing at our retreat. And next time we'll be once again jumping to a seemingly unrelated party at the Ruined Zoo! I suppose we'll catch up on Fox and Diddy later on.

Of course, on clearing the level, Fox joins your team! Which means, stickers!

==============

Fox

 Wolf (Star Fox Assault): Arm, Leg Attack +15

 Jet the Hawk (Sonic Riders): Leg Attack +17

 Metal Gear Ray (MGS2: Sons of Liberty): Body, Spin Attack +16

 Leon (Star Fox Command): Energy Attack +9

 Chromatron (Digiluxe): Electric Attack +7

[Aura]

Stage 7: The Ruined Zoo

We begin this stage in a new location. Some sort of abandoned zoo. We're introduced to Lucas! Knowing that Mother 3 was never officially localized internationally, most people outside of Japan were introduced to Lucas exclusively through Smash Bros. A bit of an ironic twist considering a lot of players internationally had also never played Earthbound before being introduced to Ness through Smash as well! The Earthbound series really has some pretty rotten luck outside of Japan, huh? Still crossing my fingers that Nintendo remakes these games one day so we can finally get Mother 3 officially in the west!

Anyway, if you've played Mother 3, you probably know exactly what makes Lucas such a tragic character and why seeing him introduced in such a sad state is heartbreaking. But in case you haven't, I'll say no more. If you're intrigued, go play Mother 3!!

Anyway, Lucas isn't alone for long as soon Shadow Bugs spill around him and form into Primids! But more importantly than that, the Porky Statue emerges before him! In Mother 3, this thing was an optional boss that was infamous for having essentially infinite HP, making it nearly impossible to kill without a very specific item or a particular famous workaround which we'll get back to in a bit.

Lucas is frightened by the statue and immediately starts running away. And who can blame him? This thing is terrifying in the source material!

Vs. Porky Statue

This is a boss you can't defeat yourself. Instead, you'll have to survive while you retreat from it! There's no way to damage it or slow it down, so focus your efforts on navigating through the level ahead of you. Think of this less as a boss fight and more as a level gimmick.

The Porky Statue's only real attack is walking forward. He'll crash through anything in his path, including you and even the enemies that appear!

The Porky Statue does have a trophy, but you can't actually get it in the SSE. You'll need to obtain it by other means.

This seems like a really bad time to do this, but this boss fight actually introduces a new type of enemy: A Buckott! These are small drones that carry buckets of hot iron ingots! They'll fly over your head and try to pour the iron onto you which can be quite a hindrance during this fight. They're vulnerable to Ice and Water attacks but resistant to Fire and Indirect Specials. Take them out before they spill the contents of their buckets! With a well-timed throw, you can get their trophy by throwing your stand overhead, but this bossfight probably isn't the time to try for that. You'll see plenty more of these guys going forward.

Eventually, you'll pass over a pool which the Porky Statue will fall into, fooling you into thinking you've reached the end! But be careful, because as the screen scrolls away it'll jump right back out at you and chase you for the final stretch!

As we reach the end, we'll be met with a cutscene depicting Lucas continuing to flee from the Porky Statue until he trips over... some sort of twig and gets caught under it... seriously? He can't move that? It doesn't even look like it would weigh him down! Lucas begins to cower pitifully, thinking it's all over for him, when suddenly a familiar voice shouts out from the distance: "PK Thunder!" The attack knocks the Porky Statue on its back and Ness lands in front of Lucas. This is our first instance of the involvement of a hidden character in the Subspace Emissary as Ness is not unlocked from the beginning! For some people this was Ness' first reveal! And that's one cool thing about the SSE: A lot of character introductions serve similar roles to the trailers we get these days for newcomer reveals! It just makes you really wish we still had an SSE in modern Smash, no? Hopefully that comment will feel dated one day...

Anyway, Ness focuses his attention on the Porky Statue and takes advantage of the aforementioned workaround to destroy the Porky Statue: PK Flash has an extremely rare chance of instantly KO-ing any opponent, even bosses! In Mother 3, it's Lucas who has to use it, but here, it's Ness' job!

Upon destroying the statue, it's revealed that Porky Minch himself is inside of it! And now, the real boss fight begins!

 

You'll have your choice between Lucas or Ness for this fight, I'll be choosing Ness for reasons that'll become obvious soon enough.

Vs. Porky

The recurring villain of the Mother series, it's Porkey, also known in the west as Pokey from Earthbound! I've never actually beaten Mother 3, so I don't know much about his appearance in that game, but he appears to be cryogenically frozen inside of some sort of mech.

Porky is particularly vulnerable to Darkness and Aura attacks, none of which Ness or Lucas have so you're on your own in damage output.

One of his attacks involves using his mech's legs to stap repeatedly to the left or right in a flurry. This attack comes out quick so you'll want to avoid attacking him from the sides at close range!

Another attack involves him hopping in place before charging really quickly in one direction. You'll need to jump over him to evade the attack! In case it's unclear, staying airborne is a pretty high priority here as Porky's mech dominates the ground.

Even just walking is enough to damage you! So keep your distance!

Another attack has Porky drop a load of Mecha Porky enemies! These guys will wander around the stage before exploding in an effort to take you out! Keep your distance, you can't defeat them yourself!

One thing Porky can do is launch himself high into the air only to crash down onto the ground really fast, damaging you if you're caught under him.

Sometimes instead of crashing down, Porky will hover in the air and try to follow you with a spotlight. Eventually, he'll strike the ground with red lightning!

He can create a ball of energy above his head which will fire a laser at you. I always thought that this attack would do Electric damage, but looking at this screenshot, I can clearly see a fire effect, so I suppose it does Fire damage? Either way, again, you'll want to keep in the air to avoid this attack.

Porky has a trophy as well, remember to wait for that trophy stand if you can!

Upon defeating Porky, Lucas runs up to thank Ness, but there's still no time to rest as Wario soon makes his presence known! He tries to shoot Ness with the Dark Canon, but Ness skillfully avoids all of his shots. But when Wario shifts his aim toward Lucas, instead, Ness takes the dive to push Lucas out of the way and finally gets hit! Wario jumps down to grab Ness' trophy while Lucas runs away, traumatized by the sight and sound of Wario's laughter as he holds Ness' trophy.

Just when you think we've seen enough action in this stage, Lucas bumps into Pokemon Trainer! Finally, our first playable Pokemon Character! There's actually some significance to this pairing of characters as the Earthbound series has a lot of really close ties with those of Pokemon, namely that Creatures, Inc., closely affiliated with The Pokemon Company, is a successor company to Ape Inc., the developers of the Mother series as well as the original iteration of Mother 3 that was originally supposed to be released on the N64 but was sadly canceled. Earthbound actually had a lot of influence on the Pokemon franchise. For example, the idea of the Bike in Red and Green stemmed from the Bicycle item in Earthbound! It even has similar functionality by changing the music while you're riding on it! Red was even designed in such a way that he strongly resembles Ness.

Tangent aside, Pokemon Trainer stops Lucas and draws his attention toward another crowd of Primids. In preparation, he sends out his Pokemon: Squirtle! It looks like it's time to fight!

 

For this upcoming level, we can play as either Lucas or Pokemon Trainer.

Despite having access to Pokemon Trainer, it might be more accurate to say your choices are Lucas and Squirtle, as Pokemon Trainer doesn't actually have any other pokemon here! We'll see why soon enough, but you can probably guess where this is going.

Music: Wild Pokemon Battle! (Diamond & Pearl)

As we travel through the Ruined Zoo, we'll battle our way through various Primids and Auroros across wooden scaffolding and dangerous spikes! Watch your step!

Soon, we'll arrive at a pendulum platform with a spooky ghost-like creature nearby known as a Floow. These guys are run enders on higher difficulties. One of the scariest enemies in the game. Their attack comes out extremely quick and tears through your percentage like crazy. While they are vulnerable to all sorts of attacks, they will stop and heal. They can move through walls, float just barely out of reach, and are pretty large, so they're just all around a pain in the butt. Especially when there are multiple at once. Once you hit one, try to keep on it until it's killed or your attacks will be wasted as it heals off that damage.

Eventually, you'll arrive at a building you'll need to enter.

You're not far off from an ambush of a new enemy: Brytan! These colorful pokeball-looking critters can be pretty annoying. They'll try to dash into you to damage you. Occasionally, they'll glow and another Brytan will pop out of their eyeball! Kinda gross when you think about it. They come in a variety of sizes but for now you'll only be dealing with small ones. They don't have any particular vulnerabilities so just take them out before they flood the screen!

Just after that ambush, there are some falling platforms you'll want to jump across. If you can make it to the top path and avoid the glunders, you'll be rewarded with an orange cube! The lower path doesn't have much going for it, just a Borboras that'll hinder your progression and possibly cause you to get hit by some Glunders. You'll find a Generator that will continuously spawn Brytans. I've already explained why these guys can be frustrating, so you might want to either destroy that Generator right away or just book it as fast as you can to the door just beyond.

Music: Team Galactic Battle! (Pokemon Diamond & Pearl)

We're back outside! And the Team Galactic theme is playing! Gotta love this Pokemon music! Anyway, there's a large stone structure ahead of you. You'll need to climb over it and fight your way through some Tickens and Primids. Before jumping across to the wooden scaffolding on the other side, however, you'll want to drop down and double back into a small outcropping in the stone to find a door leading to a bonus room! Carefully jump across the ice platforms and collect your reward from the item cubes. The smaller platforms will collapse shortly after you stand on them, so be careful not to fall onto the spikes below!

A bit further ahead, you'll run into some Fire Primids! I wanted to make special note of this because Squirtle is actually the only character who can exploit their weakness to Water! So if Squirtle's active right now, try to use his water attacks to exploit this weakness! Otherwise, Lucas' PK Freeze can also exploit their weakness to Freeze attacks, but it's a lot slower to come out.

After another ambush, you can drop down on the right side of the platform to collect a turquoise item cube. After bounding over some tall wooden spikes and fighting through some last-minute enemies, you've arrived at the end of the level!

Upon reaching the end, Pokemon Trainer returns Squirtle to his pokeball and starts walking away. Somewhat inspired by Pokemon Trainer's courage and his own weakness, Lucas chases after Pokemon Trainer. Perhaps he'll be able to grow a bit more as a result! Next time, we continue into yet another new party at the Battlefield Fortress.

==========

 

Upon clearing this stage, Lucas and Pokemon Trainer join the team! Sticker time!

---------------

Lucas

Lucas is a really interesting character to place stickers for. His many PK attacks count as a variety of damage types: Their elemental types of Flame, Freeze, and Electric as well as being PK Attacks and Indirect Specials. This means a lot of damage boosting can stack on these moves which also makes his potential incredibly high. I strongly recommend leaning into a build that capitalizes on damage output with these PK moves as much as possible. Lucas' various generic Psychic attacks also count as PK attacks, so it's definitely the way to go.

 Ness (EarthBound): PK Attack +33

 Little Saucer (Mother): Electric Attack +24

 Valoo (Zelda: Wind Waker): Specials: Indirect +19

 Boundish (Digiluxe): Flame Attack +7

 Materu (Densetsu no Starfy 4): Freezing Attack +7

 Makar (Zelda: Wind Waker): Slash Resistance +4

-------------------

Pokemon Trainer

I find it a little frustrating that it's Pokemon Trainer instead of Squirtle because this means that all three of Pokemon Trainer's pokemon have to share a single trophy. So, I tried to place his stickers to support the future additions to his party. Also worth noting, a lot of stickers are exclusive to Pokemon Trainer because Squirtle and Ivysaur are the only characters in the game that have Water and Grass attacks, so you might want to pay particular attention to those abilities.

 Kritter (Mario Strikers Charged): Specials: Direct Attack +28

 Squirtle (Pokemon Series): Water Attack +41

 Latias & Latios (Pokemon Series): Grass Attack +22

 Andy (Advance Wars): Specials Indirect +6

 Super Baby (Yoshi's Island DS): Launch Resistance +6

 Fairy (Zelda: Twilight Princess): Tail Attack +7

[Aura]

Stage 8: The Battlefield Fortress

This stage begins in another new setting: It appears to be a warzone after a major battle has unfolded. We start with a shot of a fortress in the distance before panning over to a subspace bomb being set off in the middle of the battlefield on the horizon. Marth is standing at the top of the fortress when he notices the explosion in the distance and the subspace army arriving. He draws his sword in preparation to fight his way through the approaching army and defend the fortress from this threat.

Music: Preparing to Advance (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones)

This is yet another hidden character you can potentially be introduced to through Subspace Emissary! Marth's most distinctive feature is the sweetspot on the tip of his sword that deals extra damage and knockback as opposed to the rest of his sword. This is going to prove useful as just about all of his attacks are Slash attacks which Sword Primids are resistant to. Also, remember Marth's Down Special is a counter! It could protect you from attacks that are difficult to dodge!

You'll begin this stage at the top of the Fortress and have to fight your way down to the fortress' entrance while tearing through hoardes of enemies including the aforementioned Primids and Sword Primids! Most Primids have a vulnerability to slash attacks so you can really tear through them, but you might notice those sword guys being a bit of a hassle. Try to use items to take care of them where you can.

Soon enough, you'll arrive at another new enemy: This is an Armight which is a weird-looking enemy that only gets weirder the longer you look at it. Just what the hell is this thing? It's just a floating head with a freaky-looking fish-like face, a creepy toothless grin, and tentacles for arms and legs. They float in from the background with a deep, haunting laugh. They carries two large swords and will float around, slashing at you. It is also capable of throwing these swords at you, so be careful! Armights are actually fairly tough enemies, so be careful about how you approach them! They are particularly vulnerable to electric attacks. They're a bit rudely introduced because the first two you meet aren't alone, but with a Borboras at the bottom of the room that will blow you into their attacks. I suppose they wanted to introduce these guys as formidable foes!

Further ahead, you'll find a key guarded by yet more Armights! These keys can be carried to locked doors strongly resembled similar doors from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. You'll need to pick these keys up like an item but they can be thrown into the locked door to open it from a distance. You can often find hidden goodies or even just the way forward behind these locked doors, so it's always good to unlock them!

In this case, there is a door that leads to a bonus room with a turquoise and orange cube. Claim your prizes and get going!

There's a small fork up ahead that leads up or down a set of stairs. Both lead to the same area, but one passes through an ambush of Sword Primids while they lower path passes by a Turquoise Cube where you can heal up. It's pretty clear which one you'll want.

Eventually, you'll arrive at a door outside which you'll pass through to arrive at the front gate to the fortress. You'll need to use Marth's Shield-piercing standard special to hit the button on the other side of the gate in order to march out onto the battlefield!

Out here, you'll encounter a really cool-looking enemy: A Roader! These guys look like amped up Wheelies from the Kirby series. They resemble a motorcycle rider with a spiky jacket and helmet and they have a single tire and an engine in place of legs. They fight just like they look like they would: They'll charge you head-first. If they miss, they'll lose their balance and topple over, leaving themselves vulnerable to attack. Be patient in dealing with them! Marth's Counter can potentially get some cheap damage in on them as well. They are especially resistant to indirect specials but all other damage types do normal damage to them.

There is a button up ahead that turns out to actually be a trap! It'll just spawn some enemies on top of you! Continue charging ahead through hoardes of Subspace emissary opponents until you arrive at a door that marks the end of the first section of the stage.

Marth has arrived at the edge of the strange dome that is lingering at the limit of the Subspace Bomb's range when suddenly, Meta Knight charges in with an attack! Is he affiliated with the Subspace Army? After a brief altercation, we both get our answer as we're surrounded by Primids and both attack them. It's clear that we have a common enemy--The Halberd must have been stolen. Realizing they've found an ally, Meta Knight and Marth team up to fight the oncoming swarm of enemies.

 

Music: Meta Knight's Revenge (Kirby Super Star)

Of course, you get to choose between these two, but who wouldn't choose Meta Knight here? Like Marth, Meta Knight has almost exclusively slash attacks, so he has an easy time cutting through most Primids, but Sword Primids also give him a bit of a struggle.

Mixed in with the various familiar Primids is the Scope Primid! A new variant that fires a weapon similar to the Super Scope item. He can fire a series of tiny pellets or charge up a powerful blast. Try to approach him from above or below to avoid these attacks! Like most primids, they are vulnerable to slash damage, so Marth and Meta Knight will have an easy time taking them out once they get in range.

Music: Attack (Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade)

Upon defeating the hoard of enemies, you'll be placed in another level in pursuit of the Ancient Minister once again.

And another new enemy: The Autolance! These guys appear to be small tanks but instead of a canon, they have a giant mounted lance! They can stab at you with this lance or fire it at you as a projectile. The lance is pretty sizeable, and it'll swing it upwards as well. Be careful how you approach it! They're resistant to all types of damage, but once they sustain enough damage... Notably, this actually means that indirect specials are a bit more useful against this guy than most other enemies so far as the vast majority have resisted them more than other forms of damage.

Their helmet will fall off revealing a strange light! Once this light is exposed, the Autolance will be much more vulnerable to all types of damage.

As you continue forward, the level will become an autoscroller, with the screen scrolling faster depending on your difficulty. On intense, it might be really difficult to keep up! After fighting your way through a handful of ambushes, you'll arrive at a door that leads into a cave.

Music: Crimean Army Sortie (Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance)

As you drop down into the cave, you might land inside of a Minecart! As expected, these work just like the similar elements in Kirby games. THey are highly durable and will crash through any enemies or destructable environments in their way.

Don't get too comfy hitching a ride, though! Usually, these minecarts will inevitably crash recklessly into a wall! You'll need to jump out before they do or you'll take some serious damage! Sometimes they'll even fall straight into a pit! You'll need to pay attention!

Whenever you're approaching a jump, the game will warn you with an ! sign, but that won't happen before a crash into a wall, so stay wary!

Just after crashing the first minecart, you can find a not-so-hidden door leading to a bonus room. Take the minecart here through a series of boxes and jump out before it hits the spiked wall at the end for a turquoise and orange cube! You'll need to make a walk of shame back, though.

Going forward, you'll fight through another ambush and then hop from minecart to minecart as you make your way to the end of the cave where you'll need to clear a large gap in order to reach the door that leads back outside.

As you continue forward, Marth and Meta Knight are gaining on the Ancient Minister! Marth jumps at him but his sword narrowly misses. Meta Knight jumps after but the Ancient Minister shoots him down with an unexpected laser beam. Once again, he's evaded damage. That is, until the Ancient Minister turns away and another sword appears behind him. Out of nowhere, another figure emerges, grabbing the sword and catching the Ancient Minister off guard by crashing down on him, damaging the machine he's floating around on and separating him from his next bomb! The figure is revealed as Ike! But our pursuit isn't over yet!

Music: Ike's Theme (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn)

  

For the next stretch of the stage, you have your choice between Marth, Meta Knight, and Ike. Of course, we'll be going with the new guy again!

This time is same as before, you're just marching forward and fighting your way through an onslaught of enemies across an open battlefield.

During an ambush further along, we're introduced to another enemy: Nagagogs. These guys start out small but inflate in size as they take damage. As they get larger, their color shifts from Blue to Yellow to Red. As it grows in size, its attacks will obviously have greater range, but it'll also take more damage than its smaller, more dense forms. It doesn't have any particular vulnerabilities so just pile on as much damage as you can.

After this final wave, you can head to the right for the familiar glow indicating the end of the stage.

The three heroes continue to pursue the Ancient Minister until they arrive at an impasse: They reach a cliff and find that the Ancient Minister has managed to put too much distance away from them and is flying off toward the horizon. At the very least, we were able to prevent another Subspace Bombing. At least, temporarily.

Strangely, after the stage cleared screen, we're immediately treated to a new cutscene that introduces Luigi: Another hidden character. Luigi is frightened by the presence of some strange creatures he's unfamiliar with: Waddle Dees! He's so distracted by these guys that he doesn't notice when a shadowy figure approaches from behind and smacks him with a powerful hammer! This is, of course, King Dedede! Who skillfully catches Luigi's trophy on the end of his hammer as he comes falling back down. I've gotta say, this is the coolest King Dedede has probably ever been! But what purpose does King Dedede have to collect Luigi's trophy? Well, the answer should become clear soon enough, but for now he seems to have an even larger scheme to get more trophies. He leaves Luigi's trophy on the side of the road and lies in wait for Warrio to arrive with his Cargo.

Wario notices the trophy just sitting there and is happy to take the free loot! Only to be ambushed by a swarm of Waddle Dee! He's forced to drop the trophy onto the cargo which is hijacked by King Dedede! The Waddle Deeds follow Waddle Dee as he turns and drives off in the other direction! You just gotta love the savage Dedede here!

And that's the end of the stage!

=============

  

Of course, our three heroes join our team at the end of this stage which means stickers! All three of these guys have a similar trait in common: Almost all of their attacks are Sword-based, which means the only offensive stickers they really need are Slash Attack ones. Meta Knight has a bit more variance with some attacks that can also be stacked with Spin Attack, but in general, the best way to build these characters is to drop the biggest Slash attack sticker you have and then layer up their defensive stats!

-----------------

Marth

 Ike (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn): Slash Attack +27

 Zora (Zelda: Ocarina of Time): Launch Resistance +31

 Shadow Mario (Super Mario Sunshine): Flinch Resistance +70

 Master Miller (MGS: The Twin Snakes): Battering Resistance +7

 Zinger (DK: King of Swing): Slash Resistance +5

 Tippi (Super Paper Mario): Flame Resistance +5

 Sparrow (Magical Starsign): Electric Resistance +5

---------------

Meta Knight

You might be wondering why I wouldn't use the Meta Knight Sticker on the other characters who more prominently feature Slash attacks if it boosts Slash Attack more. This is because some stickers are actually tied to specific characters. Only Kirby series characters can use the Meta Knight Sticker, and Meta Knight's the one who gets the most use out of it. SImilarly, Ike's sticker can only be used on Fire-Emblem characters. A lot of stickers are tied to characters solely because they're the only ones who can benefit from them, like Tail Attack stickers are often tied exclusively to the only characters with tails and won't even show up for characters who don't have those attacks. Likewise, Water and Grass stickers are exclusive to Pokemon Trainer since he's the only one who can gain benefit from those.

 Meta Knight (Kirby: Squeak Squad): Slash Attack +32

 Tap-Tap (Yoshi Touch & Go): Body, Spin Attack +24

 Noki (Super Mario Sunshine): Leg Attack +12

 Kammy Koopa (Paper Mario): Direct Specials +8

 Cell Phone (Kirby & The Amazing Mirror): Slash Resistance +4

-------------------

Ike

For Ike, I went for a very similar build to Marth, but leaned more heavily into Flinch Resistance as opposed to Launch Resistance since his attacks come out a lot slower. I figured it would be important to minimize the enemy's ability to interrupt him.

 Ike (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn): Slash Attack +27

 Raccoon Mario (Super Mario Bros. 3): Flinch Resistance +112

 Big Switch (Kirby & The Amazing Mirror): Launch Resist +18

 Perry (Super Princess Peach): Direct Specials +6

 Count Bleck (Super Paper Mario): Flame Resistance +5

 Teddy (Mother): Battering Resistance +3

 Makar (Zelda: Wind Waker): Slash Resistance +4

=============

And that's that for Stage 8! But there's one last thing I want to mention about these three characters joining our team as this is the first time a hidden character has joined our team!

One of the biggest advantages to playing the Subspace Emissary early on when you start up a new save file in Brawl is that, when a hidden character joins your team, they're automatically unlocked without having to complete their unlock requirements and fight them at the challenger approaches screen! Personally, I'm actually not the biggest fan of this as I always thought it was really cool having to accomplish difficult tasks to unlock exciting new characters, I thought it made them feel special. Honestly, I often straight-up forget what characters are hidden and which ones aren't here in Brawl. Regardless, after clearing stage 8, Marth will join your roster for all other modes! So have fun and look forward to the many other hidden characters who will be revealed and unlocked through this mode going forward!

[Aura]

Stage 9: The Forest

We once again join a new party in a new location. Deep in the forest rests the Master Sword, which the Hero of Twilight, not the Hero of Time as was the case in the previous two games, has apparently been on a quest to retreive. He pulls the Master Sword from its pedestal. The world is calling for a hero, and Link is about to deliver!

For some reason, two cutscenes are strung directly back to back. I wonder if there was originally supposed to be a segment here where you'd play as just Link for a little bit? Anyway, we cut to Link walking through the forest where he passes by Yoshi sleeping on a log... they clearly didn't have any ideas for how to slip Yoshi into this story, did they? Anyway, the Halberd flies over and once again spills Shadow Bugs over the two. Pretty common call to action in this narrative, isn't it? From here, the stage begins!

Music: Hidden Mountain & Forest (Zelda: A Link to the Past)

 

Link and Yoshi are your options here! I started with Link, of course.

This stage begins, of course, in a forest where you'll be fighting your way through a few primids. Link's Slash attacks gives him an advantage over them, so you can mow through them with relative ease.

Soon enough, we'll be met by a new enemy: A Puppit. These are puppets hanging from strings with weaponized claws capable of slashing at you. They're also capable of firing lasers from their eyes, so don't think you're safe just because you're at a range! Just looking at them, you'd think they'd be vulnerable to having their strings cut with Slash attacks but that isn't actually the case. They don't even resist Slash attacks as well as Grass attacks and indirect specials! What kind of nonsense is this!? Well, Link isn't all Slashes, he can use his throw to damage them, though I generally find it easier to just overpower their resistances. They don't have a whole lot of health.

Up ahead, you'll find a door below, blocked off by conjoined branches from two trees. To me, it always looked like you'd need to attack these branches to break through, but they're actually impenetrable. Look closer, and you'll find an opening in the tree on the right. You'll just need to progress forward, drop down and double back to get to the door which will lead to a Turquoise and Orange Cube for healing and completion. On the way to this door, you'll find another Turquoise Cube in midair guarded by a lone Puppit. This cube will also hold some food for you, but it'll fall down amongst some Primids below. You might take damage trying to eat it. I recommend taking the Primids out first!

You might think to drop between the next two trees, but it turns out to be a rather rude trap with two Bucculus down there to ambush you! There is a turquoise cube on the other side, however.

As you proceed to the next door, you'll find sheets of moss between tree branches that serve as platforms. Platofrming across these, you'll be introduced to your next new enemy!

Trowlons are strange enemies vaguely shaped like vacuum-sealed airplanes. They have elongated, flat bodies with a beak they'll use to scoop you up. Their bodies serve as platforms and their goal is to simply carry you off the top of the screen. If you aren't on top of your movement or you're in a bad position, these guys can potentially instantly KO you even at 0%! So be vigilent when they're around! They're resistant to all forms of attack, but in general, your best best is to just dodge them and they'll carry themselves offscreen anyway. If you find yourself above them, try to attack them to kill them before they can carry you. As long as you damage them, they'll be dazed and fall to the ground which is a great opportunity to claim their trophies!

Continuing forward, after fighting through a bunch more enemies, you'll eventually exit the forest and arrive at some ruins in the plains. There are some bomb blocks you can break to reveal item cubes. There's one sitting on top of some destructable blocks over a river which seems a bit precarious, but since you can swim, there's really not much danger here at all. It's moreso just a hindrance if you don't kill the nearby enemies first. This bomb block will reveal an orange cube, so it's important for completion!

Continuing forward, you'll enter a door at the far ruins that'll take you to the next area where you'll fight more familiar enemies with Trackballs to use in your favor. My favorite of these is a small pit in which Mites will appear, but there's a series of trackballs leading down into the pit and one trackball that cross over all of those. Hit the first ball with enough force and it'll knock the other balls into the pit and take out all the Mites inside of it at once! It's really satisfying! There's another item cube protected by a trackball, but this trackball will circle back and destroy the platform you're standing on to it it if you hit it too hard. Be careful and attack it with just enough force to open the way to the turquoise cube inside.

From the ruins ahead, you'll be met with a new enemy: A Shellpod! These guys resemble beetles with their thick shell that makes them resistant to all forms of attack. Once they sustain enough damage, however,

they're armor will break off, revealing a rather frail-looking lizard-type creature inside! At this point, they tak emuch more damage and are easily KO'd! These guys are actually one of the trickier Trophies to get as they actually have two different trophies: One for the shelled and one for the shelless form. The Shelled form is the tricky one as you can't weaken it enough to guarantee the Trophy Stand's success without breaking its shell off, so you might fail a couple times in trying to claim that trophy. The shellless one is pretty standard fare, however.

You'll fight your way through more Shellpods depending on your difficulty and find a vertical shaft with a button nearby. Hitting the button will temporarily create some platforms that you can use to climb up to a nearby ladder to climb out of the shaft and up to the higher part of the plain.

Up here, you'll fight your way through some more enemies and hit a track ball precariously positioned over a pit in order to move to the stage's final ambush. Fight your way through the ambush and proceed to the right. While playing this level, I made an extremely bizarre discovery in finding a small platform in the pit on the right side of this last ambush. I have absolutely no clue what the purpose of this platform is. Maybe to catch you if ou accidentallyf all off using Yoshis' Egg roll or something? It seems weirdly generous for a level that has some fairly difficult moments throughout. I'm not sure if the platform is there before the ambush is cleared, probably not. It looks like it might be hiding an item underneath it or something, but nope. Perhaps there was at one point going to be a secret passage that led underneath this ambush? Who can say?

At the end of the stage, Link and Yoshi arrive at a cliffside, suddenly in the Wasteland I guess, and see the Halberd getting away. Again, this seems to be a running trend. They decide to persist in their pursuit and find a way down the cliff.

And right after the Stage Cleared screen, we're met with one final cutscene. A brief zoom on a single cardboard box that bumps in place before cutting to black--if you know, you know.

 

Upon clearing the stage, Link and Yoshi join the team!

When applying these characters' stickers, I actually went through a few iterations until I had a lineup I was happy with, mainly because I kept making discoveries about the classifications of their attacks!

=============

Link

Much like the three characters from the previous stage, Link is also heavily leaning toward Slash attacks. However, he has a lot of variety of weapons in his arsenal, so I wanted to augment his various projectiles as well. Strangely, I discovered his Spin attack doesn't count as a "Spin" attack!! The fuck!? I guess it makes sense that it wouldn't count as both Spin and Slash because then it could become really powerful by gaining boosts from both categories, but come on, it's literally in the name!

 Hector (Fire Emblem): Slash Attack +27

 Mace Guy (Yoshi Topsy-Turvy): Weapon Attack +22

 Solid Snake (MGS2: Sons of Liberty): Explosive Attack +19

 Mona & Moped (WarioWare MMG): Indirect Specials +8

 Colin (Zelda: Twilight Princess): Direct Specials +4

--------------------

Yoshi

Where Link excels against grounded enemies, Yoshi excels against aerial enemies! I wanted to build his sticker set around his many strong aerial attacks. I didn't realize just how varied Yoshi's attacks were, however, so I found it difficult to balance it all in nice ways. He's probably the best use of your Tail Attack stickers since he has more useful Tail Attacks than the other characters that have them, but his Leg Attack is the real boon as his down air can really tear through enemy health. I was also surprised to find out that his Up Special counts as weapon attack rather than Explosion damage, but in hindsight I suppose it makes sense since it doesn't create the same particle effect as Link's bombs, for example.

 Eight Yoshis (SMA 3: Yoshi's Island): Arm, Leg Attack +18

 Mario (Mario Kart DS): Leg Attack +22

 Ezlo (Zelda: Minish Cap): Head Attack +19

 Rouge the Bat (Sonic Adventure 2: Battle): Tail Attack +10

 Plum (Mario Golf): Weapon Attack +5

 Coin (New Super Mario Bros.): Indirect Specials +4

[Aura]

Stage 10: The Research Facility

Deep inside the base of operations for the Subspace Emissary, we join up with every horny person's favorite newcomer to Brawl: Zero Suit Samus as she infiltrates the research facility.

Zero Suit Samus is the source of a lot of irony. Without her power suit, you'd think she'd be a lot weaker. But Zero Suit Samus is actually a much higher tier character due to her swift movement capabilities and strong combo potential--unfortunately, she's still not exempt from random tripping. This is in contrast to her Powered up form which is much slower and clunkier here in Brawl. Normally, when Samus uses her Final Smash, she drains the power of her suit and her armor falls off, revealing the Zero Suit from the postgame of Metroid: Zero Mission. Zero Suit Samus' final smash allows her to recharge her Power Suit and regain it. Alternatively, you can start a match while holding L+R (or Z on a Nunchuck and - on a Wii Remote if you're playing with those controllers like some sort of sociopath). But here, much like how Pokemon Trainer is missing his other pokemon, Samus is missing her Power Suit. So Zero Suit Samus is all we can play as.

Music: Opening (Metroid Prime)

The first section of this stage is a brief area where you can get used to playing as Zero Suit Samus. I suppose they felt this was more necessary than normal for her since a lot of players might have never used her before given that she's not directly selectable on the roster.

Through the first room, we're introduced to a series of hallways connected by a Zelda II style Elevator. Stand on it and press up or down to be taken to the other floors. Alternatively, you can wall jump or drop through the shaft if the elevator isn't there. Don't get crushed on the top or bottom of it, though!

If you cross straight ahead from the entrance: You'll find R.O.B.! But not quite the R.O.B. from the roster. You'll be fighting a lot of these guys throughout the research facility. In general, these guys are vulnerable to water and resistant to electricity and indirect specials, which is just wonderful because a significant amount of Zero Suit Samus' attacks just happen to be electric. This one is the standard unit: A R.O.B. Sentry. These are the guys who have been setting off the subspace bombs this whole time. They can float around with jet boosters and attack with their arms.

Alongside these R.O.B. sentries, you'll also find R.O.B. Blasters. These are slightly more advanced counterparts capable of firing lasers from their eyes!

Taking the elevator up to the second(?) floor, you'll find a small gap which you'll want to jump across to find an orange cube. Dropping down the shaft will bring you to the basement floor where you can take the elevator back up to the top floor and find a door leading deeper into the facility. For the record, in any area with an elevator, I'll be referring to the floor you initially enter on as the first floor, anything below it as B1F, B2F, etc. and anything above as 2F, 3F, etc. That should make things a bit easier to explain.

As we break deeper into the facility, we stumble across a generator with Pikachu trapped inside! They seem to be draining Pikachu's electricity as a power source! Samus breaks the generator open in order to free Pikachu and the two fight together through the ROB that arrive to answer the emergency alarm that sounds!

 

And finally, we have our second Pokemon representative in Pikachu! Of course, Pikachu isn't actually a whole lot of help against these R.O.B.s due to their electric resistance, but this is All the Pokemens, not All the Meteoroids, so I have to play as him, right? Pikachu does have some decent options for fighting these R.O.B. Namely, his up Tilt has a decent range that can smack them with his tail and his back air can deal a decent chunk of damage. However, most of Pikachu's attacks are resisted as they do electrical damage, even Skull Bash, strangely enough. Along the way, it might help to pick up some items to help Pikachu fight the enemies off a bit more effectively.

For the first section of this next area, you'll just push your way through to the first door that'll lead you to a more open area with rotating platforms. You'll notice a few arrows pointing to doors. In the interest of saving time, I recommend fighting your explorative instincts and just trusting these arrows and going through the doors being pointed to first, in our case we'll be starting with the lower door.

Music: Multiplayer (Metroid Prime 2: Echoes)

The music behind each of these doors is the same.

Through the lower door, you'll find a passage leading into an ambush with some R.O.B. Sentries and Roturrets. Once past there, you can make your way to the far end, fighting through some enemies of course, to find a key which you'll need to unlock the door leading further up. And that's basically the gimmick of this section: You'll come across a locked door blocking your way further up and you'll need to explore the nearby area to find a key. At the end, you'll find a button you need to press and now your goal is to make your way back down. The platform in the center of this room will recede, allowing you to drop down and make your way back the way you came, but I recommend making your way back to where you got the key and taking the launchpad here. This will launch you directly to an Orange Cube on the other side of a large gap. Alternatively, if you're like me and have no trust in these launch pads, Pikachu can clear the jump with help from his Up Special while Zero Suit Samus can use her Up Special to tether to the ledge. Dropping down this giant chasm will bring you back to the area where you found that first key which means you're right back at the beginning! Jump back across and leave the way you came--that button you pressed is what we were here for, but our job isn't done yet!

The next door up will lead you to a room where you'll need to ride a platform across a large pit, doding Zap Jyks along the way. At the end of the room, the platform will lodge itself in the wall and some Glunders will come rolling down. Take them out or jump away from them to let them roll away themselves and a button will reveal itself! Activate the button and a series of platforms will fall into place behind you, reshaping the entire room and forming an obstacle course over the path you were carried across with the platform earlier. This is actually a pretty brilliantly designed room as it feels completely different going back the way you came. You'll find it a bit harder to dodge the Jyks this time. But again, you'll want to make your way back to the door you entered from.

In the top right of the main room, you'll find a Turquoise Cube where you can heal up. You can either wall jump your way up the shaft and break through the blocks to get to it or fight your way through a R.O.B. Sentry.

Behind the third door is a vertical hallway where you'll need to platform your way through a series of Brytans raining down on you.

Further along, we'll meet another R.O.B. variant: The R.O.B. Launcher. These modified units have a missile launcher where their eyes woudl be! This allows them to fire homing missiles at you for explosive damage! Be careful when avoiding the missiles and take them out as those missiles can be pretty dangerous and persistent!

The next door introduces an enemy that I really feel like should be classified as its own: a Giant Brytan! Other giant variants get their own classification, but Giant Brytans are just reated as regular Brytans and drop the same trophy when it with a Trophy Stand! It seems a little rude to me. Anyway, these guys are mostly identical to regular Brytans, but they take a lot more damage to kill, making it all the more scary when they start multiplying! If you take any damage while fighting these guys, hop up to the upper route to heal up with a Turquoise Cube before moving on.

The upcoming part of this room is why I suggested going to the other two doors first. Believe it or not, if you don't press those buttons, the game will let you come all the way up here before you're met with a dead end and forced to turn around. Pressing the buttons in the other rooms will open up the wall to reveal a path forward.

It's in here that we're met with Quark Mines! These are a Jyk-like enemy that will explode if you get near them. Just like Jyks, you can't get a trophy of them by hitting them with a trophy stand--they don't even have a Trophy!

When you approach them, they'll flash red as a warning.

And i fyou get to close, they'll explode! You can set them off prematurely with projectiles, so Pikachu's Thunder Jolt is a really good move to have for this section. Otherwise, Samus' Paralyzer can help, too.

Up ahead, there's an ambush introducing you to the bane of my existence: Metal Primids. These guys' metal coatings make them heavier and slower than normal Primids, but protect them from flinching and deflect projectiles. They usually attack in numbers and they are extremely dangerous to fight. Careless attacks will often just be met with them withstanding your attacks and pelting you with a strong attack that'll send you flying. The best way to deal with them is to use throws, but that's a lot easier said than done most of the time. FUCK these guys.

After fighting your way through, you'll soon arrive at the golden door signifying the end of the stage.

It's here that we arrive at a surveillance room where we finally uncover what Samus is here for. It turns out, her suit has been stolen by the Subspace Emissary and is being researched here. She's broken in to steal her suit back! It seems she's got her heading...

 

And with that, Zero Suit Samus and Pikachu have now joined the team! Sticker time again!

=============

Zero Suit Samus

I'm not actually sure if Samus and Zero Suit Samus share a trophy base or not. I really hope not because I went hard into building her stickers around her. Particularly, her leg and electric attacks were a major focus. Worst case scenario, I can replace the stickers which unfortunately would mean losing them--Once a Sticker is sealed onto a trophy, it'll be ruined if you peel it off. But that's okay, in case you can't tell by my reuse of a lot of stickers, I have a huge abundance of these things. This is the same file I've been using since my childhood so there are years of excess built up.

 Barrel Train (Mario Kart: DD!!): Leg Attack +19

 Hawke (Advance Wars DS): Arm, Leg Attack +8

 Samus (Metroid): Indirect Specials +15

 Metroid (Metroid: Zero Mission): Electric Attack +20

 Tippi (Super Paper Mario): Flame Resistance +5

 Jill (Drill Dozer): Electric Resistance +4

---------------

Pikachu

As you can probably expect, Pikachu is built almost exclusively around his electric attacks, but he does still have a few more types to lean into. By layering a lot of Electric and Spin attack together, some of Pikachu's attacks are going to really tear through enemy HP!

 Pikachu (Pokemon Series): Electric Attack +33

 Boulder (Excite Truck): Body, Spin Attack +32

 Wobbuffet (Pokemon Series): Head Attack +12

 Andy (Advance Wars): Indirect Specials +6

 Blathers (Animal Crossing: WW): Tail Attack +7

 Jill (Drill Dozer): Electric Resistance +4

 Postman (Zelda: Majora's Mask): Specials Direct +3

==============

And that's it for Stage 10! We're in the double digits, but there's still a lot more story to cover! We'll see what happens next as parties begin to cross paths at the Lake Shore!

[Aura]

Stage 11: The Lake Shore

This is where I'd say the most divergence occurs based on your decision way back in the beginning of the game between rescuing Peach or Zelda. A handful of things change here depending on who was rescued, starting with the very intro! Of course, the rescued princess, Zelda in my case, will be with Kirby who hears the sound of the cargo in the distance and runs off. Before Zelda can catch up, Bowser surprises her from behind and blasts her with the Dark Canon! The false copy of Bowser then approaches, dissolves into Shadow Bugs again, and covers Zelda's trophy.

Of course, if you rescued Peach first, it would be Peach instead of Zelda getting blasted and swarmed by the shadow bugs. I'll go over how this changes things a bit later on. For now, let's see how this stage plays out.

We cut to a shot of Yoshi and Link running across a path in pursuit of the Halberd when we see that the shadow bugs that covered Zelda's trophy seem to have stolen her appearance in order to become a false Zelda. False Zelda aims the Dark Canon at Link and Yoshi from atop a cliff when the canon is slashed in two by Pit! The canon explodes and now Pit and Mario demand the false princess's attention.

Music: Castle/Boss Fortress (Super Mario World & Super Mario Bros. 3)

 

You're now given your choice between Pit or Mario to fight against False Zelda. This fight will take place on a long, flat stage with a cliff on one side and a run-off on the other. Since Pit initiated the fight, I chose Mario to do the actual fight. From a narrative standpoint, it makes sense he'd need to carry his weight while Pit would support form afar after having gotten rid of the Dark Canon. Getting rid of Zelda isn't too difficult.

Upon defeating False Zelda, we see what I think is the single most exciting moment in the entirety of the Subspace Emissary: Link looks over and notices Mario and Pit standing over False Zelda's trophy, and notices that it dissolves into shadow bugs. From Link's perspective, it looks like Mario and Pit just killed the Princess. Furious, he charges in with absolute bloodlust and attacks Mario with genuine rage! This moment is so fast yet the emotion is so powerful you can feel it instantly!

I wanna take a side track and note that I often make fun of fighting games' story modes for shoe-horning fights between characters. One of the most hilarious recent examples I've experienced of this is modern Mortal Kombat games where two characters on the same side will meet up, get all pissy with each other out of nowhere, then suddenly realize they're on the same side after an arbitrary fight. Brawl on the other hand keeps things pretty believable overall! This is a fantastic way to pit Nintendo's two juggernaut characters against each other!

Music: Battlefield (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

 

Anyway, of course, you'll have to play as Pit or Mario again. This time, I opted to play as Pit since he'd need to be the stand-in as the mediator to help ease the tension.

This is actually the only 2v2 battle in Subspace Emissary! Even if you're playing alone (and I'll explain that later on if you don't know what that means), the other character will appear as an AI-controlled teammate! This is to help balance the fact that you'll be facing off against a team of two opponents as well. As far as I know, the AI-controlled characters do not get the sticker benefits, only player-controlled characters do. Otherwise, this fight could be a little unfair if you stacked a whole bunch of stickers on some characters but not others.

Upon defeat, Link and Yoshi revert to their trophies. Before they can decide what to do from here, King Dedede arrives with his Cargo! Mario notices, from among the trophies he's hoarding, Peach's trophy! Ironically completely overlooking Luigi's... Anyway, King Dedede notices the two new trophies and swerves to collect them with the Cargo's arm. Unfortunately for him, along with the trophy he accidentally snatches up something else: Kriby!! Kirby cuts the arm off of the machine and activates Link and Yoshi's trophies. This frustrates Dedede, but he's left with no choice but to try and retreat the way he was headed. As he tries to push through the crowd, however, Link readies his bow and lets an arrow loose, damaging the cargo and slowing Dedede down.

Before we continue onward, I want to address how things differ here if you rescued Peach instead of Zelda. Of course, this stage will start out with Peach getting blasted and copied by Shadow Bugs. This time, Link and Mario's parties are reversed. Mario and Pit are the ones running along the path in pursuit of the Halberd while False Peach aims at them with the false canon. This will of course lead to Link cutting the Dark Canon in two with his sword rather than Pit, and then you'll fight Peach with Link or Yoshi instead of Zelda with Mario or Pit. Following that, Mario will notice Link standing over Peach's dissolving trophy and rush in with a furious punch to the ground. The scene still has all the same passion and energy to it, so I don't mind that too much. In this case, you'll play as Link and Yoshi against Mario and Pit. Upon their defeat, Mario and Pit's trophies are snatched up by Dedede, Kirby awakens them, and Pit's the one who shoots the cargo as Dedede passes by. 

Either way, these scenes are carefully crafted so that both Link and Pit get a moment to be badass, but from a narrative standpoint, I think I do prefer this section with Zelda rescued. While both Mario and Link's confusion at the sight makes sense, I think it fits better for Link who's mostly out of the loop with all of this. However, one criticism I have is the fact that Mario focuses in on Peach and doesn't seem to notice Luigi at all. In the opposite case, it's Link who focuses in on Zelda which makes more sense since he doesn't know Luigi or Ness. But, this isn't the narrative point I brought up way back when I committed to my decision. There's one fairly small detail that I actually prefer in this way that might seem a bit odd on the surface level, but I really appreciate what it does for Mario's character. All in all, though, I do think these cutscenes were likely designed first with the idea of Peach being rescued instead of Zelda. They just seem to flow more naturally that way. Even still, I do prefer this route.

Music: Step: The Plain (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

    

With these three parties together, everyone prepares to chase after King Dedede! And this is our first opportunity to select from a multitude of characters! You can only select four characters, so one of these five will take a backseat for the upcoming stage. Since I was playing with Mario and Pit up until now, I figured they should be the lowest priority. Instead, I started with Kirby, then Link, then Yoshi, then Pit. Mario deserves a rest after his two fights, I think. Of course, if you don't die at all only your first selection here matters.

Right away, we're introduced to a new enemy, a cute little one named a Bombed. But it becomes a bit less cute when it detaches its head and throws it at you! It's a bomb! These enemies can actually be a bit scary as their head will explode shortly after spawning. They're resistant to all attacks but less so to Fire and Indirect specials. That's right, we finally have an enemy who is particularly weak to indirect specials! Let your projectiles loose on these guys, just make sure to avoid their heads! Their heads themselves are especially vulnerable, and they can take the body with them if caught in the ensuing explosion! After throwing their head, the Bombed won't be able to see and will begin panicking and running around--you almost have to feel sorry for them. They can't do much in this state and will often just run right off a ledge into a pit. While their running around like this is a great time to hit them with a trophy stand. But, if they stay alive, their head will eventually grow back and they'll be able to throw it again, so you might want to close in to take them out!

As you fight your way through some enemies, you'll eventually come to a platform that will lift you into the air. You'll have to survive wave after wave of Bombeds on this platform while it carries you to your destination. If you're playing as Kirby, you have an easy out thanks to your down special. These guys will typically throw their heads and run right off.

Once you've survived these waves and fought through one last ambush, the platform will begin to shrink and some bullet bills will fly in from the sides, trying to capitalize on your limited movement space. Ironically, if you just sit still they'll have a hard time reaching you. Once the platform disappears, you'll land on the ground below and be able to move on to the next door.

The next section is a side scroller. The screen will scroll faster depending on your difficulty and there are some cruel Bucculus here that can spell your doom on the higher difficulties. Platform your way through the various obstacles and avoid the launcher that'll send you flying off screen! This is why I have trust issues with these things!! As the section goes on, the screen scrolls faster. You'll soon find an Orange Cube that you'll need to collect the item from for completion. This is easier on the lower difficulties, but try to get it!

And at the end of this section, there's an entrance to a cave you'll need to look into.

We're met with a very brief cutscene of everyone gathering around the cave entrance where we can see the Cargo parked. It seems Dedede took the rest of the trophies by hand through the cave! This scene gives us another chance to select our characters.

Music: Step: The Cave (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

    

I've gotta say, this music sounds like something out of Metroid, I love it!

This time, I decided to offset my selection a bit. I'd actually died with Kirby and played with Link in the previous section, so I started with Yoshi this time, then Pit, then Kirby, then Mario.

Right away, we're introduced to another of the most threatening enemies in the game: Shaydas. These monsters are huge, two-headed humanoid figures with giant blades they'll slash around with. They take up a lot of real-estate on the screen and can do a ton of damage if you're caught in their attacks. Attacking them recklessly won't do you much good as they're heavily defensive. Looking closer, you'll notice they're actually just swarms of shadow bugs in the shape of a larger monster! Their weakness lies in the pink core in the figure's chest. Just before it attacks, the shadow bugs will need to strengthen their grip on the blades, exposing their core more. When the core is exposed, it'll take far more damage. Hit them with your strongest attack then to hopefully KO them quickly! As for claiming their trophy, it'll be easiest to wait for them to prepare for an attack in order to hit them while their core is exposed for the highest chance of success.

Once you defeat the Shaydas, you can drop down deeper into the cave in order to land in a minecart which will carry you to a flooded area filled with platforms. You'll want to climb your way up a shaft to a ledge leading to the right, but before moving on, if you're paying attention you might notice a small ledge in the top-left! Jump up there! You'll be ambushed by a Shayda once you go up to the wall, but you'll find some breakable blocks hiding a secret door leading to a bonus room!

This bonus room will task you with platforming across some water with some low ceilings... I can't help but wonder if they thought swimming was going to be a bigger deal in this game? It's not really much of a threat if there's no enemies around to punish you... though... more on that idea later as there is some interesting info to discuss in a future level. Anyway, at the end you'll find a Turquoise and Orange Cube.

Continuing forward, you'll need to time your jumps through a series of hot stone pillars. Don't get greedy here, take your time. Trying to push through too fast will likely cause you to take damage if not get crushed! Getting crushed, by the way, means an instant KO so watch out for that threat!

This hallway will spill over into a room with a key and three locked doors. Only one of these doors leads to anything interesting. Taking the wrong one will just lead you to another key at a dead-end on the other side of a small obstacle. From the wrong paths, you can deduce that the correct path is the one on the top.

You'll pass through a small room where you'll get ambushed by a Shayda. You can keep going, but killing the Shayda will reveal a door leading into a bonus room with an Orange and Turquoise cube. This bonus room is pretty much a freebie. It's a large, open room with some platforms that will fall if you stand on them too long, but they just fall into water which you can easily recover from.

Continue forward, breaking your way through some bomb blocks and avoiding falling into the bed of spikes, fight your way through another ambush of enemies, and you'll arrive at the end of the stage. There's even a complimentary turquoise and orange cube! This was a decently sizable stage, after all. Pass through the golden door and you'll be met with the end of the stage!

To end things off, we're given another brief cutscene where we arrive at King Dedede's castle. The Halberd is looming overhead as well. Something big is about to happen, but it's hard to tell if it's good or not.

Right after the stage cleared screen, we're treated to a shot of Ganondorf standing in some sort of control room. He seems to be issuing orders to Bowser and his troop... Has Bowser been taking orders from Ganondorf this whole time? Is Wario in the same boat? Are they both working for the Subspace Army, or are they capitalizing on the chaos for their own ambitions? It's pretty difficult to say, maybe continuing further will give us more answers.

Anyway, that's Stage 11! Next time we'll be catching up on what Lucas and Pokemon Trainer are up to on the Path to the Ruins!

[Aura]

Stage 12: The Path to the Ruins

We join back up with Lucas and Pokemon Trainer who notice a Charizard flying toward a rocky spire. This is one of two pokemon Pokemon Trainer is after with intent to capture. So, we make our way toward the ruins!

Music: Gritzy Desert (Super Mario Land)

 

Once again, we get to choose between Lucas or Pokemon Trainer. From the narrative perspective, I think it makes sense to play as Lucas here. Plus, thanks to our layered stickers, he's got some pretty powerful attacks now! He can tear right through some of the bulkier enemies like Shellpods!

There isn't much to say about the first section, you'll just platform your way forward, killing enemies, dodging zap jyks (noting that Squirtle is extra vulnerable to electric damage), fighting through an ambush, and eventually you'll arrive at a small pit where a few primids will spawn in to attack you. There are spikes on the sloped upper path but with a well-timed double jump paired with your recovery, you can make it up! You're likely to get hit by the spikes, though, and it's really not worth it because by breaking through the rocks on the lower path, you'll be rewarded with a turquoise cube to heal up and an elevator leading upwards.

At the top of the elevator, you're met with a new enemy: A Gamyga! These guys are, quite frankly, creepy to me. The main enemy is a large head that sits on top of four haniwa-like bases that spin around and flail their arms.

The trophy doesn't really put their size into perspective, but these things are huge. Their main goal is to block your path so that you're forced to deal with them. They're capable of firing lasers from their heads, but you can stop their attacks by hitting their head and temporarily stunning them, the amount of time they remain stunned is reduced depending on the difficulty, so try to stay aggro! If you have a hard time reaching their heads, you can attack their bases to knock them away in order to cause the head to drop lower down, but keep in mind that attacking the bases does not damage or stun the head, so you'll need to dodge lasers while you do so. Neither the head nor the bases has any weakness.

In order to collect the trophy, only the head counts. So soften it up and throw a trophy stand at its head!

Once you fight your way through the Gamygas, you'll proceed to the right where you'll find a series of pits. It's here that one of the more devilishly hidden secret areas lies. One of these pits has a Borboras trying to blow you into it. You'll actually want to drop into this one a bit to notice some platforms leading downward just offscreen. The only way you'll notice these platforms is if you drop down the second pit, and the first pit is too deep to recover from if you fall far enough down that the screen stops scrolling, and you can see ahead that the second pit is empty as well. To me, this seems like kind of a mean trick. I naturally dropped down to the bottom of the first pit to check for a secret, couldn't recover from it, saw that it and the next pit was empty, and concluded it wasn't worth checking the other pits. Maybe I'm just salty because I missed this bonus room the first time around. To be fair, Squirtle is capable of wall-jumping, so it's probably possible to recover from these pits with Pokemon Trainer. I just didn't think about that at the time and figured if you couldn't get out with Lucas they wouldn't hide anything down there. But, it turns out, you are rewarded for dropping just far enough in to where you can still easily jump out even with Lucas. So I suppose it isn't too mean.

Anyway, following these platforms down to the bonus room will lead you to a large chamber absolutely filled with destructable blocks. Don't get too crazy with wonton destruction, though. Carefully carve some platforms out of the destructable environment so you can platform your way around to the trophies littered throughout. There are four in total. Once you've claimed them, exit the bonus room and climb your way out of the pit using the platforms.

Continuing forward, the next Orange Cube is practically handed to you. You'll need to dodge a Zap Jyk, but you can just drop down to it and claim its prize as easy as that. At the end of the path, there's an entrance that leads inside of a mountain cave.

Music: Underground Theme (Super Mario Land)

Inside of here, you'll find a lot of lava and fire-themed enemies! It just so happens we have the perfect counter to these with Lucas and Squirtle both having attacks that are strong against them and Squirtle also being resistant to fire damage!

Platform your way across a sea of lava and you'll arrive at a hallway with jets of fire and Fire Primids. You can temporarily disable the fire jets by hitting the buttons, but they'll only stay off briefly. Hit the buttons again to turn them back off. Lucas has an especially easy time with this since he can use PK Thunder to strike the buttons.

At the end of the tunnel, you'll be attacked by a couple Armights. Take them out and make your way up for an Orange Cube before dropping down low. To the left, there's a bed of spikes you can jump across for a Turquoise Cube! To the right, another ambush!

Within this ambush, we'll find a "new" enemy in the form of Glires! These are fire variants of Glunders. They're vulnerable to Freeze and Water attacks, but they're pretty weak overall just like Glunders. On higher difficulties, they'll move faster. Try to hit them with a trophy stand while they're on a long, flat surface to line up an easy shot at getting their trophy.

The next room over features another ambush with two Trackballs to use to your advantage against a group of Nagagogs. Clearing this ambush will reward you with some healing before you progress to the next one on a floating platform. The next area will lead down to another platform that will lift into the air and carry you up into yet another ambush! Fight the enemies off and proceed to the right to find an elevator that'll lead you back to the surface with a turquoise cube to the left and a door proceeding onward to the right.

As we draw near the ruins, Pokemon Trainer and Lucas are ambushed by Wario. We can tell Lucas seems to have strengthened resolve here by his gripped fist. It's time to settle things!

Music: Airship Theme (Super Mario Bros. 3)

 

You get to choose whoever you want for this fight, but how could you choose anyone but Lucas here? He's gotta redeem himself for not standing up to Wario before!

You'll fight Wario on a rather odd stage with two run-off edges and two pillars near the center. Getting a KO can actually take a bit as these pillars are awkward to launch Wario over, but you can eventually push through without too much of a struggle.

Upon his defeat, Wario's statue drops to the ground, but it dawns on Lucas (wow... major unintended pokemon pun there) that Ness' trophy is nowhere to be seen. So even though they've defeated Wario, he still doesn't get the chance to see Ness again. Pokemon Trainer gives Lucas a reassuring tap on the shoulder before a sound is heard from the ruins ahead. What lies in wait for us there? Only one way to find out...

*sigh* And this is where I realized I got my wires crossed again. Somehow it didn't register with me before that the wrong trophy was on the cargo than the one I was expecting. It turns out I actually did save the wrong princess for my preferences, but regardless, we'll just have to continue forward. I swear I thought you had to rescue Zelda to have things play out the way I wanted to see, but I was completely wrong. This whole thing really isn't all that complicated at the end of the day, but it's honestly a little bit frustrating.

Regardless, after the stage is cleared, we're treated to a scene of King Dedede lining up the trophies he's collected in his castle. He places a strange bagdge on two of them before realizing he's run out. Reluctantly, he takes one badge off of himself and places it on Peach's trophy. This trophy is of course of the princess you didn't save in the beginning. (In my head, I thought the two trophies were swapped when Kirby broke the arm on the cargo, but only the trophies from the arm were dropped.) Anyway, shortly after placing the badges on the trophies, the ceiling of the castle caves in, a stone dropping on Dedede's head and knocking him out as Bowser and his minions drop in and notice the princess' trophy.

It might seem odd that I would prefer Zelda's trophy to be in this scene, as it would make more sense for Peach's trophy to stand out to Bowser, but like I said, I'll explain it more in a future cutscene.

Anyway, that's the end of stage 12, and next time we'll be checking back in with Kirby and the gang to see what's going on here!

[Aura]

Stage 13: The Cave

We return to Kirby and the gang who storm Dedede's castle to find nothing but the rubble from Bowser's assault. Someone stole the trophies! Upon closer inspection, a hole in the wall is discovered leading into yet another cave. Everyone prepares to advance.

Music: Step: The Cave (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

    

We're once again given our choice of characters. I decide it's time to take Mario off the bench followed by Link, Kirby, and Pit.

We start out with a familiar hazard of rocks dropping down from the ceiling. If needed, there are some gaps in the ceiling to jump into for cover from rocks rolling in from behind you, but they're generally pretty easy to outrun so they aren't much of a pressing threat.

But just up ahead, we get the level's new gimmick: giant stone slabs that begin moving when you pass by them. These slabs will crush you if you don't get out of the way, and that means instant death!

There's an ambush up ahead involving enemies from the Koopa Troop, revealing the presence of Bowser. Fight through the waves and continue onward to an area with two vertical hallways and stone slabs pushing down and up through them! Outrun the slabs and platform your way to safety on the other side of the halls! Just ahead of these, there's another stone slab with another devilishly hidden secret: Bait the slab into dropping down but jump back where you came from and wait for the entire slab to drop. This will reveal an alcove in the top of the slab that will open the path to a door that was previously just offscreen.

As if the bonus room wasn't hidden enough, this is probably the scariest bonus room so far! You'll find two stone slabs closing in on you the moment you enter. You're on a thin platform with an Orange Cube below the platform and a Turquoise Cube above. If you stay calm, you can easily get them both, but just in case, prioritize the Orange one as that's the one necessary for completion. Don't take too long as these slabs will close and instantly kill you.

You might think you're done with the secrets of this slab, but you'd be wrong! Once you return to the main path, quickly drop down through the platforms. There's a pit below, so don't drop through the final platform, or jump back up to it if you do. This platform has another Orange Cube on it and is on the opposite side of the hall from the safe area that leads further into the level. Claim your reward quickly and jump across to the exit or you'll be pushed through into the pit!

Continuing on, we have even more deceptively dangerous hazards. There are some thick stone walls with gaps in them that you'll have to jump through, similar to walls we've seen before. These stone walls, however, are a bit more dangerous. Getting greedy and trying to rush under or over them while they're sinking into the ground or rising up could cause you to get crushed rather than merely stopped. Be extra careful moving through these walls and the beginning and end of this section. There's a turquoise cube along the way for some healing if you can pick it up before it's swept into the pit.

The next room ahead is a brief obstacle course featuring some fire jets, a spike panel dropping down, and a key. This spike panel can be used as a platform as long as there aren't spikes on top (some of them are like that), but like everything else, it'll crush you if you're still standing on it when it reaches the ceiling. Dodge the hazards and carry the key to the door to continue onward.

Just up ahead is a new hazard: Amaranthine Gas. This stuff is just what it looks like, poisonous gas that will damage you if you spend time in it. You'll want to seek out a switch to shut the gas off before trying to push through it. In this first instance, it's pretty straight forward, you pass a button and see the purple cloud ahead of you. Going forward, this isn't necessary as obvious. The amount of damage the gas does and time it's deactivated depends on the difficulty, so try to be quick if you're on Intense!

You'll be playing with this gas for the next while until you arrive at a cloud with the button hidden inside of it. Notably, every character you can play as here (your first time through) has a projectile you can hit it with! Yoshi and Kirby have their Up Specials, Mario and Pit have their standard specials, and Link has all kinds of options. But once you try to pass through, you'll be stopped by an ambush with Giant Goombas! Stomp them quick because the gas will come back on any second! And stay close to that button!

Up ahead, there is another section where you'll need to dodge rolling rocks. This time, the overhead safety nets are a lot more important since the rocks are rolling at you from the front rather than behind. The last bonus room is practically a gimme. Just dodge the boulders coming down and jump up to it. Inside there's a turquoise cube on a collapsing platform above some arrow lifts that'll fall if you stand on them. Up ahead, there's an orange cube on solid ground, too.

Make your way back and progress through the narrow hallway with the Giant Goomba in it and you'll arrive at the end of the stage!

You might have noticed this is the first stage that didn't have any new enemies in it! While that isn't too terribly surprising as we've already been introduced to a wide array of them, I did come across an interesting bit of trivia that suggests this level may have been intended to introduce not one, but two more enemies.

 

Internal files for the game contain a list of Strings containing enemy names from the subspace emissary. Some of these names are unused. Two of these are the japanese names for Buzzy Beetles and Dry Bones from the Super Mario Bros. series. These enemies also have trophies which likely use the models we would've seen in motion had they been implemented fully. Presumably, these enemies would've functioned similar to how they do in their source material, with Buzzy Beetles being resistant to Fire attacks but otherwise functioning similarly to a Koopa (though maybe they could cling to ceilings like in Mario 3 and World? Meanwhile Dry Bones likely would've also been resistant to fire attacks but also fairly weak in terms of HP. But instead of being knocked away when killed, they'd simply collapse into a pile of bones and regenerate after a few seconds. Of course, the behaviors of these enemies as they would've appeared and where they would've shown up is entirely speculation as there is no implementation of these enemies beyond their japanese names listed among SSE enemies and their trophies, indicating that they may have been planned but scrapped, or even partially developed but removed late in development.  But I think this level is a likely candidate given that Buzzy Beetles tend to live in caves and this is a cave level populated with the Koopa Troop. And I think Dry Bones just fits with the poisonous gas element as well.

Curiously, neither of these enemies return in Smash Run in Smash Bros. for 3DS, either.

Upon clearing the level, we catch up with Bowser, who's making his getaway with Peach's trophy! Mario jumps at him, but he raises Peach's trophy to stop his attack! Pit fires an arrow at him, causing Bowser to jump out of the way, and the badge Dedede placed on Peach's trophy to fall off! Bowser falls off the cliff, feigning defeat before flying back up in his Clown Car off to the Halberd in the sky with Peach in tow.

Kirby notices the strange badge on the ground...

Anyway, this is the scene I've been raving about. Honestly, I may have been hyping it up a bit, but I really appreciate the subtle character highlight of this scene when the roles are swapped. If you rescued Peach in the very beginning, then Zelda would be the trophy in Peach's place here. You might think that would seem out of place with the obvious imagery of Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach yet again. And while that does fit, I want to call attention to the key detail of the fact that Bowser came here on Ganondorf's orders. I think kidnapping Zelda here shows the power of teamwork between these two juggernauts. But more importantly, I want to note what happens in this scene. You might expect that it would be Link who attacks Bowser to save Zelda, but it's actually still Mario! And the scene plays out the same with Bowser lifting Zelda's trophy to stop Mario's attack and Pit firing an arrow for Bowser to dodge.

Why would I prefer the scene to play out this way? Well, let's not forget the mixup Mario and Link had beforehand. If Zelda is being kidnapped here, that means it was Peach that was fought by Link and Yoshi, and Mario who attacked Link out of fury before. I like the idea that, rather than just being focused on rescuing the princess, Mario here is also focused on making sure Link gets his princess back as well. It clearly shows that he now sees Link as an ally rather than an enemy like he did initially. It's a really cool observation that I really appreciate!

After the Stage Cleared screen, we cut back to Dedede's Castle where the Ancient Minister is overseeing another Subspace Bomb being set off in front of the castle, enveloping it in the explosion...

We're also treated to yet another cutscene immediately following. This one depicts Ganondorf in the control room once again when he receives a transmission from none other than Master Hand! Ganondorf seems to receive orders from him, but judging by his grin, it's pretty clear he has his own agenda. This wouldn't be the first time Ganondorf has feigned his allegiance for his own personal gain, after all.

[Aura]

Stage 14: The Ruins

Music: Underground Theme (Super Mario Land)

  (Squirtle)

We return to the adventures of Lucas and Pokemon Trainer who are now entering the Ruins. We jump right into the action with gameplay this time! I recommend leading off with Pokemon Trainer if you can survive to the end and like to play as new characters. Just trust me on this one.

You'll start the stage next to an elevator that'll carry you deeper into the ruins where you'll find a minecart carrying you even deeper. Jump out before it crashes into the wall and drop down through a tall vertical shaft until you reach a small pool of water at the bottom. Up ahead is a Borboras guarding a gate that's slowly closing. You'll need to push past the Borboras in order to get through either by defeating it with Lucas' projectiles or brute forcing with Squirtle's Withdraw in order to slip through the gate before it closes. No need to get greedy, though, as shortly after the gate closes it'll open again. You just have to awkwardly wait around a bit.

The following area is something out of a Super Mario World level, where the blocks poking from the ceiling and floor will slowly rise and fall, potentially crushing you in some areas. Be mindful of how low the ceiling drops or floor rises and don't get squished! You'll find that to be a recurring threat throughout this stage.

There's a point where you'll find a trophy poking in from the ceiling on one of these moving blocks. You'll need to jump in to grab it as soon as it gets low enough for you to reach and quickly slip your way out to avoid being crushed!

There isn't much to be said going forward as the level drops various hazards to try and crush you if you get too greedy with your movement. Eventually, you'll arrive at a small elevator-like platform that'll carry you around a void where you'll have to avoid a Rotorruet as well as a multitude of Floows. You'll pass by a Turquoise Cube to heal up before moving onward.

At the end of this section is a small pit with three platforms carrying buttons. Hitting each of these buttons will make the platform and segment of ground below it disappear, so be careful about hitting the other two! The only one you need to hit is the one on the right, so I recommend only hitting that one. Just be ready to enter the door as you fall!

This door will lead you to an autoscroller where you'll have to Mites and Jets of fire as you stay alive. Eventually, you'll have to break through some breakable blocks and quickly scamper up to grab an Orange Cube. To help you catch up, there's a minecart up ahead, but if you haven't fallen behind, don't jump into it right away! It can just carry you right off screen into the death plane! Only take it if it's on the left side of the screen. A bit of a rude beginner's trap, huh?

Up ahead, there's a platform that will sink down, even deeper into the ruins. Crystal spikes will protrude from either side of the wall as you fight your way through Fire and Metal Primids. These spikes will deal a lot of damage to the Fire Primids but the Metal ones don't seem to mind as much. Remember to throw the Metal Primids since they don't flinch from regular attacks!

As you near the bottom, you'll pass a door on a platform that leads to a bonus room with two turquoise cubes, so you can heal up a bit! Once you reach the bottom, press forward to the right...

As you continue down the hallway, a new cutscene will play out revealing... a trophy of Ivysaur? This pokemon must've gotten in a battle. We came here chasing after Charizard. Maybe Charizard had a skirmish with Ivysaur and defeated it? Regardless, Pokemon Trainer takes advantage of the moment and captures Ivysaur's trophy in a pokeball! I guess that's how catching pokemon works in this world?

 

With Ivysaur captured, Pokemon Trainer now has two of his three pokemon! This is why I recommended selecting Pokemon Trainer in the beginning. For some reason, the game doesn't let you select a character after this cutscene, so you're stuck playing as whoever you chose in the beginning unless you died along the way. Of course, you may prefer playing as Lucas or switch back to Squirtle immediately in the next section anyway depending on whether or not you considered Ivysaur and Charizard when placing Stickers for Pokemon Trainer.

The next section begins with a platform that'll carry you through various ambushes. These can be pretty tough since they like to spam Armights. And there's fire jets at some points... wow, they really don't want you to use your new recruit, huh? Kind of an odd design decision not to at least throw in some enemies that are vulnerable to grass attacks or something. You're better off playing as Lucas since Armights are vulnerable to his electric attacks. And yes, even if the fire jets are in the foreground and background and not actually in your plane of existence, they'll still hurt you because... idk, they're just so hot or something.

After fighting through these ambushes, a turquoise box ahead will help you heal up before you're met with the next gimmick: Gates tied to buttons. You press the button and the gate will rise. On higher difficulties, the gates stay open for less time. And yes, they can crush you if they close on you. Try to use projectiles to hit them from afar and give yourself a head start!

Up ahead, you'll be introduced to a more complex version of this gimmick: Two buttons and two gates. The second button opens the first gate and the first button opens the second gate. With some clever use of projectiles, most notably Lucas's PK Thunder, you can hit the second button near the first gate and the first button from behind the first gate to buy yourself as much time as possible. If you happen to get stuck between the gates, you can drop down through the platfrom here and make your way back up on the other side. You will be punished by some enemies, though.

Beyond that one, there's another setup just like it with two buttons and gates that are further apart. You'll need to hit the first button to open the first gate and the second button to open the second gate, but the two buttons are further apart as well. Lucas' PK Thunder is especially useful for this one.

Beyond that section, there's another room where you'll need to hit the right switch. This time it's just bonus. You'll probably want to deal with the Roturret first, but hitting the switch on the right will cause the middle section to drop down and reveal a bonus door! This bonus door presents you with a healing opportunity as well as a fairly complex obstacle course to get to a Turquiose and Orange Item Box. Once again, Lucas' PK Thunder is extremely helpful. It's not impossible with Pokemon Trainer, but it's certainly easier with Lucas. Hit the switch to open the gate, jump across the spikes, and pass under the gate before it closes to claim your reward. Then hit the botton on the ceiling to drop down to the exit. Of course, you'll need to fight that Roturret again as you exit.

  Vs. 

Music: Victory Road (Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire)

At the end of this section, you'll have to fight the Charizard we were pursuing with the intention of catching it! Charizard resists Ivysaur's Grass attacks, so you're better off using Squirtle's Water attacks on it. Unfortunately, his weakness to electricity doesn't carry over here in Smash. He does accurately not have any weakness or resistance to Ice, though! So it's not like they totally forgot the Flying type (let's be real, they only thought about type matchups on the surface-level Rock-Paper-Scissors relationship between Grass Fire and Water when designing these three characters). 

Anyway, after all we've been through Charizard alone shouldn't be too tough to defeat. You fight him on a moderately sized floating platform much like Final Destination. It's nice! Occasionally, a platform will float by overhead. Ironically, when I fought him, this platform caused my victory without having to do anything at all. I'd never seen the AI screw up as badly as it did here. The platform was moving toward the left and disappearing on the left side of the screen when Charizard decided, for some reason, he wanted to go land on it. The platform, of course, disappeared before he could get to it and he ran out of jumps so he was much too far away from the platform to recover with Fly. How unfortunate.

Once Charizard is defeated, his trophy drops to the ground and Pokemon Trainer catches it in a pokeball! That's all three of hi spokemon together at last!

Lucas and Pokemon Trainer decide to continue deeper into the ruins to find a massive arena-type area leading far upward... could this be a way out? Maybe if they fly up to the top with Charizard? Something about the way this area looks, though... it kinda screams "boss fight" to me, doesn't it?

Regardless, no boss fight here! And next time it looks like we're checking back in with the Dash 'n Slash club in The Wilds!

[Aura]

Stage 15: The Wilds

We start the stage out with a shot of a giant metallic tank barreling through the wasteland! It looks like a dangerous machine. Perhaps it's a part of the Subspace Army? We cut to a shot of Ike, Meta Knight, and Marth watching the tank from afar. Ike leads the pursuit of the tank by jumping down toward it, with Meta Knight following shortly after. Marth hesitates a bit, perhaps preferring a more tactical approach, but he's clearly outnumbered by his allies, so he'll just have to follow Ike's lead.

Music: With Mila's Divine Protection (Celica Map 1) (Fire Emblem Gaiden)

  

Of course, we're given the selection of Marth, Meta Knight, and Ike. I figured selecting them in inverse order was most appropriate given it's the order they chose to jump forward during the cutscene.

So, the stage begins with a typical march to the right while fighting through various enemies until you arrive at a pit with platforms leading downward. You'll need to make your way down while fighting through various enemies and keeping up with the screen. The Trowlons can be particularly threatening here due to the downward scroll limiting the amount of time you have to react to them beneath you.

Once you reach the bottom, you'll be greeted by a swarm of Bytans to fight through. Charge into the cave to the right to find a Turquoise Cube for some healing! And just on the other side of the cave, jump up and hook back around to find a bonus door hidden up above!

This room contains a few simple platforms to jump across to claim rewards from a Turquoise and Orange Cube. Pretty standard stuff, really.

Continuing onward, you've now got strong winds blowing against you! Fight against the sandstorm as you continue forcing your way to the right! There's an Orange Cube that's pretty much a gimme. Just break through the breakable blocks surrounding it to nab its reward!

Up ahead is a section with large formations of spinning quark mines. You'll need to either set these mines off from the edge of your range or worm your way through the gaps. The latter is probably the better recommendation as these characters are all rather lacking in the projectile department.

Up next, you'll need to climb up a series of platforms to scale a cliff face. The Trowlons that'll appear below you can actually be a pretty solid help! Just make sure to take them out when you reach the top to avoid being spirited away.

Did you think we were done with new enemies? Of course not! Meet the Armank! This is the single most durable enemy in the entire Subspace Emissary, fitting that it's one of the last introduced. As its name implies, it's a tank with an arm instead of a canon! It looks menacing and attacks of any kind will glance right off. But occasionally you'll notice a soft-looking green blob peek out from inside. That's its weak point! If you can break the arm off, the tank will open and you can damage the blob inside! Despite its appearance, though, even this blob is heavily resistant to all types of damage, just significantly less so than the tank itself. Just attack it as much as you can! This thing is technically a standard enemy but functions more like a miniboss! They are by far the toughest enemies in the Subspace Emissary and are a terrifying threat whenever they show up!

After defeating the Armank, you'll need to continue forward by jumping off toward the rest of the stage! You'll drop down onto some arrow lifts that'll drop you into spikes below if you aren't careful. But there is a sweetspot where you'll land safely. It's a bit misleading, though. It makes it look like there might be a treasure or something there. As far as I can tell, there are no such secrets.

Passing through the door to the next area, you'll once again be fighting your way to the right. This time there will be slabs of earth sliding up or down as you move forward. These aren't masking any secrets, so just keep moving forward until you arrive at another autoscrolling descent! This time, there's an added layer of difficulty with boulders dropping down from above! Try to stay underneath solid ceilings so that the boulders will break. Otherwise, carefully navigate your way around the platforms while dodging the boulders as well as fighting off the enemies that approach! Thankfully, no Trowlons are here, so the descent is otherwise a bit easier.

At the bottom, you're met with an ambush of a Big Primid! This is just what it says on the tin: It's a normal Primid that's large with more health. Pretty standard stuff, really, but its increase in size does give it more power and further reach, so don't underestimate its capabilities! They share regular Primid's vulnerabilities to Slash attacks, though, so these characters should have no problems dealing with them.

As you fight your way through this ambush, be mindful of the gate closing to your right. If it closes all the way, the floor will drop out from beneath your feet! You'll likely die before the gate opens up again unless you're Meta Knight, so try to take the Primids out quickly!

Up ahead, we've got a DKC-esque arrangement of Barrel Canons! One of my favorite means of forcing the player to second guess all of their understanding of level design philosophies! Thankfully, if you still have Meta Knight, he can completely break this section open and basically fly around wherever the hell he wants, barrel canons be damned! Right beneath the start is a Turquoise Box where you can get some (likely much needed) healing. Most paths through these canons just feed you back to the start, but you'll want to make your way to the bonus room in the top right of the canon area.

Since this bonus room is fairly easy to miss, it's another freebie one! Just be careful not to get too trigger happy with breaking the destructable blocks or you'll have to bounce upward using knockback from the Jyks. Platform across and you can get to the Orange Cube with ease! But be mindful of the spikes above your head! Beyond that, there's two Turquoise Cubes in here to claim rewards from, too. Both of which are much easier to get to. Exiting the room will drop you into a series of barrel canons that'll send you back to the entrance again and from here, you can head on to the right to progress with the level.

Through the next door you'll be treated with a Turquoise Cube to heal up before you progress further.

The three swordsmen soon arrive at the tank which seems to have stopped in preparation to fight us. At which point, we're surprised by the tank transforming into a humanoid form!

  

You're once again given an opportunity to select your fighters, ironically making that moment of healing up earlier a bit redundant.

Vs. Galleom

Meet Galleom! This guy might look familiar even if you've only played Smash Ultimate, but he's an original boss created by the Subspace Emissary! And don't understimate him as a lot of his attacks can be quite deadly!

It's a bit unfortunate, but for reasons that'll become clear soon, I don't wanna detail this boss fight just yet. Just be wary that he's capable of a lot of fist pounding, jumping, slamming, and he can transform into his tank form to try and ram you! Worth noting, Marth and Ike are capable of countering his attacks, turning his damage output against himself. If this is your goal, keep in mind that Ike's counter has a larger multiplier on the damage dealt.

As for damage output, Galleom is vulnerable to Water and Freeze attacks, but resistant to Fire. While fighting, you might notice that Trophy Stands don't seem to be appearing... I won't say much else, but there just might be a reason for that. For now, just focus on taking Galleom out with the full force of your attacks!

Upon defeat, Galleom retreats from battle, jumping away from the heroes and onto some familiar-looking ruins. The ground beneath him crumbles and he falls into a chasm underground... Unfortunately, I think we know someone who just might be right underneath...

Regardless, that's it for Stage 15! Next time we'll check back in with Lucas and Pokemon Trainer in the Ruined Hall!

[Aura]

Stage 16: The Ruined Hall

This stage begins immediately after the last one, with Lucas and Pokemon Trainer still at the bottom of the massive pit that Galleom had just collapsed into! Once again, we have to fight! This looks like a good opportunity to test out Charizard's strength!

 

Vs. Galleom (Part 2)

The devs must've been really proud of this boss fight because not only do you fight him twice, you fight him twice in a row! As far as I'm aware, this fight is exactly identical to the first one. Part of my reasoning for not wanting to cover this guy in detail in the last post is due to the fact that this stage is actually incredibly short, featuring just this boss fight and nothing else, so this post would be incredibly short otherwise. In addition, the screenshots of Galleom's attacks on Smash Wiki happen to be taken during this fight rather than the first one, so I didn't want to include that minor spoiler at the start of the first fight.

But fear not, we'll cover his moves here!

As previously mentioned, Galleom likes to jump and stomp on the ground in various ways. He'll jump across the stage, Stomp the ground with a firm step, or spring high into the sky to crash down. If he stomps on you, he can bury you, so you'll want to make sure to avoid that. In addition, these attacks can be incredibly deadly on high difficulties. It's a pretty common trend on Intense difficulty that Galleom's attacks are capable of instantly killing you, so be extra mindful of that!

In addition to stomping the ground, Galleom will slam his fists into the ground as well! When he slams his fists together, be especially mindful of the shockwave that will be unleashed! It can send you flying!

Beyond slamming his fists into the ground, he can turn that firepower into a powerful uppercut as well!

One of his easier to avoid attacks is his Double Lariat in which he'll rapidly spin around, creating a vortex that will suck you in. You can easily escape from the suction and even get some cheap shots in, just don't get too greedy lest you get sucked into a powerful combo attack!

Occasionally, Galleom will stiffen up and collapse onto the battlefield, crushing you with his weight! Get out of the way when you see him stiffen!

And he's not done with just his limbs! Let's not forget those missiles on his back! He can fire those at you, too! If you're playing as a character that can deflect projectiles, you might want to knock them back. But I'm actually unsure if Lucas' Psi Magnet is capable of absorbing them.

Of course, Galleom can transform into his tank form and barrel through the stage as well.

And this form can fire missiles, too!

And Galleom's trophy can be obtained here, too! I actually made an erroneous observation that Trophy Stands don't appear in the previous fight. That's actually consistent with all bosses your first time around! I've just never noticed that detail! He's a pretty big target so it's not exactly hard to land the stand on him. I'd say the best time to hit him is while he's in his tank form or cooling down from firing his missiles.

Now, you might recall that I mentioned Galleom has a weakness to Ice and Water attacks. If you're using Lucas, you definitely want to exploit this with PK Freeze if you can. You might think Pokemon Trainer would benefit from using Squirtle, and while that's true, he also benefits from using Charizard a lot more than you'd think factoring in Galleom's resistance to Fire. The main reason? Charizard's side special is incredibly powerful against bosses! If you can get right onto the boss and use this attack, it can do a sizeable chunk of their health in one hit! It does leave you vulnerable, but go for it if you have an opening! It tears right through Galleom's health bar! Especially with the Specials Direct boost from the stickers!

Upon defeat, Galleom begins to wind down. In a last-ditch effort to defeat his opponents, he reaches out and grabs Pokemon Trainer and Lucas! He reveals one final weapon: A Subspace Bomb that's active inside of his head! Has it been counting down this whole time?! Pokemon Trainer can't reach his pokeballs, so it's all up to Lucas! With a PK Thunder, he's able to break off Galleom's arm, causing him and Pokemon Trainer to fall to the ground, narrowly avoiding the explosion of the subspace bomb! But there's a bigger problem now, they're now falling straight for the ground! But just as Lucas braces for impact, Meta Knight swoops in to catch them both! As the ruins are swallowed up by Galleom's bomb, Wario's trophy gets sucked into it as well. I suppose that's the last we'll be seeing of him? Maybe... Lucas and Pokemon trainer shake hands after recovering from their near-death experience. It seems we have yet another set of parties joining together!

And yeah, that's that for the stage! Like I said, an extremely short stage but there's not really much to be done about that, huh? Next time, we'll see what Kirby and Friends are up to now. They seem to have made their way to the Wilds as well! We'll just have to see with Stage 17!

[Aura]

Stage 17: The Wilds (Part 2)

We begin our next stage immediately following the events of the previous one, with the Ancient Minister overlooking the explosion left by Galleom's bomb. Somberly, he reflects on the detonation at Dedede's castle. He seems to be bothered by the fact that the R.O.B.s have to sacrifice themselves in order to operate the bombs. So why is he doing this? What is the purpose of these strange bombs?

As he's reflecting, he's shot at by Pit from afar. It seems our crew has followed him all the way here! Are these two parties going to join up?

Music: Step: The Plain (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)

    

Once again, we have our choice of Kirby, Mario, Pit, Link, and Yoshi. I went in the order of Yoshi, Kirby, Mario, and Link. At this point I've kinda lost track of who I've played the most so far.

The stage starts off in an autoscroller segment filled with various enemies and ambushes, you get the deal at this point. Fight your way through the ambushes, using the Trackballs to your advantage. Eventually, you'll come across a vertical Trackball with some destructable blocks. There's a thick stack of them on the left side you'll want to break through in order to gain access to a trophy they're blocking off. Do this quickly before the camera catches up or you might not be able to snag that trophy!

Up ahead, there's another ambush on top of a platform. The path eventually leads to an area with three elevators. If you look carefully, you'll notice a bonus door beneath the elevators. The middle elevator is blocking the pathway down. You'll need to take that one up but quickly drop off of it in order to slip below it. Be mindful that these things can crush you if you aren't careful!

The bonus room is a gimme, just a giant track ball you'll have to knock forward with a strong attack in order to get at the goodies on the other side: a Turquoise and Orange Cube. Since the elevators return to their place, the way you entered will be blocked off when you leave the room! You'll need to break the nearby bomb blocks in order to reveal a hidden ladder to make your way back up to the elevators.

From here, you'll want to take the leftmost elevator. There isn't any pressing reason, but the other two elevators will only go up so high. The leftmost one will go all the way to the top, carrying you to the next section of the level. Be mindful of the Feyesh along the way, of course!

Proceed to the right to reach a door that'll progress to the next section. Here, you'll need to step on a platform that will carry you across a canyon to the other side where you'll be met by some primids and a Nagagog. Further ahead, you'll find some wind blowing from the left this time, so be careful not to be pushed forward too fast as you dodge the spikes falling from the ceiling of the tunnel! Take your time navigating as there's a wall of spikes you'll have to jump over. It's actually a bit easier said than done to avoid damage.

At the end of the tunnel, you'll have to fight through an ambush with wind blowing into another spike wall. Try to stay to the left, but the Scope Primids will pressure you to approach the right occasionally. The most menacing enemy here is the Greap, of course. Take care of it as quickly as you can! The wind can make it especially annoying.

Platforming across up ahead will lead you to another segment where you'll ride a platform across a canyon. This time, however, you'll be met with a second platform. Do not make the mistake I did. Jump on this platform shortly after the first platform passes it. The screen will suddenly speed up and this platform moves really quickly on its own with or without you on it! With Yoshi, it was impossible to catch up to it when I jumped after the first platform stopped moving! I thought it would leave when I jumped to it, dammit!

Anyway, this second platform will swoop down under a wall and carry you up to a generator spawning Bytans. Fight them off as well as the nearby Nagagog before breaking your way through the ceiling. Nab the reward from the Orange Cube to the left, it's free save for a couple of Spaaks this way. Then head to the right to reach the end of the stage.

The following cutscene shows the Ancient Minister desperately firing lasers at Mario and Link to slow their pursuit before they're stopped suddenly by a swarm of R.O.B.s. The Ancient Minister must've decided that it was best to retreat since there are so many R.O.B. nearby, but before he can, one of the R.O.B.s jumps up to grab the bomb from him! Clearly, they aren't about to let their objective fail and they're willing to sacrifice their lives to do it. The bomb drops from the Ancient Minister's hold, and that R.O.B. breaks in the process. Two more approach to activate the bomb and the Ancient Minister watches on knowing he's about to sacrifice a great number of allies. Mario and Pit rush in to try and stop the R.O.B. from detonating the bomb, but more R.O.B. come in to forcibly pull them away. The ancient minister watches somberly as one R.O.B. waves goodbye to him before the bomb detonates and all of the R.O.B. get sucked into the explosion. Our heroes narrowly escaping thanks to Mario riding on Yoshi and Kirby carrying Pit and Link away with his Warp Star.

...What the HELL! Why does this scene have to be so heartbreaking?! It's clear now that these R.O.B.s seem to have some degree of sentience and sentimentality. Otherwise, why would one wave goodbye to the Ancient Minister? And with that in mind, it only begs the question of what cause would be so important that so many of these guys would be willing to sacrifice their lives!

It's still gonna be a bit before we get our answer to that question. But next time, we're gonna be taking a bit of a detour and catching up with another party we haven't been with in a while as we enter the next stage: The Swamp.

[Aura]

Source: IGN

Stage 18: The Swamp

 

Music: Bramble Blast (Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest)

Once again, we're jumping right into gameplay with no cutscene to set the tone. Diddy seems to still dragging Fox along in his mission to rescue DK from the Subspace Emissary. Last we saw of Bowser, he didn't seem to have DK's trophy with him. So what did he do with it? It's up to Diddy to find out, of course.

I led off with Diddy here since this is mainly his mission. Like the other recent stages, you'll be fighting the Koopa Troop throughout this level. Not too far from the beginning, you'll be introduced to the gimmick of the stage as heavy winds blow upward from below, pushing you in the air and elevating your jumps dramatically. These winds also make it fairly difficult to drop down. When you land on the leaf platform hovering over this pit, it'll quickly sink down, so try to balance your high jumps with the fast sinking of the platform to make your way across. But before continuing further ahead, you might want to take a peek down below to find an Orange Cube! Getting back up from down there is pretty easy due to the bomb block you can use to clear the way back up.

The platforming in this stage starts to get a little more challenging than we've been dealing with recently, as we're now doing some fairly dangerous jumps over pits. Up ahead, there are some rafts swinging from vines like pendulums. Be careful and use Fox and Diddy's Up Specials if you find yourself in an awkward position!

Platform your way forward and pass through the door to continue further ahead. You'll eventually notice a Turquoise Cube behing some bomb blocks near some ladders. You'll need to jump to it from the opposite side in order to get to it. But it's just a Turquoise Cube, so I'd say it's only really worthwhile to go to if you can use the healing it'll provide, it's not necessary for completion.

Be careful of the windy section up ahead. If you look carefully, you'll notice the first section is blowing downward rather than upward, and same can be said for the end. If you carelessly rush ahead, it'll blow you right into the pit! Time your jump so that the platform is below you or you're done for! The jump off of the platform at the end can be a little tricky as well. Fox can use his Fox Illusion, and Diddy can use his Rocketbarrel Boost to brute force his way through the wind.

At the end, you'll have to fight through an ambush with a launcher that'll send you flying right into that downward gust of wind. Stay out of that thing while you fight! Upon clearing the ambush, some platforms will spawn allowing you to climb further upward into a section with a moving ladder!

This section I think is pretty fun, you can climb up and down the ladder to dodge the bullet bills that shoot across the screen, but make sure not to climb to high or low or you'll brush against the spikes on the walls!

There's a bonus room around the midpoint of this section that seems to only hold a Turquoise Cube until you take advantage of the upward gust of wind to jump aaall the way to the top to find a hidden Orange Cube! This is a fun one! I like that you just get to have fun with a really big jump in a relatively safe environment. (You will take damage if you go off screen).

At the top of the ladder, make sure to hit the bomb block quickly so that you don't get walled in by the autoscrolling! Once you get out to sunlight, go through the door!

As Diddy and Fox continue walking along, Diddy is suddenly shot by the Dark Canon and reverted to a trophy! Up ahead, we see Bowser who's once again back to trying to claim yet more trophies! It looks like he's brought a new one to replace the one that Pit destroyed. Maybe he found the one that was previously being used by Wario? He doesn't hesitate to aim at Fox as well, but Fox manages to dodge the canon. Having missed Fox, Bowser directs the Shadow Bugs make a copy of Diddy Kong from his trophy the way they did with Zelda before.

Bowser prepares to shoot at Fox while he's distracted by False Diddy when suddenly two lasers shoot at him from the air and in flies another Arwing! It's Falco! He jumps out of the arwing, dashes forward, kicks the dark canon into the air and blasts it to pieces with his... wait a minute, two blasters?! Where does the other one go!?

Anyway, frustrated with the destruction of the canon, Bowser retreats to leave Star Fox to deal with False Diddy who gets swarmed by even more shadow bugs, causing him to grow ginormous in size! Fox quickly taps Diddy's trophy to awaken him so that he can join in the fight as well. He's naturally shocked to see a giant copy of himself, but he quickly needs to spring into action to fight back!

Music: Airship Theme (Super Mario Bros. 3)

  

For this fight, you'll be able to choose from Diddy, Fox, and the new recruit, Falco! Of course we're going to be choosing him first! He'll be followed by Fox and Diddy.

Falco is yet another character that's normally hidden, so this may be many players' first chance at using him!

False Diddy is beyond the standard "giant" size as if he'd picked up a Super Mushroom. If he manages to get ahold of a Beam Sword, he can reach across the entire screen! Watch out! Of course, with such huge size, it can be easy to exploit gaps in his hitboxes to cheese the fight. But this fight can be fairly rough without that knowledge. False Diddy is really heavy and hard to launch, and his attacks have quite the reach! He just might get some cheap kills on you. To your benefit, though, this is a run-off stage, so it can be quite easy to combo him right off the edge of the screen since he's such a big target.

Upon defeating False Diddy, the fake trophy dissolves into shadow bugs. Falco decides this little detour to save Fox's sorry tail is over and tries to get back to his role in the mission. But, just like with Fox, Diddy also refuses to let Falco leave and grabs him to pull him along, roping him into the same mess as Fox humorously shrugs his shoulders and follows along. Looks like this is a full-on Star Fox matter now!

Music: Yoshi's Island (Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island)

  

I find the choice of music for this section a bit strange. You'd think we'd have Star Fox music to reference Falco joining, but instead we're given Yoshi's Island music? I suppose it's designed to fit the scenery a bit better. Anyway, you're given the choice between Diddy, Fox, and Falco. I decided to start with Fox since I led with Diddy before, and follow up with Falco after, leaving Diddy for last. He's gotta make sure the other two pitch in, after all!

Anyway, this next part of the stage more accurately reflects its namesake. We're out of the stony ruins and into a watery swampland! You'll start off by taking a minecart down a slope to a platform below. You don't need to be afraid of the launchers here, they'll just send you on a fun wavy ride from launcher to launcher!

Eventually, you'll arrive at an ambush where these launchers will turn against you again. Once again, we're dealing with the Koopa Troop so expect yet more Koopas, Hammer Bros., Goombas, and Bullet Bills! Falco's deflector works just as well for them as Fox's, but here in Brawl, his deflector no longer works the same as Fox's. Instead, he kicks it forward in a more reckless manner. His deflector is consequently more of a weapon than a shield, but it's still capable of deflecting projectiles all the same, just in an area in front of him rather than around him.

After fighting through the first ambush, you'll be met with another DKC-esque barrel canon section. You'll pass a Turquoise Cube at one point which you can heal up at before moving onward to a section where you'll need to angle your shots at the bomb blocks to destroy them. Doing so with your initial shot will land you in the next barrel cannon immediately behind the block, but missing doesn't punish you much, it just feels a little bad to land in the water and have to break the block the boring way or swim in shame back to the canon to try again.

The door at the end of the section leads to another similar section where you'll be using springs to bounce along from island to island. There's a turquoise box a bit further up beyond the top of a tall vertical wall that you'll need to jump up to reach. You can bounce off of the nearby Parakoopa to get a little extra height but your jumps and Up Special should be enough to get there. Use the springs to bounce yourself over the nearby spikes, but the next set of spikes are far too high to clear with the spikes from below. Tunnel underneath through the destructable blocks instead.

The falling arrow blocks ahead may incentivize you to proceed forward quickly, but if you brave the drop down, you'll be rewarded with a sneaky bonus room! In here, there's a Turquoise Cube and a Heart Container, but if you look closely, you'll notice a bomb block hidden in the water. Hit it to reveal the secret collectible underneath the odd protrusion of blocks!

What follows further ahead is a rather messy mixture of springs and spikes. Snake your way around and slip through the door to progress!

The next section is a rather scary one in which you'll be riding a platform when suddenly you notice something bubbling in the water and...

This thing launches out at you! This is a Thorn Helix and it's not as scary as it looks, but it will demand you move away from it while thinking ahead of where to jump to next. Dodge the Thorn Helixes as you ride the platform to the ambush ahead where you'll fight a large wave of Paratroopas. These guys can be a bit nasty in large numbers, so be careful here!

The next section is an autoscroller across some wooden platforms. Be especially careful here as Thorn Helixes will crash into these wooden platforms and destroy them! Watch the ripples of the water and always have your next move planned! At the end, a small platform will deliver you to safety and the end of the stage!

It's here where we finally see where DK's Trophy was taken. It's on board a vehicle known as the Smash Skiff. His trophy is shackled so that, even if his trophy is awakened, he'll still be bound... as if such puny shackles could hold such a badass down. Regardless, just as our heroes catch up to the Skiff, it speeds off and begins flying toward a floating island in the distance! But just as things look hopeless for Diddy, he just so happens to be in good company to continue the pursuit! With a snarky smirk, Falco looks to the horizon as the Star Fox's flagship: The Great Fox rises to the sky. It looks like we're closing in on the enemy. Perhaps Diddy hasn't been wasting Star Fox's time after all! Regardless, we've got some more fun up ahead. In the meantime, we'll need to check up on yet another party that's been pretty isolated for a while now.

=============

But! But, but, but! This is our first time in a while getting a new recruit! After clearing Stage 18, Falco joins the Team! And you know that means Sticker time!

For Falco's build, I decided to focus on similar areas to Fox as, while the details of his moves are generally fairly different, the actual classifications are mostly the same, so the same stickers are good for both. However, comparing my sticker build for Falco to Fox, I think it's clear I've gotten better at doing this than when I started with Fox.

 Wolf (Star Fox Assault): Arm, Leg Attack +15

 Jet the Hawk (Sonic Riders): Leg Attack +17

 Pigma (Star Fox: Assault): Arm Attack +7

 Leon (Star Fox Command): Energy Attack +9

 Manaphy (Pokemon Series): Direct Specials Attack +4

 Brier (Yoshi Touch & Go): Launch Resistance +7

 Deku Nut (Zelda: Ocarina of Time): Indirect Specials +4

 Spinner (Zelda: Twilight Princess): Body, Spin Attack +4

You would not believe how hard it was to cram all of these little stickers in here. I compromised a few things here and there a bit, but I felt like it was worth it for the various things all these stickers buff. I kept finding myself just barely not being able to fit a sticker of one of the categories and kept rearranging them and swapping them out with other shapes to see if I could fit just one more because surely I could. I think this is ultimately a sticker build I can really be proud of, though, as the compromises are only fairly minor and I kept the most important ones (Wolf and Jet) in tact! Ironically, it's looking like the stickers of Star Wolf are more useful for Fox and Falco than the stickers of the Star Fox characters!

Anyway, that's it for this post! Next time we'll see what's going on back at the Research Facility in Stage 19!

[Aura]

Apologies for the lack of updates these last couple days! I ran into unexpected internet issues that prevented me from accessing the site from my computer which is very much necessary!

Credit: IGN

Stage 19: The Research Facility (Part 2)

 

Music: Vs. Parasdite Queen (Metroid Prime)

This is another stage that jumps you right into the action! When you enter the stage from the world map, you'll have your choice between Pikachu and Zero Suit Samus who are still breaking deeper into the research facility to recover Samus' Power Suit! I led with Samus here since Pikachu is really just here for support right now. Don't worry, we'll play as him later on!

Right away upon starting the stage, you'll notice the power seems to be off in this sector of the Research Facility. The stage is incredibly dark and it's fairly difficult to see. The edges of the ceiling and floor have lights that'll guide you along, but enemies and other smaller platforms won't be so easy to spot. Tread carefully!

Not too far ahead, we're introduced to the Glice! These are Ice variants of the Glunder and Glire. As you can probably expect, they're vulnerable to Fire but resistant to Water and Freeze. They're more or less the same as the others, though their capability of freezing you does make them significantly more threatening. Though this may be a bit anticlimactic, this is the final new enemy in the Subspace Emissary! Going forward from here, we'll only be seeing repeat enemies!

Of course, alongside Glice, you'll also be fighting through the typical R.O.B. enemies these two have been dealing with so far.

Up ahead, you'll soon be introduced to the gimmick of this stage: There is a button you can press to activate the power in the area and turn the lights on! This will make it easier to deal with enemies in the area but the lights will only stay on briefly, so stay near the button until you're ready to make a push deeper!

But while the lights are on, if you continue further ahead, you'll find red blocks blocking your path. This is a continuation of this gimmick. While the lights are on, these blocks will switch positions, often obstructing your path. So you'll have to continue from this point through the darkness.

If you're observant, you'll notice the button up ahead is a trap because it'll only close the blocks on either side of you. Hitting it will spawn two Big Primids for you to fight while you wait for the lights to turn back on. Let this be a lesson that it's not always a good thing to hit these buttons! Make sure you understand your surroundings before you hit them!

Up ahead, we've got some fairly dangerous platforming across these red blocks over a pit. Be careful of jumping on therm while they're moving after hitting a button, but be quick because you are  on a time limit and the walls might crush if you if you're caught between them as they close! At the other side, you'll have to wait for the power to go out again before you can progress.  Thankfully, the block above you here won't reach far enough down to crush you.

At the end of the hall, there's a layout of platforms with a few enemies to fight through and a button to turn on the lights. Make sure you wait for the power to turn back off and hit the button one last time right before going down the ladder. Because at the bottom are three red blocks that, while the power is off, are blocking the way to a bonus room! The room itself is a Gimme with an Orange and Turquoise Cube.

Moving forward, we're out of the dark section of the research facility and have now entered a small hallway leading further in! Fight your way through one last wave of enemies before making your way to the end of the first section.

Samus and Pikachu finally arrive at the room where the Power Suit is being contained. But as they approach, they're ambushed by not one, but two false Samus as a last-ditch effort to stop them.

Music: Sector 1 (Metroid Fusion)

  vs  (False)  (False)

Unlike last time we had a 2v2, this fight doesn't spawn in an AI partner. So this is more of a 1v2 in single player mode. The other character will simply take your place if you're KO'd. I went with Pikachu here since he's the first who noticed these two.

You'll fight the two False Samus on a flat platform with Samus' Power Suit visible in the background it's actually a pretty neat stage, I think! As you fight, be careful not to be comboed into oblivion by the two opponents! Try your best to keep them on one side of you so you can throw attacks into the crowd! Once you've KO'd one, the other should be a lot easier to take out.

With security cleared out, it's finally time for Samus to reclaim her most powerful weapon. Upon suiting up, Samus blasts her way through the door, wholly ready to kick ass!

Music: Theme of Samus Aran, Space Warrior (Super Metroid)

 

From this point forward, Zero Suit Samus is more or less replaced by her power suited form. Unfortunately, these two do share a trophy base similarly to Zelda and Pokemon Trainer, so your stickers have to accommodate both and I somehow forgot about this detail when I chose Samus' stickers. Thankfully, Samus does still benefit from the stickers I chose, though I definitely would probably arrange the stickers differently if I'd considered Samus' main form being more prominent. Still, Zero Suit Samus isn't entirely out of the picture, which I'll explain going forward.

Ironically, Samus is actually arguably weaker than Zero Suit Samus. She's a much lower tier character on her own because she's a lot slower. But, her heavier weight does help out a bit in the SSE, and her attacks are a lot stronger for DPS, so this is definitely where the Power Suit shines brightest in the series!

So, I naturally lead with Samus going into this next section. The first part is just a feel-good section where you get to use Samus' new Power Suit to blast through a hoard of R.O.B. Keep in mind that Samus' Power Suit has far more attacks that don't deal electric damage, so fight these guys off with explosions and melee!

Up ahead is a section where you'll have to burrow through a setup of destructable blocks, being extra careful not to dig too far down or you might fall into a pit. If you dig your way to the bottom left corner, you'll find a trophy! Just be extra careful not to break the block below it because it's right above a pit! Continue to the right to progress.

The next section features new blue and red blocks that move steadily up and down between a floor and ceiling with spikes. Hit the buttons on the sides to stop the platform if you feel you need to in order to safely jump across. The Red blocks move faster than the Blue blocks.

Through the door ahead will lead you to a fairly confusing wide-open area. Throughout this section, you can press buttons to call lifts that will carry you along rails. If you stand on these lifts too long, they'll carry you right off screen. But if you jump off too quickly, you might be missing secrets! They can be a little frustrating to work with but as long as you're thorough you shouldn't run into any issues with points of no return. On higher difficulties, these lifts will move a lot faster, so you'll have even less time to react.

As you make your way forward, you'll have to fight your way through an ambush of enemies before a button appears allowing you to call another lift that'll carry you downward. But, before riding this lift to its destination, you might want to head down and to the left where you'll find a bomb block foreshadowed by the durable blocks you could see from the ambush area. Hit this block to clear the way to a bonus room!

This bonus room just might take the cake for most dangerous yet, as two of those red blocks with buttons appear here and are moving really fast! You'll need to stop them and swiflty move past them, but they stay stopped for a very small amount of time as well. Talk about pressure! Try to hit them in convenient spots so you can quickly slip under without getting hit to claim your prize from the Turquoise Cube in the middle and the Orange Cube on the opposite side of the pit at the end of the room.

Progressing forward, you'll be met with a marathon where you'll need to jump quickly from lift to lift, it can be a bit disorienting on higher difficulties so be extra diligent here! Progress through the door at the end of the marathon to continue!

Music: Main Theme (Metroid)

This next section is a Portal Maze! I'm generally not a fan of maze levels like this, but this one is relatively linear and harmless, it doesn't really waste your time with a bunch of trial and error. There are various teleporters throughout this section which you can activate just like doors. I suggest taking the lower one in this first area. It'll lead you to an ambush of enemies that'll reveal two Teleporters. One will lead you back and one will lead forward. Take the one on the right to proceed toa  vertical section where you'll use springs to climb your way through some enemies to a section where you'll have to wait for a lift to carry you across to another teleporter on a distant platform. However, you'll notice an enemy up ahead insisting that there must be something more valuable there. Hold off on this teleporter and continue riding the platform further along to another teleporter floating in the air. The platform will slide under it allowing you to enter, taking you to a small hallway above the starting area with a small button. Hit the button to open the gate to the exit of the maze! Return through the teleporter and go back through that one you skipped over! You'll drop down a shaft, pass an Orange Cube, and return to the main are from here. This is the room the top Teleporter would take you to initially and you'd be able to claim the Orange Cube early, but there'd be no purpose to it since you can't get up through the shaft and you'll pass the Orange Cube on the natural way back anyway.

Once you've opened the gate and returned to the main room, enter the door ahead for a Turquoise Cube and another door!

As the two make their way out, Samus is unexpectedly ambushed by her nemesis: Ridley! She's dragged along the wall of a large area. Pikachu uses his Thunder attack to attack Ridley, forcing him to drop Samus and now we're met with one of the game's most iconic bosses!

 

You'll again choose between Samus and Pikachu. Normally it would make sense for Samus to fight Ridley, but she seems like she might need some time to recoup. I think it makes sense for Pikachu to take the fight first!

Vs. Ridley

This character had been requested as a Smash character as far back as when he was first seen in Melee's announcement trailer! What a big deal he is! Unfortunately, for the longest time, the director of the game seemed to be under the impression that this character simply couldn't be properly represented as a playable character as, in his eyes, Ridley needed to be a giant, oppressing beast flying through the air and dominating the battleground. There is accuracy to such a claim, but Ridley fans would ultimately get their catharsis one day. For now, though, this was the compromise Sakurai went for: Having Ridley appear in the game as a giant boss character and, quite frankly, it was just as exciting at the time to see Ridley in the game at all! I don't think people had the mindset yet of being quite so offended by Ridley being a boss character.

Now, let's get into how Ridley fights! You fight him on another Final Destination-like platform where he'll generally hover over an edge of the stage, forcing you to jump to attack him, or pepper him from below with projectiles. Naturally, most of his attacks can punish you for committing too hard to aggro attacks, though, so don't leave yourself open!

Ridley has a couple of attacks to strike you while you're in the air. One involves a quick somersault to swipe at you and another has him charge at quick speeds across the screen.

But don't think you're safe just because you're staying grounded, either! Ridley has an attack where he'll scrape his tail along the entire length of the platform, forcing you to jump to dodge it, and another where he'll violently swipe along the platform with his talons.

Another attack Ridley has will have him crash down onto the platform from the air in a manner similar to Galleom.

And yet another has him flying in from the background sort of like some of Master Hand's attacks!

Perhaps the attack that leaves Ridley most vulnerable is this one where he stands on one side and beats his wings to blow you back with a burst of wind. It doesn't really accomplish much and if you're close you can slip some free hits in! I swear this one is just a taunt.

I really think the devs did a good job of making Ridley feel violent and oppressive! Though it would've been cool to see him shooting some fireballs or grabbing the player like he did Samus in that cutscene, as these are both attacks he does in the games!

When it comes to damage output, Ridley takes extra damage from Electric attacks, another point for Pikachu! He also takes additional damage from Freeze and Water attacks, but is resistant to Fire and Indirect Specials which is another point against Samus. I guess it really would help Samus to have Pikachu along for her missions, huh?

As for claiming Ridley's trophy, it's the same as any other boss. Trophy Stands won't appear the first time you fight him, but if you revisit the stage, they'll begin to appear. Be careful about his positioning! If you hit him while he's hovering off the stage, the trophy might fall right into the pit! Try to hit him while he's overhead instead!

Upon defeating Ridley, Samus and Pikachu have successfully made their way out of the Research Facility. But they quickly spy a new target: A different facility from which they witness R.O.B.s carrying a Subspace Bomb out of. This must be where those bombs are coming from... It seems our heroes are ready to move and put a stop to the assault!

And that's the end of the stage!

While you are given a notification that Samus joins your team, as explained before, she shares the same slot as her Zero Suit counterpart just like Shiek with Zelda or Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard with Pokemon Trainer. Not really sure why they weren't included here. Regardless, welcome to the world, Samus!

If you're curious about playing as Zero Suit Samus, you can do so by hovering over Samus' icon on the character select screen and moving the C-Stick on the GameCube Controller, Right Stick on the Classic Controller, C on the Nunchuck, or Minus on the Wii Remote alone. SmashWiki says that this has to wait unitl the end/postgame, but I've yet to test it in an earlier state. I'll try it out next time I play!

[Aura]

Stage 20: Outside of the Ancient Ruins

We start up the next stage with a R.O.B. being swarmed by Pikmin! With a quick spin, the R.O.B. knocks all of the Pikmin off, killing them in large numbers! This leaves the nearby Olimar rather intimidated as he really has no clue what to do from here. Perhaps he came here in search of treasure when he was faced with this daunting foe? Just as things seem hopeless for him, a Red Pikmin calls his attention to a sound in the distance. The Blue Falcon comes storming through. Captain Falcon springs out of the machine's cockpit and slams the R.O.B. with a powerful Falcon Punch! Humorously, this ultimately culminates in Captain Falcon sliding into most of the remaining Pikmin and slaughtering them all on accident, leaving Olimar rather dejected. Not only did Captain Falcon make quick work of the enemy he was struggling with, but he also slaughtered the remaining of his forces like some sort of madman. You can almost imagine the sheer horror in Olimar's head as he watches this unfold. This was always one of the funniest cutscenes in the entire SSE to me.

Music: Main Theme (Pikmin)

 

Once again, we're introduced to a new party! This time, Captain Falcon and Olimar! Olimar seems to have gotten swept up in something a lot bigger than whatever he was here to do originally, but Captain Flacon must be on a mission to fight against the Subspace Emissary. Contrary to how Olimar was introduced, though, he's actually quite a powerful character in the SSE for reasons similar to Ness and Lucas, but that's mainly due to stickers and the like. Strangely, though, his Pikmin don't seem to latch onto enemies the way they did in the cutscene. They just pass through and damage them along the way like standard projectiles. Also, keep in mind that Olimar can have up to 6 Pikmin out in this game! I'm so used to Smash 4 and Ultimate where he can only have three! However, the Pikmin he plucks are no longer in a predictable order, the color will always be random.

Captain Falcon is similarly interesting. First of all, he's another Hidden Character, so this could be your first chance to play as him. Beyond that, his Falcon Punch is one of the most powerful attacks in the game, though it doesn't provide him Super Armor here like it does in Smash 4 and Ultimate, so use it a bit more sparingly. Anyway, for narrative purposes I led with Captain Falcon before Olimar.

When starting the stage here, one neat detail to note is that Olimar and Louie's ship from Pikmin 2 can be seen in the background! I always thought that was pretty cool. Anyway, things in this level start out pretty standard. You'll quickly cross a narrow bridge which you can drop below in order to enter a bonus room. You'll need to react quickly in this room because there's a trophy that spawns in with you! If you don't catch it in midair, it'll fall into a tiny pit below! Be careful not to fall in yourself, as well! You have plenty of time to nab this trophy, though, so as long as you're relatively quick you should be fine.

There's not really much to say about this stage, honestly. Just continue forward. Eventually you'll reach an area where your path is blocked by a Gamyga and there is a staircase of destructable blocks overhead. Be careful to avoid breaking the platform while dealing with the R.O.B. launcher on it and platform your way up these stairs to reach a bonus door!

This bonus room houses not one, but two Orange Cubes making it incredibly important for completion! There's an Orange Cube that drops a trophy onto some arrow lift platforms that'll drop when you land on them. Be careful to grab that trophy quickly and jump off! It's pretty easy to die here on accident. The other one is a bit safer, tucked away in the far corner. Once you've claimed your prizes, take your leaf and continue onward in the level! Just ahead is a door that leads to the end of the first section.

Olimar and Captain Falcon soon arrive at a cliff overlooking the sea where Falcon spots the Smash Skiff approaching the floating island these two are on. He also spots an Arwing that contains Falco and Diddy Kong in hot pursuit! Wait a minute, where did Fox and the Great Fox go? I suppose Fox is back on duty? Falco drops Diddy out of his cockpit and Diddy catches himself in the air with his RockerBarrels and wipes the Skiff clean with his Peanut Popgun! Captain Falcon decides it's time to join in on the fun and, to Olimar's dismay, he grabs him to bring him along for the ride! Diddy Kong awakens DK's trophy and it doesn't take the King of the Jungle to break out of the pitiful chains the SSE tried to hold him down with. Captain Falcon and Olimar land on the Skiff ready to lend their support when more Primids arrive on the scene. It's time to fight!

Music: Fire Field (F-Zero)

   

Our newly introduced party didn't take long to join in with another! Now we have our choices between DK, Diddy, Olimar, and Captain Falcon! Of course I'll be leading with DK followed by Olimar, Captain Falcon, and Diddy Kong. Ironically, I wound up dying a lot due to a bunch of really stupid blunders. But I did survive to the end even if it was a rather embarrassing display!

Specifically of note, watch out for the Trowlons during this fight as they can be a bit nasty when they come in at bad times while you're distracted by other enemies or down from a bad hit! It can be tricky to get off of them especially if you panic. Remember you can attack their heads even from above! There's also constant wind due to the fact that you're flying along on the Smash Skiff, so keep that in mind as well.

Upon clearing the waves of enemies on the Smash Skiff, the Kongs celebrate their reunion as Falco gives them a Thumb's UP... or... feather's up before flying off, presumably to rejoin with Fox and see where we're headed from here. As they celebrate, the Skiff soon arrives at its destination in a hangar inside the floating island. It looks like DK and Diddy have to fight their way out, while Captain Falcon and, by proxy, Olimar, have been brought right to where they need to be. And that's the end of the stage!

===============

  

Of course, we've got not one, not two, but three new team members from this one stage! And that means Stickers galore!

-----------------

Donkey Kong

We played as him for the first time a while back, but he was turned into a trophy by Bowser before he could officially join the team. Now he's finally back to kick some tail! His stickers are pretty straight-forward, really. You definitely want to lean heavily into the raw power of his strong attacks. Especially his arm attacks.

 Ridley (Metroid: Zero Mission) - Arm Attack +25

 Dr. Lobe (Big Brain Academy) - Arm, Leg Attack +10

 Diddy Kong (Mario Superstar Baseball) - Leg Attack +12

 Manaphy (Pokemon Series) - Specials Direct +4

 Green Rupee (Zelda: Twilight Princess) - Body, Spin Attack +5

 Party Monkey (DK Jungle Beat) - Head Attack +6

 Iron Tiger (F-Zero GX) - Flame Resistance +4

------------------

As mentioned before, Olimar is one of the more powerful characters in the SSE due to the multiple classificsations of his Pikmin-based attacks. Namely, "Pikmin" attack is its own category, akin to Ness and Lucas' PK Attack. This is by far the most important category you want to lean the most heavily into for him as the majority of Olimar's attacks are indeed Pikmin attacks. Beyond that, his various projectile Pikmin attacks are treated as Indirect Specials, so you want to invest heavily into that, too. Furthermore, his Red, Yellow, and White Pikmin all have elemental attacks to boot! Red Pikmin deal Fire damage, Yellow deal Elecrtric, and while White are normally associated with Poison in Pikmin 2, the closest type of damage in Smash is Darkness, so that's what they use! If you want to buff all of his Pikmin, Blue Pikmin don't have an elemental attack but do extra damage form throws, so you'd want to increase Throw Attack. And Purple Pikmin can't really be buffed beyond Pikmin and Indirect Special Attack, but they by default do a lot of damage.

 Olimar & Louie's Ship (Pikmin 2) - Pikmin Attack +40

 Valoo (Zelda: The Wind Waker) - Indirect Specials Attack +19

 Red Virus (Nintendo Puzzle Collection) - Flame Attack +20

 Chromatron (Digiluxe) - Electric Attack +7

 Octoman (F-Zero GX) - Head Attack +8

 Teddy (Mother) - Battering Resistance +3

 Gunship (Metroid Prime 2 Echoes) - Explosive Attack +5

Note, the Explosive Attack from the Gunship doesn't really do much for Olimar, but I couldn't really fit any other stickers in the nice whitespace it took up and I do think stickers can affect damage from items as well, so I don't think this is entirely a waste of a sticker.

-----------------

Captain Falcon is another fairly brainless sticker build. Just invest heavily into his flashiest attacks! Falcon benefits greatly from Specials Direct, Flame Attack, and, of course, Arm and Leg Attack. Worth noting, the sweetspot on his Knee also deals Electric damage, so keep that in mind. That said, this is one of the sticker sets I think I can be most proud of. It took really precise placement to get Black Shadow, Captain Falcon, and Samurai Goroh on there for some major bonuses. With 37 from Flame Attack, 19 from Direct Specials, 18 from Arm Attack, 8 from Arm, Leg Attack, that's a total of +82 to what is already one of the most powerful attacks in the game! The Falcon Punch will eat health bars for breakfast. Unfortunately, his famous Knee doesn't get quite the same degree of attention, but I think that's about to be expected.

 Black Shadow (F-Zero GX) - Flame Attack +37

 Captain Falcon (F-Zero X) - Direct Specials Attack +19

 Samurai Goroh (F-Zero X) - Arm Attack +18

 Dunning Smith (Hotel Dusk: Room 215) - Leg Attack +6

 Dash (Star Fox Command) - Arm, Leg Attack +8

 White Cat (F-Zero GX) - Electric Attack +4

=============

And that's that! Next time, we'll be taking another brief detour down to the Glacial Peak!

[Aura]

Stage 21: The Glacial Peak

We start this stage seeing where Fox and Falco's focuses are: The Great Fox is currently in a dogfight with the Battleship Halberd! Meta Knight observes this from the base of a mountain alongside his party. He's having none of his ship getting destroyed in a battle! So, he deserts his party and immediately starts climbing the mountain! Can you guess what new character is about to be introduced here? It's the Ice Climbers, of course! Who humorously seem to just be minding their own business, climbing this mountain for sport rather than on a mission to recover stolen vegetables.

Even more humorously, Meta Knight shows them up by jumping along the peak of the mountain faster than them, spurring them on to keep going and beat him to the top!

Music: Ice Climber

 

For this stage, you can start out by selecting Meta Knight or the new character, Ice Climbers! Naturally, I went with the two duo first!

The Ice Climbers can be pretty powerful whenever they're together since their hammers can attack together to deal a lot of damage to individual targets.

As you can tell by the music and setting, this stage is heavily inspired by the game Ice Climber! You'll be platforming your way up several platforms in an incredibly vertically-focused level being careful not to get blasted off the sides.

Not too far from the beginning is a Turquoise Cube in an alcove in a cave for you to nab. This precedes a rather dangerous cavern section with spikes in the cielings and floors. You'll need to mind the height of your jumps as you navigate this area.

As you climb the mountain, you'll pass various checkpoints with flags, segmenting off separate sections similar to individual levels in Ice Climber. Each section has its own focus. For example, the next one features several platforms flying off the side of the screen which you'll have to platform up while fighting off Floows. This leads into a section where you'll blast your way upward using Barrel Canons before one final basic platforming challenge that leads up to a door progressing to the next area.

This door will lead you to a section where you'll have to ride a platform through a narrow cave, dodging spiky ice crystals and fighting off enemies as you make your way up. Try not to fall off the platform as it can be difficult to catch up!

The platform will drop you off at another autoscrolling section with sliding icy walls. You'll eventually find an Orange Cube being covered by one of these blocks of ice. Due to the autoscrolling, you'll have to be quick to drop in, grab this item, and get out when the block passes by. But if you don't get out in time, you could get crushed! It's actually a lot easier than I just made it sound, though. You have plenty of time to grab it and get out.

At the top of this section is a giant wall that will push to the left, forcing you to platform your way up quickly to avoid the platforms you need becoming inaccessible. And at the top, you'll fight your way through a hoard of Metal Primids in order to reach the door progressing further.

Music: Frozen Hillside (Kirby Air Ride)

This next section will have you take a barrel canon up to a platform with a ladder, but if you pay close attention, you'll notice an extremely sneaky secret door spawn in just as you reach the top! If you go straight to the platform, you could completely miss it. Drop down and break the breakable blocks that just appeared to reveal the secret door.

This door is a bit of a strange one, it's just a small, dark room filled with Primids. You can see the floor and walls pretty clearly thanks to the layout of the room, so the darkness doesn't seem all that impactful. But there is a button in the middle that can turn the lights on. Kill the Primids and claim the rewards from the Turquoise and Orange Cubes.

Continuing onward with the level, you'll soon be met with a rather annoying section where you'll have to climb ladders around some Glices and Jyks. If you're reckless with your movement, you can easily get combo'd by these enemies, so try to take out the Glices as they appear. Ironically, the ladders can be more annoying than helpful for this purpose as they will hinder your Up and Down air attacks.

Fight your way through an ambush at the top and you can tell you're nearing the summit by the icy atmosphere!

The next door up is a bit of a strange bonus room. There's a giant icicle dipping into the water below. Above you is a platform filled with Metal Boxes! When you're Metal, you'll fall deeper in water before rising up. You'll need these metal boxes in order to dive underneath the icicle and rise up on the other side to claim the collectible there as well as the Orange Cube hidden further up. There's also a Turquoise Box near the entrance to heal with. Use the Bomb Blocks to make your way back!

As you platform higher up the Summit, you'll be dealing with wind, smaller platforms, and a whole bunch of Spaaks. And finally, at the peak of the mountain, you'll reach a door to end the level!

Upon reaching the top of the mountain, the Ice Climbers celebrate their achievement while Meta Knight looks for the highest point to jump from in order to reach the Halberd. Standing at the peak of a nearby spire is... Lucario! This is the first hidden character that's actually relevant to All the Pokemens! I'll cover him in detail like the other characters after we finish up with the SSE including alternative Unlock requirements. Lucario immediately challenges Meta Knight, perhaps sensing his interest in a good fight?

Music: Team Galactic Battle! (Pokemon Diamond and Pearl)

 vs. 

Nana and Popo want no part in this, so you'll be choosing only between Meta Knight and Lucario for this fight. I find it strange you can choose Lucario at all here, but he's the new character so I suppose I should select him!

This is just like the fight between Kirby and Mario in the beginning of the game. Depending on who you choose, you'll have to fight the opposing enemy.

The stage you fight on, though, is kinda terrible, though. It's just a giant slope with holes and platforms overhead, and it's all complete with runoff edges! This stage has every cardinal sin in Smash Bros. stage design except for ceilings and an obnoxious hazard that covers half the stage at random.

Depending on who you won the fight as, the roles in this scene will be reversed. Since I played as Lucario, Meta Knight falls to the ground as a Trophy, but Lucario awakens his trophy out of good sportsmanship, and that's the end of the stage!

After the Stage Cleared screen, we're treated to a scene where the two warriors shake hands to show they're on the same side before the Halberd pushes through, its Combo Canon holding the Great Fox in place and hoisting it over to the nearby mountain to wreck the ship! Maybe this means the Great Fox was defeated in battle, but where are Fox and Falco? Regardless, the good news is that this collision presents the perfect opportunity for Meta Knight and Lucairo to board the Halberd! The bad news is for Nana and Popo who are knocked off of the mountain and sent tumbling down below... I'm... sure they'll be alright. Anyway, it's looking like Meta Knight is finally on track to reclaiming his ship from the Subspace Emissary!

===============

 

Upon clearing this stage, Ice Climbers and Lucario join our team meaning that Lucario is officially unlocked for other modes! Now that I've met one of his unlock requirements, I could go and do his post now, but I figure I'd wait until after we finish the SSE anyway. Funnily enough, to unlock the last Pokemon character we have to do that anyway.

-------------------

Ice Climbers

Ice Climber's another rather straight-forward character. Most of their best attacks involve their Hammer which is buffed by weapon attack, so that's the way to go! Curiously, there is only one Ice Climber sticker in the game and that's Nana. That's not particularly relevant, but I just discovered that while writing this section. It's kinda funny considering just how many Ice Climber characters, items, and enemies are referenced throughout. You really mean to tell me they couldn't slide in a Polar Bear as Freeze Attack or something? Or Popo for Weapon Attack? Even an eggplant for Food Effect?

 Nana (Ice Climber) - Direct Specials Attack +29

 Ray MKIII (Custom Robo Arena) - Weapon Attack +18

 Metroid (Metroid PInball) - Freezing Attack +18

 Wild Gunman - Indirect Specials +5

 Mona (WarioWare: Touched!) - Slash Resistance +4

 Gunship (Metroid Prime 2 Echoes) - Explosive Attack +5

 Teddy (Mother) - Battering Resistance +3

-----------------

Lucario has another exclusive effect type similar to Ness and Lucas' PK Attack or Olimar's Pikmin Attack. This time, it's Aura Attack! Nobody but Lucario (And obviously Kirby copying his Aura Sphere) can deal Aura damage! That means all Aura Attack stickers are exclusive to him and you want to lean heavily into it. In addition, the projection of aura from his attacks is also treated as Indirect Specials, so that's great as well! I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure how some of Lucario's attacks are classified. His Force Palm, for example, didn't show up under Aura, Indirect, or Arm Attacks from what I saw. Maybe it's treated as a Direct Special? Regardless, I think leaning heavily into Aura, Arm, and Leg Attack is the way to go here.

 Lucario (Pokemon Series) - Aura Attack +41

 Goron (Zelda: Ocarina of Time) - Arm Attack +21

 Noki (Super Mario Sunshine) - Leg Attack +12

 Manhole (Game & Watch) - Arm, Leg Attack +5

 Stapy (Densetsu no Stafy 3) - Indirect Specials +4

 Makar (Zelda: Wind Waker) - Slash Resistance +4

 Postman (Zelda: Majora's Mask) - Direct Specials Attack +3

============

And that's that! Next time, we'll rejoin with those down below in The Canyon!